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flufffysocks · 3 years

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let's talk about andi mack's worldbuilding

sorry this took forever to make! i've been pretty busy with school stuff and i kind of lost my inspiration for a bit, but i ultimately really enjoyed writing it! i wish i could've included more pics (tumblr has a max of 10 per post), and it kinda turned from less of a mini analysis to more of an extremely long rant... but i hope it's still a fun read!

i've been rewatching the show over the past few weeks (thanks again to @disneymack for the link!), and i’ve been noticing a lot that i never did the first time around. this is really the first time i’ve watched the show from start to finish since it aired, and it honestly feels so different this time - probably a combination of the fact that i’m not as focused on plot and can appreciate the show as a whole, and also that the fandom is much, much smaller now, so there’s a lot less noise. so the way i’m consuming this show feels super different than it did the first time, but the show itself doesn’t - it’s just as warm and comforting to me as it was the first time around, if not more so.

i think a lot of that can be attributed to andi mack’s “worldbuilding”. i’m not quite sure that this is the right word in this context, to be honest, because i mostly see it used in reference to fantasy and sci-fi universes, but it just sort of feels right to me for andi mack, because you can really tell how much love and care went into constructing this universe. for clarity, worldbuilding is “the process of creating an imaginary world” in its simplest sense. there’s two main types: hard worldbuilding, which involves inventing entire universes, languages, people, cultures, places, foods, etc. from scratch (think “lord of the rings” or “dune”), and soft worldbuilding, in which the creators don’t explicitly state or explain much about the fictional universe, but rather let it’s nature reveal itself as the story progresses (think studio ghibli films). andi mack to me falls in the soft worldbuilding category. even though it takes place in a realistic fiction universe, there’s a lot of aspects to it that are inexplicably novel in really subtle ways.

so watching the show now, i’ve noticed that the worldbuilding comes primarily from two things - setting and props, and oftentimes the both of them in tandem (because a big part of setting in filmmaking does depend on the props placed in it!).

one of the most obvious examples is the spoon. it really is a sort of quintessential, tropic setting in that it's the main gang's "spot", which automatically gives it a warm and homey feel to it. and its set design only amplifies this:

the choice to make it a very traditional 50s-style diner creates a very nostalgic, retro feel to it, which is something that's really consistent throughout the show, as you'll see. from the round stools at the bar, to the booths, to the staff uniforms, this is very obvious. the thing that i found especially interesting about it though is the choice of color. the typical 50s diner is outfitted with metallic surfaces and red accented furnishings, but the spoon is very distinctly not this.

instead, it's dressed in vibrant teal and orange, giving it a very fresh and modern take on a classic look. so it still maintains that feeling of being funky and retro, but that doesn't retract from the fact that the show is set distinctly in modern times.

of course, this could just be a one-off quirky set piece, but this idea of modernizing and novelizing "retro" things is a really common motif throughout the show. take red rooster records. i mean, it's a record shop - need i say more? it's obviously a very prominent store in shadyside, at least for the main characters, but there's no apparent reason why it is (until season 2 when bowie starts working there, and jonah starts performing there). a lot of the time, though, it functions solely as a record shop. vinyl obviously isn't the most practical or convenient way of listening to music, but it's had its resurgence in pop culture even in the real world, mostly due to its aesthetic value, so it's safe to say that it serves the same purpose in the andi mack universe.

the fringe seems to be nostalgic of a different era, specifically the Y2K/early 2000s period (because it's meant to be bex's territory and symbolic of who she used to be, and its later transformation into cloud 10 is representative of her character arc, but that's beside the point). to be honest, exactly what this store was supposed to be always confused me. it was kind of a combination party store/clothing store/makeup store/beauty parlor? i think that's sort of the point of it though, it's supposed to feel very grunge-y and chaotic (within the confines of a relatively mellow-toned show, of course), and it's supposed to act as a sort of treasure chest of little curios that both make the place interesting and allow the characters to interact with it.

and, of course, there's andi shack. this is really the cherry on top of all of andi mack's sets, just because it's so distinctly andi. it serves such amazing narrative purpose for her (ex. the storyline where cece and ham were going to move - i really loved this because it highlights its place in the andi mack universe so well, and i'm a sucker for the paper cranes shot + i'm still salty that sadie's cranes didn't make it into the finale) and it's the perfect reflection of andi's character development because of how dynamic it is (the crafts and art supplies can get moved around or switched out, and there's always new creations visible).

going back to the nostalgia motif though, the "shack" aspect of it always struck me as very treehouse-like. personally, whenever i think of treehouses, there's this very golden sheen of childhood about it, if that makes sense. i've always seen treehouses in media as a sort of shelter for characters' youthful innocence and idealistic memories. for example, the episode "up a tree" from good luck charlie, the episode "treehouse" from modern family, and "to all the boys 2" all use a treehouse setting as a device to explore the character's desire to hold onto their perfect image of their childhood (side note: this exact theme is actually explored in andi mack in the episode "perfect day 2.0"!). andi shack is no exception to this, but it harnesses this childhood idealism in the same way that it captures the nostalgia of the 50s in the spoon, or the early 2000s in the fringe. it's not some image of a distant past being reflected through that setting; it's very present, and very alive, because it reflects andi as she is in the given moment.

some honorable mentions of more one-off settings include the ferris wheel (from "the snorpion"), the alley art gallery (from "a walker to remember"), SAVA, the color factory (from "it's a dilemna"), and my personal favorite, the cake shop (from "that syncing feeling").

[every time i watch this episode i want to eat those cakes so bad]

these settings have less of a distinctly nostalgic feel (especially the color factory, which is a very late 2010s, instagram era setting), but they all definitely have an aura of perfection about them. andi mack is all about bright, colorful visuals, and these settings really play to that, making the andi mack universe seem really fun and inviting, and frankly very instagrammable (literally so, when it comes to the color factory!).

props, on the other hand, are probably a much less obvious tool of worldbuilding. they definitely take up less space in the frame and are generally not as noticeable (i'm sure i'll have missed a bunch that will be great examples, but i'm kind of coming up with all of this off the top of my head), but they really tie everything together.

for example, bex's box, bex's polaroid, and the old tv at the mack apartment (the tv is usually only visible in the periphery of some shots, so you might not catch it at first glance) all complement that very retro aesthetic established through the settings (especially the polaroid and the tv, because there's really no good reason that the characters would otherwise be using these).

besides this, andi's artistic nature provides the perfect excuse for plenty of colorful, crafty props to amplify the visuals and the tone. obviously, as i discussed before, andi shack is the best example of this because it's filled with interesting props. but you also see bits of andi's (and other people's) crafts popping up throughout the show (ex. the tape on the fridge in the mack apartment, andi's and libby's headbands in "the new girls", walker's shoes, andi's phone case, and of course, the bracelet). not only does doing this really solidify this talent as an essential tenet of andi's character, but it also just makes the entirety of shadyside feel like an extension of andi shack. the whole town is a canvas for her crafts (or art, depending on how you want to look at it. i say it's both), and it immensely adds to shadyside's idealism. because who wouldn't want to live in a world made of andi mack's creations?

and, while it's not exactly a prop, the characters' wardrobe is undoubtedly a major influence on the show's worldbuilding. true to it's nature as a disney channel show, all of the characters are always dressed in exceptionally curated outfits of whatever the current trends are, making the show that much more visually appealing. i won't elaborate too much on this, because i could honestly write a whole other analysis on andi mack's fashion (my favorites are andi's and bex's outfits! and kudos to the costume designer(s) for creating such wonderful and in-character wardrobes!). but, i think it's a really really important aspect of how the show's universe is perceived, so it had to be touched upon.

[^ some of my favorite outfits from the show! i am so obsessed with andi's jacket in the finale, and i aspire to be at bex's level of being a leather jacket bisexual]

and lastly, phones. this is a bit of an interesting case (pun intended), because the way they're used fluctuates a bit throughout the show, but i definitely noticed that at least in the first season terri minsky tried to avoid using them altogether. these efforts at distancing from modern tech really grounds the show in it's idealist, nostalgia-heavy roots, so even when the characters start using their phones more later in the show, they don't alter the viewer's impression of the andi mack universe very much.

so, what does all of this have to do with worldbuilding? in andi mack's case, because it's set in a realistic universe and not a fantasy one, a lot of what sets it apart from the real world comes down to tone. because, as much as this world is based on our own, it really does feel separate from it, like an alternate reality that's just slightly more perfect than ours, which makes all the difference. it's the idealism in color and composition in andi mack's settings that makes it so unmistakably andi mack. even the weather is always sunny and perfect (which is incredibly ironic because the town is called shadyside - yes, i am very proud of that observation).

the andi mack universe resides somewhere in this perfect medium that makes it feel like a small town in the middle of nowhere (almost like hill valley in 1955 from "back to the future"), but at the same time like an enclave within a big city (because of its proximity to so many modern, unique, and honestly very classy looking establishments). it is, essentially, an unattainable dream land that tricks you into believing it is attainable because it's just real enough.

all this to say, andi mack does an amazing job of creating of polished, perfect world for its characters. this is pretty common among disney channel and nickelodeon shows, but because most other shows tend to be filmed in a studio with three-wall sets, andi mack is really set apart from them in that it automatically feels more real and tangible. it has its quintessential recurring locations, but it has far more of them (most disney/nick shows usually only have 3-4 recurring settings), and it has a lot more one-off locations. it's also a lot more considerate when it comes to its props, so rather than the show just looking garish and aggressively trendy, it has a distinctive style that's actually appropriate to the characters and the story. overall this creates the effect of expanding the universe, making shadyside feel like it really is a part of a wider world, rather than an artificial bubble. it's idealism is, first and foremost, grounded in reality, and that provides a basis for its brilliant, creative, and relatable storytelling.

tl;dr: andi mack's sets and props give it a very retro and nostalgic tone which makes its whole universe seem super perfect and i want to live there so bad!!

#andi mack #buffy driscoll #cyrus goodman #jonah beck #tj kippen #tyrus #ambi #bex mack #analysis #film analysis #disney channel

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fereldanwench · 2 years

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Tag Game!

I was tagged by @wanderingaldecaldo 😘😘

A. Three ships Goro x Valerie [CP77] Max x Felicity [TOW] Harry x Sara [MEA]

(But Goro and Valerie kinda trump all other ships tbh. My OTP of OTPS.)

B. Last Song Spectres from the Black Moss - Ashbury Heights

C. Last Movie I can't remember, lmao. I rewatched The Mummy for the 4385734857349th time recently, but I can't remember if that was the last movie I actually watched. Oh, I watched Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin a few weeks ago. Very forgettable, apparently.

D. Currently craving A job, lmao.

E. Currently reading Also pretty much just Cyberpunk fanfic. Gonna throw some love to Bad Case (of Loving You) which is a fantastic Vik x V pre-canon story complete with some noir-esque medical crimes to solve. I literally stop what I'm doing whenever I get an update to read the next chapter.

1. Favorite color Kinda depends on the context, but a few recurring ones: black, red, teal, burgundy, mint green

2. Last Series Just started Succession and I'm fucking obsessed with this entire family of assholes 10/10

3. Sweet, Savoury, or Spicy Savory 100%. I've never had much of a sweet tooth, and I like spicy, but I don't always like how my body responds to spicy, lmao.

4. Currently working on ✒️ Fic: I'm always chipping away at my Goro x Valerie long fic and/or one-shots, and I think I just had a breakthrough on what was tripping me up for the next chapter of With Interest. I think I'm gonna try to tackle that today, actually. 🎨 Art: Got a few pieces in work at the moment, but I've been trying to find my flow again with digital painting so I've been working on a Goro portrait in PS. I'll drop a WIP shot under the cut. ⚙️ Modding: No new mods at the moment, wanna wait for 1.5 to settle some more. I do need to update my photomode pose packs with some notes about how those work now, and I was very close to having my new AMM guide done until 1.5 borked everything, lmao.

Tagging @bnbc, @vvizjer, @nananarc, @gloryride, @commander-krios and anyone else who wants to do it! ♥

#mine: art #mine: wip #tumblr: dash games

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hellyeahomeland · 4 years

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Things Carrie Wore This Week

TCWTW hive, last week we ate. This week, we feast.

This is the same ensemble Carrie was wearing at the end of last week’s episode but I just have to say I totally love it. Carrie in all black is perfection.

Her earrings are these little silver dome studs. Remember when Carrie wearing earrings was a surprising occurrence? Props to the costume department this season because Carrie has worn ALL THE EARRINGS and looked great doing it.

~the last Theory pantsuit~

She buttoned both buttons... again. I was exasperated last week... I’m now so mellow about it all that I don’t even care. Hey, it’s waist-defining. You do you, Carrie!

She did TUCK IN HER SHIRT. I’m gasping!!! The shirt is (probably) a long-sleeve blouse, in this actually very nice olive-y green color that looks more brownish here. This is great, too! Sorry, I’m reveling in the tucked shirt. If she’d done a French tuck I would have passed through to another dimension.

Interlude the First:

Bonus ~Things Tasneem Wore This Week~

This fucking gorgeous ~eggplant~ ensemble. This is officially my favorite of the season, but purple is my favorite color so I’m not impartial. And the pearls! Which, per Nimrat Kauer, are actually her mother’s? I love that! I love this show! Thank you life, thank you love, it is true, there are some angels in this city!

Anyway, where were we?

Oh, right! Carrie goes to the West Bank and throws on this actually lovely dark teal Henley. This is fabulous! I love the sleeve length. The color is wonderful and looks tremendous on her.

Here’s the full look. Her dependable black skinny jean, the black suede boots. Oh, and the gun. This is your look, Carrie. This is an A. Bravo.

Interlude the Second:

~Bonus Things Hugh Dancy Wore This Week~

ANOTHER FUCKING KNITTED TIE. I am beyond amused at this homie and his tragique facial hair and his $10,000 suits and his Park Slope knitted tie.

I’m just... honestly kudos to Hugh Dancy for bringing the ultimate sliminess to this role. He was overjoyed, you could tell. But these knitted ties. How many does he have? Eighteen? In different shades of blue and grey? Anyhoozles, I’m sure John Zabel landed squarely on his feet and is headlining his own Fox News primetime show.

ARE YOU ALL READY? WE’RE ABOUT TO GO TWO YEARS INTO THE FUTURE.

How does one describe the feeling when the camera slowly pans over to Carrie Mathison, hair perfectly curled, sitting in her beautifully- yet moodily-lit Moscow penthouse at her vanity, wearing a silk robe in a lovely shade of mauve, applying mascara? Remember that other dimension I mentioned above? I’M IN IT.

I’m... speechless. You know that meme that’s like “when you listen to your new favorite song so many times that you eventually get sick of it”? I’m in danger of reaching that territory.

She’s wearing lingerie?? She’s smiling?????? She!!!!!!!!!!

(admittedly the lingerie doesn’t fit that well but WHO GIVES A SHIT)

(we’re all in agreement that everything Carrie wears in the last twenty minutes has been a gift from Yevgeny because he is apparently rolling in cash and loves to shower her with presents, right? and she indulges him because she loves him and she knows she looks fucking awesome?)

PAUSE to just take in this scene:

The mid-century-style vanity with all her makeup neatly arranged. Y’all, I’m wheezing!!

His and hers stools at the foot of the bed.

The largeness of it. This bedroom is massive!! I thought Saul’s bedroom was giant (it is), this is on another level.

“I just like how he’s always leaning. Against stuff. He leans great.”

Another smile. God, these close-mouthed smiles, I’m truly in another reality.

ANYWAY: the necklace. It’s a Dominique Cohen “diamond pendant necklace (large), in 18k yellow gold, 22-inch chain,” 0.85 carats of white diamonds. It is now officially called “the Carrie” and you can buy it for the low, low price of $3600 (really, it’s on sale).

Yevgeny being a man who knows jewelry is so damn on brand it’s ridiculous.

Not the series but IJLTP.

Interlude the Third: Carrie and Yevgeny: A Height Difference Made in Heaven

(married couple)

(how is he so giant)

(she’s wearing heels and still just comes up to his chin!!!!)

They’re a match made in heaven, and that’s actually where I am right now.

THE COAT. THE HEELS. It’s hard to tell in this photo but her toenails are also painted black. In case we had any doubt that Carrie is living her best life!!

This coat is gorgeous and so unexpected. They could have just had her wear a more standard black peacoat, but instead they went with this decidedly more elegant textured (beaded?) number. Also, Yevgeny had the coat waiting for her when she walked down the stairs. Did she pick this out beforehand? It’s very much an evening coat, I’m just wondering how he knew that’s what she’d want to wear.

Good God the last twenty minutes of this episode are just Carrie looking stunning and radiant. It’s what we deserve, and we absolutely love to see it!

Ok, the earrings! They are also Dominique Cohen (and therefore almost certainly a previous gift from Yevgeny?), specifically the 1.5-inch oval diamond hoops in 18k yellow gold with 0.44 carats of white diamonds. You can get them for the low, low price of $2750 (again, they’re on sale!).

Y’ALL. THEY MADE A CARRIE COLLECTION. CARRIE MATHISON HAS A COLLECTION. OF JEWELRY. NAMED AFTER HER.

My girl’s not just surviving, she’s thriving.

The outfit. The top is by Narciso Rodriguez, from his pre-fall 2018 collection: “matte black sequin embroidered one-shoulder silk top.”

Given that Claire Danes’ favorite designer is Narciso Rodriguez and they are dear friends, do we think this is from Claire’s own wardrobe? ‘Twould be fitting, I’ll say that. The whole ~lewk (especially the asymmetry!) is so Claire it’s wild.

I”m fairly certain the skirt is Narciso Rodriguez too, because why not?!

The much-speculated-about purse is the Tango bag by Tissa Fontaneda (sells for $770, but she bought two so that’s $1540). Again, très distinct. The taste!

CARRIE HAS A TANLINE. CARRIE A. MATHISON.

From which remote beach location did they just return? Croatia, maybe? Or Fiji? Please let me know your thoughts.

By the way, it goes without saying how fabulous Carrie looks. She looks gorgeous. The curled hair is... *chef’s kiss* It got me thinking whether this is a look (the curled hair) she goes with more often than not now... I can’t decide!

The ring! What an unusual ring. I love how geometric it is. God, Carrie wearing three distinct pieces of jewelry is something I’ll never get over. I’m also calling that this is one of Claire’s own, since my favorite ever credit in a Claire Danes photoshoot is “rings: Danes’ own.”

Interlude the Last: Claire Danes Wearing Eyeglasses

The ponytail.

Her Zoom username being “Le iPad (2)” is sending me.

I had to include this because this is a thing Carrie wore. Love the (presumably white) Oxford shirt. This photo will always haunt me. This is Carrie too. No one’s just one thing.

What is Carrie wearing at the end? How about an honest-to-God smile?

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

IN CONCLUSION: I LOVE YOU, CARRIE.

#phew what a journey #homeland #homelandedit #things carrie wore this week #carrie mathison #prisoners of war #*#god i'm so overwhelmed #i'm getting choked up #favorite #by: sara #carrie mathison: an icon a legend and she IS the moment

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thebarefootking · 4 years

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Food

As with many autistic people, my childhood was rife with battles at the dinner table over what I would and would not eat. (Or, in my case, the bar. Our trailer didn't have a dinner table, per se, and I ate on a tall chair in the kitchen, facing across the bar toward the living room TV, while my parents sat on the couch.) Some foods were fan favorites, some I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot fork. Tomatoes, I hated (and still hate!) One of my earliest memories is of a preschool teacher, so much bigger than me, coming up behind while I picked at my food.

"Don't you like tomatoes?"

"No. They're gross."

"Have you ever tried a tomato?"

"No. They smell bad and they're mushy."

"Well how do you know you don't like it, if you haven't tasted it?" she asked, ignoring the fact I'd just told her. "Try it. For me?"

"I don't wanna."

"Just one bite?"

"I don't. wanna."

"You need to try the tomato."

Of course, when I finally gave in to her badgering, I 'learned' what had already been apparent to me: tomatoes were gross.

Some foods, more interestingly, were one-day delights, preferred a couple times and then hated thereafter. Eggs, for example, were always a trial. A nice scramble was always accepted, at least for my youngest years, until I learned more about where eggs came from. After that, I swore I could taste the chicken embryos, and I didn't eat eggs for a good, long while. When I repented of my folly, fried eggs were the dish of the day, but only one way: cooked hard, with the yolk unbroken. That way, I could peel the egg white away and eat it, and leave the whole yolk on my plate to be disposed of or, more frequently, eaten by one of my parents.

For those of you who cook, you may know that this is a particularly difficult way to prepare eggs. Either the yolks stay runny and burst on the plate (bad), or they burst in the pan from heat and overhandling, and mingle inextricably with the white (worse). Dad claims it took him months of practice to figure out how to do it, and years to get really good… by which time I'd gone off eggs again, preferring a sweeter breakfast (probably for the energy boost it gave me. By the time 4th-6th grades rolled around, school was causing me to work up an intense appetite.)

Although I didn't have a very broad spectrum of preferred tastes, that didn't stop me wanting to experiment in the kitchen. Indeed, it was one of my favorite things to do! Unfortunately, I could rarely get an adult to allow it (partly because we, in our poverty, could not afford to waste ingredients. Partly because, again, due to poverty, everyone was just too damn exhausted to supervise something that potentially dangerous.) Instead, I usually ended up sneaking and doing it on my own, which invariably led to trauma of one kind or another.

One incident occurred one of the very first times my parents dubbed me old enough to stay home on my own while they went out to run errands. Having recently seen a news spot on dyed salt for those seeking to reduce their salt intake, I sought to replicate the stuff in my own kitchen. How hard could it be? I thought. Just add food coloring to salt.

Only, food coloring has water in it.

All the salt (and I do mean all the salt in the house) was now a dark blue-green color, and the texture of wet sand. I needed to dry it out! But I wasn't allowed to use the oven or stove unsupervised. What could I do?

I decided the best option was to microwave the salt. I spread it out on a large plate, and nuked it in batches until all the salt was dry. Unfortunately, for the first batch, I failed to realise how VERY FUCKING HOT the plate would be after several minutes spinning away in the microwave. I pulled it out barehanded, screeched in pain, and tossed the Perry-the-Platypus-colored salt all over the kitchen floor and microwave cabinet.

Not good. I was already beginning to worry about what my parents would think about all this business with the salt. Now I had a mess on my hands to boot. I tended to my (thankfully minor) burns, and then began swabbing the floor and cabinet with damp paper towels...

… which spread the food dye EVERYWHERE. Now the salt was teal, the floor was teal, the cabinet was teal, and I was teal.

And I had no idea when my parents would return!

I cleaned frantically, microwaving salt on the side the entire time. And somehow (perhaps Lot's wife was smiling upon me?) I got it all managed. My parents came home to a nice, clean kitchen (if you didn't see the small blue spots in the crevices at the very edge of one cabinet), and a calm, collected child (also slightly spotted, but only on the palms, easily hidden). Nothing of note occurred until dinner time.

"LAUREN!!"

Apparently, Dad did not like that all of his salt was turned 'blue'. My reasoning appeased his anger, but he was still pretty displeased. I was temporarily banned from using the microwave without permission. And they were far more cautious about leaving me alone, after that.

(These days, Dad frequently apologises for this. He says it was a creative and thoughtful act, and he shouldn't have gotten mad. I agree, but I'm also not mad anymore. The whole thing is rather funny in retrospect.)

A much more traumatic food event, much later, but still involving the microwave, was the first time I tried making microwave mac 'n cheese. It was around the inception of Easy Mac, so the idea was quite novel; it wasn't as if I had a backlog of knowledge on what not to do…

I followed the instructions exactly, with the single differing point of adding some dried parsley before cooking.

AND LET ME TELL YOU.

If you are going to add parsley to your Easy Mac, do it after cooking! Cooking amplifies and alters the flavor so that it tastes like you added some sort of cooked leafy vegetable, like spinach, except somewhat more like an inedible plant. The flavor permeates every nook and noodle, and even the cheese sauce can't mask it.

It was inedible. Beyond inedible; it was sensory overload of the worst kind.

And my parents, who had watched the whole thing, and warned me of putting anything in my food that I didn't 100% know would taste good, made me eat it.

At first, there was a screaming match, until I wore myself out with tears and begging. Then, I just sat there, defeated, thinking of ways I could get out of eating it. Maybe if I intentionally get choked on the food? Maybe if I shatter the glass of the coffee table, and then hurt myself with it? Something to make them care about something other than me eating this food. Anything to make them see how much eating the food was bad and wrong and how much it hurt me.

I was never, in my entire childhood, a willfully disobedient child. Well, small things, here or there, a child's innocent inability to self-regulate their impulses or understand the rules. Never did I knowingly and intentionally go against my parents' commands when I now feel like I had another real choice. But there were times, like these, when I didn't have a choice.

I ate three bites before my body rebelled and I threw up. Mom didn't follow through on her threat to make me eat the vomit and finish the food.

Instead, I got grounded for two weeks.

Incidentally, I've never gotten an apology for this little incident, despite it being the one I'm still angry over.

None of this is to say I was too picky to be fed, or that I ever went without (excepting that one night with the poison mac). If anything, I ate more than plenty in an attempt to offset the lacks in nutrition my pickiness inevitably led to. I'm sure that I was malnourished at times, despite eating more than my necessary share of calories.

And boy, was I aware of what that share was! My parents were and are avid yo-yo dieters, always on one plan or another to lose the weight they gained off a diet of poverty foods. All the while, frustrated by my pickiness, they fed me on breakfasts of whole packages of off-brand cinnamon rolls or apple turnovers. My lunch was usually whatever snack-foods I could convince the lunch ladies to sell me for the same price as a school lunch I wouldn't eat. With both parents either busy or exhausted, dinner was Taco Bell nearly every damn weekday.

It was inevitable that I would gain weight, with the genes, environment, and diet all inclined toward it. I was ten or eleven the first time my parents mentioned including me in one of their diet plans.

Not likely, I thought. I had long since decided that healthy food was gross, like school lunches and boiled vegetables and limp salads. And I wouldn't, couldn't cut my portions; not when I had to stay alert and concentrating while hauling all my books all around the school without a bookbag (which, after the Columbine shooting, had been banned at my school, lest we ten-year-olds have a place to conceal a weapon). I was already battling undiagnosed ADHD. I didn't need low blood sugar on top of it.

Still, if it gave them an incentive to buy more fresh fruit, I wasn't going to complain.

(And I didn't complain at all about any of their diets, until the one that consisted almost exclusively of boiled cabbage soup that stank the house to high heaven. I didn't even entertain joining them on that one.)

What it all added up to, though, was someone who, by the age of eleven, already had enormous issues with food and body image. And diet, for that matter, for we still hadn't found a healthy variety of foods that I would eat. By the time I was in high school, I was eating Cheetos and Little Debbies with Mountain Dew for lunch every weekday except Wednesday (chicken nuggets and mashed potatoes day in the cafeteria! Hell yeah!) I was also being (mildly) bullied for my weight.

Adulthood came after, with blessings and curses. When I moved out on my own, I had more opportunity (and income!) to explore what I liked culinarily. I got to employ the whole backlog of tips and tricks from cooking shows that I had watched for years. (At one point, during high school, I had wanted to become a chef. I gave up the idea when I realised how ill-suited I was to the job, but the education of the time stuck with me.)

I got to learn my favorite ways to cook food (pan fried, not baked. Baking unseasoned meat is not 'cooking', Dad.) I got to play with spices and flavors.

Or, I did for a while.

Very soon, my work at McDonald's caught up with me, and I found myself too tired to do much cooking. (Sorry, Dad! I understand, now!) More and more, my meals were eaten at work, from work. Over the next year, my stress increased, and my eating habits faltered along. And then, I began passing out at work.

Now, I needn't tell you this is a very dangerous situation, what with all the hot oil and ovens and lamps and such in a kitchen. I was sent home more than once, and it was becoming a danger not only to me, but to the state of my employment. I got in with a doctor as soon as I possibly could, and they determined that I had iron deficiency anemia.

No one was particularly surprised. I have a family history of the affliction, and I had basically been living off yogurt cups, Sausage Egg McMuffins, and chicken biscuits with cheese for months. My doctor suggested diet changes and high-dose iron supplements.

(One of these two turned my poop to black sin slime from a hell portal in my bowels. It was not the diet.)

Immediately, I switched over to a high-iron, high-protein, low-carb diet. And you know what? I felt fucking fantastic. I had energy for days, my mental acuity was improved, and my mood was better. I fell asleep faster and slept more soundly.

For three months, I kept it up. But then the financial burden became too much. Turns out, it's damn expensive to eat home-cooked meat every day when you're picky as hell. I was easily spending at least two to three times as much as I was when I was eating only fast food (on employee discount, admittedly). And soon, between the stress, the financial concerns, and my health problems, I had to move back in with my parents.

Honestly, I still haven't found peace with food and its place in my life. Coming to accept what my sensory needs mean for me has been difficult, and working around those needs in a productive way has been nearly impossible, especially with my other disabilities in tow. I feel that I'm learning to be kinder to my body emotionally speaking, but I could still be much kinder to it physically.

If only I could figure out how.

I wish I could be that little kid who loved experimenting in the kitchen, again. But I'm not, and I can't. So I'll have to find another way to take care of me.

#a year of writing #01062020 #self harm #school shooting mention #diet talk #child abuse #vomit tw #medical stuff #actuallyautistic #actuallyadhd #long post #this one's kind of long and disjointed #sorry for that lol #and lots of warnings on this one!

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slowpocalypsecooking · 4 years

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the top 8 tracks on folklore from least to most embarrassing to enjoy

Hi I’m Anthony Fantano and welcome to the needle drop. I don’t know if he says that, because I don’t watch him—if I wanted to listen to a repulsive white man talk about music, I could just go on a date. (just kidding, covid!)

Forgoing any further introduction, here are the top eight tracks from Taylor Swift’s new album, low-caps “folklore,” ranked from least embarrassing to most embarrassing to enjoy, according to me. The whole album is 16 tracks long, but I’m only doing the most noteworthy half because 16 is too many. You’re welcome for that decision.

Methodology: To get on this list, songs had to be both embarrassing and enjoyable. There will be natural fluctuation between tracks, but as we go down the list, assume that the songs are getting increasingly better to listen to and worse to think about, like this:

The rankings:

8. cardigan

This is a song about feeling at times like an unloved trash bag, as we all do, and then being warmly reminded that you matter because you are in fact someone’s fallback. The hook goes:

and when i felt like i was an old cardigan under someone’s bed you put me on and said i was your favorite.

Beyond reveling in this pathetic status, this song serves as an admission that the speaker a. uses the word “cardigan” and b. thinks of those bland, preppy sweaters as a comforting thing to wear. In a cooler universe, this song would be called “flannel.” It is just okay to listen to.

7. mad woman

This song has big Ophelia vibes, big Handmaid’s Tale vibes, big “daughter of the witches you couldn’t burn” vibes. One of the verses contains the line “and women like hunting witches too,” because, hey, woman-on-woman misogyny is bad, didn’t you know. Strong reminder that if being called crazy is the worst form of oppression you’ve experienced, you still have it pretty good. Sometimes sounds decent, sometimes too croony.

6. invisible string

This one uses a pretty lazy, commonplace device: She opens couplets within verses by just naming colors, and uses these to create a simple repetitive structure for introducing random, useless details:

green was the color of the grass where i used to read at centennial park i used to think i would meet somebody there teal was the color of your shirt when you were sixteen at the yogurt shop you used to work at to make a little money

Sure this device is tired, but that’s only the surface of what’s embarrassing here. More embarrassing is the image I’ve conjured of a teal-shirted teenage boy smiling through his braces behind the toppings station at one of those blindingly lit American-kawaii froyo stores. I don’t know who needs to hear this but don’t fuck the froyo boy. Song is pretty catchy.

5. illicit affairs

Title says it all here: This song is about how thrilling and fun and ultimately horrible it is to be involved in a romantic situation you’re not supposed to be in, and how that forbidden sheen can get you totally enthralled with a crappy garbage man. Not a whole lot going on below the surface. This song is both very enjoyable and very embarrassing because it is very relatable.

4. seven

We are back to the aggressive levels of white woman previously seen in “mad woman,” only the case has gotten much more severe. Here’s this song’s final chorus:

Sweet tea in the summer Cross my heart, won’t tell no other And though I can't recall your face I still got love for you Pack your dolls and a sweater We'll move to India forever Passed down like folk songs Our love lasts so long

Okay let’s just skate past the part where a presumed adult is telling a fellow adult (I sure hope!) to bring their dolls when they run away together. That in itself is too big a can of worms to crack open. What I want to talk about is the line “We’ll move to India forever,” which pretty obviously uses an Orientalist fantasy of India as some nebulous, ethereal image of the East. Real people don’t live there; it’s the exotic dreamland where sweet-tea drinking southern belles bring their adult toys when they elope. This song is very catchy.

3. betty

Let me start by saying that now that we’re in the top three, all of the remaining songs are vying for the #1 slot. I could very easily see this and the next as the Most Embarrassing to Enjoy. But “betty” is clocking in at number three today.

This is a song about a teenage romance gone bad, in which a speaker named James (who is “only seventeen, I don’t know anything”) has cheated on a girlfriend (Betty) and is now considering showing up at her party, begging for forgiveness, and hoping for a kiss in the garden. We get the backstory in the bridge:

I was walking home on broken cobblestones Just thinking of you when she pulled up like A figment of my worst intentions She said "James, get in, let's drive" Those days turned into nights Slept next to her, but I dreamt of you all summer long

First of all, “figment” of “intentions” is not really a phrase? But secondly, and more importantly: Excited bloggers all over the internet have posted a smattering of theories detailing why this song is Taylor Swift’s coded revelation that she actually maybe fucks girls, too, y’know, and hey, maybe the object of this song is the supermodel Karlie Kloss, whose middle name is Elizabeth. Apparently Taylor Swift is named after James Taylor, so she could be James, or at the very least James could be a woman. I’m going to allow for the possibility that the speaker “James” is a woman, because why not; it does not change the narrative. But said narrative doesn’t make sense: who is this woman pulling up next to James and picking them up on the cobblestone? Did James really spend all summer with her, and if so, why? James is only seventeen by the time they get back to ask Betty’s forgiveness, so like, where the hell are James’s parents? Do they not care that their child has gone off for the whole summer with a person I can only picture as a cheetah-print-and-goggles-wearing divorcee driving a convertible?

Furthermore, the Karlie Kloss/Taylor Swift fan theories are gross for the simple reason that these two tall skinny white women look pretty much exactly the same. What is it with the internet’s obsession with wanting practically identical people to hook up? There might be an incest thing going on there that you guys could stand to reflect on. And on the more cynical conspiracy-theorizing side, couldn’t this just be some convenient queerbaiting? Didn’t Taylor Swift get criticized for appropriating gay rhetoric and imagery for “You Need to Calm Down,” like, 20 minutes ago? If she were going to come out, wouldn’t it have been an ideal moment to do so when she was under fire for that? I’m not saying all celebrities are shallow opportunists, but, you know, maybe.

This song is infectious. You will need to lobotomize me to get it out of my head.

2. exile

I know I originally said this was gonna be number one but I lied. It is pretty rough, though. This track features Bon Iver, and it’s not the high-pitched sad boy of “Skinny Love” renown. This Bon Iver is deep-voiced and country, like Bon Iver playing Tim McGraw in an uncomfortable SNL parody. Also, the whole song is centered around the tired and overused metaphor that a person is a place, and the person the speaker is pining after is home, and the speaker is in exile because they can’t go home to the person they love. It’s a heartache-ballad, cry-sing in your car, absolute jam.

1. the last great american dynasty

I really tried not to let this be number one. I really didn’t want it to be, which is precisely why it is. This was the track that first alerted me to the entire album’s release, because Ed Markey supporters on Twitter seized on it and decided it was about the downfall of the Kennedy family. It is not. The opening verse goes:

Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train, it was sunny Her saltbox house on the coast took her mind off St. Louis Bill was the heir to the Standard Oil name and money And the town said, "How did a middle-class divorcée do it?" The wedding was charming, if a little gauche There's only so far new money goes They picked out a home and called it "Holiday House"

This is very obviously about a real couple, Rebekah and William (Bill) Hale Harkness, who had a real mansion in Rhode Island that they called “Holiday House.” The Harkness name is on basically every building in Connecticut and a lot of the Northeast because Stephen Harkness, Bill Hale Harkness’s great uncle, was a founder of Standard Oil along with John D. Rockefeller. In 2013, Taylor Swift bought the property known as “Holiday House,” as she says in the song:

Fifty years is a long time Holiday House sat quietly on that beach Free of women with madness, their men and bad habits And then it was bought by me

The cool, fun, left-ish internet reading of this song is that it’s a revolutionary tale about toppling class hierarchy—getting a hold of wealth and bringing the institution that created it to its knees by… “fill[ing] the pool with champagne”? How much would that amount of champagne even cost? This is not a song about revolution. Taylor Swift didn’t storm into the Standard Oil house and burn it down or take it over; she bought it. It is not a song about destabilizing the ruling class. It’s a song about joining it.

It absolutely fucking slaps, unfortunately.

#taylor swift #folklore #i am putting this in the tumblr tags in lowkey hopes that a rabid taylor swift fan will see and come after me #come on that would be funny

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saripleats · 4 years

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a little what’s in my pencil case post, because I’m actually really proud of it! I used to be the type of person with 137 pens/pencils/highlighters with me at all times because I am a fiend for stationery. I still am a fiend for stationery, but I started to be more mindful of what I’m using! (Links are attached)

First, is my Muji pen case. I remember buying this case so vividly because I went to New York with a couple friends (and boyfriend!) and I insisted we go to the Muji store. That New York Trip was just. one of the best days of my life. As soon as I saw this pen case, I knew I loved it, and I’ve had it 3+ years now. I paid 8 dollars for it, but I reach for it every day. It forced me to choose pens and pencils I knew I would use the most but still looks sleek and professional. Probably gonna die with this pen case. It is made out of aluminum, so when it falls, it makes the largest clash, everyone will be alarmed because most pencil cases don’t fall like that

Second, my clear ruler. I hate drawing lines freehand, even if it graph paper, and insist on carrying a small ruler with me. My mom gave me this one which apparently came with a tube of toothpaste (?), but it does the job! I use it for making charts and tables in my notes.

Third, my mildliner. A true studyblr classic! I do not feel the need to carry 5 with me (although I used to), only because highlighting is not my main method of notetaking/learning. The trusty mildliner only comes up when I’m studying for a test and highlight stuff that I don’t really know but seems important. My bookstore sells them in singles, so I have the gray one now, which I love. My other favorite colors would be the light green and the pastel teal! Also fun fact, I called these midliners for the longest time until someone kindly pointed out that there was an “L” in mildliner.

My Muji wooden hexagonal mechanical pencil (mini) is a delicate little thing. This was actually a Christmas present from my boyfriend! I don’t usually write in pencil, but when I do, I like .5 mm. This one is super thin and feels like I almost might snap it, but I can tell it’s really high quality. If you’re someone who uses mechanical pencils a lot, this is probably not for you

The fifth is the Muji gel ink Ballpoint .38 in Red. I typically only use this for headings and editing papers, so it lasts me a long time! It’s just a nice pen, nice color, and glide

Lastly - my most used pen! The Pilot G-2 in .38 Black! I used to use the Muji gel ink Ballpoint .38 in Black for the longest time, but I have a LOT of notes to write, and the Muji pens do not last very long. I flew through one in 2 weeks at one point. For the sake of my wallet, I got a 5 pack of the G-2 pilot, and these have lasted around a month or two before joining my pen cemetery.

Hope this was helpful!!

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baekhyunbitz · 5 years

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Yin and Yang

An: Finally finished!!! Since it's this cuties birthday still in my country, I wanted to get it done and post it today. Happy Birthday handsome❣

Genre: Flufffffff

Pairing: Sehun x Reader

Warnings: none

Word Count: 2.4k +

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The stories say on your 17th birthday, you're one step closer to finding your soulmate. You will begin to notice a tattoo take its form and only your soulmate possesses the copy. They can range from any size, color, and pattern, and could possibly change once you have met them but that case is very rare. It's become much easier as the years go on and social media becomes more popular, pictures are uploaded 24/7 making the search a bit more bearable. Then there are people like me that choose to let time take its course. Believe me, I get curious every once and a while but I'm not in any hurry. The day I turned 17 wasn't a day I was looking forward to. All everyone seems to care about anymore is finding their special person but there is so much more to live for. I was actually very pleased with my piece though. Yin and Yang. Dark and light. Simple, yes, but my light carried thin brush strokes of crimson and tangerine, while my dark looked like a messy brush stroke as if the zigzag scribbles were enough to cover the Yin next to the Yang. Messy, but simple, it fit me.

As the next few years go on, all my friends have found their S/O after hours of browsing the web, I, on the other hand, have traveled around the world, adding a new tattoo to commemorate my adventures. I saunter down the hall of my apartment towards my front door, making sure I have everything I need.

"Headphones, check. Wallet, check. Water, check. Keys...." I look towards the wall by the front door and grab them from their place on the hook. "Check." I slip on my shoes then head out the door, skipping through the lobby and out the main doors.

Today marks a year since I've moved to South Korea. I wanted a big new change in my life and this vibrant and alive city was calling out my name. From the culture to the food, the sights, to the loving. I decided to get the skyline of the city in a small celebration for this special anniversary. About 6 months ago, a new tattoo/piercing shop opened several blocks into the city, INKredible Tattoos and I've heard nothing but incredible reviews about them. I took a liking to their portfolios and decided I wanted to have them be a part of my adventure piece on my arm. I've made it a goal that I always find a new artist to add to the sleeve piece on my left arm, also adding two decently sized pieces on each thigh and a four leaf clover behind my right ear. My sleeve consists of all the places I've been to, my biggest achievements, my relationships with family and friends, all framing my soulmate tattoo.

Passing the apartment buildings of various colors and structures, the tattoo shop comes into sight, a maroon awning shading the entrance and music playing from the speaker. The bell chimes as I walk into the air-conditioned lobby. The walls are painted the same maroon with gold flakes scattered, mahogany polished flooring with black leather sofas for seating. What caught my eye though was the espresso tinted irises looking in my direction.

"Ah, welcome to INKredible Tattoos. How can I help you today?" The man stepped out from behind the glass case, my eyes falling to the way his dark blue jeans hugged his gorgeously thick thighs. Words got stuck in my throat as the sunlight from the window lit up his profile, showing his sharp jawline and deep set features. His thick chocolate locks fell onto his forehead as he extended his hand out to mine. His olive green t-shirt gripping his biceps,

"I'm sorry, my name is Dean, I'm the owner of this shop."

"Y/N. Pleasure to meet you." My eyes still fixated on his features, a chuckle escaping past his lips.

"The pleasure is mine. What were you thinking about getting today hun?"

"Well, I was thinking about getting the skyline of Seoul on my left arm here by my shou— "

"Dean!" A voice yelled, "Did you happen to—oh..." Another guy appeared in my vision, one that is a little more eccentric than Dean. His black teal tinted curls bounced as he took the space next to Dean, mahogany vortexes took me by surprise, just as much as the silver ball of his labret piercing, "What's a cute girl like you doing in a place like this? Thinking about getting a piercing from the one and only me?" He pointed at himself, my eyes catching the sling of his chest peeking out of his semi buttoned-up red, blue, and white shirt.

"Knock it off Mino, she's here for a tattoo." Dean hissed and Mino slid his hands into his dark jeans. His plush pink lips formed a pout that seemed too cute for his sultry features. I chuckle from his reaction, easing the tension, a slight smirk making itself apparent in the corner of Mino's lips.

"Hey Christian! We have a new canvas!" Mino gruffed and a guy with curly obsidian hair made his way down the hall. Clinging to his body was a gray short sleeved button down shirt, accentuating his muscular biceps, black ink art spilling down his left arm.

"Is that so, what made you decide to come here?" His thick Australian accent stunned me as he approached me, his warm skin soaked in the sunlight as well as his caramel irises turning a warm honey.

"6 months ago I heard the buzz about your shop from a friend so I decided to check out your website and admired everyone's portfolios. The different techniques from each of you are outstanding, but one in particular really captured my interest. I believe his name is Oh Sehun."

"Well, you happen to be in luck today, he's in the back room." As I followed Christian down the hall, bright red hair caught my attention. My feet stopped at one of the rooms, my eyes viewing the tattoo artist; his eyes focused on the customer's piece, the buzz of the tattoo machine at work. He pulled away from the skin, his hand grabbing the clean paper towel from his slender leg. His maroon sleeves are pushed up, showing the ink on his arm; I leaned against the door frame trying to see his features, but his red hair blocked them, "Y/N, what are you waiting for?" Christian's voice bringing me back to reality, my feet pulling me from the door to a few rooms further, "Get your guns ready, master. You've got an admirer." Christian moved to the side of the door to let me by. My heart stopped as my eyes fell on to the man sitting in the chair. His dark almond irises met with mine, the words I tried to speak stuck in my throat.

"Awesome, what'sypur name love?"

"Y/N." Even his voice has me weak. He rolled back in his chair, his shirt revealing his toned chest making my heart race,

”Go ahead and sit in the chair for me." His eyes watched me, his soft brown hair falling into his face, "What are we thinking about creating today?"

“The skyline of Seoul. I wanted to get a piece to commemorate a whole year here. It's an early birthday gift for myself and I figured now was better than never."

"We going with the black silhouette?"He rolls over in the chair next to me, the close presence sending a chill down my spine. What has come over me?

"Yes, I was thinking about getting it right here by my shoulder."

"Alright. I'm going to trace out the stencil and place it to see if you like the spot." Sehun saunters over to the light table, giving light instructions to Christian to get the necessary equipment ready. My eyes can't help but wander around the room, Sehun's work framed on the walls, his technique so effortless. My gaze lands back on Sehun at the table, his honey-like skin glowing under the soft lighting from the table.

"He's stunning isn't he?" Christian lightly whispered causing me to jump a bit in my seat.

"What? I mean...I wasn't..?"

"It’s okay love, most clients end up staring at one point or another after walking through the door." He winked with a light smirk he wondered over to Sehun to let him know the station was ready to go.

"How does this look?" Sehun rolls over to me with the stencil in hand, a black silhouette of the skyline of Seoul perfectly etched out on the tracing paper with carbon ink.

"Perfect, it's exactly what I want."

"Excellent, I'll just place it to get the right spot then we'll get started." His soft smile had my heart skipping a beat, his hands gently laid the paper against my left arm just below my shoulder at the top of my inked sleeve. His digits brushing over my skin with a feather-like touch while smoothing out the edges of the paper.

"Still looking good?" I looked into the hand mirror he held up so I can view the placement, nodding to let him know it was great where it was,

"Let's get started then, Christian you mind helping Dean out for right now since this shouldn't take too long." Christian saluted for his departure, closing the door on the way out. One of my favorite sounds fills the room as the tattoo gun comes to life, "So what's your story behind your sleeve love?"

"I have this goal for myself actually. I try to go on adventures and try new things as much as I can, when I accomplish this, I add a new piece to my sleeve. I've been adventuring since I turned 17. It hasn't been easy with everyone telling me that I won't get far if I don't have my soulmate by my side."

"I never understood why finding our soulmates was a priority. I don't need someone to make a living in life."

"Thank you! Finally, I met someone that feels the same way I do. I also started getting more pieces so people around me would stop harassing me about their soulmates." A light chuckle came from the man sitting in front of me, the corner of his lips turning into a smirk. That sound. Might just become my new favorite. What has come over me today? He's just a guy. He's just my tattoo artist.

"I'm gonna need you to turn your arm a slight bit here so I can finish it up." As I turn my arm, I noticed the machine stop buzzing, his features falling blank.

"Is there something wrong?" He furrowed his brow, struggling to find the right words as started up the machine again.

"Uh.. sor— sorry, I was just amazed by all the achievements you've made. You've done so much it seems, more than anyone I know." Is that really what caused him to stop? Nobody has done that before… I wonder—no… he can't be. There's no way.

"What got you into the tattooing business?"

"Well since I can remember, I've had a love for the art form, wasn't until I got my first tattoo that I actually started learning. Once I got used to the machine and practiced a lot with my teacher, I did my first tattoo on Dean. We've been close since that day. When he asked me to be a member of his new parlor, I was so ecstatic to finally have my dream job." The genuine smile he displayed showed the deep passion he has for this line of work.

"You're family must be really proud of you. Following your dreams and goals."

"Actually, they just wanted me to find my soulmate just like everyone else."

"I'm sorry, Sehun... I didn't me—"

"It's okay love, I've had plenty of time to get over it. Like you, it's not the most important adventure in my life. Although, I'm open to the idea as of lately." Why did those few words seem to punch me in the chest... I shouldn't feel this way for someone I just met.

"I hope you find your special someone Sehun. You seem like a great guy."

"Thank you Y/N, but I have a feeling I won't have too much trouble."

"How optimistic. Good quality to have in life."

"Alright, you're all finished hun, I hope you like it." He lifts up the hand mirror once again so I can see the finished piece. He ended up adding two birds flying above the skyline, adding onto the beautiful silhouette.

"I adore it Sehun, thank you so much. It means a great deal to me."

"Anytime, you ever feel like getting another piece in the future while you're around, I would love to be the artist." Seeing his full smile caused a blush to spread over my cheekbones. Oh God, please don't notice. He took the latex gloves off as we made our way to the door, entering the hall,

"So how are we paying today?"

"Card is fine." I reached into my pocket to pull out my card, only to see Sehun's hand laying on the counter. My heart started to pound in my chest at the replica to my soulmate piece, but in blue. Blinking a couple of times to make sure my mind wasn't playing tricks on me, the color started to change into a mauve. I look down at mine to see the tangerine shade fade into the same mauve color.

"How about a date instead?" I thought I was blushing before— boy, earlier couldn't come close to comparison. Whistles, hollers, and claps filled the space around the lobby causing a chuckle to fall past Sehun's lips as his friends applauded the long-awaited moment.

"I was beginning to wonder how long it would take for one of you to notice. I happened to see your tattoo as you explained your story, the funny part was that you were automatically drawn to his work, I didn't need to intervene." Dean explained as he high fived Christian and the red-haired man from the other room.

"Bout damn time there man, I was starting to think you were never going to find the one. By the way, my names Kwon Jiyong, but you can call me G-Dragon."

"Nice to meet you." We shook hands before he leaned down to lightly kiss the top of my hand, letting go to ruffle Sehun's hair.

"So what do you say, love? Mind if I show off your beauty to my city?"

"As long as it's you by my side, I'll go anywhere."

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captainderyn · 5 years

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8 People I’d Like to Know Better Meme

Thank you for the tag @lumielles <3

Tagging: @anchanted-one @skullinacowboyhat @ofmistandrain @elveny @queen-scribbles @claudela annnd @berriku (I know that’s not 8 but shh. Also no obligation to do this!)

Name: So far as you all are concerned it’s Deryn!

Birthday: November 30th

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius and ah...according to google I fit that quite well.

Height: 5′6″ (167cm)

Hobbies:

Riding horses/riding dressage

Writing

Drawing

Reading (specifically fantasy/history)

Reading/looking into paranormal things for funsies (look, I’m from New England there’s a lot of ghost stories around here)

Running

Hiking

Finding historical houses to tour/going to historical places

Going to historical reenactments

Apparently watching “How The Victorians Cooked” over on English Heritage’s Youtube channel

Favorite Colors:

Black

Gold

Maroon

Turquoise/Teal

Burgundy

Plum purple

Favorite Books:

(I would love to show y’all my book case that spans two walls because that choice is hard)

The Lord of the Rings-J.R.R Tolkien (specifically Return of the King/surprising NO ONE)

The Hobbit-J.R.R. Tolkien

Le Morte D’Arthur- Sir Thomas Malory

The Mark of Athena-- Rick Riordan (wrecked me when it first came out, wrecks me still/really the entire PJO/HoH series)

The Hunger Games- Suzanne Collins (a much deeper read now than when I first read it ho boy)

The Goblet of Fire-- JK Rowling (and really Harry Potter as a whole)

Last Song Listened To:

Birds--Imagine Dragons (a v good song, I would suggest giving it a listen)

Derneire Danse- Indila (it came on while I was typing; also a good Saesha song)

Last Movie Watched:

literally just got home from watching Spider-Man Far From Home!

Meaning Behind URL:

....*coughs*...Captain Emeldir Deryn=captainderyn.

No, really. Emeldir and Rielay were my only mains at the time and captainderyn had a nice ring to it.

#captainderyn memes #get to know me #kind of #if anyone else suspected Tolkien to top the list of books raise your hands #yes my hobbies can be divided into Horses History and Art

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wildefiction · 5 years

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The Beast Inside

PAIRING: Sam x Reader

WORD COUNT: 3,063

SUMMARY: Reader has been hunting with the Winchesters for several years now. She's always had a thing for Sam...not that she'd ever admit to it. But recently, Sam's been different. Cold. Calculating. Scary. When the reader witnesses what's happening, will she turn from him or will her attraction allow her to justify his new behavior?

WARNINGS: Anxiety, Trust Issues, Soulless!Sam, Murder, Minor Character Death, Oral Sex, Dom/Sub Undertones, Rough Sex, A Smidge of Breath Play

A/N: This was written for @hornsbeforehalos 666 Follower Challenge last year. My prompt was: 'He who makes a beast out of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man."

The metallic, copper thickness coating his tongue was simultaneously entrancing and revolting. An almost comical adaptation of small figures on ones’ proverbial shoulder. One egging him on, the other shrinking back in disgust at his newly predatory behavior. The first time it had happened Sam had woken in his bed, much like any other night - this one perhaps a little more sleepless than the rest. Shuffling down the hall to the nearest bathroom, he’d absentmindedly flicked on the light, the harsh fluorescents illuminating the space; a dull buzzing echoing around the room. Reaching for the calcium-stained faucets that lent a cool reprieve from his consistently rising body temperature, he’d first noticed the dark residue beneath his fingernails. When the water poured forth from the stainless steel spout, that residue had sloughed away - hitting the white porcelain and blossoming into crimson flowers, like some macabre art exhibit. Eyes widening, Sam caught his reflection in the mirror. Dark purple circles edged red-rimmed eyes, his hair disheveled from what he assumed had been sleep. The night terrors had prevented any semblance of rest. Delirious, he could remember nothing from the previous few days.

At first, he struggled with it. Fought against the rising panic. Blood was part of the job, maybe he’d simply forgotten to scrub beneath his nails after the last case? As the weeks wore on however, small bits of detail too sharp and mundane to be dreams lingered in the corners of his mind when he was awake. Almost like memories. Regardless of how intricate the minutia, his inability to remember entire events is what intrigued him the most. His constant struggle with the fate thrust upon him as an infant quieted in these times. There was no worry about the demon blood coursing through his veins, nor was there an ounce of shame or distress at the idea of letting his big brother down. Sam’s failures lessened and he came to embrace the idea of entire blocks of time disappearing from his conscious.

*** 12 weeks later**

Dried flecks of crimson hit the cool, white porcelain -- the clean purity of the surface now somehow marred, tainted by the blood. Running water circled the drain, washing away any evidence of the brutality that had occured just hours before. Violet cupped her hands together beneath the flow, watching as it quickly filled the makeshift basin before raising them to splash the liquid over her fevered skin.

Three. It'd been the third body in as many days. Things were getting out of control. Violet padded from the bathroom through the dim hallway of the bunker. The twisted, black wall sconces glowed with a dull, golden glow - lighting a path to the end of the hallway where he was waiting.

Sam had been..different lately. At first Violet had figured it was an adjustment disorder. Coming back from the deepest pits of Hell could make anyone act erratically. But the more time passed, the worse Sam became. The gentle, research-loving man she'd hunted alongside for the past three years was gone. Sure, he still looked the same, he still recognized you and Dean and even Cas but he was also a lot more calculated - almost to the point of being empty, as if there was no emotion left at all.

Raising a hand, you tentatively knocked at the solid oak door.

No answer.

Closing your eyes, you very nearly turned and just went back to your own room. It would've been easier. Steeling yourself and shaking out the nerves that prickled along your spine, you tried a second time. The echoing thud of your heartbeat almost matched the hollow sound of your fist on the barrier between you and Sam. For a moment there was silence, and then you heard it; the quiet shuffle of bare feet across thick carpet. If you were tense before, nothing prepared you for the surge of adrenaline that spread from the base of your neck through the rest of your body as the solid door opened and Sam filled its frame.

Truth be told, he'd always been imposing. Being six and a half feet tall, it was a given. His mannerisms hadn't been the only thing to change in his absence however. His entire body was different; eye level with his massive chest your mouth was suddenly dry. Almost as long as you'd known the Winchesters, you'd had a thing for Sam. He was one of those people who just didn't realize they were beautiful. You never mentioned it though, eventually settling into an easy friendship with the brothers had dampened the fire living in your belly. Sure, on occasion there was playful flirting and comments that reddened your cheeks, but little by little the winged-flutters quieted into a sort of easy contentment.

“Violet.” There was a lilt at the end of the word, almost a question as to why you stood at his door. Was his voice deeper? Had it always sounded that way? Blinking several times in rapid succession, you abandoned the thoughts trying to invade the more sensible parts of your brain. “Hey Sam, I..” “mmhm" “do you..?” “are..how are you?” Wondering exactly why you were standing before him, Sam’s lip twitched in amusement even as his eyes narrowed, the hazel irises swimming with colors you'd never noticed. Teal and spring green mixed with the more muted hues holding you captive. The man had the gall to laugh at your flustered appearance, stepping forward until his body brushed against yours. “I'm good; was about to watch a movie. Wanna join me?” That dazzling smile slid into place and you could almost believe the old Sam stood before you. Something in the back of your mind cautioned you to be wary, but it was such a small blip that you very nearly hadn’t noticed it at all.

Before Hell, the two of you would often spend the occasional quiet evening watching old, black and white television. Silent movies had always been amusing, the use of exaggerated body language providing all the dialogue needed. So, you accepted his offer; hoping against hope that it would be like old times.

Looking around the room, nothing had changed. Rows of books sat neatly on shelves flanking his large bed, the lamps alit on each end-table bathing the space in low light. Perching on the end of the mattress Violet watched Sam fuss briefly with the television before sitting next to her. “You okay?” Sam had turned to look at the girl and it didn’t take a rocket-scientist to notice her anxiety.” Hey... it’s just me, how many times have we watched movies together - hm?” Reluctantly you tabled the concerns you’d wanted to voice aloud, little by little allowing yourself to relax. Sam scooted to the head of bed and patted the space next to him. Apparently you took too long to move and he had no problems wrapping one massive arm around your waist and hauling you into the space he occupied; grunting with the effort.

The television flickered to life, shortly thereafter you realized he’d chosen Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A favorite of his. Soon, the two of you were back to laughing at the campy effects and trying to decipher messages hidden in the storyline. Legs crossed around a now empty mixing bowl that had held a mountain of popcorn, you finally relaxed against the man sitting behind you. While the position was more intimate than any you’d been in before, it didn’t feel out of place. You were simply friends enjoying each others company. Just like before.

Launching into a lively debate on the themes of the film pushed the rest of your doubt to the wayside. “I never understood this part really, why does he turn into a wolf and a bat type..thing?” “He seems to be winning her over just fine as a man.” Sam shifted into a sitting position; legs still framing your body as he leaned into you. His golden skin hot against your back - “ Sometimes , ‘He who makes a beast out of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.’ ” His mouth brushed against your ear, the words a mere growl. Abruptly that fire was back, spreading through your limbs even as his arms tightened around your body. Teeth closing upon the lobe of one ear, the words faded into silence. “Sam, what are you doing?”

Silence.

His lips were now pressed against the thud of your pulse point. In all the years of flirting and sidelong glances, nothing had ever progressed beyond that point. “I know how you feel about me Violet.” For a brief second you wanted to deny his accusations, tell him it was all in his head. In the course of trying to figure out what to say, the silence was answer enough. “The walls are pretty thin…” he was laughing again. “Honestly though? It was sexy as fuck .” The last word was barely a groan. Turning wide eyes to meet his expression was a bad idea. The darkness was back; an expanding ring of lichen rapidly filling his normally bright eyes when he pushed his mouth to yours. The kiss exploded into wandering hands, heavy breath and snapping teeth. The comfortable embrace from earlier tightening into one that crushed your body against his, palms steady on his chest when he gripped your thighs, pulling them to straddle his lap.

The swell of his arms encircling your waist; his thick fingers digging into your hips reminded you of the strength the man possessed. What he was capable of.

Flashes of red ripped through your mind when you allowed your eyes to fall shut and enjoy Sam’s touch.

So much blood. You were covered in it. Sam was drenched to the elbow, a broken body lay in a heap by his feet. The night was supposed to have been a fun trip out for a couple of drinks, instead becoming a grisly admission of what you had been trying to deny. Yes, the man had been lewd, his comments about your outfit leaving little to the imagination - but you had paid him little mind. Having him follow you out of the bar though..

Sam turned his attention back to you, as if what he'd done had meant nothing..

“Sam, wait a minute..Sam we nee--Aahh!” The hunter chose that moment to roll his hips, the cotton sleep pants you wore barely deflecting his intentions. “Fuhhngck me..” The words hadn't been intended for him, more of an exclamation at the situation, but Sam answered you all the same. “Oh, sweetheart I plan on it.”

And then you were on your back, a yelp of surprise escaping your lips at the sudden change. Sam's broad hands curled around your hips, flipping you to your stomach and pulling your ass in the air. You felt ridiculous, your chest pressed to the cool, inky sheets. The complaint never made it past your swollen lips, a chill breeze assaulting fevered skin when the pajama bottoms were yanked from your hips. Your body vibrated and you had only a brief moment to wonder if it was from the sudden change in temperature or the anticipation of what was to come. Sam's face nudged against your panty-covered ass, his thick, warm tongue swiping over the bit of satin and lace. Once. Then again. A deep growl accompanied his eager teasing and suddenly you forgot what you'd been about to say, instead pushing back against his roaming tongue - yearning for more.

Hot bursts of breath fanned over your delicate skin, the damp fabric between your legs clinging to you, Sam's nose brushing against it while his tongue greedily consumed everything your body offered. Fevered panting matched the beads of sweat dotting your forehead, a high-pitched whine escaping when Sam twisted his hand in the ruined silk and pulled - the sound of splitting seams and tearing fabric sending an unexpected shiver of delight through your body.

He was a monster, he deserved to die.

That's when it started. You justifying Sam's actions.

Sam's tongue flattened and dragged through your folds, the tip flicking against the swollen bundle of nerves nestled within. Closing his lips around you, he sucked in earnest while one long finger traced your inner thigh - teasing but not giving in to your pleas. “Fuck, Sam... please..” Not one, but two fingers sunk into your body then, a low groan filtering between your lips at the sound of your core accepting his ministrations.

“That's it baby...fuck you're so wet. S’that all for me?” Truth be told, Sam had wanted this for as long as he could remember. Coming back from Hell, he found most of his memories were gone. You though...you he remembered. His cock strained against the pants slung low on his hips; one palm closed over his erection, the pressure alleviating a bit of the uncomfortable sensation; his hips rutting gently against his touch, almost of their own accord.

Eyes flicking between his cock and Violet’s swollen cunt, he pulled his fingers from her body, the wet sound assaulted his ears and it took everything he had to not take her just like this.

The quickness with which Violet was on him took Sam by surprise. Not that the hunter dwelled on it for long. The woman kneeling before him was different than the Violet he thought he knew. Lust-blown pupils zeroed in on him as she dove beneath the elastic band of his scrub bottoms-turned pajama pants. There was no hesitation when she wrapped her fingers around his thick base, and he groaned at the sensation of finally having this particular dream come true.

Pushing the fabric down his muscular thighs, you wasted no time in wrapping your lips around his head, swiping your tongue across the drops of precum that dotted the surface.

Sam's hands wove themselves in your hair, his fingers flexing with the effort it took to not twist the locks in his painful grasp. He’d never hurt you. Not without you directly asking for it anyway. He knew your frustrations with him. The old him had done everything in his power to avoid killing anything. Whether the particular thing in question deserved it or not. He was a monster. He’d told himself that often enough, that he’d started to believe it. The looks Dean gave him when he thought Sam wasn’t looking only further solidified those beliefs. And so he gave the things they hunted the benefit of the doubt until he couldn’t. That was before. Now, he really couldn’t muster the strength to give two fucks whether they were innocent - the less time he spent on each case, the more cases he cou-- fuck . This girl knew how to suck cock. Sam’s head flung back, his thick auburn mane brushing his shoulders. Whimpers leaked from Violet’s lips, excess saliva and her probing tongue almost too much.

His fingers tightened more and he pulled back from her mouth, leaving the woman gasping - her eyes slow in re-focusing as she looked up at his pained expression.

Sam cupped your face, his wide hands cradling your cheeks even as he brushed tendrils of stray hair away from your wide eyes. He pulled you close then, and you became intimately aware of the heat of his lips as they descended on yours, his tongue almost gentle in its exploration of your mouth. Grabbing your waist and pulling you close, Sam’s cock brushed your belly, his brilliant eyes searching yours as you wrapped arms around his shoulders; sweat-soaked skin burning beneath your touch. Boldly you sought his attention, lining yourself up against his body, a challenge in your eyes.

When Sam trembled against you, his eyes fell shut with the effort of not moving too fast. Violet wrapped her long fingers around his length, bringing him closer and tracing the thickness of him through her folds. That was the final push Sam needed, his eyes snapped open, his grip tightening around her waist as he pushed his way into her core - the heat enveloping his cock and eagerly pulsing around him. He struggled to remain still, letting Violet adjust to the intrusion. She was eager though, clenching her walls and dragging herself up to catch his mouth with hers again almost immediately. A ragged breath flew from her lips as she cried out, “Sam, Sam move, please!” The hunter didn't need to be told twice, a growl bubbling up from his ribcage at her request - hands that had been holding her to his chest now threaded into her hair and twisted, pulling a moan of pleasure from the woman straddling his waist - “Fuck Violet..damn baby..” Coherent sentences escaped him as he rocked his hips up into her body and she met him thrust for thrust, wanton cries of pleasure filling the room around him accompanied the sounds of skin colliding against skin.

Violet’s fingers whitened around the tips as her grip tightened, nails biting into Sam’s broad shoulders as the first ripples of an orgasm passed through her, a wave of slick coating her thighs while Sam continued his onslaught. The desperate clenching of her muscles around his length caused Sam to stutter, the biting heat of her nails in his skin building layers of his own release up, his hips snapping towards her erratically as his teeth closed over the thudding in her neck. Screwing his eyes shut, the youngest Winchester bit harder, Violet’s pulse racing between his teeth as his pleasure ripped through him, thick ropes of cum spilling into her body. His forehead falling to her shoulder, Sam's arms tightened around his best friend, holding her warm body close to his.

He noted with a new curiosity the realization that he had to physically tell his brain to loosen the grip his teeth still held on her neck. A small part of him had toyed with the idea of seeing just how far he could go, wondering what the next step would be if her blood filled his mouth. Like with the others. Gingerly, Sam released his hold. He could never hurt her. The mantra lazily drifted through his mind. As she laced her fingers with his and a cautious smile tugged at the corner of her mouth - Sam hoped it would be enough.

Make no mistake, the beast inside me is sleeping - not dead.

TAGS: @arses21434 @jaredsunflowergoddess @jamielea81 @wings-of-a-raven

#wildefiction #spn x rpf #sam winchester x reader #supernatural

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scheherezhad · 7 years

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All right, all right, I’ll make a reappearance since people are tagging me in things. Tagged for this one by @onemuseleft

Are you named after anyone? My middle name, Dawn, is for my mom’s favorite uncle, Don

When was the last time you cried? Reading a fic this morning that reminded me of my grandfather dying

Do you like your handwriting? I guess? I don’t think about it much, tbh.

What’s your favorite lunch meat? Deli turkey shaved so thin it’s practically crumbling

Do you have kids? Never.

If you were a different person, would you be friends with you? Who knows? Is New-Me similar in personality to Me-Prime? Is New-Me extroverted and persistent enough to bother getting to know Me-Prime? Does Me-Prime have enough spoons for additional social engagement? Hell, would New-Me even ever come into contact with Me-Prime? There are too many variables to definitively answer this. (Though I suspect the intent was more along the lines of “would you want to be friends with you?” In which case, the answer is probably no. I’ve been told I’m intimidating more than a few times.)

Do you use sarcasm? Constantly

Do you still have your tonsils? Yes.

Would you bungee jump? Nooooo thanks

What’s your favorite cereal? Pff, idk. Maybe the store-brand muesli I buy when I don’t know what else to get?

Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Yes, because I tie my shoes pretty tight.

Do you think you are a strong person? lol no What’s your favorite ice cream? Also mint cookie. *high-fives onemuseleft*

What’s the first thing you notice about people? Clothes or hair, I guess? I don’t look people in the face a lot if I don’t know them.

What’s your least favorite physical thing about yourself? My upper-arm flab. I’ve made some sort of peace with just about every aspect of my fatness except for that, and it keeps me from wearing a lot of cute tops and jackets because the sleeves aren’t big enough around even if the rest of the garment is fine.

What color pants and shoes are you wearing right now? I’m barefoot and wearing blue and grey thermal pj pants at 3 pm because I worked a mandatory 12-hour shift for work yesterday and I’m lounging at home today, fuck retail.

What are you listening to right now? theRPGMinx playing some horror game

If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Some shade of purple or teal, I suppose

Favorite smell? idk? I like a lot of things. I don’t think I have a favorite.

Who was the last person you talked on the phone with? My department plays operator at work, so it’d be some rando customer. I don’t call people, and people know not to call me. If that doesn’t count, the last call I made or received on my own phone was calling in to work one day over a month ago.

Favorite sport to watch? I guess figure skating, since that’s the only sport I’ve ever deliberately tuned in to. I’ll also watch gymnastics and competitive cheerleading on occasion if it happens to be on.

Hair color? Very dark brown

Eye color? Brown

Do you wear contacts? Used to in high school, but I’ve just stuck with glasses since college because overall it’s less hassle.

Favorite food? Look, I’m chronically shit at “favorites” questions. There are few things in this life that I feel strongly enough about to say “yes, this is Most Best of all the things,” so I don’t have a particular favorite dish. More broadly, my preferred cuisine is Indian.

Scary movie or comedy? Always horror. I don’t find most comedies that funny.

Last movie you watched? Netflix apparently says it’s a Korean horror called Office.

What color shirt are you wearing? Grey

Summer or winter? Fall

Hugs or kisses? Hugs. I’m an antisocial ace who hasn’t kissed anyone since I was, like, 17 or something.

Book you’re currently reading? I hardly ever read books anymore, mostly fic.

Who do you miss right now? As usual, the two bffs who are more than 10 minutes away.

What’s on your mouse pad? A logo and entirely too much grime.

What’s the last TV program you watched? I don’t really watch tv anymore, either. Does watching South Park on Hulu count?

What’s the best sound? Quiet after a long day at work

Rolling Stones or The Beatles? David Bowie.

What’s the furthest you ever traveled? Arkansas to California a thousand years ago.

Do you have a special talent? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Where were you born? Arkansas

#meme #onemuseleft

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theoddcatlady · 7 years

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Who Lives Under Briar Elementary and High School?

Briar Elementary and High is a small school of just under three hundred students, from first grade all the way to senior year. It’s spaced between two buildings and has been running since the early 1900’s, although it was just a high school academy back then.

And apparently there’s a monster in there now.

It’s just little things that leads people to believe there’s something supernatural lurking in the halls. The things that would go missing, only to turn up later caked in muddy finger prints. The food theft, mostly lunchboxes, but sometimes whole pizzas would just vanish into thin air. Hearing something crawling under the floor. And the hissing you can sometimes hear while in the girl’s bathroom in the highschool. If you go in there alone, sometimes you’ll make out whispers.

There’s three rumors about what it really is. I’ll go over each one.

One. There’s a creep who lives in one of the nearby caves and invades the school to get jerk off worthy memories and supplies. In the area where Briar Schools is there are a lot of caves and tunnels that go underground. Kids have wandered in there and never come out. One of them’s beneath the school actually but I’ll get back to that in a minute.

Now, supposedly, there’s a man by the name of Dale Horton who lives in these caves. Dale was a pedophile who preyed on little girls, inviting them to his house to model for him before he’d rape them and slash their throats, draining their blood so he could drink it later. He even shaved their heads, he liked how their hair felt. Dale was caught and sentenced to life in prison, but on his way to permanent lock up he broke free and hid in the cave system. They never caught him.

However, I’m gonna have to break your hearts on this one. There is no ‘Dale Horton’. Dale Horton never existed. Seriously, I looked it up. No serial murder pedo either. The closest I can find to this sorta crime is a serial rapist that attacked three teenage girls before being caught. He was a fellow student by the name of Kyle. I think he managed to shake the charges off though, I never found evidence of an official case being brought against him. Eh, that’s life when you’re a white guy with a sports scholarship.

Two. It’s the ghost of a teacher killed by a spurned lover.

This legend’s literally as old as the school. There was this woman, Miss Agnes Cherry, who taught the freshmen music. Beloved by all. Always pleasant to have around. And of course, had many admirers among the staff and students. One student in particular was downright obsessed with Miss Cherry. So much in fact, he got her alone and begged her to run away with him so they could get married.

Agnes told him to go away and that his actions were inappropriate. In response he took out a knife and slashed her throat, dragged her out of the school into the mud before he killed himself. That’s why everything’s covered in mud when she touches it. People have even seen Agnes’ ghost, a pale woman covered in mud and always sounding like she’s gasping for air.

Okay. Agnes was actually real. So was her admirer. Her throat was slashed too. But she didn’t die. Nope! She actually survived the attack and went on to marry the principal. Her daughter teaches at the school, Ms. Patton. She’s in charge of the Creative Writing class, I’m ninety percent sure she made up the rumor that Agnes died just to get a kick out of the students’ stories.

There’s one more. The one that has the least amount of detail. It’s another ghost story, about a girl who used to go to this school. Feeling like she was ugly and had no one to love her, she broke a mirror and cut her throat in the girl’s bathroom, effectively ending her life. This one doesn’t explain the mud though, and doesn’t even try to say who she was as it’s clear bullshit. There’s never been a suicide on grounds.

But I knew her name. And I knew what really happened.

Samantha Bishop. That was her name. She was a sophomore. Her favorite color was teal. She liked pearl earrings. Her favorite food was lasagna. She loved Garfield, even had pajamas with his face on it. Avril Lavigne was her hero. She was saving her money to one day go to one of her concerts.

But she also was socially awkward and suffered from a lack of self-esteem due to her glasses prescription giving her the appearance of having enormous, buggy eyes.

This just made her a target for people who didn’t bother to look past the book’s cover. One girl, in particular, and her friends. Audra Hart, Candice Whitfield, and Cindy Sweet. Audra was the ringleader. She used her nail polish to write nasty messages on Samantha’s locker. Knocked her things from her hands. Would constantly talk shit about her, right while she was in the room. One time when she was on her period, Samantha bled through during class and when Audra saw the red stain on the back of Samantha’s pants she screamed out loud about how ‘filthy’ Samantha was.

Filthy Sam. By the end of the day, everyone was calling her Filthy Sam.

The tormenting just got worse. Her mother tried to stop it, oh she did. But Audra’s father was a major figure on the school board and donated yearly to the sports program. So Audra got away with every damn thing.

But of course came the day things got taken too far.

Typically just before lunch time, Samantha would go into the bathroom to just get away from the bullies from a few moments. And typically, said bullies would be too focused on getting something to eat rather than chasing down ‘Filthy Sam’.

But this time Audra had to go to the bathroom. And when she saw Samantha, she couldn’t resist the chance to pick on her again.

It started off simple. The name calling, ‘Filthy Sam’, ‘Bug Eyes’, ‘Alien’, ‘Freak’. When Samantha ignored her, likely advice from the staff, Audra started to get meaner. Made cuts about her mom being a slut, her ‘retarded’ little sister.

‘So stupid she can’t even make it into kindergarten, huh?’

That was too far. Samantha loved her family. Her hard working mom who’d divorced and remarried. Her little sister who schooled from home due to Asperger’s. It was too much.

So Samantha turned around and slapped Audra across the face. A much overdue slap, if you ask me.

But Audra reacted back, much harsher. She grabbed Samantha by the hair and slammed her face into the mirror, shattering it with the force. Samantha dropped from the floor and stopped breathing.

The girls, panicked that they may have accidentally murdered their ‘prey’, remembered that in this particular bathroom there was a crawlspace in the floor where they kept the cleaning supplies. They opened it up and with a heave ho shoved Samantha’s lifeless body into the crawlspace. They slammed it shut, cleaned the blood off the mirror, and went about their day like nothing ever happened. Cindy ever so kindly reported to the teachers that the mirror was broken. They plotted to return after school and somehow smuggle Samantha’s body out in an instrument case before dumping the body wherever they could.

See, now we’re getting to the part about the caves, and the fact one of those tunnels happens to be right beneath the school. When the girls returned and opened up the crawlspace, they found a hole that plummeted straight down to a bottomless pit. Perhaps throwing Samantha in there so roughly had broken the floor. Maybe it just couldn’t support the weight of a teenage girl. Either way, Samantha was gone.

Assuming she was dead, the girls made a pact that they’d never tell anyone, boyfriends, husbands, teachers, or parents, that they’d killed Samantha.

Life went on. Samantha made the news when she turned out to be gone. Audra was questioned but let go, they had no proof she had anything to do with Samantha’s disappearance. Soon her locker was emptied out. Her desk remained empty. Audra and her friends graduated. Went to college. Got jobs with the influence of their families’. Married rich. And no one knows about their dirty little secret of murder.

Samantha’s mother because depressed but kept it together for the youngest child of hers, another daughter by the name Patricia. Patty for short. Patty grew up with all the love of her mother and stepdad. She found her love in poetry and writing, creating scripts for comics by the time she was twelve.

And she ended up going to Briar Elementary her sixth grade year. Despite her social difficulties at first, Patty found a group she could blossom with. Bullies were laughed at in their faces, Patty never really understood their insults anyway. Where Samantha lacked self-esteem, Patty almost had more than her fair share. She found herself to be different from others, sometimes in ways that confused or angered them, but she was still worthy of respect. Her skills in writing blew away her teachers, and she was moved up several classes in order to keep her challenged. She won contests. She was the president of the writing club by her eighth grade year.

I’ve always found communication tricky, by the way. It’s so much easier to just write the words out. Sometimes I’ve had to have accommodations made for me, given my sensitivity to sound and difficulty eating in front of others, but rather than bother them each time I ate in the bathroom. And it was that bathroom where I found my sister again.

I heard the rasping breaths below the floor, and although I’d heard rumors of ghosts and pedophiles, I didn’t believe in them. And rather than run away, I opened up the crawlspace.

She dropped away so fast I could barely make her out, but I caught a flash of her pearl earrings.

That night, I went to the school. More accurately, under the school.

It was tricky, finding the right cave, but I took my time. Mapped myself through it. And soon I was under the school.

And I found where Samantha Bishop had been all these years.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say she’s become primal, but after receiving the head injuries and being completely isolated for so long, I think it’s safe to say she’s lost her mind. She’s several pounds underweight from a strict diet of rats, toads, and rainwater, has torn out most of her hair, and is now completely blind from living in near total darkness. She knows it’s me though. She knows my voice, my scent. She knows I’m her sister.

I haven’t attempted to force her out from her squalor, I can barely get near her without her darting away, deeper into the caves. She had moments of clarity where she’s told me what happened, but most of her vocalizations are hums and clicks of her tongue, similar to the croaking of the toads. I have helped her though. Brought her blankets, clothes- her uniform was nothing more than rags at this point. Brought her lasagna and other healthier food in attempts to give her more strength.

I don’t know what to do though anymore. Should I tell the police, and force her from this nightmare she’s been living in into a whole new one? Make her reenter a society that tried to kill her?

Besides, I can’t explain away the fact that Cindy and Candice were found dead in their homes, their ribs gnawed on, innards ripped out, and their throats cut with the glass shards of mirrors.

And I almost wish Audra hadn’t moved out of town.

It’s going to be hard to hide Samantha so long in the backseat of my car.

#sixpenceee #sixpenceee stories #horror stories #scary stories #my stories

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a-hurricane-came · 7 years

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And If It Ever Happened (No One Has To Know) ~ Thomas Jefferson x Reader

Because despite being stuck on a bus for a three hour long car ride to a youth conference with a bunch of other awesome hyperactive candy addicted teens, I’m bored and still lacking a life. Also, for SJ’s Submission Sunday. Because by the heck not?

Or: Thomas learns about colors, his jacket is explained, and (Y/N) makes plans.

Warnings: Brain aneurism, child coping mechanisms, arguing, car accidents, bad French and Irish (Google Translate, people, bc I know nothing) character death, mentions of suicide, depression, hospitalization, a couple people get punched, mentions of homosexual relationships (in case that makes you uncomfortable - sorry never gonna change it those two are too precious in my mind) also it’s my first imagine so it probably sucks (be warned!) but it will sort of get better (ish) towards the middle of the story (beginning is on the bad side of OK and I’m not sure about the ending.), probably insanely OOCish and Mary Sue/Gary Lue ish characters that tend to go with shit writing like mine, plus this is the first time I’ve written an imagine, and my writing was already sucky enough as it was, so take that how you will.

So have fun with that

Modern AU, feminine pronouns

Masterlist

At four years old, Thomas Jefferson knew enough to know how to understand others, and what he understood was that all the boys on the block thought that pink or purple or any color reminiscent of them were for girls. (Except for red, because red is cool, like fire and blood and a knight’s horsehair plumes; and blue, because blue is cool, too, like ice and deep sea diving and the big, big sky that all those jets flew through that they were going to fly someday.)

He knew all the colors in the rainbow: red and orange and yellow and green and blue and purple, and black because that’s always what was between the other colors, and white because that was what was on either end of it in the shape of big, fluffy clouds.

Not pink.

Pink didn’t count, he thought.

At age six, his mother takes him to the local hardware store to look at paint samples, and he looks up at the giant wall with a gaping jaw as he takes in the impossible number of colors-within-colors. (Even pink.)

He sees some sort of grey splotch near the top of a yellow card, though, and doesn’t like it. He decides it doesn’t belong there.

“Mama, why is there another color on this one?”

She looks at him, brow risen in slight confusion, before she realized what his little finger is pointing to and chuckles.

She bends down real, real low, so they’re at the same eye level.

She’s tall, he thinks, not for the first time. I bet she could fight giants.

“Thomas,” she tells him, a small smile on her face and an amused twinkle in her eye. “This isn’t supposed to be another color. This is the name of the color. Like green is called green, and orange is called orange, but these ones are…,” she paused for a moment, mulling over the words as she tried to find a way to explain it to his young mind. “Different,” she finally settled. “They’re longer, and weirder.”

“Oh.”

“Like this one,” she took down a shade of light, light orange and yellow, that reminds him of when those very colors clash on the - the nex - neckt - nectarine. “They call it Brooklyn Skyrise.”

He frowned. That didn’t sound like a color.

If he looked at it, it was actually really nice.

“What’s Brooklyn?”

“It’s a city in New York, Thommy.”

He stared at it a little while longer before nodding his head firmly. “I’m going to live in New York,” he decided confidently.

His mother’s eyebrows rose.

“I’m sure you will, Thomas.”

(And if he didn’t have any idea where New York was, then he didn’t say anything.)

She then pulled down another one, a murky auburn, leaning more toward red, and he is reminded of leaves right before fall.

“Here’s another one. This one’s called Dragon’s Blood.”

His grin lit up his face. “Cool!”

He is seven when he finally meets her.

She is bold and she is brilliant and despite the fact that she is a girl, she seems to possibly be one of the only people in that class that he might actually like.

Besides James, of course.

He decides to save himself the humiliation and stick with becoming friends with James.

It’s okay, though.

He’s not the only one who’s noticed you.

It’s when you hit another boy that he finally gets the courage to talk to you, opposed to all the other boys who look upon you with both awe and fear, and scattered every time you came near.

"Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” was the only answer he got back.

“What’s your name?”

“(Y/N). What about you?”

“I’m Thomas.”

“Cool.”

It was quiet for a little while.

“I saw that you punched that boy,” he informed her.

“Everyone saw it, dummy,” she shot back. “It was during recess.”

His face grew hot and he practically recoiled, not knowing at first what to say to that.

“Well-well I just - I just thought I should tell you that I thought it was really cool,” he finally decided on.

She cocked her head.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“All the other guys were too big of wimps to talk to me after I hit Charlie.”

“Charlie had it coming, everyone knows that!”

She shrugged, and turned her head, her hair whipping out behind her.

He frowned when he saw what was in said hair.

“Why do you have that?” He asked, as if offended by the object in question. A frown tugged on his features.

She scowled at him.

“Why? What’s wrong with wearing a bow?”

“It’s not the bow that’s the problem, it’s the color,” he explained, a flurry of light annoyance briefly sweeping across his features.

If looks could kill, Thomas would’ve been six feet under by the time he finished his sentence.

“What about it?” She asked.

“It’s - well, it’s pink,” he stressed, trying to get her to understand the apparent horrors of such a color.

“No, it’s not,” she hissed back.

“Well, then what is it?” He shot in response, arms crossed smugly, and obviously not expecting her to hold an answer.

“It’s fuchsia,” she sniffed. “Obviously.”

Right. Because he was supposed to know the difference.

“I couldn’t find my other ones. I think my sister took them. She’s such a meanie.”

“Other ones? You have other ones? Please tell me they’re not all pink!”

“Fuchsia,” she insisted. “And no, they’re not. I’ve got pink, and flamingo, and fuchsia, and purple, and turquoise, and teal, and orange, and auburn, and brown, and black, and white, and yellow, and grey, and indigo-”

She ignored his skeptical, “Isn’t that just another word for purple?” And continued to list how many colors she had in her extensive bow collection.

“And periwinkle-” “What’s that?” “And crimson, and cherry-” “I thought those were the same things…,” “And I’ve got tangerine, too,” here she sounded very smug, as if immensely proud of herself for knowing such a word. “But my favorite is the magenta.”

His face scrunched up.

“Magenta?”

“Yeah.”

“What does that one look like?”

Her face lit up, and before Thomas could realize he made a mistake and walk away, she had already curled her fingers into his shirt sleeve, making sure he couldn’t leave as she went on and on about her favorite bow and all her other bows and things he didn’t need to know about.

Somewhere in there, he vaguely heard the words, “It was from my Papa,” but they were soon swallowed by the load of complete gibberish that followed, as he gaped at her, trying to make sense of what she was saying.

She was always wearing a different bow, he realized a few days after his talk with her - it was something he had never realized until then.

But she still wore the one that was that horrifyingly electric shade of - magenta, he was pretty sure she called it - every other day.

(And if he was slowly starting to get used to it, then he didn’t say anything.)

Three weeks after their small talk, and they shared a few hellos, but not quite enough to constitute as friends.

So you could imagine his surprise when after class was let out that day, and everyone started to walk outside to walk home, or for their parents to pick them up, or to ride their bikes or go into their bus lines, that she made a beeline with him, an ecstatic grin on her face.

“(Y/N)?” He asked, confused, when he realized that she had stopped right in front of him, and had not, in fact, been going towards someone behind or around him.

“I got a new bow!” She whispered conspiratorially to him. She did, in fact, have a new bow - and it was white with rainbow polka dots.

(And if maybe pink counted now, then he didn’t say anything.)

It was probably then that he realized that he did, in fact, contrary to his original belief, have a new friend - and this one, unlike some of the others, would not be quite as easy to shake.

In a month, she tells him that she’s getting a new little brother.

He tells her that little brothers aren’t so great - his is super annoying.

In two months, he tells her that his family is going to the beach that weekend, and that they’re going to swim.

“You’re going to go swimming?” She asks, her eyes wide and eyebrows raised.

“Of course,” he replies flippantly. “I’ll be teaching Linny, because he doesn’t know how, yet,” his chest puffs out with pride as he mentions this, “but everyone else does.”

“Right,” she answers, nodding vehemently, like she believes him. (And if she goes home that night and begs her parents to sign her up for swimming lessons, or even insists that she needs them now now now because everyone else knows how to and she doesn’t, then they didn’t tell anyone.)

It is by the fifth month, when they go to the park to play together and she insists on her Papa making cookies (“They’re the best thing anyone’s ever eaten! You’ve gotta try ‘em, Thommy!”) and he actually enjoys himself that he realizes that even if it only actually took a few minutes of their correspondence for him to become friends with her, it only took a few days for her to become friends with him.

She does that, he realizes - that sneaking up on people.

She doesn’t tell you that she’s going to get you to be friends with her, she asks you what your favorite color is or why you’re talking to her, and the next thing know, bam. You’re friends with her.

No, she never told anyone - it just happened.

Like a shadow - never there until the sun shifted.

He was okay with that, he realized, by the time six months had passed.

And so it went.

When they were eight, he taught her cursive, and she taught him drawing.

Then he taught her how to play the piano, and she retaliated with what she knew of the recorder.

Some of the others teased them about it - always about how one or the other of them had cooties, or they were weird for being friends because things just didn’t happen like that, but they stopped after a while then they realized it was useless - when they were continuously shrugged off.

They were nine when her Papa had a brain aneurism and died.

They didn’t know what it was, at the time, of course, just that he was gone because of it.

What happened after that was all kind of a blur.

He saw the obituary in the paper his father was reading, but he didn’t understand what it was at the time.

When they got to school, the Guidance Counselor dropped by all the different classes and gently explained to them why (Y/N) wasn’t in school that day, why she wouldn’t be for the next few days, and to act like nothing had happened.

“I’m sorry about your Papa,” he told her when she came back to school, completely disregarding all the instructions that had been given to him.

She looked at him.

Blinked.

Nodded.

Turned away.

(And if he thought that her magenta bow was a little too crumpled or tied a little too tight that day, then he didn’t say anything.)

She is quieter, after that.

First she never stops wearing the bow he gave her, and the Crocs he had been so fond of, even if they were seven sizes too big for her, and the big Hawaiian shirts he would always wear on bowling night.

None of the other kids teased her.

Nobody ever told them - they had told them that her father had died, yes, but not what was happening to her - but they seemed to realize what was going on anyways, and quietly left her alone to work it out for herself. (And Thomas, of course. Thomas was there for her.)

Then comes the time when she stops.

She doesn’t wear his colorful, comfy clogs or go to school swaddled in his familiar floral shirt, and she wore any bow but her magenta one.

It just completely halted, all at once, with no warning.

She came to school everyday with her head held high and a blazing fire in her eyes, full of determination, and everyone seemed a little startled - if not scared - at the abrupt transformation.

When she started going out of her way to loudly engage her other classmates in conversation, they seemed to take the message that she was, once again, okay to approach.

(And if everyday at lunch, her eyes stared a little forlornly at the container she’d bring with her that was now full of crackers instead of those famous cookies, then no one said anything.)

Her return to everyday life was fast and furious and adventurous and emblazoning.

She rose her hand everyday in class, strived to be the best, strived to be better, the strongest, the smartest, the fastest.

Thomas was right there with her the whole time. They took on the challenge together.

(And if he was a little sad with the change, then he didn’t say anything.)

It took three months for her to finish planning, and when she finally showed Thomas, he was the first one, and he added his ideas, and she thanked him, and they cried, and then they stopped their self pity and discussed their plans more.

When they came home from that summer break, everyone seemed to notice the change, and it went without saying what it was.

Thomas and (Y/N) had big, big plans, and they weren’t about to let anyone get in their way.

They’re ambitious, and they’re smart, and they’re able to start without immediately alerting their parents or teachers.

They pull up a chart online, and within half an hour have memorized the alphabet in Morse Code.

Within two, they were fluent.

They used a brand new app that had come out, and began to learn new languages - these ones were a lot harder than Morse Code, but their drive and their intelligence didn’t change, and with their youth and easily molded minds, they picked it up quicker than most.

They took classes where they could, and that’s when others started to notice - when they began to ask for references and advice for certain things, or cash for no apparent reason.

They began to switch languages when they spoke in school as they learned, to keep in practice.

They learned something themselves and then they taught the other.

They started off slow, hesitant even with their determination, but soon enough began to pick up the pace, especially as their quickly acquired skills helped them with others.

They were ten years old.

He taught her French as she taught him Spanish.

They were eleven years old.

The others didn’t tease them at all anymore - they were starting to branch out on their own friendships as well, and none of them really cared about cooties anymore.

She taught him Norwegian and he taught her German.

He taught her Mandarin and she taught him Russian.

And so it went.

Twelve years old.

Greek. Gaelic. Icelandic. Polish.

His little brother Mowlie and his little sister Marty become best friends with her little brother Merlin, and he is practically adopted into their family just as she was, and they into her family just as he was, and they bond over annoying older siblings and favorite toys and embarrassing names that start with the same letter.

They begin to earn the name ‘The Triple M.’ For obvious reasons, as the trio soon became inseparable.

(Y/N) and Thomas aren’t sure how good of an idea it was to introduce him, but it was unavoidable - the little monsters would’ve found a way to meet each other anyways, somehow, someday soon.

Thirteen years old, and while they continue with languages in a much more rapid pace, they start with other things, too.

Arabic. Scandinavian. Czech. Italian. Japanese. Korean. Swahili. Latin. Karate. Ju-Jitsu.

(She begins to wear her magenta bow again, every once in a while. He doesn’t say anything.)

They are fourteen, and in school, they begin to learn Spanish.

Their teacher is surprised by how easily they ace the class, but can’t move them up, as that would be a high school level, which is outside of his jurisdiction, but he at least sent forwards the notice.

He asks the class as a whole, one day, a couple months in, if they know any other languages.

John Adams knows enough to say good morning, bless you and ask for directions in German.

Roger Sherman can introduce himself in Japanese.

Betsy Ross can hold a basic conversation in French and say a few greetings in Italian.

Winston Churchill can say hello in Dutch.

That is it.

The only two left are Thomas and (Y/N), and the rest of the class is completely and utterly, outright stunned when they tell them in that same fluent Spanish they’ve been using all semester that they know seventeen other languages (or, eighteen, if you count Morse Code) then Spanish and English, and when the teacher asks them to demonstrate a little bit like they did with all the other kids, they take up the rest of the class period smoothly holding a discussion over what their reactions would be when they learned what they had planned next, as they switched between tongues.

Fifteen.

Dutch. Portuguese. Irish. Danish. Swedish. Turkish. Esperanto. Ukrainian. Welsh. Hebrew. Vietnamese. Hungarian. Archery. Fencing.

The other students are in awe of them despite the fact that they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing.

(And if Thomas’ stomach explodes into butterflies every time he sees her now, then he doesn’t say anything.)

Sixteen.

Braille. Sign language. Many other tongues from the far, far corners of the world, along with hand to hand combat, and fighting with real knives and swords. They know how to defend themselves now. Good - nothing should ever be able to happen to them now.

(And if (Y/N) begins to wonder just how far their plans will carry them, and if it will ever lead to more for them than friends, then she doesn’t tell anyone.)

Seventeen.

They are the top of their class.

Charles Lee seems to have forgotten that she punched him in the face in the first grade, and as a result, begins constantly trying to woo (Y/N).

With all her anxious plans and buzzing energy, he goes on ignored.

After all, their plans are about to be carried out, and they still, throughout all these years, haven’t even fully explained this far fetched (though not so much anymore), life changing already plan of theirs, and they both have about a dozen AP classes and exams still, with their jobs and drama club, when added with student council, band, jazz band, choir, show choir, the yearbook committee, Forensics and both the spelling and geography bees, mock trial, lacrosse, soccer, the GSA Club, track and cross country, in addition to everyone badgering them about college applications despite them still being their junior year, and them not being able to tell them why they keep turning everything down, because that would be to reveal the full plan and they both agreed that they wouldn’t do that until the week they carried it out.

Not to mention, of course, the fact that James, who was now a close friend of both of theirs, was constantly getting sick, so they needed to take care of him, on top of helping out their parents by doing chores and giving their younger siblings a lift to and fro different places, and, obviously, their…far more intense and personalized extracurriculars.

Honestly, it was a miracle they were still standing, and absolutely nobody had any clue how they did it.

But they were still seventeen.

That meant that their time was running out.

She furiously teaches him how to whittle, he doesn’t stop until she knows how to build a fire.

They take on how to track different people and animals together, as well as go through the art of deception and knowing when others are lying.

They practice different accents until they’re perfected, work on acrobatics and languages those around them can’t even pronounce the name of.

They take on extra shifts and work days, eagerly scraping up any money they could to add to the fund they’d been gathering for their plans throughout the years. (Because until they were proven wrong, they were going to act on the belief that they could support their own plans.)

Even once they finished this, they could still go to college, they decided.

After all, not that they were trying to be arrogant or anything, but what college wouldn’t want them?

He exchanges hacking for thievery with her, and they both learn to think on their feet faster than they ever have before.

Deduction. Observation. Analyzation. Hard work. Effort. Blood. Sweat. Tears. Lost sleep.

It was all going to be worth it, they knew, because it was all working towards their plan.

They are seventeen, and no one else is anywhere closer to their plans then they want them to be.

For a while, James is in the dark, though he is still the closest to knowing the whole truth.

He, for his part, takes their silence graciously, despite knowing that something huge was being kept from them.

When he wasn’t sick, he’d try to make sure they at least got full meals and a decent amount of sleep.

When they drifted off during study sessions or at their desks or in the library, he’d let them be, copy down any sleep delirious, slurred writing from a language he didn’t recognize on a separate piece of paper for them in case it was an idea or work they needed, and then erased it from their homework, knowing from experience after the complaining the teachers had given to all their classes in the first month they had (Y/N) and Thomas that they didn’t appreciate it all that much.

(And if he covered them with a blanket or put their cocoa, coffee and tea back in the microwave to stay warm, too, then no one said anything.)

That summer they learn first aid.

They know, looking back on some of the things they learned that year, that the lines are starting to blur between what is strictly necessary and originally part of the plan, and what they’ve simply added just because it might be a fun or useful skill to learn or have. Maybe the lines started to blur a while ago. They aren’t sure.

They think that they might be alright with that.

(And if Thomas also thinks he’s in love with her and that stupid cute little magenta bow she wears, he doesn’t say anything. And if James realized it before him, then he didn’t say anything, either.)

Eighteen.

They were eighteen.

They were finally going to graduate.

They could’ve skipped a few years and graduated earlier, too, of course, but they preferred not having to associate themselves around faces they hadn’t grown up with, and now they were no closer to regretting their decisions.

One of their teachers asks them to go around class, on the first day, and share what they’re going to do after school - take a leap year, go straight to work, if they knew what college they were going to, something else, maybe.

The two simply shared a crooked grin, that while their fellow students had been expecting, their teacher had not.

(And if it still managed to make them all uneasy, then no one said anything.)

“Yeah,” (Y/N) had said, a strange, excited lilt in her voice.

“We’ve got plans,” Thomas finished for her.

The teacher raises their eyebrows at the ‘we’ in there - because that was definitely a ‘we’ that had been heard there - and presses them for more answers.

They share a serious look, and it unnerves them all when an entire conversation seems to pass between them in mere seconds simply through eye contact - even James, who has seen them do it many times.

A nod.

They’re going to carry it out soon anyhow.

What was the harm in letting them know now?

Everyone seems to lean in, sensing that after years and years of wondering, they were finally about to have their mystery solved.

They do not realize that they’re not going to be getting the whole story just yet.

“We’re going to travel,” Thomas says confidently.

“Travel? Wherever to?”

“Oh, here and there,” answers (Y/N) vaguely with a wave of her hand.

They do not tell them the full extent of it - that they’ve been planning this since they were nine, that they were literally going all over the world, for most probably years at a time, and they’d find ways to cover for the trip, and they’d help anyone they came across and maybe once they came back they’d sign up for college or the military together - maybe whichever one they didn’t pick as soon as they were done with the first.

(And if they don’t tell them that it’s to make her Papa proud and fill in his bucket list that was never completed along with each of their own, either, then neither of them say anything.)

They were not happy living unfulfilled lives.

(And if she is suddenly hyper aware of that electric buzz that passed through them every time they touched, then she didn’t say anything. And if she realized she was in love with him, too, she didn’t say anything.)

They cram in the last of their lessons - both in school and in private. (Engineering, this time. Engineering and building, architecture, working on more memorization techniques, survival skills, dances, different instruments, the line blurs further and they try to tie it all back down to study of different cultures - but as much as they could. They never knew what they might need out there.)

They graduate, her, Valedictorian, him, class president, both with high honors and already several college credits and hours of community work logged, both oblivious to the awe and high respect their peers held them in, and both finally about to see that goal come true.

(And if she still has that magenta bow in her hair that day, then no one says anything.)

They finally tell James, and their parents - the truth, the plan, the whole entire complete plan and truth, without any fanfare or missing steps. (Sort of. They do not tell them about Papa’s bucket list, or the fighting or the lying or the survival skills, and reassure them that they won’t need any of these.)

Their parents were shocked - in a way, but proud - because this was an amazing thing for them to be doing, and while they were surprised by it and maybe a little hurt that they weren’t told earlier, especially with how long it had taken to plan, but they always had known that their children were exceptionally ambitious and intelligent, and once they had it all laid out in front of them, they knew that this was exactly like them, and this was exactly what they needed to do.

That one last week it is, then - packed with goodbyes and see you soons and keep in touches, stuffed with graduation parties, and crammed with frantic packing.

And so it happens.

They travel.

They go to France and to Greece and to Iceland and then back to France. They go to Japan and Sealand and Australia and Brazil and France again. Canada, Greenland, Turkey, Chad, Egypt, France. New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, France. Germany, Denmark, France. India, China, Saudi Arabia, Chile, France. Spain, Tailand, the Philippines, Russia, Poland, Norway, the Netherlands, and then France once more.

They climb literal mountains and go deep sea diving in almost all of the oceans and skydive once on each continent except Antarctica. They help build schools and houses and stay with foreign families that become extensions of their own. They help raise money for charity and find rations for those who need it, they teach different things to those they come across, and pick up more on the way. They dance in the street when there are musicians playing, or sometimes play along with them, and they see monuments and rainforests and artifacts and museums and waterfalls and canyons and deserts and mountains and oceans, but it’s always France they came back to.

Because somehow, it stayed like that. Always France.

(And if it was because of the countless times both thought of confessing their feelings there, rather than the architecture as they said, then neither said anything.)

More, more, more countries, so many they’re loosing count, and then France.

Again and again and again.

They aren’t expecting what comes next.

Because it’s France that they go to last.

It’s in France where he finally gets up the nerve to tell her.

And it’s in France where their luck finally catches up to them and all shit hits the fan.

They are in the plaza - of some random city they always seem to get caught up in, but could never remember the name of because what did it matter? - and as he begins to cross it over to her, with two piping hot coffees in his hand, all he can do is stop and stand, transfixed and gaping in horror as time slows down.

The cab driver speeding towards her fought for control even as he sped off the road and out of human capability of stopping it at that moment, even as it ran straight for her and he tried to swerve around.

It didn’t work.

Her earbuds in her ears, her face lit up in a glorious smile, the sun hitting her face and her light, and her hand raised in a happy wave towards him, completely oblivious to her impending doom or he cabbie desperately honking at her, which she still couldn’t hear - and damn it, (Y/N), why do you always have to insist on listening to your music so loud? Why now of all days?

Her face doesn’t even get a chance to morph into an expression of confusion as mortification takes over his face, or as the coffee slaps to the ground, splattering up to speckle his jeans and seeming to burn his sandaled feet.

And as he rushed forward, he supposed that, perhaps it was a blessing, that she never got the chance to do so, because that meant that the last way he saw her was when she was at her most beautiful - happy, excited, and just comfortable in her own skin. Not terrified for her own life.

He sprints as fast as he can and pulls her limp body into his arms, not caring for the blood smearing onto his open skin and summer clothes.

“(Y/N)? Look at me, (Y/N), honey, you’ve gotta keep your eyes open.”

He looks up from her to yell at the gathering crowd.

“Quelqu'un appelle une ambulance!” He shouts, desperate for them to do it, to do something because she was dying, God dammit!

“How’re you feeling, baby girl?” He whispered to her, and then instantly regrets it.

He didn’t want to hear about the pain he could so blatantly see.

And he holds her tighter, and she whimpers, and her fingers curl into the sleeve of his shirt, and before he can stop her, she’s talking again, and he can’t help but remember their meeting all those years ago.

And she’s talking and talking and it’s getting softer and softer and he’s not really listening, but he’s still hanging on to every word as he shakes her back awake continuously, nods his head and encourages her to keep going.

And somewhere in there, he thinks he vaguely heard her say the words, “I wonder if this is how Papa felt,” and his heart clenches.

“Let’s hope you won’t get a chance to ask him too soon, huh?”

She gives a weak chuckle, chokes a little, spits away the blood settled on her lips.

“I never told you, but-” His eyes widen and his heart pounds.

Did she love him too?

Is that what she was going to say?

No! She couldn’t do this - not now, not right before he lost her!

And yet…he needed an answer.

No, he decided. No, I don’t, because she’ll make it through.

“(Y-Y/N), don’t-”

She keeps talking, but she voice gets softer, so he has to stop and lean forwards to hear.

“I always made you take us here because the cafe smells like Papa’s cookies.”

His stomach drops with grief, and he can’t even register that she didn’t tell him that she loved him in her dying moments, because those words were enough to break his spine.

He never got to see that fear or confusion, and maybe he should’ve been grateful for that.

He wasn’t grateful.

He wanted (Y/N) back.

And as he cradled her to his chest, and that blinding rage welled up inside of him, he wanted to cuss out that cabbie and then grab him and punch him in the neck nine or ten times, but then she would have been disappointed.

So he sends back a letter.

And he stays.

And it hurts - or it hurts him right in his fucking soul, shattering it into thousands of pieces, seeing her reflected in the world around him, but at least this way he thinks that maybe - just maybe - he might be able to find a sort of peace with the truth here, in the place she loved most.

(And if every day he goes to the cafe and tries some of their cookies, and if everyday he takes a single bit before pushing forwards his plate and leaving, with the comment, “I’m sorry, but it just…isn’t right,” because those were not her Papa’s cookies, even if they smelt like it, then he didn’t say anything, and neither did they.)

He runs across a store one day - nothing particularly extraordinary about it. In fact, he would have passed it had he not seen the ridiculous garment that was in the window.

Instead, he stopped.

Stared.

Tilted his head.

It would suit him, he supposed, and the color-

He inhaled sharply before changing course and heading inside.

He came back out ten minutes later with a magenta leather jacket.

(So maybe magenta’s a color now. When did that happen? He’s not sure. It’s not like he has anyone to ask, much less tell.)

He never went a day onward without it.

It was like he kept a piece of her with him wherever he went.

(And maybe he was healing, but he didn’t say anything, because he hadn’t needed to be healed in the first place, right?)

Eventually, he works up the courage to move back home.

Plasters a smile on his face, spoils the Triple M’s.

He goes to college, eventually - like they talked about.

They are astounded by his credentials, like they had predicted, and he was almost instantly let in.

(James was there. That was good, right? That he was seeking out his other friends? They said that that was supposed to be progress, didn’t they?)

Of course, all good things come to an end.

In this case, for Thomas, it came in three different shapes and sizes.

Their names?

Why, Hercules Mulligan, John Laurens, and, of course, their ringleader, Alexander Hamilton.

He couldn’t fathom why Lafayette ever hung out around them.

Of course, this was coming from someone who constantly got into debates, arguments and other squabbles with the trio (okay, so really just Hamilton) all around campus, insulting and being insulted for everything from their hair to their shoes to how they walked to how they talked to how they presented their last debate.

Despite it being an obvious choice, however, never once had Hamilton ever insulted his jacket.

He had a hunch that maybe Lafayette had told them not to.

After all, they had met Lafayette in France.

He knew what had happened.

He had drawn his own conclusions when he saw the coat, like everyone else had, as Thomas had never explained to any of them, but he could bet that like James’, Lafayette’s was probably pretty damn close. (Except James’ was probably one hundred percent accurate.)

Whatever the case, it went without saying.

Don’t mention my fucking coat and I won’t hurt you.

That was the general message.

An unspoken rule.

But Hamilton’s always been about breaking the rules, and eventually, this one would end up just like the rest of them.

So when he decided to leave their most recent crowd gathering argument (just about all of them were) and turned around to make his way back to the dorm, you can imagine what he felt when he heard the words, “Do you think he wears such a horrid colored jacket to compensate for something else?” Passed from someone’s mouth everyone’s ears.

He didn’t know who said it.

Forty percent on Hamilton, twenty five on Laurens, twenty on Mulligan, and the fifteen left on any random watcher - that was his bet.

Either way, it only took all of twelve seconds for him to freeze, comprehend, turn around and deck Hamilton one straight in the face.

His hand was throbbing as he walked away, but he really couldn’t bring himself to care.

Mulligan and Laurens helped Hamilton up, all of them seething. (though Mulligan looked a bit amused)

Lafayette just looked at his friends with a dark look, warning them not to go any further.

“That,” he told them seriously, “was crossing a line.”

Everyone around them was dead silent.

“It’s only a fucking piece of clothes! What’s the deal?”

Lafayette’s eyes flashed in another warning.

“It’s a topic best left alone. Let the poor man go, he doesn’t need this right now,” they were shocked to hear him, for once, taking a side between the two - and even more so when it wasn’t theirs. “It’s the least you could do after all the memories you probably just brought to surface.”

And they watch in stunned silence as Lafayette walks away, too.

The next day, they try to approach Thomas.

“Look, Jefferson, Lafayette explained about yesterday-”

“He what?” Thomas asked as his head snapped around, absolutely livid.

“He explained. Well, sort of. Anyways, I just wanted to apologize - didn’t know we were making you think of bad things an-”

“Ná labhairt ar cad nach dtuigeann tú!”

Those around them who heard his shout at Hamilton’s words were stunned at the language none of them understood.

Here they didn’t know him, after all, which meant that here, everyone only knew that he could speak English and French - which was only because he was often caught conversing in it fluently in French class and with Lafayette.

He stormed away before anyone got the chance to ask on his outburst.

(And if James shook his head and followed after him, then no one said anything.)

And life once again went back to the way it was.

(And if he was unhappy with that, then he didn’t say anything.)

And Thomas was sucked back into the smothering routine of college.

(And if he found comfort in this, he didn’t let it show.)

And James worried.

(And if maybe he kept just a bit closer of an eye on Thomas after what happened to Marty, then he didn’t say anything.)

And the Triple M noticed.

(And if Marty tried to commit suicide that month, then no one said anything.)

And his Dad cried.

(And if that’s the first time he’s ever seen him break down like that, such a strong facade having been kept in place for years now crumbling in seconds, then he didn’t mention it.)

And her Mama was terrified.

(And if it was because she was afraid of loosing the only family members she had left, just like she had lost her husband and her daughter, then she didn’t say anything.)

And his mother was sad.

(And if it was because Mowlie and Marty and Merlin were growing up and away, and so was he, and she was just that much closer to having them slip away just like what had happened to her Mama, then she didn’t say anything. And if it was because she saw his dad cry, too, then she didn’t say anything. And if it was because Marty was in the hospital, she didn’t say anything. And he wasn’t so sure she could fight giants anymore.)

And his life was in shambles.

(And if that was how he felt, then he kept his damn mouth shut.)

And he hated it all.

But he is healing.

(Is he healing? He thinks he is healing - but then again, that’s what he thought before he came back from France, too. But it was also before Marty tried to kill herself, and before his Dad showed such vulnerability for he first time in his living memory, and before he realized that his attitude was getting to the Triple M, too, or that her Mama was scared, and his was showing such sorrow, and that was before his fights with Hamilton became more constant, because he was asking for it bringing back those memories, and that was before he had to drag himself out of his pit of self pity and depression for the third time in the four years that’ve passed, he reminds himself.)

And he is moving on.

(Probably. He still wears he jacket. Does that mean he’s moving on? Maybe he just likes the color these days.)

And it’s all going to get better.

(He’s not so sure, though.)

Another year, again and again and again, he falls into the pattern.

Shatter.

Stitch.

Heal.

Shatter again.

Repeat.

Shatter.

(Like he shatters when Marty tries again, and a third and a forth time.)

Stitch.

(Like he stitches over the wound when they get her a therapist to help work her through it.)

Heal.

(Like he heals when he thinks he sees her smiling more often, like he heals when he thinks she’s getting better.)

Shatter.

(Like he shatters again when he realizes that no, she is not better, but she is trying. Like he shatters when he realizes that she might never get better and he might never know, because she’s figured out that as long as she says the right thing and act the right way, everyone thinks that she’s okay. Because that means that they fixed her, right?)

Repeat.

Shatter.

(Like he shatters when he finds Merlin, his little brother in all but blood, sobbing his eyes out in front of his college dorm and He came all the way out here? How the fuck did he even get in the building? and when he finds out that it is because he was just rejected by his long term crush, who had laughed in his face for thinking he would go out with him. Like he shatters when he realizes that Merlin is only telling him about his gender preference now, and while it didn’t matter or change him as a person, it still hurt because he hadn’t trusted him with this until now and God, am I really that horrible of a brother?)

Stitch.

(Like he stitches it back together again when he buries the hurt because this is Merlin, and somebody just fucked up Merlin and that meant that he’d have to find them and fuck up them ten times worse, and because Merlin had his reasons and he could respect that.)

Heal.

(Like it starts to heal when Merlin goes back to his own home with his Mama again, because he’s pretty much over it by now, and like it starts to heal when Thomas tries pointing him in Mowlie’s direction because God, wouldn’t it be great if they were finally actual brothers? Maybe they would have been, someday, before France, but you can’t change the past, and he’s anything but blind, and Mowlie and Merlin are perfect for each other.)

Shatter.

Stitch.

Heal.

Repeat.

It’s a pattern that never ends.

(Not when Jordan Kykes from down the street gets evicted and he can’t do anything to help her save the house, not when Betsy Ross from middle school gets paralyzed from the waist down, not when Hamilton cheats on Eliza, not when he finds out that James Reynolds has been abusing and blackmailing his girlfriend Maria, not when Jay Howes gets assaulted and doesn’t speak for three days, not when his Auntie Lola gets fired from her job, not when James’ long spouts of illnesses grow more frequent and more violent, never never never, it never ends.)

But he comes to figure that maybe that’s just life.

And maybe he’s okay with that.

(And if he’s not, then it doesn’t matter, because it’s life and it’s already happened and it’s still happening and it’s going to keep on happening, and if he doesn’t like it, then no, it really, really doesn’t matter, because even if it happened, then he had no one to tell.)

And that’s just life.

#thomas jefferson x reader #Hamilton imagine #modern au #first oneshot #thomas jefferson #cookies #bc the cookies are an important part of this #college au #(uh...ish?)

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filiusinanis-blog · 7 years

Text

Kingdom Hearts: The Next Generation

Chapter 1 - I burn a man alive

Okay, I know the title sounds bad but I can explain.

My name is Skylar Cameron Akari. I’m fourteen years old, and I live on the Destiny Islands. It’s a small world, made up of a large mainland with a single town, and a smaller island just off the coast, where the younger kids usually play. Myself included.

I’m nothing very special, just a short kid with dyed blue and pink pixie cut hair, with several ear piercings and a plan to get myself my own tattoo when I’m old enough for my dad to allow me. My closet consists of mainly black, blue, and the odd pink clothing. Mostly just jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies. A beanie hat here and there. Nothing special, just a normal teen. Tween. Whatever fourteen is considered. The only thing that could be considered ‘special’ about me, is my intelligence and my affinity for magic.

Oh yeah, did I mention that magic is a thing that exists?

While the particular world I live on isn’t exactly magic central( Our local school isn’t Hogwarts, unfortunately ) my family’s more than adept in the art. As well as other things, but we’ll get into that later. That being said, my dad and uncle have taught me plenty. As soon as I voiced interest in it, they were teaching me all kinds of little spells. And as my interest grew, my training was turned over to my Aunt, who excelled in the craft. I couldn’t tell you how much I loved learning to use it. Although, I couldn’t help but feel like I never had a real reason to use it...

Until my fourteenth birthday, that is.

It started like all my birthday’s do. With my dad and sibling making me this huge breakfast, consisting of chocolate chip and blueberry waffles, an assortment of toppings( Including Candy Corn, my personal favorite. Sue me. ), home made vanilla milk( The only acceptable type of milk. ), and a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter icing. Because Darrien, my sibling, is highly allergic to peanuts, we can’t have a full big cake with such icing. However, since it’s my favorite they insisted on at least making me a cupcake.

Anyway I made my way out of my room and downstairs into the kitchen. Typically I stay up all night talking and writing with friends on the internet, so naturally I was dead tired. Excited, but dead tired. I rubbed my eyes as I moved into the kitchen, groggily mumbling a small, “G’morning...”

“Hey! There he is! Mornin’ kiddo.” My dad gave me his signature grin, turning his attention away from the waffles to greet me. My dad’s name is Sora. Sora Akari. He used to travel to all kinds of worlds. He even saved them a couple times. He’s got brown hair and blue eyes, and typically wear jeans, converse, a long sleeve shirt and a plaid un-buttoned button-down over-shirt( try saying all that five times fast ). He’s incredibly too kind for his own good. Although, that doesn’t mean he’s easily messed with. He’s a keyblade master. He’s got so much combat experience, and it shows. He’s strong, wise, and you should see him fight. I’ve only ever seen it once, but he has special forms he can go into in case he needs a bit of a power boost. Apparently the one I saw was his strongest-- Final Form. ‘Course, fighting a war for three to four years took a negative toll on him too. He’s jumpy, especially with loud noises( fire works don’t sit well with him ), and I know for a fact that he still as nightmares at night.

“Ha! Looks like someone stayed up all night on tumblr again.” Darrien grinned, giving a small wave of her wrist to show off her pink bracelet. My sister is genderfluid, and recently came out just two years ago, so that year for her birthday I gave her a special bracelet that changes color according to what gender she’d feeling every day. She’s able to change it by just saying “Today I am ____”. I hate stereotyping colors with genders, but we both agreed that it’d be easiest if we just went with pink blue and grey.

Anyway, my sister Darrien is four years older than me( Already in senior year. Lucky buggar. ), has red hair like our mom, and looks uncannily like dad. She usually wears a white t-shirt with red and orange paint splattered on it( or any of her other splatter painted shirts ), her favorite red and orange striped vest, a pair of either white or light blue jeans( usually with some sort of paint splotch on them ), and a pair of red sneakers. She’s reckless, emotional, overprotective, and always has some kind of bandage on her person. She’s got a little scar on the right side of her lips from a stunt she pulled with some of her friends. She loves to paint and craft, even if she’s not very good at drawing. Most of our time together consists of our projects. She’s also a seriously good hair stylist. She’s the only one I trust to do my hair.

“You’re one to talk... You’re the one i was up writing with.” I yawned stretching my arms over my head, “Just ‘cause your a fountain of energy...”

She laughed, ruffling my hair a little, “Alright alright. C’mon, let’s eat breakfast so we’re not late for school.”

All three of us moved out of the kitchen, seating ourselves at our little round table to eat our breakfast. As per tradition, my dad and sister sang to me and let me eat my cupcake before my waffles. We laughed, joked, teased at one another, and all around just had a merry morning as usual.

By now you may have noticed something missing in my little family. I haven’t mentioned my mother at all. Reason being that she apparently went missing when I was only two years old. I was too young to remember her, but I’ve seen pictures and dad told me a lot about her. She had red hair and deep blue eyes, and she was kind beyond belief. She was always doing anything she could to help someone in need. And from what I hear from dad, she’s a fighter too. She takes no sherbet( Darrien and I have resolved to replacing cuss words with food names ), and fights even fiercer than my father. I wish I could’ve met her. The way dad talks, I can tell that she may not be dead. Or at least, he doesn’t believe she is. Just missing. He’s even taken frequent trips to try and find her.

As we ate we did another tradition: letting me open one of my birthday gifts( from each of them ) before the party that night. Darrien gave me a small gift with a new hand-crafted choker in it. Definitely one I’d be wearing to school that day. But this time my dad just grinned, “Sorry kiddo, but I’m gonna have to break tradition a little this year. What I’ve got for you is something that I’m gonna have to give you later tonight.” He gave me a wink, which only served to get me very curious.

I puffed out my cheeks, “Whaaat? You can’t tell me what it is? You’re killing me with suspense here!” My tone was overdramatic, intended to get a laugh out of my father and sister. My sister gave a snort while my dad just chuckled.

“You’ll just have to wait! I promise, it’ll be worth it.”

I blew a few raspberries, earning a laugh from both of them. After eating Darrien and I got ourselves dressed and ready for school. I got really lucky. Today was not only my birthday, but it was the last day of school before summer break too. The perks of being a June baby I suppose. We said our goodbyes to dad, racing off to meet up with Kirimi and walk to school.

I couldn’t have known that I wouldn’t be seeing that house for a long time.

I couldn’t have known that I’d never get that birthday party.

I couldn’t have known that My life was going to be changing forever after today.

If I’d known that, I would’ve insisted on staying home, spending time with dad, and making every minute count.

------------------------------

“Kirimi!”

I heard Darrien shout as she ran ahead of me, waving to a girl up ahead. Her name was Kirimi. She’s our older cousin-- Much older actually. She’s twenty-one. She has curly shoulder-length silver hair, teal eyes and she’s very tall. Very tall. She wears mostly yellow. Yellow skinny jeans, grey tank top, and a vest that used to belong to her dad, Uncle Riku. She’s pretty darn athletic too. She was on a bunch of sports teams in school and was one of the best players. She spars a lot with Darrien, and both of them suckered me into learning swordplay as well. She’s also a keyblade wielder. Her dad did the inheritance ceremony with her a couple years back. I was still pretty young, so i don’t remember much of it. Darrien’s had the inheritance ceremony done with him too, but his blade hasn’t come to him yet.

“Hey kid! Ready to head to school?” Kirimi grinned as we caught up with her, pushing herself off the wall she’d been leaning on.

“Heck yeah! Finally, I’m gettin’ out of school!!” Darrien’s excitement was easy to hear in her voice. Now that she was done with school, she’d be able to spend more time training than studying.

“Lucky. I’ve still got four years left.” I huffed, folding my arms. Aaand the cons of being the youngest.

My sister laughed and ruffled up my hair dashing ahead of Kiri and I, “Don’t worry, you’ll breeze right through it! You’ll do a heck-of-a lot better than I did anyway!” She laughed, running off and forcing both Kirimi and I to start running after her.

The run to school wasn’t anything exciting. Just our normal race to the school yard. And yet as I ran I could swear I felt eyes on my back, watching me as I made my way to the building. And other day I’d simply write it off as paranoia, or maybe just as one of my monsters checking up on me( More on that later )... But this feeling was incredibly different. It wasn’t just that dark presence that I’ve come to sense in my monsters. It was cold and sinister. Dripping with malice and a strong urge to harm. The emotion in the stare was so real, I knew it had to be.

Even so, as I stopped to check the surrounding area every now and again, time and time again I saw nothing but normal passerby; everyone hurrying to and fro to get to work, meet up with friends, or just lounge around the town. No matter how many times I turned, the gaze was always on my back. Looking back I realize I was pretty stupid for not telling Kirimi and Darrien this. If I had, maybe we’d have ended up in a better situation.

But, instead of doing the smart thing and warning them, I brushed off whatever concern they showed and simply continued my way to school. Once the three of us reached the schoolyard, Kirimi wished us a good day and left to begin her training with Uncle Riku. Darrien and I went to our separate classes, and somehow that strange feeling seemed to dissipate as soon as I entered the building. I met up with one of my closest friends, Jill. She’s a lot like me-- a little rebellious, wears as much jewelry as she’s allowed, smart and nerdy, and has an incredible interest in mythical beasts and all things fantasy. She’s actually the one who convinced me to dye my hair.

She’s also incredibly awesome. I met her on my first day of sixth grade, when she saved me from a gang of bullies who’d stuffed me in a locker( Being tiny and one of the most unpopular kids in school? Seriously. Stinks. ). She’d happened to be passing by just when they’d closed the door on me, and from what I could tell she’d scared them off pretty quick. Fairly certain she’d kicked one of them in a... Sensitive place. We’ve been best friends ever since. She even started teaching me martial arts.

While I was seated in homeroom, doodling in my sketchpad and just waiting for homeroom to start, Jill snuck up behind me and grabbed me into a tight hug, “Happy Birthday Sky-boy!!”

I laughed, putting a hand on her arm, “Thanks Jill.”

There was a giggle from her, and as she moved to remove her arms I felt something being strung around my neck, “Aaaand, here’s your gift!”

I looked down, seeing a silver locket strung on a silver chain. Curious, I moved my hand to lift it up, opening it. Inside was a picture of Jill and I, with me having shiny new blue hair with green tips, “The first time I dyed my hair..!”

“Yep!” She grinned, her hands moving to my shoulders, “Hard to believe that was two years ago, huh?”

“Sure is.” I said, turning my head to look at her face, “Ah, I see you went fire today.”

The ‘fire’ I was referring to was aimed at her hair. She had a different color of hair almost every week. Today her hair was a gradation of yellow to orange to red. And it had a sheen to it that made her hair look like it was on fire.

“You noticed~!” Her voice was sing-song like, a huge grin sitting on her face, “Yes, I wanted to go flashy and bright today~. Let everyone know that I’m so fired up for summer break!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at her mini-pun. She loved puns, “Maybe I should change my hair color. The pink’s fading after all...”

“You should do watermelon!!”

“Pink with green tips?” I thought about it, swaying my head a bit, “Hmm... I guess I might have some clothes to go with that.”

She laughed, putting her hands on her hips and moving to stand next to me, “I’m sure you have some lighter clothes somewhere. Ya gotta get a brighter closet!”

“Hm..... Okay. I’ll go watermelon. But only for you! And I get to keep my dark closet!”

“Haha, alright! Operation watermelon is a go! We’ll talk to your sibling to set up the appointment. I gotta be there when you get it done.”

“Alright, deal. Maybe I can convince her to do it tonight at the party.” I smiled, blinking at the teacher called us to our seats.

Classes went by as ‘Final School Day’ usually did-- with lots of parties and just general goofing off( Except for that one teacher who just can’t loosen up ), and I actually got a little mini birthday party in one of my classes. I didn’t have a lot of friends at school, so it was actually a bit surprising that anyone paid attention to when my birthday was. Everything was fine and great. All the way up...

Until lunch time.

Lunch was always the period I dreaded. Not because I had no place to go, I had Jill after all, but because it was the time of day where they got their chance to annoy the heck out of me. Johnathan Hue, Cody Rax, and Harry Stillman. The three biggest jerks in my whole class, who have been tormenting me all year. No matter how often I changed where I sat at lunch, they always found me, and they always humiliated me. Eventually I ended up seeking out isolated places to eat, just so no one would see them messing with me.

I did punch John in the face once though. He screwed up my hair dye by dumping red paint on me from one of the upper floors. Jill high-fived me and Darrien helped me fix it.

Anyway, in trying to avoid having another awful day at the hands of thing one thing two and thing three, I made my way up to the roof to eat lunch. For the first five minute of my thirty minute period by myself, I was content and happy just eating my ham and cheese sandwich, waiting for Jill to come join me. And then the roof door slammed open. I stopped eating, preparing to defend myself. But I didn’t hear the normal laughing and snarky comments of the bullies. I didn’t even hear multiple footsteps. Just one set. They came alone? That was unusual. I glanced up to see who came to torment me today. It was John, leader of the group with short brown hair, muscled up, and always wearing an over-sized varsity jacket. I think he just wears it to look bigger.

I glared at him as he made his way over to me, sauntering on over as if he were actually all-that. If only he knew how many of the kids in the school despised him. He stopped next to the bench I was seated on, leaning against the roof fence. He said nothing, something rather unusual for him. Usually by now he was taunting me, pushing me around, anything. But he just stood there. There was a strange calmness about him. Tainted with hatred.

“... So what are you gonna do this time?” I finally spoke up, not liking the suspense surrounding the air.

“To finish this.”

My body tensed. This wasn’t a ‘I’m going to patch things with you’ tone and feeling. This was malicious. Hateful. The same emotions I felt earlier that day. They’d come from John.

“... When did you start following me?”

“Right after you met with your cousin.”

“... What do you want from me?”

“I told you. I’m here to finish this. I finally have confirmation that it’s you.”

Confirmation..? It’s me..? I couldn’t understand what this guy was talking about. I gave him a quizzical look. He didn’t seem like he was joking, but he also didn’t explain what he meant.

“... Where’s Cody and Harry? Your two flunkies skip school without ya?”

He gave a chuff of a laugh, a twisted grin on his face, “Those two? They’re with my mistress.”

“... And I don’t suppose you’re gonna explain any of this? You’re just gonna let me think you’re crazy?”

He paused, pushing himself off the fence and moving to stand in front of me. I grunted as he suddenly grabbed my left shoulder, shoving me up against the fence, “Do you know what I am, child?” I stared, unsure of how to answer. A jock? A phsyco? A creeper?

“I’m an Oni.” He sneered, “A being forever stuck between life and death.”

I felt my eyes widen. An Oni? So this guy was... Dead?

He read the confusion and surprise on my face, laughing and putting a hand on the fence behind me, “That’s right, son of the void. I am dead. For how long, I know not. All I know is that I died, and was dragged into limbo by my mistress. Now I am neither living, nor dead.”

I was confused. I was scared. I didn’t fear monsters-- I actively tried to understand and connect with them. No, it was not him I feared. It was the pure hostility pouring from him. The joy he would feel in scaring me. The hatred burning through him. The sick sense of entertainment he was getting from this. It surrounded me, and my breathing became labored as if the feelings themselves were squeezing the air out of my lungs. My voice would no longer work. It felt like a knot in my throat. I wasn’t scared.

I was terrified.

“Would you like to know how I died?” I flinched as he spoke again, unable to hold in a wince as he dug his nails into my shoulder, “I was burned alive. I was pulled into Limbo just before my body was destroyed. And because I died so... Uniquely, I obtained certain... Perks.”

I was suddenly aware of the burning hot crawling down my back. Molten metal. The fence was melting behind me. I whimpered at the heat, trying to keep myself from touching it. A strangled yelp left me as a bit of it dripped down my arm and the smallest of dots dropped onto my neck. I heard him laugh, sadistic and with a sick sense of joy behind it. His hand dropped to my other shoulder, and I could still feel the fading warmth in it.

“Do you have a fear, son of the void?” The more I listened to his voice, the more I hated it. Feared it. The sick tone seemed to crawl down my spine, and I could feel the malice dripping from it, “Perhaps a... Fear of heights.

Before I could so much as blink, I felt myself turned around and lifted off the ground, being held by the back of my neck. I squeezed my eyes shut, kicking my legs desperately in an attempt to find the ground. I heard him laughing, felt him fake drop me a couple times, “Oh this is so rich! Who knew that you were so weak! Makes me wonder why my mistress is so afraid of you.”

“Let me go!! Someone help!! Please!!!” I struggled and screamed, and slowly the screams of kids below us began being heard. I chanced a glance down at the yard. A couple guys were running into the building, trying to get up to us. Some of the girls followed them in. The rest of them were standing below us. There was even a small group of football players standing below me to try and catch me if I did fall.

The roof door slammed shut, and I yelped and closed my eyes tightly again, “No one can help you now.” My blood ran cold, and all of a sudden the feeling of his hand on my neck disappeared. I felt myself falling. I screamed. There was a flash of blue and purple light, and all of a sudden I felt arms around me, carrying me back upwards. I had no idea what just happened, but I clung for dear life to the one who saved me. I heard two near simultaneous thuds on the roof floor, as if two people had jumped and landed on their feet at the same time. I heard footsteps, a snap, and a cry of pain from the Oni named John. When I finally brought myself to look at what happened, I saw my father standing over the Oni, keyblade in hand. John was holding his upper body up with his left arm, his right arm twisted and obviously broken. Looking up, I saw it was my Uncle Riku who had saved me.

“How didn’t I know it was you?” I flinched and looked to my father as he spoke to himself. The look on his face was one I’ve only seen once before in my life. The day I’d been ambushed by heartless, and he used his most powerful drive form to save me. A look of protection, of hatred, and a chilling calm. I could only assume it was one he adopted whenever one he loved was threatened.

John laughed. As if he already wasn’t in enough deep trouble, “I guess I’m just too clever...~ Or maybe your senses are just out of touch~”

“Don’t push it.” The words my father growled out dripped with hatred. I had never felt such malice and hatred come from my father before. My dad didn’t hate anyone. He could dislike them, yeah, but I’d never felt outright hate coming from him. This wasn’t just about me. It couldn’t be.

“Tell me what happened that night. Tell me what you did. Where is my wife?”

Mother. Kairi Akari. The woman I only knew through words from my father and sister; whom the only memory I had of her consisted of warm arms, cradling me protectively. This Oni had something to do with her disappearance.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” John was treading on thin ice. But why wouldn’t he? Even if he fell through, he wouldn’t drown. He couldn’t die. No... There had to be a weakness. A way to get rid of him, if only for a while.

“Don’t play games with us.” I heard my uncle speak up this time, and I felt him squeeze my shoulder a bit. Not hard, just a soft squeeze. Reassuring; Trying to tell me that things would be alright. They would take care of it. There was no need for me to get involved yet. He looked to me, smiling briefly to reaffirm the feeling of security. He then carefully placed me on my feet and moved to join dad. I wanted to say something. To tell them to get away. My voice wouldn’t work, and my legs felt like jelly. I couldn’t warn them-- I had to at least think. His weakness. What could his weakness be?!

“Oh, but games are so much fun, don’t you think?” He grinned, placing a hand on his broken arm, “Children do love their games...” I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see what he was about to do. I felt two arms pushing me back a couple steps as my father and uncle backed up themselves. Slowly, I opened my eyes and saw John standing. His arm didn’t look broken at all. In fact he was stretching it across his chest. It made me sick to think of how he fixed it.

He cracked his knuckles, letting his varsity jacket slip off his shoulders and onto the ground. I hated to admit it, but the guy was... Very muscular. And he was wearing a tank top that was just a little too tight on him. His arms were covered in burn scars, and if he removed his tank I’ve no doubt that he’d have even more scars on his chest and back. With a flick of his arms, flames ignited to life, dancing in orange yellow and red. Looking carefully, I noticed that the flames didn’t actually touch his skin. Thy were floating just above it-- more like magic than some sort of internal flame. I had to wonder...

I flinched away from my thoughts when I heard the sound of Dad and Uncle Riku summoning their keyblades. There were no words exchanged between the three before the battle began. I heard banging on the roof door. Someone trying to get through to help us. I could hear Jill calling for me behind it, “Sky?! Skylar I’m coming!! I’ve almost got it!!”

Looking back to Dad and Uncle Riku, I saw them fighting against John relentlessly. Both of them were covered in burns and what looked like scratch marks. But every time they hit John, the wound made just stitched itself back together-- there wasn’t even a scar. My feet felt rooted to the spot where I stood. I was terrified. All this malice, hatred, and fear in the air was messing with my head. I had to take a few minutes to breath. In. Out. Focus.

His fire never touched him. It was always just above his skin. Why? If he couldn’t die, he could just light his fire directly on his skin. It shouldn’t even burn... But then... The scars.

That was it.

I drew in a deep breath, forcing my trembling body to still. I held out a hand, watching the fight closely. I had to time it right, or I would end up hitting Uncle Riku or my dad. Wait for it... Wait for it...

There.

I flicked my wrist, and a spark erupted in front of my hand. The spark became a flame, which grew into a fireball. Within seconds it shot forward, whizzing past Riku and dad’s head. It slammed into the Oni before one could even blink, and in an instant his body burst into flames. The screaming was awful, and the amount of pain that flooded the air with it was choking me. The demon looked at me, and a wave of hatred washed over my body, sending me sinking to my knees. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t need to. He’d never forget this. I was his target. Now. And Forever. A strange hole of darkness opened behind him, and he staggered his way through.

As soon as it closed, the roof door slammed open. I felt hands on my shoulders, and I clung to the sleeve of who I would moment later recognize as my father. Jill came tearing towards me, dropping to her knees and throwing her arms around me. Other students were searching the roof, trying to find the bully they knew as John. I choked out a breath-- I hadn’t even realized that I’d been holding it. I over heard my father and Uncle talking-- Something about taking me to Yen Sid, and that they were out of time. I had to take a minute to comprehend what was going on.

Some demon called an Oni had been watching me through the entire school year, and tried to throw my off a roof.

I basically just burned him alive.( Dead? )

I was going to go see Yen Sid with the rest of my family.

And one last big thing that was nagging me.

He’d said ‘it’s you.’ What was me? Did he know something about me that I didn’t? Was it about my monsters? Or...

Did it have something to do with my birth parents..?

I had no idea. I only knew that, so far? Worst birthday ever.

#{[ My journal is my private place ]}( Stories )#Here's the first chapter!!#5002 words #Probably the longest I've ever spent on a single chapter -w-#But! I'm p proud of it ^w^

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softspotforstars · 7 years

Text

And have no clue where I am other than on a mountain.

Here goes nothing. Back of the pack, as usual.

So after K picked Paige up on Friday, the game plan was to leave out Saturday morning and go trail riding. Paige isn’t in shape by any means, so I figured we’d go on a nice relaxing ride for a couple hours, then hang out and talk horses for a similar amount of time, then head home. hahahahahahah.

We rode for a long time. Well, a long time for me. While my horse is apparently a very seasoned trail horse, she did not become that way with me. I can count maybe three times I’ve ridden on steep and/or rocky trails. The New River trail (my favorite because I’m a weenie) is level, flat, literally has footing, and lacks all scary edges where you may or may not plummet to your death, so my rides there don’t count as real trail rides as much.

This part was nice and easy.

Interestingly enough, I mostly didn’t feel like I was going to die on Saturday. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to walk on Monday (I’m never sore the day after), but alas, Monday has passed without me being sore. What is this sorcery? In case my complete lack of ride recaps this year hasn’t made it readily apparent, I have logged maybe one hour combined in the saddle so far this year and uh, yeah, the same goes for my saintly Paige, who toted me around like a champ.

So, in case you missed the point of the last two paragraphs, we as a team, are neither experienced with trail riding or in shape for it. Further yet, I have NO sense of direction. Truly, never let me guide you in a wooded area. I’m a landmarks type of girl, not a “turn left or turn right” type. Unless the turn is by a landmark-if the turn is in a cluster of trees that look like every other cluster of trees, I may send us the wrong direction.

Luckily I was with a group of seasoned trail riders who knew exactly where they were going, which felt kind of like everywhere by the time we were done. The footing was pretty rocky, and Paige just had front shoes on, so we mainly stayed in the back and took things very slowly.

A on Casey. Yes, her hand is wrapped. She may have had surgery earlier this month…also note the rocky footing.

Actually I was rethinking not having anything embroidered on my custom horn bag that I bought last year…”spectacularly slowly” seems to be Paige’s motto on trail rides (regardless of footing) and would be very fitting on the side of them. Speaking of my custom horn bag, I was pretty happy with it. I hadn’t really used it up to this point, so it was nice to try it out. I picked the colors (obviously…) and that I wanted a cup holder on the left and cell phone holder on the right. I’ll be honest, I didn’t use the cell phone holder at all because I have this fear that I would and somehow I’d get separated from my horse and be unable to call for help, as if we had any service out there anyway. So I kept my phone in my pocket unless I was snapping pictures. The cup holder was amazing because it meant that I could ride with my right hand, use my left to pull the thermos out, hit the button to open the lid, drink, close the lid, and put it back in the holder one handed. So I was pretty well hydrated the entire time because it was so easy to sip and ride. If you want a set of custom color trail bags, I 100% recommend the Bag Hag.

Teal and brown for lifeeee. Bonus turquoise water bottle in cup holder.

While I was well hydrated, Paige wasn’t big on drinking. We crossed a few creeks that she wasn’t interested in-unless pawing counts- and a water trough that was spring fed, and she still wasn’t interested. At the end of the ride, we walked across to the creek and she sipped a little once I was off of her, but then wasn’t interested again.

There was one long span of trail with the aforementioned rocky footing that was on a uphill grade that gave us some issues. She stumbled a lot and acted like she didn’t want to go forward to the point that I actually had to kick her forward, which made me feel bad. Once we got to the top of the hill, there was a clearing that has been named Hugo’s Meadow since it was cleared by hurricane Hugo in 1989.

Hugo’s meadow

Paige had been grabbing leaves off of trees on the way up, but really wanted to graze when we got here. I extended my arm and just let her graze the entire time we rested there, which ended up being a fair amount of time since another group of riders came up behind us and struck up a conversation. This was immediately prior to the spring fed trough, so I thought if she grazed some, she may be more inclined to drink. While that wasn’t the case, the grazing put a lot of pep in her step for the rest of the ride, so I was glad I let her refuel on some calories.

After we left the meadow, K mentioned that the route we were taking back down was shorter, but more steep, and that there was a section that I’d probably want to dismount and lead Paige down and that she was going to do the same since her horse wasn’t in tip top shape either. It wasn’t until we got closer that I was given more information on this section, which is apparently so steep that it has been dubbed “the slide.” When wet, it is not at all uncommon for the horse to lose their footing with their back feet and slide down it. Luckily the area was pretty dry, so the horses weren’t as likely to slide. I was going last since that was generally our position and it made me feel better to not have to worry about someone else’s horse rushing us down. When we got down for our turn and saw the rut, it was evident that Paige would have to go in the rut and I was to walk on the ledge, which was a great plan in theory until Paige decided that she liked my idea of walking on the ledge better. There was a pretty good drop off on the side of the ledge and no way that we were both walking on it at the same time and it was questionable that the ledge would bear Paige’s weight regardless, so K climbed back up the slide and told me to scurry down solo and that she’d get Paige in the rut.

I probably would’ve been able to get Paige in the rut myself, but between my general lack of coordination and the fact that my legs were utter noodles from 4ish hours of riding, I willingly handed Paige over and slowly scooched myself down the slide, nearly falling a couple of times myself. Below is K and Paige on the ledge (left) and Paige in the rut (right).

That was the scariest part of the ride. I hand walked for a little while further, then got back on. This section of trail was not my favorite and I was glad I had energetic post grazing Paige and not the tired version I pony kicked up the mountain prior. We rode in the woods a little while longer then opened a gate and came out in a field full of cattle.

Seemingly endless field.

Paige was VERY interested in the cows, and only halfheartedly grazed when we took a break here. It was nice to be out in an open area without rocks for a while, but the heat was pretty crazy compared to the cool air in the trees. We were soon back to the trees, but not until after following the cows a little ways.

Note cows ahead of the bay horse.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful (just the way I like it…) outside of my butt being pretty sore from so much riding. I’m apparently in better shape than I give myself credit for due to this workout program I’m in. Despite not riding this year, I wasn’t sore until we’d been riding for…almost five hours? My exercise class (and weigh in) was last night, and while I dropped another two pounds, I was more surprised that I wasn’t sore from riding during the workout. Paige is likely sore, but she’s living at K’s and eating lots of grass and apples and is very forgiving, so she’ll hopefully be glad to see me when I make it out there this week.

Looking pretty in “wine.”

Two Horse Tack sent me a halter bridle to review and it arrived just in time for the occasion. I really like it, and it worked well for leading Paige down the slide. I am going to add snaps to the reins after fiddling with those conway buckles though. Full review to come once I’ve used it a little more.

Outside of the slide, I found the ride really enjoyable in spite of the length/difficulty. I think once Paige is in better shape we’ll hit the trails again, but for now we need to work on getting in some practice for this ranch riding clinic we signed up for.

Her homework: eat all the things.

Here is the map of where we rode. I had A draw in green where we went because outside of a couple of places that I recognized, I wasn’t sure where we started or ended. I guess our trailer was parked somewhere between the two ends of the green line, because we did do a complete loop despite how this makes it look.

This map is about as good as it gets…because this was what I was going to show you to show where we rode.

Don’t judge me. hahahaha

In Which I Follow People And have no clue where I am other than on a mountain. So after K picked Paige up on Friday, the game plan was to leave out Saturday morning and go trail riding.

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