#I just reread a bit to double check their names and-

[dragons-in-spaceee]

Most underrated characters in phm

[the-busy-ghost]

There are some books that are just BETTER if you go through them with a pencil and underline the shit out of tiny details, and honestly if anyone found Hogg's 'Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner' difficult to get into, I highly encourage you to give it another go and give yourself a license to extensively research & annotate every little bit

[emilyprentissluvr]

Don't Tempt Me (Don't Blame Me, Chapter 2)

Emily Prentiss x Reader

Summary: Emily knew it was wrong. She knew you were the most dangerous woman the BAU had ever seen. Yet, she couldn't seem to stay away from you.

Chapter 1

Warnings: Regular CM stuff

Words: 3.3k

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EMILY STARED at herself in the mirror. Her hair was perfectly curled with bangs sitting just above her eyebrows. The black dress she bought hugged every curve of her body and showed off her toned legs. Emily knew she looked good, but hated the small part of her that wanted to look good. 

A knock on the door made Emily tear her gaze away from the mirror. "Come in!" The brunette called and a couple of seconds later Hotch opened the door and walked into the locker room. "You sure you're up to this?" The unit chief asked, a hint of concern laced his signature frown.

"Yes Hotch, I am the one that suggested it," Emily reminded him as she walked to her locker to grab a pair of earrings. "I know, just double checking," Hotch said. He wasn't exactly enthusiastic about this plan, if he could even call it that. It had been less than 12 hours since Emily suggested taking Y/n out on a date. How all of this transpired so quickly was still a mystery to Hotch. There was a higher probability of things going wrong than right, but he knew they had to act fast before Y/n left DC.

"Did Garcia find anything else?" Emily asked as she finished putting her small, silver hoops in.

"Well, she's using a burner phone to text you so we can't trace her. And we can't find her in any database with just a first name, plus it could be fake anyway." Hotch said as he leaned against the frame of the door. "So, in short terms, we have absolutely nothing." Emily sighed and Hotch nodded apologetically. 

"We do have her profile though. And up to this point, she's only ever killed men." Hotch offered and Emily couldn't help but laugh, "She's still an unpredictable, high-functioning psychopath."

"I know, I just..." Hotch trailed off, knowing that there wasn't anything to say to comfort the agent in front of him. "Don't let your guard down and don't do anything stupid." He added.

"Me? Do something stupid? Never." Emily said as she closed her locker and Hotch scoffed before cracking a rare smile. "The cars ready for you," He said getting back on topic, "Derek's going to be there and I have five other undercover agents scattered throughout the bar."

Emily nodded as she gathered her belongings and followed Hotch out the door. "Do you have a plan for when you get in there?" The unit chief asked as the pair walked into the elevator. "I'll make her wait for a little, maybe have Derek talk to her. Get her warmed up a bit and then take her down when she least expects it." Emily said.

"That's it?" Hotch asked slowly, already hating this plan more and more. 

"Well, there's still a chance Y/n knows exactly what she's walking into. And if she does then I'll press the button" Emily said as she held up her wrist. Penelope had given her a bracelet with a small button on it that would alert the team if she pressed it. "I know what I'm doing though, trust me on that."

"Okay, but if at any point I think things are going south I'm sending SWAT in," Hotch said seriously and Emily nodded in agreement. 

As they walked out of the elevator and to the car Emily felt her phone buzz.  She pulled it out of the bag, already knowing who the message was from.

Y/N (6:03 PM)- I can't wait to see you again, Emily.

Emily let out a shallow breath as she reread the message and then pocketed her phone. As soon as she got into the car she closed her eyes, trying to gather herself. She was no stranger to being undercover. In fact, this wasn't even her first undercover case with a serial killer. But it was the first time she had to go undercover as herself. No fake identities or new personas, just regular, old Emily Prentiss. So this should be easy enough, right? Well, at least Emily hoped to God it would be. 

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●

Y/n sat at the bar counter in the same black pantsuit from this morning as she waited for Emily to show up. The brunette had sent her the address to one of her favorite bars, and so far Y/n had been impressed. Although, it was currently 6:40, which meant that Emily was ten minutes late but Y/n wasn't too upset. 

"Now what is a pretty lady like you doing all alone?" A man asked as he slid into the chair next to Y/n. The woman turned her head and was face to face with Derek Morgan. She stared at him, eyes narrowing, and Derek had honestly never felt more scrutinized by someone's gaze until now.

"I'm waiting for someone," Y/n said, her hard look quickly turning into a smile and Derek was surprised by how genuine it looked. 

"I wouldn't make you wait," Derek said with a boyish smile as he leaned closer, his knees bumping into Y/n's as he swerved his chair more in her direction. Derek didn't know what he was expecting, be he did not expect Y/n to place a delicate hand on his knee, "I suppose I have time to kill," She said thoughtfully. "I'm Y/n."

"Derek," The agent said as he placed his hand on top of hers. 

"Ruler of the people," Y/n murmured as she tilted her head slightly.

"Excuse me?" Derek asked, confused as to what she was saying.

"The name Derek. It means ruler of the people," Y/n said as she removed her hand and placed it in her lap. She once again eyed the man up and down and Derek, who usually loved the attention from women, was starting to feel uneasy. 

"The meaning behind a name is just as important as the name, don't you think?" Y/n asked and Derek nodded slowly, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Now, are you going to buy me a drink or are you merely gracing me with your presence?" Y/n asked, her tone sickly sweet even when it was full of sarcasm.

"Oh right," Derek said shaking his head. He couldn't even comprehend how a two-minute conversation was already throwing him off his game, "What do want?"

"Two Old Fashioned's." Y/n smiled and Derek tried not to read into it the fact that that was one of Emily's favorite drinks. Derek waved the bartender down and ordered the drink. When Derek turned back to Y/n he saw that she was surveying the bar, obviously looking for Emily, although the intentions behind her eyes were still unknown to the agent.

"Are you sure you're not getting stood up?" Derek joked and Y/n turned to look at him with a slight eyebrow raise. "I don't get stood up," She said seriously and Derek believed it.

"Two Old Fashioned's!" The bartender said as he placed the drinks on the counter in front of them. From the corner of Derek's eye, he could see Y/n smile as she looked at the door. As soon as he was about to grab the drink, Y/n's hand cut him off and grabbed both of them. 

"Sorry to cut this short Derek, but it seems that my date has arrived." She smiled as she stood up. 

"Wait that was my drink-" Derek started before he was cut off by Y/n, who was behind his chair, leaning over to whisper in his ear, "Not anymore."

Derek hated the way he tensed up but that only made Y/n laugh softly. "We should do this again sometime," Y/n murmured before pulling away and walking to the middle of the bar. Even though he was now nervous for Emily, he couldn't be more relieved to be away from Y/n. There was something about the woman that Derek couldn't shake.

"I was beginning to wonder when you would show up." Y/n smiled as she shamelessly looked Emily up and down. The brunette just shook her head apologetically, "Sorry! I got stuck at work." She said as the two women made their way through the crowd. 

"You look gorgeous," Y/n complimented as she fell into step with the brunette. Emily smiled as her hand easily found its way to Y/n's lower back as she guided her to a table in the corner of the room, "So do you," Emily said and she wasn't lying. The black suit fit Y/n perfectly and it was one of the reasons Emily had been so drawn to her this morning.

"I thought it was a slow day," Y/n threw over her shoulder. "I thought so too." Emily chuckled as they found a table, her hand dropping from Y/n's back as she reached for her drink. She briefly took note that it was her favorite drink, but she also knew that they had a similar taste in coffee so she didn't want to read into that much. 

"So what is it you do, Emily?" Y/n asked as she took a sip of her drink. 

"I'm an accountant with the firm a couple blocks away," Emily lied easily, "And you?"

"I'm a writer." Y/n smiled and Emily tilted her head slightly, "Really?" She asked, not expecting that to have been the younger woman's answer. 

"Yes, well, I'm a ghostwriter if you want to get specific," Y/n answered and Emily frowned, "What does that mean?"

"I write stories anonymously and sell them to authors so they can put their names on them," Y/n said.

"So you do all the work but don't get any credit?" Emily asked, extremely intrigued if the woman in front of her was telling the truth. Although it did make sense, Y/n didn't profile as a narcissist. 

"I do the work and get a big paycheck, darling. I love to write but I don't want the fame that comes with it." Y/n said and Emily brushed her finger against the younger woman's knuckles, "So I take it you're pretty successful. Who do you write for?" The agent asked, suddenly wondering if she had ever read one of Y/n's books.

"I'm afraid that's classified."

"I'll have you know I am nothing if not persistent," Emily grinned, "You went overseas for your job, right? So it's not an American author." Emily pointed and Y/n shook her head amused, "Alright, enough about me," Y/n said as she grabbed onto the brunette's hand, "Come on. Let's dance," She smiled as she began to drag Emily to the middle of the bar.

"Already?" Emily practically yelled as she followed Y/n. The brunette naively hoped that they would have talked longer. It was kind of part of her plan but it seems like that was out the window now. 

"It's never too early to dance," Y/n said as she pulled Emily flush against her in the crowded room. Her hands went to Emily's hips as the brunette threw are arms lazily around Y/n's neck. She couldn't help but stare into Y/n's eyes. Her gaze was soft, eyes reflecting the flashing lights of the bar, and Emily couldn't help but get lost in them. There was something innocent about Y/n's eyes and that was what pulled Emily out of her trance. Because Y/n wasn't innocent, actually she was probably the furthest thing from innocent. Emily took a deep breath and tried to refocus. 

"I never got the chance to finish my drink," Emily said as her body swayed to the music and Y/n followed suit.

"I didn't take you for someone who needs a drink to have fun," Y/n said as she pulled Emily impossibly closer, their noses were less than an inch away. "I'm not," The brunette said, tilting her head and she realized she would have the perfect angle to connect her lips to the soft ones in front of her. Not that she was going to, or wanted to,Emily reminded herself. 

"Oh yeah? Prove it." Y/n smirked as her thumbs brushed against Emily's hipbones. As soon as Y/n did that she felt herself being flipped around so that her back was right up against the brunette's front. Emily snaked her arms around Y/n's waist and hooked her chin on Y/n's shoulder. "Don't tempt me," Emily murmured against the shell of Y/n's ear, and the agent couldn't help but revel in the way Y/n shivered. For the first time tonight, Emily felt like she was the one in control.

"It's fun to rile you up though." Y/n smiled as turned her face towards Emily, her nose brushing against the side of Emily's cheek. 

"You couldn't handle me riled up." Emily chuckled, although her eyes betrayed her when her gaze focused back on Y/n's plush lips for a brief second. She had hoped Y/n hadn't seen it but of course, she wasn't so lucky. 

"Was that a challenge? Because I'll have you know, I love a challenge." Y/n said as she placed her hands on top of Emily's and leaned further back into her. Emily knew this was her chance, granted it came a lot sooner than she thought. But her trained eye saw the opening so she knew she had to take it, "Let's get out of here," Emily murmured into Y/n's ear, "I'll show you what a real challenge looks like." The brunette continued and Y/n immediately unwrapped herself from Emily's arms and dragged the both of them toward the bathroom. 

Emily made brief eye contact with Derek and he raised his eyebrows silently asking if everything was fine. She gave a slight nod, her code to let him know she was fine and to not approach unless she called for backup. The brunette quickly tore her attention away from Derek and to her hand that was interlaced with Y/n's.

Before they could even make it to the bathroom Emily felt herself being pushed against a wall and Y/n's soft lips claimed her own. She was taken back for a second but her hands still instinctively shot to Y/n's hips. It was the way that Y/n's hands made their to Emily's hair and tugged slightly that Emily was brought back to reality. 

She immediately kissed Y/n back, loving the way she could taste the slight hint of citrus. Wait, not loving, she was only doing this so she could arrest Y/n. Emily reminded herself, even though it was very hard to think about anything other than the Y/n's lips felt.

Emily pulled Y/n even closer, practically lifting the woman as her tongue trailed along Y/n's bottom lip. "Let's go back to my place," Emily said, pulling her head away for a brief second and trying to ignore the beautifully kiss-swollen lips in front of her.

"I have a better idea," Y/n murmured as she connected their lips once again, her kiss was hungry and passionate but soft at the same time. Emily tried not to enjoy it, she knew shouldn't. Y/n was a serial killer after all, but did she have to be so good at kissing?!

Emily felt herself being pulled away from the wall but her lips never left Y/n's. She didn't even know where they were going until she heard a door slam shut and a lock click. The agent internally cursed herself for not being attentive enough, but she could still fix this.

"I think we can do better than a quickie in the bathroom," Emily said as she easily flipped the two of them around, pinning Y/n to the wall by her hips. The younger woman gasped in surprise before looping her arms around Emily's neck. Y/n smiled as she started placing kisses along the brunette's defined jawline. She nipped at the spot just below Emily's ear and she tried her best to suppress the moan that wanted to leave her lips. 

"Not much of an exhibitionist, Agent Prentiss?" Y/n said as she pulled back and gave Emily a sadistic smile. 

Emily felt her stomach drop. She should have known this was too easy. Should have known the second laid eyes on Y/n in the bar earlier. But somehow she couldn't think straight whenever she looked at the woman in front of her. 

"What? Do you really think I am that stupid?" Y/n said with a pout as she studied the way Emily's face hardened. "That I would unknowingly walk into your so-called trap?" Y/n chuckled as she twirled Emily's curls in her hands. "And then you had Derek come over and flirt with me? It's quite comical how predictable you are."

"Why'd you come then?" Emily asked, trying to figure out the right moment to call for backup.

"Like I said earlier, I love a challenge." Y/n grinned before flipping them so quickly that Emily didn't have time to fight back before her back hit the wall. "But right now, it's proving to be rather easy," Y/n sighed as she traced Emily's bottom lip, "You and your team were supposed the be the best. But I have to say, I am rather unimpressed."

Emily immediately pulled her head away even though she had nowhere to go since she was still pinned to the wall. "So you knew who I was this morning at the coffee shop," Emily stated, not knowing if that was worse or better at this particular moment.

Y/n eyes lit up as she leaned closer, "No, I didn't know who you were. That part just was luck."

"So lucky," Emily muttered under breath.  

"As soon as I realized who you were, I cursed myself for being so sloppy," Y/n said, ignoring Emily as trailed her finger across her collarbones, "But then I realized that meeting you was a blessing in disguise. Because now I know what I've been missing for all these years."

"And what's that?" Emily asked as she quickly used all of her momentum and knocked both of them to the floor. Y/n's back collided with the ground and Emily straddled her hips to keep her down. The agent pinned her arms above her head and Y/n barked out a laugh as she stared at the woman on top of her, "Bold. I like it."

"Answer my question" Emily gritted out, as her hands tightened against Y/n's wrist. 

"This. I've missed this." Y/n said she leaned her head up, now inches away from Emily's. "The hunt. It's exhilarating. And I am definitely not going to complain about being pinned down by a very beautiful woman." Y/n grinned and Emily just shook her head. "Well, the hunt's over." She said as she leaned closer, their noses almost touching. "We have almost fifty agents waiting out there for you. The only way you're getting out of here is in cuffs." Emily continued and Y/n surged forward so their lips were almost touching, "Don't threaten me with a good time, Agent Prentiss."

Emily stared into Y/n's eyes, not liking the look in them. There wasn't an ounce of fear for someone who had just been caught. The agent racked her brain with the younger woman's profile, she knew she wouldn't go down without a fight. Knew that everything she did was unpredictable but also meticulously planned. There was no way someone of this caliber would walk into a trap and not have a backup plan. 

"I can see the cogs in your brain turning, Agent Prentiss." Y/n grinned and Emily shook her head, "What else are you up to?" She asked, her eyes never leaving the woman's under her. 

"Reach into my back pocket and find out," Y/n said as she wiggled her hips under Emily's weight. Emily rolled her eyes as she took her weight off the younger woman's torso and immediately hauled them both to a standing position. The agent made quick work of repining Y/n's arms behind her back.

She carefully reached into Y/n's back pocket and pulled out a small device. Emily furrowed her eyebrows as she got a better look at it and realized there was a small timer on the front that appeared to be counting down from 2 minutes.

"What is this?" Emily asked as she lifted the device to the other woman's eyes.

Y/n smiled as her eyes went from the device to Emily. "What? You've never seen a bomb detonator before?"

[thewertsearch]

Let's kick things off with a mega-giga ask compilation!

I've spent the last couple of days working through the backlog, and I've been able to answer some quite old asks that were spoilers at the time they were sent.

@kintatsu asked: So, I was rereading your blog, and got to the post where you determine that John's 13th birthday was a Monday, and complain on his behalf that he couldn't really relax due to having the whole schoolweek ahead of him. Well, I checked, and the previous day was the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox, i.e. Easter Sunday. So it might have been a holiday week.

John entered the Medium shortly after Easter Sunday, and he did so by biting into an apple. Forget about the god tiers – his most powerful transformation is clearly Catholic Beast Mode.

Anonymous asked: The thing about knowing your Aspect, I think, is that it's the Aspect you most GET. I GET Space and Light, I understand them completely, they are suffused in my bones and my blood, they are writ large upon my brain and every base in my DNA. What aspect do you just GET?

To be honest, I don’t think I know enough about any Aspect to ‘get’ it.

If I had to choose, then I'd probably feel the most natural affinity for Life and/or Doom – and if was forced to pick one, I’d say I'm very slightly more drawn to Life, just based on vibes.

@mhafanlol2000 asked: I think the horrorterror’s plan (or the closest thing we can comprehend) is CHAOS-by which I mean LIFE. Skaia is order. If it can want, then it wants its players to follow the script it has written-the Alpha. It wants propagation, the snake to eat it’s own tail, blah blah blah. That is order. That is perfect servitude. That is NOT life. The gods, meanwhile, want chaos. It wants its servants to live. It does not tell people to do anything. It simply gives them the facts, and says “here is what you should do. You can not, you can do whatever the hell.” It wants romance, conflict, CHAOS. that is life.

And if this theory is accurate to the canon Life aspect, then I feel justified in my affinity for it. It falls fairly closely in line with my own philosophy.

@necrowyrm asked: When searching your blog I always type "thew" before Tumblr autocompletes your URL. That has become who you are to me.. Thew, Glorious Liveblogger, navigating the treacherous seas of Homestuck

Sally ‘Thew’ Ertsearch, reporting in. 🫡

Anonymous asked: there's actually another arthurian joke to do with dave's land/quest. have another look at the disc platform that bro stabbed. how would you describe the shape of that turntable?

Ayy, Dave's a Knight of the Round Turntable! Honestly, that'd be a pretty great name for his theme song.

@caliquill asked: kanaya vs rose would be absolutely hilarious but. kanaya IS the original "I Can Fix Her" girl for a reason.

Anonymous asked: the only real requirement for a name suggestion to be picked was that the firstname was 4 letters. but by really cool coincidence strider and lalonde are 7 letters, and egbert and harley are 6, and if you add those together its 4/13! similarly, both the trolls names were required to be 6 letters (i think hussie mixed and matched them actually, some of the firstnames were suggested as surnames and vice versa) so theres a similar case to be made for 6/12. but just doubling the same number i think holds less water than adding together two different numbers

Number symbolism is just very flexible in general. All Hussie really had to do was introduce a few 'important' numbers, and the fandom could start finding them everywhere!

Anonymous asked: This may be the wrong place to ask, but have you deleted your post of analyzing the Let the Squiddles Sleep song? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Here it is. Hopefully you're able to see it now!

Anonymous asked: Will the Mega-Ask-Compilation and Liveblog Recap also happen? ~LOSS (19/2/23)

The former is currently taking place. The latter was planned, but after skimming my blog for a bit, I realized I didn't have as much to say about it as I thought I did. Plus, it's been ages, so I'm really excited to look at some new pages. We can leave the old ones for later - I'll probably do some sort of blog retrospective eventually.

Anonymous asked: i figure the trolls' battlefield went through a full set of dnd dice/platonic solids, plus maybe some other notable johnson solids like a truncated icosahedron (aka a soccer ball or buckminsterfullerene), before becoming a sphere. maybe the outer ring went through stages like simple torus, mobius strip, borromean rings or other fun knots, before becoming a mobius net. (not really sure what a mobius net is, mathematically, but that's apparently what the thing around the final form of the kid's battlefield is called.) or maybe something weird happens with that many prototypings, and the battlefield turns into a tesseract or a klein bottle or a menger sponge or a mandelbulb.

If you so much as look at the Battlefield created by the Gigasession, your brain will leak out of your ears.

@manorinthewoods asked: <3Dave, >3>John, >3oJade, <>Rose (by process of elimination) ~LOSS (5/6/23)

I don’t think either of the girls have worn a playing card symbol. The leaf on Jade’s Wardrobifier does kind of look like a spade, but John’s already got that quadrant on lockdown.

Anonymous asked: Reading stuff about skaia on this blog reminded me of madoka, and made me consider that skaia might be like kyube and the other incubators and sburb is skaias way of keeping the unerverse from decaying

Reading this ask makes me realize that Rose is a near-perfect mark for Kyubey.

There’s only one way to save your session, Seer. Form a contract with me, and become a magical girl.

Anonymous asked: man. i dont know what i expected to happen when you found it. but for The Baby Is You to be liveblogged in less than 20 words during a post was not the way i expected it to go

I know it’s not technically part of Homestuck canon, but it really feels like Homestuck canon to me - at least to the same degree as Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, and I liveblogged that.

Anonymous asked: begging (lightheartedly) for you to add posts like LOLCAT and "this guy's an orb" to one of the liveblog tags. they're pretty funny, and it's nice to see off-the-cuff reactions like that, haha. imo it'd be a shame for new readers to miss those kind of posts

Done! I sometimes forget to tag posts like that, because I usually just fire them off and forget about ‘em.

@captorations asked: “Give me a set of rules, and I'll analyze the hell out them, every time.” hello fellow doom player. hope you like the color green

Based on ~ATH’s association with curses, as well as Sollux’s programming hobby, I think there’s a decent chance that Doom relates to coding in some way.

Coding is all about rules, so perhaps Doom, is, in fact, the aspect of rules and logic. I'm not sure why such an aspect would be named 'doom', but it's been obvious for a while that these aspect names aren't always literal.

Anonymous asked: I’d just like to clarify some terminology because it seems relevant, but Aradia isn’t a red blood, she’s a rust blood

[The blood colors all have canon names: Aradia = rust blood Tavros = bronze blood Sollux = gold blood Nepeta = olive blood Kanaya = jade blood Terezi = teal blood Vriska = blue blood (I like cerulean better tho) Equius = indigo blood Gamzee = purple blood Eridan = violet blood Feferi = fuchsia blood and Karkat has no official blood name, but people usually call him mutant blood or candy-red blood - C ]

Oh, there are official names for each color? That’s going to be helpful to disambiguate each blood caste, especially when we really start digging into troll culture and biology.

Anonymous asked: I do believe the top-left ship on the wall - no, Karkat doesn't have red eyes. […] It's probably Vrisrezi, yes, but it could also be Vriskat.

Yeah, I’m still not sure who this ship is supposed to represent.

They have Terezi’s eyes, but the hair and symbol look like Karkat’s. Plus, Nepeta hates this ship, which would make sense if it’s between her crush and someone other than her.

Honestly, my best guess is that it was meant to be Karkat, and the red eyes were just a mistake on Hussie’s part.

Anonymous asked: something I never thought about… is the blue blood sourced from equius or did he get a stock.

Aradia has real blue indigo blood in her veins, and it almost certainly belongs to Equius himself. He could have got it from a donor, but I personally doubt there was anyone else he could ask. Equius feels like he'd be an outsider, even to other indigo-bloods.

Anonymous asked: vriska would be a good strider

Vriska Serket raised by Bro Strider would be the most terrifying character imaginable. I don't even want to contemplate what that upbringing would do to her.

Anonymous asked: Any piece of lore hussie writes needs to contend with the fact that hussie is resolutely committed to the bit. Hence all the words on how different trolls are being entirely blasted aside by 'and then they're just grey humans anyway lmao'

That's the price of admission into Homestuck, for better or for worse. Hussie quite clearly enjoys screwing with us, and we have to take everything we see in the comic with a huge pinch of salt.

Anonymous asked: I'll disagree a bit on the phrasing that Eridan forces Feferi to <> him because firstly she doesn't even seem convinced that he would commit genocide and secondly she dropped him super easily once the lusus-feeding is no longer necessary. While understandable, that doesn't suggest to me someone who is obliged by Eridan's aggression to pacify him. I think she has much more agency in this relationship (or lack thereof I suppose) than that.

Feferi definitely had her doubts – but she must have believed that Eridan was dangerous to a certain degree, because that’s the basis of a moirallegiance.

Forced might not be the right word, but she certainly felt some amount of obligation to pacify him. She sure wasn’t in that relationship for the good of her health.

Anonymous asked: So, Vriska has a conversation with Karkat, where he says she seems to have blackrom feelings for Tavros, but that he doesn't think Tavros can even feel blackrom properly. Then she has another conversation with Tavros in which she antagonizes him, and he notices, but just kind of ignores it and doesn't respond emotionally. Then we see her make a huge dramatic redrom gesture and kiss him. She vacillated because he wasn't into her… incel behavior.

Yup. I’ve always held that Tavros never wanted anything to do with Vriska. He doesn't want to love or hate her - what he really wants is to live in a world where she doesn't exist.

Vriska’s refusal to accept this basic fact is one of the main reasons she’s decided to make his life a living hell.

Anonymous asked: I headcanon that troll blood is analog, but the empire culls non-digital colors because they make the troll race seem like a joke or something. Lol

If there were minor variations in blood color, the Empire probably wouldn’t want to acknowledge it, since the stratification of blood classes forms the basis of their society.

We haven’t seen any trolls besides our twelve (apart from Troll Will Smith) so we can’t compare the blood of two members of the same caste - but we can speculate. Human blood color is known to vary depending on its oxygenation level, and I imagine troll blood would reflect its current chemical composition in the same way.

Anonymous asked: Vriska must be seething while Karkat introduces the concept of quadrants to the reader. Imagine this basic and important facet of troll life, and you're just getting schoolfed it. (This message was sent on 20/10/22.)

This was a fun bit of weirdness from early Hivebent, wasn’t it? In retrospect, it's kind of hilarious that Karkat decided to infodump to Vriska about the obscure, niche topic of… dating.

@sanctferum asked: According to his formspring, Hussie's self-insert's classpect is Waste of Space. He also briefly considers Huss of Lips. This is obviously not meant to be taken seriously but. since you asked @absinthe-and-alabaster asked: i believe hussie said somewhere that FedoraFreak's classpect was "Gent of Piss" Anonymous asked: (not sure if this is technically a spoiler but) hussie has jokingly said that fedorafreak's class is a gent.

If Dad Egbert was a Player, then the Gent class would be forced into canonical existence, as the only class that could possibly define him.

Anonymous asked: If Vriska's control does require the victim to on some level want to do the thing, then Sollux's insistence that you do not under any circumstance eat the mind honey could be something he developed in response to that incident. So that if she ever controls him again, she won't be able to make him eat it.

Wow, I never considered that. That’s a very good (and tragic) take, and I think I'm at least locking it in as a headcanon.

Anonymous asked: the official extended zodiac actually has… 288 signs, if im doing my math right? and also probably hadn't yet been conceptualized when that page was posted (the earliest known evidence comes from 2015). i don't know if any thought was put into the number or if it was just pulled from their ass, but there was a running gag in hussie's q&as where he repeatedly threatened us with a 10,000 page intermission focused on 48 squiddles, each representing a sign from the alternian zodiac Anonymous asked: I believe the troll zodiac is one of the few things in HS lore that was truly retconned, there’s actually 288 signs.

Move over, 48 Squiddles. I want to hear about the 288-player clusterfuck that actually gave rise to Alternia!

@manorinthewoods asked: wheee, you got to the first god tiering! this probably opens up a load of new things to say, so, first off: do you think you need to have a full echeladder to god tier? vriska implied so.

She never outright stated that it was required, but I still think it probably is. You generally need to max out your class levels before you can prestige.

@morganwick asked: Believe it or not, you're still in the "Homestuck could have updated RIGHT NOW" phase of the comic's release schedule. The break after the Equius-Aradia kiss aside, the hiati you've heard horror stories about didn't start becoming a thing until the end of Act 5.

[this was around page 3000. still true at this page though - C]

Hussie’s sheer productivity at this stage continues to astound. Could you imagine having that much creative energy?

Maybe Hussie just drinks twenty coffees a day.

Anonymous asked: as someone who is Normal about aradia it's an absolute delight to see someone dig into her character. she's so fascinating to me. (also, fun fact, a while ago tumblr voted her the coolest character in all of homestuck. so there's that)

Aradia’s awesome, and I still don’t think her death is going to stick.

Her ghost was perfectly capable of existing without a body, so there's no reason she can’t survive her new body's destruction.

Anonymous asked: feferi hasn't just woken up, she won't be stuck asleep until 3 hours and 14 minutes into the future! timestamps, yo

Consider this the first mark on my otherwise impeccable record.

Anonymous asked: does cat have a troll/kidsona? itd be interesting to see a full 4 player session in art

[No kidsona, yes trollsona, but even a picture of her would spoil stuff from Act 6 😆 - C]

What she said. It’ll be a while until we can meet KATYAA SCRENR.

@mhafanlol2000 asked: Hey! You can just call me Fan. In all honesty I’m just some guy who likes your liveblog. He/him. I’m gonna list some fan aspects, and I want to see what you think they’d represent, and what abilities they’d give Law Dreams Might Shape Flow

Ooh, more fan aspects! These were a lot of fun to puzzle out the last time.

Law would be the aspect of command, instruction and agreement. An example power would be giving someone a simple rule they're compelled to follow, such as 'don't turn around'.

Dreams would be the aspect of ideas, motivation and symbolism. An example power would be the ability to detect people's idle thoughts - the things they're not even aware they're thinking about.

Might would be the aspect of growth, conflict and evolution. An example power would be the ability to temporarily enhance someone's Aspect abilities, at the cost of making those abilities harder to control.

Shape would be the aspect of form, encapsulation and topology. Shapeshifting is the most obvious application of this aspect, but it's appropriate.

Flow would be the aspect of persistence, momentum and continuity. An example power would be the ability to 'continue' something that has recently stopped. For example, if your PC ran out of power, they'd be able to keep it running for a while. The longer it had been previously running, the longer they could keep it running.

@martinkhall asked: I think Bro might have been raised entirely by shonen anime and My Little Pony Friendship is Magical (the version that existed only in the heads of the worst examples of Bronys). And puppets. Puppets were definitely involved in raising Bro. Anonymous asked: "He has no known relationship with any of the other parents, but was definitely getting foreknowledge of Sburb from somewhere. I’m not even sure I want to know what sort of childhood produces Bro Strider." well. i mean. he grew up with Lil Cal didn't he? the clearly haunted puppet from the sburban dreamscape of derse? it was what he dropped to earth with. i feel like that might explain at least a small part of, like, whatever he had going on.

That’s true. I don’t trust that puppet one bit, and we don’t know what it was up to before the start of the session.

I still suspect that the thing’s still just as alive as it was on Derse, and is just choosing to play dead.

Anonymous asked: I imagine you might've already been told this, but when checking out your FAQ I noticed you described PS/PQ/FS as "not exactly canon" and that you're less interested in liveblogging them because one of your favorite parts is watching all the story come together -- without spoiling anything, I find it pertinent to mention that Pesterquest & Friendsim definitely contribute to the wider "canon" even though dubiously canon themselves. Definitely "part of the story" so to speak.

Yeah, we’ll have to see what comes of this. The problem is that I’m still fuzzy on what ‘dubiously canon’ actually means.

Hopefully that will become more clear as I’m actually liveblogging these tie-in materials – which I am planning on doing. Only time will tell how in-depth the liveblog will actually be, though.

@manorinthewoods asked: In my Sundered opinion, Bec Noir is the best character design in Homestuck. I can't think of any other interesting designs at the moment, other than some which don't beat him and are spoilers anyway (like LE's). Which design do you find most interesting, out of the ones you have? ~LOSS (22/9/23)

I definitely agree that BecJack has one of the best designs in the comic. Plus, Scratch is so weirdly intimidating for a cueball-head.

Anonymous asked: My favorite part of PKWU is just how pointy Gamzee's chin is. It's so… Defined.

iT’s ToO lAtE, ErIdAn! I’vE AlReAdY DePicTeD MySeLf As ThE ChAd, AnD yOu As ThE SoYjAk >:o)

Anonymous asked: i need you to know ag canonically ripped off the sleeves on all of her shirts just to show off the robot arm

I believe it. I don't even need a source; this is just so true to Vriska's character that it's obviously correct.

@bladekindeyewear asked: If you and your ask screener decide that literary/external-media hero title examples without any details or explanation are alright to pass on unless they're too obviously revealing -- and those in and of themselves are usually in heavy dispute by classpect theorists -- I've long been of the opinion that Monkey D. Luffy and Peter Pan are the best possible literary examples of a Page of Breath.

All Pages of Breath must be associated with pirates. No exceptions.

Anonymous asked: unfun fact: the reason rose and jade dont have a lot of pesterlogs with eachother is just because their text colours were kinda eyestrainy together. thats it thats literally the whole reason!! god damn

Hussie: "I don't write Rose/Jade conversations because they’re hard to read."

Also Hussie:

Anonymous asked: you have officially passed my second favourite flash in literally all of homestuck. it's all so well hinted at beforehand but it still comes to punch you in the gut nonetheless Anonymous asked: My favourite thing in this flash is how the name of the flash isn't John: Rise Up, it's JOHN. RISE UP. it's WV sending a plead to John to not die. My second favourite thing is the way the music remixes Doctor (The theme for LoWaS). Anonymous asked: [S] JOHN. RISE UP. is one of my favorite flashes in all of Homestuck. Savior of the Waking World is some of Toby's best work What are your thoughts on our first taste of god tier? @violetsquare111 asked: So glad you liked Savior of the Waking World! One of my favorites in the comic for sure. It takes a lot of ideas from another of Toby's songs, Penumbra Phantasm, a song that… never actually got finished or officially released. There's still various renditions of it though, and the HS collection links a couple of em. (Some people have speculated that Penumbra Phantasm itself was never supposed to be a Homestuck song, and might end up being used in Deltarune, which would be cool as hell) Anonymous asked: It's crazy to think that just about 12 hours ago John was wearing silly disguises to fool his dad and now he's dying to become a god.

God time!

I do think it was the most emotional flash we’ve had, on the strength of the music alone. Savior of the Waking World goes hard as all hell.

Honestly, when WV started calling John a hero, and telling him to rise, it did start to give me some mild chills. Like, yeah – we know John’s a hero, but it feels extra special when it’s coming from someone who’s normally so irreverent.

@elkian asked: Welcome back, hope you're feeling better! I am losing it a bit over you IMMEDIATELY understanding how this coin flip sitch works, something about the narrative and reasoning doesn't match my brain so I've reread it multiple times with total understanding out of grasp and watching you dissect it halfway into the page is truly wild (delighted). Also feel like I understand it a lil better with your analysis.

Thank you! This message was actually sent the last time I returned from a pause, so apologies that I’m one hiatus late in answering it.

@royalvorpal asked: I just reread your entire blog in anticipation. Anonymous asked: This is such a good liveblog, I'm rereading it again and you are really letting me relive the pleasant parts of my middle school years. Reading this blog makes me feel like I'm back on the school bus talking to my friend about the newest update. Thank you for doing this 💛 Anonymous asked: That return page didn't have any sound, so misleading! (I jest, nice to see you're back.) ~DJ @manorinthewoods asked: Hahahah, we are BACK! Lovely, I've missed this liveblog. Most in-depth Homestuck liveblog I'm aware of, looking forward to the restart! ~LOSS (29/3/24) @popcornsalty asked: So excited to see you back!!! :D @chaosorchestrator asked: welcome back! It's good to hear that you're planning on getting back into it! I hope things have been going ok for you in the meantime! @necrowyrm asked: HAPPY 4/13 (OR AS THE ENLIGHTENED KNOW IT: 13/4) AND WELCOME BACK!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for your votes of confidence, and happy 13/4 to you all!

@rippledphysique asked: Just found this blog and devoured it in a few days. I am selfishly wishing you the best in health and life so that it may return one day… @elkian asked: Hey Sally! Just wanted to wish you well on the recovery, the plague is no joke and I hope you've been able to enjoy some kind improvement. And that 2024 will be kinder, as well. Anonymous asked: wishing you the best in your interim, hopefully you can get a better position where you're not prone to burning out! Anonymous asked: Hope you're doing ok!! I miss seeing your cool liveblog on my dash @kittycatttmattt asked: Poor girl… Got killed by the schedule

Thanks for all the well-wishes, as well. Really, it wasn’t the schedule that was the issue – I just had a lot going on in the background last year. That’s all over now, though!

Anonymous asked: yeah, Homestuck's back babeyyyyy - the site was crashing because of traffic and everything @calamitascalliope asked: You coming back from your break resurrected Homestuck's corpse hggfffdd Anonymous asked: i think this actually is the first time homestuck has updated since you started liveblogging lol - homestuck 2 has been inactive assumed abandoned since december 25th 2020. also happy slightly belated blogiversary btw - you've been delighting us with your journey for two years now! @heliotropopause asked: New Homestuck upd8 just dropped. Apparently. Anonymous asked: what are the odds that you start liveblogging again the same exact day that postcanon comes back from the dead? Anonymous asked: crazy news. so literally just today, october 8th 2023, hussie has officially given complete free license to the newly formed "homestuck independent creative union" (HICU) to create content and monetize it with the homestuck brand however they see fit, with zero creative or financial control from any corporations or even hussie themself, though hussie has said they're available for consultation whenever the HICU wants their input. the HICU seems to be made up of people the community largely has respect for, and the person heading all of this up is James Roach, who is one of the most widely respected individual who has been inolved in homestuck "post canon" (ie. after homestuck itself ended). nobody was expecting any of this, it's completely bonkers. hopes are looking pretty high for homestuck compared to where they were merely a day ago.

Throwback to the day I personally resurrected Homestuck.

Has anything come of this since, actually? I haven’t heard anything about this new comic – although I do scroll in the opposite direction any time I see a reference to Homestuck, so I guess it makes sense that I wouldn’t.

@corporalotherbear asked: What’s your favorite Pokémon?

Contrarian, that I am, I’ll instinctively gravitate to Missingno., if only for the nostalgia factor. Gen 1 glitches were my first real experience with pulling back the curtain of a game’s code, and taking a look at what lies beneath.

My favourite official Pokémon are Porygon-Z, Shedinja, Reuniclus and Metagross!

@heliotropopause asked: Breath/Light is an interesting one, because the ‘Mixolydian’ implies a musical theme, and I thought Time was the musical Aspect. Maybe it’s not that simple. They've all got a musical reference in the name- they are called fraymotifs, after all. Anonymous asked: The Fraymotifs are all musical references actually. E.g. Breath/Time is "Ivories in the Fire", the ivories in question being John's piano keys. A fraymotif is a battle theme. Anonymous asked: ivories in the fire is a musical theme, especifically a Rap term used by Snoop Dogg. So yeah it's connected to Dave Anonymous asked: re: fraymotifs: you pointed out "mixolydian", but that's not the only musical term there. feather "cadence", pneumatic "progression", even fray "motif" itself! hell, the building where you buy these things has an emblem with a crossed sword and music note! so i think this might be less a situation of "need to rethink time aspects association with music" and more "fraymotifs have a musical association also" Anonymous asked: if you look a bit closer at those names, (including the one "fraymotif",) you may realize that "mixolydian" isn't the only musical term referenced…. @galaxa-13 asked: You say the breath/Light Fraymotif implies a musical theme, but they all do! Fraymotif is a portmanteau of "fray" (to fight) and "leitmotif" (repeated musical phrase). Each Fraymotif name implies a musical theme.

Dang it. Yup, they’re all pretty obvious references to music.

I wrote that post the day I was trying to wrangle our family PC into running the Homestuck Collection without lag, so I was a little distracted at the time. Please direct all complaints to Windows XP.

[dragonnarrative-writes]

im the anon who sent that gaz ask and omg kyle's interlude was so good!!!!! im just giggling thinking of kyle wondering how much does she know? did she catch on somehow? fuck I have to take her out quick before she finds out how many projects ive finished and the whole time miss new girl is like. wow this guy fucking sucks at his job i want him gone from my hospital >:(

mans thinks shes gonna file a case with a police and she just thinks he's incompetent as shit

I'm so tickled. That's exactly what's happening.

CW: discussions of death and dying, autopsies, medical neglect

There’s something going on on the cardiac floor that you just… can’t quite put your finger on.

This isn’t the first hospital you’ve worked at, but you’re also new to urban healthcare, so you don’t want to rock the boat by being paranoid. But traffic from the cardiac floor is… steady. You’ve read the papers, know the stats like the back of your hand. And the cardiac floor is perfectly in line with expected trends. Every. Month.

There are fluctuations, of course. Plus or minus three to seven lives is nothing remarkable in cardiology. Macabre, maybe, but true. But that’s unnatural. In the seven months you’ve worked here, you’ve seen waves elsewhere in the hospital. The plastics floor had a month with zero deaths followed by a month of a persistent infection sweeping through the otherwise reasonably healthy patients. Oncology has seen a steady decline in patients sent your way, thank goodness. Even emergency and intensive care aren’t as fixedly consistent as the cardiac floor.

When you wonder about it aloud to the director, Dr. Martins just shrugs. “We have a good team up there. Very good at keeping things clean and double and triple checking their work.”

“But if that’s the case, then the number of deaths should be going down,” you point out.

Dennis gives you a rueful smile. “That’s not always how human bodies work, unfortunately. You know that.”

You do know that. Which is why the consistency grates against your nerves. So you decide to do a little digging.

The name that comes up the most often in the chart notes is one Kyle Garrick.

That’s actually not 100% accurate. He’s charting exactly the way he’s supposed to. And no nurse has complete, individual access to patients 24/7. But every dying patient he has access to is… perfect. Their blood work, labs, vitals, prognosis, medication adherence and refusal is almost too-the-letter, textbook precise.

The most obvious answer is that Garrick, and probably a couple of other nurses on the floor, are fudging the numbers.

The idea is infuriating. You hate the way the administrators keep changing medical record systems just as much as the next person, but inaccurate charting is a safety issue. People can, have, and do die because someone writes down the wrong timing for medications or assumes that a patient’s vitals are unchanged. If anything, this is probably worse than that. The fact that everything is so pristine probably means that some patients are just being written off. The nurses might be deciding who gets the excellent care the hospital is known for and who gets neglected.

You stay three hours late investigating the next cardio patient that ends up in your morgue.

After examining the body and reading, rereading, and re-re-re-reading his chart, you find it. A stutter in the dosages of blood thinners, a slightly higher blood pressure reading from someone who isn’t nurse Kyle fucking Garrick. Just enough evidence to have you testing the body with an aspirometer almost too late. And there it is. A fatal air embolism.

You want to scream, but the dead man doesn’t deserve that.

Three weeks later, sipping from your water bottle, someone calls into the office. “Knock knock.”

Dennis practically lights up. “"Good morning, Kyle. Been a bit since you've come to see us. Care for some tea?"

Your eyebrows shoot up. Dr Martins hates unexpected visitors. Then you look over your shoulder, and you understand. Even old queens aren't immune to pretty privilege. The man that’s leaning in the doorway is gorgeous. Maybe its because you work with dead bodies all day, but his eyes and skin seem to glow, even under the fluorescents.

"Can't," the man says, apologetically. "Just dropping someone off."

"Well, at least let me introduce our new nurse!"

The fact that you’re wiping crumbs off of your mouth over a paper plate is the only reason no one sees your face fall when you hear him say, “Nice to meet you. Kyle Garrick.”

[levisjinchuriki]

forever yours - chapter 5

summary: gojo invites you on your first outing alone together

warning: light fluff

word count: 2k

a/n: thank you everyone for all the love recently for this fic!! i'm so inspired to write for you guys, and because of that there will be a double upload tonight!! ch 6 coming v soon :) woot!!! <3

hey, there's a new café that just opened up downtown. i was thinking it might be nice to check it out together sometime. what do you think? 

you stare at your phone, nerves immediately consuming you. it’s such a simple suggestion, but the weight of what it represents feels immense. it’ll be your first time spending time with him without the presence of your son. and this…date will serve as your real first step into rediscovering the dynamic between the two of you. 

each time you reread the message, your heart races a little faster. it’s not just the idea of the café that’s making you anxious—it’s the significance of the outing itself. 

your hands tremble slightly as you type your reply. 

sounds great. what time works for you?

as you wait for his answer, the nervousness creeps in and settles deep in your stomach. it’s the kind of feeling that makes you second-guess every detail. it reminds you of how you felt before your first date with gojo years ago.

when you receive his message, your heart flutters at his thoughtfulness. 

i have a break between training tomorrow. meet around noon?

it means a lot that he’s finding time to fit you into his busy schedule. it’s a gesture that speaks volumes, especially given that his work commitments were a major issue during your marriage. the fact that he’s making an effort to carve out time for you, despite his demanding responsibilities, means so much.

a small smile tugs at your lips as you reply. it’s a simple suggestion, but it represents a big step towards normalcy, a chance to reconnect without the weight of past conflicts hanging over you.

noon works for me. see you then

—

you’re surprised to see utahime holding a bouquet of fresh flowers at your doorstep that afternoon. she has a bright, cheerful smile on her face as she greets you. although you’re happy to see her, you question her about the unexpected visit.

“you’ve had so much on your plate lately. it’s time you treated yourself a little” she says happily. 

you take the flowers as she continues. “i’ve booked you an appointment for some much-needed pampering. you’ll get a fresh wash, trim, and style. and, just to top it off, i’ve also scheduled a foot massage for you”. utahime had always been a generous friend, but this is far too kind.

your eyes widen in surprise. you had been cooped up putting much effort into your appearance in a while. you hadn’t realized just how much you needed this—some time to focus on yourself, to breathe, to reset. the thought of a relaxing day and a fresh new look sounds perfect.

“i… i don’t know what to say,” you finally manage. “this is so thoughtful of you”

utahime waves off your thanks with a casual flick of her hand. “you deserve it. i know you’ve been going through a lot, and it’s important to take care of yourself” she reasons. utahime’s enthusiasm is infectious, and you find yourself swept up in her excitement. you quickly put the flowers in a vase with some water before grabbing your bag and heading out.

as you drive to the salon, utahime chatters away, making light conversation and sharing snippets of her own experiences with self-care and pampering. her company is warm and you appreciate her support.

the staff are warm and welcoming as you enter the salon. utahime gives them her name and you both are brought over to two stylists waiting for you. as you settle into the chair, you can’t help but feel a little self-conscious. it’s been a while since you had any sort of professional grooming, and the idea of seeing yourself with a fresh new look feels both exciting and intimidating. 

you discuss your preferences with the stylist, a bit apprehensive about the transformation. the stylist is reassuring, promising you a great outcome. she starts with a fresh wash, the warm water flowing over your hair as she massages your scalp with soothing shampoo. the gentle kneading helps to ease some of the tension you've been carrying, and the aromatic scent of the shampoo adds a relaxing touch.

next comes the trim. as she snips away, you feel the weight of your old style falling away, along with some of the stress and uncertainty that have been weighing on you. each step of the process is soothing and therapeutic, a chance for you to let go of stress and embrace something new.

by the time you’re done, you’re pleasantly surprised at your reflection. the precise cuts reshape your hair, adding a fresh, vibrant look that feels both rejuvenating and empowering. the new style feels like a perfect blend of fresh and familiar, enhancing your features in a way that feels both flattering and comfortable. the change in your appearance feels like a small but important step toward embracing this new phase in your life. 

the appointment doesn’t end there. soon, you and utahime migrate to the other side of the salon, where a soothing foot massage awaits you. you sink into the plush chair and let out a sigh of relief as the therapist’s skilled hands work out the knots and tension in your feet. you get the works- lotions, essential oils, a hot towel… it’s a small luxury that feels wonderfully indulgent, and you find yourself relaxing more deeply than you have in months.

as the massage progresses, you can’t help but reflect on the gesture. it’s more than just a makeover; it’s a reminder that you’re supported and cared for, even when things seem overwhelming. utahime’s thoughtful surprise brings a genuine smile to your face, and you reach over to give her hand a grateful squeeze. 

by the time the day comes to a close, you feel rejuvenated and uplifted. the outing has not only refreshed your appearance but has also provided a much-needed boost to your spirits. you thank utahime profusely for her generosity as she drops you back home. like always, she waves it off with a smile. 

“it’s all for you. you deserve to feel good about yourself”. you give her a big hug, promising to hang out again soon before heading inside.

with your new look and a refreshed sense of self, you temporarily feel like yourself again. you feel lighter than you have in months. the day feels like a turning point, a step toward something new and hopeful.

—

as you prepare to meet gojo at the café, the butterflies in your stomach feel unusually intense. you’ve always been confident with gojo, but today feels different. not only are you anxious about the first time alone with him, but your recent changes and the effort you put into your appearance bring a new layer of vulnerability. it’s not just the usual nerves; there’s something more profound about showing off your new look to him.

the fresh haircut and style symbolize not just a physical transformation but a deeper one—a step towards reclaiming a sense of self after everything you’ve been through.

you check your hair once more as you look in the rearview mirror. it’s just as perfect as it looked yesterday, but you still find ways to pick at it for a moment. 

when you finally spot gojo outside the café, waiting for you, your heart skips a beat. his eyes light up as he sees you approach, and for a moment, his surprise is palpable. he looks over you in your nice top and jeans. the weather is getting warmer as spring is taking its full effect, and you’re happy that the cold days are behind you, both figuratively and literally. 

“hi” gojo says as he smiles sweetly at you. you blush under his gaze, your nerves for an abundance of reasons heating your cheeks. 

“hi” you say nervously. gojo notices you fidget with your fingers, a telltale sign you’re feeling uneasy. 

“you look very nice” he says honestly, his eyes taking in your new appearance with an appreciative warmth. your heart jumps at the sincerity in his compliment. 

“thank you. i just got it done. it’s a bit of a change” you respond, a small smile playing on your lips. the new style feels different—nice, but something that will take some getting used to.

he grins, pleased by your reaction. “it suits you” he adds, his tone gentle but genuine. his words are both flattering and sincere, and they make you feel a little more at ease. It’s a small, thoughtful gesture that adds to the positive feelings of the day. the way he looks at you, as if you’re the most important person in the room, makes you feel both flattered and slightly bashful.

you both stand there for a moment, sensing the subtle shift in the atmosphere. it’s been a long time since you’ve seen that particular light in his eyes, the one that used to make your heart skip a beat. the moment feels intimate, like the first step towards something new, and it fills you with a quiet, cautious hope.

gojo holds the door open for you. the nervousness you felt earlier begins to ease, replaced by a tentative excitement. this outing is new territory for both of you, but you can’t deny that it feels… nice.

the café is cozy and inviting, with soft lighting and warm tones that create a relaxed atmosphere. the scent of freshly brewed coffee and baked goods fills the air, making the space feel even more comforting. you both scan the menu, considering your options in comfortable silence.

gojo lets you order first. when you start to pull your wallet out to pay, he steps next to you, smoothly adding his order to yours and handing his card to the cashier before you can react. the act is so seamless that you barely have time to protest.

“thank you for paying. you didn’t have to,” you say kindly, feeling a little flustered.

he gives you a look that reads don’t be silly. “i always pay for you” he says. his tone is light, but the meaning behind it is deeper. since you’ve been with gojo you’ve never had to pay for a bill. he had more than enough money from his upbringing to cover whatever you needed. it's a simple thing, but it reminds you of the way things used to be—before life got complicated. you smile, touched by his gesture as you both take a seat by the window.

as your time together officially begins, you notice how easy it is to talk to him again. gojo listens intently as you speak, his eyes never straying from yours. for the first time in a long while, you feel like you have his full attention. there's no rush, no tension—just a gentle rhythm of words and laughter that feels comforting and familiar. it's a reminder of what drew you to him in the first place, a glimpse of the bond you once had, now being slowly rekindled.

gojo looks at you for a moment without speaking, his gaze lingering as if he's seeing you for the first time. the intensity in his eyes makes you blush, a warmth spreading across your cheeks.

"what?" you ask.

he smiles, a small, genuine smile that reaches his eyes. "nothing," he says, shaking his head slightly. “just thinking” he says quietly. you tilt your head slightly, curiosity getting the better of you. 

“about what?" you try to read his expression. gojo’s smile widens a bit. 

“about us”, he admits, his voice soft but sincere. “i’ve missed this. just spending time with you, without any distractions”. your heart skips a beat as your words resonate within you. you fail trying to hide the smile tugging at your lips.

“i’ve missed it too” you confess, your gaze meeting his. the vulnerability in your admission feels like a small victory. there’s a comfort in being with him, a sense of familiarity that feels like coming home after a long, exhausting journey.

as you sip your coffee, you reflect on how far you’ve come already. this moment, this shared space, is a testament to the progress you’ve made together. 

the date, filled with light laughter and shared memories, eventually comes to an end. by the time you leave the café you feel a sense of peace. it’s a small, but important step towards finding your way back to each other. it’s still a long road ahead, but you feel a glimmer of hope.

---

ch 6>

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ thank you for reading!! everyone is welcome to leave feedback and requests in my inbox!! please let me know if you want to be added to my taglist! ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

(tagging some people who liked the previous chapter. plz lmk if you want to be removed <3)

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[crystalyssa35]

A General Guide to Writing Well, Now, & Consistently

In all my years writing, I have struggled with keeping writing as a fun and healthy habit. It took me five years (and many instances of writer's block and giving up) to actually have a basic set of guidelines to keep my writing going...

And I would like to share these "rules" with you all today!

Now, a bit of a disclaimer: developing the quality of your writing skills comes with time, research, and thinking. It may sound frustrating to hear, and you may hear it often, but the only way to get better at writing is to write and read often. Many times, just by jotting a silly thought down or reading fanfiction, you can spawn ideas without realizing it.

Now, to the list of tips that (I hope) will help you on your writing endeavors!

If you are not having fun writing your story, your readers will not have fun reading it. It sounds silly, but it's true! If you're enjoying your writing, you're more likely to write more and input more ideas into it!

Even if you have people to check your works, reread them on your own anyway. This may be a little frustrating tip for some, but let me tell you: I used to HATE checking my own stuff. The worst way I learned that personally checking it is a necessity was when my aunt checked it and pointed out tens of mistakes within my grammar, storyline, and characters. Check yo work, it will save you a LOT of embarrassment in the future.

Write anything. Read everything. As ambiguous and obscure as it will sound, it makes sense with context. As I mentioned before, the only way to get better at writing is to write and read often. Write anything your mind desires, that's simple enough. But read EVERYTHING; not only books, blogs, and articles, but also games, texts with friends, billboards, pictures with text, and (sorry, students) even homework as well. You'll be surprised how much your vocabulary expands when you actually pay attention to anything that is written (for me, it was video games. Seven-year old me knew vocabulary that I was taught in seventh grade because of it). And on that note...

Research what you don't know. Please, this one is genuinely important (I'm biased because it's one of my pet peeves). This includes words you don't know the definition of, spelling, and even generic, real-life information you want to add into your stories (e.g. I actually spent four hours researching how gemstones are categorized for my sci-fi story: Eco-Adstrum). Unfortunately, sometimes researching and fact-checking your ideas before writing them down can prove to be unmotivating, especially when you're wrong. But, it's always good to stay optimistic and be creative enough to twist the actual fact to mold it to your stories. Unless you're writing non-fiction, then maybe don't do that last bit.

If you have no ideas, keep wiggling your pencil. To those that recognize that phrase, yes, it is not my own. This is a piece of writing from former Tumblr user "officialtheonite" (I was only able to find the post because it has been reblogged multiple times) and their fifth grade writing teacher. Essentially, even if you have no ideas, keep writing. Write ANYTHING, even if it doesn't make sense. You will always be able to double-check it later and you will save yourself a lot of wasted time sitting around trying to stir the soup in your brain.

Balance the usage of your names and pronouns. To this day, I still struggle with this. I tend to use an abundance of pronouns when I'm referring to a character, so much so that sometimes, it becomes unclear on if we are still talking about aforementioned character or if we're talking about a different character entirely. Use names when the focus or action of a character is on stage; use pronouns if we are still talking about said character (even if we are talking about the same character, make sure you at least reiterate their name when there's a new paragraph).

I'll be editing and reworking this list as time goes on. I hope these tips can be of use so some of you all. Feel free to ask me any questions if needed. Enjoy writing and keep at it! I believe in you all!

[notedchampagne]

TLT progress update: Finally found the time to finish HtN and oh boy that was a Ride and a half. I'll be the first to admit that it's a difficult read, I don't think I've ever had a narrator be this unreliable before but it's was absolutely worth it. It really was a cool experience to wade through the river ((heh)) of confusing time and environment jumps, only for some small detail to be mentioned which basically picks up a flare gun and quite literally illuminates the surroundings for a moment ((the time they all checked in with their calls signs and Ortus said "G. P." was like someone had thrown a steel bar into the inlet of a massive turbine. I screeched to a halt for a solid ten seconds trying to figure out why that tripped me up before pulling GtN from the shelf and frantically flipping through to the note in the lab)).

Also, I'm still hung up on the whole Sleeper deal, especially the fact that the letters in the coffin room anagram to "Pyrrha". First thought naturally was that it is Pyrrha but it doesn't quite fit with the shuttle portrait I think. Excited to see where that one goes

I think what from a sheer style point endears me most to the series so far is the. Passive hostility towards the reader, I guess you could call it? There's clearly a massive amount of world building that's happened behind the scenes, but it's just that, behind the scenes. You're an outsider, you know nothing about the world. You get the full POV of a character in the world and you still don't really know anything at any point bc they're Land-of-Punt-ing you, there's next to no exposition about how this or that aspect of the world works because the character and everyone around them all know how it works already, so why waste thoughts on it? Idk I've read only a couple of stories that are written like that and it's absolutely a double edged sword ((bc at some point you have to throw the reader some bones or they will get frustrated and stop)) but here it's executed really well ((e.g. I'm not actually sure if it's ever actually explained what the Cohort is, but at some point you've gathered enough context clues to pretty reliably get the picture))

In conclusion: High hopes for NtN

LOVE your thoughts on this because you highlighted exactly why i love the tlt series so much: it hilariously takes on the perspective of the character least equipped to tell the story, offers you context that requires 1-2 rereads to understand and get to in full, and then right when youre about to feel lost it helps you up the stairs. perfect story for dumb bitches that love mystery like me. i had the EXACT same experience when i saw G+P and had to flip back to gtn to glance at the lab note LMFAOOOO

i has missed the coffin room anagram spelling pyrrha the first time but the sleeper is wake! i think her spelling out her name was just a funny and somewhat sick bit. like keying your name into your exes car

[inconspicuousmaker]

Worm: A Parahuman Musical

Nobodies gonna see this but I don’t fuckin care I want to write about a Worm musical and so I am.

I have done 20 minutes of research (I typed in worm parahuman musical Reddit) and while people have already done amazing work, because duh, none of it quite fulfills what I want.

Specifically an actual makeable concept.

So no end of the world

No slaughterhouse 9

Heck probability not even leviathan.

2 and a half hours to fit the themes, plot beats, and messages of over 1 million wordsinto. So we gotta cut stuff.

Warning this is just me rambling and I didn’t even grammar check it.

My proposal is thus, and I’ll probably come up with more over the next few days, though I’d need to reread the first few arcs to truly do this justice.

The plot beats I would use (and I’m sure I’m missing good ones)

Open to Taylor in school per canon singing a solo called something like “I’m gonna be a hero tonight”. Have some cut ins with the trio, and have it fuel Taylor’s rage that she redirects into song furthering that she not gonna stoop to there level and go Carrie. She’s gonna do good.

Slowly transition to her walking around town in costume looking for a fight and have song end with Lung speaking.

Fight happens and we get to see her powers (light, sound, and good physical acting) and defeat lung

That’s all I have right now (because that’s all of canon I can keep straight without research) but I do then have some song ideas and endings

Originally I suggested using the bank as the finale or the end of first act with Leviathan finale. But as I got halfway through writing that I remembered Bakuda and had a better idea.

Bank is halfway.

Before that we get songs about the undersiders and Taylor’s growing friendship.

Her and Armsmaster at odds (exactly like the Wormilton one in placement)

One with her and Danny

Aswell as coil meet

I think cutting the trio is the time efficient move aswell as any Locker references.

Alternatively cut coil and add the trio but that then leaves other problems.

Maybe I’m overestimating time though and Trio could fit (I don’t think shadow stalker though)

Then bank heist which is a large ensemble peice (maybe cut Vicky and amy? Depends on time) and finish with undersiders escaping and making a name for herself.

Second act start in after action report at procterate interlude style. All the wards retelling (clock blocker bemoaning bugs is a must) and cut ins form armsmaster and Piggot. (A song from piggot something like “I hate this city” or “capes are crazy” would work well but alas, time is a harsh Mxstress)

We then get undersiders loft charcters bulding 

Bitch goes for a walk and Lisa pulls Taylor aside to tell about Dinah. 

They decide Coil needs to go down (song “spider and the fox”?) and then go look for Rachel.

Bakuda introduction and short fight (they lose badly but get away)

My ideas get a bit fuzzy here

But somehow Bakuda breaks lung out

And Taylor hatches a on the spot plan on the chaos that lures coil out and simultaneously defeats Bakuda and Lung. 

Include her having to blackmail Colin to help her as a nod to her having to force the “heroes” to do the right thing and have her rematch lung

Finally have her hand over all the villains she captured to the heroes at which point they offer her a chance to join them as a probationary ward.

She gets stressed her secrets revealed but Lisa double reveals that they knew all along and that they trust her.

She of course says fuck the heroes and the show ends with a song about how she’s gonna be a hero semi reprising the first with the added addition that she’s gonna be a hero as a villain (maybe “it takes a villain to be a hero”?

And of course that she has freinds now.

That’s all I got

Okay I lied

Here are some miscellaneous ideas that wouldn’t work in this version

Leviathan finnaly ibvoiuslt could be super fun

Have first act end in undersiders lair planning bank robbery and second start from wards perspective as they try to stop it

Rewriting the whole thing about Amy

leviathan puppet

any E88 stuff (which like. Does make stuff a bit iffy without them balancing out ABB)

Okay that’s actually it

Enjoy my incoherent ramblings empty void of the internet

[honey-boyyoongi]

Pairing ➪ Reader x Yoongi||Part 54//??

Word count ➪ 1.5k

Warnings ➪ it’s not beta-ed; any mistakes are mine; mentions of self harm; mentions of scars; if you're name is crossed out it's because I'm unable to tag you;

Summary ➪ Min Yoongi, is a simple man. He likes his coffee black and iced, he enjoys his job, and he loves his baby girl. But what happens when the new neighbor, quite literally, drops into his life?

A/n: Wooooow it’s been a bit huh. First off, I narrowly missed posting this on Father’s Day, but oh well, belated works as well lol. Second off I’m sorry for not posting consistently. Thank you to everyone who read my fic while I was gone 💕. Sorry for throwing y’all back into this a little sad lol. As always any feedback is appreciated, and if you want to be added to the tag list please let me know.

P.S. I updated WWDITS!

Previous Next

-

Minji laid on her unmade hotel bed, numb. The last 12 hours had felt unreal. She had a daughter, a beautiful daughter, that was all Yoongi with hints of her brother. She could feel flickers of life bloom in her chest when Mrs. Min talked about the toddler. It almost made Minji regret fleeing, almost. 

Minji forced herself out of the plush bed, stripping herself of her clothes down to her birthday suit. She stood in front of the mirror, examining herself; every mole, scar, stretch mark, and at the center of it all was the C-section scar from the child’s birth. Most days Minji could forget the long pink scar that decorated her lower belly. Sometimes the pain that comes from it will pull her from the fog she’s been sinking herself in. She dragged her index finger lightly across, remembering the child’s birth. 

Yoongi had freaked out that morning, Minji had gone into early labor a week before she was scheduled for her C-section. Yoongi had arranged and rearranged her maternity bag weeks in advance, making sure he kept the child’s belongings in a separate diaper bag. He double, triple, quadruple checked that they had the correct paperwork to check Minji in with no issues. Yoongi was on the phone with her doctor, informing her of the early labor, while Minji floated through his apartment. She could feel the child moving around, just as desperate as she to leave its confines. 

Yoongi tried his best to settle their nerves while they drove to their hospital, he guided Minji through the breathing exercises they learned at birthing classes. She remembered doing the bare minimum to ease the sharp pain traveling across her lower body. Minji felt that she deserved to feel the pain enveloping her. She held off until her doctor sedated her for her C-section. 

Minji watched as the tub she laid in filled to a less than ideal amount. The steaming water was stinging the skin it enveloped, and she sighed in relief. She allowed her body to relax, washing away the tension that had built up. 

Minji walked into the Min home, taking in the room that once gave her comfort. The hallway right at the entrance that was once lined with pictures of Yoongi, were now taken over by pictures of the child. No longer was her former lover’s story up for her to reread. The comfy dark gray sectional was still in its corner, and the rocking chair where she informed the Min elders of her pregnancy was occupied by an obscenely large stuffed bear. She could hear father Min humming along to the song playing from his ‘Alexa’, and their kettle whistling. Mother Min was going forward with the pleasantries, ‘You look great’, ‘I missed you’, ‘why did you leave’, ‘do you have a boyfriend’, ‘do you want tea’, ‘do you want to see pictures of Hani’? It was overwhelming.

Minji nodded through the simple small talk, allowing the Min elders to talk about their lives within the last four years. They’d spent 3 hours on Mrs. Min’s community center stories, and if it hadn’t been for a neighbor stopping by, she’d still be speaking about them. She learned that both Mins’ had technically retired, but Mr. Min was still running his shop. While Mrs. Min would take clients once in a blue moon for events. While the trio ate lunch together, Minji caught herself tearing up. She had missed this feeling of belonging that enveloped her at the Min home. Mrs. Min kept her plate full, and Mr. Min made sure to pack up leftovers for her to eat at her hotel. 

After cleaning up, Mrs. Min brought out the child’s pictures. Minji was reading the short story of the child’s life, and she was conflicted. She watched as the child took her first steps towards Yoongi. There he was at every little song learned, art piece being made, movie watched, and word spoken. It never looked like there was a missing piece. There was no place left for her. Minji held back a sob that had built itself as she learned more about the child’s life. So far she had learned that the child liked pink, but hated yellow. She loved mozzarella sticks, cheerios, and watermelon juice. Tiana was her current favorite princess, while Moana sits at a very close second. The Mins’ practically glowed talking about the girl. 

Minji stared at the ceiling above, feeling droplets falling on the sides of her face, too numb to care if they’re coming from her or from her bath. Her throat became dry, and it became harder to swallow. Too tired to fight, she allows the sobs that she pushed down, rise once again. Her cries echo across the walls, somehow adding more layers to her misery. 

Mrs. Min wasted no time speaking about Yoongi. ‘I never liked her from the beginning,’ she said, and ‘That Jeon boy was trouble’, while she doubted his judgment of character. The way she recounted the first meeting was odd; ‘She was too friendly towards Yoongi’, she said. While Mr. Min would add that he liked how friendly the babysitter was. Mrs. Min didn’t like that she acted like a hostess when they had brunch. Mr. Min liked that she was helping Yoongi, as there was a large amount of food. Mrs. Min was not fond of the child being so close to the babysitter, and Yoongi not correcting her. Mr. Min was ecstatic that his granddaughter was comfortable with someone new. It went on like that for the rest of the talk, for every dislike Mother Min had, Father Min had a counter like. By the end she was visibly frustrated. 

Mrs. Min looked at Mr. Min with dark eyes, ‘Why are you defending her’, she demanded. Mr. Min sighed, ‘This conversation isn’t about the babysitter, it’s about Minji wanting to see her daughter.’ 

‘She deserves to know what kind of person our son has left our granddaughter with’, she sneered. 

Mr. Min grunted, ‘Yoongi isn’t completely hopeless, he’s very strict with Haneul’s care.’

Mrs. Min scoffed, offended that her husband wasn’t agreeing with her. Minji was confused, if this person was so horrible as Mother Min said, then why is Yoongi still allowing his child to still be in her care. Who was this person and why was she causing such a rift? Mr. Min stood from his chair, excusing himself, but not before telling Minji that he hopes she’s here for the right reasons. Minji tensed in her seat, she wondered if he knew that Mrs. Min had been reaching out to reunite her with his grandchild. 

Mother Min waited until her husband had left the kitchen to speak once again, she asked Minji to please see the child. She went on, and on about how the baby asked for her momma. ‘Any time we’re out and we see a mother and daughter she asks me where her momma is. I always tell her you were sick, but are working on getting better. I tell her you miss her, and want to see her. Hani wants you here Minji.’ 

Minji teared up, she didn’t know that her baby was asking for her. She had always felt like the baby would be better without her, Minji was aware of the baggage she carried, and she had started facing it little by little with her therapist. But they could never broach the topic of the baby, it opened a can of worms Minji wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with just yet. Mom told her to fight for her child, she had rights, and she should fight for them. She assured Minji that she’d support her through it, even offering for them to stay in their home while she had custody of the baby. 

Minji rubbed a scar lightening cream on her lower stomach. She climbed into bed holding her phone, with a new chat opened. She stared at the screen until it darkened, shoving it under the cold hotel pillow to keep it out of mind. Minji laid in darkness, allowing herself to get lost, and leave her body. 

Minji watched as the head nurse placed the baby in her chest. It didn’t look like a baby, and smelled like blood and something else she can’t remember. She couldn’t remember the inbetween, next thing she woke up to was a crying Yoongi holding a pink blanket with a tuft of black hair. Minji had left 48 hours after giving birth. Yoongi had begged her to stay longer, ‘I just witnessed your organs on a tray next to you, I think you should stay a bit longer Min.’ Minji refused. She promised Yoongi she’d take care of herself. As she got the last of her things she voiced her goodby, and her well wishes. A week later Minji was in her new apartment, with her new roommate, starting her new life. 

Minji had a lot of regrets in her life, but as she laid in her bed, she decided this was not going to be one of them. She reopened the chat she had closed. Once she was satisfied, Minji readjusted herself into her bed, hoping everything will be worth it

____________________________________________________________________________

02:37 Unknown

Hi Yoongi. Your mom gave me your new number.

I want to see my daughter.

Tag List: @unicornbabylover @halesandy @supernoonanyc @aianloveseven @hannahdinse8 @lyndseygoregasmxo @aunoiire @brbkpop @nochuwastaken @tinyoonsblog @borahae-reads @jinscharms @phenomenalgirl9 @yoongiigolden @girlwithluv0613 @yaboiithewreck @mint--yoongs @ysljoon @hyunjingin @yu-justme @damn-u-min-yoongi @lovelytaes-blog @so-da-1 @cruelsummer-s @seolaquotes @lovelgirl22 @dreamamubarak @leanimal90 @atinymonbebestay @astudyoftimeywimeystuff @jaiuneamesolitaiire @proudbtsstanfightmebeach

Fic Masterlist

[rosypenguins]

💜School (But Fun!)💙

*+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+

Synopsis: Drew invites Jake over to study, but the two get a bit sidetracked.

A/N: This one is probably a little more OOC than usual, but it was fun to write so… yeah.

*+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+ *+

Drew flicked on the light of his kitchen, motioning for Jake to follow him. He led the two to the counter, and sat down on a nearby stool, shifting his bag onto his lap. He had invited Jake over that afternoon after discovering the alarming lack of progress the blonde made on his algebra study guide, which was due tomorrow. Drew hoped he would be able to help Jake finish it tonight, so his grade wouldn’t drop down.

…It definitely wasn’t an excuse to just… hang out with Jake alone again.

Drew was quick to chase those thoughts away, pulling out a black folder and pencil before setting his bag on the floor. He opened his folder, pulling out his study guide, then turned to Jake, who had sat down beside him. It appeared as though he’d done the same. Drew glanced over Jake’s paper, seeing the blonde hadn’t even written his name yet.

Jake flipped through the pages of the packet, skimming the questions.

“It’s fifty questions…” He whined, before setting his head down on the counter, letting out a muffled groan.

“That’s why we had two days to do this.” Drew said, picking up his pencil and flipping to the question he’d left off on.

“Why can’t I just copy off you when you’re done?” Jake asked, tilting his head to look at him.

“If I have to suffer through this, so do you. Besides, you're not gonna learn anything by copying me.” Drew paused. “And I think our teacher’s starting to get suspicious with how similar our answers have been recently.” He added, a bit quieter than before.

Drew rarely let anyone copy off his papers, but Jake was… always an exception.

Jake stared up at him with pleading eyes, and Drew could feel his face warm slightly, but forced himself to look away, and after a moment, Jake sighed, sitting himself up and reaching for his pencil.

“Just ask me if you need help.” Drew said. “I’m not giving you the answers, but I’ll walk you through it.” Jake nodded.

“Thanks,” Drew smiled before directing his attention to his paper, quickly getting to work.

The first few minutes of studying went rather well. Jake only needed help with a few problems, and Drew was able to breeze through the remainder his own packet with ease. But the longer the two sat there, the more Drew caught Jake zoning out. Something he did often. When Jake would start scribbling on the corners of the page, or when he tilted his head to the side to stare at… basically nothing, Drew knew he’d gotten distracted. Luckily, Drew was able to snap him out of it rather easily, simply by tapping his pencil against Jake’s paper to help him refocus.

As the two continued to study, Drew soon reached a problem that genuinely had him confused. He thought he just had to plug the numbers into the formula, but the answer his calculator read was completely different from the answers provided on the text. So, Drew reread the problem, and set his pencil down to refer back to his notes. He sifted through papers until he eventually found what he needed, and fiddled with his bangs as he read through them.

Ah, so that’s what he did.

Drew set the papers down, blowing his bangs out of his face as he lifted his pencil again, scribbling down the new equation, which gave him what he hoped was the right answer. But he didn’t feel like double-checking to be certain.

So instead, he moved on to the next problem, reading the question carefully. He bit down on his pencil subconsciously, a habit he was always in denial of despite his friends commenting on it on multiple occasions.

“Psst…”

Jake’s whisper snapped Drew out of his thoughts, and he glanced over to see Jake leaned across the counter, his phone pointed directly at him.

“Heya pretty boy, you come here often?” Drew paused for a moment, moving the pencil away from his mouth.

…Pretty boy?

Almost immediately, Drew felt his face turn red, which earned him a small laugh from Jake. A sound Drew was barely able to register.

Did… did Jake really just call him that? Did he mean that? Did Jake think he was-

“Are you recording me right now?” Drew suddenly asked, hoping he didn’t sound as flustered as he most likely appeared. Jake hummed.

“Maybe…” He admitted. “And I might’ve just gotten the pencil thing on camera, too.”

“The pencil-” Drew paused, suddenly realizing what Jake meant.

Shit… Jake had proof of that now.

“Give me that-!” Drew yelled, jumping from his seat to try and take the phone. However, Jake seemed to be expecting that, quickly standing up from his chair and holding his phone high above his head. Drew tried to reach for it, but was suddenly reminded of their height difference.

And Drew found himself violently tempted to kick him in the-

Jake took off running in the opposite direction, and Drew let out a gasp of surprise before taking off after him.

“Give it to me!” Drew shouted, chasing Jake into the living room. Jake burst out laughing, still keeping the phone as far away as possible.

“You’ll have to catch me first!” He teased, a mischievous grin plastered on his face. Drew huffed. So this was a challenge, huh? Well, who was Drew to turn down that?

Drew continued to chase Jake around the house, coming close to him a few times, but always just out of reach. And a small part of him genuinely began to enjoy this little game Jake had begun, eventually laughing along with him. Drew wasn’t exactly sure how long they were running around for, but eventually, Drew managed to corner Jake in the hallway. Without thinking, Drew grabbed Jake’s wrists and pinned him against the wall.

“Got you…” Drew whispered between breaths, a small smirk tugging at his lips. Jake huffed out a laugh, seemingly still out of breath from their game.

And… Drew couldn’t help but to admire the way Jake looked like this…

“Fine, fine, I… I admit defeat…” Jake managed, chest still heaving. “Mind letting… go of me now?” He asked, and Drew hesitated for a moment before releasing his grip. He could feel his face warm suddenly, his actions finally catching up to him.

Did that… really just happen?

“Heh… you got pretty into that…” Jake commented. “But, since you were able to catch me, the phone is yours, your majesty…” Drew swallowed as he took the phone from him, turning it on to find Jake had locked it. “Too bad you don’t know my-“

Drew entered Jake's password, immediately opening to his camera roll. Jake stared at him, mouth agape.

“How did you-“

“You already gave me your password, dumbass.” Drew stated, leaning against the wall as he opened the video.

“I did?” Jake thought for a moment. “That was like, three months ago!” Drew shrugged in response, watching how the camera zoomed in and out on his face randomly.

Drew cringed slightly when he noticed how red his face had gotten after Jake’s… comment. God, it was so obvious he-

“Are you gonna delete it?” Jake suddenly asked, and the video cut off. Drew thought for a bit, before reluctantly handing the phone back to him, video untouched.

“As long as you don’t show anyone this…” He mumbled.

“Wait, really?!” Jake said, perking up a bit. Drew gave a curt nod, unsure of why he was even doing this. Jake could very easily post this somewhere and completely embarrass-

“Yes! Thank you! This’ll be our little secret!” Jake smiled at him, and his light was almost blinding.

…Drew realized why he let Jake keep the video.

The magenta-haired man tilted his head away, crossing his arms and trying to hide his blushing face.

“Yeah, sure. We should probably get back to the kitchen. We got… pretty sidetracked.” Before Jake could say anything, Drew left the hallway and made his way back to the kitchen, sitting down on a stool and turning back to his work as if that whole event had never occurred.

But even as Drew tried to continue, his mind wouldn’t stop thinking about it. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way Jake looked pinned against the wall. He couldn’t stop thinking about Jake’s voice, and the comments he made.

…And he couldn’t stop thinking about how easy it would’ve been to kiss him. And how badly he wanted to kiss him…

No, no no! He couldn’t be thinking like this.

He wasn’t supposed to like Jake. He didn’t like Jake. He was just… confused.

That had to be it. Because if it wasn’t… it-

Drew was snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed Jake’s head against the counter, brown eyes staring at him.

“What?” Drew asked.

“You can’t concentrate either, can you?” Jake guessed, and Drew sighed, setting down his pencil.

“No,” He admitted. Jake sat back up, stretching his arms behind his head.

“Maybe studying wasn’t meant to be today.” He commented, and Drew glanced over his paper.

“You’re only on question fifteen,” He pointed out. Jake shrugged.

“That’s like… halfway done. I think it’s time for a break.” Drew frowned, seeing the error in Jake’s math almost immediately. No wonder he was failing algebra.

“Didn’t we just take a break?” Drew asked. Jake shook his head.

“That wasn’t a break, it was a distraction,” He clarified. “A break is…” He thought for a minute. “You ordering us food from somewhere.” Drew rolled his eyes, pulling out his phone from his back pocket.

“Can’t believe you're making me buy you food.” Drew mumbled sarcastically.

“You want me to photosynthesize or something?” Jake asked.

“Yes.” Drew answered, and Jake shook his head, glancing over at the window.

“Afraid I can’t, Drew. The sun’s already down,”

“Is it?” Drew lifted his head, glancing over to see the sun setting in the distance. “Huh…”

“Time flies, I guess.” Jake said, and Drew gave a nod before returning his attention to his phone.

“I guess so. Anyways, what do you want?” Jake thought for a bit before answering.

“I dunno.”

How helpful.

“Well, what sounds good?”

“Anything, really.”

Again, very helpful.

“God, you’re worse than Henry.” Drew grumbled. “I’m just gonna list you some stuff, okay?” Jake nodded, and Drew went down the list of places in the area that delivered. It was quickly made apparent that Jake was a total liar. Apparently ‘anything’ wasn’t being served at the first five places Drew listed, but eventually, Drew was able to find somewhere they were both content with. After a few minutes, Drew had placed their orders.

“There, you’re welcome.”

“Thanks, Drew! I’ll pay you back tomorrow when-”

“You don’t have to pay me back, Jake. I tell you this all the time.”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t just wanna assume you’re gonna pay for me. That feels… I don’t know.” Drew shrugged.

“It’s not a big deal. I have the money, so why shouldn’t I?” Jake fell silent for a moment.

“You’re sure it’s cool?” He asked, and Drew gave a nod in response. “…Thanks, Drew.”

The room fell silent for a moment.

“Well, our breaks over now.”

“What?!” Jake cried. “That was like, ten minutes!”

“And you still have thirty-five questions left.” Jake slammed his head on the counter, letting out a groan.

“I hate high school.” He mumbled.

“We can take a break once the food gets here. But until then, you need to focus. Jake whined as he lifted his head from the desk, picking up his pencil with a frown across his face.

“Here, I’ll help you with this one.” Drew said, leaning closer to look over Jake’s paper before walking him through the problem.

*+*+*

About half an hour later, Drew had almost finished his study guide. Jake was about halfway done with his, but was able to remain focused for the majority of the period.

Eventually, their food arrived, and the second Jake heard the doorbell ring, he seemed to completely forget about the packet's existence. He ran to the door to grab their food, and insisted they eat in the living room so they could watch TV together. Drew eventually agreed, and allowed Jake to show him a new series he’d been talking about for weeks. The two settled themselves on the couch to eat, and within one episode, Drew was absolutely hooked. The two finished their meals after two episodes, but due to how short the episodes were, Jake was able to talk Drew into watching a third, and then a fourth, and then…

What were they doing again?

…It probably wasn’t important.

When the credits rolled for… whatever episode they were on, Drew turned to Jake to see if he wanted to do another, only to find him dozing off on the couch. Drew sighed, pausing the TV before laying down beside him, staring at him while he slept.

He looked so peaceful…

Drew reached a hand out to him, but decided against it, instead bringing it up to his mouth as he stifled a yawn.

…A nap sounded nice right now…

Drew pulled the throw blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over his legs, turning on his side to be a bit more comfortable. And slowly, Drew closed his eyes, drifting off into a light sleep.

*+*+*

Drew woke up to the sound of Jake’s ringtone, and slowly, he sat up. Was someone trying to call him or-

Wait…

Drew glanced down, and realized that when he’d fallen asleep… he’d fallen against Jake’s chest.

He quickly pushed himself off of Jake just as he awoke. The blonde seemed confused for a moment, glancing around for his phone before grabbing it and seeing who was calling. Immediately, his eyes widened.

“Shit…” He whispered to himself, before answering the call and placing the phone to his ear.

“H-Hey mo-” Immediately, Drew could hear Jake’s mom yelling on the other end, but he couldn’t quite make out what she was saying.

“I’m sorry, I fell asleep-“

…

“Uh… we uh… finished.”

…

“You’re here?!” Jake shot up. “Crap! I’m on my way!” Jake turned to leave, then paused, turning back around to face Drew.

“I gotta go, my mom’s here.

Before Drew could even respond, Jake practically tackled him in a hug, only to pull away just a second later.

“Thanks for having me over. I’ll see you tomorrow!” And with that, Jake ran out of the living room to grab his bag and shoes, leaving a flustered Drew alone on the couch.

*+*+*

Later that night, after Drew had gotten ready for bed, he finally remembered what he and Jake had set out to do in the first place, and he made his way back downstairs to finish up the last few questions on his paper.

And it just so happened that Jake har left his paper behind after his mom came to pick him up.

It didn't take Drew long to finish up his packet, and soon directed his attention to Jake’s half-completed packet.

…

Despite his better judgment, Drew pulled out a spare sheet of paper from his backpack, and copied the remaining answers onto it. He then put the papers together, and returned it to his algebra folder. He’d return Jake’s paper, along with the remaining answers, tomorrow.

He really needed to stop doing that…

[cerealandchoccymilk]

Trigun Bookclub: Trigun Vol.1-2, Chapter #10

previous | all

I’m doing a deep-read of the Japanese original print (reread) and Overhaul 1.0 (first read) side-by-side, and writing down everything I notice from small details, version differences, translation differences, etc.

The volume numbers will be mismatched for most of the remainder of Trigun, since the Japanese first edition is 3 volumes while all later versions are 2 volumes.

As always, here are the non-analysis panels:

And the rest is under the cut.

[link for if the images aren’t in horizontal rows]

A lot of annotation transcriptions for this entry.

My 3 girlies!!!!!!!!!!! Ever!!!!!!!!

I was waiting for Vash's antennae to go back up, but it looks like 2 of them are permanently bent now. I think it's stayed half-bent since his first encounter with Kaito in the last arc. Haven't double checked to make sure though.

Milly my beloved..... (I keep spelling it Millie every time. help) In the Japanese version, the speech bubble is "good morning," but in a barely comprehensible yawn. The yawning onomatopoea is written in small text.

Various translation corrections -

「先輩は書いても絵ハガキ程度ですよねー」 "Ma'am, you only send postcards at most, right?"

「ソレが普通ですわよ　それにもともと家訓からして「自立せよ」ですからね」 "And that's the normal amount. Besides, our family motto was 'be independent!'"

「ドライといえばドライなのかも…」 "Maybe it could be a bit unemotional/pragmatic [now that you mention it], but..."

Badwick's first appearance. Just looked ahead to check his name... I forgot how stupid it is... Badwick...... The first time we see one of my favorite art style aspects, single forms!! Love seeing black blocks and non-distinguishable limbs!! This is used a lot with Wolfwood's suit and I love it so much...

I would say Vash's line here is more like "I get it now."

Images I can hear!! I loved this scene in '98... 聞いておるのかご老体！！ By the way, Vash uses polite speech here, but in a (half-)sarcastic way. (If that makes sense...)

The background mob in this panel is... unique for sure. Skin-and-bones, some guy holding (eating?) seaweed, and a sparkly prince?

Badwick's「笑うね！！」line here is more like "You make me laugh!!" or "Ha ha, very funny!!" I know Vash jumping in front of the old couple is probably intended to just be an instinctive act of protection, but thinking about my analysis in the previous arc (#08 I think?), I can't help but think about his self-sacrificial tendencies...

On a lighter note, Meryl ends her rant with マヂ(ジ)で！！ which is kind of like... "FR!!" lol Also Vash is literally dead. Honestly he might've been better off taking the bullet than getting bonked.

Classic MillyMeryl manzai routine (not a single braincell between them). Featuring a pissed Vash.

Milly's joke is a bit hard to translate.... She's actually saying an idiom wrong. The correct phrase (what she says in Overhaul) is 大事の前の小事, which literally means "a small event before/in front of the big event." (this idiom is also an contranym but I won't get into that lol) However, the kanji she uses for 小事(shōji, small event) is switched for 障子(shōji, wood-and-paper sliding door). They look the same in romaji, but they have different tones.

Meryl's response uses English loanwords/Japanglish that's all slightly incorrect for the situation.

So, the Gramps's comments are about the fact that they're using the words wrong. Apparently Granny didn't notice!? lol

Another silly Milly... Gramps's line is a sort of double-meaning, since ボケる(bokeru) means both to be silly (as in the funny man role in manzai)(which Milly has been doing throughout) and to go senile. I love how Vash is 100% tired of this shit and just stares at us.

Japanese-only thing, but I love how he says「わーかってますって　超OKっスよ」. silly goober....

「ジオ・プラント――　肥沃化プラントの影響を受けて植物が育つ事ができる土地の総称である」 "Geoplant— The general term for land that is capable of growing flora due to the effect of a fertilizing Plant."

The term "geoplant" is actually for the affected land, not the Plant itself. Which is... confusing to be honest....

The Plants mentioned here are the capital P generator Plants, not lowercase p flora plants. This line means that among the Plants on the ships, some of them were also of the fertilization variety necessary for geoplant land. "Naturally" is continued into Gramps's line, so it should end with an ellipsis.

He says that the property became worth about the same as the area of a 300-yard radius around a ship (which I would imagine is INSANELY valuable), whether they wanted the price to rise or not.

These two lines are actually by Vash.

「おそらく地脈を伝って影響が『飛び地』したんだろうな」 "Perhaps the effects of a Plant spread along a mineral vein and ended up forming an 'enclave' here."

「でもここまでになるにはただそれだけじゃ駄目だ」 "But just that's not enough for it to get to this scale."

I love how quickly he could tell this is a geoplant and recognize how much work and love the couple has put into it.

「それにどれだけ我々が支えられてきたか言葉にならんよ」 "I can't even begin to describe how much hope it has given us."

The word he uses is actually "support," but I couldn't think of a way to make it sound decent other than the next closest word, "give hope."

Not really a translation fix - in Japanese, he says something more like "This is where our lives and hopes are."

I missed it during the annotation (will mark it later), but I think the article for "tycoon" should be "the" or "a," since Morgan hasn't appeared yet. Gramps mentions that the incident from earlier that day was also one of Morgan's threats. (The annotation should be "like what happened this morning/noon." Will also fix that later.)

I feel like this line by Gramps comes across as a bit too harshly apologetic in English compared to the original? I'm not sure how to convey it accurately though... it's more of a Japanese cultural thing.

The first speech bubble is probably by one of the elderly couple, most likely Gramps, since it says "Vash-kun". Milly calls him "Vash-san."

Also about the "lover's quarrel" tease and Meryl's response:

A common tease for male+female character pairs (and real life...), but the nice thing about this is that there's no hinting of hidden romantic feelings whatsoever (stammering, blushing, etc.). Even through a Vash/Meryl truthing lens, I think at this point there truly is nothing (realized) there yet. There's no forced hetero-amatonormative romance!! (my pet peeve in manga)

These lines are actually an exchange between Badwick and Marilyn.

「うわーーっ　いくらすっと思ってるんだその門柱！！」 "Aaahh!! [Watch what you're doing!] Just how much do you think that pillar's worth!?"

「ケチくせー事いいっこなし！！どうせアコギなマネして建てたんでしょ」 "Oh, don't be so stingy!! I bet you guilt it with shady money(/through shady means) anyways."

And that’s it for Chapter #10! As always, the Japanese annotations will be in the reblogs.

[thirstyandbeautiful]

hey :) im the anon that sent the ask about the plagiarism and i just wanted to see in glad you see it too😭😭 i thought i was going crazy while reading cause it sounded SOOOOO familiar… anyway definitely not okay and im so so sorry that happened :/ you are so talented and gifted beyond words! I hope you know

Thank you so much for sending that link ❤️

I’m kinda in shock, it’s very surreal reading the fics on that blog and literally rereading bits of CMHH or ODS or fucking LVL that have been copy and pasted into their fic. Some of them are even from like Mick one shots that I’m sure they didn’t think I’d catch.

It also really sucks that they’re someone who ‘like’d a lot of my work on this blog. I check every notification, they pop up on my phone. I know all your blog names so it double sucks that this person was showing praise for my early work that obv doesn’t get as much attention as it used to. I remember reading the notifs and thinking ‘oh wow they’re loving on one of my first fics- this is nice’.

Apparently they liked it so much they decided to snag it.

REGARDLESS. I’ve reached out to the copy cat so balls in their court for how they want to handle this.

[zyrafowe-sny]

World's Best Turkey Carver

aka the silly, stand-alone Thanksgiving crackfic that nobody asked for in my Owl House fanfic series

Camila was so pleased that she could have all three of her children home for Thanksgiving week (Principal Bump had grumbled a little bit, but had quickly given in). She had much to be grateful for. Just over a year ago, the Boiling Isles were still in danger and Camila had walked hand-in-hand with Luz through the portal Belos had opened after possessing Hunter. They were still mourning their losses, but now the biggest threats were taken care of and they had a stable connection between realms. Her children were thriving – Vee was finding a place for herself in Gravesfield, Luz and Hunter were studying magic at Hexside, and Hunter was learning about Palisman carving from Eda's dad. Best of all, the Boiling Isles paperwork officially naming Camila the mother of Vee and Hunter had finally gone through (the human paperwork was unsurprisingly more complicated given that they didn't legally exist). 

"I'll need all of you to help out on Thanksgiving – I haven't hosted this many people in years! Vee, could you bake the pies and cornbread? You're so precise with the measurements and I think you're a better baker than I am now. Luz, I hope you still remember how to make some of our usual side dishes."

"What about me? What should I make?"

Her son was always so eager to help, but Camila still had nightmares about the monstrosity that he and his friends had made when they were stranded in the Human Realm. "Hunter – there's a human expression that too many cooks spoil the broth. Maybe you could help clean the house, set the table, and carve the turkey? The turkey is the most important part of Thanksgiving."

"Whatever you need, Mama Camila. You know I've been practicing my carving skills."

Camila laughed. It was good to see her son making jokes. "That you have. I love my little wooden elephant so much. I'm sure you will do an excellent job carving the turkey on Thanksgiving day too."

"I can't carve it in advance?" 

"No, I'm afraid not." Someday, she really needed to teach this boy how to cook from scratch instead of just heating up leftovers or eating premade food. Fresh, home-cooked meals were still a novelty for him – apparently he'd spent much of his childhood subsisting largely on snacks and ration bars. "It will be a long day of preparations. We can do some of the baking early, but you absolutely cannot carve the turkey before Thanksgiving." 

"Are you sure I can do it?" Hunter looked uncertain.

"Of course, mijo. You are the best carver in this family." Well, certainly the best woodcarver. And Camila would trust Hunter over Luz with sharp knives any day.

*****

Hunter had questions. He was aware of two kinds of turkey – a faraway country and the local bird he had sometimes encountered on walks in the woods around Gravesfield. He sincerely hoped Mama Camila wanted him to carve a bird – that was a far better match for his skills and he wasn't sure how to go about carving a country (would it need to be a three-dimensional topographic map?). The bird also seemed more likely since Thanksgiving was an American holiday (at least he was fairly sure), but he couldn't afford to mess up something so important to the human woman who had opened her heart and home to him. 

Normally, Hunter's discreet source of information about the Human Realm would be his tablet, but he had accidentally shattered the screen and repairs were taking a while (the replacement glass had to be special-ordered). He decided to go to the next best thing person – his human sister Luz (this ran the risk of her teasing him about his ignorance, but Mama Camila was worth it). It didn't take long before he found her on the bottom bunk in the room she shared with Vee, rereading the latest book in the Good Witch Azura series. "Hey, Luz."

"Hey, hermano. What do you need?" She stuck a scrap of paper in her book and closed it.

"I just wanted to double check something. What kind of turkey do humans carve on Thanksgiving – the bird or the country?"

"That's a good one, Hunter! I see you're working on your sense of humor!" She laughed and went back to reading, clearly dismissing him.

Hunter left the room feeling extremely flustered and frustrated. Given how unhelpful Luz had been, he decided to ask their mom, hoping she wouldn't perceive his lack of knowledge of human customs as a sign of disrespect (Titan, he should have researched human holidays long ago – maybe then he wouldn't be in this awkward situation). "Mama Camila, the turkey you want me to carve should have wings, right?"

"Hah, of course, mijo. Are those your favorite parts?"

Hunter had never really considered which part of a bird was his favorite. He missed Flapjack's beak stroking his hair and his warm brown eye, but he did also miss seeing his bright red wings as the Palisman flew. "I'm not sure? Maybe?"

"That's ok. You should try all the parts of the turkey, and then you can let us know what you like best."

"I was planning on it, thanks." This was proving to be an odd and baffling conversation, but he knew relatively little about human woodworking traditions (and nothing about them as they related to Thanksgiving). Did some human turkey carvers just make the head or just the tail instead of the entire bird? Maybe they collaborated sometimes, with one carver doing the turkey head and body and another doing the wings and tail? That seemed terribly inefficient and complicated (how would that even work? were there multiple pieces slotted together?), but what little he knew about Thanksgiving suggested it was about coming together with loved ones. Perhaps it was supposed to be symbolic. This was the worst possible time for his tablet to be broken. 

Another thought occurred to him. "About how big is the turkey, usually?"

Mama Camila frowned as she considered the question. "When it was just me and Luz, we would just order a small one. Since so many people are coming this year, we'll probably need something about this big?" She gestured with her hands, indicating something roughly twice as round as most of the turkeys he'd seen. 

That would…that would take a rather large branch or log. Probably larger than what he could get from his usual supplier, especially with Thanksgiving just days away. He'd need to find something himself in the woods. At least now he had a better idea of what was expected of him.

*****

Camila was a little disappointed that Hunter had chosen not to accompany the rest of the family on their grocery run, but he had said that he needed to go to the woods to find a good-sized log. While she absolutely supported his calling to carve Palismen and understood his need to practice woodworking, she would have liked the extra time together. Some extra help carrying groceries (this year's turkey weighed over 20 pounds!) would have been nice too.

*****

Hunter didn't trust that he'd have time to get the house ready for guests and carve the turkey all on the same day, so he spent a few hours the night before Thanksgiving cleaning common areas and setting the table. Even with that out of the way, he needed to get an early start to have any shot at finishing carving the turkey in time. He would never understand human traditions – Thanksgiving seemed like it would be so much less stressful if the turkey carving could be done beforehand or if the turkeys could be reused year after year.

*****

Luz frowned as she stirred the chopped Brussels sprouts (sauteed or roasted Brussels were so much better than boiled, and anise added some nice flavor). She knew that their mom had gently redirected Hunter away from Thanksgiving cooking, but it seemed odd that he hadn't even visited the kitchen to say hello or grab a snack. "Has anyone actually seen our favorite Grimwalker today?"

Vee took the cornbread out of the toaster oven and shook her head. "I think I heard him leave the house early this morning, but I haven't seen him since. The dining room looks ready, though."

"So is the turkey." The doorbell chimed as Camila got up from checking the oven. "And there are our guests. Vee, could you please get Hunter while I see who's here?"

*****

Vee found her missing brother in his makeshift workshop in the old garden shed. "There you are, Hunter. We've been worried about you. Guests are here – it's time to carve the turkey." 

"I've been carving the turkey!" Hunter answered indignantly. "I had to wake up before sunrise to carve the turkey!"

And then she saw what was on his workbench.

Oh. OH. This was…this was amazing. "Are you almost done?"

"Yes, I just need to clean up a little bit. Mama didn't say anything about painting and there wouldn't have been time for paint or lacquer to dry anyway, so I hope it's ok if it's unfinished." He brushed off his apron and gloves before removing them and put on his favorite yellow sweater.

"Oh, I'm sure she will be thrilled with this." And she would. She absolutely would (wood?). "Let's show her in the kitchen, ok? Before we take it to our guests."

*****

Mama Camila clapped a hand over her mouth and snorted. "Oh, mijo. This is the best carved turkey that I have ever seen in my life. But I think something got lost in translation."

Luz opened the oven door to reveal the fully cooked turkey inside. "This is the turkey we wanted you to carve." 

"People eat turkeys?" He could feel his face turning bright red and briefly wished he had a staff handy to get as far away as possible. 

His mom sensed his discomfort and lightly touched his arm. "Está bien. It was my mistake – I should have explained better. And now we have a wonderful Thanksgiving decoration to go with our meal."

Naturally, that's when Willow peeked into the kitchen. The plant witch had a remarkable talent for catching Hunter during his most embarrassing moments. "Is everything ok? Can I help?" 

Mama Camila was the one to answer – Luz and Vee were still trying very hard to maintain their composure. "We're just fine, but would you mind carrying in the turkey? It's a bit heavy."

"Sure, which one?"

And then his sisters dissolved into puddles of laughter.

*****

"Whoa, excellent turkey carving!" Gus said appreciatively, looking at the wooden bird that Hunter set down on the table. "Did you make that yourself?"

"Yes, but actually I was supposed to carve that turkey." He gestured sheepishly at the roast that Willow had brought in.

"¿Por qué no los dos? " Luz asked with a grin. Amity gave her girlfriend a perplexed look. "Old Internet joke," she explained. "Extremely old. Practically ancient."

Mama Camila shot a warning glance at her daughter. "Be kind to your brother. Remember, he's the one who uses sharp tools every day." She handed Hunter a set of knives, and this time, he carved the correct bird (although not as neatly as he had carved the first – apparently woodworking skills did not translate well to serving meat).

*****

On Christmas morning, Hunter was completely unsurprised when Vee gave him an apron that proudly proclaimed its wearer to be the "World's Best Turkey Carver." He knew he would be (gently, lovingly) roasted for his misunderstanding for years to come. But that was just part of being a Noceda, and he wouldn't trade that for anything. 

*****

Thank you so much for reading! You can go here if you want to leave kudos or comment on AO3 (no need to have an account or sign in).

Happy Thanksgiving!  If you celebrate, please consider looking at ways to decolonize the holiday.

[mythgirlimagines]

DVHS Reread: Chapter IV.III

"You're correct in that. Especially with the secrets…" Something dark crosses her face. She reaches to her neck, making a face when her fingers don't find the chain of her necklace. She probably forgot to put it on today. 

hahahAHAHA

Which, yeah, is a dangerous line of thought. Adapting to the paranoia is as good as giving up. At the same time, we've already lost so many people. Maybe learning to live here is-

The bells sound, shocking my system. "A body has been discovered! Everyone, please gather in the physics lab!"

-just what we need.

I think this is one of the only times a protag has not been one of the first couple to set off the BDA. One being, technically, Taka in DR1, since Makoto thought that one was for Hifumi, and the BDA going off after Kazuichi first for Mahiru before Hajime got to the beach house. I like that sense of panic!

After all, only one of us is small enough to fit in Yoshida's arms. 

Y’know, before I went back and edited, this was gonna be different-

I’m just kidding. It was always Oshiro. This was fated from the start.

"You can't trust anyone." I blink, taken aback. "I know you're you and you want to trust everyone, but you can't. The secrets provide too much of a motive. We don't know who had Oshiro's secret, and we don't know whose secret she had. Everyone is suspicious if or until we can figure that out."

There's something frantic behind his eyes that was definitely never there before. "Why are you telling me this? Why now?"

He sighs, picking at the sleeves of his jacket. Even now, he looks so put-together. "Because, against my better judgement, I trust you."

This chapter is very interesting for Abe in my eyes, though I’m not entirely sure how to vocalize why that is. Mostly I think it has to do with his fluctuating feelings on trust, and whether he’s trusted back specifically by Camila.

I take the scrap of paper. Whatever's on it was written in ink, but it ran, each letter bleeding into the next so much that I can barely understand what it says. "...Etsu. Those are the only four letters I can make out."

Yasu sits back on his heels, thinking. "Like part of a name? Maybe that's whose secret she had."

I run through everyone's full names, ticking them off on my fingers, but the only one who has "etsu" in it is Yoshida Etsuko. And this can't be her secret; I have her secret.

~FORESHADOWING~

She's wearing leggings, but the area right under her knee is rubbed a little raw, almost like the fabric there is thinned or stretched. Kind of like rope burn, but on clothing? Maybe? 

I mostly modeled this after the fact that my leggings tend to get thinner and worn in the thighs because of the fabric constantly having friction, so I figured a rope would have somewhat of the same effect in this case.

The room is surprisingly clean; I don't see any signs of a struggle. Everything looks just like it did when I looked through here the first time, with the obvious exception of a corpse. 

I stressed before a couple times that Saito was really neat, so I figured this in and of itself would be a bit of a clue. I didn’t really try hard to hide the culprit of this case.

My eyes lift to the observation deck. It's almost a given that this has something to do with the case, given the nature of Oshiro's death. "I'm going to check there," I say to nobody in particular. Almost immediately, Sasaki grabs my arm, stopping me in my tracks. "Look, it's okay. I'll be careful."

I mean, I would want to double check on someone who not only lost the closest person in the game a few days ago but also was recently told they were almost a victim.

"It's lonely," Miyuki confirms, walking next to me. I frown and keep my eyes ahead. I can't respond, right now. If this is a hallucination, I shouldn't respond anyway. "Especially waiting before you found me."

I take in a sharp breath, ignoring the odd looks I get from Aoyama and Sasaki. She'd been helpful until this point; why is she telling me this? I don't want to know. I don't want to know.

She peers into the elevator. "It's a lot more roomy in here." She steps in, standing next to me like she did before the first trial. I try not to look, but I can see her slip her hand into mine. I don't feel it, of course. This isn't real. I keep repeating that in my mind. This isn't real.

Even though I absolutely do not know what I was going for with this hallucination or whatever I’ll probably eventually decide on, I really like this part.

[zorilleerrant]

I've been looking through my old bedroom and found a bunch of books I loved as a kid to reread.

The Song of the Lioness Quartet, by Tamora Pierce - the one that started it all. That is, I've been seeing Tammy's books everywhere this year, characters that yes, I do know, book recs, nostalgia posting, everywhere. So, yeah, I'm getting on board this train. I'm going to start with this series, because that's where I started the first time, but I'm going to read through a lot of Tortall, hopefully. Anyway, that's why I wanted to look through my old books.

Batman Forever, by Peter David - yeah, it's the official movie novelization. I was obsessed with this book as a kid. I read it over and over again. So I have to include it.

The Last Vampire series, by Christopher Pike - I picked this up as a kid because I was like, omg, like THEE Christopher Pike??? and I figured someone who would name himself after THEE Christopher Pike would write great books. And I did really enjoy the series, so it worked out. I saw at some point there was a sequel series to this or something? I was excited to learn that years ago and then never did anything with the information.

Time Cat, by Lloyd Alexander - this book was so inspiring to me as a kid. I don't remember if it's any good or even if I thought it was good at the time. But it made me write a whole bunch of terrible short stories about cats with magic powers, which largely resulting in adults in my life telling me I couldn't spell. Which was true but wasn't even the point, okay, maybe cats have their own language which is just like English except spelled bad because they can't spell because they're cats. It's fine.

Star Split, by Kathryn Lasky - I saw this on my shelf and I have no idea what it is. It gave me very warm and fuzzy vibes to look at, though, so I think I must have liked it. I guess I'll figure it out!

Replica series, by Marilyn Kaye - this is about clones or something. I don't recall details because at the time I was willing to read anything and everything that so much as hinted at clones and anyone grown in a test tube or vat. It's probably either good or bad. I don't know how many there are and I literally don't even remember the main character. She's named Amy? Okay, sounds good to me, I believe you. Why's she cloned tho

Cirque Du Freak series, by Darren Shan - I loved the conceit of this, which is that they're a true chronicle that no one would believe. Oh, but that's very common - yes, but no one actually committed to the bit by making the main character and author share a name, which I loved. I don't remember how far through this series I read, either, so there's probably a lot of story past the point where I stopped, which is going to be fun.

Twitches series, by H.B. Gilmour and Randi Reisfeld - Okay, I'll admit, I only read the first one. I tried to find the rest at the library and they didn't have them, and then I forgot completely. Finding the movies as an adult was fucking amazing? They're great, if you like campy silly fantasy, and seeing some of my favorite actors in those roles was so much fun, so I've been meaning to go back to the series (but, again, forgetting). Just. Twins. Who are witches. It's just the distilled wishes of every SFF book kid.

Rascal, by Sterling North - I double checked and nothing horrible happens to the raccoon at the end of the book, which is weirdly common in kids books? Anyway, I just remember this being my introduction to all the cool things raccoons could do with their tiny thumbs and being very impressed and enamored and yes, of course I wanted a pet raccoon, but that's not special, I still wish I could have one of those they're adorable.

I Was A Sixth Grade Alien, by Bruce Coville - someone requested this for Yuletide, and I was like. Okay, I have for sure read that book, and I remember literally nothing about it except what's written on the tin. I think I only read the first book, or the first couple? Like, this is a series, right? I have no idea! I just saw the title and went I really have to figure out what that's about before it drives me crazy! It's a great title, though, isn't it?

Julie of the Wolves series, by Jean Craighead George - I have definitely read two of these books, but not, I think, all three. Other than this one, I don't know which of the two I read. Maybe I did read all three, but just not all at the same time? You have to understand, I was a Wolf Kid. When I saw there was a book not only about wolves, but where the main character was friends with wolves? Family even? I was the most excited I've ever been to read a book, and they really delivered. Excited to hang out with Julie again, and make sure I've definitely read all of her stories this time.

Jedi Apprentice series, various authors - I might read the Young Jedi Knights or Junior Jedi Knights series too/instead, but this was the one I apparently had on my shelf. I loved it so much. I was in love with the former apprentice sith who wanted to take over the world, which is par for the course, really.

Holes, by Louis Sachar - a children's classic. Also the movie is one of the best adaptations of a book I've ever seen, and I might give that a rewatch, too. The song in this story gets stuck in my head randomly since I read it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Diadem series, by John Peel - I only read the first three books of this, because even though I searched for more than a year, the fourth volume was out of print and not in any library I could find. The rest of the series wasn't out of print! Only the fourth one! I wanted so badly to read the rest of the series because it had everything I was looking for as a kid. Alternate worlds. Kids who grew up in entirely virtual environments. SFF old timey places with archery. Some ambiguous villain that our heroes were intent on stopping despite not knowing who he/she/it/they even were. Hopefully I can find the fourth book this time somehow or my reread will also be cut tragically short.

Fearless series, by Francine Pascal - I also don't know how far I made it through this series, but I am very nostalgic for a character who just does stuff because she doesn't feel fear. Everyone wants to give me characters with tragic backstories, or who have to overcome their phobias. Nobody wants to give me someone who gets a bloody nose fistfighting a stranger because she forgot she wasn't supposed to. ADHD relatable? Okay, yes, maybe. But she's also one of those 'this person was an asshole so I bit them' characters, so I love her.

Among the Hidden series, by Margaret Peterson Haddix - a series I kept up with in real time, for a while, and I think I read to the end? Or almost to the end? Whatever, I love most of her books, they were my favorites as a kid, and despite the awkward xenophobic loading of the premise, the idea of a whole underground world of hidden children trying to find connection is an interesting subversion of the SF trope, one that actually has the scaffolding to make sense, instead of just 'yeah, we kept them in a cupboard their whole childhood but they're normal somehow'. It's heartbreaking and cool.

Goosebumps and The Nightmare Room, by R.L. Stine - I'm definitely not going to reread one whole series, let alone both. I've got to find highlights lists somewhere and go back to the popular ones, but, still, a lot of these were some of my favorites.

The House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer - This has a sequel, which I never read, and I'm very much looking forward to that. The whole story had such a huge impact on me, both for what I look for in elaborate worldbuilding (this book has the best worldbuilding ever), and in how I write emotional arcs. I used to try to write plot driven things exclusively and, you know, I'm not really a plot writer. I'm all about the characters, and I feel like people try to hide that from kids. Chapter books are always plot driven! They only slowly let the character driven ones in, and then the worldbuilding ones, and how often is a MG or YA book allowed to be structurally driven? Basically never. Anyway. Huge impact on my attitude towards narrative. It was also just really emotional for me. One of my favorite books, and I really hope it holds up on rearead.