#I’m sorry I’ve been distant I have had very limited energy for the past few weeks.. months

[emmaspolaroid]

god I have so much work to do but all I’ve done today is doodle my rarepair

[thetriplets3]

hello, my friend ♡ may i please request #3 with Matt? thank you

♡ mesmerized ♡

i changed this one a little. she admired matt in beautiful boy so now it’s matt’s turn to admire her. consider this a continuation of their relationship from “beautiful boy”. the italics is matt's pov

You and I have always had a special connection. We can read each other like a book, it's nice having someone who just understands you even without having to say a word. The past few weeks I’ve just been feeling off, I feel distant from everyone, even myself, I hardly have the energy to talk or take care of myself, my mind is far too active. It’s just too much. So I did the only thing I could think of and that was to go see you.

Quietly knocking on your front door I’m greeted by Chris who steps aside to make room for me to enter. “Hey it’s been a while since I’ve seen you, is everything okay?” You ask, concerned.

“I’m sorry about being pretty MIA I just, I’m not doing the best and I thought I could sort it out on my own but it’s just getting too much for me” my voice waivers.

“I’m sorry to hear that, you know we’re always here if you need anything. Matt’s in his room, I know you came here for him” you comfort me as you give me a hug.

“Thank you Chris” sending him a soft smile as I pad my way to your room.

Having very little energy in me I quietly knock, not even knowing if you’d be able to hear it. “Yeah come in” you call out.

Stepping into your line of sight your eyes immediately soften at my state. Dark eye bags from my lack of sleep, my droopy eyes showing the limited energy I have left in me physically and mentally, and the permanent frown that has taken over my usual smile.

“Hey sweet girl, what’s the matter?” You ask, as you stand from your chair making your way over to me.

“I’m struggling Matt I don’t know what to do” my voice cracks as a few tears slip out.

“Let’s get into bed, yeah?” You guide me under the covers before getting under yourself, turning on your side to face me. “You don’t need to tell me what’s bothering you if you don’t want to but if you do, I’m here to listen. I’m sorry things have been really hard on you lately and I’m sorry I didn’t reach out more. I just figured you were busy and needed time to get things done without distractions. I didn’t know you were going through so much alone. You know you can always come to me whenever you need me and I’m glad you did” you whisper.

“You have nothing to apologize for. I just don’t have the energy to really talk right now and I have too much to say” I sadly laugh. “I’m sorry for not coming to you sooner. It’s just-” I sigh softly, shaking my head both wanting to talk about it but also not wanting to. Going with the second option I just sigh and blankly stare at you.

“You don’t need to apologize for anything either, you’re doing your best and that’s all that matters. It matters that you recognize when you need help and get it and I’m glad I’m that person. I’ll always be that person for you” your eyes dance across my face, analyzing what it is that could be upsetting me. “If you need to talk through things, if you need a shoulder to cry on, a hug, if you just want to cuddle and forget about it I’ll be there. You can even scream at me if it’ll make you feel better. I’d do anything for you sweet girl” you reassure.

“Thank you” I whisper, barely loud enough for you to hear.

The room grows comfortably silent. I don’t know if it’s the smell of your cologne on your sheets and you beside me, or because I haven’t been able to stop my mind from running long enough to sleep but I can’t seem to stop my eyelids from closing and letting sleep take over. Noticing my eyes grow heavy, you open your arms inviting me closer. Gratefully accepting, wanting nothing more than to sleep and be at peace. With you laying on your side I use your arm as a pillow while they wrap around my body, holding me securely as I fall asleep.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

You look so peaceful when you're sleeping. Mind silenced from the chaos that's rattled your brain for the past few weeks, safe at last in my arms. I can't help my eyes from dancing across your face noticing every little detail.

The freckles littered across your face were constellations, so delicately and perfectly placed, just for you. The creases aside your eyes are a reminder that there is a light in the darkness, moments where you come alive, so carefree and happy.

I could listen to you talk all day, you're so incredibly smart and there's nothing more I love more than listening to you ramble about things you're passionate about even if they're far out of my understanding. You always have a quick reply for anything, whether it's factual, a comeback or a vine quote, you're quick witted. I wish I could do that.

The way your eyes sparkle when you're truly happy. How they crinkle when you laugh, the laugh that makes my heart double in size. That laugh is a sweet melody, one I hope to never forget. The way you giggle when you're with your friends, truly happy to be in their presence.

You're selfless, always thinking of others needs before your own, you're a natural caretaker. If only you could show some of that love to yourself. But for now I'll be that person for you, I always will be.

You have gone through the darkest rain clouds and the hurricane of life but it's a good thing I'm not scared of storms. I am endlessly proud of you. You are the grass that looks greener after a storm, the sun that peaks through the heavy clouds, the birds that chirp after sheltering from the rain. You are all the good things in this world. I'm lucky that I get to experience it with you by my side, in my arms. I am forever mesmerized by you sweet girl.

Taglist:

@im-a-matt-girl @iluvmatt @stxrniqlo @d0wnt0wnstu4n1ol0 @antisocialties

[xxdragonwriterxx]

Hi! how about one where Levi and his fem s/o sleep together for the first time and reader finds out that Levi sleep talking about how much he loves her and that he's very lucky to have her in his life. The next morning when they wake up reader teases him about it and he's very embarassed? Thank you so much, I’m sorry for my bad English. I love you❤️

A/N: Hello anon! 💕Thank you so much for requesting, this idea just had my heart melting and I loved it because I sleep talk all the time (when I actually manage to sleep) so it was fun to write based on experience (curtesy of my sis & friends telling me about my sleep talk endeavors). I’m sorry it’s taken so long for me to get it out to you, my ADHD has been really out of control lately. I really struggle with it sometimes, so I hope I didn’t keep you waiting for too long. I’ve also been having horrible migraines on and off for the past couple days so that’s what the beginning of the story was inspired by 😅. Thank you so much for your patience, I really appreciate it. Also your english is absolutely fine, love! I hope this is what you were looking for! ❤️

🐉Song Recommendation: “The Ghost on the Shore” By: Lord Huron” 🐉

~~~

🔥Woman of My Dreams 🔥

(Y/N) knew she was supposed to be working, helping Captain Levi with his massive load of paperwork, but she couldn’t focus for the life of her, too distracted by the pained look on her captain’s face. He must’ve felt her watching him, because he glanced up at her, his eyes distant and slightly glazed but narrowed, silently telling her to get back to work. She scowled at him and turned her gaze back to the stack of proposals in her lap, chewing on the end of her pen as she attempted to refocus on the words in front of her. Despite her best efforts, her mind kept straying back to the raven-haired man at his desk, his occasional grunts and annoyed sighs alerting her to his struggle.

(Y/N) was always in awe of her boyfriend’s work ethic, constantly left wondering how someone with so much stress could still manage to push forward. He never seemed to fail at anything he tried, and he constantly pushed his mind and body to the limits, foregoing the need for rest and food in favor of getting everything done in one night. But while that part of her would always be proud of him and his ability to do so much, another part of her hated it. She hated how he’d sacrifice his own health for the sake of others, pushing himself until his body nearly shut down. Tonight, was one of those nights.

She knew Levi had a horrendous migraine. He was usually prone to the headaches that seemed to crack the skull open, but this one seemed particularly awful. He was constantly massaging his forehead and his eyes were unfocused and filled with pain. Tiny whimpers and groans would occasionally escape him, showing her just how much it was affecting him. Levi was usually able to push through the pain and suffer in silence, but this migraine of his seemed intent on making him as miserable as possible. He hadn’t finished more than two pages of work since they had started, and it was clear he was nearing his breaking point.

Knowing his preference for powering through the pain, (Y/N) usually left him to his own devices when he had a migraine like this, trying to make his life easier in more subtle ways like bringing him tea and helping him with more paperwork than usual, but this time, she refused to ignore it. It was clear he was too stubborn to admit he needed to rest and someone had to look after him and make sure he didn’t kill himself.

Setting the remaining reports off to the side, (Y/N) stood from his couch and made her way over to her lover. Before he could react, (Y/N) leaned over and snatched the pen he held from his grasp, throwing it behind her so it could land randomly somewhere in the office.

“(Y/N)! What the hell?” Levi snapped, his voice raspy and filled with exhaustion.

“I’m tired of watching you work yourself to the bone. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

Levi shook his head, “(Y/N), I’m fine.”

(Y/N) crossed her arms, “Like hell you are. Now, stop being stubborn and step away from the desk.”

“Don’t forget who you’re talking to, (Y/N),” Levi said darkly with a huff. “I am still your captain.”

“Well you won’t be anymore if you overwork yourself to death,” (Y/N) retorted. “And don’t forget who you’re talking to. I’m your girlfriend, which means it’s my job to worry about your wellbeing, especially if you refuse to do it yourself.”

Levi glared at her, but he was secretly touched by her sentiment. It had taken him a while to get used to the feeling of being loved and cared for, but once he had, he had grown greedy for it. He never showed it, still uncomfortable at the idea of being vulnerable around others, even his own lover, but he would always love how she doted on him, how she made him feel like he was worth something. That if he died, he wouldn’t just be mourned because humanity had lost its strongest soldier. He would be missed, remembered for the man he was rather than just how society had painted him to be. His eyes roved over her usually kind face, now twisted into a frown as she glared right back at him, refusing to back down without getting him the rest he needed. He honestly didn’t know why he was being so stubborn, he knew she was right, but he still struggled to accept her help, almost feeling weak for succumbing to something as trivial as a migraine.

As if she could read his mind, her gaze softened and she let out a gentle sigh. Moving around his desk to stand behind him, she leaned down and laid her hands on his shoulders, squeezing and massaging the muscles with her firm fingers. Levi was embarrassed by how quickly he reacted to her touch, immediately leaning back into her grip. His head lolled against the back of his chair and his eyes closed in bliss, temporarily ignoring the blistering pain in his head.

“Feel good?”

Levi hummed.

“See? Accepting help doesn’t make you any less of a man. Getting the rest and relaxation your body needs doesn’t make you weak by any means. Everyone needs the proper energy to take care of themselves, you especially. You’re too important to lose, especially to something as pointless as self neglect. So please stop working tonight, for me.”

Levi was silent for a moment, fighting with himself over the urge to finish his work anyway or fall victim once again to your undeniable charms as well as the insistent demands of his own body. Just as he was about to open his mouth, ready to attempt one last refute, a fresh wave of pain washed over him, making him gasp. A hand flew to his head, his teeth gritted in pain as his very skull seemed to throb. Through the haze, he vaguely felt (Y/N)’s hands tighten on his shoulders and knew there was no way he was going to get out of this. Once she had made up her mind about something, there was no changing it.

For once, Levi didn’t fight it when (Y/N) guided him to stand from his chair, biting his tongue to keep from gasping in pain as the sudden movement made his head split. He stumbled and started to fall, only to be caught by his lover, the strong woman bearing his entire weight as if he were nothing but a feather. A light blush made its way to his cheeks despite the pain that was starting to make his vision blur. He  knew he shouldn’t be shocked, she was in his Special Operations squad for a reason, but she never failed to impress him with her unexpected strength. (Y/N) walked slowly and carefully, making sure to avoid jostling him as she made her way to his bedroom. Nudging the door open, (Y/N) picked her way over to his bedside and pulled the sheets back before gently easing him onto the mattress, ignoring his protests when she began stripping him of his uniform.

His blush got a little darker as she worked on removing his clothes. Their relationship wasn’t new, but it hadn’t been very long either, and they still hadn’t crossed the boundary of physical intimacy yet. He knew she had no ill intent, but it still didn’t stop him from feeling relatively shy at the thought of her seeing him without his uniform.

(Y/N) felt butterflies in her stomach with each article she removed, but she shoved down her embarrassment and awe at his breathtaking form and focused on making him as comfortable as possible. She stopped once he was finally stripped to his boxers and neatly folded his uniform to place on the lone chair in the corner of his room, knowing it would bother him all night if it was thrown around half-hazardly.

Levi’s soft groan of pain brought her back to his bedside, and she quickly shimmied the blankets out from under his legs so she could throw them over his body, taking the extra time to tuck him in as comfortably as possible. As soon as he was nestled beneath the soft blankets, (Y/N) moved to his bathroom to get him some water, holding the glass to his lips for a few sips to help lessen some of the pressure in his head. Finally, she left to grab a small bucket to place beside him just in case he had to vomit in the middle of the night, knowing it might be difficult for him to reach the bathroom if he was dizzy and disoriented.

Placing her hands on her hips, (Y/N) surveyed her work, nodding once she was satisfied with his set up. Flashing him a sweet smile, (Y/N) turned for his bedroom door, her eyes soft and full of love as she watched him.

“Goodnight, Levi, I hope you feel better,” She said, opening the door and stepping through it.

“(Y/N).”

(Y/N) paused, her hand on the edge of the door as she peered back around to look at him, “Yes?”

“Stay with me. Please?” Levi asked, the blush on his cheeks getting even darker as he averted his gaze.

(Y/N)’s eyes widened in shock. She and Levi had been dating for nearly six months and yet he had never asked her something like this. She knew they were going at a slow pace, she knew Levi struggled with expressing his emotions, but she had always been content to go at whatever pace he was comfortable with, knowing he was still very new to the idea of a relationship. It had taken him several weeks for him to even get to the point of treating her differently than the other soldiers on his squad. 

She had never doubted his love for her, even when her friends had seemed skeptical in the beginning. She could see it in his eyes, but it had taken him a long time to be able to express those hidden feelings physically and vocally. She didn’t mind, she was fine with being patient and had waited for him to come to her, allowing him to have the time he needed to find his words and indulge in discovering his own love language. It was fun in a way, a little adventure between the two of them. It made every new sign of affection from him mean so much more than normal; every head pat, every kiss, every hug, making her feel as if she had just conquered the world.

It was because of those experiences that she was able to understand the importance of this moment. Her shy, reclusive, severely touch-starved boyfriend asking her to share his bed with him, exposing that vulnerability to her, albeit innocently, was a huge step in a new direction for him.

The thought made her nervous, not wanting to impose on his personal space or make him uncomfortable with her, but it also filled her with immense pride. He trusted her and only her to be around him when he was at his most vulnerable.

Swallowing her anxiety, (Y/N) nodded and shut the door again. Picking her way across the room, she quietly maneuvered her way to his bedside and slid beneath the covers beside him, trying to make as little noise and movement as possible to avoid causing more pain to his head.

Levi grunted a little as he shifted onto his side, facing away from her while she reached over to the bedside table to diffuse the lantern flame, bathing the room in darkness. Levi felt (Y/N) shift until she was laying on her side, facing his broad back, the covers pulled up to her shoulders.

“Goodnight Levi,” (Y/N) murmured.

“Mmm, goodnight,” Levi muttered, the pain in his head coupled with her soothing presence making him drowsier than normal.

(Y/N) smiled when she felt Levi fall asleep, his light snores and gentle breathing filling the otherwise silent air. She was glad he was finally getting some rest, but she knew she would be up for a while. She had had insomnia for as long as she could remember and knew it would be a long time before her brain would shut up long enough for her to get some rest. It was that shared trait between her and the Captain that had allowed her to get close to him in the first place, late night talks with tea leading to moonlit confessions on the roof of their headquarters.

(Y/N)’s smile widened at the memory, and how uncharacteristically nervous the normally stoic Captain had been when he had turned to her that fateful night and practically spat his feelings at her. She knew how hard it had been for him to admit them to her, and she had a small inclination to say that Erwin and Hanji may have been the ones to force him to do it, but that just made the memory all the more special to her. It showed her that he really did care for her, that he was willing to lower his carefully structured walls and bare his battered heart for her alone. It was why it didn’t bother her that he didn’t shower her with compliments. It was why she was never disheartened by his lack of physical or vocal affection. 

She’d be lying if she claimed she didn’t get a little lonely sometimes, and she couldn’t say she didn’t sometimes wish he could call her beautiful without hesitation, but she didn’t let it get to her. She loved him, and she knew he  loved her, so she’d wait for however long it took for him to grow comfortable around her, even if that meant she had to reel back her own feelings for a while.

Closing her eyes, (Y/N) was trying to coax sleep to take her when a sudden quiet murmur made her open them again. She waited, wondering if she had imagined the noise, when she suddenly heard it again. It was soft, and very quiet, but it was no doubt the voice of her lover, muttering something. She knew there was no way he was talking to her, he would’ve spoken louder than that if he was. 

The thought made her stifle a surprised giggle as she suddenly realized that Levi was talking in his sleep. She knew he’d be embarrassed if he found out she was listening, but she couldn’t help herself, her ears straining to try to catch some of the words. Silence settled over the room once more for a moment, nothing but the distant sound of the wind blowing outside filling the air, but soon enough, the murmurs started back up again, more recognizable words spilling from his lips the longer he talked to himself.

“No…, that’s not…mmm.”

“S-Stop that!”

“Mmph, no… I’m not...”

(Y/N) stifled another laugh as Levi started getting feisty in his sleep, turning to face her with a slight frown marring his features. His eyes were still firmly shut, confirming that he was indeed sleep talking, but the argument he was having with some unknown person in his head seemed to only be getting more intense.

“That’s not true!” Levi suddenly shouted, his voice raspy and muffled by his pillow.

“What’s not true, Levi?” (Y/N) whispered, deciding to tease him a bit. She knew he would probably be annoyed later, but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, she wasn’t about to pass it up.

“That’s not true.” Levi said again, his voice lowering in volume but hardening in tone, “Of course I show affection!”

(Y/N) brought a hand to her mouth and bit her knuckle, trying to keep her giggles from waking him up, “Oh, really? When do you usually show affection?”

Levi’s frown deepened and his jaw tightened, “I show affection when I’m with (Y/N).”

(Y/N) blinked, not expecting her name to come up in this midnight conversation. Lowering her hand from her lips, (Y/N) sat up to rest on her elbows, her eyes sparkling as she looked down at her sleeping lover.

“How do you show (Y/N) affection?” she asked, curious to see what he would say.

Levi let out a quiet, defeated sigh, his frown disappearing into an expression that looked unexpectedly like guilt.

“Listen, Hanji, I…” Levi trailed off for a while, the air thick with (Y/N)’s curiosity. So, it was Hanji he was talking to in whatever dream he was having. The thought spiked her curiosity even further, making her heart pound in her chest. It wasn’t uncommon that Levi would be annoyed with Hanji, so the argument at the beginning of his dream made sense, but he almost never talked about his relationship with anyone but Erwin, not trusting the energetic scientist to keep from teasing him and spreading rumors about them. She knew they were together of course, that was impossible to hide from her, but he always denied her details whenever she asked.

“Shit… I… I can’t believe I’m about to do this…” Levi muttered, a slight scowl reappearing on his features.

“Do what?” (Y/N) whispered.

Levi took a deep breath, his fingers curling around the edge of the sheets to squeeze in his fist, as if he was being forced to do something unpleasant, “Hanji, I need your help.”

(Y/N) had to fight to hold back a genuinely shocked gasp. Even when he was just dreaming, she had never imagined in her entire life that she would hear that sentence come out of his mouth. She suddenly wondered if she was the one dreaming, and this was just some elaborate scene her brain had made up.

“Um, sure, Levi, what do you need help with?”

A deep breath rattled from the depths of his chest, “How do I... show (Y/N) proper affection?”

“What do you mean?” (Y/N) asked breathlessly.

Levi grunted in his sleep, his knees rising beneath the sheets to curl against his stomach. “Do I really have to explain it, Hanji?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, you idiot,” Levi grumbled, “I just… I just don’t know how to show her how much she means to me. I’m so fucking lucky to have her. She’s been so patient, so amazing, never complaining about my inability to be romantic, but I’m tired of being unable to be there for her. I’m tired of looking around at the other couples around us and seeing how loving they are, only to know that I can’t do the same for her. I’ve had enough of treating her like a normal cadet on my squad. She deserves so much more than that, she is so much more than that. She shows me every single day that I am loved and cared for, and it makes me sick that I struggle to do the same.”

(Y/N) had her hand back over her mouth again, this time to stifle her sobs instead of her chuckles. Her eyes were lined with silver as she gazed down at the love of her life, her heart thundering pleasantly in her chest. While it was true that she had never had a problem with waiting for him to get more comfortable with her, she couldn’t deny the feelings of elation she was feeling with every word that poured from his mouth. It didn’t matter that he was asleep, it didn’t matter that he didn’t even know he was talking to her. All that mattered was that he was finally saying the things she had secretly burned to hear for months.

Levi sighed, “I just love her so damn much. She’s the woman of my dreams, and I don’t think I can go one more day without her knowing that…”

Swallowing the sob that threatened to crawl past her lips, (Y/N) brushed his raven bangs to the side and leaned down to give him a sweet kiss on the forehead.

“Believe me, Levi. She knows.”

The small smile that appeared on his face made it impossible for (Y/N) to hold her tears back this time, the warm, salty liquid sliding down her cheeks to land with soft taps on her pillow. Despite the fact that his eyes were still closed, (Y/N) gave him a watery smile of her own and reached over to wrap an arm around his waist, pulling herself closer to his warm chest and curling into his body.

“I love you too, Levi,” she murmured before closing her eyes, the smile still on her face as she fell asleep easily for the first time in years.

____________________

Levi could feel himself slowly being dragged back into consciousness, but for the first time since he was a little boy, he didn’t want to wake up to the slightly more bearable hell of the day. Usually, what little sleep he got was riddled with nightmares, screams of his comrades as they either begged him to save them or blamed him for their early deaths. He was usually plagued with dark, bloody thoughts and visuals that made him wake in a cold sweat, his stomach swirling so violently he was occasionally reduced to emptying the remnants of his dinner in the middle of the night. He never enjoyed being tired or facing the titans day after day, but at least the real world kept him busy with training and paperwork, keeping his demons at bay.

But today felt different. He felt warm, comfortable, as if the sun’s rays were cuddling him in a warm nest. He felt content and unafraid of closing his eyes for the first time in years. A part of him was suspicious of the change, tempted to open his eyes and find out what was making him feel so comfortable, but the bigger part of him didn’t want to leave this unexpected bliss so soon, afraid that opening his eyes would chase away the feeling before he could truly relish in it.

He sighed through his nose, nuzzling his pillow in an attempt to coax his mind back into the warm embrace of sleep when a sudden movement against his bare chest made his eyes snap open, ready to rip someone to shreds. His stinging words immediately died on his tongue when his silver gaze snapped to the (h/c) haired lump nestled against his skin. Ah, that explained why he had slept so well, even with a migraine, which had thankfully disappeared overnight.

Levi couldn’t help the smile that curled at the edges of his lips, the look in his eyes softening as he watched his love sleep against him. An innocent, giddy sense of wonder filled him at the sight of her, his heart pounding in his chest. He had never had a woman fall asleep against him before, many people finding him too cold and standoffish to find comfort in him. But here she was, the most gorgeous woman in the world, cuddled up against him as if he were a warm pillow, her hair splayed out over his chest like tangled silk.

She was so fucking beautiful. He couldn’t get her out of his head. The past few months had been the best he had ever had, his life now full of love and happiness and soft laughter. As he stared at her, his heart about to burst out of his chest, Levi couldn’t help but reach out to her, his fingers brushing her cheeks ever so softly, making his skin tingle with how soft she was.

His hand immediately drew back when she scrunched her nose cutely, her eyes squeezing shut as her mouth opened in a wide yawn. A part of him felt sorry for waking her, but as she opened her glittering (e/c) eyes to look up at him, the other part of him felt more satisfied at seeing her cute expression.

“Good morning,” (Y/N) mumbled, her sleepy, raspy voice sending a jolt of something electric down his spine.

“Morning,” Levi said, unaware that his own deep, husky morning voice was making (Y/N)’s stomach flutter with early morning butterflies.

“Sleep well?” (Y/N) asked.

“Surprisingly, yes,” Levi said, moving his arms from around her body so he could stretch them above his head with a satisfying crack.

“It sure sounded like it.”

Her comment made him pause and glance at her, the mischievous look in her eye making a wave of nervousness course through him.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” (Y/N) purred, causing his anxiety to spike, “I was just unaware that you talk in your sleep.”

Levi froze. He talked in his sleep!? He didn’t know he did that! He supposed it was normal for him to not remember the event, and he had never slept beside another person in his life, aside from his mother when he was a toddler, so it made sense that he had been unaware of this unexpected habit, but that didn’t erase the anxiety that swirled in his gut.

“O-Oh?” Levi asked softly, cursing his stutter.

“Mm hm,” (Y/N) said, her smile only widening as she watched his reaction, her eyes glittering playfully.

“Um, what did I say? It better not have been something stupid,” Levi muttered, trying to fight the blush that threatened to rise to his cheeks. He almost didn’t want to know, but with the way she was smiling at him, it looked as if he had said some revealing things.

“Well, you were arguing with Hanji for most of it,” (Y/N) said, watching with a deviant smile as her boyfriend relaxed, an obvious expression of relief on his face.

“Tch, I do that when I’m awake, idiot.”

“You also said you were head over heels in love with Eren Jaeger.”

(Y/N) couldn’t hold back her laugh when Levi started choking on his own breath, his sharp inhale of shock getting caught in his throat.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” (Y/N) said with a cackle, smirking even more at the dirty glare he threw her as he coughed, “It was a joke, I promise!”

“Fucking hell, brat…” Levi muttered, covering his face with his arm.

“You did call me the woman of your dreams, though,” (Y/N) said quietly once her giggles had subsided, a light blush dusting her cheeks despite herself as she recalled the wonderful memory.

Levi didn’t choke this time, but his eyes did go wide, his lips parting in shock. He knew she was being serious. Immediately, Levi was filled with a confusing blend of joy and horror, happiness that he had finally gotten the chance to tell her his true feelings about her, even in sleep, and horror that she had found out in the way she did, while he was unconscious and having an argument with Four Eyes about god knows what. Levi couldn’t fight the blush that rose to his cheeks, his skin stained red as embarrassment washed over him.

He didn’t know what to say. He was floundering, trying to think of something, anything to either confirm his sentiment or try to divert the conversation, but nothing was coming to mind. His brain was blank, nothing but the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears overwhelming his senses. Suddenly, a soft hand grasped his wrist, gently tugging on his arm until he had removed it from covering the silver eyes she loved so much. Leaning over him, her eyes were glazed with unshed tears as she locked her gaze with his, showing him all of the emotions she couldn’t put into words before leaning down to kiss him.

He unintentionally let out a groan when her lips met his, his tongue immediately reaching out to dance with hers as they tasted each other, slow and sweet and loving. When they finally parted, both of them gasping for breath and smiling as if they had just found the way to world peace, Levi saw that a few tears had escaped to stain (Y/N)’s cheeks.

“I love you, Levi Ackerman. I love you for you and all of your little quirks, and I always will.”

Levi felt himself get choked up, but he swallowed past the lump in his throat, focused on making the goddess in his arms feel the same way she made him feel.

“I l-love you too, (Y/N), y-you really are the woman of my d-dreams.”

Levi hated that he stuttered, but he let out a sigh of relief as he finally managed to push the words past his lips. (Y/N) choked out a joyful sob as pride filled her chest like a roaring lion, making her skin glow as if she were something from a fairytale, taking Levi’s breath away. Sitting up, Levi met her half way for another soul-searing kiss, his heart calling out her name as he allowed himself to relax with the kiss, melting into her affection as if he were dipping into a warm sauna, his heart throbbing for the woman who was his entire world.

[yanderecandystore]

i ment dominick im so sorry!

Oh!

Alright boo, sorry for the misunderstanding! I was afraid I was missing something or that I forgot one of my own character's names

👉🏻👈🏻

A headcanon for Dominick would be easier for me to write for- But because you said just Dominick I believe I could do for both Real and "Other" Dominick.

I think it would be more fun!

TW/Tags: in case any of you are confused [🖤🧵✂️] // this is basically just general headcanons // eh, the lore is wonky // feeling awful sorry // not as in-depth as I wish it was, sorry //

I suppose this is going to be just general headcanons, boo [Yandere!Coraline OCS x Reader - Headcanon]:

→❤️Real Dominick🌲:

A chill dude for the most part. Although containing some unresolved abandonment issues, he tries to act as nothing is bothering him for "the sake of others". At least that's what he tells himself every time.

Dominick tries his best to be a peacemaker amongst the group, but even he can't deny that this is a tiring job that doesn't end up being fruitful for most of the time.

Dominick is just as touch-starved as he is dependent on others, the thought of living on his own and not being able to at least see his loved ones for a long period of time drives him insane. He really wants to seem emotionally strong and confident, but deep down he is aware that one day he'll have to open up about how he really feels.

He has met Richard and Vivian a lot sooner than you did, but honestly he doesn't know how he has become their friends in the first place. He always felt very distant from them, granted that he met them at a time of need, when he felt vulnerable for having no friends to be with, but also because of how different their personalities were to each other.

Don't get him wrong, he really likes them, he really does! He just doesn't vibe with them as hard as he wishes he could, but he knows that it would be impossible considering how they were literally glued on each other- He knew about them dating or at least liking each other way before you came into the scene.

Or more accurately, you came BACK into the scene. How oddly coincidental, you know his friends but you don't know they're friends with him, or if you did, you just tried to ignore it to this day. Now that you two live together, it would be very hard to ignore your presence.

He thinks you want nothing to do with him, nothing at all- So if you ever actually try to be more friendly with him he won't really see it as a good thing- You had ignored him for twelve years, and suddenly you two are, well, here!

His mind keeps making him feel terrible about himself, keeps making feel odd and awkward about your relationship- Or lack thereof. You look so different but act like the same as what he used to know you for, so anxious and so awkward with everything and everyone but still trying their best to be social.

He changed so much in comparison, from a sickly frail little boy looking for someone to be his protective shield, to a man way too big for his own good- His appearance although being ideal to him, makes it harder for him to interact with others who find him frightening.

Real Dominick would take a lot longer to actually fall in love with you again, considering that his old crush on you has turned more into a scar instead of a good old memory, but when he reopens that wounds to receive new ones, I hope you'll be ready for a awkward gentle giant having a awkward crush on you, while also having a couple of breakdowns where he blames you for causing him to feel this way, how neat!

→🖤Other Dominick🧵 (Male Beldam):

Other Dominick true personality is as foreign to others as it is to himself, as he had forgotten who he was and where he came from a long time ago.

Dominick is 100% not his real name, but it's not like he remembers what he used to be called by originally, although two names seem to stand out amongst the others- Dominick and Ernest.

Being called Dominick is- Not exactly the best for him. It feels almost annoying, as if it was an annoying name, something he should never be called as. Ernest on the other hand, feels- Fitting, but extremely depressing. So as much as being called "Other Dominick" may be a very annoying name for him, being called Ernest feels like being stabbed in the gut, so it's kinda obvious which is the best in this situation.

He doesn't know why being called Ernest gives him so much anxiety, and he doesn't remember what significance this name could have to him and his past life. Other Dominick has used so many different faces and names, just to lure the naive and desperate to his deadly embrace, yet he can barely remember the name of the fools he had attracted to his fabricated lie.

Maybe you're just a recent case, a new "fool" that found their way into his house without permission, and by doing so he has all the right to trap you in his web- After all, you're the intruder here, right? Yet oddly enough, you don't really feel like the others who had come here, you have sparked interest in his empty heart.

He notices that the energy that comes from you is a lot more satisfying than the others, at least for now, you have been able to subconsciously feed him for a longer period than the others, and by doing so he is more willing to let you live for longer, at least until you start to not love him as much, or start to test his patience beyond his limit.

His true form looks nothing like the "Dominick" you so lovingly looks up to, he may be just as tall, but he is much more thinner than the original, his long arms reminding you more of a death trap than a warm embrace. Not that he won't be gentle with you, for now.

Oddly enough, he doesn't take much to fall for you as much as Dominick does- The loneliness that he is accustomed with is not exactly the healthiest lifestyle for himself, so don't be surprised if he is already mixing his own hunger for attention to his very real hunger for naive hearts like yours.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Hello everyone, is good to see y'all again.

I've been away because of school work and family issues, and I can't lie that it has gone a bit more crazier this last few days. I went through a breakup and I'm currently struggling with the aftereffects of it-

I'm really sorry for the long wait, and for always closing the inbox out of nowhere, but I'm afraid to say this will probably keep happening a lot, I still need to take care of so many things-

Anyway, is good to see y'all again!

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E111 (Redux! Oct. 13, 2020)

Gooooood evening good evening good evening, all! I started the VOD late for this recap and somehow the first four or so minutes of the show have a Twitch audio copyright claim, so I am reduced to only reading Brian's lips when he asks if we're on the internet. Hilariously, Marisha's background room is a comfy-looking blue/gold fabric wall with a ceramic colorful abstract lamp and a yellow silk scarf over the lampshade, and Taliesin's is an industrial looking games room in grey and black with multiple monitors, overhead speakers, and mysterious metal fixtures behind him. What a treasure this group is, honestly.

Tonight's guests: Marisha Ray & Taliesin Jaffe, discussing episodes 110 and 111 again. I wildly speculate once more about what might have caused their absence: jury duty? Sam appearing on The Masked Singer? Something to do with the animated show? One day, we’ll know, one day... (One day this “copyrighted audio” section will come back from the wars, too. Ugh!) Finally! The audio comes back to reveal Brian discussing the endless reality of digital meetings and Marisha talking about (I think) her glare-reducing glasses she’s wearing. Welcome to the New Age (welcome to the New Age, to the New Age).

Announcements: Marisha suggests checking out Dimension20, another live tabletop gaming group, which premieres live on Wednesdays at 4pm (CollegeHumor). 

Brian immediately wants to know how they feel about the revelation that Molly is alive. Taliesin’s personal reaction: he “knows some things” he can’t talk about and is aware of several possibilities that might be going on, but had a sneaking suspicion that there would not be a body for them to find. He says it’s almost all there for anyone to see in past material. Marisha’s personal reaction: she just wants to know how she’s doing with her theories, & was trying to block Tal’s face out deliberately as she was going off on her theories in the last episode. Taliesin says he thought her ideas were pretty good!

Cad has no clue what to think - it’s like listening to your friends talk about Buffy. Marisha thought it was a 50/50 Molly would still be there, but Beau had no idea. Not that it mattered, because as soon as Matt went through with it the reveal still blew their minds. Tal laid out his plans for the character with Matt during Campaign One (towards the end) after they all got their VM tattoos.

It is a “horrifying and gross” thing to dig up a body, and Beau was pretty reluctant to do it. Tal, as Cad: “Sometimes dead’s better.” The moral quandary of trying to speak with a dead friend was very different here than the frequent occasions they used the spell in C1.

Taliesin says his poker face is very bad, so it’s easier for him to over-react and let it all play out. The only other player he can see very easily from his place in their current setup is Travis, and because he knows Travis doesn’t watch TM, tweet, or participate in social media, he admits he thoroughly enjoyed watching Travis freak out at his freaking out. He says he only knew about 20% of what Matt described at the end of that episode. He was picking things to mug to increase Travis’s surprise. I love this so much.

Taliesin provided the table left leg shake; Travis provided table right. Ha!

Beau is really accepting her role in the Cobalt Soul. It’s good when “as a person, you feel like you can settle into your calling. Sometimes you can do more from the inside than fighting from the outside.” It’s a mirrored but opposite path of Keyleth from C1; Beau felt like she was too good for her duty, while Keyleth thought she wasn’t good enough.

Caduceus is not a big believer in jumping to conclusions. He does have an idea/notion of the “city of the undead” and thinks all this necrotic energy must come from somewhere, and wonders if this is the “capital of anti-death.” He’s willing to believe whatever he sees. This is one of the few things that trigger a bit of loathing and disgust in him. It was terrifying that the Wildmother didn’t know anything.

Beau is pretty confident in her Charlie Day impression laying-out-the-research last episode. She enjoyed taking the things that were known & extrapolating around them; this is a huge facet of Marisha’s own personality and she really enjoys it, so she built a character this time that would allow that kind of puzzle-solving. It’s also why she repeatedly notes when Beau journals, so she can avoid metagaming. Trent’s mention of Vess Durogna’s tomb raiding was completely circumstantial, and the only reason she’d made the connection to the Tombtakers was because she’d recently reviewed those notes for a separate unannounced project. Sometimes she tries to make connections and Matt is like, “It was...just descriptive. Just flavor. The curtains were red...” and she has to discard a paragraph of notes. She feels like it’s still something they have to do because of “look at what he does! Look! It’s totally valid!”

Cosplay of the Week: @kitsunstudios with a gorgeous Caduceus with a very intricate silk vest.

Caduceus’s takedown of Trent! One of my favorite moments in the entirety of C2. Taliesin felt Trent was an asshole; Caduceus felt sorry for him because of how dumb he thought he was. Caduceus’s response was "this is the dumbest man I’ve ever met in my life. He’s so dumb! Is nobody going to tell this guy how dumb he is? Oh, they’re all freaked out. Somebody needs to tell this guy he’s an idiot before somebody gets hurt.” (Marisha: “Before?”) Tal says it was the product of several years of therapy and many drunk conversations with Whitney Moore. It was from a genuine place of concern from Caduceus. “How are you allowed to have this much power and be that dumb?”

Brian loved how funny it was to watch everyone tiptoe around Trent and then Caduceus bulldoze through the end of the meal.

Taliesin: “Damage doesn’t make you interesting or better. It’s not what makes you good. Character isn’t found in damage. Just recovery.”

Brian & Marisha commiserate going through the stage where believing surviving something automatically made you a stronger person, better for the pain; instead it just meant you had to pick up the pieces after. Marisha talks about how strength through survival may be true for some people, but it shouldn’t be considered a necessity. Taliesin talks about how he used to think he had to be miserable to write. Brian talks about how believing he liked reading and writing miserable things only limited him for years.

Marisha feels it’s a C2 theme that almost all the PCs have someone trying to handwave or take credit for their accomplishments or explain their pain as being for their own good (Trent, Beau’s dad, Obann). She thinks it’s interesting to see all the various ways people try to take credit for your work/delegitimize you as a person. She loves that RPGs allow you to explore these odd moralities in interesting ways. The only way to fight it is to have a sense of your own self-worth, which is a problem a lot of the M9 started with.

Caduceus likes everyone, and really likes people who appear to need role models (Eodwulf). “With the right friends and the right bar and the right attitude, I think he’d be okay. Come over here where it’s so much better. That seems like an exhausting friendship that you have there.”

Marisha loves the mix of personalities in the M9; Veth, Cad, & Jester were all “we kind of like them!” after the dinner, and she immediately made eye contact with Travis and they both shook their heads. She knows Beau has to go along with it for Caleb’s sake for now, but she & Fjord are pretty sus of Trent’s proteges.

Beau is less concerned about Artagan’s relationship to Jester because “he showed his ass--she’s less worried about Jester now because a little of the magic is gone.” It’s a little like becoming an adult and realizing your parents are also just adults & human. Caduceus wasn’t suspicious of the Traveler for a long time until they got to the island. Aside: Taliesin loves the pantheon in D&D. “The notion of attempting to apply common Western conceptions of religion to a world where you have a pantheon of interventionist gods as baseline makes no sense to me. Everyone admits that every other god is there and doing shit; it has more in common with ancient Rome than anything else.” Now that he knows it was a con, he feels the wind had been taken out of it. He does have a sense that Jester’s gotten back together with an ex: “I hope that I’m really happy for you.” They’re both interested to see how Jester navigates the new relationship.

My internet goes out, of course. I panic for a second, thinking I’ve lost everything above, but all is well! Thanks, Form History Control addon!

Marisha loved punching Artagan, but regretting rolling so poorly. “I miss violence.” Dani lets us know it’s been about four episodes since the last battle.

There’s no way the Cobalt Reserve doesn’t have a single document on the Eyes of Nine. Beau believes “there are no real secrets” because people are just bad at not writing things down. For there to be no information at all seems really suspicious for her.

Fanart of the Week: @oddalchemist on twitter with some awesome Beau conspiracy red-thread boards overlaid a distant shadowy Molly walking away.

Caduceus feels a little guilty for really enjoying his time right now with the M9 and not wanting to go home. He’s starting to suspect that he’s going to go home very different than when he left. “He has the softest problems. I don’t know if I want to move back in with Mom & Dad.”

Beau is trying to get comfortable with the idea of being happy. Jester is probably Beau’s first real best friend & one of the first healthy female friendships she’s ever had. As long as she still has Jester in her life, she doesn’t care. For Yasha... “At the end of the day, Beau is a lonely person and has always been a lonely person. And I think you kinda reach this point where once you’re not lonely anymore, you can kind of come out of the fog and realize that was horrible! And terrifying! And is even more terrifying now that I know what I could have, and I don’t want to go back to that. At the end of the day Beau doesn’t want to be lonely anymore. There’s always been that flirtation with Yasha, but everyone had to figure their own shit out. And now it feels like it’s coming out a little bit of that haze, maybe this actually could be...” There are a lot of ways they complement each other & are good-different from each other. Marisha believes people can be attracted to more than person at once.

Caduceus doesn’t think nature turned against him on Rumblecusp, it was just a reality of nature being dangerous and violent. “He has a complex relationship with nature.” He doesn’t expect special treatment.

Thoughts on the mansion: “Man, it’s nice to be seen.” Marisha: “I don’t know how I ended up becoming the Scanlan of this campaign, but I’m living for it.” It felt like an echo of “I’m better for having known you.” They compare Marisha taking specific notes on the campaign to Liam taking specific notes on people’s favorite tapestries, comics, etc.

They talk about missing theme parks and daydream a park version of the mansion in CritRoleLand. It’s lovely.

Taliesin never expected Divine Intervention to work; he just wanted to roll some dice. He’s still processing what he saw/heard. They all agree it was very useful in the Vokodo fight.

Vilya! Marisha: “Ah! Ah! Ah!” As a player, Marisha was so deep in Beau’s eyes she didn’t pick up it was Vilya at first (especially since Matt really emphasized they should not be looking for C1 NPCs). Marisha’s brain melted. She bawled her eyes out on the ride home after that episode. Right after it ended, Laura told Marisha “Keyleth finally gets her happy ending,” and it makes Marisha emotional again since Keyleth’s story ended so bittersweetly. She talks about the very real feelings of “just wanting them to be happy, though!” She went back and listened to all her old Keyleth playlists. Everyone was teary after the episode. “Everyone has these 100% real memories of being these characters and having these good times.”

And that’s that for that! Thanks for your patience, all, and is it Thursday yet?

[mittensmorgul]

Hi, I have a question, and I hope it would be interesting for you too... Could we talk about angel's wings and feathers?..

I always thought that angel's wings were a part of their true form, a kind of energy which we can only see as a shadows or electric sparks or ash or something like this.

And I didn't think that it could be a real wings with feathers as bird's. Until, while rewatch, I've noticed that angel's feather were mentioned in SPN at least twice (maybe you've noticed more?):

1) In 8.12 when Henry Winchester time travels he uses an angel feather in spell. And then Dean tells that Henry stole an angel feather from the trunk of the Impala. So feathers are reall??? Why did the Winchestets keep the feather in the trunk of the Impala and where they get it? (ok, maybe they found it in the bunker)

2) In 12.13 Sam uses a white feather in spell returning Gavin back in time (we know this spell needs an angel feather)

So now we can see how the real angel feather looks like???

Does that mean that the angel's wings can be presented in physical world like a real wings with feathers and this is not fanfiction? I like this idea so much.

I think that the creators of the show didn't let us to see it, as many other great things, that is sad...

I would really like to know your thoughts about this.

(Sorry for my bad english, it is not my native language...)

Hi there! First off, your English is fine! (lol it’s my native language, and I just typed it “Inglish” by accident, so you’re already doing better than I am :’D)

ETA: DON’T REBLOGGY THIS YET. I forgotted something that @thayerkerbasy just reminded me of, and I’m editing this post... brb... okay NOW YOU CAN REBLOGGY!)

As far as I know, those are the only times in canon we ever see or hear mention of an angel feather, and both times it’s for the same exact spell. They reference that it’s Henry’s spell when they use it again in 12.13, but make no mention in dialogue of it being an angel feather. Yet Sam had a whole jar of fluffy little pin feathers, so the assumption is that they’d been collecting them for a while (unless those were either found in the Men of Letters’ spell ingredient stockpile when they moved into the bunker, or otherwise given to them by Cas at some point).

It’s weird, because they seem like a very limited commodity, especially after the angels fell and their wings all burned up. Even after Cas got his original grace back, his wings never seemingly recovered. When we did finally see his wing prints in 12.23, they were still... not healthy... So my thinking is that any spell that would require them will become impossible to cast when their current supply runs out. All the other angels-- at the end of the series-- were either dead or locked in Heaven with their broken wings. We never learned any of their fates. Maybe they were all rendered obsolete under the Heaven Remodel?

A little behind the scenes from the early days of SPN as a bonus, since it’s tangentially relevant:

When they were filming the very early episodes of SPN, they had a lot of choices to make about what to show us based on what their budget would allow them to portray. Think of an episode like Wendigo, 1.02. One thing I see people say often was that it was a shame we didn’t see more of the monster, but only saw like... bushes shaking, or a vague form moving through the underbrush, or a blur. They made a stylistic choice right there to keep it within budget.

The options they faced were showing us a “dude in a rubber mask” type monster and showing it more, versus one really terrifying shot of a Proper Monster™ dying in spectacular fashion. Rather than go full-on cheesemonster, they chose to leave most of it up to our imaginations, giving us glimpses or hints of the monster.

They went back and forth on this a bit over the years, attempting to show us more on occasion, but most of those times the audience reaction has been varying degrees of wtf... Think about some of the scenes where they attempted to give us more than a glimpse at the supernatural, or a blood splatter, or whatever. It didn’t always work well. Think: the wire fight from 13.23...

I mean, it took us until 11.14 to ever see an angel “flap away,” when we saw Casifer zap Dean off the exploding submarine.

For the most part, I appreciate the fact that they understood the limitations of their own budget and didn’t give angels cheap little wings just to be able to show them on camera. Over time, only being able to see them as shadows, or as char after the angel died, became part of the lore of the show.

I blame Adam Glass for writing that spell, because he probably thought it sounded cool or whatever, that it was effectively a throwaway line because no other spell they’ve ever used has required an angel feather as an ingredient, and in story it was only linked into this larger Men of Letters Legacy plot that in retrospect feels like Chuck tying up loose ends and putting previously “deactivated” plotlines back into play.

I do find it kind of interesting that both iterations of this spell (the second resurrected by Bucklemming) were both tied to Abaddon. Henry’s spell in 8.12 brought her into the story from the past, she eventually travelled to the much further distant past to bring Gavin into the present (presumably with her own power alone, no angel feather required), and then after she was killed, they used the spell to return Gavin to his own time. So in a a way, the spell was part of a closed narrative loop, never to be referred to again.

Kinda wild that we’d never heard of angel feathers being a thing for spells until we learn that Dean apparently had some just stashed in the trunk, though... :’D

As for how corporeal angel feathers are/were, they exist in the earthly plane enough to leave char marks when they burn, when an angel is killed, so they must always have had the potential to manifest physically. I can’t imagine they ever would’ve had a budget to show us anything more than what we usually saw, though. It did give them a LOT of flexibility over how exactly they presented them to us when they DID show us. And I can’t even imagine the suffering Misha would’ve endured as an actor spending all those years wearing some weird wing harness rig. It would’ve been... impractical. And the CGI the show could’ve afforded-- especially in earlier days-- would’ve been... bad...

But what they were able to show us? Was often awesome. Remember when Raphael showed off his wings in 5.03? LIGHTNING!

And when we finally did see actual corporeal-appearing wings in 8.23... it was Dramatique™

And for More CGI Is Sometimes A Bad Thing Science, please have the attempt at Michael’s “true form” from 14.01:

It’s kinda a super-letdown after AU!Michael’s previous shadow wing displays from 13.01, but more specifically from 13.22:

those... were... badass... 

Even the pre-wire-fight wing shadows on Dean were badass:

But if they’d tried to show us more of them, to make them move through action scenes for example, it would’ve been... bad...

So what we’re left with is the knowledge that there is some sort of corporeal element to wings that we simply can’t see most of the time, but clearly angels have the ability to show or hide them at will, even from other angels. Could it be an act of will on the part of the angel that manifests a bit of their grace in the form of a physical feather? Honestly, that’s the theory I’ve personally adopted toward canon. In fanfic, I’ve read tons of various headcanons about what angel wings are and how they function-- everything from “a manifestation of their true form” to “angels share a lot of traits with birds” to “an extension of their grace,” and everything in between.

I personally, in canon, like to think of it as akin to how they’ve used angel grace for other spells. I mean, when we recall that angels haven’t been on Earth much for the last few thousand years (aside from at least a couple of known incidents where angels interfered with humanity, like Ishim and Company in 12.10, for example, and the presumptive extension that the Men of Letters knew of the existence of angels and likely summoned one up a time or two the same way Lily Sunder had, giving one explanation for how Henry Winchester knew of this spell and had an angel feather to use for it, but also recontextualized when Lily Sunder taught us that humans can use their own souls to power spells in the same way angels used their grace... which sort of makes the notion of needing an angel feather AND his own soul to charge that particular spell in 8.12 a bit redundant unless Lily’s knowledge of angelic magic was more advanced than Henry’s... hrmpf.... so much tangent... back to the point)...

We did eventually learn of other spells that required an angel’s actual grace, not concentrated in the form of a feather. The Angel Fall Spell in 8.23 being the prime example. Metatron took ALL of Cas’s grace for that one, even if he didn’t use all of it for the spell and left a “fragment” (Metatron described it as “not a lot, but enough.”). 

ETA: HECK. I have 9.03 on the tv right now and it’s distractedly made me disgusted enough to have forgotten something that Thayer just reminded me of: Lucifer’s “fossilized feather” in 12.07. It held enough grace to restore and heal him after Rowena’s spell in 12.03 had degraded him. Which really only adds to the theory that “feathers” are simply bits of grace that have been rendered solid somehow, but that can be transformed back into grace as needed.

And then there was the Rift Spell for travelling to alternate universes that required archangel grace, as well as the time travel/ward breaking spell that Sam found in 11.14 that ALSO required archangel grace specifically. Would these spells have worked with an archangel “feather?” Possibly, if material feathers are somehow just crystalized bits of grace, but since we never got a full explanation in canon, and never even really saw corporeal feathery wings that dropped feathers or could be plucked, and never even had mention of corporeal feathers outside of their use in this single spell, it’s really up to our own interpretation. And I kind of like it that way, because that way we get to have fun little discussions like this one. :D

I know this isn’t a definitive answer, but it’s how it all makes sense to me, in the hand-wavey sort of way that all of canon works. :’D

[project-ohagi]

Keigo Takami ღ Hawks x Reader:

Buy me a coffee!! <3

[A/N]: Making an effort to keep these gender-neutral now, and to miss out trigger words where possible, but that being said...

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of Past Suicide Attempts, Suicide.

Light Manga Spoilers

----

Atop this building, the echoes of a life fraught with pain married the voice that demanded a permanent silence. Your thoughts were far from temporary, existing in the day-to-day and littering your heart with scars. They were the authority, final and absolute. But their origins, although rooted deep within the past...they weren't the reason you were here. Their influence was limited, overshadowed by a darker reality - something that compelled you, an innocent, to such an extreme...something that murdered your mind, gave it acquiesce to sit upon this rooftop, while the rain cascaded around. 'Twas the death of your heart, your home, your love...The heavens had opened, as if hearing your call, your plea for ascension. You had a future there, whereas here, on this lonely Earth, you did not.

Over the last few years, you'd slowly begun to phase out what seemed of little importance. First: intimate contact with anyone, be it friend, relative, acquaintance or stranger. Second: contact in all its forms. Third: the way to shirk responsibility and all trains of thought - sleep. The circles under your eyes were becoming quite prominent. And finally: food. You couldn't bear to set the table for one, so you didn't set it at all.

"Do you think I can reach the stars?" Your words were but whispers, void of a sprightly edge. You whispered to Keigo, as you had on occasions past. "'If kisses were stars, I would give you the sky'. Who was it...who said that? Well...it's true. I would give you the sky, without rhyme or reason, or even question...if only the angels would allow."

Keigo was the only one to whom you resolved to speak. His presence lingered in the halls of your home, in your place of employment, and everywhere you ventured. If a breath of cold air was of particular fancy, then Keigo's memory was certain to join. You still spoke, still vented...still cried, all to him. In life, he'd given you everything - every small part of him, for safekeeping. In death, he stole away your heart and soul.

"Life was easier with you here." You sighed, repeating the words like a mantra, as if they were your last. "It was better."

Of course, that was something he'd know, regardless of circumstance. Whether in life, death or rebirth...Keigo would've known. Leaving you behind, leaving you lost and broken, wandering this plain until your angels granted the courage you so desperately needed...it hadn't been a conscious decision. You'd never doubt that. Never. Not in a million years. You'd understood the pressure he was under, the ever-mounting workload and that...that job. He'd made it clear that to refuse would be outrageous. You'd known he didn't have a choice. And you'd never blamed him. Not once.

A tear slipped down your cheek, ghosting across the newly-formed smile, which was gentle in character but woven from the silver threads of sorrow. "I've...I've tried this before. I'm sure you know. I've just...I've never wished to live without you. I've tried, but it's hard...and I'm so tired."

Tried you had, when neither blistering summer nor frigid winter could trouble your mind. It was focused, always. And on occasion, you'd been saved, rescued by a hero who knew little of life's torment, and nothing of that with which you were afflicted. You hoped they'd never know, never discover everything wrong with life. You'd been thankful to them, for chasing away the Reaper. But nothing lasts forever, and everything that exists within the clutch of nature must eventually wither. Only this time...you prayed that no-one would save you. Left to your own devices, the path you chose was right. It must've been.

It could be the cure for this poisonous mixture of pain, grief and lassitude. "Can you...come back to me?" Your tears fell in no uniform manner, but you hadn't the energy to wipe them. They couldn't be seen by another being, and only you felt their heartache on your tongue. "...You can't. I know you can't. Can you try?...Please? I just want you back. I just...want you home."

Then maybe...maybe I wouldn't have to do this. Maybe I wouldn't have to hurt my family and my friends...maybe I'd have a place in this world, again. Maybe I'd feel like I mattered, like I felt with you.

But even if you begged all those blinking stars, all the gods and the angels in Heaven...you knew it wouldn't make a difference. Fate was written, after all - predetermined...and any effort to change it had thus fallen flat. Keigo always joked about his history, but the enduring memories of abuse and neglect must have caused his heart inordinate distress. He shared those memories with you, of course, though never in too thorough detail. You were glad for it - a sad life story at the expense of his current happiness was a trade you weren't ever willing to make. No true lover would.

Your mind cycled through each stage of your life, from childhood's hour to your teenage years, to meeting Keigo, to almost marrying him, to...to losing him. The look in your eyes was so distant, as though you wished to be anywhere but here. Well...you would be, soon. Everything prior to this, every failed attempt...they weren't failures, per say. You just hadn't been ready.

But now you were.

Any moment now, at your mind's instruction, you would wander to the edge of this building, and then...you would fall. After years of trial, of anguish and isolation...you would finally be free.

"I don't want to forget that plan we had, the future we mapped out for ourselves. Please tell me you remember it. Please tell me we can act on it." You whispered up at the stars, straining for any hint of response.

None came, and none ever would. It would've taken a miracle, preferably administered by an angel, over a demon. But certainties were things best saved for story books, and those who charted fate. Your legacy lay beside you, and though not carried away by the wind, the rain had served to dampen it. 'Twas a small note, ripped from a page. On it, you had inked words which might once have been imbued with a potent despair, but which now betrayed not an ounce of emotion. The ink had dripped. It wasn't a first draft; you had written it many times over, getting shorter and more concise, until it simply read:

This is no-one's fault. There is nothing tethering me to this life, any longer. Please accept that, alongside my apology: I'm sorry.

And that time, when you smiled...it was the very last time. "I'm ready to fall. I'll meet you shortly, Keigo."

[Word Count: 1115]

[mishapeesha]

hello friends! i have decided to start writing a fanfiction (although I am......not that experienced with writing, but I will trY)

anyways! the pairing is obviously deancas, and since I’ve just written the first chapter, the tags will be limited until I further develop the story. The rating will change if needed, trigger warnings will be added if necessary, and so on!

the summary: 

A package is mailed to Castiel Novak, a 27 year old with unknowingly very limited knowledge on a certain aspect of his life. It’s filled with what seems like hundreds of letters all to him, a single person. Memories and confessions of love are penned within those letters. As time goes on, he feels drawn to the person on the other end and sets out to find them – and the letter’s inevitable true destination that ties the final loose end in Castiel's life.

ao3 link!: 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28625316/chapters/70161738

i would really appreciate any feedback, or just boosting this would be pretty cool too! 

for anyone that doesn’t wanna read on ao3, chapter 1 starts below!

September 18th, 1992

           Castiel’s chest bounced as he jogged down the stairs aligned in a wide spiral, his eyebrow quirked up in confusion as his doorbell buzzed repeatedly with barely a second in between every ring. He winced at the harsh sound of it, noticing how military-like it was in the way that the alarm went off. It was always a task of his to get it changed, but he never got the chance to. Either because he didn’t feel like it, or because his memory disallowed him to remember something as unimportant as a doorbell.  

           “Coming!” He called out to whoever bothered to show up at his house so early in the morning. Castiel paused beside the bookcase placed beside his door, glancing at the mirror in order to adjust the loose strands of hair that spiked in different directions with the frantic brush of his fingers. He let out a sigh as his gaze shifted towards the reflection of the wall clock behind him, seeing that it was barely 7:05 am. Just as he turned to face the door, that annoying noise rang in his ears once more. Maybe one day he’d go through with that mental task of changing the buzz to something more audibly pleasant.

           His fingers wrapped around the metal doorknob, and a click emerged as he swung the door open, being immediately met with a man who he had never seen in his life. His eyes quickly scanned over the man, noticing that he was in uniform, so he classified him as harmless. What damage could a mailman do? Hand him a letter and give him a papercut? Though there was a look on the mailman’s face that Castiel couldn’t quite place. He was torn between thinking it was some sort of discomfort towards Cas personally, or just general exhaustion because it could just be that he was tired. There wasn’t really anything enjoyable about driving to several homes, handing gifts to so many people while barely surviving off of minimum wage and receiving nothing in return.

           “Castiel Novak?” The man asked, shifting in his spot momentarily as he held a medium sized box underneath one arm, and a clipboard in the other hand. Castiel took note that his name was Thomas after noticing the nametag attached to the pocket on the fabric of his blouse.

           “Yes, that’s me.” Castiel replied, opening the door slightly more after feeling more comfortable to do so. He furrowed his eyebrows as he looked past Thomas, wondering if anyone was following him, or if they were being watched. They seemed to be alone, so Cas stopped tapping his fingers against the wooden door, although he hadn’t realized that he began to do that in the first place. “Is there anything that you need of me?”

           “Well,” Thomas began with a nod. He cleared his throat and placed the clipboard in between his legs to use both of his hands, and then offered Cas the box he held. “We’ve had this in the office for a while now, but it was specified to be delivered on this day to this address, and to you.” He explained, biting his lower lip in what Cas took as some sort of minimal panic, or uneasiness. “The sender wishes to remain anonymous, however.” He added, as if it were nothing unusual.

           “Anonymous?” Castiel questioned and drew a frown onto his face. He shook his head and reverted back to closing the door, but he kept a smaller gap so that the two of them could still communicate. “I will not be accepting a box from someone who doesn’t wish that their identity is revealed. It could be anything, and I am not willing to risk my safety.” He deadpanned before he glanced down at the box, not trusting whatever was in it. Why would anyone refuse to mention their name unless they were someone dangerous and not to be messed with?

           Thomas stared at Cas for a few moments as he was now met with the confusion of what to do with the box now that the apparent receiver was blatantly rejecting it. He swallowed hard as an uncomfortable smile curled the corners of his mouth.

“Mr. Novak, I can assure you nothing that will hurt you is in this box. Not only is it very light, but it would also be a shame if this was thrown out. As I mentioned, this has been collecting dust in our office. It has been for the last four years.”

           Castiel froze at Thomas’ words, struck with surprise. He had absolutely no idea who sent the box, what was in the box, or why it was sent in the first place. Cas was Cas. The person he spoke to the most was his brother, and even then, he barely saw Gabriel to begin with. They spoke less and less as the years passed, and so Castiel was alone for the majority of the time. So, he couldn’t quite process how he had a package delivered to him, when he knew his brother barely had the energy to stop by his house for a quick hello. He was a generally distant individual. An outsider to himself, his family, and others.

This did not add up.

           “Four years you say?” He asked, tilting his head to the side as he looked between Thomas and the box, earning a nod in reply. He sighed in defeat and once again, opened the door. “You really can’t tell me who sent it? Surely you must know.” Cas said, raising his eyebrow as he finally decided to take the box from Thomas’ hold. “It isn’t heavy.” He pointed out in confirmation to what Thomas previously stated, now more so curious to know what he was sent rather than worried.

           “I’m not at liberty to say. I’m sorry.” Thomas responded and rubbed the back of his neck before he remembered to pull the clipboard from between his legs. “Could you sign this, please?”

           Castiel took the pen and scribbled a random signature on the piece of paper, nodding at Thomas who offered a small smile at Cas. “Thank you.” He murmured quietly, clutching the box to his chest.

“Of course. Have a good day.”

           “And you as well.”

           A creak erupted from the door as Castiel let it close on itself, and eventually the atmosphere fell back into silence. But suddenly, he became almost hyper-aware of his surroundings. He couldn’t tell whether it was his actual heartbeat that he could hear, or if he was overhearing some rhythmic beat from his neighbor’s home nearby. And he definitely grew irritated at the loud ticking sound of the clock on the wall that seemed to follow him as he dragged himself through the hallway to the living room.

           The walls seemed to follow his every movement, making Cas feel judged and uneasy. And just for a moment, a sense of guilt rose in him. There was no source for it, yet there was some inexplainable physical tug to what Cas held in his hands, allowing negative emotions to faintly flood into him. He was convinced that his thoughts echoed off those same walls, as any word spoken in his mind just sounded too intense and loud in his ears.

           Cas sat down on the couch, sinking into the mattress as he leaned forward to place the box on the coffee table in front of him. His bottom lip became a victim of his anxious habits where his teeth would peel at the loose, dry skin, drawing blood that lightly pooled into his mouth and presented a metallic taste.

           “What could you be?” He spoke out loud to himself, picking at the loose thread poking out of the couch. He exhaled and used his nails to tear off the tape sealing the box shut. It looked like an average box, which made any assumptions as to what could be inside completely impossible to Cas. It’s not like he expected a bomb to be inside, but he also didn’t expect a proper gift. So, then what? What made a box so big, yet so light at the same time? What was so important that it absolutely had to be sent to Cas four years later?

           Once he managed to tear the seals off, he took in a deep breath. He didn’t know what he would be getting himself into, and yet he knew there was absolutely no way he’d be able to keep himself from looking inside. So, before he knew it or could hesitate, the box was opened, revealing the last thing Cas would have expected.

Letters.

Lots of them.

           “What the hell..?” He breathed out, flipping the box over so that the letters scattered out across the table. His eyes widened in both confusion and shock, and he immediately reached to pick one up. He examined the envelope: Clean, neat, and numbered with a bold 30 on it that was also in the colour of purple. There was no stamp. There was no name. Just a singular number, and nothing more than that.

Or it would be nothing more if he decided to keep the envelopes tightly secured.

Curiosity killed the cat, didn’t it? Though at the same time, he really did have nothing to lose. A dance with death was the least of his current concerns.

By the look of things, it appeared as though there was a certain number of letters in the box, labeled from one to an unknown limit. For all that could be known, there could be fifty letters, a hundred, or a thousand. He doubted he’d read all of them, because what could possibly be so interesting that the writer thought it was imperative that Cas knew?

The bigger question was, who wrote them?

Castiel shuffled through the envelopes until he found the first numbered 1 in red. His mouth went dry, and his brain raced with questions that he had no answer to at all. He hated being blind to the truth, to be instead engulfed in a mystery, like his life was some sort of game. He wanted to know what was going on, and he wanted to know now. But given all that Cas was presented with, he knew it would be a long time before he knew what was actually going on. It could be days, weeks, months. All depending on how much Cas read, and how fast.

He fiddled with the letter in his hand, debating whether or not to open it. He had to. He could just read this one and throw the others out. And maybe he’d get the answers he needed in the first envelope, making it possible to ignore the others.

The paper ripped beneath his fingers, and soon enough, he held a paper in his hands. The first out of many.

Quickly, his eyes scanned over the words written, immediately blocking them out because he refused to jump too far in what was visibly so carefully put together. He wanted to take his time and appreciate the effort put into all of this. But he did take notice of the handwriting. It was a combination of neat and messy. Definitely readable, and a little too familiar. It was nice, simply put. But Cas could sense the desperation in the way the words were written. They were rushed, and well thought out of as well. Like whoever wrote knew what to say, just not how to say it.

Dear Castiel,

Knowing you, you’re probably freaked the hell out right now. And... Well, you should be.

Cas frowned and scoffed, rolling his eyes at the paper. Already, the letter was referring to him, and he had no idea about who was writing. Clearly, off to a great start.

Or not. Actually, don’t freak out. You don’t need that. Anyways…grab yourself that weird coffee that I know you like and get comfy.

What I’ve done here for you is write a hundred letters. Or I’m planning to, at least. Hopefully I commit to this. I guess if you’re reading this, I’ll have succeeded, so yay me, I guess. But I want you to really read them. To understand it all because there is so much that you don’t know. About me, about you, and more importantly, about us. I know you might be scared-

Castiel looked away and shook his head, setting the letter down on the table causing it to fold in on itself with how long it had been creased for. He rubbed his forehead and sighed, mumbling something incoherent underneath his breath. Not even halfway through the first letter, and Cas was already overwhelmed. Everything in him begged him to stop reading, but he couldn’t stop himself from reaching back towards the piece of paper and picking it up once more. He was certain that would be a decision he would regret in the future.

-and that’s okay. Fear’s good. Sometimes, at least.

Please, hear me out, alright? I need you to keep an open mind. You gotta, man. Or else this won’t work. I don’t mean to put on a show and get all dramatic, but I need you to level with me. To feel with me, and to get angry and hurt whenever you feel like it. I need you to bust open your damn walnut, and pull me out of that chest that you’ve got stuffed in there somewhere.  

Cas, you may not know me now, but I know you.

I’m writing this on September 18th, 1988. We met five years go..I don't really know when you'll get this. Could be ten years from now. Guess we'll see.

I need you to remember.

Work that big ol’ brain of yours and try to not be the dumbass that you tend to be. It's my fault you're in your current situation, but you need to try. If not for me, then for you.

We haven't spoken in so long, Cas. And saying I miss you won't change a damn thing because you don't even know who I am, but I do miss you. And you can take that however you want for now, but you'll understand it all eventually. If you decide to actually go through with this and read all that I've written for you.

“Situation?” Castiel asked out loud, as if he’d get a response. Of course, he was met with silence. But he still had no idea what was happening. He didn’t know what any of this meant, but he did know this had the potential to ruin his entire life. In fact, it felt like everything started slowly tumbling down already.

And yes, he had nothing. But was it worth the loss?

I’ll tell you everything. No plot-holes, not shit-holes, or whatever. All I ask is that you read. It’s that simple.

That’s all for now. Sorry for the short first letter. I’ll see you soon.

-Dean W.

“Dean?” He whispered, and at that, his chest knotted tightly as he took in a shaky breath. He widened his eyes and wheezed, an uneasy feeling creeping its way up his chest. So, the writer had a name. One that Cas mentally did not recognize, but he physically did apparently.

What the hell did the "W" stand for? He didn't know. Or rather he couldn't remember, according to what the letters were saying.

He set the letter down and stared at the others, scratching at his arm as he eyed the unorganized mess that had now grounded him in his place. Out of all of the things he could have received that day, he just had to get what was probably the most confusing thing he had ever been confronted with.

The possibility of fault grew, and all Cas could do for now was allow himself to become engulfed in the non-existent voice of a series of letters that he was yet to understand, and so rightfully dreaded.

[yourfriendslimey]

You Should Sleep Somewhere Else...

Paring: Im Jaebeom x Fem!Reader

Genre: Angst

TW: Cheating; swearing;

@beomsbabe

Hello! Could you create an imagine where JB has a wife and a one year old but he’s acting strange and distant from them for some reason (you can pick a reason). If you could create a story out of that little description that would be awesome! Thank you !!

hi luv! sorry this took ages tpo get done! I kept getting majorly stuck while writing this out. It’s a bit sad but I hope you enjoy the read anyway! thanks for your request!

A soft breeze flowed through the cracked living room windows, leading the thin white curtains in a slow waltz. Warm light from the table lamps graced the space with a cozy golden glow which made you feel all the sleepier. Your weary bones sunk heavily into the couch; As you ran your hands down your face, a hefty sigh escaped your mouth. Your head fell back and for just a moment you let your eyes shut, relishing in your first break all day. You didn’t know how late it was, but the sun was long gone. You hadn’t even noticed the long day transition to night.

Today you ran what felt like and endless number of errands. On top of that, your usual sitter canceled, leaving you to juggle running through the shopping district with your baby daughter, Anastasia, who seemed much needier than usual. Her energy was up, meaning you barely even got to sit down. You made every attempt to tire her out: playing, reading, going for walk after walk. It wasn’t until after a large meal and almost half an hour of rocking and soft humming that she fell fast asleep. Of course, you loved her dearly. More than anything or anyone in the world. But caring for a one year old took so much out of you every day and it didn’t help that you were practically doing it alone.

You weren’t single. Quite the opposite. But lately your usually loving husband, Jaebeom, had grown cold and distant from you both and you couldn’t pinpoint why. You’d tried time and time again to get him to open up to you, but had no success, only garnering a dismissive “Everything’s fine baby, I swear.” But you knew deep down everything was most certainly not fine. The two of you hadn’t had a date night, eaten together, cuddled, or been intimate in weeks and it was starting to weigh on you. It wasn’t like Jaebeom to be so cold. A few months ago, you could barely spend time away from each other. But then he began spending later nights in the studio, or staying out at bars until the early hours of morning, barely acknowledging you when he eventually came home.

You stared at the clock on the wall, focusing in on its soft ticking. It was nearly 10 p.m. and you wondered how late he would be this time. It had almost become routine. Each night, no earlier than 12 am, he would stagger in half asleep or marinated in liquor. He would make a futile attempt to shut the front door quietly, you would spend the next twenty or so minutes watching your bedroom doorway, wondering if he would crawl into bed with you or simply collapse on the couch. Eventually you would settle back into the half empty space and wallow in disappointment. By the time you were up in the morning, he was already heading back out the door without so much as an I love you.

You fiddled with your wedding ring and felt tears form in your eyes. What happened to us…? You thought, the tears traveling down your cheeks and falling to your lap. Your heart ached thinking that maybe Jaebeom just didn’t love you anymore; that your marriage was crumbling; that the love you both used to cherish and nurture was left to shrivel.

You were snatched from your fog at the sound of the front door creaking open softly. Your eyes darted in its direction with surprise and for a moment your heart skipped. Jaebeom slipped through the door earlier than usual, shutting it behind him. Quickly, you wiped the tears from your face letting your features turn to stone. When he turned to see you staring, he paused, his mouth opening a bit to say something, but you cut him off. “Wow, you’re home early. And you’re sober?” you feigned surprise, hissing the final words. You looked your husband up and down, your attitude was obvious, the words acid flowing from your tongue. Jaebeom’s face began turning a light pink and you couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment, shame, or anger. You didn’t care rehardless. At the very least his body was responding. At the very least he was feeling something. You waited for what felt like minutes for him to say something, anything. But yet again, you were left hanging.

You scoffed, standing and heading to your shared room. You knew if you stayed around him any longer, you’d break down completely. “Wait,” his voice froze you in place. The air bolted from your lungs as your body began to shake. The wall you’d built around you began to crack. The earlier tears returned; this time much heavier. A sudden pain - an ache - reverberated in your chest. “Please…,” Jaebeom placed a strong hand on your shoulder. “Can we talk?” His voice was gentle, a hint of fear hiding somewhere within. With furrowed brows you turned to face him.

Now getting a closer look, you could see that he had been crying. His eyes were red and swollen, exhaustion hanging from them. Your own softened at the sight. You were so upset with him; so hurt; and even still, the sight of your love in pain melted your cold shell even more.

But you couldn’t just let it go. With a quick nod you folded your arms tightly and huffed. Shifting your weight to your right foot and jamming your tongue in your cheek you growled, “Fine. Talk. I’m listening.”. Jaebeom fiddled with his fingers, his eyes focused on the ground. He took a deep breath and met your gaze. “I did something I shouldn’t have. And I need to come clean.” Your face began to drop.

“I cheated on you, y/n… But I swear it was just one time and the biggest mistake of my life.” he rushed the words, almost as if saying them faster would make it hurt less. It didn’t. The admission hit you like a wrecking ball. You stood stiff; eyes wide. Had the floor collapsed from below your feet? Had the air grown thicker? Why couldn’t you breathe? The room was warm, and yet you were shivering more than you ever had.

“Please forgive me. I swear it was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.” Jaebeom reached out to you, but you knocked his hand away, shaking your head rapidly. You looked away and held up a stiff hand. Ever fiber of your being was screaming. You wanted to shut him out. Throw his shit out into the yard and slam the door in his face. But you had to know more.

“Explain.”

“It was about a month ago…when we finally finished shooting our newest video…and to celebrate we all went to a club.” You nodded, remembering that night. He had called you, letting you know filming wrapped and he was going to a nearby club with the boys. But you never suspected… your thoughts were cut off as he kept going.

“I was at the bar and some girl sat next to me. I-i don’t even remember what she looked like,” his voice grew shakier, “We just talked and drank for a while at first; I passed the time and that was it. wasn’t thinking. I had more than I should have. I was just so wrapped up in the excitement that I went way passed my own limit. She started getting a bit flirty. And in that moment, I flirted back. We uh… we ended up kissing and…we decided to take a walk outside…” he paused, tears sprouting from his eyes. Don’t say it… you screamed in your head, biting your bottom lip hard to numb your pained heart. “Fuck, y/n. We had sex…in the back of her car. I wanted to tell you when it happened, but I just couldn’t face you.”

You watched as he broke down in front of you, a puddle of shame and betrayal. But you felt no pity. Your heart was on fire and your head became a clouded mess. You stared into him; your distress ever present. “So th-that’s why you’ve been avoiding me?” your voice grew louder the more you spoke, “Because you couldn’t fucking keep it in your pants? You decided the best course of action was to ignore you goddamn wife?” the more words that escaped, the angrier you became. You had never raised your voice at Jaebeom before. But but the plug had been pulled; you couldn’t stop even if you wanted to. “For weeks I have done nothing but worry about you. About us. Trekking through daily life acting as if everything was normal feeling completely alone. Thinking I fucked up, that I did something to cause the distance. Crying myself to sleep wondering if you still loved me,” you were shouting now; weeks of pain and tension bleeding out. “Do you have any clue what I went through? I have slept alone. Cried alone. Cared for Anna alone. You might as well have just left!”

Through the wall, you could hear Anna stirring from her sleep.  All your screaming must have woken her up. Your eyes burned into Jaebeom, full of rage. This man who was once your beloved husband, had instantly become a stranger to you. You pushed past him, making your way into Anna’s room.

You tiptoed to the crib, lifting your daughter and holding her close. You lightly bounced her in your arms, shushing her to calm her down. Your husband stood in the doorway, eyes pleading, but you couldn’t stand to look at him anymore.

In a cool and steady voice, you sighed, “I think you should sleep somewhere else tonight….”

“Baby please, we can work through this,” Jaebeom took a step toward you, but the molten look you gave was enough to push him back.

You turned your gaze back to your baby girl, “I’m tired. I want to sleep. And I want you out in the next half hour.”

And with that, Jaebeom slid out of the room and not much later was he headed back out the door

[cinnabea]

hospital flight

did another twitter thread my beauties, this one I’m pretty happy with! It’s bkdk, 2k, canon-compliant, light angst, some action, and a buttload of fluff.

the thread is here, and it’s formatted for the character limits, but I’ve put the full text under the cut for your convenience.

~~

“I really hate it here,” Izuku said, picking at the flimsy hospital gown he was all-too-used to wearing. “Sometimes I feel like I spend fewer nights in my own bed.”

“So leave.”

Izuku blinked. “Kacchan, I'm not cleared yet. I won't be discharged until at least tomorrow.”

Kacchan shrugged. “So what? You're fine. Leave.”

“I-- What? Kacchan, you can't be serious.” Izuku frowned, unsure if he was just missing the joke or if Kacchan really meant it. It was weird enough that the other boy was even still there.

Visiting hours were just about up, and Kacchan had lingered longer than any of his other classmates. It twirled something warm in his chest. Sure, their relationship had been knitting itself back toward something resembling friendship, but it was still unexpected.

He was probably only here to yell at Izuku. ‘Stop being so reckless, shitty nerd! Get better faster so it won't be meaningless when I stomp you into the dirt.’ Something like that.

Kacchan sneered, “I'm always serious, asshole,” before abruptly ripping the IV line out of Izuku's hand.

Izuku yelped.

“What the hell, Kacchan!?” Izuku cradled his stinging hand to his chest, watching dumbly as the blond strode over to the window and threw it open.

“Since you can't do anything for yourself--” Kacchan returned, deftly discarding the hospital blanket from Izuku's lap. “I guess I just have to do it for you.”

And without further ado, he scooped Izuku off of the bed and tossed him over his shoulder.

“Kacchan!” Izuku cried out, scrabbling weakly at the broad back he was draped against, upside-down. There was a reason he was in the hospital!! Entirely drained, he had no hope of stopping Kacchan physically. So he tried with his words.

“What are you doing?! Put me down!”

“Nah,” was the reply.

Kacchan moved over to the open window, and Izuku's heart flew into his stomach. Was Kacchan going to throw him out from three floors up?!

But Kacchan stepped himself up onto the sill, and without another word stepped out into the night.

Wind whistled in Izuku's ears for a heart-stopping moment as they fell to earth. Kacchan slowed their descent with his thrusters, but it was awkward, sloppy - likely because he had to manage keeping Izuku on his shoulder at the same time. They hit the ground hard.

Izuku's brain hadn't time to catch up - it was still three stories above them - when Kacchan spun him down into a princess carry and took off running.

Izuku couldn't help it.

He laughed.

“Kacchan!!”

Kacchan had Izuku pressed close to his chest, and Izuku's face was similarly pressed into the other boy's neck.

Izuku's heart was racing. That burnt sugar scent, the proximity, the absolute thrill of being kidnapped by Kacchan made him giddy as they flew through the streets.

The thrill of being--

of being--

“Kacchan,” Izuku squeezed out, mind racing. “A-aren’t you worried about breaking rules? Getting in trouble??”

“I’d break all the rules for you, Izuku!”

Izuku's blood turned to ice in his veins.

Absurdly, the first thing his panicking brain spun up was that Kacchan hadn't stayed late with him. He hadn't come to visit him in the hospital at all.

Of course he hadn't.

Izuku didn't fight against Kacchan in the hospital, but like hell he wasn't going to fight now.

He twisted, pulling hard on the neck under his arms and throwing their weight off balance. They stopped running, but Izuku was still firmly in the fake's clutches.

Fingers dug harshly into Izuku's side and leg as the doppelganger adjusted, stumbling only briefly before righting himself.

Izuku cried out in pain.

“Let me go!”

“That wasn't very nice, Izuku!”

The strong arms around him crushed Izuku tightly to Fake-Kacchan's chest.

Izuku struggled, but he was exhausted; One for All burned under his skin but he didn't have the energy to call it up. He had to think of something! Think, Izuku, think!!

..

“Oi!”

Izuku's heart stopped.

The voice was the same as the one belonging to the blond holding him, but it was distant, came from behind--

“Drop the nerd, shithead.”

“Kacchan,” Izuku whispered.

Sure enough, now there were two Kacchans standing in the dark, deserted street.

This one looked a lot angrier.

His palms crackled as he advanced.

“Aw, that's no fun,” the first whined, sticking out his lip in a very un-Kacchan-like way. “You sure you don't just wanna play with him together? Bet he'd like that!”

The fake flipped up the edge of Izuku's hospital gown, flashing his bare hip at Kacchan.

Izuku socked him in the jaw.

Without OfA and with the past few days’ events still dragging heavily on his body, there wasn't much power behind it; more of a clip than a proper uppercut. But it did the job - Fake Kacchan staggered, and Real Kacchan closed in.

In a flash, Izuku hit the asphalt, his bandages stopping only some of the scrapes from blooming across his skin. They burned, sure, but Izuku had suffered far worse.

He rolled out of the way.

Literal sparks began to fly. Kacchan vs. Kacchan, explosion vs. explosion. But it became very quickly apparent that only one of them truly knew how to use the quirk, and Real Kacchan gained the upper hand within minutes.

In a comic book, it would have been hard to tell them apart. ‘I'm the real Kacchan!’ They'd say. Or. ‘I'm the real Katsuki?’ What would Kacchan say that would be the dramatic tip-off for Izuku, gleaned only from their strong bond forged over a lifetime together?

“Oi, Shitty Deku, look alive!”

The Kacchans came barrelling toward him, and Izuku had to scramble with a squawk to avoid getting squished.

“Nooo, sweet Izuku would look so much better if we hit him!!”

It wasn't hard to tell them apart in reality.

Separating violently, the fake began stomping his feet. “No, no, no! You ruined it! Agh!! Hey, hotshot, can I get some more of your blood? I'm outta time!” His face horrifyingly began to melt, dripping down his jaw and revealing that it was, in fact her jaw. 

Toga Himiko.

“Fuck off,” Kacchan snarled, spreading his arms wide into an attack stance.

“Okay!” she chirped, bouncing up and down on her toes. “Bye!”

And she ran off into the darkness.

Kacchan started after her like he meant to pursue, but halted, eyeing Izuku still crumpled on the cold ground.

With a huff, he stalked back over.

Izuku jolted up to standing, but the sudden movement left him light-headed and dizzy, and blacked out his vision. He tipped over.

And Kacchan caught him.

Kacchan. Caught him.

“The hell, Deku? How'd you get tricked by some shitty fake?”

His words were angry but he sounded.. hurt.

Hot hands on Izuku's arms, gunpowder and caramel and smoke, and oh, how could Izuku have ever thought that Toga was genuine?

Because the smell was right but the eyes, how had he not seen it in the eyes?

Kacchan's intense, wild, eyes; rubies dipped in fire and blood, burning with a fury and a brightness that left Izuku breathless.

This was Kacchan. No one else even came close.

Izuku turned away, his face hot. “It was too late by the time I figured it out,” he mumbled.

“Tch,” Kacchan scoffed, snatching his hands back and shoving them into his pockets. “Can you walk?”

“Um.” Izuku looked down at his bare, bleeding feet under wobbly legs. “Yes?”

Kacchan scowled.

“Stupid idiot,” he muttered, before roughly sweeping Izuku right off of his scuffed-up feet.

Izuku's heart had never beat so fast.

He was in the same bridal position as he had just been in while being held by Toga-Kacchan. But these arms were different.

If Kacchan had ever held Izuku before, there would have been no way he would have been tricked by that fake.

Strong, unyielding. Rough. Gentle.

Izuku was falling rapidly and he had nothing to cling to to stop it. Nothing but those hard-earned muscles cradling him.

Burying his burning face in his own hands, Izuku desperately tried to stop himself from coming undone in his rival's arms. He had whiplash from everything that had just happened. What was wrong with him? Was he just in shock?

Kacchan had rescued him like some helpless maiden, and now he was acting like one, falling in love with his hero!

Falling in--

Falling--

“Earth to Deku.”

“Ehh?!”

“I said, you got a fever or something? You're hot as fuck.”

Izuku groaned.

“M'fine, Kacchan. Just. Embarrassed,” Izuku pushed out. “Sorry for the trouble. Sorry you had to.. fight yourself.”

Kacchan grunted, and began walking. “It's whatever. Like I was gonna let some shitty extra with my face take you.”

Izuku's heart fluttered.

“H-how did you find me, anyway?”

“Saw your ass go flying out the window. And somehow mine, too.”

The ward Izuku was staying in didn't face the front of the hospital, the visitor's lot, or anywhere where people would naturally loiter. It opened up to little more than an alley.

How could Kacchan have seen him?

But more importantly..

“You were at the hospital?”

Kacchan was quiet.

The incident that landed Izuku in the hospital had been an attack on a theater, where he had been seeing a show with his mother.

Izuku had tangled with the villain alone, and had barely made it out with his life. But thankfully no one else had been hurt aside from a few minor bumps and scrapes.

None of their other classmates had been there.

It was just Izuku.

When "Kacchan" had shown up at the hospital with Kirishima, Izuku had been surprised - but assumed their boisterous friend had dragged Kacchan with him.

When "Kacchan" had stayed, even after everyone had left, Izuku had been elated.

When "Kacchan" hadn't been Kacchan at all, it damn near broke his heart.

But Kacchan, real Kacchan, had been at the hospital after all. Not to see anyone else and not dragged by friends.

“Kacchan, why were you lurking outside my window?”

Kacchan flinched, jostling Izuku in his arms.

“Sh-shut up, you shitty nerd! I wasn't doing anything like that!”

Even in the dark, illuminated only by soft streetlights, Izuku could see the pink coloring Kacchan's cheeks from his vantage point. Red eyes flicked down before deliberately looking away. Kacchan's scowl deepened.

“Shitty nerd,” he repeated, grumbling.

Izuku couldn't help the tears welling up in his eyes, even as a wobbly smile spread over his face. “You came to see me?”

“Shut. Up,” Kacchan hissed between clenched teeth. “Or I'll leave you in the damn gutter!”

Fully smiling, Izuku scrubbed at his face. His chest felt unbearably full. If this was love his heart couldn't have picked a better target. Knowing he was pushing his luck, he tentatively let his cheek rest against one firm pectoral.

Kacchan didn't drop him.

“..Why didn't you come up?” Izuku asked after a minute of biting his tongue.

“What'd I just say?”

Izuku pressed his lips together. He didn't want to be left in the gutter.

Kacchan sighed.

“Didn't think you'd want to see me,” he muttered.

“What?!” Izuku squawked. “Why wouldn't I want to see you??”

Kacchan's feet slowed to a stop, and he looked down at Izuku in his arms with an odd expression.

“You asked if I wanted to see that stupid show and I told you to go fuck yourself.”

Oh.

Honestly, Izuku had barely remembered that had happened. He never expected Kacchan would say yes, but they were both home for the weekend, and he figured he'd ask anyway.

Did Kacchan feel guilty that he wasn't at the theater?

“I still wanted to see you,” Izuku said quietly.

Kacchan grimaced. “Idiot. Stupid idiot who can't keep himself out of the damn hospital when some small fry attacks. If I had been there it woulda been different.”

Izuku hummed, closing his eyes. “Sure, Kacchan.”

“Oi, what's that supposed to mean?”

“It means don't beat yourself up. Well. Unless it's Toga.”

“Tch,” Kacchan spat, resuming his walk. “Cheeky little shit.”

Izuku smiled, peeking up through his lashes. “Thanks, Kacchan. For saving me. And for coming to see me. In your own way.”

“Whatever!!” Kacchan sputtered.

Kacchan was blushing furiously and Izuku felt like his heart was going to explode. In a good way.

“Where are we going, by the way?”

“Back to the hospital, useless Deku.”

“Oh. I hate it there.”

Kacchan snorted.

“Tough shit.”

-END-

[criticalrolo]

almost, always (limwen x cassiopeia)

It’s very basic: four times Limwen really, really wanted to kiss Cass, and one time she finally did. 

(your move, @stormslesbian)

The thing is, glitching is never an easy process. Plane shifting is tiring enough, without it being an involuntary process that feels closer to being dragged through a hole than to jumping into space. As it is, when Limwen's feet hit the ground, it's with the full weight of the multiverse punting her around. There's an audible snap as the temporary portal seals itself shut behind her, and her knees buckle under the force of gravity aggressively reasserting itself. She falls on all fours, heaving in a gasp that feels like her first in ages. Wherever she is, it's relatively quiet, and the sudden sound of her panting breaths cracks through the silence. 

Silence, meaning that she is alone. Unlike a few moments before, when a small starry hand had been clutching at her own pale fingers, asking her what all this energy was, why was she phasing in and out of sight, Limwen what's happening – 

Limwen opens her eyes.

She's glitched to some sort of forest, surrounded by tall trees with black bark and creeping dark vines looping across their branches. What little she can make out of the sky from her hunched over position on the ground is as dark as pitch as well, with no visible moon or stars that could help her navigate. And, as she suspected, there is no softly glowing pink figure anywhere nearby, laughing at how she's ripped her leggings in her fall and reaching down to help her up.

Her next inhale catches in her throat, and the next as well. The heavy weight on her chest feels less like the familiar press of new gravity and more like a hand that has reached between her ribs to squeeze her lungs closed. 

A bit frantically, Limwen staggers up from her knees, reaching out to the nearest black tree to steady herself. The rough bark scratches at her palm, and she knows vertigo is to be expected after being forced across the universe in the blink of an eye, but that doesn't explain the dizzy feeling building behind her eyes or the way her throat constricts at how she can't hear a single living thing nearby, or how she should have known better when she thought she'd found someone who she could count on to stay - 

There's another snapping noise, and although she's never glitched twice in a row so quickly, Limwen instinctively braces herself for the familiar pull and tug of the universe tossing her away. 

The feeling never comes. Instead, there's a nearby thump and the sound of twigs snapping under approaching footsteps. 

"Wow, Limwen, you should have told me you were going to jump so we could travel together!"

Cass shakes off the residual energy from her own planeshift and beams at Limwen, who doesn't realize her jaw is slack with surprise and relief. 

"I... didn't realize it was going to happen," Limwen mumbles, her voice rough with adrenaline. "I should have told you, I don't really get a say in the matter." Her hands are shaking as she runs them through her long dark hair.

Cass's face twists into an expression of surprise touched with sadness. "Oh, I hadn't realized. That doesn't sound very fun. Explains why it took me a second to find you though. " She turns her vivid starry eyes to look around at the forest they've both landed in. "Where are we anyway?"

The second Cass glances away, Limwen is seized by the insane desire to reach out and kiss her out of sheer relief that she somehow hasn't been left alone. 

She doesn't do that. Instead, she just says, "I'm not sure. I don't get to decide where I land either."

Cass smiles softly, and holds out a hand towards her. "Want to find out together?"

Limwen takes the hand.

--

"You," Limwen says, pushing Cass to sit down on a flat rock covered in lime green lichen, "have no sense of self preservation whatsoever. Are you still pressing down on that like I told you to?"

Cass grimaces, her normally cheerful glow dimmed to practically nothing as she holds the wad of fabric down over her freely bleeding shoulder. "I didn't think he would react like that! He seemed like such a nice man and those glass sculptures he was selling were so beautiful."

Limwen lets out a sigh, glancing back towards the town walls that the two of them had just been chased from. If she squints, she can just make out the front gates, but it doesn't seem like their pursuers felt the need to follow them further than the city limits. "They were lovely, I suppose. But that doesn't mean you should just grab one of them."

Cass looks at her with an expression so miserable Limwen almost flinches. "It wasn't like I was going to steal it or anything! I just wanted a closer look at the details."

Her voice is earnest, but tight with suppressed pain as Limwen reaches out to peel away the cloth that she'd hurriedly tried to wrap Cass's shoulder in when the shop owner had snapped and lunged at her with a knife. "We're going to have to be more careful for as long as we're here. People are... touchier than expected. Also, this cut looks like it's going to need stitches."

Cass's eyes go wide, the faint starlight that always dances in her irises flaring for a moment. "I've never had stitches before. Do they hurt?"

The rough satchel Limwen always carries is full to the brim with the food she'd haggled for earlier, and it takes her a moment to dig out the medicinal kit. She kneels down next to Cass and tugs her shirt sleeve aside to give herself more room to work. "It can sting a bit. Hold still so I don't mess up."

Before she can think too much about what she's doing, Limwen threads the needle, gently positions Cass's arm, and pierces through the skin to begin sewing her up. The high pitched whine that Cass quickly cuts off feels like a needle piercing into her own heart, but she firmly buries that feeling. Limwen has given herself plenty of stitches before, and knows how to move efficiently for the least amount of pain. She narrows her eyes and focuses on getting Cass patched back together.

When she pulls the last stitch into place, there's just the barest trace of moisture building in Cass's eyes. Limwen cuts off the thread and is seized by the insane desire to lean forward and... kiss it better? She shakes her head and settles back, brow furrowed. Cass doesn't say anything, just sucks in a slightly shaky breath, so she asks, "Hey, are you okay?"

Cass hesitates, and then reaches forward with her good arm to pull Limwen into a hug. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"Not your fault, Cass. That guy was an asshole. If you want, I'll go back in there and stab him right back." Cass lets out a slightly watery laugh, but shakes her head and squeezes Limwen a bit tighter. 

She squeezes back.

--

"Have you seen how gorgeous these flowers are? I've never seen such a bright shade of orange in a plant like this!"

"I... wow, that's really..."

"And look -- when you hold it like this -- yeah, there you go, when you angle it just right they're reflective! You can see the sun setting in them."

"Very pretty, Cass."

"It looks like they're on fire, but in a good way. Don't you think?"

"Yes."

"Limwen, you're not even looking at the flowers, you're looking at me. You've got to angle your head just right..."

"...Yeah, of course, right."

--

The whole world is grey and faint, just bleary shadows that smudge and blur on the edges of Limwen's vision. She tries to blink, tries to clear her head, but every time she closes her eyelids everything seems to shift and spin in a way that makes everything pulse and throb horribly.

Was it the last glitch that had felt so awful, or was it the one before that? They'd been coming more frequently in the past couple of months. Limwen has a vague memory of being forced through a few jumps in a row and the sensation of the universe tearing her whole body apart at the seams, before slamming into solid ground at last and cracking her head against something rough and solid. After that, everything went hazy and dark, until she awoke with a fire lit under her skin and no way to make sense of anything around her. 

She works on forcing air in and out of her lungs. Even though she feels trapped inside her own skin, the sound of her wheezing seems to come from far away. There's an even more distant noise that sounds vaguely musical... or maybe it's someone speaking? It's too hard for her to tell, so she doesn't try to focus in.

What she does notice is the feeling of something cool being draped over where she assumes her forehead is. It feels so nice in comparison to the raging heat that threatens to burn her from the inside out that for a second she's able to make out a glimmer of pink and purple that stands out against all the grey. 

“Limwen? Are you awake?” the music says. The vague shape of a hand reaches out to press against her cheek. 

Limwen’s brain must really be boiling, because if she could have mustered the energy to move, she would have reached out to brush a kiss against the star dotted fingers on her face. For some reason, it feels important and like the thing she has to do. 

She doesn’t have the energy though, so she settles for a brief keening noise that was supposed to be words but definitely isn’t. 

The music sighs, and the thumb gently caresses her cheekbone. “That’s okay. I’ll keep a look out here, and you go back to sleep.”

She trusts the music, so she does. 

–

After glitching so deep underwater, Limwen had thought that surely this was when the universe finally got its act together and actually managed to kill her off. The shifting ocean floor had risen up like a living beast to swallow her down, growls rumbling deep through the water as it pulled at her, when a pink hand wrapped itself around her wrist, clutching her arm and dragging her away.

It’s with a desperate gasp that they both burst above the surface of the ocean, a hundred yards from the shore. Cass is still holding onto her tight enough to turn her knuckles white, panting and running her hands over whatever part of Limwen she can reach, checking for blood or injuries. After brushing so close to death and being convinced she’d never see Cass’s face again, Limwen can’t tear her gaze away from the way the sunlight bouncing off the water reflects off Cass’s beautiful star filled eyes. 

They’re both treading water and trying to catch their breath when Cass presses a hand against her cheek in such a tender manner that Limwen feels like her heart is breaking. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”

Limwen blames the oxygen deprivation for why she doesn’t think at all before leaning in and kissing Cass right there in the middle of the ocean. 

There’s a moment where Cass stiffens out of shock, and then the hand on Limwen’s face moves to the back of her neck to pull her in closer as Cass kisses her back. The water they’re both drenched in is salty, but underneath it Cass tastes like starlight. 

It’s hard to tread water without both hands though, and neither of them really have caught their breath yet, so they break apart after a few moments. Limwen stares at Cass with wide eyes, suddenly mortified that she might have done something wrong, when Cass grins and splashes her. 

“Limwen, you couldn’t have waited ten seconds until we were on dry land where we wouldn’t have to stop?” Cass laughs at Limwen’s stricken expression. “Come on. I’ll race you to shore!” She pushes away and starts to swim towards the beach.

There’s a light burning in Limwen’s chest as she blinks and watches Cass swim away. Then, with a small smile of her own, she hurries after her. 

[ispywithmythirdeyeofficialbct]

Today is the 3rd of May, and it’s another sunny day in Christchurch.

This is an example of some very basic after effects processing I will implement for my vlog, and my COVID-19 assignment. I’ve been busy the past few days focusing solely on university work and saying, damn I should really record my progress on this blog. So here I am.

I’m stoked, to be back at Uni, and in a distant environment no less, which is my favourite place to be.

STUDIO #ctec501 

The assignment was a curveball, so I decided to curve with it and see where it led me. I can confirm - hours of being in my head on the ground going round and round, analyzing all the possible avenues I could explore, but I knew it had to be personal as well as fulfill this global necessity as stated in the brief, if I was ever going to work with it. 

And thank goodness I am a BCT student. Like a bonsai tree, I can use the wire of my understanding, to train the tree (The Idea), to grow into the avenue which will bear the aesthetic or the soul of The Idea.

I am going to make my assignment based on theme number 2, focusing on Interactivity vs Productivity of online-based operations - How streamlining our lives into an integrated online virtualized lifestyle will affect and redefine the human experience. If any other student sees this and they want to collaborate, be my guest.

I might ask a teacher in the forums if this idea will fly, I’m sure it will. Better to be safe than sorry though. The Assignment however is a funny situation related to The Idea, which is the first stage of the assignment. The Idea has this criteria, which is significantly more expansive and broader in range than the actual Assignment itself which is curious ::L: 

So The Idea itself is what I hope to lead onto from the Assessment, in terms of writing. I can’t share what my idea is because I’m submitting it to The Idea for the AUT XChallenge, but I know I have a lot of writing and research to do before then. Also if you are a student I know and want to get together and work on an idea for The Idea, aside from my idea, I’d love to get involved in a brainstorming seminar!

I’ve never been so organised in my life, and that’s probably because I have nothing to do all day is make art, or plan to make art (Assignments), eat, smoke and drink instant coffee with condensed coconut milk and soy milk.. Literally living the dream.

Programming for Creativity #comp570

I’ve barely started on the tasks set out in the end of Lesson 5, after taking the whole day to wrap my mind around the lecture, as well as all the other information, my head hasn’t been able to think about Processing since writing out all the examples in Lesson 5. I had so much fun with the bouncing ball and physics example, I quickly interpreted the Lesson 5 examples and made a ball that lost minimal energy as it bounced (elasticity) and the gravity made it much more realistic in float numbers. The 4 walls all became responsive and able to change the direction of the ball so I had the setup of the assignment! Exciting!

 I AM SO GLAD THAT WE CAN PAUSE THE LECTURES. Seriously I CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH STEFAN!!! tl;dr I really enjoyed all the work he put into his slides, the love is in there and I am learning so much MORE than a conventional lecture in this online setting.

Intro to CT #ctec502

The Vlog has been an interesting proposal, as 40% of my mark is at stake, I’m going to redo my Vlog completely and to a much higher standard, as well as tying it into the Studio Assignment, and The Idea. I created a story board, of the vlog as well as the contents, and I think I will go with taking video footage, mainly my own, and external video clips from youtube, while I am narrating.

I have a mild social anxiety that I have worked on over my life, and improved drastically from where I once was. Although this anxiety wishes to force me to put off making this vlog, I know I’ll be amazed to know I pushed through my own limitations with something I am pretty passionate about: Storytelling.

The lecture/meeting was simple and easy to follow. First time using Blackboard Ultra and the Virtual Classrooms, but it had been created in such a streamlined and easy to use interface, that I had no trouble interacting with it, even whilst using a smart phone. Always looking forward to Roy’s lectures. 

Speaking of lectures, thanks to every Lecturer or TA or Teacher out there right now that have worked tirelessly at home trying to setup a whole new schooling system, while seperated from resources and dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. I’m a pretty relaxed creature so this whole event is floating gently by, but to some I know the reality is far more severe, and I am grateful, every time I get to interact with you. We have a really great system setup in all classes, and we are all able to make do with what we have.

Ka pai and arohanui.

Enoch

[sockablock]

happy Winter’s Crest, y’all! And an especially happy winter’s crest to @devilessyeet, my @winterscrestgiftexchange partner! I hope you enjoy this piece, and have a great holiday!!

• • • • • • • •

It was midnight in Zadash, long hours past sundown. Mist hung low off the cobbled roads, and the only source of light came from a handful of guarded torches winding through distant alleys and streets. A few clouds drifted slow across the moon and somewhere in the night, a single raven alighted on a rooftop and gently shook its feathers.

In the candlelit interior of his own inn room, Caleb Widogast briefly set down his notebook. His hair was unkempt as always and his coat sat folded next to him, neatly on the bed. He had a rumpled quill between his fingers, and sported a thin smudge of ink at the corner of his mouth from where he would chew at the nib in frustration.

His gaze was glued to a peculiar cannonball-sized object resting on the covers before him. Its twelve-sided form glowed softly in the darkness, and every once in a while, he would see a tiny grey spark break from its surface, then vanish from reality. It undulated faintly with a strange and unknowable energy, and despite his best efforts, he still had barely any idea what it meant.

He glanced back down at his sparse notes. Over the course of the last few hours, he had only managed to rewrite what he already knew: this beacon was connected somehow to the Krynn, had presumably originated in Xhorhas, held some sort of sway over fate and all chance. Caleb himself had felt its power course through his veins a number of times now, and while its influence was immeasurable and its possibilities endless, there was something off-putting about accepting the gifts of an artifact so alien and strange.

He scratched his chin, and tapped the pages once more. Then he looked back up to run a few more tests, and saw.

He instantly lunged out, snatched the beacon into his arms, threw himself up off the bed and set both hands aflame.

And then he hesitated, because the intruder hadn’t even moved.

Sitting on the mattress of his simple low bed, leaning back and posture calm, was a strange young man in dark leather armor. His skin was so pale as to almost glow, and he had a thick cloak of midnight feathers draped across his shoulders. His long black hair was tied up behind his head, and upon further inspection, Caleb could see that the man’s ears were slightly pointed—the tell-tale sign of elven heritage.

He was also tossing a dagger into the air, watching it spiral a moment before catching it lazily. Even more worrying, was the broad smirk across his face. The way his eyes glinted with mischief in the moonlight.

Caleb made his fire burn brighter. To his disappointment, the man’s grin only widened.

“Easy there, friend,” he chuckled. “I’m not here for a fight.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow. His flames crackled on. “You broke into my room,” he said slowly. “You are armed.”

“What, this?”

The young man flipped the dagger up one more time, winked grandly, and then suddenly, in mid-air, the weapon vanished into a thin wisp of shadow.

“Is that better?” he asked.

Caleb stared. He took a small step back.

“Somehow that is even worse.”

The young man sighed. “Look,” he said, and raised his palms in a calming gesture, “look, I really am not here to fight you. If I wanted to, y’know, fuck your shit up, I would’ve done it while you were busy with your pretty little ball. I mean, I got in here without you noticing, yes?”

Very guardedly, very gradually, Caleb nodded his head.

“Exactly,” the man said. “So, please, won’t you sit down? I just wanted to talk. You can even hold onto the beacon, if you’d like, though I imagine you’d rather put it back into its box, so no one can find it during our little conversation.”

A thousand more questions swam through Caleb’s mind. He gingerly retrieved the lead safe from under the bed and dropped the beacon inside. He leaned over, and put his book and inkwell onto the nightstand.

Then he sat down.

“There we go,” the stranger beamed. “Isn’t that better?”

“I am not so certain, yet,” he muttered. “That depends on who you are, and what you wish to speak of.”

The half-elf threw his hands into the air. “Right, right!” he said. “Of course you’d want an introduction. You can, er, you can call me ‘Vax.’”

“Er…ja, okay, I am Caleb Widogast. Though I somehow feel you may know that already.”

Vax grinned. “Too true, Mister Widogast. I know quite a bit about you. And one of those things, if my hunch is correct, is that you and your gang of friends have been messing with something you aren’t supposed to.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow. “Such as…?”

“Come on, come on,” Vax sighed. “I need you to work with me here. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Ja, well, if I am being honest, we have messed with many things over the years, and I am fairy certain a large majority of them were supposed to be off-limits.”

Vax chuckled at that. “Okay, fair.” He pointed at the ground. “I’m talking specifically about that fancy little dodecahedron. The Beacon. And what it represents.”

“What it represents?” Caleb echoed. “You mean Xhorhas?”

Vax sighed again. “No, Mister Widogast. What I represent. Or, should I say, who I represent: Fate, and the goddess of.”

Caleb stared at him. He opened his mouth. He closed it. He opened it again.

“You are a follower of the Raven Queen?”

The corners of Vax’s lips quirked upwards. “Sure,” he nodded. “Let’s go with that. She’s, er, she’s sent me on a bit of an errand, different than my usual duties, to poke into you lot. The long version’s a bit more complicated than that, but mostly I’m just here to ask questions.”

“And…if you do not like the answers?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your goddess is also the patron of death,” Caleb murmured. “Will you kill me?”

Vax blinked. For a long, long silence, Caleb got the impression that he was trying not to laugh.

Eventually, the half-elf shook his head and offered up a wry smile. “Death doesn’t kill people,” he said gently. “She doesn’t need to.”

“You know, you really make me anxious when you answer my questions that way.”

Vax’s grin widened. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been a while since I’ve held a proper conversation.”

Before Caleb could comment on that, the man waved a hand around and gestured towards the lead box. “So what exactly are your intentions with that, anyways? Feel free to lie at first, if it makes you feel better, but I’ve got all the time in the world.”

Caleb remembered a shadow where there hadn’t been one before. He remembered a dagger that had turned into smoke. He could feel, though he wasn’t entirely sure how, a tremendous amount of barely-contained power swirling throughout his bedroom.

He swallowed. He shrugged.

“If I am being entirely honest, Herr Vax, the truth is that we have no intentions. We stumbled across this object mostly by accident, and we have been carrying it around in a sparkly pink haversack ever since.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You had it in lead, though,” Vax said, slightly reproachfully. “You knew people were going to be looking for it. Took me bloody months to get a proper pin on you lot.”

“Verzeihung.”

“I get the feeling that you aren’t really sorry.”

Caleb couldn’t help but grin at that. “No, not really,” he said. “Can you blame me?”

Vax chuckled. “No, I can’t. But why keep it?” he asked. “If you say you didn’t want it in the first place, why hang on to something so dangerous?”

Caleb considered this, and then sighed. “We did not want it falling into the wrong hands. And I am not saying we are the right hands, but…we know where this object came from. And it…it was a point of heavy contention between our Empire and the…the neighboring one.”

“Your empire,” Vax noted. “But you didn’t give it to them?”

“Oh, not at all,” Caleb said. “They are not trustworthy. Who knows what they could do with something this powerful?”

“And what do you want to do, with something this powerful?”

Caleb glanced at the box on the bedsheets before him.

“We are going to keep it safe.”

Vax shook his head, leaned in. “You misunderstand me. What do you want to do with it?”

Caleb’s eyebrows went up. “Me?” he asked. “Me?”

“Yes, you, like I’ve said, I’ve done my homework. I know a fair bit about who you are, and who you used to be.” Vax sat back and crossed his arms. “Tell me, Caleb Widogast, why are you keeping the Beacon?”

Caleb restrained himself from answering immediately. He sighed inwardly and shrugged.

“I want to change the past,” he said. “I want to shift reality back into a direction that it never took.”

“Why?”

Caleb glanced up. He met a pair of calm, steady eyes.

“Have you never felt regret, o Follower of the Raven Queen?”

Vax’s expression glimmered in the candlelight. “More times than you can count,” he chuckled softly. “But I will say this: I never once thought about going back on fate.”

Caleb shrugged. “Then you are thinking too small.”

“Perhaps. But what makes you think you can do it?” Vax asked, narrowing his eyes. “What makes you think that you’ll succeed, where nobody else has? What makes you think you’ve got even the slightest possibility of getting what you want?”

There was a second of silence, punctuated by the distant plodding footsteps of a night watchman far below.

“Will you kill me, tonight?” Caleb asked.

Vax shook his head.

“Then I still have a chance.”

The half-elf’s stare cracked, and a smile crept forward. “You’ve got balls, I’ll tell you that.”

“Thank you for reminding me.”

Vax rolled his eyes, and thrust a finger under Caleb’s nose. “I’m not going to kill you, that’s for certain,” he said. “And as far as we know, which is pretty damn much, you haven’t broken any laws regarding life and death. Your meddling with destiny hasn’t led you anywhere too dangerous yet, and it certainly isn’t worth staining my daggers. For now.”

He waved his finger around a little too sarcastically to be menacing. “I am here to give you a warning, though. It’s easy to get sucked into regret. If you aren’t careful, you’ll find your life slipping through your fingers faster than you can bring it back. We all die eventually, Mister Widogast, and we’ve got to use every second that we have.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Herr Vax?”

“Yes?”

“What comes after this? After life, what is next?”

The half-elf gave him a very faint smile.

“I told you already,” he said. “I’m not here to kill you, tonight. In fact,” he added, standing up and stretching his arms, “I should probably head out now. I’ve got things to see and people to do, you know how it is.”

“I do not think that is how the saying goes.”

Vax grinned. “I like to improvise. I imagine you and your friends understand that, pretty well.”

“We think on our feet,” Caleb admitted with a shrug.

Vax nodded his head enthusiastically. “Good!” he declared. “That’s the right way to be. And this part isn’t really a message from my Lady, or anything like that, but…do me a favor, alright? Don’t worry about changing what’s already happened. Focus on keeping what you have now.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your friends,” Vax said. “Hold them close. They’re the best kind of family you can have.”

Caleb’s gaze fell to the ground, and Vax chuckled softly. “Just think on it,” he said. “For me.”

“No promises.”

“None required.”

And then, as Vax crossed the room, as he walked over to the window and reached a hand outside and pressed his foot to the sill and prepared to leap through the night, he paused.

He looked back.

“This is going to sound a little odd,” he said slowly, tone much less serious than it had been so far, “but…there is something very familiar about you.”

Caleb shrugged. “I am no stranger to death.”

Vax threw his head back and laughed. “Good answer, slick. Nobody is.”

And then he nodded one last time to the wizard framed in moonlight, turned back around and slid his shoulders past the frame, kicked up off the hardwood floors, and was gone.

A rush of feathers blew through the room and vanished just as quickly as they’d come. Caleb couldn’t help but rise from the bed, hurry over to the window, stick his face into the cool night air and scan the starry horizon for any sign of where his visitor had gone.

Nothing. Not even a shadow over the moon.

Eventually, he sank back into his mattress. He stared at the lead box. He brushed his fingers to the lid, considered opening it again and taking one last look.

He didn’t.

And from somewhere in the night, somewhere high above the city, over moon-swept rooftops and the distant, shimmering sky, a raven called out to the breeze.

And flew home.

[gvaf-radio-blog]

I was laying in bed trying to not think about the rejection when the crying fit started, normally it goes away after a bit but this welled up and I felt an emotion like onto a rage induced tornado surging through me and I pounded the floor screaming like I lost a limb to a bear trap and started to pray to God, keep in mind I am a Satanist, to either help me find a way to get the love of my life back or to give me the means to end my life.  Satan was very understanding but reminded me to call them first next time since Satan never told me I was damned for being born pansexual and they did turn me on to better fashion and literature, sorry Satan.

It had been going on like this for the better part of July and there were several things going on in my life at the time one of those was a firm belief that I had grown too old, too fat, too broken to be any use to anyone other than to make others feel better and be target practice for the Russian Cupidi who seems very intent on making others fall in love with me on the other side of the continent, little fuckers have surprisingly deep laughs I found out . There was a person I was convinced was the love of my life because they seemed to understand me, never made unreasonable demands of me ( I thought)  and to put it simply we could not be in a room alone ever. We worked well together in fact each time we would meet it ended in us kissing and tearfully saying I love you to each other  while holding each other head to head crying. Everytime I heard a slight Russian tinged laugh. We were for a short time had an almost family, an almost family is where things are just off and need adjustments. I wanted tp make us a full family badly I wanted this family to happen because these kids were at one time treated like mine own, I am a  simple and boring man except for the Cupidi and a stalker with cat ears who keeps leaving dead birds on my front stoop.  

So yes I was that fool everyone has laughed at in a heart break fueled misery that pop songs and movies lie to us and say “ AH but tis only the third act! The two distant lovers will be reunited and the love song with start after the credits”. I want to start rounding up the con artist that make a living by filling empty headed children with these notions of true love or that love conquers all and sodomize them with live lobsters.  I don’t want to violate ethically challenged people with shellfish everyday, just on those days when I have to deal with the doll eyed masses, ok so basically every day I was trying to give myself the benefit of the doubt.  The Ex had asked me if the reason I wanted to get back together was because they were a “sure thing” I told her that they were really a long shot but if I didn’t try then I couldn’t live with myself. Fast forward a few weeks and several insulting explanations later and I am now turning over all the reasons I am broken goods and that I should not rise above my station because I deserve to be alone, i’m scum, I’m why baby jesus cries and milk spoils when I walk into the room. I started taking pot shots at the local Cupidi with my compound bow but it was hard to aim with eyes full of tears and the edible kicking in finally. I don’t know how to say fuck you in Russian but I think I know the sound of the word. 

Next we find me red eyed muttering some gibberish that’s been fueled by what I would find out later to be a suspected mental illness that is only half way being treated with medication and therapy. To give you a funny and disturbing visual. After not eating or sleeping for several days  I looked like what could be described as a  cross between a fat Reinfeld and a goth George Costanza , or Meatloaf on a bad day. I give you options for your visuals, am I not merciful?

It’s now sometime between one and five A.M and I am looking up the price of the least expensive .45 handgun because I’m poor and I’ll be getting some extra money soon because I turn thirty nine in a week I do not want to be thirty nine so I start looking for american style solutions, happy fucking birthday. I chose this caliber because having some medical training and studying the wonderful world of trauma  I got to see in full detail what a self inflicted head wound looks like and what a person's life is when the bullet doesn’t take enough grey matter. I didn’t want to be alive then I sure as hell didn’t want to live as a joke character from a Garth Ennis story so I was going to get a bigger bullet .  America, fuck yeah.

so I started to make my final birthday plan and feel at peace with having my last ride of Clove’s, bourbon and a good pub hamburger then, Tchüess. BANG! Obviously I didn’t buy the gun to end my misery and embarrassment as my brain was telling me I needed, because instead my brain going into OH FUCK mode was throwing everything it had at me to save the ship. Then it hit pay dirt. I rediscovered a natural emotional energy that put my mind into a laser focus clearing the fog and lies away  just enough to stop my self destruction and restart the rebuilding I began in the winter. The emotional energy that saved me from turning my head into goo goes by the name of pure fucking spite.

I realized that my idiocy levels had reached a critical mass when the Cupidi in hazmat suits who seem to be , in Russian , bitching about extracting me to go get recharged . They came down to take me back to a containment unit that will refill my cynicism back to optimal and lethal fuck off capacity. After my IV of coffee and Monster™ grape was removed I was set loose again into the wilds of Southeast Portland to reconnect my brain with seething hatred that I somehow misplaced my hatred during the heartache attack between Southeast Division and Southeast Clinton street where I  was bludgeoned with a baseball bat by the woman who was wearing cat ears. I was on a time limit because I had to do this quickly and retract my steps before my appointment with a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner at two P.M later that day. I managed to find my hatred , my senses and a new found desire to attack any human with those fucking anime cat ears on their head and entered the office and was treated like a human being not a Cro Magnon sociopath who might try  to kill people on the train, it was a nice change of pace honestly.

We talked about my past trauma and some of the diagnosis that where off base and some that came close to the mark but the main thing we talked about was the depression, the depression that had me looking for a gun as a treatment plan. This Nurse Practitioner pinpointed everything that I had to hide from others or train myself not to do in less than thirty minutes, Let me give you a bit of perspective. 

Most of the mental health professionals I worked with in the past used a method I call flow chart counseling, example:

Therapist sees me walk into the door, therapist will ask if I drink if yes how many drinks in a week, if no move on to the next question. Therapist: Mister Cromag do you drink?

Me: yeah, I like a good beer, or wine I take a shinning to good bourbons as well.

“Therapist now flows to follow up questions”

Therapist: How many drinks per week?

Me: Well, I like to have a drink that pairs with my dinner and some weekends I’ll have a bit more during games or socialization depending on who’s around.

“Therapist now moves down to alcoholism”

Therapist: how long have you been an alcoholic?

Me: I’m sorry what?

Therapist: You binge drink Mister Cromag, more than four drinks per week means substance abuse.

Me: No it means I like the taste of a stout. “Moves down the chart to denial”

Therapist: We need to find you an addiction specialist.

Me: You think my drinking is bad, wait until I tell you about my porn collection.

After that exchange I was referred to a physical therapist to help with carpal tunnel and after a traumatized therapist had to call security all while frantically  trying to find a flowchart for the psychotically horny they made a suggestion about me having an Oedipus complex.

So you now see what I mean, a lot of professionals never got to the heart of it and there are other stories where I’ve had the professionals all but sneer at me when my symptoms are presented. So this Nurse Practitioner was a nice change of pace and with the discussion about my issues, what I thought I might have been dealing with  (sometimes people see that I do have some form of intelligence and not just hit thing with club real hard unga bunga) we then worked out what medication I needed to treat  the thing I was dreading, being diagnosed with  Bipolar 1.

Bipolar and ADHD share many of the same characteristics and as I’ve learned if you have one the other is more than likely there it just needs to be screened for. Bipolar is also a hereditary form of mental illness which makes it a bit unique where others are mostly trauma induced but Bipolar just kinda waits for something to happen and when nothing does it creates its own fun. To add to this good time Bipolar  is classified as a “mood disorder”  your highs are hyperactive boarderlining and often going into a full true manic state of mind and body, not nearly as fun as it sounds. Then the lows are soul crushing affairs that amplify the depression and then takes the lies you brain tells you and creates a story based on people around you, your fears, past trauma and then makes you this poisoned lullaby cake that tastes like candy feels like medicine until you fall to your knees paralyzed and the fangs sink into your back and you see too late what is having you for dinner tonight.

So that’s a quick and blurry on Bipolar 2, I have Bipolar 1 which means I get all of that plus the added fun of hallucinations, and not the type Terrence Mckenna taught us about. These are things that just manifest as if they are real life like if you were in a  film and it was edited without  warning and in this new situation  you now have to improvise a reality, any  reality, this is why I take *drugs prescribed and other. The other issue is that it feels like my memories get remixed and things that happened now have a new twist, a paranoid hurtful twist.  Good example of this is when I was making a terminal wishlist and believed that there were people who truly wanted me to die because I interpreted their actions as malicious. Another example is I was walking home to the apartments  around ten or twelve years ago, I was walking home at the time with groceries and when I got through the front door there was construction going on at the apartment above me. I sleep days and at best i’ll get four hours due to shit employer, new born child, a girlfriend that was Sybil the next generation who completely refused to get treatment because she was a psych major and thought she was the heroin to overcome all odds  in a lifetime movie.  So on top of this my mental illness is not in check, no insurance and if I mention medication at work I could get fired. 

 I wish this was a part I made up  but I mentioned I was on antidepressants at one time and they removed me from two positions back to entry level until I got clean off celexa, Not allowed to do the fun drugs and then punished for using the boring ones no idea why I stayed there for eight and a half years. 

Back to the construction, I get home try to put my groceries away and one of the workers says he needs to do something in the bedroom I tell him to get bent , he calls me a fat fuck and I proceed to beat him bloody! Except it never happened, I woke up beating my fist bloody onto the tiled floor of the kitchen where I had started to put away my groceries until I jumped into this other reality, I’m just happy the kid wasn’t home because it might have scared her and made her cry and knowing I made her cry hurts the worst, I would have attempted that second suicide earlier. This freaked me out I’ve never had an hallucination like this I was scared, when I told then girlfriend hoping to get support or at least pointed in the direction on where to look she labeled me a schitzophrentic started talking to me as if I was going to flip out  and that I was even more dangerous.  I let that turn around in my head for years thinking that this was the linchpin to me being broken and with the way she talked to me I believed I didn’t deserve help. This was one of the main reasons I had to kill myself after she took my daughter away.

Like a few million other miserable , confused people out there I didn’t know a blessed thing about what was happening, I remembered the mental abuse and emotional abuse from the church, and some had argued physical and neglectful abuse I recieved at the hands of my family or my mother’s husbands who told my mother to no provide for me but instead buy him a new toy car. My step sister who somehow hates the knot headed reprobate more than I do stole his precious camaro and rear ended a Semi. After learning she was ok I fell on the floor laughing because all I could think about was this NASCAR addicted stunted man child calling his mommy to whine about a broken toy, to add to this mental image he was wearing a blue jean diaper and clutching a plush Richard Petty teddy bear.

There’s more but I don’t feel the need to talk about school bus drivers and me losing memory of one full  year of my life, bullying at the hands of adults and children alike. I feel like that would be redundant and unfortunately all too common a story I’ve heard from so many people in my life, friends, lovers , coworkers the fucking homeless people who talk with me after I give them beer money. Leaving some of the genetic issues aside you bastards need to understand how wide spread some of these traumas are for fuck sake my motley of misfits are all walking trauma case studies and instead of getting help YOU people ridiculed them, or gave them the greatest useless sentence in the english language which is :

 “Just get over it.”

Do you know what I would like to see? I want to see all of us survivors roaming the streets like that piss poor movie they claimed was a horror movie the Purge and with a list not unlike the list owned by the man that comes around Johnny Cash sang about during his song of the rapture, and I see men, women, and nonbinary people going to the address of those passive aggressive twits and beating them within an inch of their life, then carving into their chest (backwards) “get over it” then we move on to the homes of the rapists and tell them “you asked for this” before destroying their cocks with battery acid. The screams in the night would be glorious with the bats acting like percussion and the screams keyboard swells it would be like Front 242 unplugged. Maybe then the sniveling pretentious nra members out there will learn a bit. At best, it would be fair warning not to be passive aggressive asshole and learn a bit of compassion and mindfulness or to just get their heads out of their ass about battles they know nothing about if they want to avoid severe head trauma that one can not just simply get over. 

Living with mental illness is not easy at any level whether a small bit of depression after a breakup or full blown PTSD after a brutal rape that leaves one unable to leave their house. Whomever has these afflictions are the ones suffering and your feelings of inconvenience or fear  of those sufferers need to be thrown into the Willamette river, I would say you need to follow suit  but there’s enough garbage in this river you can fuck off into a trash compactor.

Living is the hardest thing I do but I keep finding ways to stop the thoughts from taking over and I will and have done whatever it took to not die and sometimes the only way I was able to beat the mental illness was being bat shit insane. Some people think I’m a drug addict, others just think I need to talk to my old invisible friend, a few well meaning souls have suggested psychedelics and these people are pure and I will castrate any who try and stop them from their holy work from the almighty Bob. what I do need is to find that bitch with the **baseball bat and introduce them to a proper bonfire that I’m going to roast one of those little commie Cupidi on, oh yes I want my revenge for St Louis. 

*the drugs in question are cannabis for the most part, when I’m spinning hard it helps tune me down and when the depression hits it shuts up the thoughts that plague me. Not a cure all nor is it a replacement for proper medication and therapy. I like to think of it a supplemental medicine that has the added effect of making Tool sound even more epic and letting me sleep peacefully. 

** all wildy violent, funny and or cartoonish descriptions written about are there to be funny and entertaining no Cupidi do not exist and the Cat ear person does but the assault was less bloody and didn’t involve a bat  but it was far more traumatizing.

[wroughtironhero]

Once and Future

     Let me tell you the story of a king.

     There was once a young girl who dreamed of a world filled with smiling faces.  So that it might come to pass, she took up a sword and cast away her humanity.  Even if it would not last, even if the price was her own life, she would see her dream come true.

     She fought many battles and defeated many foes to secure peace for her lands.  She built a kingdom and gathered together there paragons of chivalric virtue to protect her people.  She was the ideal king who discarded her happiness for the happiness of her people.

     Even so, she knew that its end would come still.  To save her people, she and her knights sought out the holy grail, a relic capable of miracles, one which might avert the terrible fate before her.  However, despite their searching, the grail was never retrieved.  With no other choice, the king and her knights returned home.

     Yet her return was a not a welcome one.  In her absence, the people rebelled and turned against her.  Her knights likewise succumbed to conflict with one another.  The kingdom fell to civil war and finally ruin with the final battle on that bloody hill.  There, she had claimed her promised victory, her promised defeat.  Letting go of her sword, she passed on to slumber in an eternal dream.

     And so her story ends.

     Although, you and I know there’s more to it than that, don’t we?

     “Fou?”

     I jump to consciousness with a shock, jolting upright in bed and sending the small creature that was standing on my chest flying.  My hands dig into the mattress beneath me, threatening to tear its cushioning.  Darting my eyes around the bare room, I only find my Master standing at my side, recoiled in shock, and the strange animal now climbing onto her shoulder.  With a deep sigh, I slide my legs off the side of the bed before burying my face in my hands.

      “Good morning, Master.  My apologies if I startled you.”

     That was the first time I’ve slept in ages, the first time I’ve dreamed in... more.  As a Guardian, sleep is no longer a necessity for me.  Yesterday, however, was tiring enough to make an exception.

     She chuckles nervously, pulling the beast from the perch of her shoulder and into her arms, hoping it won’t cause any more trouble.  Thankfully, the mass of white fur seems content with her petting for time being.

     “Oh, no, I’m sorry to disturb you!  I’m just so used to seeing you already making breakfast at this hour I that I came in to check on you, but then Fou dashed in while the door was open and...”

     Her explanation dies in her throat before she can finish it.  I can read the concern in features as she chews at her lip.  She’s worried for me, or otherwise nervous about something.  Hardly surprising, but it wouldn’t be her if she wasn’t.  Leave it to the girl trying to save the world to worry about the health of a dead man.

     “Anyway, I’m just glad you’re okay.  When you’re feeling up to it, I need your help with something, but I’ll let you get back to sleep now.”

     I shake my head at her as I stand upright, crossing my arms.

     “No need.  I think I’ve slept enough for the next few lifetimes.  Now, what would you ask of me, Master?”

     Call it a bad habit, but I don’t have time to mope around.  Humanity’s continued existence is riding on us and I’m one of the few reliable Servants we have around here.

     After letting the now struggling Fou down to scurry off into some other corner of the facility, she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes before she opens them once more to stare at me with an uncharacteristic seriousness.

      “Archer            No.  Heroic Spirit Emiya, this is something only you can do.”

     Mash’s shield, the greatest protection of Sir Galahad, sits in the shallow water beneath Chaldeas, reflecting the globe’s deep blue light, the light of humanity.  As the core of the round table, it is a perfect catalyst for calling heroes and legends of all kinds to our aid and is the backbone upon which Chaldea’s summoning system, FATE, is built upon.  Even so, it has limits.  No matter what system is utilized to summon Servants, no spell can draw in a soul beyond the reach of mankind.

     “I’m sorry, Master, but it’s not possible.  She’s no longer within the cycle.  You’d have better luck attempting to travel to the isle yourself.”

    My Master stands across from me, glaring up to my level.  Miss Kyrielight looks back and forth between us, nervousness furrowing her brow.  It’s far from the first time she’s seen us argue, but it still bothers her all the same.  Watching an argument between your two senpai can hardly be considered a calming experience.

     “After everything we’ve seen, do you really think the rules you know still apply?  The world’s already ended, Archer!  This wouldn’t be the first impossible thing we’ve done.”

     It pains me to admit it, but she’s right.  The only constant in a Holy Grail War is people finding ways to break the rules.  With the appearance of the singularities, it seems even the most iron-clad of the world’s laws have crumbled to nothing.  The King of Magic’s meddling might be meant to doom us, but it’s proven to work in our favor.

     After... after we returned the sword, Bedivere ceased to be.  His very soul was burnt out of existence by his silver arm.  The loss of the soul is the most true form of death there is, a fate not even the mightiest of Heroic Spirits could survive.

     And yet, when we returned to Chaldea, we found him summoned to us.  Even as his spirit was erased from existence, his heroism earned him a place within the Throne.  An impossible paradox saved him, bringing one of her closest allies to our side.  So if he could be summoned after being erased entirely, then...

     “...What could I possibly accomplish?  I’m no Knight of the Round.  I’m nothing more than a simple magus, an anomaly in the system.  I have no greater connection to her than any Servant that’s done battle with her.”

     “That’s not true!”

     Mash finds her voice, objecting to my feigned ignorance.  My eyes go wide as she speaks of knowledge she can’t possess.

     “You were never an enemy to her!  You were          ”

      She quiets herself before she can finish.  The looks she and our Master exchange tell me this was a secret meant to be kept between them.

     “I’m sorry, Emiya-senpai.  Senpai wanted to tell you herself, but I couldn’t say nothing.  Hearing you talk like that...  As a Servant, I just couldn’t bear to listen any longer.”

     The room seems to spin around me.  I look dumbfounded to my Master for answers, but she tends to her clearly distraught kouhai before me.  The redhead takes her Servant’s hand in hers before squeezing it gently.

     “It’s alright, Mash.  I understand.  Hearing that from another Master, it’s only natural to be upset.”

     Finally, my patience wears out.  I step forward, demanding an answer.

     “Master, what is the meaning of this?  What do you two          ”

      Stepping away from Mash’s side, she silences me with a stare I’ve seen only once before.  It’s the stare of a demonic and tyrannical Master who has put her foot down.  There is no argument to be made against her anymore.  With the same cold, but somehow fiery gaze, she explains herself to me as though I were nothing but an amateur.

     “You’ve forgotten something simple, Archer, a fact that should be burned into your memory.  When a contract is forged, the Master and Servant’s minds are linked.  In dreams, the Master learns of their Servant’s past, allowing them to understand their identities beyond their true name.  Ever since the beginning in Fuyuki, I’ve had my suspicions, but Camelot proved them beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

     Her words pierce through my defense of stoicism, fracturing the image of a cold hearted Guardian I’ve so carefully built up.  With one statement, she destroys the Hero of Wrought Iron and reveals the man it hides.

     “I know who you are, Emiya Shirou.”

     With that, the truth is laid bare.  My hands fall to my side, limp and empty.  Once again, I have suffered an incontrovertible defeat.

     “          So, I’ve been found out.  And here I thought I might cling to some small part of my dignity.”

     A pitiful chuckle leaves me as I cover my sight with a single hand.

     “If you know that much, then you should know this changes nothing.  The King of Knights answers the call of the Grail no more.  There is no catalyst great enough to draw her from her eternal rest.”

     “You’re wrong, Emiya-senpai.  Becoming one of her knights, I should know.  There are some connections that can never be severed.”

     Mash interjects once more.  The both of us turn to face her, as she beams a bright, serene smile, folding her hands behind her back.

     “A sword will always return to its sheath.”

     Kind words fell the beast in a way no blade ever could.  Any protest left within me is utterly routed.  Even through such distant separation, the contract remains.  Who am I to deny it?

     “...You are right, Miss Kyrielight.  I should not waste another second.”

     Steeling my resolve, I approach the shield and extend my left hand out to it.  The two girl stand at a distance from me, ready to provide support.  Magical energy flows out from me and my Master in kind.  The price of a summoning must be paid and for this miracle, the cost is high.  Blocking out the strain, blocking out my surroundings, blocking out any disbelief within me, I press on.

     Closing my eyes, I dive deep into the sea of my memories.  Within their depths, I seek out that one moment in time.  Hardly a second passes before it arrives, like a beacon of light shining through the fog.  It should come as no surprise.  I’m sure I’ll remember this scene vividly, even when I’ve gone to hell.

     Clang.  A beautiful sound.

             That light.  Only that sound is something I’ll never forget all my life.  The sound of the bell that announces the commencement of battle.  The beautiful sound from her flawless armor accompanies her figure.

    “          I ask of you, are you my Master?”

     Her voice is still clear.  The image in my memory did not erode over time; even now it is still etched deeply into my heart.  It was as if time had stopped.  The scene lasted less than a second, but I still remember it vividly, even in death.

    “I, Servant Saber, have come forth in response to your summons.  From this time forth, my sword shall be with you and your fate shall be with me.

               Now, our contract is complete.”

    ...Yes, the contract is complete.  She chose me to become her Master and I swore to help her with all my might.  The moonlight illuminated the darkness.  The knight’s figure appeared in the shed as if to reclaim silence.  As I think to myself, that familiar name slips out of my mouth.

     “Saber...”

             I still cannot forget that blue light.  Her blonde hair bathed in moonlight had texture as fine as grained gold.  Even now, these clear blue memories live on inside my heart.

     You have found your salvation.  You do not regret your path.  The dream we believed in, you made it come true.  I can ask for no more.

     ...But I want to see you.  Even if I have to continue on as machine, I still want you to hear my voice.  This trust and love for you has never wavered, not me as a hero, but the boy who could never protect anything and in the end, wholeheartedly became your sheath.

     That is why I must make this one last selfish request.

     The hammer comes knocking down.  My circuits roar to life, working to give shape to the image in my mind.  Ingrained within my very being even in its absence, I recreate it without fault.  The ultimate protection of King Arthur, Excalibur’s paired other half, the holy relic that gave purpose to my existence, is returned.  Avalon, the Ever-distant Utopia, the singular link to the isle of the fey appears before me once more.

     “Please come...  Saber!”

     From the center of the shield, a pillar of golden light erupts.  The brightness is enough to rob me of sight.  The force of it is enough to knock me off balance and prone.  Propping myself up, my vision slowly returns to me as the wellspring of magical energy fades.  As the light dies down, the figure before it becomes clear.

     A flowing gown of blue, white, and gold.  Golden hair tied perfectly in a bun by a singular blue ribbon.  Emerald green eyes that seem to sparkle in the light.  A cobalt shimmer of air in hand obscuring an unknown weapon.  As though to eliminate any remaining doubt, a spark of pain ignites in my left hand, in the mark that should be long and permanently faded.  There is no mistaking it.

      “...”

     She’s back.

[kingofthenorth49]

For the first morning in I don’t know when there are no brown eyes looking up at me (or in reality, my toast) while I sit in front of the fire enjoying my first sip of java on this gorgeous Saturday morning.

That’s right, we’re dogless.

His Royal Highstrungness is off socializing with strangers this weekend as mom and I enjoy a respite from the ever on ball of energy, call it a parenting break, but its actually more of a “let’s test our homeowner’s insurance policy against a lawsuit” type test. Part of me wants to unplug the phone for the next 36 hours in fear they call to tell me to come get my dog because he burned down the place.

Isn’t fear wonderful? It’s the one emotion that significantly limits us as humans from reaching our full potential. Babies are born without a sense of fear, but it develops rather fast. Some scientist believe the reason for this is to allow human babies to learn to move around with their bodies in their environment before fear stops them from wanting to learn to move. Think about it. If babies were born with the fear of falling, they would never move. They’d just lay there, paralyzed with the fear of falling, safe in their comfort that if they don’t move, they won’t get hurt.

Kind of like most humans have become.

Don’t deny it, I see it. I see you. You’ve allowed them to take control of your fear. Everyday I interact with people who have lost control of their ability to perceive risk and evaluate controls to keep themselves safe from harm.

I see it in the eyes. I hear it in the text of comments on social media. I feel it in the emptiness of our streets.

You are laying there paralyzed in fear. Just where they want you to be.

Relax, it’s natural for you to be in complete fear of the world right now, that’s what they designed. I’m 53 years old, I think I’m fairly intelligent, I’ve navigated through life so far with the tools my parents and teachers equipped me with, I’ve not ended up in jail (facebook jail doesn’t count) and raised a couple half-decent kids (let’s see if they read these) and travelled around the globe a bit to see how the other half live, but here’s what I’ve had to live with in those short 53 years.

I first recall the world famines that were coming in 1975, it was already too late for civilization and I felt guilty about eating my beans and weiners. Next it was air pollution and how it would cause an ice age by the 21st century and that the world was going to get very cold. I remember wondering to myself if our furnace would be able to keep the house warm. We had to get rid of brown paper bags to help the forests help us, and these new plastic bags were going to save the world.

By the late 70’s, the ozone layer was going to kill us all as the spray cans were ripping a hole in the atmosphere and deadly gamma rays were going to melt our faces. Then in the early 80’s, acid rain came along threatening to destroy our world in a few years with deluges of toxics water from the heavens, but by the late 1980’s they ice age had been called off, and they decided to turn the heat up and global warming was born.

Droughts, famine, and sea levels rising were the order of the day, and I can remember Dr. Friz VanWacko at Dal telling us in 1987 that within 30 years the Maldives were going to be under water, gone forever.

Funny, Facebook has been pelting me with ads for the Maldives for the last month, they must still be open or we need a fact check on aisle 6. I’ll also be honest, the ads are working, but I digress…

I can go on and on, but you know where I’m going, right?

GET IT YET?

Folks, they want us to live in a perpetual state of fear. Fear is the greatest motivator, and those who seek power use it as the lever to get us to do what they want, whether it’s an abusive spouse or Justin Trudeau, they use fear to keep us in control.

And we let them. We let them and they win, so shame on us. Then they use us to control others’, shaming is the new black. They’re now using us to control others’ and its genius. It is the ultimate way to subjugate a population. Keep people cowering at home under the bed, afraid to move all the while you make the changes you want in the world with no resistance.

Genius. We’ve seen this before, right?

We’ve become just like that newborn baby. A baby that knows if it never moves it will never get hurt. It will be safe.

But it will also never move, grow, or experience life. It will be denied the value of living a life fulfilled, of experiencing all the things this life holds that makes the risk of moving worthwhile, and sadly at some point it will shame the other babies who fail about in reckless abandon seeking their stairs to climb, all because they are too afraid to move themselves.

I’ve known debilitating fear, fear so deep you can’t breathe. I also learned early on in my life that when you are confronted with a crisis you have three “seconds” to live. A second to realize your in crisis, a second to panic, and by the third second you must respond to the threat or you will die. I learned that from Scuba Steve, my scuba instructor when I was 13. Best life advice ever, and no matter if I had gotten myself in a bad place on a motorbike or exceeded my comfort level chasing someone through the woods at 4 am, I remembered the three second rule.

Folks, most of society is stuck at second two. Seriously, people are paralyzed in fear.

How will you respond? How will you move past fear?

I know how I’ll respond, the same way I’ve responded for the last year. Going to keep washing my hands, keeping socially distant, and I’ll stay home if I’m sick, but that’s it. I refuse to cower under my bed, I want to live a life of happiness and fulfillment, just like I have through multitudes of crisis I’ve been subjected too over the last 53 years. Oh, and I plan to offer Justin my vaccine. He needs it more than I, because I don’t fear death, I fear not living.

Sorry for being so deep this fine Saturday morning but I felt I had to get this off my chest. I see the fear in many people’s eyes who used to live large lives. People who used to laugh, carry-on and really live have become skittish and fearful, posting mask-shaming and virus sightings on-line, and if that’s your choice on how you want to live, I respect that. But it’s how you are going to live, not me.

Happy Saturday fine folks of the world, what are you going to do today to fulfill your life?

I’m going to enjoy finishing my coffee and counting the hours down until I go out into the world and pick up my brown-eyed buddy, hopefully who hasn’t trashed the place on his first visit.

Jim Out.