#also its harder to come up with shit cause we have alters of them so its like hello jade harley im just here drawing another version of you

[vantasstrider]

im very prone to deleting my alter art which means at some point my blog will only be karkat. you know you guys can request things right

[autisticbokutoenthusiast]

halfway point only friends character rankings

(i am bad at rank so i tiered them, also i don't dislike any character this is more a scale of how many hours i lay awake thinking of them)

tier one: ray

ray: I think anyone looking at my only friends posts can immediately guess who my favourite character is and why. ray is THE character for me, i knew in the first episode before the title sequence that he'd make me extremely unwell (his "being known as a burden who is either professing his love for anyone who cares to listen or begging people not to leave him in his drunken desperation" captivated me ok) . besides relating to parts of his characters and story, i am thoroughly invested in this man and his emotions. like will he fall victim to the cycle he's already convinced he's doomed by? will he find a way out? will he continue living as self-fulfilling prophecy purely out of spite for himself and everyone around him? will he get better? can he get better? will he ever want to????????? i think i always had the potential like ray as a character but i also think the actor plays him in a way that has altered my brain forever (like i am not good at reading faces but the look on ray's face sometime feels like im looking into his thoughts, its thrilling) deciding to play ray as layered and complex and oosing with pain no matter the circumstance was a choice that made the character for me, and i also think it takes a lot of skill to have an asshole insult everyone close to him and ruin relationships he has no buissness ruining for most of his screentime and have the audience come away with "wow that guy is absoultey dripping in pain, i feel so much for him"

tier two: nick, boston, mew

nick: i love nick so much, maybe its my thing for pathetic little guys but something about him makes me scream throw shit whenever i see him. i'm obssessed with all the crime he commits, because he's such a cutie about it. like watching him get all sad listening to the topboston tape fully sympathizing with him and his little sad face to the point i forget he only has the tape cause he WIRETAPPED BOSTONS CAR. just excellant character, i hope his crimes being revealed leads to him looking more pathetic and then becoming 5x more evil but 10x more cute about it (i also am desperate to know what comes of him chasing after a man who has made it clear so many times he doesn't want him only for nick to fall harder like what is up with that)

boston: boston has always been a favourite character of mine because he may not be a good friend and he may not be a good person but one thing he will NEVER not be is entertaining. like if he is on screen your ass will be tuned IN, and for that reason i love him. what i want to see from boston in the rest of the series? i think he is an interesting case of how far is to far when it comes to friends doing you dirty, and im interested to see what the lasting impact to his relationships are and then the impact to how he views relationships in general. i think it'd be nice if there were consequences that made him reavaluate the way he treats other people, but i also find it absolutely necessary for him to retain his sluttiness. like it doesnt hurt anyone else, and i think he genuienly enjoys it, so i hope he keeps it along with his love for photogrphy (would love to see him get more into getting consent of people before he records them and spreads that around tho) stay messy my king 🫡

mew: mew was my designated little guy after watching the first episode but kinda got lost in all my love for sandray. i will say he shot back up towards the top after seeing this one post (i cannot find it now its lost under the thousands that have been posted since) about mew, control, and bdsm (and all the new meta that has come out since too tbh). also realizing around epsiode 4 we knew absoultey nothing about him as a person had me watching everything he did like there would be little clues left. i think its safe to say after episode 6 that the relationhip between sex and control will continue to be interesting as well as WHATEVER THE FUCK HAPPENS TO MAKE HIM ACT UP LIKE THAT IN THE BATHTUB anyway... i am here for his villain?? era

tier 3: top, sand, cheum

(again i tiered them cause im not good at straight ranking and this doesn't mean i like them any less its just they make me personally a little less insane then the others do)

top: i think he needs to be topped by mew and that it has the potential fix him, i've thought about this a lot (A LOT) and thats all i have to say.

sand: i am still kinda obsessed with him, like don't get me wrong. i like the way he mirrors the other characters while still maintaining traits that are specific to him. the fact that he has his heart broken by the belief that ray didn't truly care about him and only saw him as a distraction, distinced himself from ray, took insults and physical attacks from ray, and STILL chased after him because he knew ray was in an unsafe headspace speaks to how strong this guy is, cause you saw everyone else in that bar abondon ray to whatever self-destructive thing he decided to do next but not sand, never sand. anyway maybe its because i relate to ray so much that whenever i see sand on screen or think about him my mind gets overtaken by hearteyes (this is my way of saying i don't have many coherent thoughts about sand in my brain theres just 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰) anyway i can't wait to see how he develops, if we meet the sandtop mutual ex and what chaos that brings, and whatever the fuck happens with the sandray codependency dynamic and i am dying to know if he does indeed have something in his past related to driving under the influence and what it is about ray specifically that made mr "i can seperate love and sex" into the character we see now

cheum: my girl isn't in the show as often but whenever shes on screen with april i have to smile. anyway i wonder if we'll get an explaination as to why shes always presurring the rest of the friendgroup into monogamous relationships or if thats just who she is (i do think her lying to april about how she feels in order to keep them together at all costs was an interesting detail in all this, like is she scared of what it means to be single/alone, does she feel intense pressure to be in a certain type of relationship, etc)

anways this is inspired by @thatgirl4815 and my autocorrect broke so sorry if this makes now sense

[misha-moose-dean-burger-lover]

deancas highschool au, 1.8k.

dean's pretty sure it all comes down to being sam's fault.

kid had walked into their last scooby doo marathon without warning at eleven friggin' pm, startling both cas and him (because they watch scooby doo like it's meant to be watched — with all their concentration, goddammit) and consequently causing dean to knock over the bowl of popcorn and get its contents all over (and some inside) the couch.

fast forward from there to the next time dean asked mary if cas could sleep over, and her immediate condition being that they conduct the grand bingewatch (a necessary element of the dean-cas sleepovers) in dean's room instead of the living room, as she could not possibly handle finding more popcorn under the cushions of the damn sofa than she'd already been fishing for, the last two weeks.

so there.

it is absolutely and indisputably sam's fault that dean is right now half-propped up in bed next to his best friend, with a laptop on his lap and fellowship of the ring playing on it, unable to think about anything except the way their arms press against each other, knees brush, and cas's head ends up looming too close to dean's shoulder to not be resting on it.

oh, and how good cas looks in the almost-dark, lit by whatever's happening — dean knows exactly what's happening — on the screen.

just because.

it's past two — which translates to way too late for a gay awakening o'clock — but dean's pretty sure if his heart keeps beating at this rate till morning, he's going to wake up in an ambulance.

this has never happened before. being this conscious of wherever they're touching, this excited about it, or this intent on stealing glances when he's sure he won't be caught. (okay, maybe that one's happened before but it's beside the point.) put together, it is alien and disconcerting.

and dean's not an idiot. he knows — he thinks he knows what's happening. and he knows it's not supposed to feel like a switch flipping because these things — and that's about all of the clarity he can afford — happen over time. and yet it's like he's walked headfirst into a wall on this weird, weird night.

the only thing he knows for sure is that he's never felt this way before. not towards cas, not towards anyone.

well, there's also never been an anyone (else).

but screw semantics — dean's terrified.

and it's entirely sam's fault, obviously, which is why the next time dean sees the little bastard, he's going to —

"dean."

it's cas, interrupting his very subtle, manageable breakdown in his endearingly familiar why-aren't-you-already-paying-attention-to-me voice.

dean hits pause, pressing the spacebar and turning to face his cas-shaped dilemma in the eye. "what, you sleepy already?"

"of course not." cas's tone is haughty, like one of somebody who hasn't been the first one asleep in a single sleepover in the past. dean takes the blow with grace, because he friggin' deserves that. he's been ashamed of himself every, single, morning-after. "i was just wondering if the movie," cas tilts his head towards the screen. "isn't disturbing your parents or your brother. i don't think we've ever watched anything past midnight in your room before."

trust me, dean's brain supplies, i know.

but cas does have a point. there's plenty of loud noises in lotr, and the walls aren't particularly thick. and the last thing he wants right now is for dad to come see why they're not asleep yet, and find them friggin' huddled together on a single.

not that dean minds it.

"well," dean frowns. "what do you suggest? it is sorta late to switch to sleepover games, by the way, if you were planning on saying 'never have i ever'."

"we could use your earphones." cas says, like it's the most obvious thing. "and neither of us ever win in 'never have i ever', dean. or lose, actually. we know each each other too well. why would i suggest that?"

but dean's already stuck on a previous part of cas's sentence. "m-my earphones?"

cas blinks at him. "yes?"

dean swallows.

"unless you want to play 'never have i ever'?"

dean swats at cas for that, which the latter tries to dodge by pushing dean with both hands, until dean's wriggling and swearing at him to stop trying to put him through the wall because either they really are cosied up in that little space, or being in the middle of a really important realization makes you go soft on your opponent.

when cas finally lets dean go with a self-satisfied grin, dean only falters for a moment before planting the laptop on cas indelicately and knee-waddling to the end of the bed to get to his desk.

he finds his extremely well-used black earphones soon enough and returns to his spot, where cas shifts hardly an inch to give him his due space, resulting in dean well and truly sandwiched between the wall and cas, because his best friend is a jackass like that. and of course, the only reasons dean leans further towards cas with practised annoyance etched on his face is because it's the kind of annoying he's supposed to be, and it's october and the wall is cold.

cas, on the other hand, is really not.

"what are you waiting for?" cas grumbles, eyes squinty at dean in the dark, and dean makes a face at him, plugging it in (without needing to look, not that he'd've been able to see a thing in the dark anyways), and offering cas the left earplug.

which cas promptly puts in his left ear — the one that's farther away — because he's cas, and things like which earplug is meant for which ear, matter to him.

dean friggin' loves him.

and it's some time after dean's put the right one in his left ear — because he's not cas is why, and their heads are close enough already — and they've hit play and settled into the comfortable silence of watching a movie they've both seen at least five times in the past and dean's actually begun to pay attention, that he absolutely freezes in his metaphorical tracks, the entire world stuttering to a halt as he tries to register that last thought.

he loves cas.

he said it to himself. he said he loved him.

and that's just goddamn it.

he loves cas.

dean's eyes flit to cas, who's watching the movie without having any life-altering revelations, stuffing his mouth full of popcorn every five minutes (a habit dean can proudly claim to have been responsible for fostering in the first place), not smiling but with a corner of his lip pulled up like he ends up unconsciously doing whenever he's really paying attention, his profile only half-lit with colors, and his closeness suddenly so incredibly flustering.

yeah, well. you've known it for a while, the voice in dean's head that's not exactly his, returns. haven't you?

and maybe he has.

or maybe he hasn't, and it really does feel like a switch flipping for some people. people like him who're zoning out watching lord of the rings one moment, and smitten with their best friends the second.

it doesn't really matter either way, does it?

it's 2:37 am when dean turns his head to the movie again.

inarguably far too late for anything to matter to dean other the fact that he knows. the fact that he knows that he's in love with cas. and the fact that he is.

(maybe he can think of ways to ask him out tomorrow.

or next week.

or maybe he'll chicken out a thousand times until he finally ends up stuttering his way through a severely practised-in-the-mirror confession eight months later, and cas will smile that smile he reserves for dean, and say he can't make it friday because of astronomy club, and dean'll blush even harder because he knew that, he knows that dammit, and then cas will suggest thursday instead, and thursday will be too soon and way too terrifying and just perfect. and then they'll live happily ever after.)

but dean's got all the time in the world to sort out — read: lose his shit over — the maybe's.

right now? being in love with cas is enough.

and being here, watching the last sixteen minutes of one of their mutually favorite movies in bed with his best friend and love of his life, is perfect.

*

dean does end up falling asleep first, yet again, cause turns out achieving self-awareness and spontaneous living-in-the-moment prowess don't do shit to help with being less of an embarrassment.

but this time, he gets to wake up with an arm slotted around his waist, and a warm castiel curled up close behind him, still fast asleep and breathing in light puffs down dean's tshirt, so maybe, just maybe, he doesn't have to chalk this one up as a loss after all.

doesn't mean cas still won't be a smugfaced little shit about it though.

but then, that's probably one of the things dean winchester loves about him anyway.

[theseerasures]

a yearning nation’s blueeyed pride

honestly there is just like. no point as of Witch (if not earlier) in thinking about Marrow and Winter as following along the same defection path, and downright facile to compare the two in terms of who is “closer” to defecting and therefore “less problematic” (even setting aside that making value judgments along those lines in fiction is...never that straightforward), when the narrative has emphasized REPEATEDLY how they are on entirely separate tracks in terms of character and role in the Atlas military.

seriously, it’s like saying “this orange is bad because you can’t eat the peel like you can eat an apple skin”

so like, yes, Marrow is the one who has verbally expressed his misgivings, and has clearly articulated scruples (as opposed to just the dial-up noise) and will blurt them out any second now as soon as he gets a word in edgewise. but also: Marrow HASN’T gotten a word in edgewise (except with Winter, fancy that), and has done approximately fuck all to actually subvert the system that he is growing to hate. both his theory and lack of praxis are tied into Marrow’s relatively low, overlooked position in the Atlas system, and feed into the fact that for Marrow the project of Atlas is not personal.

Marrow joined the military on ideological grounds. he clearly does want personal connection, but that has been denied him at every turn, largely by his teammates, largely by his partner, all of whom use him to enforce their own struggles with the clash between political duty and personal grief. he has been alienated by the system he upholds, which started even before we meet him. this makes it much harder for him to rebel in deed, because he doesn’t have a lot of power to begin with and he knows the system will not protect him if he does; at the same time, that relative powerlessness and isolation keeps his investment in Atlas abstract, uncomplicated, and much easier to dispel. Marrow is still with Atlas because he has a job to do, because it’s his duty, because he is still clinging to the Atlas military’s illusory altruism. he wants Penny to come with them so she can save Atlas. his protestations at seeing Team FNKI, that they are “just kids,” comes from the belief that it is categorically wrong to send children into battle. what is keeping Marrow from defecting is belief, and once the belief is shattered--like, say, when his boss’ new ingenious plan is to Nuke the Poors--there is nothing keeping him around.

and once his path is set he will not waver, because Atlas, by design, has no hold on him materially or personally (outside of his own life, which he was already happy to dedicate to a cause). Marrow then, is the limit case of Atlas being hoist with its own petard: an exemplar for how it gives its people nothing while demanding everything, but also an exemplar for how quickly the entire system folds in on itself when the veil is lifted. when Marrow defects (and it IS when) it will represent Atlas as a whole defecting from itself, even if we don’t see it visually--from the civilians, to the enlisted soldiers, to perhaps even members of Marrow’s own team.

NONE of the things i just mentioned really apply to Winter, because there is nothing about Atlas that is not personal for Winter.

i have no doubt that Winter is in some ways invested in same abstract principles that swayed Marrow, but that is constantly overridden by the fact that Winter has family at all sides of this, even before everything fell to shit, and the narrative will not stop reminding her.

“what about your sister?” “would you say the same thing if it was your sister inside?” her father was gunning for a seat on the Council. the man who took her in is essentially Head of State. Penny has made herself Public Enemy Number One, and Weiss is actively abetting her. even Whitley has now thrown himself into the fray, unbeknownst to her. and another person might be better at compartmentalizing all this the way Winter clearly wants to, and stick to the party line, but Winter cannot, because the more i watch her the more i’m convinced that the current crisis in Atlas is just a microcosm of the real issue, which is to say: everything is personal in Atlas for Winter, because everything is personal for Winter.

at a moment-to-moment level, and especially when backed into a corner, Winter defaults not to ideology but her tightly coiled lattice of personal relationships. and this makes perfect sense, because Winter grew up in a household where she had to perpetually crisis respond, and then she never stopped. Marrow does what he does because he believes in the dream, in making the world a better place, and therefore it is more difficult in some respects for him to defect, because it involves taking a long hard look at and then rejecting the structures he bought into and made himself complicit in. once lines are crossed and he DOES do that, though, he’s home free. for Winter, there are no lines to cross, because all Winter wants in the end is to throw her arms around everyone she cares about and drag them to safety. to keep them there, closely held, where she can see them and make sure that they stay safe.

but what’s tricky about Winter--what’s fascinating to me, what Jacques tried to beat out of her, what James alternately capitalizes on and tries to quash, what she resents about herself--is that in times of crisis (which for Winter is again ALL THE TIME), “everyone she cares about” becomes everyone, so that suddenly she takes a shine to the General’s war machine, so that she’s risking her life to give Penny and Fria a few more seconds of time, so that she’s stepping in front of Elm’s incoming fist, so that she’s letting JYR go rescue Oscar. Marrow has ideals he values, but at her core Winter has nothing but the people, who are real the moment she sees and feels them--real enough to defend, or defend against.

Winter jealously protects her web of people, but that web will also spiral out to infinity if she lets it--so she doesn’t. she has adamantly refused to move out of the mode where she lives present-by-present, only reacting to what is right in front of her, what she has been told, weighing her own life against the people who are closest, and no more. this is unquestionably a trauma response, but it’s also reinforced by 1) her choice to become a career soldier, and 2) the fact that Winter actually HAS quite a bit of power, and she knows that. but she has never trusted herself with any of it, largely because her hypervigilant response to situations has only ever been chastised instead of rehabilitated. Winter knows the weight of her name and her position, but she constantly tries to ignore it, or run away from it, so that she is only ever the heiress, the second-in-command, and never the Queen. she cannot be a leader until she is Good (that is to say, perfect and rational), so she tries to obliterate her power the same time she obliterates that pesky personhood: remaining still for as long as possible, avoiding situations that she knows will prompt action and choice, and when absolutely pushed to think through her power, moving the pieces around with extreme caution, hoping that the world won’t be burnt black by it.

Marrow and Winter are fundamentally at opposing ends of the personal-political bleed, and the story could NOT telegraph it any more clearly than their conversation in Witch, where Marrow makes a personal plea to Winter so that she can make a call far beyond just that, and she refutes him, by reminding him of his obligation to Atlas in the form of impersonal duty.

i’ll conclude by pointing out that there is something very interesting happening with Winter right now, that exceeds her power in-universe. because even as a Schnee, as Ironwood’s protege, what Winter can do is limited (partly because she limits herself), except for how the story has resolutely centered her actions and MADE them significant. in the course of this war Winter has let herself make exactly two choices--both of them noninterventionist, easily justifiable, and not meant to take any ideological stand--and they ended up altering the entire fabric of the war with Salem. all because she loved her sisters more than her duty. all because she was shown a slim chance to save the kingdom and a fourteen-year-old boy, and she thought just for an instant, what’s the harm

(and James Ironwood will never know. that even with his plan, his bomb, all his ships, all his soldiers...he was no match for her. his loyal lieutenant. the only child he will ever have, who has only ever called him “sir.”)

it is not about what Winter COULD have chosen in those moments, if she had the ability to stop Penny and Weiss from leaving, if JYR were even Oscar’s rescuers, in the conventional sense. it is about the fact that she DID make those choices, and the story has made them reverberate, in spite of the fact that she did not mean for them to. Marrow’s story is about being neglected and overlooked by the system, the moment of recognition that it needs you more than you need it, that there are so many more of you, and together you can stop chasing the dream and make your own. Winter’s story cleaves to the heart of not just Atlas, but the RWBY monomyth, which goes something like: stars are like us. the world was created because two brothers could not get along, and sundered because a woman could not cope with her grief. just because you move closer to the elite, to the center, to the top, to the sublime, it does not mean that you move farther from the fallible. we are all, at our deepest layer, people.

but the world does not tremble any less for it.

[shyrose57]

Brothers anon, sorry this keeps taking me a while to send, been very busy lately.

He only had a hunch at first he was his ancestor but later talking with Karl confirmed it. I have yet to decide, I think he probably will just so I can focus more on the current events and not his past. 

He solely relys on his instincts when around other endermen. Although when around Ran he relys more on his social interaction skills. Though he still does certain things (like no eye contact, he leaves two blocks for Ran as a show of care and harmlessness, and sometimes warbling at Ran) due to his instincts. For other enderman it generally works out well, they mostly leave Ranboo alone anyway. But for Ran, he doesn't care much.

He is aware of Enderwalk Ranboo, mostly cause Phil warned him about it. His interactions with Enderwalk Ranboo are mostly Enderwalk Ranboo entering his room and trying to get close to Ran only for Ran to really full heartily growl and lash out at him when he gets close. Then Enderwalk Ranboo whines and leaves. Ranboo is hesitant but welcoming and open to Ran all the time, mostly because holy shit its another enderman hybrid, he thought he was the only one! And Ranboo can tell the two share a bit of similarities but mostly just thinks its because there both enderman hybrids. 

Karl manages to convince the Artic Commute to leave the two alone and once they leave starts to question Ran. Only to pretty often get cut off by him asking a retaliation question. Ran is angry and desperately wants to know everything, Karl is scared and wants to know everything Ran knows. So they eventually come to a agreement where Karl asks a question, Ran answers then he asks a question and Karl answers that. After a while of this they come to an agreement to wait til Ran is fully healed to start to find a way to get him back. And in the meantime Karl'll explain his timetravel stuff and how Ran got here, hoping to get the Commute to agree to help them find a way to get Ran home. 

A mix of annoyed, angry, relieved, and homesick (cause Tubbo reminds him of Jackie). Bit of both, he wants to know whats going on and where Ran came from, but is also just curious about the other hybrid. Tubbo heads to the Artic cause Ranboo hasn't been over at all in weeks, keeps saying he's to busy and how something interesting happened at the Artic. So Tubbo gets tired of it and decides to head over to find out whats keeping Ranboo from visiting. Ye medic Eret, I was originally thinking of medic Bad but I think I may try to include the Egg in this somewhere so he's not a option. They have a mutual relationship, no one there really has a reason to dislike him or to heavily like him, but they all get along whenever they meet. Eret learns by Phil contacting him for help, cause while Techno and Phil both know some health knowledge they don't know enough to properly treat Ran and make the call to call in Eret to help, both trusting them enough to keep this secret between all of them. Karl learns because of Eret actually, Eret comes to Karl for help to see if he has any enderman biology books and half handly mention how a enderman needs help, leading to Karl asking if its Ranboo or Edward, the no he gets in response alarms him enough to back Eret into a corner and force him to tell him who was there that needed help. All Eret said was a dark enderman with green eyes, which reminds Karl of Ran and gets him panicked enough to go see if its him. Tubbo knows cause he gets impatient of waiting for Ranboo to vist so he vists with no warning, leading to him meeting Ran while looking for Ranboo. Its kept hush hush cause their all unsure of how the rest of the SMP would react to having Ran there, especially when it's revealed he's from the future. 

He did. He's not having fun. Karl used too but not anymore since he's time travled so much he's gotten used to it.

Partially, he understands all common though is only able to speak a medium amount, mostly due to his mouth and vocal cords are just unable to make some words or sounds needed to speak it. When that happens they basically play charades. He is still Technos roommate and is happily helping Ranboo in anyway he can. 

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

They steal anything they can get their grubby hands on. It actually goes pretty well as well shockingly. They mostly steal anything that looks expensive, though they manage to find a bunch of raw material like gold, iron, and even diamonds and steal all of that. And they get far enough no one can find them at first. 

Thats exactly what happened, they make eye contact, hear a ruckus from nearby, make eye contact again, then fucking book it away from the sounds. 

The most trouble the group makes is when Grievous makes fun of Porkums hat and gets punched for it. 

Honestly with all the wars and battles that go on in the SMP he probably doesn't even bat a eye, its probably normal for him. 

First thing Jackie does is complain about everyone being taller than him. I imagine Pogtopia being abandoned for years hasn't left it in a very stable state. So Jackie just steps in the wrong place and gets sent tumbling down, with rocks falling after trapping him. 

All happened after they met Karl, but all happened at different times. So for example, the Wild West where thrown back 3 years after meeting Karl. While for the Haunted Mansion crew, they where thrown back months after meeting Karl. Even though they've all met him before their reactions are slightly different depending on how long ago they met Karl. Again for example Sherman and Jon Jon greeted Karl like a old friend and were happy to see him again. While all of the Haunted Mansion crew greeted Karl with questions as they more recently saw him so didn't feel the need to say hello. Cause Isaac and Karl are both in Kinoko Kingdom, where Karl holds all of his books about the time travel journeys, Karl is able to bring Isaac to the books and show him the City of Mizu Book, along with the others that explain who they people he was with where. Plus Isaac just doesnt really have a reason to not believe Karl as he has never lied to him or anything.

Im guessing you mean after the search party is formed, then its actually Ran found first since he's so close. Karl has to try to convince Ran to join them so they can count him as found and then take him to a holding type area. Ran refuses at first and Karl gives him a ultimatum that he either goes with them and gets to go home or stays here forever. He eventually agrees to come with if he gets to search with them, and reluctantly Karl agrees. Karl does what any of the Tales people joining them on their search, but much to his dismay more people insist on joining them. Ran also actually has information on the Bandits but refuses to give it until they find Jackie, cause he has a bad feeling that something happened to him. Ran actually has his left hand bandaged cause a massive piece of glass went through his hand. Jackie will eventually get his arm in a sling due to a broken bone. Ranbulter and James suffer hypothermia and have to be taken care of by Bad (the Egg doesn't exist in this au). Zack slips trying to get away from the Bandits and twists his ankle. Sherman breaks a finger trying to get out of the ravine. And Benjamin gets a slash on his leg after trying to run from Drowned and getting grazed by the trident. Both sides goals are getting back home. Though it's harder for the Tales cause not all of them get along. Karl gets worn down over time and slowly becomes more distressed and hopeless about getting them home. And all the stress builds up til he just snaps and sadly, quite a few people are in the line of fire when he snaps.

From Future To Past AU:

What led to him suspecting Ranboo to be his ancestor?

Do certain blocks have certain meanings, then? For Endermen?

Enderboo sounds very sad and put-out. How is he generally in this AU, seeing as Phil's aware of his existence at the least? How does Ran feel about his visits, and what are his thoughts on when it happens? Are Ender hybrids rare in general, if he's so surprised to see another one?

How'd Karl convince him? How do the two currently view each other, and what were their previous interactions beforehand, if Ran's reaction to him was so upset, and Karl was spooked? How do they get along after?

How does the rest of the Arctic react to Tubbo's presence, and how do our two Endermen feel about the possible tension-considering Ranboo's closeness to Tubbo, and Ran being reminded of Jackie. What are you thinking, egg-wise? Why does Eret go to Karl for books? Is his library well-known?

So Karl could possibly help Ran out with the effects? Or is at least aware of them? Or no?

Charades with them all sounds like so much fun, honestly. Can you imagine it?? And good! We need more Edward around!

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

Tip Of The Iceberg AU:

Good for them. Do they end up having to return the stuff later, or no?How does it go when Las Nevadas realizes who the thieves are?

Common sense isn't dead! Huzzah! Absolutely hilarious image though.

Good for Porkums, honestly.

That is also true! And really funny image, once again. Eret's just like- 'ah, my window, mysteriously broken. Again. Absolutely shocking. Whatever will I do.' Completely deadpan while they pull out supplies from a chest kept nearby for this exact thing.

Everyone else: Where are we? Are we in danger? What happened?

Jackie: How dare you all be taller than me.

That's not good though. How do they and the others react to that?

Have certain events of the Tales been altered then? Seeing as some of them would be dead otherwise? Or were they revived when they were thrown back in time?

How do all the Smp members react to these random people who popped up seeming to know Karl? 'never lied to him' implies Issac knows Karl a bit more beyond just meeting him now, so what's with that? Is he just naturally trusting of him, or do they know each other?

How does that first interaction go, not just between Karl and Ran, but with the others with them? What information does he have on the bandits, and how did he get it? Similar past as before, seeing as Jackie remains so important to him?

Poor Tales. None of them are having fun, huh? Where are they all housed after this, and what are relationships like as of now? Do the groups stick together from era, or with whoever they just get along with best? How do they interact with certain Smp members?

And what happens both during and in the aftermath of Karl snapping?

[painted-crow]

Submission Time #12

Another submission from me! I’d meant to put in answers from the quiz… or really, my perpetual arguments with the quiz. But then I got distracted by writing out my thoughts and forgot to do that.

Oof, I’m afraid I don’t know who you are just from this–you sent it in with anonymous on! Hopefully that’s okay.

I get different answers from the quiz at different times. Last time I took it in earnest, stoned out of my mind, I came up Snake/Snake. This time I intentionally hatstalled to get as many questions as I could.

If this is too many words on top of too many words… I am sorry.

I see that lol! I appreciate that there is no lack of information here 😉

However, this post as it came in was VERY long, even by my standards, and for the sake of readability I've done 2 things:

1) Switched to desktop long enough to put in a cut. It broke the blue color I usually put over my replies in order to make these easier to skim, but I'm not putting it back because it's kind of a huge pain to redo.

2) Trimmed out some of the question/answer pairs. You have plenty, so although I read them all, I just kept those I deemed most relevant. I also skipped a few where my responses would have been repetitive. Just an editing decision I hope you'll be okay with.

That said, let's get on with the Sorting.

Primaries

• If people in your family or community disagree with you, is it hard to act against their wishes?

I’m not sure that I have a community, but yeah, if my SOs think something is a bad idea, I’ll listen and consider. I’m more likely to be the person disagreeing with and trying to convince someone else, though. Also, sometimes it’s plain easier to go along with things to keep life smooth. But if it was something important… I think I’d have to go with what I think is right, regardless of disagreement. I’ll listen to others, maybe I’ll change my mind, but I won’t not do a thing JUST because of the disapproval of my family.

Suggests internal primary, Lion or Snake.

• What’s your top priority?

I kind of hate this one because I want to answer all three. I want to make the world a better place for the sake of me and mine, and that’s one of my goals. Not one I imagine I can accomplish, but it’s something that matters. My kid will probably see a pretty rough world in the future and I wish I could do something to alter that, beyond trying to be an ethical consumer as much as I can.

This answer feels very grounded and practical. I want to say it feels Liony, partly out of process of elimination but mostly because it just does.

• When you’re making a decision and you’re stuck, what should you do?

Idk, panic? No, not really. I seek advice if relevant, don’t if not, seek out any information I can, think about it… make a decision… and proceed to worry about that decision for the next millenia because what if it wasn’t the right one? I usually go with my my gut choice but 1) sometimes I have to go hunting for that, and by sometimes I mean a lot, and 2) I still research the hell out of it.

The way you’ve answered this says more about your secondary than your primary, imo. You might be a Bird secondary.

• Do you listen to your intuition?

I’d like to, but I don’t trust it. I’m too afraid of everything.

Ooh, interesting. It’s worth noting, people who write to me are often Burned at least somewhat, because Burned Houses are always harder to sort; everyone reacts differently to trauma and comes up with different coping mechanisms. Wonder if you’re an at least somewhat Burned Lion who’s pivoted into Snake, perhaps because it fit with your old value set.

• Someone points out a flaw in your logic. Their argument makes sense, but there’s something about it that just bothers you. Do you change your ways because of what they said?

This one always bothers me. It’s not a thing that happens to me often, but I can’t understand not changing your mind in this situation. If someone points out that you’re wrong… well… you’d better go look into that, hadn’t you? Maybe because I’m constantly seeking to understand myself, and I don’t and that frustrates me, but… I don’t know. I agree with and disagree with all the answers.

This seems Bird at first glance, but it seems you’re too conflicted about it to be straight up unburned Bird (and Burned Birds are usually easier to spot because they tend to be wrapped up in the problem/s they’re struggling with). You might have a model or performance, too early to say.

That line about being frustrated that you don’t understand yourself is also a good hint toward an Idealist primary.

• Does disagreeing with your closest friends about something important to you make you love them less?

No, but I might think less of them, and I will probably argue my points at them in the future. Sometimes I change their mind, sometimes they change mine. I turned my SO into a social liberal, he caused me to adjust my stance on gun control. There’s always give and take.

Sounds healthy. That model’s sounding a bit more likely here. I’d be very curious if you turned out to be a burned Lion who actually had a healthy Bird model–that would be rare o.o

• What if everyone you loved left you? They betrayed you, abandoned you, or died, and you’re hurting. What keeps you moving forward?

This question makes me want to tear my hair out, because those are all different things.

If everyone I loved died, I would probably have a massive breakdown, spend a year laying in bed, and then use whatever money I inherited or insurance payouts I got to go try and live the life I’ve always vaguely wanted, traveling. I wouldn’t seek out relationships but I imagine I would, eventually, form new connections. It would hurt, but I would rebuild.

If they abandoned me, or betrayed me, which is… kind of the same, I guess, because abandoning me without cause is a betrayal… well, I would probably be confused, and angry, and curl into a ball and want to die, and then turn into a lifelong curmudgeon the likes of which I swore I’d never be. It would hurt, and I would probably be loathe to trust again.

This doesn’t feel Loyalist, at least.

• What if you realized that absolutely everything you thought was true was wrong? The authorities you’d trusted, the beliefs you’d held, the wrongs you’d fought against?

Another that trips me up. I doubt someone is ever going to convince me that punching down, bullying, or causing unwarranted harm is good. I don’t trust any authority without cause anyway, and I trust no authority to be right on every topic. I trust NASA about space but I’d be more interested in what the forestry service has to say about ecology, in a silly example. I’m not religious so I don’t have any authorities there. My parents were authorities once but it turns out they’re human and sometimes wrong, so…. I feel like I don’t know how to answer this question, because I can’t fathom what someone could tell or convince me of that would be that kind of a gut punch?

So, you don’t really have a system per se, but you do have a set of core ideals. You could call this a Bird model (and… a really healthy one if it is?) or you could call it partially unburned Lion.

• You can’t help everyone in the world who needs it, but you wish you could.

Nah, it would be nice to help everyone and I’m down to eat the rich and redistribute wealth and I firmly believe the point and purpose of society is to care for its populace, so definitely the world should be designed better to make sure everyone has a fair chance at what they want…but it’s not my responsibility to fix it for everybody, nor am I capable of it. I can do a small part, and I try to, but I’m not the savior of humanity.

I think we’ve established you’re not a Badger, although Badgers don’t always fall into this trap.

• You’ve changed your mind about an old belief or moral stricture that you used to value. You got new information and you’ve tried to update your way of thinking, and you think (hope?) you’re a better person for it. Do you feel guilty about the old belief you’ve abandoned?

Do I feel guilty for abandoning it? Not if I realized it was wrong! Do I feel guilty for having had the belief? Sometimes. I was raised in an unthinkingly classist household, and I still feel bad about my instinctive assumptions about people. I’ve worked on it a lot and unpacked a lot of shit, but I was definitely an ass and I regret that.

You have a lot of healthy Bird happening. I’m starting to wonder if your Lion is the model.

If you are a Bird primary, you’re one who builds your system much more than one who adopts it. You also seem very confident in your own perceptions, not unwilling to change but not impressionable.

When it comes to less major parts of your ideals, such as the gun control thing you adjusted your stance on, do you feel satisfied after puzzling things like that out? Or do you kind of hate that you need to?

• The next one is “If I’ve decided to stand by the people I love, it’s a choice. I could make a different decision.” Vs “At the end of the day, some things are right and some things are wrong. You don’t turn your back on the people you love.”

And my problem with that is… both. It is a choice, I could, theoretically, make a different one. But I don’t think it would be right to do so. I think that I would have to have an overwhelming reason to turn my back on my people. Someone cheating one me, or coming to hold beliefs antithetical to me (like if one of my SOs suddenly went TERFy or something), yeah, I would probably turn away, but it would hurt. But it’s still a choice I’ve made, either way.

I don’t think you’re a Snake.

• When you sit down and consider the terrifying lack of objective truth in our reality, how do you feel?

But what is truth? Does this mean truths about the universe, reality, physics, etc? I surely believe there is objective truth and structure there, though I doubt if humanity can discover it all. We are clever little apes, but its a big, weird universe.

Does it mean moral, philosophical truths? Moral relativism all the way babe! I mean, I’m an atheist, and I dont believe there’s one objective truth out there laid down by something supernatural, and I think it has to be something everybody comes to on their own as an accumulation of life experiences. I’ve got a few core things I think are important and the rest just… flows. I went with “the model in our heads is good enough,” because we’ve all got to settle for that in the end, I suppose.

It’s an interesting question and none of the answers quite fit for me. I think part of my trouble with the quiz is how abstract the questions are. “Do you like shortcuts?” Well, I dont know, quiz, what on earth is the CONTEXT? I understand why it’s written that way, but I do wish it was a bit more choose-your-own-adventure, handing me scenarios instead of philosophical abstraction.

You could be a Bird primary.

• When you’re not sure what’s the right thing to do, what do you turn to?

Research, and talking to my people, and then I think about it a bit. Or I just go with my gut and try to figure it out later. Either way I will spend a lot of time thinking about it, either trying to choose or trying to parse the choice I made.

Yeah, you might have to puzzle out which of these is the model yourself. This is a pretty subtle distinction. @wisteria-lodge and I both have posts about this. The appropriate tags on my blog are #ravenclaw primary and #gryffindor primary –if you can get Tumblr to function as intended (mobile search is very very flaky), those should get you the info you want, along with lots of accounts from other people Sorting themselves.

I’m starting to lean towards Bird for you, actually. But again, this is one pair that can be hard to tell apart, and sometimes it gets harder the closer you look at it. Maddening.

• Would you feel worse abandoning a stranger in need or turning your back on your closest friend?

Another one where I want context. If we’re talking identical scenarios – say, they’re drowning – I’d save my friend over someone else, except for maybe a small child… maybe? Honestly I’d probably try to save both and end up dying. But I do prioritize and I’d help my friend over a stranger, sans specific extenuating circumstances on the part of said stranger.

Once again, I don’t think you’re a Snake. I think you’re a Lion with loyalty baked into your intuition, or a Bird who’s picked up some Snakey philosophy.

• After spending some time trying to decide between two options, you are convinced that A is the right thing to do. The people around you, though, are just as convinced that it’s B. How do you feel?

Like I haven’t explained well enough, because they’re not getting why my opinion is the best one. Seriously though, it would make me wonder if I missed something, and I’d probably spend more time talking and researching to compensate. On the other hand… context… am I choosing colleges here (yes, folks, give me your input!) or whether or not to get an abortion (where I would value the input of those directly connected to me, but in the end it’s 100% my choice and those who disagree can eff off.)

When you’re choosing a college, you’re making a tactical decision, not a moral one. Gathering information from others is a Bird secondary thing: you’re doing research.

When you’re making a moral decision, that’s where your primary is involved, and here your answer is strongly Lion.

[I’m skipping a few of the next questions because they don’t give strong information for you specifically. Mostly what they get at is, you’re not a Badger, especially not an unhealthy Badger.]

• Does your internal moral compass know something you don’t?

Well… maybe? I feed a lot of stuff into my brain, and I don’t always know what I think until the words have fallen out of my mouth.

I gotta say, I’m a Bird primary and this sounds terrifying to me. Sometimes I need to write about something before my opinion fully forms, but I write and think so much because I don’t trust myself to talk about it until I’ve poked the issue a bunch on my own.

The only exception is that there are a few people who will take me at my word if I say I haven’t made up my mind about an issue yet, and will listen to me debate it with myself, without judging me for not immediately agreeing with the stance they’ve already taken.

Not everyone is the same, of course, but this answer is a very Lion one.

• If you get a chance to make the world a better place, you have to pursue it– even at the expense of your happiness and personal relationships. Do you think this is a true statement?

If I could throw myself into a volcano to fix everything that is wrong with the world, I would cry and hug everybody I love and regret the hell out of what I was about to do to them and then chuck myself in the damn volcano. I think not doing so would be more selfish.

That is... a totally different thing than this question asked! 😂

However, you've established in previous questions (some of which were cut for length) that you don't feel responsible for fixing/changing the world as a moral imperative, so your answer to this is actually more interesting, lol.

I don't know what it actually says about your Sorting, but I'm leaving it in because it made me laugh.

• Do you think you’re a good person?

Another easy one. Define good! I try to be, within my own belief systems. But I know a lot of people who would not think I’m a good person, because in their belief systems I’m not. I think some of those people are good people, I think some are bad people. Life is complex. I do my best.

This is a pretty Birdy answer. You keep going back and forth! :p I'm probably going to end up leaving you with an ambiguous answer, huh?

If you're a burned Lion, you sound awfully chill about it and you use your ridiculously strong Bird model in an unusually healthy way, for a Lion. Lots of Lions with Bird models really struggle to reconcile the different priorities.

If you're a Bird, you have a ridiculously strong Lion model that seems to actually override your Bird sometimes--but Bird systems are complex and can include weird recursive rules like "in this situation, this other Primary is more right so we use that." Also, your understanding of your system seems more hands-off than a lot of Birds.

• It’s important to do the right thing, even when it feels wrong.

…yeeeeeees…. but. Why does it feel wrong? I would want to investigate that before doing the thing, because if it feels wrong, maybe I’m missing something that my subconscious caught. If I investigate that and am sure about the right, I think… I don’t know. I’m not sure I could do something I felt super icky about even if it was quote-unquote right?

Oh hey, that's my approach to Lion primary too. One point for Bird + loud Lion model?

By now I bet you either have a strong feeling about which of the options I've narrowed down is you, or you'll think about it and go back and pore over the archives here and on the other Sorting blogs. And then you'll think about which approach you took and what kind of a hint that is, which is basically meta-meta-analysis. Except now I've written this and you've read it, so you'll be wondering how reading this will affect your judgment, so it's meta-meta-meta-analysis now.

...I'll stop. 😉

Secondaries

Future Paint here. Tumblr discarded the ENTIRE second half of my response to this post, because I saved it and then hit post without refreshing the page, so it posted the old version, because of course it did.

The tl;dr is that I believe anon to be a rapid-fire Bird secondary with a Lion model.

Brb while I reconstruct this post.

• Do you like going into situations with a plan?

• When you spot a metaphorical obstacle in your path, what do you do?

I would love to, and some situations I do– job interviews, for example – but sticking to a plan is not my strong suit. I can follow a schedule, to some degree, and I can kind of make plans… but then I trip up because how can I account for all contingencies? So I usually end up chucking the plan and YOLOing my way through something on a wave of accumulated knowledge and practice experience.

Not all Birds are big planners. The defining thing is preparation, and that can mean hoarding skills, knowledge, tools and contacts, not just making plans and decisions in advance. A Bird might, for example, decide not to schedule their vacation, and instead read a couple travel guides before they go but wing it when they're there.

This question is one of those where I’d love a less abstract scenario. Because… it depends. In a video game I’ll usually go around. In real life I’ll stop and panic for a minute or a day, then get up and deal with whatever needs dealing with. Unless its a super immediate issue, and then I’m in the middle of it already and have to put off my existential crisis until later (see prior example of “breaking up a dogfight by sticking my arm betwixt them,” see also “i spent much of my teens rolling out of bed at 3am and getting dressed to go help with a foal delivery and I didn’t really start thinking until like twenty minutes after we arrive and start dealing with shit.” Like, I was making decisions and thinking about things, but… its different. They’re not reasoned choices, they’re “this has to be dealt with NOW so do what you can and sort it out later.”)

• Do you like to gather all possible information before making a decision?

I guess I land on needing to understand your problems. You can’t put them off forever, but if you’ve got the time to do some research and contemplation aforehand, that seems like the better choice.

I need you all to know that I didn't cut this dogfight story--I'm not depriving you of whatever wild ride anon had, it's just as much of a Noodle Incident to me as it is to you. However. I don't think I need to argue *too* much that anon has a Lion model.

• Is knowing things or knowing people more useful when solving problems?

Another tricky one, because I think all the answers are correct. I do like to know what’s going on, but at a certain point that IS just stalling. But! It’s true that making decisions without understanding the full picture CAN really mess you up! But it’s ALSO true that, in many situations, I can change my mind if I learn more. I think I lean towards doing All the Research before making a choice, but I’m pretty sure that’s largely a procrastination tactic.

Birrrrd.

Both. Ideally, one would know a range of People who know/have many Things. I’m a big fan of bartering my own skills and knowledge in return for those of other people – for example I am the go-to research person, because I’m pretty good at sourcing info and condensing it into “here’s what you ought to know, here are your options, and here’s where you can go for more information,” a thing which I do freely for my family. In return they do things I can’t or don’t want to, like my taxes or getting things off high shelves or making travel plans or whatnot.

• When your plan fails, what do you do?

I’m better at accumulating knowledge than connections, but I think the right connections are more often useful than said knowledge.

As @wisteria-lodge has said before, some Birds accumulate contacts the same way they gather other tools. They like the be the person to say, "I know a guy."

You're VERY clearly not a Badger. I've cut all the questions that were like "do you do [Badger Thing]" and you were like "NO" so. I don't think you'll need convincing on this point lol

See above… panic then act, unless I don’t have time, in which case act and then panic. Solve the immediate problems, clear some space to breathe, then deal with the rest.

• Do you collect things? Facts, objects, hobbies?

……. do links full of interesting things I fully intend to get around to reading and understanding someday count?

…yeah, this is where I take a look around at my books, games, Interesting Facts, various half-compentent hobby activities, and enduring rage that I cannot possibly know All The Things because I am a mortal subject to the finite bounds of my life and acknowledge that yes. I hoard the SHIT out of both physical and intellectual stuff.

• Do you ever study or plan excessively for things that aren’t useful? Just for fun?

I’m torn between yes, and yes but they have a purpose. I do enjoy learning, i was always good in school, when I could be bothered to care. There are a few topics I enjoy for their own sake – language and history and anything world-building, really, anything to do with who we are and how we got there. But I won’t usually go in depth; most things I skim enough to understand the basic concept and move on, leaving those things as cocktail facts. “Oh, you’re an astronomer focusing on the moons of Jupiter? I read $JupiterFact a while back, what are your thoughts?”

• Do you act differently in different groups? Does it bother you, if you do?

Like, I dont care about the moons of Jupiter unless Titan or Europa or whichever turns out to have life, but space is neat and I’d be excited by that conversation and I’m intrigued by the concepts even if i don’t have the inclination to deep-dive the topic.

These 3 question/answer pairs explain pretty clearly why I think anon is a Bird secondary...

Not very often, and not much. I absolutely utilize code-switching, but I’ve felt bad about not opening my mouth at times when I worked at a place that assumed I was a good little Christian white girl… I’m usually too afraid of repercussions to say anything, but I remember my supervisor saying an atheist billboard was “too much” and I just said “no, of course it isnt” and we gave each other a look like “… well this isn’t good…”

• When solving problems, is your first reaction seeing what “tools” you have in your pockets?

In general though, I’ll use a mask when I need to but I’m just kinda… me.

...and this was what cleared up the Lion secondary model for me.

• When you are deciding how to react to a situation, are your choices most affected by internal (how you feel, what you think, what you want) or external inputs (what’s happening around you)?

…I’m really not sure. I don’t think i actively assess the tools, physical or mental, that I have to hand? I generally know if I DON’T have the resources to deal with something, but if i do have them, I just do the thing and don’t think about it.

That's normal. You just know your toolset well enough that you don't have to think about it. Some Birds don't, or their toolset is eclectic enough (or even granular enough; try remembering all the books you've read that are relevant to a given research paper topic) that they forget what they have.

I think if I knew what I felt, I’d be happy deciding based on internal things, but I don’t know that I trust myself enough.

This answer seems more relevant to your primary. Might be Burned Lion primary peeking through.

And that puts me at a hatstall again.

Sorry for the bombardment, but it seemed like this would be relevant. I know I prefer more info to less, when I’m trying to help someone figure things out, so… words. Many, many words. Thrown at you. Mea culpa.

Hope you don't mind my cherrypicking! This must have been a ton of work for you to write, and I threw a bunch of it away 😭

(Only sort of, I did read it all first.)

In conclusion

Primary: either burned Lion + healthy Bird model, or Bird + loud loud Lion model.

Secondary: rapid-fire Bird with Lion model.

Hope that helps!

[jawritter]

You and Me...

Chapter 22

***SERIES WARNINGS**** Rape, non con, male!rape, injury, violence, discription of injury caused by rape, nightmares, self harm, panick attackes, implied female non con, language, ass hole Jensen, hurt!jensen, dark fic, smut. If there is anything else I will add it as I go.

***Chatper Warnings***  TRIGGER WARNING!!! VIVID DESCRIPTION OR NIGHTMARE, Rape, discritiption of the begginging of rape? I guess that would be a good way to say it. Unconsented touching, oral, and implied anal fingering, (again all dream induced, but may be triggering for some!) Description of being sick, (vomiting), language, angst, some fluff, I think that’s everything. I don’t want to give too much away!

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader

Word Count: 1450

A/N: As always all mistakes are mine!, Please do not copy my work!! Feedback is gold! I hope you enjoy this one! (Nightmare is in bold print.)

Summery: It’s funny how one choice you made can change your whole life. One mistake can alter you course, and set you on a path that forever will haunt you. Two people find themselves getthing through one of the hardest trials of Jensen’s life, on just one small promise. You and Me. We’ll get through it together…

Want more? Check out my masterlist!!

***MASTERLIST***

***YOU AND ME MASTERLIST***

Jensen's POV:

"You sure are pretty." The slimmy voice graveled in Jensen's ear, making his skin crawl. 

"We're going to have a lot of fun with you." He said, and three other voices chuckle around him. 

Jensen tries to move his legs, and arms around him, but he couldn't. As his foggy vision cleared there were three things that came to the forefront of his focus. 

His head was throbbing as if it had its own pulse. 

He was chained to a bed again.

And he was completely naked.

He felt a rough calloused hand side up his inner thigh slowly as the large man circled the bed. Moving closer and closer to his manhood.  He started to scream as loud as he could, praying someone would hear him. 

Thrashing his body as hard as he could against his restraints. Doing his best to close his legs as the man's hand moved closer and closer to its goal. 

He gagged, and started to vomit as a warm mouth of another man came around his cock, and the man who had his hand on his thigh inserted two fingers harshly into his rectum. 

Nausea is what pulled Jensen from the nightmare. In a way he was thankful, but in a way he wished his stomach would stop trying to expel everything that had touched it that day. 

He sat up on the side of the quickly and quietly as he could as to not wake up y/n. Staggering towards the bathroom, and closing the door, barely making it to the toilet before he wasn't able to hold back any longer. 

Hitting his knees on the cold tile floor. Violently sick.  

He heaved against his stomach. Trying everything he knows to do to stop the violent attack on him caused by the dream. That's when he heard the door open behind him and felt y/n's hands on his back. Rubbing it soothingly. He leaned back carefully. Still not trusting his own stomach. Laying his head on your lap as you sit on the tub next to him.

"You okay there handsome?" You asked, reaching over in the small bathroom and grabbing a washcloth. Running it under some cold water, and rubbing it against his forehead and neck. 

"Yeah, I'll live." He says, still shaking a little, and fighting against the memories that were just below the surface. 

"Another nightmare?" You finally asked after he stopped shaking. 

"Yeah." Was all Jensen could answer. His stomach was still rolling, and he didn’t trust himself to get up from the floor just yet.

"Wanna talk about it?" You ask, checking him over again. 

"No, it's not worth talking about. I said, I wanted to get away from all that shit. I hadn't had a nightmare in days. Much less woke up sick like this in months. Why now? We were supposed to be having a good time." He said, standing slowly to his feet. Holding onto the wall for support as he made his way towards the bed again. 

"Baby, you can't run from things like this, and we are having a good time.” You tell him wrapping your arms around him as you both settle down into the bed. His head on your shoulders os that you could card your fingers through his hair. Helping the tenseness of his shoulders to ebb away slowly.

“You're doing so good Jensen, you're so strong, you're doing better than any of us expect you to do, and one bad night is nothing to be ashamed of or upset about. Let’s get you back to sleep, and in the morning you will feel a lot better.”

Your POV:

The light shone brightly through the window the next morning. You sat up quickly, checking Jensen to make sure he was still sleeping peacefully, which he was. 

He had scared you last night. He'd done good for days. That must have been a pretty vivid nightmare, he hadn't woken up sick like that in a long time.

The rest of the night seemed to go peacefully once you'd gotten him back to sleep, and you hoped that was the last of the nightmares on this trip for him. He was so upset about it, and you wanted him to enjoy himself, not worry about nightmares. 

Today the two of you would make the next leg of your journey together.

Sliding out of the bed, you pack your things as much as possible, and as silently as possible in hopes of getting on the road quickly. 

He had been doing so well. You didn’t want him to relapse because of the stress the return of Supernatural was causing him. You refused to lose your Jensen to memories of what those sick fucks had done to him, and you were determined to do whatever you could to help him get through this and get his life back on track.

Several hours later you were back on the road after Jensen had takens some pretty awesome looking pictures of some of the old famous ruins, and old western style scenery. He was in his seventh heaven. That smile that you loved so much back on his face as the road stretched out in front of the two of you. 

Almost as if the nightmare last night hadn’t occurred, and that much you were thankful for, and were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. 

Just because he was acting better doesn’t mean that the problem has gone away, because you knew that it had not, but he couldn’t let it define him. That was what you were most concerned about. So far he seemed to be handling it all well, or at least better than he was.

Later that day another park lunch, and more getting to know each other. You loved to hear the stories about him and his siblings, his family. The things he liked, and was interested in. The things he dreamed about doing. He seemed just as interested in yours. 

After about a 10 hour drive you two pulled up in Salt Lake City, Utah. Jensen had rented another bed and breakfast. This one was called the Inn On The Hill. An absolutely gorgeous, almost Victorian style bed and breakfast. Honestly one of your favorite errors that you'd written and read more than one book about.

After getting settled into the room for the night Jensen came bouncing back into the room. 

"Get dressed babe, I made us reservations at the Roof restaurant." He said, planting little kisses everywhere he could reach, crawling his large frame over yours that was stretched out on the bed. 

"Okay! Okay!" You tell him, trying to squirm away from him playfully. Shoving at his large shoulders. 

“You're insatiable!” You tell him as he rolls off of you. Going to grab his watch and wallet he’d taken off when he’d taken a shower a few moments ago.

“Yes, I am, and you love every fucking minute of it sweetheart.” He said, coming to cage you to the bed again. “Now quite being a little brat, and get that pretty ass dressed, I’m hungry.”

You stick your tongue out at him dramatically, and fold your arms over your chest. Ignoring your own growling stomach in order to annoy him further. 

You loved it when Jensen was this playful, and it didn’t happen often so you were determined to take as much advantage of it as possible. 

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

The restaurant was beautiful. 

You'd never really been to anything this nice before. 

The waitress brought Jensen and yourself into a back room, brought out a wine list that Jensen had quickly chosen from. Reaching across the table grabbing your hand in his. 

"What do you think?" He asked, gesturing around him at the fancy restaurant. 

"It's gorgeous! I love it!" You tell him, earning a proud smile from him. 

"When you travel a lot you find these little gems like this." He said, rubbing his thumb over the back of your hand gently. “This one is one of my favorites.”

The waitress returned, and you both ordered your food. Which was brought back to you surprisingly quickly. 

The two of you ate your dinner in a comfortable silence. 

You did notice that Jensen kept nervously glancing around him, and you hoped that it wasn't his anxiety attacks coming back after the nightmare last night. 

This is the most he’d been out in public away from the comfort of his hometown. Sure there were fans in his hometown that wanted pictures, and things when he was out in public, but a lot of them he’d been around so much at convintentions and things he even knew some of them by name. 

You were also in a private room. So fans weren’t a problem.

"Baby, I got something I need to tell you." He said, looking across the table at you after making sure that the room was completely empty of waitresses.

 "Okay..." 

You look him over carefully. This wasn't the first time Jensen had started a sentence this way, so you had learned not to overreact, but after last night, you were a little nervous. 

What he did next, you didn’t expect at all. Not in a million years. 

Sliding his own chair back he got up, and walked over next to you. 

Then proceeded to get down on one knee, grabbing your hands in his he looked you directly into the eye. Your heart started to pound harder and harder with each passing second as he tried to take a deep breath to collect his thoughts. 

"You know, since the moment we met, I was falling in love with you, I was just too big of a damn coward to admit it. I haven't done right by you at all. I definitely don't deserve you. You sat by me in a hospital, cleaning me up every time I would get sick. Holding my hand. Sitting up with me through nightmares. I was weak. I wasn't half the man I should have been. I was a coward in a lot more ways than I could even begin to try to find excusable. The night I disrespected you that way.... You should have left me. I didn't deserve you to stay. Really I probably deserved to die that night like the piece of shit I was. Still you came back to me. I learned something that night.” 

Jensen took an unsteady breath, his eyes tearing up as much as your own before he continued.

“Baby, that's that I can't live without you. I love you. I always have, I've just been to dumb to see it. You're my everything. You always have been. I want to give you everything you deserve, and more. I want to spend the rest of my life making up to you everything I've ever done wrong by." 

Slipping his hand in the inside pocket of his suit coat he pulled out a little black box. Lifting the lid slowly, revealing the most beautiful engagement ring that you'd ever seen.

Your jaw hit the floor as tears flowed freely down your face. 

"Y/n, I love you more than my own life. I want to spend the rest of our lives showing you that. Will you do me an honor that I don't really deserve, and be my wife?" 

You sat there for a moment slack jawed In complete and utter shock. 

Of all the things you expected to come out of his mouth that wasn't one of them. 

He shifted nervously, taking a nervous breath, piercing green eyes searching your own. 

He was about to stand up. He looked defeated down at his knee. One big tear sliding down his perfect face, and making a little round spot on his black slacks. 

He thought for just a moment he messed up. Now he was about to lose you for real. He'd moved too fast, he'd scared you off. 

Reaching down, putting your hand on the side of his face, making him look up at you. Those beautiful candy apple green eyes that you loved so much full of so much emotion. He took a deep breath, and was about to say something, but you cut him off with your answer. 

"Yes."

In a moment his lips found yours. His arms pulling you close to him. He was kissing every free spot that he could find. When he was done he slipped the ring onto your finger. 

It felt at home there. 

"I love you so much, Jensen." You tell him as you both get back into the car to head back to the bed and breakfast. 

"I love you to y/n." He says, wrapping his arms tightly around you. Both of you just sitting there for a moment before he started the car to take you back to your room for the night. 

Tonight felt like the first night of the rest of your lives. 

Hopefully this was the beginning of better things for you both. 

You couldn't believe that this man was really yours. That you would be so lucky to have him want to be with you. 

He thought he didn't deserve you, but really it was you who felt like you didn't deserve him. He was more than you ever could have dreamed off. Scars and all. Because sometimes whether we believe it or not, it's the scars that make us beautiful in the first place. 

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

Tag List: @screechingartisancashbailiff​ @thecreatiivecorner​  @aflamboyanceofgays @vicmc624​ @busy-bee-angel-misska​ @justanotherwinchester​ @deanwanddamons​​ @imabitch4jensen​​ @rvgrsbrns​​ @bi-danvers0​​ @onethirstyunicorn​​ @i-love-superhero​​ @akshi8278​ @alanegaming @magssteenkamp​ @lemondropirwin​ @squirrelnotsam​ @hobby27​ @spnbaby-67​ @mrsjenniferwinchester​ @defenderrosetyler​ 

Series Tag List: 

@idksupernatural​​ 

@fuzzycloudsz 

@supernatural-bellawinchester​​ 

@vicmc624​​

@imaginationisgrowth​​

@smoothdogsgirl​​

@stoneyggirl​​

@whiskeydreamingx​​

@doctorlilo​​

@deans-baby-momma​​

@ricanqueen20​​

@supraveng​​

@allonsy-yesiwill​

@glamourghoul138​

@winchestergirl82​

@d-whinchestergirl87​

[majorshiraharu]

Echoes In My Mind; Chapter 1 - Icy Alliance - EchoxReader Fic

Echo x (Female) Reader fic 

---------------------------------------------------- Content Rating: Mature/18+ Eventual NSFW Smut Warnings:  Swearing Violence Anxiety Mention of violent canon events

-Trigger Warnings for future chapters:  Torture Injuries Recovery Nightmares PTSD (rather warn you now before you become invested, after this warnings will only be labeled for individual chapters at the start of each) 

-This fic will be added to my ao3 account and to the masterlist, if you want to be added to a taglist please let me know. Y/N = Your name  Y/O/N = Your original name (since your character is going under an alias for most of the fic, before later on revealing her real name)

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

Intro: After order 66 you escape the Empires grips and go on back to your bounty hunting ways, your ship was damaged in a mission gone wrong and you’ve been stranded on a cold icy planet doing whatever jobs you can to fix your ship and finally get out of here. Along the way, you run into some guys with familiar faces, one who reminds you of the man you loved that died years ago at the Citadel 

-You're collecting your reward for a bounty you just turned in - just then a male Gotarite comes up behind you grabbing your shoulder - you whip around pulling your blaster out of its holster as you use your elbow to push away the hand, now with your blaster pointed directly at his face - "Vegree?!" you shout, lowering your blaster. "I thought you were going to blast my head off, what the kriff were you thinking Y/N?" he spits out angrily both of his offset green beady eyes staring at you. "Man I'm sorry but that's what you get for grabbing me from behind like that, you're lucky I recognized your stench so quickly" you said as smugly as you could manage. 

"Whaaat didd youu jusst saayy?!" Oh great you thought, you know shits about to go down when he starts stuttering like that.   "I'm just teasing you old man, stop getting your teeth in a twist, you might bite your tongue off" you said trying to cool the tension rising. 

"Wellll listten heere Y/N, iff yoouuu ssso mucch aas pooinnt thhatt tthiingg att mme aggainn wwe'rre gonnnaa hhavve mooree prrobblemmms!" he shouts, clearly not taking your jokes well.  "More problems than we already have, haha, I find that hard to believe, well anyway what did you want?" hoping that changing the subject might make his mood better. 

He lets out a big snort as he swallows his anger with you to finally move on to his point for being there, "I got a mission for ya, pays well, might get ya out of this dump." 

"Well, what is it, who's asking, how much, who I gotta kill, or capture, anything to get out of here with my sanity."  "Can't tell ya who from, it'll pay ya enough to fix your ship, but no killing, it's purely a spy mission" he says looking around for anyone listening. 

"A spy mission, urgh, fine, who or what is my target and what do I need to get" you scoff out, you've always hated spy missions because they usually involved you getting found at some point, the last spy mission ended with you running to your ship under heavy fire, that mission was also the reason you were stuck on this godforsaken trash pile of a planet. 

"Stop complaining, ya want in or not?!" he asks pulling out a datapad  "Fine" you growl reaching out for the datapad.  He waits for a moment before handing it to you, "Ya will find all ya need on that, just make sure to deliver what they want by the deadline, I ain't the middle man on this one so ya better not get snippy with da wrong people" he says in an almost worried way as he gets up and walks off into the crowd of people in the cantina. 

What's that supposed to mean you think to yourself, he's never been so worried or secretive about a mission before. You turn on the datapad looking over the words and images on the screen, seems easy enough, you'll just have to steal another ship to get to the location, which was on a nearby planet, great, good luck finding a decent ship in this place. You would just take a ship and run, but being a bounty hunter that wouldn't help you get any jobs and would probably end with someone putting a bounty on your head, so best to just borrow one for a few hours so you can complete this mission and then fix your own ship.

You get up and walk outside, breaking the datapad in two and discarding it as it instructed, it's cold outside, your face feels like it's already starting to freeze, you head towards the landing pads and the shipyard - it's pretty empty today. Then you spot an all-black ship, it looks strange among the rest, almost like it could be an imperial transport shuttle, but you've never seen one like this, sadly imperial or not it would have to do, there was nothing else nearby and not to mention you wanted out of the cold so bad you'd gladly pick a fight with some imperials right now if it meant getting out of this cold. -You hack the control panel on the outside gaining you access to the inside of the ship, where you notice a skull painted on the side and a bunch of posters, eww this ship must belong to some lonely strange guys by the look of this messy place and the different things scattered about.   You walk to the front of the ship working on hacking the panel so you can fly out of here, this is harder than you thought, normally you were pretty good at this stuff, but someone has heavily modified this ship, no wonder it didn't look familiar, whoever these people were they knew how to modify a ship that's for sure.

-Suddenly you hear people talking, and it's getting closer, oh kriff you think, with your luck, it's probably the people who own this ship, and by the sound of it there are 5 men, you could probably take them as long as you got the jump on them. -You put the cover over the control panel trying to be as quiet as possible as you hear the door to the ship open "kriff" you let slip out as you try to duck into a hiding spot behind part of the wall near the door. "So boys now that we've delivered this bounty and finally gotten some grub where do you all want to go?" asks one of the men, he has a distinctive accent, they all start talking, making it hard to tell what they're saying, especially over the sound of the one guy shouting about wanting to beat up some clankers. You try to take advantage of their babbling to sneak a peak for how you might get out of this predicament. 

 Well, there's no way out, they're all standing right by the door, and there's no way to sneak by them or - your thoughts are cut off by the sudden realization that the cover you had hastily placed back on slid off the console and crashed hard onto the floor, stopping their bickering. 

"We really need to fix this thing, Tech, Echo, get over there and patch that back up will ya" the one with the accent says, causing you to shake with anxiety, knowing that in any second two of those guys would be walking right by you, should I attack them, or should I try to explain myself, you think quickly unsure of your choices as your anxiety swallows you up, hearing their footsteps coming closer, you close your eyes. -You try and dart out from your hiding spot to hopefully catch them off guard giving you enough time to get out and into the snowstorm outside, but instead, you just run right into the guy who was just around the corner crashing to the ground as you land right on top of him with a grunt. "What the heck" you hear the rest around you yell, as the one below you lets out a small grunt before looking up at you, right into your eyes, both of you just kinda stare at each other, unsure of what's going on. 

"Echo" the one to the left of you shouts, grabbing you and pulling you back locking your arms behind you. Did he say Echo? you think,  "Let me go" you shout cracking the back of your head into his helmet and kicking him back, freeing yourself, you try to run, but the one called Echo gets up quickly stepping in front of you and grabbing both your wrists as you try to push him away,  "I said let go" you yell kicking his leg, "OW!!" you scream out realizing you just kicked your shin into a leg that was metal. "Are you okay?" he asks instantly letting go of your wrists, as you bend down to hold your aching shin, you look up to see a worried look on his face,  "Why do you care?" you said coldly as you stood up, still in pain, making him frown.  "I care because you just kick my solid metal leg." he says in a joking way, making you look away, feeling guilty for being such a jerk.  "I'm sorry" you say while staring at the floor, "I'm just trying to finish this mission so I can fix my ship and get off this damn planet." "So you were going to steal our ship?" he says raising an eyebrow with a smirk crawling across his face.   "Just to get to the mission location, I was gonna bring it back" you basically shout, now getting flustered by the way he's looking at you. 

"Well, where are you headed maybe we can take you."  "Wait now hold on there" one with the gray hair and bad attitude says  "We aren't seriously going to let this little girl hitch a ride to some bounty on our ship, are we?" he spits out.

"HEY, I'm not a little girl, I'm a bounty hunter" you shout at him, causing him to roll his eyes and cross his arms.  "I think we are" says the one with the accent grinning at the displeasure these words brought to the face of his comrade.  "Sorry about that, Crosshair here doesn't trust easily, my name is Hunter, this is Wrecker, over there is Tech and well you've just met Echo" he says pointing out his comrades to you. 

As he does this you notice they all look kinda similar, the one called Echo looks a lot like the clones you use to fight alongside.  "You're clones?" you say hesitantly,  "Yes" said Echo,  "Well actually we've all been altered in some way to enhance specific skills" says Tech in a way that was almost too fast for you to understand. "It's good to meet you, umm..."  "Y/N" you blurt out nervously,  "Y/N" Hunter says finishing his sentence.  You notice Echo smiling at you after you just blurted out your name, causing you to slightly blush, trying to look away from him in a way that wasn't obvious. 

"Well Y/N, where are you headed?" asks Echo.   “I'm headed to Luminues, the planet not too far from here, it's just a simple mission to get some information from a warehouse for someone."

"Hmm, for a mission that sounds so simple I'm surprised they'd pay enough to fix your ship, who's asking for this information?" Hunter asks looking concerned,  "I know, they didn't give me much information on the job and I don't know who they are, but I promise it will just be a simple in and out and then I'll be out of your hair" you say trying to sound convincing.  "LET'S GO THEN" shouts Wrecker,   "All right" says Hunter sternly, "but we can't help you and if our ship gets damaged we'll need some of that bounty in return",   "No problem, I'd be happy to share whatever I have left after I repair my ship" you say thankful that they are willing to even take you in the first place. They all take their spots, standing or sitting around as Tech starts the ship and sets it on a course to Luminues, you awkwardly stand near the wall staring out into space until you notice Echo walking up to you. "Umm...so you know clones?" he says unsure of how to phrase his question, "Yeah, I use to...." you cut yourself off, remembering that despite not being a Jedi you were still labeled as an enemy of the Empire and you didn't want to give yourself away, "umm, I um I...I worked on ships for the Republic" you said pretty unconvincingly, Echo looks at you tilting his head and raising a brow, he seems to understand that you can't say exactly who you are and accepts your lame answer.  "Well then Y/N, I guess if you mostly worked on ships we probably never met, I was on the front lines a lot, fighting with the...” - suddenly he gets cut off by Crosshair who hits him in the shoulder,  "She doesn't care Echo and remember we're trying to stay low key" he says jabbing him with his elbow,    "Eh, sorry" Echo says with a sad look on his face as he turns away to walk towards Tech.  "We'll be landing shortly" Tech says while pressing a bunch of buttons,  "You might want to hold on to something" Crosshair teases, making you let out a snort as you walk closer to the front of the ship, at that moment the ship makes a hard turn before it jumps back to just barely make a landing on the small landing pad causing you to grab onto Echo to stay on your feet, he grabs your waist trying to steady you before looking up at you, both of you blush before letting go of each other. - Tech opens the door leading outside. "Okay, we got you here, Echo can give you our com channel so you can contact us when you need a pickup, otherwise we'll be here waiting." Hunter says walking toward the open door, Echo softly grabs your arm typing their com channel into your comlink  "Thank you" you say quietly smiling at Echo, causing him to let go of your arm and look away,  "Uh, no problem" he says quietly in return. -You walk out the door as they wish you good luck, let's get this over with you think to yourself finally setting off for your bounty.

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

-Notes: Hope you all enjoyed this, I haven't written a fic like this in a while so it's nice to do this again, Chapter 2 will probably be out sometime next week, I will post updates. If you want to be added to a taglist just send me an ask or request so in a comment <3 uwu 

[bondsmagii]

2, 8, 26, 37, 38, 57, 72, 91, 94, 100

> questions to ask at 4:02am meme 🌕🌃

thank you! 

2: Do you mourn for a place or person you’ve never known?

yes 😩 I can’t even adequately describe what’s going on here, but there’s a lot of people and a lot of places that feel familiar even if I don’t know them, if that makes sense? and there’s also a lot of people I could have become, and a lot of places I could have been, and I do have moments where I kind of mourn them even though I have no proof that they would have even existed in that specific way. I do think this is normal to an extent, but also I do this a lot, lol.

on a slightly less philosophical level, I of course mourn my older brother, who’s quite literally a person I never got the chance to know.

8: Do you think you can put love into categories (family, platonic, romantic, etc.) or is it just one general sensation?

oh man definitely. the love you feel for your friends isn’t the same love you feel for your spouse or your parents, and so on and so forth. there’s lots of different kinds of love, and lots of different levels within those types, and you’re also more than capable of feeling several different types and levels towards the same person, in my opinion. I don’t know if I would try and categorise everything, because something like love doesn’t really suit being shoved into boxes, but there are different types of love and I find it’s constantly shifting and changing along with you and the object of your love, which is cool.

I should add that I don’t find any one type of love more or less important than the others. seriously, destroy the idea that romantic love is the One True Love, and all other forms are somehow lesser. that’s just garbage.

26: What’s the most life-changing choice you’ve made so far?

this is kind of embarrassing but the truth often is: almost eight years ago I decided to make a sideblog on here that has... something to do with writing, let’s say, and something to do with... a certain character... and anyway that decision led to me meeting a certain person and going from awkward messages on Tumblr to awkward messages on Skype, to eighteen hour conversations and constant texting, to living in a car together for three months on a roadtrip and then living in a car together for many more months while homeless (and a million other places in between), to moving in together and then holy shit we got married.

so I guess that one impulsive decision to make a shitpost sideblog at stupid o’clock in the morning when I was bored one summer has been the single most life-changing choice I’ve ever made.

37: Do opposites attract?

eh. I mean, yeah, sometimes? but similarities attract, too. I think for any kind of relationship to be successful you’ve kind of got to have an element of both, and I think that “opposites” usually refers to something very specific. for example, I don’t mind cleaning the bathroom and you hate it. that’s a useful kind of opposite, because it means a compromise neither of us feel cheated by. you’re unshakable when it comes to slogging through bureaucratic minutiae, and I’m a beast in high-stress quick-thinking scenarios. together we make a pretty unstoppable team, for being opposites in that regard. I think that’s kind of what’s meant by this saying, but unfortunately it seems to have been appropriated to mean “yes honey, I know you work 10 hour shifts and come home to find your partner hasn’t cleaned the house or done anything to help, but opposites attract!” or “my partner supports Trump and genuinely believes that vaccines and masks are a government conspiracy to control us all, and I am a normal human being, but opposites attract so I guess I’ll have to put up with it”. like no, kings and queens. that isn’t what it means. dump them.

38: Is your life what you expected it would be five years ago?

lmao no. not in the slightest. five years ago it would have been... just into 2016, and yeah, no. there is not a single thing about me right now that I would have predicted, aside from the general stuff that’s never changed about me. I had different ideas about what I would be doing for work, about what I’d be working towards; I had completely different levels of commitment and discipline to various tasks, and I certainly wasn’t planning an international move. I can at least say that I’m happier with my current plan than the one I used to have (it wasn’t a bad plan, it just no longer suits me) but there’s no way I would have expected this.

and of course, there’s the whole issue with the pandemic. five years ago I had no idea I would be living through a global natural disaster, and if you’d told me, I would have thought it would be something like a supervolcano eruption or a nuclear winter. like, I’m glad it’s not, but also “you have to stay in your house for over a year” still kind of sucks.

57: Do you thinks humans are obsessed with escapism (books, video games, movies, etc.)? Are you looking for an escape? Do you think that’s a bad thing?

I think we are sometimes, when things are tough and there’s a need to wish to escape (see how many books I read over quarantine in March, for example). most of the time, however, I think humans just like stories. I don’t think it’s any deeper than the fact that humans love stories, we’ve always loved stories, we’ve always loved telling and hearing stories, before we had books and archives we passed our stories down orally and we drew them on cave walls with our own fingers, and this love for the story has never changed or altered in the hundreds of thousands of years since. I think that’s the major driving force here.

right now I’m looking for an escape 24/7, because I’m sick to death of the real world. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. without books, without the fictional things I love, without reading and writing and music, I would have gone absolutely bonkers in 2020. being able to fall into a book or play around in the worlds I’ve created, both my own and things I’ve co-written with you, has literally saved my ass over the past eight months. escapism is never a bad thing. like anything, it only becomes troubling when it starts creating problems. but I do not think there’s any shame in occasionally saying “fuck it” and going to worry about someone else’s fictional problems for a while. 

72: Should people be prosecuted for crimes that weren’t considered crimes at the time?

this is a tough one. on the one hand I want to say no, because it could easily be abused. some asshole could get into power and make something illegal, and then round up all the people who have committed that now-crime and lock them up, and oh, would you look at that! all the people who have committed the now-crime just so happen to be the dictator’s biggest critics and threats, how convenient. 

at the same time, dictators are going to wipe out their enemies no matter how legal it is, and I also have to consider the fact that before WWII, for example, words like “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” didn’t exist. how could we decide that these things are crimes, but then not try those who literally gave cause for the crime to be acknowledged? we can hardly say “alright, genocide is now a crime against humanity, but because these guys did it before this was law they can’t be tried”. that’s just... not really a great precedent to set, you know?

so I suppose a tentative yes? I think it would probably depend entirely on the severity of the crime. for example, if they found out that... I don’t know, some normal everyday substance was something that people could suddenly get high off, and they declared it a drug, I don’t think everyone who’s ever sold it or used it should be rounded up and jailed. but like, if the act of cannibalism itself became a crime (and not just murder or desecration of a corpse, which is what “cannibalism” usually falls under in terms of legality) we should probably go round up all the people who are stealing human legs to eat, yanno?

91: Is hate as strong as love? Who do you hate?

sick totheark reference bro. anyway yeah, hate is as strong as love, though it appears and reacts in different ways. hate and love are two sides of the same coin, if you ask me. the deeper you love somebody, the harder you hate them if things go wrong. hate is betrayed love. something something, a tree’s branches cannot reach to heaven unless its roots reach to hell, and all that. something so powerful is going to leave a lot of damage if it goes wrong.

I hate a few people. I don’t want to go into detail as to their specific identities, because I’m sure that if you know me well, you’ll know who they are. both of them were people whom I loved very deeply, and who betrayed that love in ferociously cruel ways. both people taught me very difficult lessons about the nature of love, and how sometimes it really cannot conquer everything, but while this would be a nasty lesson to learn it’s compounded by the fact that I learned this not out of any kind of extraneous circumstance, but rather through their cruelty and their refusal to work with me, listen to me, or love me in the way I deserved to be loved. my hatred for these people will never go away, even though it certainly doesn’t dominate my life. it is there, though, and I can easily draw on it whenever I need it. should I get the opportunity, I have no doubt in my mind that I have the capacity to be very cruel to these people in my own right, and I won’t feel bad about it.

94: How would you describe yourself when you love? Do you love forcefully, unconditionally, gently, quietly, desperately?

oh damn. forcefully, conditionally, stubbornly, and probably slightly possessively.

I don’t show love in conventional means. I’m one of those stereotypes, I guess. I don’t like declarations of love, I don’t really go in for physical affection, and I’m not sappy at all. my love language is more subtle, but it’s there. I like to do things for people, I like to create things for/with people, I like to have adventures with people. that’s how I love, and I can be pretty forceful about it. I also want people to improve themselves as much as possible -- I think the greatest thing I can witness someone I love doing is becoming the best version of themselves, and I will support them 100% in this effort -- also very forcefully. I don’t think there are many people who could put up with that level of intensity for so long, if I’m honest. I demand a lot of the ones I love, but I also like to think I give a lot, too.

my love is never unconditional. while I believe unconditional love exists, I have never seen it. my love always comes with conditions -- conditions about how I expect to be treated, about ideology, about worldview. these are all huge deal breakers, of course -- my conditions aren’t vague, or petty, or small in any way. but there is nobody on earth, nor will there ever be, who I will not walk away from if I feel the relationship is harmful in any way. I might not stop loving them, but I sure as hell will not assume that my love for them will protect me from them.

at the same time I’m a very stubborn person when it comes to love. people will do things they think must break one of my conditions, but I’ll see something else in it and I’ll stick around even if we both think it’s useless. I’m never wrong, so I suppose I have that going for me. but I am very, very stubborn when it comes to love. I have a high level of endurance and I know how to nurture love; how to stop pessimism from setting in. I’m also slightly possessive, so I don’t let go of anything easily -- and this includes the people I love. I’ll never stifle a person, but I’ll definitely fight for them, and something something everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.

100: What belief do you have that isn’t logically grounded, but you still firmly believe in?

I suppose something like this could never be logically grounded because there’s no logical proof at all, and “I Just Know” is apparently not a scientific argument (it should be), but I know I’ve had past lives. I just do. I have no solid proof for this, only gut feelings and Just Knowing and weird memories and some crazy shit that I can’t explain -- like being able to find my way around a strange city because I remembered it from a past life, for example -- but I just know I’ve had many different lives before and I will have many more to come. this is just an unshakable belief and it always has been.

[omoi-no-hoka]

Hey! I saw your blog today and I love it very much!! I see you're an open person so, I also have a question: HOW does one survive studying japanese at uni?? I'm in my first year and only my second (online haha) semester and we started out with Minna no nihongo 1 but we're supposed to finish Minna 2 by the end of this semester, same with Basic Kanji book 1 in the first sem and now Basic Kanji Book 2, all while also learning mostly of Japan's history and others in this semester. Exams will kill me

Hello! I’m glad you’re enjoying my blog! I am open to a fault lol. Let me recount my meandering journey through uni, illustrating my feelings through gifs of Noel Fielding because he is my celebrity crush.

Uni is such a difficult time for so many people, trying to figure out who you are now and who you want to be later. It wasn’t until my senior year that I realized what I wanted to do. I started writing out my university experience and it got super long, so allow me to just summarize my “Lessons Learned” here and you can read the rest if you want to know all the dirty deets lol. I double-majored in Japanese and English, so I think that my experience can perhaps be useful to people who are majoring in things other than Japanese as well. 

Hard-Learned Lessons from Uni

Do not choose a course of study because it is “practical.” Choose it because it is something you love. Seriously. Nothing is more important than this point. Do not choose a major because “I’ll make a lot of money” or “My parents are telling me this is good for me.” 

If you are learning multiple languages at once, you must give your brain time to organize what you learned from one language lesson before moving on to the next. You can do this by waiting a couple hours between lessons, getting up and walking around, studying one language in different space from the other, etc. Otherwise, it all becomes a terrible mess in your head.

It’s okay not to know what you want your career to be. It’s okay not to have a specific plan. Life works out one way or the other.

I know how expensive uni can be. (It’s been six years since I graduated and I’m still making hefty loan payments.) But don’t feel like you have to take a full courseload every single semester and graduated asap, particularly if the classes are hard and/or you are working. I took the maximum credit hours allowed every semester on top of working RIDICULOUS hours and it nearly killed me at one point. I’m not kidding. 

It is not unusual to have an identity crisis and/or mental breakdown. Take care of yourself. Know when you are nearing breaking point. Seek out the help of professionals. Most universities have psychiatrists and therapists that will see you very cheaply. 

Surround yourself with good people and look out for each other. 

Do not rely on substances to ease your suffering because sometimes the remedy becomes the malady. Not saying you should avoid all parties or anything square like that, but just don’t be one of those people that parties every night and gets in over their head. 

Let me preface this by stating that I’m an American, and our universities are stupid because they force us to take a ton of “general education” courses that are irrelevant to our majors, and many students spend their first couple years taking only a couple courses related to their majors and minors, and try to focus on getting those stupid gen eds out of the way. 

Year 1: Oh Shit, This Is Harder Than I Thought It Would Be

I come from a town of less than 2600 people. Our high school prepared its students for the following career paths:

joining the military (boys only)

becoming a farmer (boys only)

welding, carpentry, or other practical jobs (boys only)

becoming a housewife (girls only)

So basically I coasted through high school never having to study anything because it was one great big joke, only I thought I was like super duper smart because I was in the top five of my graduating class of 48. LOLLLLLLLLL

I entered university as a German major, Japanese minor. (Japanese was not offered as a major at my uni). I had never studied German previously, but I studied Spanish and French in high school and I just had this feeling that German and Japanese were the languages for me. 

The first semester, I had Japanese 101 and German 101 back to back, in the EXACT SAME CLASSROOM. I can’t stress enough how much of a mindfuck it was to go from thinking about Japanese for 50 minutes, having a 10 minute break, and then trying to switch your brain to German. IN THE SAME ROOM. It actually gave me headaches to try and make that mental jump. Managed to pull through the year with A’s in both, but German was much more of a challenge to me than Japanese. Which was really unexpected. 

I also flunked several gen eds because I didn’t give a shit about them and skipped them and got placed on academic probation and was nearly kicked out of uni because of my poor grades

Basically, I was such a weeb that I had watched enough anime with subtitles and sung along to enough anime songs that I had absorbed about 90% of the first year’s worth of Japanese vocab and grammar through osmosis. I really did have the power of God and anime on my side.

Year 2: The Year of the Mid-Midlife Crisis and Mental Breakdown

There really is no gif that will encapsulate the level of turmoil I went through that year. I looked really hard for one, trust me.

It became apparent very quickly that I could not keep up with German. I ended up dropping it early in the first semester, which meant I had to choose a new major. Thinking of what would be practical to pair with a Japanese minor, I went for International Business for a semester, took Accounting, and realized that I HATE The Man, corporate bullshit, and also numbers as a concept.

All I knew at this point was that I liked Japanese but couldn’t make it a major. I also knew I didn’t want to transfer universities. So I kept taking gen eds, just barely passing them because to this day I cannot bring myself to put effort into something I do not care about, and also taking more classes related to my Japanese minor. It was the Japanese classes that saved my GPA and kept me from getting kicked out of uni.

At the same time, I took a creative writing course because that’s been a hobby of mine since elementary school, and I kinda thought about an English major, but then was like, “Eww I don’t wanna be forced to read books I don’t give a shit about. And also, what will I do with that degree?”

Also, at the same time, I was working full time, and often getting stuck working from 2 pm to 7 am (Yes, 15-hour shifts, because the overnight dude would call in sick last minute and I’d be begged to cover his shift), and then dragging myself to classes and drooling on the desks because I’d fall asleep.

Also also, I started to have possible hallucinations? To this day I don’t know what was going on, but either I was legitimately going crazy, or there was a demon following me around and being quite rude to me, making light fixtures fall and shatter inches from my head, throwing papers around my room, opening and closing doors, turning lights off and on, coming to me in dreams and doing some really, really traumatic things to me in them, and just standing in corners staring at me at all hours of the night. Had me so scared that towards the end of the school year I was waiting to sleep until sunrise, when it would go away. And no, I was not using any mind-altering substances of any sort. Not even going out and getting drunk. 

So, yeah. Year Two was a hard one that I can’t believe I pushed through. Probably the darkest year of my life, I’d say. What got me through it? An unhealthy amount of energy drinks, friends, and my love of Japanese. Also Aerosmith.

Do I still see that demon? No. He vanished when the school year ended and I moved out of the dorms. Do I believe in the supernatural? Yes, to an extent. Do I think that what I was seeing was actually a demon? I honestly don’t know. I have had actual supernatural experiences verified by multiple witnesses, and a few years before Year 2, several friends and myself had seen an entity similar to what was following me around. But this one in Year 2 only did things when I was alone. So it could have all been in my head, and I will never know. 

Since then, I have been diagnosed with general anxiety and also a form of insomnia that keeps me from sleeping through the night, and I know that my anxiety manifests itself in psychosomatic ways. In other words, my mind will take my anxiety and turn it into a physical symptom that feels real in every way, but is actually not occurring. So far it’s manifested as: sensitivity to sunlight, the symptoms of a stroke or heart attack, half of my face going numb, and headaches in my left eye. Once I realize that the symptom is just my anxiety, I can force myself to ignore and overcome it. But then my anxiety finds a new form to manifest, and the cycle repeats a few months later. It could be that my stress caused me to see this demon for a while.

Should I have consulted a psychiatrist and gotten help? YEP. If you find yourself struggling like that, seek help please. 💕

Year 3: Adrift But Afloat

I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment with my best friend, a Japanese girl I met in the dorms freshman year. I will call her Setsuko. Setsuko is basically the reason I graduated uni. She memorized my class schedules and took copies of exam dates, woke me up, forced me to go classes instead of skipping, forced me to go to the library and study with her, and cooked me dinner most days since she didn’t have to work like I did. I can’t express enough how much she did to improve my life outside of school and work, and how much that improved my mental health. She also acclimated me to lots of subtle things about Japanese culture just by living with her, and this helped me later when I moved to Japan. Thank you, Setsuko. 一生の恩人。

I was still doing those bullshit 15-hour overnight shifts way more than I should have, and also had the maximum courseload.

The Japanese classes got a lot more difficult in Year 3. But I loved them. They were the only classes I never skipped. I took more classes towards the minor like Buddhist Philosophy and Japanese History, which I really enjoyed. While polishing off more gen eds, I thought over what to do with my major. 

My family and friends all told me that I should become an English teacher. I had always been good at words and at explaining things. But I didn’t really like the idea of being a high school teacher. I became an English major, though, because I knew that I didn’t hate English. Took grammar classes and HOLY SHIT did I hit my stride.

I realized that I didn’t like English lit. I liked linguistics. So I focused heavily on all grammar and linguistics courses, taking the bare minimum of literature courses required for the major. My GPA improved substantially. 

Yet I still was consumed with this nagging fear. It was Year 3 and I still had no fucking idea what I wanted to do when I graduated.

Year 4: Clarity At The 11th Hour

Urged on by my “Don’t you dare get one of those stupid arts degrees that won’t get you a paycheck” parents, I decided that the most “practical” degree would not be “English,” but “English Education.” I began taking the English Ed classes with linguistics, grammar, and second language acquisition classes. The goal was to become a qualified English high school teacher who could also do ESL (since I had Spanish and Japanese under my belt more or less). 

At the same time, I entered into Independent Study for Japanese with two other students. We were tasked with reading Izu no Odoriko, a classic short story. Independent study was its own beast. It required a lot more concentration and work on my part, obviously. But because Japanese was my first and foremost passion, I centered my efforts on those courses, and then on the others.

The process of getting certified to be an English teacher was lengthy and expensive in my state. This meant my graduation would be further prolonged, and I was worried about money, because I was already about $50,000 in debt at the time, despite working those fucking overnight shifts all the time that were eating me alive.

Then, during the summer vacation when my 4th year ended, I got a scholarship and went to Japan to study abroad. Education majors had the option to study abroad in several countries, and as luck would have it, one of them was Japan, and it was Setsuko’s HOMETOWN! The study abroad program itself was the first month of summer vacation, and Setsuko said, “Okay, just come stay at my house for the rest of summer vacation!”

Never have I said “yes” quicker in my entire life.

On the train headed from Sapporo to the town where I would be actually staying during my studies, I looked at the lush rice paddies and mountains in the distance and my entire heart just hummed with this “This is where you’re meant to be.” I knew then and there that I would move to Japan upon graduation.

What would I do there? Well, teach English, obviously.

My three months in Japan effectively aligned my entire life. My path had materialized before me. It was a roughly hacked, hard-to-see path through thick underbrush, but I could see it nonetheless. 

Year 5: Let’s Hurry It Up, I’m Ready To Live

Come Year 5, all of my Japanese classmates that had been with me since freshman year were gone and I was alone. My professor taught me Classical Japanese through independent study, and it was the must grueling course I took my entire five years there. But I found it invaluable and am eternally grateful to him for teaching me, because you see Classical Japanese a lot more than you’d think you would in everyday life. Particularly in formal settings. 

I still wanted to get certified to teach English in American high schools, because while I knew I wanted to go to Japan for now, I didn’t know if I wanted to spend my entire life there and I wanted a solid job opportunity when I came back to the states at some point.

However, the more education courses I took, the more I saw that the American education system was just as full of red-tape and The Man’s bullshit as corporate America, something else I rebuke with every fiber of my being. I also realized I’d need to take a 6th year of university, and that just wasn’t financially feasible for me. So I switched to a plain old English major with a heavy focus on linguistics and second language acquisition, and continued classical Japanese. 

I took the remaining 3 gen eds online in the summer, graduated, popped up to Chicago to do a month-long intensive course to get the CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages issued by Cambridge.) It’s the most widely accepted and revered certification for teaching English as a foreign language.

So in the span of five years, I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in English with a focus in linguistics and SLA, and what is technically a major in Japanese Studies. 40 credit hours were required for a major, and I completed 42 credit hours tied to my minor, so while it isn’t listed on my diploma as a major, I did the coursework. I also got a CELTA Pass B, which only 20% of applicants achieve and never expires. The grand total for all of this was roughly $100,000 USD in loans.

Post-Graduation

The week I came back to my hometown from Chicago with my CELTA in hand, I packed my suitcases, threw a going-away party, and then flew to Sapporo, where I began my first job after uni, teaching English to children aged 0-18 at a private English conversation school. I did that for three years before changing careers and becoming a Japanese-English translator/interpreter for a global company. 

So how useful have my choices during university proven to be?

I’m sure I don’t have to explain that studying Japanese helps me tons with translating Japanese to English or living in Japan lol

Studying English grammar, linguistics, sociolinguistics, and second language acquisition has allowed me to recognize minute nuances that can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful business negotiation when interpretation is necessary.

My background in education also means that I know how to present information clearly, concisely, and in a way that engages the audience. I am known as “The PowerPoint Pro” at work lol. 

I also have a keen eye for performance evaluation, behavior analysis, and improvement action plans. 

I offered English conversation lessons to coworkers for over a year, and now that is being done in other branches across the company! (Well, they were before COVID haha.) 

I DO NOT RECOMMEND WORKING THE HOURS I WORKED WHILE IN SCHOOL. My grades suffered and I wish I had worked less and focused more on classes. However, by working 15-hour shifts and doing full days of classes, I developed a very good tolerance for overtime, which comes in handy in the Japanese workplace. Just last month I had three 15 hour days in the same week. Sweet, sweet overtime pay. 

All of these facets have culminated in me earning a pretty nice promotion to 正社員 seishain back in February, which means I get nice benefits and basically my job is guaranteed until I die or the company goes under.

Should I decide to return to America someday, I will probably not go into the education field. Too much red tape. I will likely continue translation/interpretation for companies, because it isn’t too difficult and pays well. Though ideally I’d love to just make a living sharing cool information about Japanese and stuff, and maybe writing those stories that are bouncing around in my head when I should be working haha.

Do I think the debt is worth it?

Well, I don’t think I had any other option than to take out those loans. I didn’t have the means to learn the things I wanted to learn unless I went to university. 

Unless Japanese work visa requirements have changed, you are required to have a bachelor’s degree in order to obtain my sub-type of work-visa, so I needed a degree of some kind no matter what. 

Frankly, if I hadn’t gone to that university and met my best friend Setsuko, I don’t think I’d be where I am right now, living the life I am now. So just having met her is worth any price to me. 

Paying off all the loans is daunting, especially when yen is weak to the dollar. There were months I had to ask my parents for help, especially early on. But now I’ve got multiple loans paid off, my salary has increased, and the “omg i have money and no supervision so I can buy whatever I want” idiocy has mostly gone away. But I did get a super sweet pair of blindingly silver Converses a couple days ago that I definitely didn’t need

Do I have any regrets regarding my time at university?

I still regret dropping Old English for a stupid English Ed class. Seriously, how cool would that have been? But I still have the textbook, workbook, and I contacted the professor last week and she was kind enough to send me a syllabus. God bless her. So now I’m working on that bit by bit, which is fun.

I wish I hadn’t been such a cocky, naive idiot my first year. Thinking I could just “show up for tests” was the stupidest thing. It messed up my GPA, and my parents forbade me from retaking classes so I couldn’t go back and fix my mistakes. I think I graduated with a 3.4 overall GPA out of 4, but my English major GPA was 3.9 and my Japanese GPA was 4.0. So it’s pretty frustrating to have those gen eds and my dumbfuckery mar my transcript like that.

I really didn’t party at all. Most all of my friends were straight-laced Japanese exchange students, and I was also working ridiculous hours so I just didn’t really have the time. A part of me feels like I missed out on that part of the college experience.

Recently I’ve been putting more effort into improving my creative writing by reading a lot of books on the subject. Not a small part of me wishes that I had gone with a Creative Writing major instead of English major, because I still would have studied all the grammar and linguistics. Then again, I do believe that creative writing can be self-taught.

I wish I hadn’t worked as much as I did. There were a lot of times I couldn’t complete assignments or I missed lectures because I was just so drained. It wasn’t even good money.

Well...I did not intend for this post to become as long as it has. I’ve been cooped up in my apartment with nothing but two goldfish for company for over a month now and I think I’m a bit stir-crazy. Thank you to anyone and everyone who bothered to read all of this and become my therapist for a bit haha. Love you all. Stay safe and well. 💖

[cornfedcryptid]

This will quite literally be the only post I make in terms of the current fandom drama in DA, that only came to be after seeing this post @kunstpause posted as well as what @wardenari tagged me in and the mass of new followers I have gained from it. I only know bits and pieces of what's going on, only by those I know who are directly effected by it...so what I'm about to say may be the wrong thing to say or fall short of my intended plan.

I'm conflicted as to whether or not I should put all of this under a 'Read More' or not...or even if I should post this...or even if I should add my voice to the sea of voices, inevitably shining the light on me as well. Ah well.

Regardless what I'm about to say may be triggering to some people as it involves suicidal thoughts.

Dragon Age was first introduced to me by my 'ex' a number of years ago. During this time I was at the lowest point of my life, off and on anti depressants and ADHD meds left at right, in the vain hope that my 'ex' and I would become more than what we were. Those that are on the types of medications that alter the state of your mind know that shit ain't something you go off and on of at whatever whim strikes your fancy. To this day I can't remember 99% of what happened between when I was 24-28ish. But I digress.

At that time, I had no access to internet and only had the DA games on PS3. In them I was able to escape from the nagging voice in my head that told me everything would be so much easier if I killed myself. It's been a voice that's been following me around for over 15 years. But when I played Dragon Age it was quiet. I was able to pretend I was someone I wasn't. Happy. Whole. Not a waste of space. Loved unconditionally. It was a stark contrast to the life and relationships around me.

Once I had some semblance of internet access, I had come back to tumblr after being away a few years and fell into the fandom. It was my first ever experience in a fandom, and I had so much fun hanging out in the fringes reading what people wrote, seeing what they drew, the meta posts...all of it. It was as if I had found a safe haven from the bullshit of my life. Even met some amazing people whom I still cherish to this day, regardless of whether not if I still talk them.

Dragon Age became my oasis in the shitstorm of mental health that is the fall/winter months for me. It's become an oasis for many people, young and old. Telling someone what they can and can't do in terms of self-care is no different than any person who's offered unsolicited advice on how to deal with your mental health. It's lowkey downright insulting.

The whole reason why I'm making this post is because I am a 30 year old woman who has ADHD, and upon seeing the post while I was initially angry at the utter shittiness of the asks and disregard towards those of us with ADHD, Aspergers, and those of us that are older, I am more disappointed and sad for the person who felt the need to send them...and every other person involved in spreading the hate. I'm saddened because life, the world, those who raised them, etc. have been so unkind as to teach them that this is okay to do for whatever reason and/or the only response to something they don't agree with. The world's already a fucked up place. The pandemic only compounding it...and I understand the need to direct that feeling of hopelessness, stress, etc. upon something. But not like this. This is just hateful, toxic, and solves nothing. I understand it is easier to go this route...to direct the negative shit in/around you at someone else. It can feel cathartic. But all this does it help keep the ball of negative emotions, thoughts, whatever you want to call it within you where it grows like a cancer.

I should know...I did it in the past. I had left the fandom for the most part a couple years ago, and when I came back I saw the person who was a source of my anxiety, reason for leaving out of fear, self-doubt, and things I do not wish to divulge was still around and a prominent face. I was angry that this person got to continue doing what they were doing while I and others dealt with the effects of their insecurities. And I was scared because I feared them sending a witch hunt after me because they didn't want to see me in their space. I helped feed into the idea of calling this person out and exposing them for what they were because they had their claws in someone else. To this day it is still something I deeply regret. Not only for the stress it caused on those associated with that person, but because it marked the beginning of the end of a friendship with a person I dearly love. Because by feeding into it we let the tumor that was our anger and insecurities grow to the point it consumed us.

We were fortunate this never gained any real traction and therefore we didn't suffer any outward consequences of it. But just because it didn't go anywhere/had no real effect, doesn't mean there weren't prices that were paid.

But let me also be very clear this does not mean I do not think any of the people spreading the hate and anything else in The Mess(in all its variations) shouldn't be held accountable. We are all responsible for our actions and must hold accountability for ourselves. We must also each be aware that just because something someone has made or thinks doesn't agree with our beliefs, religion, etc. does not mean they are inherently wrong(with a few exceptions. But that is besides the point)...as well as if something goes against any of the stated above and is therefore something we can't or won't interact with doesn't mean that is universal. That type of thought is no different than...well, the Trump supporters a majority of tumblr makes fun of.

And I know taking accountability is hard. No one wants to admit they're at fault, and that it's easier to come up with a continuous list of reasons why we're right and they're wrong, even if they're ludicrous. We have been taught that in doing that it is no different than signing your own death warrant, that there is no chance at redemption. It took me a long time to realize that I played a part in the cancer that infected my friend and I. Even typing this out I feel at unease writing this on the off chance they see this and have all of that shit brought back to the forefront.

But from the sea of voices that are speaking, I do not think there is one that is speaking to you that was in a similar situation. That knows how hard it can be to just be 'Yup, I fucked up. I see that now and I'm sorry. I will try harder in the future. Please bear with me because this isn't easy for me.'

But it's okay to admit when you're at fault, because you'd be surprised at the number of people that are forgiving and understanding once you do. It's okay to let go of the negativity and anger. Don't use it as a shield, you'll only burn yourself in the long run. Don't let your ego control you. It'll only be your downfall.

And to the person I have mentioned in the paragraphs above: If you see this, I am sorry. I see now that I let my anger and fear feed into the cancer that fucked us both, and helped ruin our friendship.

[chasingshhadows]

So That Scene had something really interesting going on that I want to talk about.

Michael and Alex in this scene are both fighting for (and struggling to accomplish) the exact same thing: They are both looking for words to make him leave. 

You see them both, in their expressions and their body language, just absolutely grasping for something, anything they could possibly say to accomplish that goal.

Alex is trying to get Michael to come with him and Michael is trying to get Alex to go without him. They are looking for leverage to unseat the other in a last-gasp, do-or-die attempt to keep the other alive.

But what that leverage is for each of them ends up being the exact opposite from the other.

For Alex, it’s the truth.

He’s desperate. This building is going to explode and if he fails in finding the right words to say, Michael will go up in flames with it. And he can’t let that happen, full stop.

Alex knows the only thing that will get Michael to walk out of that building is the one thing he’s never been able to give him: honesty. He’s pulled Michael close and he’s pushed him away. He’s been vulnerable and expressed desire. He’s opened his body to Michael in ways I don’t think he would with anyone else. But he’s never actually told Michael what Michael means to him, not really, because he hadn’t even admitted that to himself.

He’s buried it so deep it literally rips him open on its way out.

But Michael still isn’t moving. Because in saying Michael is family, Alex has said “you and I are inextricably connected in an innate way,” and invalidated all of his previous attempts to create distance between them, but what he also did is place himself on even footing with the woman behind the glass. Michael says it, he knows she’s family, he can feel it.  

And Alex is asking Michael to leave her behind in favor of him, but it’s not enough. He tells Alex to go, save himself, survive this. 

So Alex pulls out the one weapon he has left, the double-ended lance he knows will gut them both: his love for Michael. 

And when he finally, finally admits this, tells Michael that he loves him, he does it in Michael’s language. 

And you can tell this is so much harder for Alex to say, especially if you listen. “You are mine” comes out loud and powerful, he is shouting it. But this? It’s quieter, softer, his voice wavers and shakes on Michael’s name.

And this is where everything changes for Michael. He goes from shock to anger in about half a second and there’s a Lot in those emotions.

Because Alex is declaring, in the most profound way he can, that he loves Michael, is in love with Michael. But he’s also stating that he will stand here and burn with Michael if necessary. And those may seem like the same thing, but they’re different enough that they cause two different reactions from Michael.

No! You can’t stay, you have to go. You have to survive this, you have to live, because I can’t let you die for me. If you are determined to stay with me, I will have to go to keep you safe and leaving her will kill me. 

No, how dare you use that against me when you don’t mean it. How dare you say the one thing I’ve needed to hear for 10 years when I know you’re going to take it back the moment we leave like you always do. 

So he has to say something, anything to make Alex leave without him.

For Michael, it’s a lie.

Michael is also desperate. 

Honesty for Michael is a cornerstone of who he is, especially where it concerns Alex. Ever since they first met, he’s spat out brutal, vulnerable truths like they were just words, opened every dark corner of himself to Alex and let him peer inside. 

Michael is sick of secrets, sick of lies, hates them both. He’s spent the last decade keeping horrible truths from the two people he loves most in the world - he was the common denominator in both of the life-altering secrets being kept amongst the alien siblings. And keeping those secrets tore him apart inside, made him push himself away from them for 10 years. 

Keeping secrets from Alex is why he’s had to live with his fucked up hand, why he’s spent 10 years without a single moment of Quiet.

But the building is going to explode and Alex is here and Alex is saying these things and Alex won’t leave.

So Michael goes for the throat - he pulls out the only weapon he has, the thing he knows will push Alex away for good, even if it destroys himself, a core element of who he is, in the process. What does it matter, right? He’s already decided he’s going to die today anyway.

He shouts it, screams it, reiterates it and tries to justify it. By the end, he’s weak with it. 

Let it go, he says. Let me go, he means. He needs Alex to run for his life and he is trying to give him some solace that what he’s leaving behind doesn’t even matter. We never had anything real, Alex, you can walk away. It’s ok. Michael hopes that if Alex believes Michael doesn’t love him, it’ll hurt less for Alex when Michael is gone. 

In what could literally be his last words, he is trying to protect Alex in every way - body and soul. 

Alex calls him a liar and shit, it looks like he just did the ice bucket challenge. He looks like he’s been struck, all of the fight just washes right out of him in a second. He just spat out the hardest thing he has ever had to say, the downright worst lie he could ever tell, and it didn’t even work. 

That exhale is an absolute admission that everything he just said was utter bullshit.

That sigh, that look of distraught horror, is the single most important piece of this scene. It’s what makes this scene so powerful as a Malex scene, as proof of both Michael and Alex’s love for one another and their desperate attempts to save each other.

This scene, the lies and truths that define it, fulfills a promise made in the first episode with Michael and Alex. It’s the delivery on all of the potential set up throughout this season. It sends a message, loud and clear, that these two are it for each other, that neither will ever be able to truly walk away from the other. This was their ultimate test, the end of the line, building coming down, leave or die moment, and they set themselves on fire rather than let the other die.

[takadasaiko]

Houseguest Chapter Eleven

FFN II AO3

Summary: Steve and Tony work together to try to contain Mira.

Chapter Eleven: Hero

If there was one thing that Tony had learned to count on with Steve Rogers, it was that the man just kept getting up. No matter the blow, no matter the challenge, there was something about that stubborn kid from Brooklyn that his father had loved so much that just wouldn't stop.

Not this time, though. Steve wasn't getting up. He was laid out on his back, the front of his white t-shirt burned from the attack and blood leaking through. Tony loosed a breath. "JARVIS?"

Vitals flashed across his monitor. "He's alive, but unconscious, sir. Might I suggest that you -"

Mira jumped into his line of sight, snarling and angry. She reminded him less of what must have been a brilliant scientist to have been able to conduct the research she had to get to this point and more of the creatures that had dropped down from the wormhole and into New York City a few months before with every passing second. Whatever she'd done to give herself these powers was changing her. Her attacks were becoming increasingly more vicious, and the close-in combat was not really what this particular suit was designed for. It performed better at a distance, which Mira didn't seem keen on letting him have easily.

Okay. Fine. Nothing said he had to play on her terms. He wasn't very good at doing that anyway.

One boot sputtered dangerously, but kicked in and he lifted off the ground, barely avoiding another attack that cut too close for his comfort. Then, all at once, information flashed across his screen. "Read outs complete, sir," JARVIS announced and Tony frowned. None of that looked good. She'd used herself as the experiment with the tech, implanting it in her arm, from the looks of it. It had grown from there, spreading and reaching out like tendrils. If he were to make a guess, he'd bet she never dreamed it would have gone this far. The bursts of energy were temporarily stabilizing her each time, but it wouldn't be long until one of those attacks ripped her apart. There was no telling how much damage it would inflict on the space around them or just how far that explosion would reach. It could be a few yards or it could take out the entire cliffside. Possibly worse. The fluctuating readings made it difficult, but he knew it wouldn't be good.

"Keep an eye on her, JARVIS. If she's going to blow, give me enough time to get her out over the ocean."

"Sir, the suit may not withstand an explosion of that potential magnitude. The full diagnostics of -"

"And you think my chances are better with my house crashing down on top of me?" Tony snapped. "Just do it."

"You afraid to come closer?" Mira taunted from the ground and Tony paused mid-air. He'd managed to move her out and away from the house, which was progress, but until Rhodey got there it was just a dangerous game of keepaway and keep-from-exploding as best as he could. With Cap down for the count, he was in this alone….. just like he usually was.

He switched his external speakers back on. "Don't guess it'll do any good to tell you that that tech you've pumped into your body is altering your brain chemistry and you're a walking timebomb, huh?"

Mira's eyes flashed a brighter shade of the eerie blue that they had been glowing since she'd arrived. "You're trying to distract me."

"Believe it or not, I'd rather save you."

"By luring me closer to the water?" she popped back. Altered state of mind or not, she was still aware of more than what was immediately in front of her. A vicious smile tilted her lips. "Why don't you come down here and we'll chat? As a scientist, you have to be curious."

Tony snorted, but his retort was cut off as she lashed out with a focused attack. He didn't have enough warning to avoid it, and it struck the boot that had been sputtering earlier, effectively killing the thruster in it. He yelped as he tilted off to the side, the remaining boot only serving to throw him off balance. He converted the power into the chest piece, the beam striking out as he landed hard. It met Mira's next attack midway and threw both of them in opposite directions.

"Sir? Sir!" JARVIS' voice echoed loudly, cutting through the ringing and the darkness that Tony hadn't realized that he'd sunk into. He blinked hard, alerts flashing brightly on his display, and suddenly she was on top of him.

Mira reached forward and ripped his mask from its place like it was nothing, pieces of the helmet going with it, and she pressed her opposite hand against his chest. "We all know an ARC reactor can be overloaded, but how much does it take?" she asked, her voice dangerously curious. He could hear the suit - his impenetrable suit - cracking under the pressure, and the reactor wouldn't be far behind it.

"JARVIS!" he shouted, hoping against hope that the earpiece that linked his voice commands to his AI hadn't gone flying with part of his helmet.

"Deploying countermeasures," JARVIS' voice rang in his ear and Tony could hear the suit shift at the shoulders and flares leapt out at her.

Mira jumped back, yelling and cursing against the burning hot fireworks as Tony struggled to pull himself to his feet. His ribs were screaming in protest and he didn't dare look down at the chest plate to see the damage. Not that he had to. "The ARC reactor has sustained damage."

"Need a bit more than that without visuals, J," Tony managed, a pained cough swallowing up what would have been the AI's name.

"Power levels are at thirty-seven percent and dropping. Repairs will need to be made to the reactor to restore full functionality."

"What about the suit?"

"Right boot is offline. Unibeam is offline. HUD system is -"

"Offline. Right. Got that when she ripped my mask off my face. Thanks. What's online? And I swear if you say flares..."

"You did just used them."

Every great once and awhile, JARVIS reminded him that he was, in fact, a computer program. It always seemed to come at the worst possible times. Mira was getting up and she looked pissed.

"Repulsor beams are live, as are the missiles, though those may trigger a more final explosion from her."

"Right," Tony growled.

"Hey!"

The shout caused Mira to whip around, clearing Tony's line of vision. Steve had made it to his feet further up the driveway and stood with one arm threaded through the straps on the back of his shield and the other wrapped protectively around his middle.

"You just don't know how to stay down, do you?" she growled.

"I've had a lot of practice with getting back up." That blue gaze flickered past her to meet Tony's own dark one. He was trying to convey something, but what, Tony wasn't sure. Then Mira started for him and Steve stepped just a little to his left. Oh. That was the plan. It just required not hitting Cap by accident without his targeting to rely on.

Tony lifted his gauntlet and fired, the first shot just a little too far to Mira's left. The second hit her and threw her forward.

Cap jumped out of the way fully and she stumbled towards and then onto a raised platform that had been pushed into the middle of the driveway. The walls went up, doming over her and she threw herself against them. Tony reached up to the comm in his ear. "JARVIS, are you connected to it?"

"I am, sir."

"Knock her out so she doesn't leave a hole where my house is, would ya?"

Gas filled the small containment unit and she snarled, the shouts not making it through the dome around her. Slowly she leaned against it, finally sliding down unconscious.

"You two look like shit."

Tony glanced over to Rhodey. He'd come through in bringing the portable holding cell from the old labs, not that Tony had had any doubts. Ito stood just off to the side, staring at it like he was still trying to wrap his mind around everything that had happened that night. To the right, looking only marginally steadier than he had a moment before, stood Captain America. "You okay?"

That same blue gaze snapped to him, but this time it was accompanied by the smallest of smiles. "I'm a fast healer. How was that for better timing?"

Tony chuckled, shaking his head. "You know I had no idea what you were going for until I saw it, right?"

"I'm just glad you didn't shoot me."

"I'm not a bad shot. Obviously."

Rhodey snorted off to the side. "Don't let him bullshit you, Rogers. I've been to the range with him."

"Oh c'mon! I'm not bad."

"You're also not great for a man that designs weapons," his oldest friend argued.

"Designed."

"Yeah, what's that you're wearing?"

Ito looked between the three of them and to the cage where the gas had thinned out. "How long is she going to be out?"

"A few hours."

He nodded slowly. "I'll have my people -"

"Oh no," Tony cut him off. "Remember what happened last time? No, we've got this covered." He touched the comm in his ear. "Hey, J. Tell Fury I've got a present for him, but he has to come pick it up in the next… what? Two hours or so? Call it one. They have people out this way."

"Placing the call now, sir.Might I suggest -?"

"Can't it wait?" Tony grumbled, groping for the manual release on his suit. The pressure against his chest from the damaged suit on already-battered ribs was making in harder and harder to breathe. He found the switch and turned it, the Mark X opening up to release him.

"Tony?"

He turned towards Steve's strangely worried voice and found an equally worried expression. The question never made it off his tongue as he pitched forward, darkness swallowing him up without warning.

                                                  __________

He'd known something was wrong, but he hadn't expected him to pass out like that. No one had, or someone would have been closer to try to catch him. Instead Tony Stark fell hard out of his Iron Man suit and crumpled to the concrete driveway.

Colonel Rhodes got to him first, going to a knee next to him and checking his vitals carefully. "Did he take any other hard hits?"

It took Steve half a second longer than it should have to realize the question was directed at him. "It was one hard hit after another."

Rhodes reached forward, plucking the earpiece from Tony's ear and fitting it against his own. "Jarvis? Hey. Can you tell me what's….?" There was a long pause as he listened to the computer and Steve exchanged a brief look with Ito, neither quite sure what was happening. "Right," Rhodes answered. "Okay…. Okay, we can work with that. This things secure, right? She's not going anywhere?"

Steve quirked an eyebrow at that and Rhodes nodded as if Jarvis could see that. His dark gaze darted up to meet Steve's. "You in any shape to help me get him up?"

"Yeah," Steve managed, feeling the healing - but certainly not healed - injury twinge painfully as he bent over to help Rhodes haul a limp Tony Stark up off the driveway.

Ito held back and Rhodes turned back over his shoulder. "C'mon."

"Someone should stay with her."

"In all the years I've known Tony, I've learned to trust the tech to do what he designed it to do. She's not going anywhere."

He didn't stir as they moved him up the driveway and to the doors. Rhodes murmured "couch" to direct their aim once they were in and they eased him down. Steve turned as the other man started towards the stairs. "What did Jarvis say?"

Rhodes motioned for a moment as he jogged down the stairs, leaving Steve and Ito with an unconscious Tony. Steve eased down on the long couch next to his head, grimacing as he did.

"You're hurt."

He looked up to Ito. "I'm fine."

"You don't look it."

He winced, fingers probing the burned material of his t-shirt that had been splattered blood. "I… heal pretty quickly."

"It doesn't matter how quickly you heal, you need medical attention."

"I don't." He peeled back the tattered shirt to show dried blood over an already-closed wound. "I don't know how much about how I became Captain America was released to the public but….. Back in the war I was given a serum. It enhanced cell regeneration and healing. By the time the sun comes up, I'll be fine."

Ito was staring by this point. "I'll be damned…. They came up with that in the 40's? And they can't cure the common cold?"

"They killed the man that came up with the serum. Tony's dad worked on the project, but he didn't know how to reproduce that part of it."

"I knew him," Ito said quietly. "Howard Stark. I met him, anyway. Maybe… half a dozen times? His wife was very active in fundraising for various organizations, including the LAPD."

Steve's lips tugged just a little as the Howard that he'd known, all dark hair and excitable expression mixed with brilliance came to mind. "He was a good man."

"So some said. I just saw a man with a lot of money that set his kid up to think there were no consequences for anything he did."

There was a long moment and Steve pursed his lips together as he looked for the right words. "The Howard that I knew was…. young and fearless, but it made him brave. He was the only one willing to fly my team into some parts of nazi-occupied Europe. Tony's the same way. It's not that he doesn't know there are consequences - and don't get me wrong. He comes across that way - but he pushes past the dangers when other people won't. And that protects people."

"There are other people to do that," Ito said quietly.

"And I guess that's what makes him a hero."

He heard the other man loose a soft breath. "Maybe."

Footsteps echoed against the steps leading up from Tony's workshop and Rhodes appeared at the top. In his hand he held what looked like a duplicate to Tony's ARC reactor.

Steve took a step back as the other man came in and he watched him peel back Tony's shirt to reveal a flittering, damaged reactor in its place. Rhodes knew what to do, twisting it so that it clicked out and released, and he fitted the other one into the open socket that was left behind. It fit snuggly and clicked. Tony jolted, but his eyes didn't open. A long moment passed, then another, leaving three men unable to breathe as they waited for a set of brown eyes to open.

                                                 __________

TBC

Notes: I feel like the last two to three chapters took so much longer than everything else... probably because this was never actually meant to have a big bad in it lol

It was so funny watching this story grow from Steve crashing date night to them having to work together to keep him around for a bit longer and then suddenly they were fighting a super villain. Oops? I do love writing for this broship though. It's always a lot of fun :D

Next Time: The boys finally catch some time to breathe and Pepper makes it home.

[irwintry]

Darlin’

Warnings: swearing, mentions of death, getting sick, drugs, and alcohol. this is emotionally heavy. 

Author’s Note: it’s not a happy one, please be wary of that. “ghost of you” came on while i was writing this, and it made me kinda sad. i didn’t plan that.

Word Count: 4.7k

Calum fell asleep in odd places. By this point in his career, it wasn’t unusual–– everyone else did it as well. He fell asleep on his suitcase in back alleyways when waiting for a chauffeur more times than he wanted to admit. He also fell asleep in the middle of restaurants right before receiving his food. He didn’t often fall asleep in his car only to wake up in his childhood bedroom, but he knew why he was here. He knew why the burning bile bubbled in his throat as he sat up on the creaky springs.

The grief of it all had yet to hit him. It settled in his shoulders and through his chest, and the numbing in his hands had yet to pass after all of this time. It rippled down his fingers and twisted his stomach, but his sinuses refused to sting with the familiar sensation that brought hot tears down his flustered cheeks. The lack of desire to cry made him want to cry. One of these days, he knew the emotion would pour out of him, and he wished it would happen now. He wanted to feel human.

Calum ached for the day prior to hearing the news. His fever spiked the morning of, and in order to work through it, he popped two Advil and packed his things. He had to be on a flight back to Los Angeles by noon. The fever broke during the flight, his body reacted accordingly to the altered internal temperature, but he was too involved in a deep sleep to notice his sweats. He wished he could say he dreamt of you. If he had, maybe he would have thought to call you. He would go back and change everything if he could.

The cool hardwood below his feet sent a chill up his spine as he attempted to fully wake himself up. Two weeks. It had been two weeks. The surreal would soon become real, and he’d have to face the heavy emotions weighing him down. But, for the life of him, he could not cry.

The anger behind it all ate him up. You deserved better than what he could give you.

In the kitchen, where conversations lacked and contentment hid in the most complex places, his mother was washing a few dishes that had been soaking from the night before. Her back was to her son, and her shoulders were slumped low–– he could feel the somber energy radiating off of her from the entrance. Mali had herself situated at the counter while she lackadaisically scrolled at her phone, and his father had nodded off above his bowl of Cheerios. Calum waited for someone to say something. He waited for a bit of life to spark, but he realized that you had taken all of that with you.

Things had been like this since his arrival. He couldn’t remember ever hugging someone as long as he hugged his mother in the airport arrivals lot. Even then, the tears were trapped in their ducts, and his lungs were forced to heave and wheeze through the repetitive words:

“It’s not true, it’s not true.”

But Joy never said a word in response. She had soaked his shirt with her tears, although he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Calum couldn’t breathe then, and he still couldn’t now.

“Cal.”

He blinked in the direction of the voice only to find both Mali and Joy looking at him over their shoulders. He hadn’t budged from the doorway of the kitchen.

“You should eat,” said Mali, her tone low and soft. She hadn’t been this sincere with him since his latest achievement. In this case, there was no achievement but a great fallback.

Calum nodded. He knew he should eat something. The past few days were spent in tremendous dissociation, and he only knew how to stomach coffee and scotch. He spent three consecutive nights emptying the contents of his stomach in the bathroom, hoping that no one would hear his distress. Even if they had, he knew they wouldn’t speak up about it. Everyone had to handle things in their own way.

They watched him amble over to the cabinets, poor posture and all before he reached up and retrieved the box of Cheerios. And when he took his first bite, they finally looked away, satisfied with the fact that he had taken one more step in the direction of caring for himself.

-

“Cal, it’s four in the morning. Nothing you say is of importance to me at four in the morning.”

Your words were hushed through the receiver. The elderly cat you had adopted recently passed, so there was no one else around you to wake.

He wanted to chuckle. He wanted to laugh and joke like the two of you always seemed to do, even in the most serious situations. And yet, your voice penetrated his brain as he stared hopelessly at the hotel wall before him. “You used to tell me to speak my truth.”

“Hm?”

Calum blinked. “When we were growing up. You said that nothing would change or go my way if I let things hold me back, that I should speak up when it mattered most.”

“I– I vaguely ‘member,” you mumbled sleepily. “Wha’s this, Cal? Ya okay?”

He shook his head, but the only living thing around him to face the gesture was the bug he spotted forty minutes prior. “I have t’speak up now. ‘Bout us.”

There was a short moment of silence on your end, and it didn’t settle right with him, even when you said a soft, “okay.”

“I can’t stop thinkin’ about what you said to me before I left,” he continued, his knee bouncing as the nerves jolted in his chest. The air conditioner droned loudly beside the bed, meanwhile, he had no idea what he was going to say. He just needed to say something. “Ya said my arms felt like home, ‘n I didn’t say anything. Don’t know why I didn’t say anything. You’re home. You’ve been my home for– for eight years.”

“Cal– “

“Even when I’m halfway across the world,” he said, “jus’ hearing your voice brings me home. I’m walkin’ down Brighton all cheeky with our backpacks over both o’ my shoulders, and you’re skippin’ over cracks in the sidewalk while talking ‘bout Ms. Pettis’ homework. I’m not calm unless I’m with you.”

He heard you sigh on the other end, but you weren’t going to speak up again. Not when he was talking the way he was right now.

“And, it’s kinda crazy to think this way,” he breathed out. His other knee began to shake. “Y-you follow me around wherever I go, and– shit, I haven’t even seen ya in a year, and somehow ‘m still convinced you’re with me. When I realize you’re not... “

Calum leaned back and let himself fall against the white duvet below him. There were tears pricking at his eyes, and before he took the chance to swallow them back, the heavy weight in his chest overcame his emotions. It took every part of him not to choke out sobs. “’m so lonely without ya.” He sounded so pathetic–– he couldn’t imagine the disappointment you were feeling on the other side.

“Cal,” you said, tone low and steady unlike his. “What is it? What are you feeling?”

His lips trembled, and he could hardly keep his eyes from wincing shut. He knew what he wanted to say now, but he didn’t want to say it either. “I’ve been stupid, t-thinkin’ all these years that all ya were was just a friend. A-a r-r-really good friend who made me feel fu-u-ucking different from my other friends. Din’ know why. Couldn’ figure out why. But– shit.” Calum took a shaky breath, his lungs filling with as little air as possible through the tight passageways his body allowed. The tears burned his slickened cheeks. “It’s cos’ I’ve been so in love with ya, darlin’.”

With the A.C. running and his heavy breathing filling the room, he could hardly hear the white noise on the other end of the phone call. All he wanted was an immediate response. He wanted you to be so unbelievably confident in your response, whether it was a rejection or not.

Nevertheless, he didn’t expect you to say, “come home.”

-

Calum had been in the shower for eighteen minutes and counting, but he hadn’t moved a muscle. The steaming pellets felt like bullets against his skin, and the supposed positive effects of hydrotherapy through showering weren’t allowing him any relief. He still couldn’t cry. His body could let himself feel–– God, he felt so much. He could feel the grief swallow him up and twist his chest in its death grip. Sometimes, he’d wonder what would happen if it squeezed harder. 

He hadn’t come to terms with your passing, nor would he let himself. He wouldn’t let himself think about anything aside from your absence because he knew the anger would surge up on him, and he knew he would have no self-control once his fists did the talking. If he ever got his hands on the man who caused your death...

Calum pressed his knuckles against the tiled wall and let out a guttural noise, and truth be told, it was more of a growl than anything. He had gotten mad while trying not to get mad. It coursed through him as he shut off the water. It ached in his veins while tossing on his clothes. It stained the whites of his eyes, and it pierced his heart; it was too late for control now.

How could he let himself fall apart like this? You would be deeply disappointed in him, but that didn’t sway his mood swings. Once his temper got the best of him, hope felt lost. He felt lost. He felt lost without you. He could no longer enter a car without violently shaking.

His mother had placed his suit over a chair in the dining room, the note reading “ironed, not fitted– hope it works”. Calum felt sick at the sight of it. He hadn’t given the memorial service a single thought, and he knew he would have to eventually. From the very moment he heard of your service, he knew he would give a speech. You deserved the best damn speech, even if it dried his soul of every emotion. Even if it meant scraping his brain of every single memory of you.

He felt for his mother. Though her support meant the world to him, she had no idea how to edge her son out of his painful silence. He couldn’t muster up the energy or strength to utter a coherent sentence that wasn’t a mumble or nod. He didn’t know what she was thinking or feeling–– she had loved you, too.

The home phone rang once, then twice. Calum stayed put beside the suit as the phone finished ringing and went straight to voicemail.

“Calum Thomas, there is a time and place for ignoring phone calls, but right now is not one of them.”

Mali’s voice echoed throughout the house, and after he didn’t make an effort to move to answer the phone, she continued on.

“Cal,” she sighed. “I– I’m just calling to let you know that we’re dropping by in a few to get ready for–“ Another sigh. The time on the stove read 7:52 in the morning. “For the service. We have the flowers and such. Lilies.”

Your favorite kind of flowers. Calum winced.

“See you then, Cal,” said Mali.

-

“Cal-wal-pal-towel, baby, hand me that bottle of– “

“No, no more for you,” he joked, holding the bottle of whiskey up and out of your reach. He should have known this would cause you to crawl on his lap to stretch yourself out. “Darlin’, ow– ow, don’t put your knee there.” Though Calum chuckled through it, your knee had hit him in a certain area, and it hurt more than he played it off. However, despite his pleads, you continued your expedition, and he wrapped his arms around your waist to tug you down.

“No, no, no, no, no!” you wailed as you placed both of your knees on either side of his hips. This meant you were straddling him, and Calum didn’t know what to think.

“Sorry, sweets,” he said. Calum hid the bottle behind his back, but instead, that only made you press your chest to his so you could get to the whiskey. “Hey, hey, darlin’, please,” he begged, pushing the bottle back and sliding it against the hardwood floor. “You’re wasted, and ya gotta teach tomorrow.”

You huffed, your head falling against his shoulder as you mumbled out, “I don’t wanna.”

“Jus’ show a movie, darlin’.”

“Mhm.”

“Hey,” Calum said and tugged on your waist a bit, but that only made you squirm against him. “N-no, don’t do that.” He grimaced and pushed your hips away from his. This caused you to pout. “Don’t do that either.”

“Why?” You continued on pouting. “You’re makin’ me sad.”

Well, Calum thought, you’re making me horny. But he wouldn’t say that. If he said that, your drunken stupor would find a way to make a joke of it. He knew you. It was either that, or you would tease him until you passed out.

“Sorry,” he replied, voice gruff as he leaned back onto his hands. Him touching you would only make his desires worsen.

And then, you began to giggle. You giggled and giggled, your arms wrapping around his neck while you mumbled his name against his skin. There were two things going through his mind meanwhile, and one was trying to keep the situation in his pants from getting worse. The other was trying to resist temptations.

“You’re so pissed,” said Calum, and that was when you reached around him to grasp his wrists and place his hands back onto your waist. He tried to chuckle through it, but the amount of heat swirling around his brain and his body urged him to elevate the circumstances occurring. “Darlin’.”

“I like it when ya call me that,” you whispered into his skin, and it sent shivers up his spine. “Makes me all tingly inside.”

He hummed–– he didn’t have any other words aside from the ones that would express his current feelings, but he couldn’t say those. He still didn’t know what to say when you moved his hands up and under the material of your sweatshirt, and he could feel every single nerve under his skin dance at the touch.

“I have an issue, Cal,” you mumbled the moment you started kissing up his neck, and he convinced himself that after that, he was officially done for.

“Mm, what is it, baby?” he wondered, voice low with rapture.

“There’s this guy I know,” you said. Your lips had found a dainty spot just under his jaw that made him tense up at the contact. You knew what to do after that. “And he’s so, so responsive. Jus’ makes me wanna lick him clean. But I dunno how to tell him how badly I want him.”

Calum smirked, digging his fingernails gently into the hot skin of your back as you sucked and nibbled on a sensitive spot near his ear. “’m sure he wants you just as badly darlin’,” he sighed. He couldn’t hold back the pleasure any longer; he let his eyes roll back while he let out a subtle groan.

“Yeah?” you breathed. “What makes ya think that?”

He groaned again, this time louder once you began rocking your hips. “Cos’, baby, you’re makin’ him all crazy right now.”

Calum could feel you smile against him, and the two of you soon realized that there was no use for words after that. Your lips were decorating his neck in all kinds of colors, ranging from blues to purples and browns darker than his skin. A moment later, the motion of your hips slowed, and the pressure of your lips left his neck. You rested your head back against his shoulder, and without a word, you soon drifted off to sleep.

He didn’t mind all that much–– he wouldn’t have wanted things to escalate with you as smashed as you were. Solemnly, he stood, careful enough to hold you in his arms without waking you before caring you off to bed. Calum could take care of himself. The next morning, it was as if nothing had happened.

-

He had yet to speak a word on the car ride over to the church. His palms, now imprinted with crescents from the blunt ends of his nails, were painted in sweat. It felt as though the long tie around his neck had slowly started to choke him, and he held back the urge to wheeze in order to alleviate any unwanted attention. Calum wanted to sob, but his body refused.

It refused when he glanced over at the photos adorning a petty folding table by the entrance to the sanctuary. Memories, most shared with him, were all placed on some gaudy tablecloth your mother must have chosen. She was smiling and greeting old friends, but Calum noticed the tears in her eyes. He noticed the pallid color wash over her skin, and he noticed the tight lines by her smile. She had lost her child, her baby.

Calum excused himself to the bathroom until the service began. The photos were haunting him, and the lurking sense of panic that loomed over him had started to creep up the more he surrounded himself with people. He needed to escape for a brief moment of time.

-

“Cal, we ordered take-out the last time we spent a night together,” you said, a graceful smile growing on your cheeks. Your face was blurry and pixelized, but he still thought you were beautiful. “When’s the last time you had a home cooked meal, bub?”

“Bub?” he chuckled, and he could feel his own face light up in reaction to yours. “That’s new.” He noticed you shrug. “Are ya offering to cook me dinner, darlin’? That’s–– I can’t believe that. You? Nice? Hah.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Oh, very funny. I’m only offering because you’re like, never not traveling.”

“I have a house,” he said, “in LA.”

Once again, you shrugged. “And, do you cook?”

Calum didn’t reply, but he couldn’t suppress the twitching grin.

“Thought so.”

“What would you make me, darlin’?” he asked, setting his phone against the wall above the hotel sink in order to get ready for bed. “And if you say– “

“Pasta.”

Calum rolled his eyes. “–pasta.”

You laughed lightly, and for a moment, he lost himself in admiration of you. All you were doing was working on your lessons for the school week, and you looked too damn cute doing so. Ever since the day he met you, Calum knew you were going to be a teacher. It was in your nature–– you were kind and loving, and you made sure every toad and stray kitten on the street knew you loved them. And, you loved kids. You had talked about wanting a few of your own one day. He had no doubt that you would make a great mum.

-

You were never going to have kids. You were never going to get married. You were never going to see another sunrise or sunset. You were never going to grow old with the person you love. You were never going to take another late-night drive. You were never going to celebrate another holiday. You were never going to adopt a pet and name it Freckles. You were never going to hold his hand through sad movies anymore. You were never going to burn cookies for your child’s bake sale. You were never going to celebrate another birthday. You were never going to write the novel you longed to write. You were never going to laugh at his dumb jokes again. You were never going to buy a house in the suburbs. You were never going to reunite with old friends after years apart. You were never going to sing your favorite songs again. You were never going to tell him you loved him. He was never again going to tell you he loved you.

-

“You’re–– shit, you’re here early!” you exclaimed, wrapping your arms around his waist in a tight embrace, but it was over quick as you ushered him inside. “The cake is in the oven, so at least now you can help me ice it! Joy’s literally gonna cry until she floods the house, I hope ya know.”

He laughed and threw his bags by the front door. Calum was undeniably at his happiest around you. “Oh, I know. And she’ll think I had nothing to do with any of it, I hope you know.”

“Psh.” You rolled your eyes as you darted around the small kitchen of your place. “I’ll give you credit. You painted the pottery.”

And, quite literally at that. Calum had found a place in LA that let you paint pre-made pottery, and he had been on FaceTime with you as he tried his best to emulate your artist skills onto a large platter. Your mention of the gift reminded him to retrieve it from his luggage.

“I figured out how to crumb a cake, so tonight’s about to get real lit,” you said in a teasing tone. “If this cake tastes like shit, I’ll just tell her you made it.”

“Uh, no you will not,” Calum replied and poked your waist as he set the gift down onto the little bit of counter space you hadn’t taken up with baking supplies. “’m a good baker, and you– “

“I am also a good baker, Mr. Hood!” you yelped.

“Uh huh, Mrs. Hood.”

“Mrs. Hood?” you asked, eyebrows quirking with the question. “Are we playing house now? Can I be Mr. Hood, then?”

Calum snickered as he dipped his finger into the icing in the Kitchen-Aid. “Gonna wife you up.”

“I don’t think your girlfriend would like the sound of that.”

His smirk slipped into a frown at the thought of her. She was lovely, but she wasn’t you.

-

Calum had spent too long with his butt on layers of toilet paper, and he had slowly grown annoyed with the number of people coming in and out of the bathroom. His hand shook as it unlocked his stall, and it continued to shake through turning on the faucet and splashing water on his face. Meanwhile, a child had walked in, and it took Calum a matter of seconds to realize that he did not recognize this kid one bit. Had it been one of your students?

“Are you Cawum?” the toddler asked, his beady brown eyes gazing up at the taller boy, almost in admiration.

Calum replied with a nod. He hadn’t heard his own voice in ages it felt, not even when rehearsing his speech. He had no paper to read off of, just feelings.

“Auntie told me t’come get you,” the small boy said. “’m Thomas, but my mum used t’call me Tommy.”

Calum furrowed his brows and nodded once more as he allowed the toddler to escort him out into the lobby. There, folks were making their way into the sanctuary. They all appeared too happy for him, even when there was hardly a single smile in sight. He wanted to believe he was the only one aching. He wanted to believe his sadness surpassed theirs.

Though he had been wringing his brain of every memory shared with you, he felt unprepared as he stared down at the sea of eyes facing him. It was halfway through the service, and he still hadn’t cried. He hadn’t broken down, he hadn’t emoted. At that moment, he felt nothing. A part of him expected the words to come flooding to him, but they were stuck in his throat as the anxiety gripped onto his shoulders. His hands were numb against the wooden podium. Calum had to work through the pain, so he opened up his mouth.

“I was supposed to– “ He glanced over to his mother, and she gave him the weakest smile, but it was a smile nonetheless. “I was supposed to write something. I was supposed t-to think of an amazing thing she had done when we were friends. I was supposed to wrack my brain for something. You’re just– you’re gonna have to cut me some slack for now. She deserves something spoken from the heart.”

Calum could feel it building. The dull twinge had sparked low in his gut, but he had to keep going.

“Nobody– “ He took a breath. “–nobody ever imagines having to say goodbye. And the sad truth is, they’ll most likely never get the chance.” He closed his eyes. It would all be over soon–– he just had to remind himself so. “I jus’ didn’t think. I’d spent so much time without her, but I always knew I was gonna come back for her. We would eat ramen in our pajamas at three in the morning, and I’d consider it the best day ever. Even through playful insults, she was my world.”

Calum sniffed and continued on. “I was gonna come back for her no matter what. I told her that from the very start. From avoiding sidewalk cracks so we wouldn’t break our mums’ backs, all the way to skinny dipping in the lake by the old camp we met out. But I guess people didn’t really need t’know that.” There were a few laughs. “I was supposed to come back for good. It wasn’t gonna be today or tomorrow, but it was gonna be for her, and it was gonna be for good. All we needed was time. Time to figure out who we were. Time to settle into ourselves before we settled together. We were going to better ourselves so we could be better together. I– “ Calum let the taut string in his chest snap. It had been waiting for weeks to do so. His tears flowed faster than he ever thought they could.

“I was supposed t’come back,” he said through trembling lips and spurring sobs. “And s-she waited, because God, she always had to pu-u-ut others before h-herself. She waited, and it took me t-too long to figure out how-how lucky I truly was.” Calum could no longer see the people before him through the haze of his tears. “I never got t-to thank her for being the best thing I-I ever-r knew. I never got-got t’thank her for making her wh-who I am today. She has every right t’know, but she-she won’t. She won’t see the wo-world like I planned on showing her.”

Calum took a breath to steady himself, and the sobs died down as well. “But we’re not here to wallow in sadness.” He shook his head multiple times. His temples ached. “We’re not here to join grief counseling. We’re here to talk a-about the amazing person she was.” He glanced at the photo of you to his left, and he still couldn’t believe it. He still couldn’t believe the world had lost you. “You were so amazing, darlin’. I-I love you very much.”

His eyes were trained on his feet until the end of the gathering. Even with the light pat on his back from his mum, Calum couldn’t look at another soul. People feasted in the room next door, but he didn’t eat a single bite. The only person he had given his attention to was Thomas as he darted back and forth between your sister and your mum.

The car ride home was silent as well, and not even Mali could lighten the mood like she always seemed to do.

That night as Calum stared at the ceiling of his childhood bedroom, his life with you flashed through his head. As he cried and cried, he swore, somehow, even with his skeptic heart, that you had said to him, “it’s okay, Cal. I’m here. You’re okay. I’m okay.”

[my-creative-hell]

Blind (Avengers au)

“Hey Hannah!” Iden calls from the other side of the room, Hannah automatically turning her head to look in the direction of the noise, though she obviously wouldn’t see anything.

Hannah had been blind for as long as she could remember, sight a distant memory of the past, not that that bothered her anymore. All Hannah could see were intense lights, and sometimes silhouettes thanks to that, but everything else was a mystery to her.

But she had gotten used to it, wearing steel toed and heeled boots to create noise whenever she walked, using the sound to ‘see’ the world around her in a sense. And when she was fighting or needed extra help, her ability would help her, the physical manifestations of shadows helping her navigate the world around her.

Using the sound of Iden’s voice, Hannah moves around the living room, bringing the cup of tea she had been making, the space mapped perfectly in her mind from living there so long until she knew she was beside her twin, able to feel the heat coming off of him, and able to hear him breathing.

“Yeah, what’s up?” She asks, instinctively looking down at him as she speaks, the behaviour learnt from pretending she could see so people would leave her alone in public. Plus, it made conversations much less awkward feeling.

Iden shifts on the sofa before answering, the material rustling underneath him as he picks up his own drink from the wooden table in front of him, taking a quick sip before he answers the question.

“Grave told me she had something to show you, and wants you to go into her office to see it.” Iden explains, Hannah smiling slightly. Grave was the youngest on the team, sixteen years old and already the most chaotic, albeit intelligent member. She was also the only one who didn’t know Hannah was blind; she was so good at playing the role of a sighted person.

“Ah, well I guess I’ll go see what she has in store.” Hannah jokes as she smiles at Iden, knowing he would be smiling at her as she turns on her heel, swiftly moving through the halls to the room next to Grave’s bedroom, her self-proclaimed office.

She could hear movement from inside, no doubt Grave doing something else unknown within the room, working on some new equipment or altering something she had stolen from somewhere to annoy people she didn’t like.

Hannah opens the door, stepping into the room as it swings open, and pulling it closed gently behind her. The noise Grave was making gave Hannah an exact idea of where she was in the room, Hannah moving to that spot at an even pace, not wanting to risk startling her or getting hit with who knows what.

She approaches the noise, a smile on her face as she raises her eyebrow, looking at the rough place she knew Grave’s head would be resting, very thankful for her blacked out eyes that didn’t allow you to know exactly where she was looking.

“Hey hun, what’s goin on?” Hannah asks, smiling, cocking her head as she listens to the shuffling noises Grave is making as she stops whatever it was she was doing when Hannah approached her.

Grave turns to look at her properly very nervous and excited, it showing through on her voice as she speaks, the sounds very high-pitched and elated but also slightly wavering and unsure.

“I um… I have plans for a new suit I’m working on a-and I wanted you to see it and tell me what you think!” Grave exclaims happily, though Hannah’s heart stuttered a bit. Shit. Obviously Hannah can’t fucking read, so she was going to have to bullshit.

“Oh, sure.” Hannah smiles, knowing Grave returns it as she begins to search for whatever it was she wanted to show to Hannah, setting down a sheet of paper Hannah could tell was probably almost as big as the table she set it on, the breeze being given off as it was set down being quite large.

“Here they are!” Grave exclaims, and Hannah didn’t need sight to know about the large grin that was currently on her face as she presents her work to Hannah.

Not wanting to admit to anything, Hannah does what she has been doing for years. She pretends, tilting her head down and shifting her eyes as if she was studying or reading something on the sheet. Hannah scrunches her face in confusion to add more believability to her claims as she stands up, plastering a slightly sheepish smile on her face.

“You know, reading has never been my forte, why don’t you just explain it to me, I’m sure I’d understand it better that way.” Hannah explains, smiling and hoping Grave would go along with it so she wouldn’t have to be what she feared would be a very awkward conversation with the younger girl.

She hears Grave shift and waits for her response, not wanting the awkward situation she fears to come to fruition, and thankfully, Grave rolls with it, voice excited as she speaks.

“Of course! There’s a faster reload for any shooty shooty bois, the suit is lighter so it’s easier to run, but it’s also stronger. It’s made out of a new metal I made-” Grave pauses as Hannah looks confused at that last part, pulling her eyebrows together in shock and confusion.

“Oh boy, you made a new metal?” Hannah questions, knowing Grave’s mind was mulling over how to explain her answer and contain her obvious excitement and happiness while doing it, though Hannah could clearly hear it no matter what she did.

“Yeah! It was just a thing I made out of boredom but then I realized it could be useful so…” Grave trails off, excitement evident and Hannah can feel her trying not to bounce around too much if at all, possibly not wanting to seem too childish, making Hannah smile properly, the grin lighting up her face as she speaks, voice gentle and kind.

“Well, I think that’s very cool and an excellent showcase of your intelligence, this is super amazing.” She compliments, knowing anything Grave would be creating would be an amazing marvel of technology, whether she could see it or not.

“Thank you!!!” Hannah can hear the surprised expression on her face as she speaks, clearly trying even harder not to jump around or anything that would so clearly show the happiness and excitement Hannah can feel pouring off of her, making Hannah’s grin so much more genuine.

“Of course, hun, its not problem, you know we all love everything you do.” Hannah points out, and it was the truth. Grave was the youngest, but she was a valuable member of the team and they all loved her like a family of bigger siblings, encouraging her intelligence and her knack for inventing incredible devices that had helped them out of so many sticky situations.

Hannah can hear Grave gripping onto her shirt in her excitement, the fabric being pulled upwards, Hannah pretty certain Grave was biting her shirt to stop herself jumping around, making her even happier when she hears Graves much more excited voice.

“I’m!!! Glad!!!” Grave exclaims happily, Hannah knowing the huge grin that was no doubt etched into her face as she speaks, making Hannah laugh lightly, her own happiness clear in her expressions.

“I’m very happy you are.” Hannah expresses this earnestly. Hannah and Grave were two of the closest within the group, adopting a very family like dynamic they both enjoyed, and it brightened any of Hannah’s days when Grave was having a genuinely nice time.

The tippy tapping of Grave’s shoes on the floor makes Hannah laugh now, her excitement clearly bubbling over into more physical actions Hannah could clearly make out, showing her just how happy Grave was in the best way.

“It’s lovely knowing how excited you are.” Hannah states happily as she listens to her younger counterpart tapping on the floor in her happiness, a pure sound to Hannah’s ears, ricocheting only slightly through the room, since it was pretty soundproofed due to all the equipment Grave had managed to fit in there.

“I-I’m… I’m not. I am a normal amount of happy right now. Totally fine. This is business stuff.” Grave tries to justify, only making the situation funnier to Hannah, making her laugh slightly as she jokes in response.

“Mhm, sure hun, cause you normally tap your feet and bite your shirt when you’re just happy.” Hannah raises one of her eyebrows in a questioning gesture, but the blooming grin on her face shows that there’s no bite or rudeness behind the statement at all.

“I’m not doing that!” Grave tries to defend, but Hannah can hear that her feet are still tapping on the floor, though she does hear them stop after some shuffling, meaning Grave has most likely placed one foot over the other to stop the tapping. “Okay, maybe I was-” She admits, making Hannah laugh even more internally as she can hear the defeat in her voice at being caught out by her.

“You definitely were.” Hannah deadpans the statement despite laughing inside. She slowly starts to hear tapping on the floor again as Grave’s feet move on their own, seemingly assigning Grave to her fate.

“…Okay I was.” Grave resigns herself, and Hannah can practically hear her internal sigh as her feet return to tapping, indicating that she was still overall happy and excited, making Hannah smile again.

“Thank you for admitting it.” Hannah teases, her smile twisting to be jokey as she faces Grave, who she can tell is probably pulling a small scowl in response, scrunching up her nose.

“You’re welcome.” Grave says bluntly, putting on an angry voice in an attempt to fool Hannah, though it comes off as more playful than angry, dramatic antics being a sort of second language for Grave.

“Aw, are you trying to be mad at me? That hurts my feelings.” Hannah says in a sad voice pulling a stricken face as she speaks, having years of practice at this from her twin brother and other team-mates.

“I’m sorry!” Grave exclaims, making Hannah feel bad for a second for convincing her she was upset with her.

“I’m just joking hun, you know that.” Hannah reassures, smiling at Grave as she says this, voice soft and gentle as she subconsciously tells Grave not to worry and to calm down.

“It looks very convincing though…” Grave continues, making Hannah smile and raise an eyebrow, sipping her cooled tea as she answers, the smile much more sarcastic.

“That’s because I have a brother.” She explains to Grave. She could make her twin feel bad constantly, and he knew all of her tricks and faces, and yet somehow, she would still pull; him up on it and make him believe her.

“I… good point.” Grave concedes, making Hannah laugh as she listens.

“I know, right.” She laughs, smile wide as she answers the younger teen in front of her. Having a sibling makes you a master of deception, at least, in her case it did.

“Do you want me to make you a suit? It can be customized and stuff.” Grave asks, catching Hannah off guard. She hadn’t thought about Grave asking her this. The suits Hannah wore were designed to help the tiny amount of actual sight she had left, and allow her to see her surroundings using her other senses.

“Much as I would love that, my suits are pretty specially designed to help certain things about me…” Hannah explains vaguely, not wanting to go into the details to Grave, though she fully realised today might be the day she would have to explain her blindness to the younger counterpart.

“I can make the suit like that to help you!” Grave exclaims, further shocking Hannah, making her worried as the truth was coming closer and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to face it again. Being blind didn’t bother her, but the possibility that she would be pitied for it and treated like she couldn’t do anything because of it did.

“It’s um…” Hannah laughs nervously, her words failing her as her brain tries to stop the conversation out of fear. She didn’t know why she was so worried, she was sure Grave wouldn’t care, and yet, there was a small nagging portion of her brain that said otherwise.

“It’s fine if you don’t wanna tell me. You don’t have to.” Grave reassures and Hannah can hear her worried and concerned expression, making her laugh slightly,

“It’s not even that serious I just don’t want any pity from anyone.” Hannah explains as she laughs. Maybe she was downplaying it a little, but to her, it wasn’t serious, it was just her life.

“I mean…” Grave shrugs as she speaks, the fabric of her clothes rustling. “If it makes you feel better, I have a prosthetic arm. I understand the dumb pity you get from people.” Grave explains, making Hannah smile. Though she could never see the arm, she did always know it wasn’t flesh and bone, it sounded too different to her. No normal person would pick up on it, knowing Grave it would be a very elaborate and convincing prosthetic, but Hannah’s blindness actually aided her there.

“Oh I know, I can tell.” Hannah smiles, her voice soft and kind as she speaks, not wanting to come off as rude or sarcastic to Grave.

She can tell Grave is smiling as she hears her prosthetic make some small beeping noises, Grave clearly going it to prove her point about the arm and it was probably a fun thing to do, to be honest.

“That’s always sounded so cool.” Hannah laughs as she listens, smiling as the beeping noises fill her head somehow managing to sound as happy as Grave in their pitch and tone.

“I’m glad you like it!” Grave exclaims, making Hannah smile again with her enthusiasm that was no doubt written all over her face in a goofy smile.

“I really like it, I’ve always loved how creative it sounds.” Hannah elaborates, listening to the arm as it beeps as Grave either fiddles with it or makes it beep to make her smile more, she can’t tell.

“It’s just a song I heard that I wanted to turn into beeps.” Hannah can hear Grave shrug nonchalantly as she speaks, though her voice is still happy.

“That makes a lot of sense actually.” Hannah admits, raising an eyebrow in amusement at Grave’s statement. She was known for doing strange and amazing things, and this was no exception.

Graves tapping on the floor gets louder and Hannah can only assume she’s attempting to quiet her feet down, much to her amusement with the situation.

“You okay there?” Hannah asks in a teasing tone as she listens no doubt to Grave’s growing embarrassment as she tries to stop her feet from tapping on the floor.

“I’m fine, what are you talking about-” Grave asks as she continues to tap, amusing Hannah further as she raises her eyebrows as she speaks.

“You’re tapping hun.” Hannah reminds her cheekily before elaborating. “I can hear it.” She smiles gently as she listens.

Hannah can hear Grave presumably pushing her feet down with her hands to attempt to stop them from tapping as she speaks again, denial in her voice.

“Nope. No I’m not.” She says as Hannah grins at her, so close to bursting into laughter.

“My hearing never fails me, so don’t even lie.” She chastises in a light manner, joking with Grave about the situation.

“That wasn’t me. It was… my arm. I’m not tapping.” Grave lies, making Hannah laugh and be even more sarcastic.

“Mhm, sure hun. If you’re not tapping them I’ve also gone deaf.” She jokes, face like a disappointed mother, though they both knew that was for show and not serious at all.

“Fine…” Hannah can hear Grave pouting and it makes her laugh internally. “I was tapping.” She admits and Hannah has to stop herself from being too annoying, opting for a wide smile as she speaks.

“Thank you! My hearing continues to be my best attribute.” She laughs at the statement, which couldn’t be any more true for her as a person.

“Hhh will my feet ever shut the fuck up-” Grave complains, making Hannah laugh loudly as she tries to stop them from their excited tapping on the floor.

“I don’t know, maybe once you calm down a bit they will stop on their own.” Hannah suggests, shrugging in an unhelpful manner. Even if she wanted to help, she couldn’t see the feet to stop them, though she could probably fathom a pretty good guess of where they were.

“But um, what were you gonna say before I interrupted you?” Grave reminds Hannah as she redirects the conversation. Hannah flounders for a second as she is reminded of the truth she still had to tell the youngest member of the group. She huffs loudly, plastering a smile on her face in an attempt to lighten the news.

“Oh, um, I was gonna say that, and this is super funny. I’m kind of… blind.” Hannah admits as she looks at what is probably Grave in front of her, hoping she would have the response she wants.

“Coolio.” She hears Grave snap her fingers and loses it, laughing as she got the perfect response she was expecting from the youngest member of the ensemble.

“That was the most you response ever-” Hannah says as she laughs, wiping some brimming tears from her eyes as she does. “Just… promise not to make it weird.” Hannah pleads as she stands with Grave in the room.

“I won’t, promise.” Hannah can hear Grave smiling and it makes her smile herself, gentle and warm and full of happiness.

“Thanks.”Hann

[brianc521]

I’m Yours

Shawn was starting to get worried. 

You were constantly working, like never really having a day off. 

And that was on purpose, he just didn’t know it yet. And you were certain he was going to kill you when he finds out why, but it was worth it to you.

Shawn was always coming home from little trips and his tours with real expensive gifts. Rings, necklaces, earrings, clothes, shoes, home decor, literally anything. And as much as you loved it, and insisted you didn’t need it, he still got it for you. 

There are two pieces of jewelry that he’s given you that you have yet to take off. The ring he got you when he was 15, and the heart shaped necklace he got you for Christmas this past year.

The ring was so special to you, and as much as he wants you to wear the other one he’s gotten you, you just can’t seem to take this one off. 

He got it from Walmart when you guys had celebrated your one year anniversary. He hadn’t been signed yet, and the most money he had was birthday money or chore money. So he saved up 50 dollars so he could afford to get you this ring.

It meant so much to you, because he got it before he had the money. To you that represented your relationship, because he had you before the money and the fame. It proved that no matter what he did or how much he had you loved him.

You loved being ‘marked’ as Shawn’s girl. Because that’s who you are, Shawn’s girl. But just as much as you are Shawn’s girl, he’s your boy. 

And that’s why you’ve been working, everyday for the past two months. 

You were determined to get him something special, it was just taking you longer to get the money for it. 

You weren’t expecting your car battery to go out, making you have to dip into his gift fund to get a new one. And then for your dishwasher to start spewing water all over your kitchen which totally diminished the fund. 

It was supposed to be a ‘Published the Album’ congrats gift, but since you were set back by a good two months, it’s taken you longer to get it. 

But you finally did it, this last paycheck should give you enough to pay rent and get his watch. 

Geoff was supposed to be your cover so you could sneak out and go get it without Shawn knowing, but Geoff sucked at being a cover.

Shawn was calling you non stop on the drive to the mall and when Geoff texted saying ‘yeah he’s scared you’re gonna leave him, you need to get back here ASAP’ you were slowly freaking out. 

“Hey Baby,” You answered his incoming call.

“Y/n?” He questioned.

“This is she, how may she help you?” You teased, hoping he would relax smile even.

“Where are you? Why weren’t you picking up?”

“I was driving Bubs,” You say walking into the mall, struggling to open the heavy door and hold your phone, keys and purse.

“Oh,” He sighed. “I’m sorry, I’m just a bit, off.”

You frown, thinking back to Geoff’s text. “How about a date tonight? You and Me, dress up for each other, candle lit dinner, we’ll talk about it?” You say looking around and spotting the store.

“Really?” He asks, you can picture his little smile.

“Yeah, been dying to see you. I’m off for a few days, I want to spend them with my boy.” 

He sighs, biting his lip. “You’re really off?”

“Yeah,” 

“I,” He stops. “I missed you.” 

Your heart shatters, plummeting to your stomach. “I missed you too Baby, I love you.” 

“I love you more,” He says quickly.

“Mhm, so you think,” You murmur, walking into the store.

“It’s because I do,” 

“Then prove it to me tonight?”

“I’ll pick you up at six.” He says.

“Alright Baby, I’ll see you then.”

“I love you,” 

“I love you Baby,” You say before hanging up and talking with the lady behind the glass counter.

**

“Wow you’re pretty,” Shawn sighs when you answer the door, slipping your heels on.

“You’re pretty pretty yourself,” You grin, smiling at him.

You can see the worry and exhaustion on his face, and it makes you wonder how long this thought has been running through his head, and the longer you thought about it the more it made you feel like an awful girlfriend.

“You ready?” He asks, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“Yeah, let’s go.” You smile softly, taking his offered hand and kissing his cheek before locking your door behind you. 

**

Dinner was good, and you and Shawn were so wrapped up in your conversation that you were still sitting at the table 45 minutes after they had taken your empty plates away. 

The waiter walked by to check on you guys every now and then, receiving the same answer every time; ‘We’re good thanks!’

Shawn was smiling, laughing, and finally looked like he wasn’t so worried and you swallowed nervously as you looked at your purse, where the box wrapped with a black bow waited for him.

“Okay, I want to talk to you about something.” You say softly, reaching out and taking hold of his hands.

His eyes widen and his face flushes a pale white, his heart rate jacking up. He’s ready to beg you to stay, speech already running through his head when you interrupt his thoughts.

“I’ve been an awful girlfriend lately.” You start, him shaking his head quickly. “I know, and I’m sorry but I’m hoping this will make up for it.” You say reaching over and pull the box out, sliding it across the white table cloth.

“What is this?” He looks at the box with wide eyes.

“It’s the reason I’ve been a little absent lately.”

He looks up at you, in shock. “You didn’t-” He gasps out.

“I wanted to, I really really wanted to.” 

He sighs, shoulders dropping a bit. “Baby you don’t have to spend your money on me.” 

“Shut up!” You stop him. “Shut up and open it.” 

He smiles at you, before pulling the bow open and taking the lid off the box, gasping when he finds the watch he’d wanted sitting perfectly inside. 

“No you didn’t,” He says looking up at you, “Shut the fuck up.” He looks back down, gasping again when he sees it. “Baby shut up! No you didn’t.” 

“I did.” 

He’s in shock, complete shock and he doesn’t know whether to kiss the shit out of you or to yell at you for spending this much on him.

“How, why, when?” He stutters.

“Well it took me way longer to save for than I was expecting. The car battery and washer practically made me have to start over, but I was finally able to get it today.”

He just stares at you, taking in the smile on your face before it alters.

“You like it right? I got the right one?” You worry, heart pounding in your chest.

“I love it,” He blurts, leaning across the table to kiss you sweetly. “I love it so much. Thank you Baby,” 

“You’re welcome, now put it on.”

He laughs and gently takes it out of the box, smiling at you as you help him clip it in place. “It’s perfect,” He sighs, smiling at you. 

“I love you, and I know I had you worried that I was gonna leave or whatever.” You ramble. “But I’m right here and I just wanted to, I don’t know spoil you?”

He grins at you, cheeks tinting pink. “Spoil me?” 

You blush now, now that he’s scooting closer and giving you a suggestive look.

“You just,” You sigh, finally telling him the whole story. “You always buy me things, expensive things, and I love it. It makes me feel like a Queen and so spoiled. I don’t need it, and I would cherish anything you’d give me but I wanted you to feel that too. Because you treat me so well, so I picked up extra shifts, baby sat every weekend, sold shit online, ate ramen and would ride my car till I was below the empty line in every attempt to save money.” 

He’s listening intently, waiting for you to be done so he could tell you he loves you so fucking much.

“I wanted to buy you this watch and spoil you, and treat you for once. But I also wanted something that I bought for you to wear. Because I wear this ring and this necklace and while everyone knows its from you, to me it’s my way of knowing I’m yours. I just wanted you to have something so you knew you were mine.” 

He smiles, really wide, kissing you quickly, catching you off guard.

“I’m yours, I will always be yours.” He whispers against your cheek. “And your mine.” 

You smile, hugging him. 

“I love it, almost as much as I love you. I can’t believe I ever thought those things. Deep down I knew they weren’t true but you had me so worried. But Baby you don’t ever have to do that to get me something. I’d much rather you have actual food, and drive safely with a full tank of gas, actually take days off and not pick up extra shifts. I just want you and your time.”

“I just wanted to get you something for once.” You pout.

“I know, and I love it. But I want to show you something.” He grins, digging into his pocket, pulling his keys out. He spreads the few keys and keychains around before he’s smiling and showing you.

“This,” He smiles brightly. “Is my favorite thing ever.” 

You gasp softly when you see it.

“You remember this?” He asks, chuckling. “You made me this bracelet when we were 16, you and Liyah were making friendship bracelets and you went home that night and made me one.”

“You wore it everyday, I don’t think I ever saw you take it off.” You mumble.

“Well, until it broke when I was on tour.” He frowns. “I was so devastated, I called Liyah to see if she could fix it, or if she could tell me how to fix it. but she said it was lost cause, and that she’d make me a new one if I wanted, but I didn’t. I wanted this one, because you made it. And it was mine. This is the closest I can get to wearing it, as a key chain.” 

“I can’t believe you still have it.” You say looking at him.

“Um, the um earrings you got me,” He laughs, “When I wore them, that was a bad time.” He laughs harder, causing you to laugh. “Anyway, they are punctured through the edge of your senior picture that is hidden in my guitar case.” He bites his lip. “And the book you gave me, um, ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ the one that you wrote in and circled all your favorite lines, that’s sitting in my nightstand next to the scarf you left at my house.” 

“Shawn,” You sigh.

“So as much as I love this watch, which I do, I’m already marked as yours in so many other ways.” 

You smile, looking down at his wrist that is now decorated with his new watch.

“I’m yours Y/n L/n,” Shawn whispers.

“I’m yours Shawn Mendes.” You whisper back, surging up and kissing him deeply.