#and basically all of the cookies now are Christmas themed. which. whatever

[florida3exclamationpoints]

.

[sokkas-honour]

i have an idea if that’s fine ! how about headcanons for spending christmas with keith kogane (and giving home the best christmas ever because this baby deserves it) tysm !! 💕

he does deserve an amazing christmas, but he got my space christmas instead.

tis the season - keith x reader

pairing: keith x reader (gn)

warnings/notes: this was long

okay so, post show finale, keith is very often off earth, going from planet to planet to help those who had been affected by the galra empire. you tagged along, helping him have a partner that he could count on light years away from his home planet.

keith had been away from earth for years, meaning he hadn’t even remotely celebrated holidays in general, much less christmas.

so when you joined him in space, you made a point to keep track of the days on the gregorian calendar so you could be sure to celebrate christmas on the right day.

as the holiday soon started to roll around, you discreetly started to collect things to try and make the holiday as traditional as possible but being this far away from earth did make it hard, but you did what could with what you had. you were smart enough to bring cookie dough for christmas cookies but who knew if the ship had any sort of kitchen. (spoiler alert, it did!!)

so, you talked with a few of the blade of marmora members on if you could somehow get some sort of tree esque alien plant to use as a substitute christmas tree.

thankfully for you, axca mentionned of some sort of a small tree on the next planet you were set to settle in for awhile, having just restocked on supplies.

so as soon as you guys landed and had some free time, you eclipsed yourself from the group and tried to talk to the local population in order to find a way to procure one of the trees for yourself, christmas being a little under two weeks away. and they were extremely useful, helping you pick the best one for your limited decorations.

so you picked one of the storage rooms that no one used, them being there in case of excess supplies and decided that was the room where you’d set everything up so in the room the actually not that small, small tree being placed on top of one of the empty crates.

for decorations, you just scavenged for loose string all over the ship and the alien planet, anything that could either hold your decorations or you could use as a garland.

you ended up only finding cool rock looking rocks of various colours to use as ornaments but it’s the thought that counts. you managed to pierce the rocks to put the string through, meaning you could just tie a not at the top of the loop and set them strategically around the surprisingly many branches of the tree.

for the garland around it, you managed to find some vines on the planet which got you excited, you finally found something very green for the green and red theme you were trying to have to fully emulate christmas.

lucky for you, you found red flowers on the planet you were currently on and picked a few to put around the tree and thread the stem of it through the hole you had punched in each rock.

the night of christmas eve, you slithered out of keith’s arm that was draped over you while he slept, going to the kitchen in order to start baking them so hed have fresh cookies in the morning (and maybe the rest of the crew but they had to deal with the alien substitutes)

so you spent the early hours of the morning in the kitchen, managing to find what you thought was a galran cookbook that included their own form of cookies so you made a couple of batches for the crew while you cooked the cookie dough you had sneaked onto the ship.

getting a bunch of unique gifts while you’re travelling is hard but you somehow managed to find a uniquely carved knife by some of the local population. you nearly wrapped it with whatever paper you could muster and placed it right under your makeshift christmas tree.

now keith had gotten a bit suspicious when he looked for you during down time and was unable to find you, getting a simple “i was exploring” excuse more than once definitely didn’t answer his question.

it was even more confusing when axca mentionned that you hadn’t been present much during a time dedicated to helping rebuild houses but unbeknownst to them, you had already finished the ones you were assigned and were currently conversing with the locals on local delicacies/objects to maybe gift keith.

he wanted to confront you about it but for the last two weeks, it seemed to him that you were ignoring him and it definitely brought his mood down.

you had also somehow managed to find voltron merch used from back when they were basically superstars. you grabbed a standard voltron formation stuffed animal as well as a red lion, hoping he wouldn’t mind you getting his first lion as well as the color of his previous suit. (which you also wrapped in scrap paper).

while you were in the kitchen, taking cookies out of the oven, you were surprised to find keith looking at you from the doorway.

“why are you making cookies this early in the morning?” he was only half awake as kosmo passed him, coming to sniff the cookies.

“you’ll find out in a second, want one?” you extended the fresh out of the oven sugar cookies to him which he gladly took, surpise on his face as he realised they were from earth.

“you had cookie dough from earth and didn’t tell me?”

“that’s not the only secret i kept, come on.” you grabbed a cookie for yourself then grabbed his wrist to drag him to the storage unit.

and when you opened the door, his face lit up at the little makeshift christmas scene he saw in front of him.

“merry christmas keith!” you exclaimed, still waiting for a vocal reaction as keith almost seemed frozen on the spot.

“you did all of this?”

“yup, i even have presents, open them!”

this man felt his heart swell immensely, not believing he had someone who cared so much about him that they recreated a holiday he hadn’t celebrated in ages, a signifiant other that thoughtful.

he feels so guilty that he didn’t get you anything but it beyond thankful.

he spots to makeshift mistletoe and he smirked, grabbing it and placing it over your heads so you two could kiss, having your first christmas morning kiss together.

“you didn’t have to do this y/n.”

“well i wanted to, i was so excited to spend christmas with you on earth but it probably wouldn’t be possible for awhile so i brought christmas to space!” he thought your reasoning was just adorable so he kissed you on the forehead.

“merry christmas y/n.”

“merry christmas keith.”

people i tag for voltron: @alteasmoon @biqherosix

[mistaeq]

since christmas is coming, how about some headcanons for preparation for christmas and baking with the bucci gang? ✨💖

Bucciarati Gang: Baking and Christmas HCs

TW // none

This was so fun to write, plus I put a lot of effort into editing the images! I'm so happy I managed to post this as soon as possible ~ thank you so much for the suggestion, memory♡

Bucciarati Gang Baking and Christmas Headcanons with a neutral!reader

WORD COUNT: 2.5k

GIORNO GIOVANNA

He's never really tried to bake something, to be honest Giorno never had the occasion to even think about trying, in his past. So when Christmas approaches and you suggest the two of you try to bake something for the holidays, he's incredibly suprised and looks forward to it at the same time.

"Baking? Me...? That's sweet y/n, but I'm not sure I'm made for this."

He lets you be the one who does the shopping to buy what you need to bake whatever the two of you have in mind, plus he decided what ingredients to use in the recipe and what to bake.

Get ready for man bun Giorno, while you bake! He won't resist tying his golden hair up.

Christmas stuff doesn't have to be forcibly Christmas related, does it? Anything edible will be fine, and Giorno can't resist when he comes across the recipe for sunflower shaped cupcakes. Luckily you have everything you need to make them, you're just in awe for Giorno's inexperienced ideas.

Let this boy be the one to use the sac-à-poche to make the petals of the sunflowers. Since he's the one whose stand has nature related powers, it sounds just good for him to be the one who makes the petals with the frosting!

"I became one with Gold Experience!"

The two of you are concentrating on the chocolate chips to put in the middle of the sunflowers when you hear the signature sound of Gold Experience creating something. Your eyebrows raise when you see a real sunflower in the stand's hand, and giggle. "Thank you Gold, but I don't think we can put real flowers in the cake."

While you wait for the cake part of the cupcakes to be ready, the two of you are gonna choose a flower for every gang member, and create Christmas decorations with it thanks to Giorno's stand power. Abbacchio is gonna hate it so damn much. It gives you life for it's definitely hilarious.

BRUNO BUCCIARATI

Bucciarati is probably the one who gave the idea. In his mind, he wanted to bake with all of the gang, but for some reasons, all of them declined, you may never know it's because they wanted to let you have some time with Bruno, the two of you only. Abbacchio convinced Mista and Narancia.

"Who knows why nobody can join us... nevermind, it'll be the two of us, amore."

The two of you go doing the shopping together, so you can confront each other and decide what to buy while you're at the supermarket directly. Bruno enjoys doing the shopping with you.

Bruno loves Christmas, above all if it's with the gang - basically his family - and with you. So, he's gonna choose something more classic than Giorno's cupcakes. Chocolate chips cookies, the most popular ones, a must for christmas. Plus, he can't help but admit those remind him of his outfit.

"I'm... lowkey dressed like a cookie, ain't I?"

I bet Bucciarati's gonna be the ninety percent of your self control on how many chocolate chips to put in every cookie, and how to blame you, it's literally delicious. Plus, he can't lie. He enjoys seeing you so enthusiastic about it.

"Come on Bruno, it's not that big of a deal, just a chocolate chip more..." you insist, when all of a sudden, a metallic blue arm crosses your sight, and the bowl full of batter that was in your arms is now closed by a giant zipper. Your gaze automatically electrocutes Bucciarati. "It's not fair to use Sticky Fingers!"

When he unzips the bowl, you manage to throw in more chocolate chips anyway.

As you wait for the cookies to get ready, you're gonna witness Bucciarati writing touching Christmas themed letters to his gang members, and if you feel inspired, you might wanna suggest him what to write in some cases eventually. He's gonna ask you to sign the letters as well.

LEONE ABBACCHIO

You'll have to get his ass off of the couch using brute force, for he's never gonna bake something with you unless you try really hard to convince him. He's gonna let you pull him eventually, just because you rarely are so enthusiastic about something, and he likes to see you like that. So he accepts.

"Okay, I'll bake with you, just if you're the one who works and I'm the one to watch."

No excuses, mr. Scrooge. You're gonna make Abbacchio do something for it, sending him to do the shopping and asking him to surprise you in terms of ingredients, so that he's gonna choose what to bake, too.

You decided to find a compromise, and bake something for everyone to enjoy it, but not really Christmas themed. Still, you forced him to wear a Santa hat while you were baking. Blueberry cupcakes, that's what he liked. The color matching his tastes, plus cupcakes are units, for everyone.

"So everyone has their own cupcake 'n shit."

He's messy. You had asked him to be the one to put the blue frosting on the cupcakes, but he turned out to be so clumsy that you had to put your hands on Abbacchio's and guide him to make a perfect twirl. At the end, both your hands are blue.

Hope you enjoy Abbacchio in a ponytail, because this is what you're gonna get here.

As soon as you show him how to do decorate a cupcake, he's gonna use Moody Blues, for the scene to repeat and you to decorate every cupcake with him watching only. Luckily, your stand manages to stop this, as you cross your arms. "No lazy man will be my boyfriend, just so you know, Leone." he then started to work.

He's gonna work on something serious for his fellow gang members and for you when he'll be alone with himself, probably. Around you, he just plays it cool and opts to give each member one of the blueberries left from you baking session. Woah, Leone. Don't stress it out too much, huh.

GUIDO MISTA

The gunslinger will probably not even ask for your opinion about it, deep down he knows you'll accept to bake some delicious Christmas treats with him. You'll wake up one day just to find him in a cook outfit already, pulling you out of the bedsheets to drag you in the kitchen. He's so extra.

"Come on y/n, you can't keep on sleeping! Don't you feel the Christmas atmosphere?"

He's already done the shopping. When you get into the kitchen, expecting him to send you to buy everything you need. But the sweet goofball was so excited for it that he bought it all himself.

Oh, he wants to go wild. He can feel the Christmas spirit all over his soul already. When you look at the ingredients you can tell he chose to bake some classic panettone with raisins. That's not easy, but he believes he can do it with you, and you'd never let your boyfriend down. Let's do this!

He's gonna be so extra that his signature hat will be replaced with a chef hat for the day.

You better hide the raisins in the process, because Mista's gonna distractly munch on them, ignoring the fact that if he keeps going, they'll finish before you'll even be able to put it in the panettone. Keep your hungry man under your control.

"Guido... care to explain why do you keep on eating all of the raisins? We need them for the recipe!" he's then gonna stare at you, confused, for he claims he hasn't eaten any but a single raisin since the beginning. You seem to figure out the issue when you see a raisin moving by itself, Number 3 under it if you squint. "Oh my god."

While you wait for your panettone to be ready, him and the Pistols are gonna wrap up some smol presents he bought for you and for the gang. You're allowed to help the Pistols, but don't you dare to even try to look at what he's doing. You know, he's the one wrapping your present.

"If you watch this, I'm gonna fucking die."

PANNACOTTA FUGO

He's gonna be the one to bring the idea up, but it will take Bruno to sweet talk him into asking you. Asking something to Fugo isn't easy, and you told Bucciarati you would have liked to bake something. So he talked Pannacotta into be the first one to bring up the idea of baking to you.

Get him by the hand and bring him to do the shopping with you. His embarrassment with asking you to bake will slowly go away with time spent together choosing the ingredients you'll have to use. Let him enjoy it.

"So uhm... you choose the recipe and I follow you? No...? I choose? Oh my god..."

How much do you have to love a fruit to have it as a pattern on your tie too? You can't say no when Pannacotta suggests baking a strawberry cake. Even if it's not really Christmas themed, you don't dare to question him, it's already a good thing that he expressed his thoughts freely.

Pannacotta feels lucky to be able to have such a quiet and good time alone with you.

For the love of God, don't you even think about letting Fugo be the one to put the strawberry frosting on the cake. Man has no patience. Unless you want your cake go to waste, make sure you're the one to decorate it. Or maybe, decorate it together.

"Damn... you really made a mess on the counter, huh." you jokingly scolded Pannacotta. But now you had to find a way to clean up without Bruno to notice. "Do you think Purple Haze would be interested in tasting the frosting which flew around?" you suggest, seeing the stand summon itself and stick his tongue out of his mouth stitches.

"I think we did our best. I love you, cara/o."

While you wait for your strawberry cake to be ready, you'll happen to ask him what has he bought as presents for his fellow gang members. Fugo will shyly answer that he was lowkey hoping you could help him in choosing what to do. He's doing his best, please be proud of the boy.

NARANCIA GHIRGA

Baking? You really want to bake with him? Is he allowed to bring his headphones with him while you bake? No? Flour might ruin them? Narancia is new to this baking thing. Before you came to Passione, he left these tasks to Bruno or Mista, but now you want to bake with him? This is good...maybe?

"What's the point of baking if you can't even listen to some good music and vibe to it?"

You left Narancia at home to get the kitchen ready to bake with Bucciarati's help, and after asking what kind of Christmas cake he would have liked to bake, you took care of doing the shopping.

Obviously he would have wanted to bake that. It would have been hilarious, but predictable. Still, you decided to make Narancia happy despite the failed Christmas theme. Orange chocolate cake! Turns out he wanted to bake such a thing just to apply the meme "I am cake" to himself.

"I'll finally be cake... like the prophecy said."

Please keep Narancia from eating the cake batter, or else he'll probably eat the whole cake before you even bake it. It's a good thing, though. The boy's got a good sense of taste, and at least you know the cake's turning out pretty delicious.

"We have to slice the oranges. I'll try to figure out a way to do it properly- Nara? What are you..? NO-" you only manage to say, without keeping Narancia from throwing the oranges towards Aerosmith's propellers. You hate to say it, but you must admit that your boyfriend's idea worked and sliced the oranges perfectly.

He's gonna suggest to keep the cake for yourselves and give the gang brioches.

While you wait for your chocolate cake to be ready, Narancia's gonna show you all the playlists he prepared for his friends, but obviously not the one for you, that has to be a surprise. The music's one of the best ways for him to express himself, so that's a great gift, coming from Narancia.

TRISH UNA

It's not like she has had so much time to dedicate to baking in her last fifteen years of life, so you're gonna let her have a good time with it, being the one who brings it up first to her. Trish is gonna happily accept, and will take it as a way to thank Bruno for all that he's done for her, too.

She's gonna want to go doing the shopping by herself, in order to show you she's become independent enough and to make you proud of her. Trish is gonna surprise you with her choices!

"I won't disappoint you, y/n, I'll come back with the best ingredients you can wish for."

Turns out the poor baby's not really good at baking, but that's no problem! You opt for something more decorative, but still sweet. She's on cloud nine when you tell her it's no big deal, and that the two of you can still prepare some pink meringues to munch on during the festivities!

"Let's stay positive. Meringues are perfect!"

The girl is gonna definitely use you as a taste tester for the meringues, Trish likes to spoil you by feeding you the pink candies the two of you just prepared, and if they're good enough, she'll even let you do the same for her and feed her a meringue.

She'll be likely to do her best to be romantic to you. Trish's new to love relationships.

"Ouch... I think the batter turned out a little too hard. Maybe we put too much flour, babe." you tell Trish, but she smiles, and looks like she has a good idea. At the sound of a loud "WANNABEEEEEEE", Spice Girl punches the batter enough to turn it a little softer, a little less dense, just like you needed it to be. "Thank you, love."

While you wait for your pink meringues to be ready, Trish is gonna tell you a Christmas secret. She thinks it's not much, but she's prepared a small speech to tell to every member, to thank them for having saved her life. Reassure your girlfriend of the fact that her gift is amazing.

[ziracona]

Michael birthday hcs pls. It’s his day :)

Michael celebrates his first birthday since he turned six the year after escaping the realm. It’s been so long he almost doesn’t remember anymore, and Laurie makes a huge deal out of it. From waking up to bed time, it’s all Michael time, and all planned to a T! Crispy custom pancakes with whipped cream, including some sage for Michael Cat to consume. A day of whatever he wants to do, and suggestions, which turned out to be some tv marathoning while snacking, playing some board games, and a lot of chatting while working on a massive puzzle, a drive to visit Judith and a picnic lunch at the cemetery, then some Mac’n Cheese dinner, cake, ice cream, and presents—minus a few given early.

Laurie (with help from Nancy, Quentin, David, and Claudette) decorated the whole house with balloons and streamers. Made a huge deal out of it. Woke him up by busting down his door singing Happy Birthday and he thought he was under attack. Actually really appreciated how much work she put into it.

Got a small present at each meal, but most in the morning. They also got something for the cat to give him. Had a massive pile of presents from all the survivors. Year one not all of them came because he was still a little overwhelmed, but a lot sent gifts anyway. Nancy, Quentin, David, and Claudette hung out the whole day, a couple others joined for the party. He stayed up past midnight looking at all his new stuff alone in his room (well, alone with the cat). Was the happiest he’d been in a long time.

Michael has a sweet tooth. While Laurie’s parties change for variety year to year, it always begins with a sweet treat for breakfast. He likes traditional birthday cake probably the best, but is a big fan of carrot cake and cookie cakes too.

It’s close to Halloween, which Michael likes, so birthday time usually includes watching favorite scary movies. Lots of orange and blackstreamers and balloons for him.

Enjoys candy corn and pumpkin, both carving and flavor, so that’s a pretty common theme. Laurie likes to cook with him and Quentin on birthdays, becuase it’s nostalgic for the first time the three of them hung out and made themselves sick on cookies for breakfast. Often use the same cookie cutters and everything.

Michael really likes headphones, but they want to hang out and listen to music together even when cooking or prepping stuff, so Quentin suggests syncing playlists and basically having the goofiest bootleg silent disco, and they all look like idiots, but it’s immensely fun.

Literally always wants Mac’n Cheese for dinner or lunch. I’m not kidding. It’s the only thing he never loses a taste for. Laurie has gotten extremely good at making this, and Michael’s not so bad himself.

Has gotten way too many flirty comments with gifts from Meg and is distressed by it. (Like unwrapping a romance film and getting a “ ; ) To remind you of us.” Or a shirt and “You already make a girl swoon when you walk in the room. Now I’m ready to straight go comatose.” ) he will never be used to this, but he gets to a point they have like, a friendly antagonists thing going and while he still fears her and only her, he mildly enjoys fending off attacks because it sure spices up the day. Also, Meg gives really good presents. Year one, got him an effigy of Loomis to destroy. It horrified him when he unwrapped it, but after the purpose was explained, was thrilled to rip it to shreds. (As was Michael Cat, who long since picked up the aura of hostility at the mention of Loomis’ name, and will rip up any photo of him presented to it). Year three, she, Laurie, Quentin, Nancy, David, and a lot of the others worked together to procure all the copies of Loomis’ book possible, Jake ‘bought’ the rights out (read: for once let Andrew just go shitty and wild with some corporate espionage and barely legal lawsuit threats), then had a bonfire where they destroyed all the copies. It was a great day.

Michael always goes to Judith’s grave at least once during the day to say hello and pay respects and tell her how it’s going and say he wishes she was there.

Michael Cat gets confused everyone is saying “Happy Birthday Michael” and is not for...him?? So, while he gets his own birthday too, he always gets a few consolation gifts on the 19th too and thrives off his ability to get gifts from the poor saps who love him.

After he gets comfy with the other survivors and past killers who made it, all of them come to birthdays (or attend via video call if it’s impossible), and it is a little bit much because it’s such a crowd, but it’s really nice to feel loved, and he looks forward to it.

Laurie always writes personalized messages on the cakes and gets better and better at decorating them as the years go by. Always embarrasses him by putting “love you” somewhere in the cake message, but Michael actually really likes that and just sometimes pretends he can’t believe once again she’s done this.

At least his closest friends tend to sleep over the night after. Which tends to make the 20th a pretty good day too.

The first time he laughed, totally on accident, was on his second birthday post-escape. It was nothing special. Quentin was just telling a story about how he found the present he bought him, and Laurie made a joke about it, and he just laughed. Everybody stopped and stared, because even though it was quiet, they heard it, and Michael stopped and stared too, and brought his hand up to his throat, and then Laurie launched herself physically across the couch over Quentin and slammed into him and grabbed his face and started excitedly rattling off how amazing this was and how happy she was and proud, and how had it felt?? Did it feel good? And then everyone else was all over him too, overjoyed and full of questions, and none of them trying to get him to do it again, just celebrating it had happened, and he was really excited and proud too. It was a good memory, and one he never forgot. Honestly, the joke she told wasn’t even the most shatteringly funny or anything. There was no special trick to it, he was just really, really happy in that moment, and for a second that peaceful and at home and contented and happy gave him a little of his voice back.

It’s his favorite day of the year, tied with Halloween itself, which he and Laurie and Quentin celebrate like most families celebrate Christmas.

Every year, as a little private just him (or him and Meowers) tradition, Michael stays up past midnight looking over his gifts and thinking about the things people did for him and just really letting himself feel happy.

[emgkheadcannons]

Their First Christmas

Colson has no idea what to get Marshall for Christmas. The man has everything he could want, and if he didn’t then he could go out and buy it. Yeah, all the help Marshall has done to make a better living with his art, has helped him financially, and he can comfortably afford a gift for the man, but what! He has been racking his brain, to no avail. He knew he could draw something for Marshall but whatever he tried to draw didn’t feel right, or didn’t look right to him. Christmas was four and a half weeks away, he needed to pick a project or find something else for him.

He could do a mural on one of the walls of Marshall's house, like a superhero one in his comic book room, but he hasn’t been to Marshall’s house, or even seen the room.

He could buy him some clothes, but Colson wants the gift to be more personal than just some shirts or sweats.

It finally hits him, the day before Thanksgiving. He could do a custom paint job on a pair of shoes. Marshall loves Nike, especially Air Maxes. He has some friends who customize clothes and shoes, who have a lot of the supplies and could help him. He would have to also buy any specific dye, thread, paint, and fabric he might need, but the basics would be there.

Colson sends a few quick texts, and a phone call before looking up who had the best sales on Air Maxes for Black Friday. With a plan in place Colson feels better, and starts to think of a mock up for the shoes.

A week later Colson has the shoes, Nike Air Max 90, a few different designs, and his friends are game to help him with his project. First he has to decide on a design. Did he want to do an artsy design and have them be more of a display shoe, or did he want to do something more practical that Marshal could wear all the time. Some of the designs he liked more than the others. One incorporates all of Marshall’s albums. There was a Detroit themed design, but being from Cleveland, Colson just couldn't bring himself to make that one. He also had one that was based off of his comic, since that is what brought them together, but Colson wants to save that. If these shoes turn out well he will make those as a thank you present for the older man.

Colson decided on a blue ombre design that was very wearable. The main body of the shoe would fade from white to dark blue, with black, white, and gray accents.

It took Colson about a week and a half to finish the shoes, but the end result was perfect. He even made a custom box for them. Now he just has to wait to exchange presents.

******

Marshall couldn’t decide what to get Colson for Christmas. Should he get him art supplies, if so which ones? Should he get him a couple of oversized sweaters that he loves to wear? Was it okay for him to buy Colson jewelry? How much can he buy for Colson before he makes the younger man uncomfortable? He has no idea, or too many ideas.

Hailey and Whitteny drag him out shopping with them for some last minute gifts. Marshall sees a display for wool socks. They are really soft to the touch. Marshall’s first thought was that Colson would love these. He grabs a couple of pairs, before he heads over to the sweaters. Marshall has noticed Colson has been wearing more sweaters as it gets colder. He finds a nice soft, thick sweater.

As he goes to find his daughters, something catches his eye.

It’s a black leather jacket with a pink panel on one sleeve and a red one on the other, and a big yellow poster looking panel, for the diesel theater on the back. It screamed Colson. Marshall grabs it, along with a sweater, and some warm socks he had already picked out.

His daughters notice the clothes but don’t say anything. Once home he sits down to wrap the gifts, excited to see Colson’s face when he opens them.

******

A few days before Christmas, Marshall is over at Colson’s apartment, trading off on which movie is next. Colson sings along to all the songs in White Christmas, which Marshall finds adorable. They are snacking on some homemade sugar cookies, and hot cocoa Colson made. As Marshal looks around the apartment, he notices all the cute decorations. The apartment is small but homey. Colson has a small Christmas tree overflowing with a miss mass of ornaments, there is garland hanging under his tv, and he even has a sprig of mistletoe hanging near the doorway. He can’t help but think what it would be like to catch Colson under the mistletoe.

“Hey, want to exchange gifts?” the blond asks.

Marshall notices that the movie is over and the credits are now rolling. He had zoned out thinking out kissing the pretty artist, on the couch next to him.

“Sure, that sounds great.”

Colson gets up, and goes over to his tree, and picks up a box with blue paper, and snowflakes all over it. Marshall does the same but grabs two boxes with red and white stripes on them.

Once back on the couch, Marshall hands over his boxes. “You go first.”

Colson shrugs, lifting the first box, rips the paper off, and lifts the lid. Inside are some warm looking socks and a very nice sweater. “Oh, man thanks. This is so perfect.” Colson takes off the sweater he was wearing and slides the new one on, giving Marshall a bit of a show. “It’s so warm, and soft, and so are these socks” he says as he wraps his arms around himself.

“I’m glad you like it, but don’t forget you have another box.”

Colson goes for the second box, much like the first, rips the paper off, lifts the lid, but then freezes. He slowly lifts the jackets out of the box, looking between it and Marshall.

“How did you Know?”

Marshall rubs the back of his head. “I didn’t. I just saw it and thought of you.”

Colson gets up to try the jacket on, and it fits perfectly. He pins around and shows it off to Marshall, happy that his gift is such a success. Colson then goes in for a hug, wrapping his arms around the older man. “Thank you. I love my gifts.” Marshall returns the hug and they stay there for a moment before breaking apart. Colson slides the jacket off, folding it neatly, and placing it back in the box and setting both of his boxes on the coffee table.

“Your turn.” Colson says as he hands him a box.

Marshall removes the paper to see a box with the MGK on it. He looked questioningly over at the artist.

“My friends helped me make the box.”

Marshall opens the box and is greeted with some custom Nike Air Max 90’s. He picks one up to get a better look.

“Damn, these are nice. Where did you get these?”

“I… uh… customized them myself.”

“These are dope. Thank you Colson.”

Marshall snaps a few pictures, then tries them on. They fit perfectly. He models them for Colson, like the younger man did with his sweater and jacket.

“I’m glad you like them.”

They clean up the wrapping, and settle back down for another move. The next movie they watch is Marshall’s choice and he chooses Krampus. Colson has told him about the German folklore, and he thinks the movie is fun, he didn’t realize that the blond can’t handle horror movies. The more they watch, the closer Colson scoots to him. About 30 minutes in he is flush against Marshall’s side, with his feet tuct to the side. Marshall puts his arm around him. They sit like this for most of the movie, with Colson sometimes hiding his face in Marshall’s shoulder.

The credits begin to roll, Marshall looks at Colson, who has his face buried in his shoulder. He takes a moment to appreciate having the comic artist so close.

“Hey, the movies over. You can look.”

Colson raises his head, looking the older man in the eye, their lips only a few inches apart. Marshall’s breath hitches, Colson looks like a dream. His face is flush from hiding it, his eyes have a watery sheen to them, and his lips are red and slightly swollen, probably from him biting them. Marshall can’t help himself. He leans forward, sealing their lips together. Colson returns the kiss immediately. They move and shift, continuing their kiss.

Marshall’s is now leaning against the armrest, one hand tangling in the blond’s hair, the other resting on his waist. Colson’s hands are grabbing the rapper's shirt tightly, as he practically lays on Marshall’s chest.

When they finally break apart, both are gasping for breath. Marshall looks down, cracks a smile, and chuckles. Colson looks at him quizzically.

“If I had known that would have been your response, I would have kissed you the day we met.”

“You ignored me the day we met. Remember?” Colson snickers. “But yeah. I wish we had done that sooner.”

They share another kiss. This one is sweeter, and shorter than the previous one. Once they have pulled back Colson asks, “So where do we go from here?”

“Depends. What do you want?”

“I don’t want this to be a one night stand, or a friends’ with benefits, or anything like that.”

“Same here. I would really like to try dating you Colson. Would you be okay with that?”

“Are you asking me out?” Colson asks with a grin.

Marshall sighs deeply, knowing what he is getting into, but still replies. “Yes, I am asking you out.”

“Good. The answer is yes by the way. I would love to go on another date with you.”

“Another?”

“Yeah, I’m counting this one as our first.”

“Good idea.”

Marshall grabs the controller and selects Klaus as their next movie. They share a few more kisses, then Colson lays his head back down on Marshall’s chest, and the older man starts to run his fingers through his hair.

The two sit there for a while, before Colson speaks again.

“Hey, Marshall?”

“Hmm.”

“Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, to you too, Colson.”

The shoes

[pictureofsoph1sticatedgrace]

So I cleaned up my room a good bit today, and since a few people complimented me on it when I posted my selfie in the maroon sweater of soft, I figured “eh, I’m bored so here, have a room tour.”

Welcome to casa de Kayleigh. I made the “wreath” on my door entirely out of beads I got from Mardi Gras 2019 with @justwanted2dance​. I am a basic bitch, so I also have fairy lights on fairy lights behind my bed. If you look closely, you can peep mini RGG the second on my pillow pile. The rose was also tossed to me at Mardi Gras because someone on a float clearly knew I’m rose trash.

My dresser. Did you know Crazy Ex has an absurd amount of good lyrics for letter boards? Mine has been “carpe diem carpe don’t-em” for a long time though. I painted the “all I can say is have fun in the gray” canvas - on a serious note, that’s my favorite lyric from the series because it’s something that comes up a lot for me in therapy... living in the gray area. Lots of pictures, and the fleur de lis canvas was also made with (smaller) beads from Mardi Gras. I uh... I got a lot of beads.

The wall of Bloom! The Pretzel’s at Rebetzels artwork was given to me by my friend Vince (he also designed the amazing artwork for the first CXG live tour!) at the finale taping in LA. The middle was a picture I had signed the very first time I met Rachel after a talk at the 92Y in 2017. The poster on the right was a Christmas gift this past year - though I did go to the Dallas show in October. Below - pics of me with Rachel and Caissie Levy in the gold frames. The pink frame has “may we all be so lucky” from Waitress painted on it and a picture of my and my girls @justwanted2dance​ and @heartbash​ the last time we were all together. 💗 On it is a tiara I may or may not have spent close to $40 on when I saw Frozen the Musical for the last time. Shh. Don’t ask questions. The Frozen 2 album is there because I’m gonna get a turntable and this is where it’s gonna go!

This is my little zen nook beside my bed. More CXG - the poster I got signed by everyone but DLC and Vella. My oil diffuser. I almost always have a Bath and Body Works candle lit (hence why I got a job there before corona destroyed everything). A daily bible verse calendar from @justwanted2dance​. A framed quote from chapter 3 of @heartbash​‘s “8 Times” that reminds me to keep going, to always reach out, to use the skills I have at my disposal, that I’m never alone. To do the next right thing - as Funko Anna reminds me. To take my meds with ginger ale because I’m a weirdo who can’t take pills with water.

More of my favorite things. My clock, designed by the ever-amazing and ever-talented @notbang​. The “life doesn’t have to be perfect” canvas given to me by @justwanted2dance​. The very first canvas I ever painted, which is another one of my favorite quotes from CXG about living in the in-between space (are we noticing a theme?). And more pictures with my favorite people. ❤️

My closet! The posters were made for me for gymnastics nationals last year by one of my Disney roommates. 😭 She made one for each event. I still adore them. On the right - the useless piece of paper that is my BA in arts administration, and the prettier piece of paper that is the LSU gymnastics schedule.

Kayleigh’s land of succulents and my self-soothe box! If you don’t have a self-soothe box, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you make one. Anxiety or not, it’s an awesome tool to have at the ready for a shitty day. There’s a coloring book, a candle, play-doh, a fidget cube, crossword/word search/sudoku books, Hershey kisses, the adorable “cute emergency” book given to me by @faith-trust-magic-pixie-dust​, a journal, a photo album with pictures of my favorite people and memories, a book I write inspirational quotes in, all of my handouts from my IOP... all on top of a fuzzy blanket. Some day I will paint the crate. Maybe. Who knows. Until then, I encourage making one with whatever brings you peace.

Last but not least - my crafting area. Not much to be said here other than this is where I paint, make mouse ears, stuff ornaments, and occasionally do computer stuff like I am right now. I love my glittery tack board, too - the gold pom pom is from a LSU gym meet. The “tough cookie” folder was given to me by @heartbash​. Everything that’s on there is a special memory I’m not ready to put away yet. If you look closely, you may spot a trophy and some medals from my adult gymnastics career, which is something I never thought I’d say. 😂

So. That’s that on that! If you made it this far... congrats or something? Idk. You’re cool and I hope you enjoyed this pointless tour of my room. 😂

[unfolded73]

Just a Day (1/1) - schitt’s creek ff

Christmas-related fluff, that’s all this is. David and Rachel run into each other and have a talk. Rated G, ~2500 words

David was focused on cookie ingredients with single-minded determination.

Clutching the hand-written list from Marcy, he squinted at the shelf in Patrick’s home-town grocery store (the store where a tiny Patrick had once thrown a screaming tantrum over being denied Froot Loops, if Clint was to be believed), looking for his prey. Spotting the brown sugar, David threw two bags into his cart and moved on to the confectioner’s sugar.

He didn’t have a pen on him, so he tried to mentally check off each item as he put it in the cart. He didn’t want to forget anything for today’s Christmas cookie-baking extravaganza, a Brewer family tradition that David would be participating in for the first time. Rose Apothecary safely in the hands of their two employees for the week, David and Patrick were taking their first Christmas off since they opened the store. Thus, here David was on a quest from his mother-in-law, shopping in an unfamiliar store for cookie ingredients.

David zeroed in on the holiday-themed sprinkles next. (“Just get more red, I have plenty of green,” Marcy had said and then immediately widened her eyes at him in a slightly panicked expression, “unless we should get some Hanukkah colors, David?”) He was so engrossed in the sprinkle options that he didn’t notice the woman staring at him from further down the aisle at first. It wasn’t until he turned to head back to the dairy case that he came face-to-face with the familiar redhead.

Without saying anything, they took each other in. He’d never spoken a word to Rachel, but he recognized her immediately from that one awful afternoon his family tried to have a barbeque to celebrate his relationship with Patrick, and later, pictures of Patrick and Rachel together that peppered the Brewers’ family photo albums. She seemed to recognize him as well, despite the brief time they’d had to take each other in.

“Marcy’s making cookies?” Rachel asked with a smirk and a gesture to his cart, as if they weren’t total strangers who only shared in common that one moment, when David learned Patrick was once engaged and Rachel learned that Patrick was gay. As if they’d already gotten the uncomfortable acknowledgements of who they were to each other out of the way.

David nodded. “Yes, she has a very ambitious list of cookie recipes.”

“Don’t underestimate her; she plans her baking like she’s planning a major military operation.” Because of course Rachel had shared some of these holiday traditions with the Brewers, how could she not have? All of these things that David was attempting to navigate on his absolute best behavior, trying to be the perfect husband and son-in-law, Rachel had already done. For just a second, he hated her for that.

“I have no doubt,” he said.

“Congrats on the…” Rachel gestured vaguely. “I heard you guys got married. And I saw some pictures on Facebook.”

David wrinkled his nose at that — not that she had seen pictures, but that there were apparently pictures from his wedding on Facebook. Probably posted by Marcy herself, if he had to guess, or maybe by one of the cousins. David had carefully edited the pictures he’d chosen to post on his own Instagram and had policed what Alexis posted as well; he hated to think what he might look like in these rogue Facebook pictures he hadn’t been aware of.

“We did, thank you,” he said. He tried to think of what else to say, but everything that occurred to him sounded patronizing.

“You don’t have to look so constipated, David. I’m over him. I moved to Toronto and I’m seeing someone else now.”

“I don’t look…” David sputtered before reining himself in. “I mean, I’m glad. That sounds… nice.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I guess it’s nice. How’s Patrick?”

Perfect. He’s a perfect husband and I can’t believe how lucky I am that we found each other. “He’s good.”

“He’s probably been grumpy over hockey lately, huh?”

He had been, because the Maple Leafs had a very bad start to the season (and the fact that David knew even that much was miraculous), but he hated that Rachel was right. “Is that the sport with the sticks?” he said, falling back on his I-don’t-follow-sports persona. Rachel rolled her eyes at him.

There was a part of David that wanted to sit Rachel down and split a bottle of wine (or two) with her and learn everything about Patrick that she knew and he didn’t. All the things that came out of that shared history they had together that David could only know from stories. But there was another part of David that rejected the very premise. The Patrick that Rachel had known wasn’t the real Patrick.

He started to wheel his cart forward again, slowly and with a tilt of his head to indicate she should walk with him. “So you’re in town visiting your family, I presume?” he asked her.

“Yeah. First time bringing the boyfriend home to meet my family, so that’s a whole thing. But we’re just doing the normal Christmas thing, you know. ”

He didn’t know, as neither his experiences with Christmas when the Roses were still rich nor his experiences in Schitt’s Creek fit into the rubric of ‘normal Christmas,’ but he assumed whatever Rachel was talking about fit into the same basic mold as his last couple of days with the Brewers. David nodded.

“This is the first Christmas we’ve been able to get away,” David volunteered. “We finally have enough staff to cover the store.” Then it occurred to him that Rachel might not know anything about the store if she hadn’t talked to Patrick since her one tragic visit to Schitt’s Creek. “We run the general store in town? We sell—”

“I know,” she said, and then averted her eyes to the rows of egg cartons they were passing, which made David stop and look at his list. He needed eggs.

“I follow you guys on Instagram. The store, I mean. I follow the store. I was just… curious what Patrick was doing for a living. And the pictures you post are pretty and sort of… soothing? So I still follow the account.”

David beamed at that as he picked up a carton of eggs and put them in his basket — he worked hard on the Instagram aesthetic for the store, an activity that Patrick occasionally roasted him for. He couldn’t wait to tell him that Rachel followed the Rose Apothecary account because she found it soothing.

Rachel reached over and picked up David’s eggs and opened the carton, scanning the contents. “You have to check and see if any are broken,” she explained. “Also, are twelve eggs enough?”

He threw up his hands. “The list doesn’t say — what do you think, should i get another dozen?”

“Yeah, get another dozen.”

He grabbed a carton, opening it and scanning the eggs for breaks the way Rachel had. “We’ve started carrying local eggs at the store,” he told her. “I didn’t want to at first, but we have a farmer who delivers them to us, and the markup on eggs is better than I thought it would be.”

“I’m glad Patrick’s happy,” Rachel said. “I know you probably don’t believe me, but—”

“In the years I’ve known him, Patrick’s never said a bad word about you, so I have no reason not to believe that you wish him the best.” He checked his list again. “I need to get butter. Marcy did put an amount here,” he said, showing Rachel the list, “but it seems patently ridiculous.”

Rachel laughed. “Four pounds? No, that’s probably right.”

“I’m going to gain so much weight on this trip,” David groaned, moving his cart again.

“Thank you for saying that, about Patrick not speaking ill of me. I worried for a while after that terrible visit to Schitt’s Creek that I’d fucked up his relationship. Especially when a long time went by and his parents didn’t seem to know anything about you guys being a couple.”

David made a weird half-laughing, half-groaning noise. “That’s a whole other long story. But no, you didn’t fuck anything up.” He began loading butter into his cart. “I almost fucked everything up by being an insecure ass about it.”

“He probably should have told you about his past, though,” Rachel said, grabbing a pound of butter for her own cart.

“Yes, well, it’s all ancient history now.” He headed toward the milk and grabbed a gallon.

“Did he ever tell you what he told me about you that day?” Rachel asked, and despite it all being in the past, David’s heart sped up, his palms getting sweaty on the grocery cart handle.

“I don’t remember. I never asked,” David said, rooted there in the dairy section, next to the half and half and the whipping cream.

“This was after he told me you guys were dating, and he gave me his official coming-out speech, I guess. And I shouted at him for not telling me before, and he said he hadn’t realized, and…” She waved her hand to dismiss that memory. “It was very hard to hear, that he’d never felt for me what I felt for him in all those years.”

“I’m sorry,” David said.

“That’s not the part I wanted to tell you. The part I wanted to tell you was that he said he’d fallen in love with you, that already he was imagining spending the rest of his life with you, even though he knew it was too soon to tell you any of that yet.” She smiled. “Since you’re married now I guess the cat is out of the bag, but still, I wanted to tell you how all-in Patrick was, even back then.”

David felt himself tearing up, and he did not want to cry in the dairy case of this grocery store, but it was a lot, hearing that. That Patrick had said he was in love with him, even back then, months before ‘I love you’ became a regular part of their vocabulary. “Thank you for telling me,” he whispered.

“I was horribly jealous of you and I hated you for a while,” Rachel said. “Sorry.”

David scoffed at that. “Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ve been hated by a lot of people in my life.”

“And for the record, you seem to be taking good care of him. I stopped hating you.”

David smirked, turning his cart back toward the baking aisle to get the chocolate chips he’d forgotten. “He takes care of me most of the time.”

“Okay, well, I’m going that way,” Rachel said, pointing over to another part of the store. “It was good to see you, David.”

“You too, Rachel. Merry Christmas.”

~*~

“Hey, do you need mfph—” David interrupted Patrick’s greeting with a kiss, a tote bag in each hand not stopping him from wrapping his arms around his husband and fusing their mouths together. As he pulled away, he saw Marcy glancing at them and smiling before she turned back to the dishes she was washing.

“Yes, I need some help bringing in the groceries,” David said.

‘Okay,” Patrick said mildly, but his eyes said he knew something was up with his husband. David set the totes he was carrying down on the kitchen table and then followed Patrick out to the car.

“Everything okay, David?” Patrick asked as soon as they were out of earshot from his mother.

“Yeah.” But then he stopped and faced Patrick as they stood at the trunk of the car. “Have I ever told you when I realized I might be in love with you?”

Patrick grinned. “I think you told me it was when I sang to you at our first open mic night.”

David put his hands on Patrick’s shoulders, his fingers working gently at the muscles underneath his sweater. “Okay, that was probably when I fell totally and completely in love with you. But there was another moment, before that.”

Patrick wrapped his arms around David’s waist. “Oh yeah?”

“Mm hmm.”

Patrick kissed him gently, just a soft peck of lips on lips. “When was that?”

“It was just a normal day at the store. You’d been helping Alexis study for a test and we had to stay late to do inventory, but I just remember looking over at you and thinking that I was falling in love with you. And then being really freaked out by that thought.”

“I wish I could remember the day you’re talking about,” Patrick said wistfully.

“It was just a day.” David gave him another kiss before disengaging from Patrick and grabbing two more bags to carry into the house. “You should call Rachel,” he blurted.

Patrick shot him a confused look. “I should what?”

“You’ve known each other your whole lives. It just seems a shame to throw that friendship away because—”

“Because I broke her heart?” Patrick said, holding the door open for David.

“She’s over it,” David said, setting the rest of his bags down. On Patrick’s raised eyebrow, he explained. “I saw her at the grocery store. She’s got a boyfriend from Toronto in town with her, apparently. Anyway, I think it would be good for you two to be friends again. ”

Patrick seemed to consider this. “Okay, I’ll call her. Maybe the four of us could go for drinks or something.”

“David, thank you so much for doing the shopping,” Marcy was saying as she unpacked and organized his haul. “Are you ready to learn to bake cookies?”

“Marcy, are you ready for the havoc I’m likely to wreak in your kitchen?”

She gave him a gentle slap on the arm. “I think I can keep you in line, David. Now let me show you how to use the electric mixer.”

David spent the next couple of hours laboring away with Marcy while Patrick went to play hockey with some of his cousins and Clint read a book by the fire. And there was a moment, later, when it struck him. He was chewing on a ginger cookie that he had made with his own hands in the warm embrace of his mother-in-law’s kitchen when his husband came in the front door, scarf secured around his neck and ruddy-cheeked from the cold, and David thought, I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. It wasn’t a scary thought. It didn’t portend doom they way he used to think that his rare optimistic thoughts did. Today was just a day in a long line of days with the love of his life, stretched out into the future. David brought Patrick a cookie and kissed him on the cheek and smiled.

[lesbianrobin]

Im dying to know, do you have any holiday-themed Steve, Robin, Party, etc. headcanons?

god you KNOW i do!!! first of all i celebrate christmas and i dont rly know anything about other holidays this time of year so im just gonna... work on the assumption that they all celebrate christmas, but if anyone who doesnt celebrate or celebrates something else wants to reblog and add their own hcs i encourage it!!! okay this is gonna be so scattered but:

steve never really liked christmas very much. it was always just stressful and he hated having to spend time with his family and he always got like the most generic expensive boring gifts from his parents and it just wasn't really fun... the first christmas he really got into it was the christmas he spent with nancy and after they broke up, he was like oh christmas just fucking sucks!! but then...

that next christmas dustin invites him over for christmas eve and he brings a pie that he bought from the grocery store and claudia thanks him a million times and he wishes that he'd baked it himself so he didn't feel so guilty

dustin gives him a little baseball bat ornament and claudia is like "oh i thought you played basketball!" and steve is like "oh uh i do but i like baseball too :)" and he and dustin kinda smile at each other and steve ruffles his hair and they watch rudolph on tv and steve is like oh christmas.... is good......

speaking of dustin he always starts thinking about christmas gifts in like october but somehow ends up with absolutely nothing on december 20th and he has to run around in a panic finding gifts for the party

he drinks hot chocolate like a maniac... he doesnt drink water the entire month of december it's hot chocolate or it's nothing

hes one of those people who will say "come on it's christmas!!!" on like the tenth

lucas is one of those people who will say "no asshole it's december tenth"

lucas loves christmas!! he just thinks that it's a day and not a whole fucking month!!! he thinks anything before like december 15th is too much

the only thing he hates about christmas is that his parents always make him and erica pick out gifts for each other with no help from them... and since erica is an evil genius she always gets lucas the perfect gift just so she can hold it over his head for the entire year when he accidentally gets her a toy she already owns

she literally watches him open his present like >:) and lucas is pissed when it's this extremely specific action figure that he's wanted for a long time but he swears he never even mentioned it to anybody

and then he just sits there feeling like a stupid asshole as she unwraps a random doll that lucas figured she might like since its hair looks kind of sort of vaguely like erica's and she's like "thanks lucas :) i think i have this one already but it's sweet" and his parents are like "hey it's the thought that counts! erica see your brother knows what you like :)" and she's like "yeah :)" and then as soon as their parents aren't looking she sticks her tongue out at lucas and he sticks his out back at her

the sinclairs have such a disgustingly perfect christmas like they bake cookies together and shit it's adorable

speaking of adorable families the byers house is so full of love on christmas

almost all of the ornaments on their tree are handmade little crafts from when will and jonathan were younger and they buy tinsel at the dollar store and just go fucking ham with it their tree always looks like a hobby lobby threw up

growing up joyce would usually try to get them some things they need on christmas and then like one or two special things for each of them and she could never buy the fancy new toys that were in all the ads on tv and in magazines but she knows her boys.... jonathan got his first camera on christmas and it was from a secondhand store and kind of dinged up and definitely old as shit but he loved it..... will always got some new construction paper and crayons or markers so by the end of christmas day joyce would have new drawings to put up on the fridge or a new little ornament that he made for her.....

sometime in november jonathan would always be like "okay will i have a secret mission for you, you need to find out something mom needs that we could give her for christmas!" and will would be like "you have to say your mission should you choose to accept it" and jonathan would say "well i know you're gonna accept the mission" and will's like "jonathannnnn" and jonathan would be like "okay fine your mission should you choose to accept it" and will would be like >:) im a spy >:)

so little baby will would action roll around the house humming the mission impossible theme and peeking around walls at joyce and then after like a week he'd say "i think mom needs a stool she keeps jumping to try and reach stuff high up in the cabinets" and jonathan's like awesome thanks and he finds a cheap folding stool and some chocolates that he can afford with whatever money he has saved up and he has will wrap it because he figures it's like ten times cuter that way and joyce cries when she sees the little christmas card will put with the stool for her

i'm going way more in depth than i need to thvjdjcd but basically the byers house is all love man... so much love ..... they don't use colored lights anymore they only use the solid strands but they still have fun decorating together and will makes paper chains and stuff to hang up and i'm about to make myself cry

so!! this is getting super long fjvndmcmd

nancy is absolute dogshit at buying presents for people she's just terrible at it. she always just asks mike and holly and her parents what they want and buys exactly what they tell her and if they don't tell her anything then she has like a mental breakdown about it and panics and buys like. a flannel pajama gift set from the department store.

when she's dating steve he tells her not to worry about getting him anything which she takes at face value until her mom asks what she's giving steve like three days before christmas and then she starts panicking and she goes to a sporting goods store and just asks the first employee she sees what a teenage boy who plays basketball might like

steve can't tell if he should be like happy or vaguely offended that his girlfriend gave him like shoe deodorizers and a water bottle and socks for a sports team that he doesn't root for... she tried though and thats all he cares about

she and jonathan agree they'll exchange gifts but nothing over like MAX fifteen bucks which is easy she just finds a tape or a record she thinks he'll like and she's set (she spends a full hour in the music store and almost just gets a gift certificate for him but eventually she just says fuck it and picks some random shit she's never heard of and hopes he likes whatever it is)

mike on the other hand is actually like... insanely good at gift giving because he pays close attention to the people he cares about and he just like Knows if lucas or dustin or will is gonna like something

he just doesnt really buy into christmas all that much?? it's cool to get free stuff and eat cookies and all but he thinks people make it into a bigger deal than it should be

holly still believes in santa though so he likes seeing how excited she gets on christmas... it warms his cold tween boy heart.....

the first christmas he gets to spend with el he turns into a fucking christmas enthusiast and he makes her hot chocolate and gives her a tape full of christmas songs and he asks his mom for a bigger gift allowance because he has a GIRLFRIEND now and she's never- uh, THEY'VE never celebrated christmas TOGETHER so it has to be SPECIAL MOM!!!!

karen is like buddy calm down but it's so nice to see him excited about something again that she caves and gives him like forty bucks and tells him not to tell nancy or his dad

el and hopper christmas... i cannot go into detail or i WILL cry but hopper takes her with him to pick out their tree and she's so meticulous about it like examining all of them and he's just standing there in the cold freezing his ass off letting her do her thing because she's so excited that he doesn't have the heart to tell her they're basically all the same and to just hurry up and pick one

he gives her a lot of books... there are so many books under their ugly fucking tree because el picks one thats extremely crooked because she says it seems nice and hopper cant find any of his old decorations so they have to start from scratch...

el enlists the whole party for help finding hopper a present because it has to be the best present of all time!!!! they're like well what does he like and she's like uh tv.... coffee.... gun...... and they're like uh we can get him a coffee mug?

so on christmas morning el presents him with a "BEST DAD" mug full of candy and he hugs her so she won't see that he's fucking crying

she also gives max a drawing she did of max as wonder woman and it isn't very good but max says it's her favorite present she's ever gotten and she keeps it folded up in her nightstand

max has mixed feelings about christmas

i should not have saved her for last this is depressing

fuck her family fuck all of that okay max spends christmas eve with the sinclairs and christmas day with el because her mom and neil don't really feel like celebrating this year and so for the first time in a long time her christmas is full of love and joy and hopper makes them cinnamon rolls for breakfast which el has never had before and it's great

the party usually does a big gift swap and they don't get each other anything too fancy or expensive but it's sweet... they all gather in mike's basement like the day after christmas and eat the leftovers from the wheelers' christmas dinner and give each other comics and action figures and dice

once robin enters the picture she and steve lowkey get smashed on christmas eve together off peppermint schnapps and they play rockin around the christmas tree like ten times and jump around until they get dizzy...

they give each other little things like every other day leading up to christmas so by the end of december they've exchanged gifts like ten times but it isn't their FAULT okay!!! steve just saw these earrings and thought of her so he got them... and robin couldn't just leave that wham! crop top sitting in the store...... and steve couldn't resist the cheap bff necklaces he found while looking for a gift for erica....... and what is robin meant to do, ignore the stuffed kermit doll she saw in a store window?

it's just unrealistic

i like to think that everybody gathers at the byers house for lunch or dinner on christmas eve... they just hang out and exchange presents and make cookies and watch christmas movies and argue over which ones suck and which ones are actually good...... they just spend time together without any fear or danger and it's good

[meteor752]

A Swedish Christmas

So now that Christmas time is near and I’m officially out on the internet doing shit, I’ve come to realize how strange my countries traditions are, compared to for example Americans.

I am Swedish, which I’ve mentioned a few times and it says “Swedish” in the title so it’s hard to miss, and our beloved cold country is really weird around Christmas.

Now, I am aware of the fact that other countries do weird stuff too, but I only know these traditions and I know that they are ridiculous. So let me take you through the Christmas here in good ol’ Sweden, my dear American and everything else (I’m not going to ramble up 189 different countries).

Oh, and before we start, Christmas in Sweden is Jul, just so ya know.

So in September (Yes, you read that right, September) stores start selling a drink called Julmust. Julmust is honestly a pretty bland drink that mostly tastes like water with a bit of sugar and darkness, but everyone loves it and drinks tons of it every Christmas. This exact drink is also sold around easter, where it’s called Påskmust, and there’s no difference between the two but it’s still sold as two different drinks.

When December finally rolls around and you’ve drunk this drink for three months and are already sick of it, you buy a choklad Kalender. A choklad Kalander is a piece of cardboard with a picture on a santa and a reindeer most of the time, and inside it is the worst chocolate you will ever taste, and you eat one piece of it for 24 days.

They also start showing the Jul Kalender, where they play a ten-minute episode of a show consisting of 24 episodes until Christmas eve, with a nowadays horribly written story and the worst child acting you will ever find. Call me nostalgic, but it was better when I was a kid. This year Jul Kalander is how kids have stopped believing in Santa because the parents dress up like him instead, so the current Santa has to make everyone believe in him again, together with his wife who is played by Swedish Kris Jenner and the two kids both with Jul themed names.

This is also the time when you start baking, and god we bake a lot.

There’s Lussekatter, a bun formed like an S that consists of 90% saffron and if you would ask me tastes horrible, Havreflarn that makes you mouth drier than the Sahara, Knäck that you always fail with doing so it’s either so hard that it will crack your teeth or so soft that it gets stuck in the paper and Skumtomtar. If you have ever gone to a school ever, you have probably eaten about a hundred Skumtomtar each Christmas because they are cheap and small, so ever teacher hands them out all the time.

And then there’s Lucia. Lucia is probably the weirdest tradition we have here, and the reason I wanted to make this post. It is taken from Italy (What???), and I won't go too deep but basically on the 13th December everyone dresses in white nightgowns and sing about Jesus.

Alright I will go a little deeper than that, though it might sound confusing.

So in a Lucia tåg (Which it is called), there are three traditional roles. 

The Tärna is what the girls are. A tärna has the nightgown, they have glitter in their hair and around their waist and they hold a candle in their hand. Simple, right???

The boys are Stjärngossar. A Stjärngosse also has the nightgown, though instead of glitter they have a cone with three stars on their head, and a star on a flower stick in their hand. They also have a specific song called “Staffan Var En Stalledräng” that has nothing to do with them.

In front of all the Stjärngossarna and Tärnorna is the Lucia, often a blonde girl (Though the real Lucia was dark-haired, but nowadays they always have bright hair). The Lucia has the nightgown as well, but on the top of her head there’s a crown of candles and around her waist a red band that is supposed to represent blood, because lore.

(I have to show a picture, because this all sounds ridiculous)

Yeah sometimes there are Santa’s and Gingerbread’s in it too, but not usually. Also The Stjärngossarna are supposed to wear gowns and the Tärnorna are supposed to wear glitter around their waist, but this was the best picture I could find.

Now, what do the Lucia tåg do, you might ask? Well they wake up at 5 AM in the morning, walks around the neighborhood with a tray of Lussekatter and glögg, aka warm juice that tastes disgusting to me, knock on doors and starts to sing maybe like one or two songs, offer the people a Lussekatt and continue their walk.

This is the weirdest shit I can think of, and also why I love my country so god damn much.

So now Lucia’s behind us, and it’s finally Christmas Eve!

Actually no, let’s talk about the 23rd first. On the 23rd, the entirety of Sweden is sitting in their living rooms and playing Bingo on TV, for whatever reason! After that is over, instead of leaving out milk and cookies to Santa, we leave a bowl of Porridge and some Julmust. 

Christmas eve starts out with breakfast where we eat porridge and rhyme to it. Yes, we make rhymes about our porridge. And we are not yet done with the Porridge, nope! In the Porridge we put an almond, and whoever gets the almond gets married the next year. Yeah, we actually do this! We also dip the darkest bread you will ever find in a big saucepan of Hambroth, and then eat it! It’s disgusting I tell you, but tradition!!!

At 3 PM we watch Donald Duck, which is a bunch of Disney Clips that is shown every year since the 1960s, so the clips are really old with really bad quality, and they aren’t in Swedish so a man voices over all the lines in the most monotone voice I’ve ever heard. And you can’t even suggest Skipping Donald Duck, that is fucking tradition and everyone hates you if you do. 

As soon as Donald Duck’s over you eat your god damn Christmas food and drink the Julmust, and after it you just sit around and wait for Santa. Yeah, you heard that right, Santa barges in on December the 24th! And from what I can tell (It’s hard to research this), we’re the only one who does this.

So ayways, some dad or grandpa will say “Well, I have to go buy some milk/newspaper” and it’s always those two. Two minutes later a half-drunk Santa comes in with a weird accent and delivers present after present slowly because the man who acts out Santa pretends to not being able to read for ten seconds and mispronounces your name on purpose, before leaving. 

I’m sorry, but what exactly happened to Santa when he came to Sweden? In every other country he’s like a spy that sneaks into houses and leaves after a millisecond on his magical sleigh with his magical reindeers and yaay!

 Did Santa get stopped by the cops or something the first time he came here?? Or what??

After the presents are opened, all the extended family goes home and you go to bed, and wake up on Christmas day like it’s a normal fucking Sunday. We don’t actually celebrate The 25th here folks, we ignore it! We’re all drunk at this point, either on adrenalin because you can play with your new toys! or on Alcholhol because we drink a lot here.

So yeah, that is Christmas in Sweden, gosh I love my country.

[purplesurveys]

642

If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? My obvious choices would be Beyoncé and Hayley Williams. But to change it up a bit, I would love to meet Meghan Markle. What's the first line of the nearest book you can reach? It’s the preface, and it says, “The MSA Simulated College Admission Test Modules are written for the potential college freshmen who need to prepare for college entrance tests given by the country’s finest universities and colleges.” Hah, it’s a college entrance test reviewer. Gabie’s sister is part of the next batch who will be taking the exams, so I’m passing on my old reviewers and modules to her which explains why this is the book nearest to me right now. What does the last text message on your phone say? “Let’s talk on fbc” If you could be any colour of crayon, what would you be? Burgundy or maroon. I like bold colors. If you could be anywhere in the universe right now, where would you be? I woulddddd like to be at the farthest tip of the universe, just so we can finally learn just how big it all is.

Do you have a strange talent? If so, what is it? I can recite the entire screenplays of Titanic, The Proposal, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which makes me an awful companion for these movies. If you discovered a new species of animal, what would you call it? I’d leave it up to the scientists to name it tbh because I might probably give it an awful name without meaning to. What's the weirdest name for a phobia? Most of them already sound pretty weird to me lmao. For instance I’d never expect acrophobia to refer to a fear of heights, because it just sounds like a fear of acrobats :(( And triskaidekophobia sounds nothing like a fear of the number 13. If you ever had the chance, would you eat a frog? Yes. I’ve already eaten frog legs as it is. They taste just like chicken. Do you prefer being indoors or outdoors? Depends on where I am when it comes to either. I can enjoy both. When you're indoors, what will you most likely be doing? Indoors can mean a lot of things dude. I can be strolling around, eating, going through my phone, playing bowling, watching a movie, etc. Are you good at lying? I can lie if I have to, but I hate doing it. What was the last lie you told? I didn’t technically lie but like I had to act fake last Friday around a guy I don’t particularly like, but had to hang out with because he’s Angela and Hans’s friend. I kinda had to lie through my personality and show him that everything was okay, which I think counts? Hahaha. I can’t remember the last verbal lie I had to tell. The next song that comes up is a new emotion: I don’t have anything playing on my Spotify. What's your favourite food? Burgers, for sure. What is your greatest weakness? Chewy chocolate chip cookies. What's the weirdest thing you've said whilst drunk? I don’t remember half the shit I say when I’m drunk, but I bet those bits that I forget are the weird ones. Do you collect anything obscene or unusual? If yes, what do you collect? Nope, no weird collections in my room. Finish the sentence: What if... Everybody hates what ifs, there’s no need to trigger right now. What's your favourite smell? I like food smells, basically. I like the smell of chicken being fried, curry being cooked, cookies being baked, the smell of bakeries and coffee shops, my order getting placed in front of me... I just love food aahhhh. If you were ever granted one single wish, what would you wish for? To have all the money that I would ever need and want. You're given the chance to name a newly found city. What do you call it? I’d probably have to borrow an ethnic word for this, because the Filipino language is pretty badass. What do you like about your favourite band? Their songs are always intensely personal and relatable, they aren’t afraid to switch music styles, they keep going back to the Philippines heheheh, and they ALWAYS insist that they’re a band – it’s seen in how Hayley always wants to be credited as ‘Hayley Williams from Paramore’ in all her gigs, and never just as Hayley Williams. Are you creative? I wouldn’t say that. But now you got me all spooked because this was the theme of the first episode of the Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared videos D: What is the meaning of life to you? I never go on Tumblr for deep questions like this, so pass. What do you consider yourself a number one fan of? That’s a bold statement, but I’d like to think that’s me with Audrey Hepburnnnn. What's the luckiest thing that's ever happened to you? One time I was driving a little fast when the car in front of me suddenly stopped to take a turn. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to hit the brakes and if my car could slow down enough not to hit them; and at the time I was already thinking about either crashing to my death or dealing with an angry driver (even though they were the dumbass for suddenly stopping). I didn’t hit the car, but there was a literal centimeter of space left between my car and theirs; my car also got shaken up from its brakes getting floored that the engine made a weird sound for a few seonds. I was left overwhelmed and with so much adrenaline so I ended up crying for like a full hour after. Imagine you've just started a band. What would the band be called? I’m terrible with names so I hope this is the last question asking me to come up with a name for something. The name of your first album: BOY AM I WRONG. The name of your first single: You write your autobiography, the title is: What's your biggest pet peeve? Gotta be a tie between freeloaders and arriving late. What do you wish the weather could be like right now? I’m always wishing it were raining and that it could always be a little colder. What's the weirdest pet name you've ever heard? Recently I saw someone I know have the pet name ‘bubbap’ for their bf, which was new to me. What were you doing this time last year? Ooh, luckily I had a 2019-themed Instagram where I tried to take one photo every day for the year 2019 and it covers January 14! My photo for that day was my wrist covered in lipstick swatches, which I now remember as the day Kate, Jo, Aya, Laurice, and I went to UPTC, snacked at a milk tea place and browsed through makeup. I don’t remember the rest of the stuff that we did, though. What will you be doing this time NEXT year? I’m guessing I will be asleep because I have to wake up early for my job, whatever it is. If you were a superhero, what would your magic power be? Time travel. What's your biggest secret? This Tumblr. What makes a great relationship? It’s such a cliche answer but communication really makes everything better. Also, knowing one another’s love languages. What goes through your mind when you see 'that awkward moment when' posts? Nothing, I just internally hope that the rest of the sentence pertains to an actual awkward moment and not just a completely normal situation, which seems to be the case for most of those posts. How do you win over people's hearts? I’m a listener, so I just whip that weapon out and let them talk while I nod along and ask questions every now and then to let them know I’m paying attention. What's your biggest obsession? Food. What's the worst decision you've ever made in life? I don’t know. I don’t dwell on bad decisions so I’ve most likely forgotten the ones I did make in the past. What do you want written on your gravestone? I’m not yet sure. Something witty, for sure. Your favourite quote is? It’s 12:17 AM and I’m all outta energy to think of quotes that I like. What is a weird habit you have? Playing with, and sometimes pulling at, my eyebrows and eyelashes. It mostly happens when I have bouts of anxiety. If you were on a plane beside your favorite celebrity, what would you do? Say hi, tell them I’m a fan, and get on with my business so that I look all cool :((( I don’t know if I can pull that off with Kristen but that’s definitely my plan. Describe yourself with a song title? That I’m So Tired song by Lauv and Troye Sivan. Why would someone use an umbrella? Because rain? Or sunlight? If you could see into the future, what would you do? I’d look into it, because I hate uncertainty. Why is shampoo clear and conditioner not? Idk about yours, but mine both aren’t. You've created your own recipe. What do you name it? U g h. Do you have lots of floor space in your bedroom? No, not really. This room was meant for my youngest sibling so it’s been small from the get-go. For some reason I called dibs on it when I was 10 because my parents meant to have me share a room with my sister and I was NOT a fan of that – simply put, I called dibs on my current bedroom because it was a solo bedroom (my brother was 4 at the time and didn’t want to stay in a room all by himself, so it was technically up for grabs). I have the smallest room now, but honestly it’s ok. I don’t need a lot of space and besides, I’m moving out very soon hahaha. What time do you like to stay awake until? It’s different every night. Are you a dedicated person? To causes or responsibilities I’m passionate about, yes. What happened in the last dream you had? Not sure. I forget most of them. What's your favourite day of the week and why? Friday, because weekeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend. If you're at the beach, what are you most likely doing? I’m always doing either of these: sunbathing, or swimming in the sea, just relaxing. The name of your favourite movie: Two for the Road and Good Will Hunting. It’s always been a tie. What's your favourite thing about Christmas? All the food.

Are you stubborn? Yes. If you could forget about one memory that you have, what would it be? Embarrassing ones. I won’t delve into them because the whole point is to forget them, lmao. If you were made out of paper, what would you do? Google what just happened lol. Do you act differently to certain people? Yeah. You have to sometimes. How I am with my college friends isn’t 100% the same as how I am with my high school friends (I switch to a different sense of humor, but otherwise it’s still all me), and both these personalities are so not how I act around family. What's your favourite sport? Pro wrestling. Your favourite tweet ever made by your favourite celebrity? The first time Punk and AJ ever tweeted each other. They were talking about human doodles and human poodles. It was WILLLLLLDDDD experiencing that as it happened haha. Did you enjoy this quiz? Sure! It was random enough for me. The name generator questions just scared me a bit. If you were on the titanic, would you be a survivor? I guess, because I’m a woman and they had that women and children rule. Where would be the weirdest place to randomly start dancing at? A bank? I dunno. What do you do when you can't sleep at night? I turn to Reddit or YouTube. 101% effective, every single night. Do you trust people easily? Yes. I can also take away that trust easily. If you could tell the whole world anything right now, what would you say? Please donate whatever you can to help out the animals in the areas affected by the Taal eruption. I wish it were this easy to yell it out to the world. Your opinion on the royals: I’m proud of Meghan and Harry, y’alls. GO DITCH ‘EM. Don’t get me wrong, I love the royal family, but what Meghan and Harry did was pretty fucking awesome, too. Why is your favourite TV show your favourite TV show? It’s not deep, it’s funny and I can rewatch every episode as many times as I want and still laugh at the same punchlines, it’s relatable, and it’s helped me through some dark times. Would you rather be the leader or the follower? Leader for tasks I know I’ll succeed in, follower for responsibilities that I know are way too big and pressing for my capabilities. What's your favourite pastime? Netflix, and my newest hobby, painting :)

[writsgrimmyblog]

Rec List #1 Theme: 2018 Favourites

One of my fandom resolutions is to rec more in 2019. I’m going to post rec lists for some of my favourite Nick fics divided up by theme/content/ship or whatever I fancy throughout the year. It seems fitting that my first rec post of 2019 should be my favourite Nick Fics of 2018. If you’re interested in my Harry Potter themed recs, you can find them over on my other blog @writcraft under the tag #writ recs where I’m undertaking the same initiative.

This is by no means an exhaustive list - I’m limiting myself to ten recs per list and it is very difficult, I could have recced many more. I’ve read and enjoyed a whole raft of terrific stories and this rec list is simply based on my personal tastes which may not be everybody else’s cuppa. Please heed the content warnings the author has flagged on AO3 in each case, none of my recs include the content tags.

#1. Ten Track Sophomore Album by @junkshop-disco​ 

Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles | 4,228

Nick has always lived in noise, been the cause of a lot of it, but one day a boy writes him into a pop song and the whole world dissolves into static.

It doesn’t happen like that, not that easy, not that linear, but that’s the heart of it, the soul, if these things have such a thing.

My Rec: The Nick fic of 2018 is undoubtedly the final installment of junkshop-disco’s incredible Doodle of a Surface Life but that has quite rightly garnered so many recs by now if any Gryles reader hasn’t yet indulged, run, quick, what are you waiting for? I love DOASL with all of my heart, but I’m also a sucker for angst and I wanted to highlight this equally terrific fic in my rec list. The structure of this story, in which Nick loses his ability to hear music, is so cleverly done. It’s a very skilled writer that can create an entire fic around sound and make it come alive, and junkshop-disco manages it brilliantly. The fic reads like music, even as it describes the absence of it and it’s a stunning piece of writing. If you like your Gryles contemplative and angsty with confident, lyrical prose, this is the one for you. Junkshop-disco has such a terrific way with words I highly recommend reading all the works by this author. Every single one. But when you do make sure you take a moment to stop by this beautiful story and leave it all the love it deserves.

#2. Tell Me It’s The Strongest Shape by @louandhazaf

Nick Grimshaw/Elgar Johnson/Louis Tomlinson | 73,224

Nick and Elgar have it all. They’re famous, successful, and engaged to be married—and sometimes they play with others.

When uni student Louis gets street cast by Elgar for a GQ photoshoot, he's drawn into Nick and Elgar’s complicated relationship.

They've always invited mates into their bed. It doesn’t ever mean anything. Until… it does.

My Rec: This is such a great exploration of polyamory and the complexities of open relationships, and the author took a great deal of time developing the relationships between the characters and really working on highlighting some of those difficulties. I tend to gravitate towards fanfic where I care deeply about the characters, and although Elgar seems terrific I don’t have the same fannish relationship to him as I do to Nick and Louis so I was curious to know how I would respond to this fic. Basically, the author killed it. I felt such a deep investment in Elgar, Nick and Louis throughout and everything just flew by as I was reading. It’s also really fucking hot. Like, REALLY. Brilliantly done. I loved it. 

#3. Let The Boys All Sing And The Boys All Shout For Tomorrow by @lunarrua​

Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles | 18,429

It's February 1988. Thatcher is in power. There's a new drug sweeping through the clubbing scene. In Manchester, it's the eve of a major protest and a new musical movement. And when Nick finds Harry looking lost outside his favourite chip shop, it's the start of a weekend that will leave an indelible mark on both their lives.

My Rec: I saw the summary for this fic and actually yelled at my screen when it popped into my inbox. Gryles, set in Manchester in the 80s? Hell yes. The fic itself certainly didn’t disappoint, it’s absolutely beautiful. The author writes a well-researched, confident piece and the result is stunning. The atmosphere of the whole story is captivating and you can feel yourself transported to the heady days before the Manchester music scene shifted, the anxieties of the AIDS crisis and the fragility of the relationships formed during that period. The Harry of this fic has a transient quality which evokes the nostalgic reflection on a different time in our not so distant past. A real triumph. I loved this story with my whole heart. 

#4. Séjour by @silveredsound

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 6,288

It is so quiet, which should be conducive to concentration, but Nick is bored and listless and lonely. He’s been there for two days and wants to know where the helpful lady is who’ll deliver him a gamine but takes-no-shit housekeeper who he can fall in love with without words. Words are not his friend.

“Where is my Love Actually moment?” he asks the ceramic kitchen sink as he pokes holes in the cover of one of the M&S ready meals he brought over with him.

«≠»

Nick’s got writer's block. Louis is a master of distraction.

My Rec: I’ve loved a number of stories by Silv this year and I was swinging back and forth between this and others, but there’s something about this little fic that has wormed its way into my heart and has taken hold so this is the one I’m choosing. As I said in my earlier reblog rec, this has such lush, evocative prose it perfectly captures the sense of a fleeting summer. There’s a seductive quietness to it, and a lovely unfolding of the story through snippets of tasting notes left by Louis on bottles of wine and Nick feeling a little bit lost and searching for words as he struggles with writer’s block. Two boys find one another in the warmth of a sleepy French town and it’s beautiful. Really wonderfully done.

#5. Fists & Flowers ‘Verse by @jiksax

Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles | 1,613 (Make It Worse) and 2,322 (I’ll Do What You Like (If You Stay The Night)

He’s looking at Nick with that soft, terrible look in his eyes, the look that tells Nick the two of them are probably something.

My Rec: If anyone other than Jiksa had told me they were planning an angsty fisting fic series I would have been like umm really? But of course, it’s Jiksa, so naturally I found myself sobbing at the raw, devastating intensity of the story. Jiksa deftly weaves the intensity of the physical act itself into the emotional tumult of Harry and Nick’s relationship in a way that’s incredibly beautiful. A bold, brave, superb piece of hot, confident writing, rich with emotional complexity. Gorgeous.

#6. Constantly on the Cusp by @shiftylinguini

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 6169

It’s 5 in the morning, and Nick’s got an alarm going off, an unexpected bed full of pop star, and a nation to wake up.

It’s far too fucking early for this.

My Rec: UNFFFFF. I love Shifty’s writing. Like, an obsessive amount. I was so thrilled when Shifty started writing Tomlinshaw I didn’t know quite what to do with myself. It’s actually hard to believe this was Shifty’s first Tomlinshaw, because everything about the fic felt like they have been writing them for years. Louis is sleepy, horny and pissed off, Nick is awake, horny and wondering what it all means, and together they have this scorching hot, sexy moment. Nick’s internal monologue  gives us so much insight into their relationship and the fic offers a lovely, warm, hopeful moment at the end. Fantastically written and a sexy delight from start to finish. Loved it!

#7. this cookie’s baking by @disgruntledkittenface 

Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles (Genderswap Femslash) | 8,148

Harry’s eyes flicker between Nick’s eyes and lips. “I just want to be your–”

“Baby,” Nick says softly, cupping Harry’s jaw, “you already are.”

Nick and Harry have a long-overdue conversation.

My Rec: This was the first genderswap Gryles fic I have read and I absolutely loved it. The relationship between Nick and Harry feels so perfectly them and there’s a lovely warmth to the whole story. It’s light and funny but also contains moments of real emotional depth and those first time explorations and the hesitancy of admitting to being something more than friends is handled in such a terrific way. It’s a gorgeous story with wonderful writing and I loved every minute of reading it.

#8. let’s make some new rules by @camiii 

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 12,743

A coffee shop, a Christmas party & a fake date to make sure no one gets laid at the end of the night.

My Rec: This was such an enjoyable read. I love camiii’s Tomlinshaw, and seeing this pop up was a wonderful surprise. Barista Louis agrees to be Nick’s fake boyfriend as he pines over an ex that definitely isn’t worth his time, and they become closer in the process. The pace of the story is wonderful, the flirting is brilliant and despite some misunderstandings and Nick’s no good ex trying to fuck things up, the ending is warm and hopeful. A lovely story, full of festive cheer. Thoroughly enjoyable.

#9. I’ll be seeing you by @daretomarvel​ / renlyne

Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles | 11,481

It’s 2028, and Nick’s bought a house.

My Rec: I love Ren’s writing and this Notebook inspired Gryles is a beautiful treat of a story, in which Nick starts buying little bits for his dream house. It’s hard to believe this story is just over 11,000 words because the world the author creates is so rich, detailed, layered and complex. The relationship between Nick and Harry has all of these gorgeous details and nuggets of history as it grows and develops, seedling-like, into something that might just be everything they’ve both been searching for. It’s a warm, hopeful, beautiful story but as it’s Ren, it manages to still tug at the heartstrings in the best kind of way. I read this again as I was putting my rec list together and did so with a lump in my throat, full of feels for the Nick and Harry of Ren’s universe. Gorgeous writing with bags of emotional intensity. I loved it.

#10. All I’ve ever had are love songs by @candybarrnerd / icarusinflight

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 21,688

Things are finally coming together for Nick.

Nick is the DJ of his uni's radio stations, and he passively aggressively dedicates a song to Louis.

My Rec: Icarusinflight is another author who was already on my periphery from Harry Potter fandom who wrote their first Tomlinshaw fic this year and I was so thrilled to see them writing in this fandom and I’m very excited about their upcoming 2019 projects which also includes fics featuring the 1D boys in various ship combos. I love uni AUs and I hadn't read one for a while, so this was such a treat. I loved how Louis is sharp, sassy and confident but with niggling insecurities. Harry was so affectionately humorous in this story and Nick’s voice is wonderful. This is a really well-paced, enjoyable story with a hot af first kiss that deserves a mention all of its own. The music references, the tea and the cameos from various 1D members are all terrific and the writing is brilliant. Can’t wait for more from this author this year.

Bonus Rec: I was meant to limit this to just 10 recs but I also wanted to give a quick shout out to @nightwideopen. I’ve said this in previous rec lists before, but I am constantly impressed by the quality of @nightwideopen‘s writing and the way they explore things such as asexuality and gender dysphoria which can be harder to find in a relatively small fandom. I’d particularly rec so far (it’s alright) and i’ve been thinking lots about your mouth from this year, both Tomlinshaw.

[downn-in-flames]

‘tis the season (every season)

Every day is Christmas when you’re Lily Evans and James Potter. {sequel to bake my wish come true}

read it on: hpft | ao3 | ffnet

At twenty-five years of age, Lily Evans can best be described as fully ambivalent about Christmas.

She no longer holds the holiday with the same level of contempt as she did three and a half years ago, but it’s not her favorite holiday either.

So, with all that taken into consideration, it’s rather hard to believe that a random July day would find Lily in a red-and-white striped apron, turning on a Spotify playlist full of Christmas music. Almost completely unfathomable, in fact.

However, that unfathomability fails to account for her boyfriend of three and a half years, whose love for the December holiday is entirely unparalleled by anyone Lily has ever met - including most small children. His holiday spirit is something of a contagion, one that even the most stubborn, unfestive person in the world can’t fight off.

“We open in ten minutes, Lily!” James yells from another room, as if Lily hasn’t been watching a clock since the moment they arrived in the little bakery four hours ago. “Oh my god,” he repeats, this time more to himself than to her, “we open in ten minutes.”

She walks into the front room, where James is standing behind the counter, seemingly frozen. His hands are braced against the edge of the countertop, squeezing so tightly that his knuckles are turning white, and the way that his hair is sticking up, even wilder than usual, suggests that he’s just been frantically running his fingers through it - a trademark nervous habit of his.

She’s been in that position all too many times over the past few months, experiencing a moment of panic as it hits her that oh my god, they’re really doing this, so it’s only natural that James was due for one of his own as well. Starting a business doesn’t come without its share of risk, and the stakes are at an all-time high every single step of the way, so the past few months have been full of these little stressed-out moments. And James has been the one to calm her down all those times before, rubbing soothing circles into her back as he reassures her that everything’s going to be fine and that she’s doing great; it’s about time that she repays the favor.

She wraps her arms around his middle, leaning into him. “It’s going to be magical,” she says reassuringly.

And she’s not just saying that to placate him - after all these months of stress and heavy decisions, she knows that opening day at ‘Tis the Season is going to be brilliant. She’s watched their social media following blow up over the past few weeks, as word spread that a year-round Christmas-themed bakery was opening its doors in the heart of London.

Despite getting a business degree at uni that had nothing to do with photography or caption-writing, it seems that all those years of running the Instagram account at Just Desserts served as surprisingly effective training for creating a viable business social media presence.

“You’re sure?” James says, the vulnerability in his voice palpable.

Lily looks around the bakery, at all the confections James has been working hard to create since the crack of dawn. There’s a tray of croissants, golden and buttery, sitting on the top shelf of the display case, accompanied by a few fresh fruitcakes - a Christmas classic that Lily was sure even the most spirited of holiday lovers secretly hated until she tasted the version James had come up with, fluffy and sweet and not at all reminiscent of the dense brick-like versions of the confection that her grandmother used to make year after year.

On the shelf below that is every kind of cookie imaginable - gingerbread, sugar, double chocolate - all shaped like classic holiday icons and decorated to perfection. No two were made exactly alike; James took pride in giving each cookie a personality of its own, mixing up frosting in just about every color imaginable and piping thin details onto the desserts with the practiced grace of an artist in his element.

Lily’s taste-tested just about everything in this bakery at least once - hell, she played a pretty integral role in the creation of most of them - and there’s nothing in these display cases that she doesn’t absolutely love.

Not to mention, the bakery is decorated to the nines. The custom neon light fixture just behind the display cases, proudly declaring ‘ ‘Tis the Season, Every Season’ (a gift from Lily just this past Christmas, not long after they’d signed the papers to officially purchase this little space) is the bow on top of it all, proudly proclaiming that this is their place, this is their Christmas wish come true.

She nods, even though he can’t see her do it. “Even more magical than Christmas morning.”

His grip on the counter loosens, and Lily can feel the muscles in his back and shoulders release just a little of their tension. “That’s a pretty high standard to live up to.”

“And yet, I have faith that it will.”

As fun and magical as Christmas morning is - especially in the Potter household, which is where she’s spent the last two Christmases - this is James seeing his dream come to life, seeing all the hard work and business meetings that he abhorred sitting through but Lily had forced him to attend anyways (“I may be making all the financial decisions, but we’re co-owners and I’ll be damned if I have to sit through a meeting with Ragnok alone”) come to fruition.

You can’t tie up a massive brick and mortar building with silver wrapping paper and a bow (although James had certainly wanted to try on more than one occasion), but Lily knows that having his life’s goal come together in front of his eyes is going to be far better than anything he’s ever found under a Christmas tree.

James lets go of the countertop fully, turning around in Lily’s arms so that they’re face-to-face. “I love you so much. Have I told you that lately?”

She smirks up at him as one of his hands comes up to rest on the side of her face, thumb gently skimming along her cheekbone. “Once or twice.”

“Well it bears repeating,” he replies, a smile slowly taking the place of the panicked expression that he was wearing just a few minutes ago. “I love you, and you’re brilliant.”

He leans down to kiss her, and even though it’s just a brief little peck, it fills Lily with the sort of warmth that’s only accomplished with James’ affection or his homemade cinnamon buns. But as much as she’d like to stay here all day and bask in that feeling, they’ve got a bakery to open.

“I love you too,” she tells him. “Now let’s open a fucking bakery.”

* * *

The first few hours bring a steady stream of customers, almost all of whom end up cooing over the red garland wrapped around the edges of the display case, or the cash register decorated to look like Santa’s sleigh, or the floor designed to look like a fresh snowfall.

The cinnamon rolls are the first to sell out - the ones with the chai icing go first, and the eggnog-frosted ones quickly follow. Lily thanks her lucky stars that she’d managed to sneak one out of the display case before they opened this morning as her breakfast - James’ chai icing is maybe one of her favorite confections in the whole bakery; the first time she’d tried it on top of a fresh-out-the-oven cinnamon roll, she’d practically been brought to tears by the deliciousness of the combination.

James spends most of the morning bouncing between the kitchen and the storefront - he’s got a few more things baking in the back to prepare for the lunch rush, but he’s never one to miss out on socialising with the customers either.

“A year-round Christmas bakery… where’d you come up with that one?” a woman asks him, looking into the cases of baked goods with interest.

“My girlfriend came up with it, actually,” James answers.

“Oh, is she a big Christmas person? That’s so sweet that you’d do this for her.”

Lily hears James snort, and his eyes flash over to her for just a moment. “Not… exactly. More that she knows how much I love it and realised it’d be a bang-up business model as well. She’s the mastermind behind this whole operation, really.”

The woman looks over at Lily, who’s trying her best to act like she’s occupied with packing up goods for the couple waiting at the other end of the counter and not eavesdropping on their conversation.

“Beauty and brains, then,” the customer tells James. “You’d better lock that one down soon.”

James just laughs. “Oh, I intend to. Very soon.”

That’s not necessarily news to Lily - they’ve discussed this on more than one occasion and decided to wait on getting married until after they’d gotten the bakery up and running - but it’s still somewhat surprising to hear him say it out loud to a random customer.

But then again, he’s always been the type to say whatever he can to make the customer happy, and that includes promises to propose to his girlfriend, apparently.

Although in fairness, they’ve done this whole thing backwards anyways - starting a business together is honestly almost a bigger commitment than a marriage, at least in Lily’s mind. She’s locked into this venture with James through multiple contracts they’ve had to sign along the way, meaning that they are, for all intents and purposes, pretty much stuck together at this point.

Not that she minds that much, though. This place may be James’ dream come true, but it’s also kind of become hers along the way too, over-the-top Christmas decor be damned.

“Good,” the woman says to James. “I’ll have three snowflake cookies and a peppermint brownie, please.”

* * *

Marlene McKinnon, their sole employee for the time being, arrives just before noon, and it’s pretty damn good timing, if Lily says so herself. The line is only just becoming slightly unmanageable, and an extra set of hands is basically a godsend at this point.

Lily had predicted a fair bit of traffic on opening day, but at this rate, they’ll be fully sold out by 2 p.m. Which is far better than having excess stock at the end of the day, but still, it’s not ideal. She’ll probably need to massively recalibrate their supply orders if this keeps up.

“Lils, can you go back and take the bread out of the oven? And maybe start a new batch of cookies or two while you’re at it? I think Marlene and I have got it handled out here for now.”

“On it,” she tells her boyfriend, giving him a mock-salute as she walks back into the kitchen.

She follows his directions first, sliding on a set of oven mitts and taking the loaf of nissua bread out of the oven. The heady cardamom scent of the Finnish sweet bread fills her nostrils - it’s probably one of her favourites of the many types of bread James makes only just beat out by his sourdough.

She’s certain that James had gotten a little antsy this morning, spending almost all of his time in the back while Lily had tended to customers - something evidenced by the fact that he asked Lily to come back and bake some more cookies rather than doing it himself. It’s not as if he doesn’t trust Lily’s baking skills or anything - he’d worked with her at Just Desserts for long enough to have faith that she can, in fact, bake well - but he’s still the better baker by far between the two of them.

But he’s a social creature by design, so it seems fitting that he’d want to spend the afternoon out interacting with their new customers (and probably attempting to charm them into becoming regulars, because that’s just what he does best).

She settles on baking a batch of ginger molasses cookies first. They’re nowhere near as fancy as the gingerbread people James decorated this morning - much simpler and less Instagram-worthy, but they’re Lily’s favourites to make.

She goes about collecting the ingredients she’ll need; most of the standard ingredients are conveniently stored next to the mixing station, but some of the more unique spices, including the crystallised ginger that’s the piéce de resistance of this particular cookie varietal, are stored in their spice cabinet along the back wall.

So she opens the cabinet, rifling through for the things she knows she’ll need - ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and, of course, crystallised ginger.

She’s so devoted to this particular task - locating each of the spices in neat alphabetical order amongst the shelves - that she almost misses the small box tucked away amongst the spices. It catches her eye though, at the last possible minute as she’s about to shut the cabinet door.

“That’s not supposed to be there,” she mutters, entirely to herself. She’d looked through these shelves just a few hours while helping with the early morning baking, and it definitely wasn’t there then.

But she doesn’t exactly have time to ponder these sorts of things, so she chalks it up to James messing with her organizational system and turns her attention back to baking. She’ll ask him about it later.

This part, she can do automatically. From all her years working at Just Desserts to pay her way through uni, all the baking she and James got up to just for fun (because of course his favourite date ideas always involved a kitchen somehow), and all the experimenting they’d done to perfect the menu for ‘Tis the Season, baking has become something as natural to her as breathing.

And with these cookies in particular, she’s learned to trust her instincts over any predetermined recipe. It’s something the Lily of three years ago would’ve never even entertained - breaking from a recipe in favour of eyeballing everything - but here she is, sprinkling cinnamon into the mixing bowl with nary a measuring spoon in sight.

She’s hesitant to credit James entirely with her decreased rigidity over the years - she likes to think she would’ve learned to be a little more laidback even without his constant easygoing, playful vibe slowly working its way into her personality - but it’s certainly true that he’s probably played at least some role in it. They’ve both been good for each other in that way - Lily keeps James grounded, he keeps her calm. They’re each other’s rocks.

She puts the bowl of ingredients under the hand mixer, flipping it on and watching the machine fold the flour, sugar, butter, molasses, and spices into one cohesive mixture. The sugary molasses-and-ginger scent of the newly-combined dough starts to reach her nostrils, and with it comes the vivid memory of her first attempt at these cookies.

She’d been with James, naturally, and it was long before ‘Tis the Season had been even the tiniest inkling of an idea in either of their heads.

They’d been together for… maybe a year at that point, and she’d taken the X90 to visit him in Oxford. What she wasn’t expecting to find when she got there, however, was her normally unruffled boyfriend on the edge of a dissertation-related nervous breakdown.

So she’d done the only thing she knew to bring James back down to earth: stuck him in the kitchen with no laptop, where he could stress-bake to his heart’s content.

Which is precisely what he’d done, and they’d very quickly ended up with well over a hundred cookies taking over the small communal kitchen he’d shared with his three roommates. Of those many, many batches of cookies, only one of them was made by Lily: the ginger molasses ones.

She hadn’t had any sort of recipe going in, just combined ingredients in what seemed like vaguely-logical ratios and hoped for the best; the downside of banning all technology from the kitchen for James’ sake was that she hadn’t had a recipe to follow like usual.

And yet, when they’d come out of the oven, and James had taken a bite, he’d sworn up and down that they were probably the best batch of cookies to come out of that day.

The ginger has a talent for ginger cookies, he’d joked, smiling for the first time since Lily had arrived. If we ever open a bakery, these are definitely going on the menu.

It had been nothing but a joke back then, a comment casually thrown about, but now… well, now, they’d actually done it. They’d actually opened a bakery together, and these silly little ginger cookies she’d come up with out of nowhere were suddenly on the menu.

Lily’s memories fully occupy her as she lines the cookies on the baking sheet, each little ball of dough rolled in a bit of sugar for that extra touch of sweetness.

Almost every item in this bakery has a memory just like that attached to it - a memory of her and James - but, she thinks to herself, the memory associated with these ginger cookies might just be one of her favourites.

* * *

Not having any extra inventory at the end of the day is something of a success - selling out in their first day of business is certainly something to be proud of, but it kind of puts a bit of a damper on their plans to serve leftovers at the grand opening party they’ve invited all their friends and family to.

“Well, it’s a good thing I baked a separate cake, isn’t it?” James comments, as they both walk into the back room, away from where everyone is currently mingling in the front of the shop.

“Yeah, at least we’ve got something to feed people with now,” Lily replies, leaning against the counter as James opens up one of the industrial-size fridges. “Champagne is great and all, but throwing a bakery opening party without any baked goods would’ve been a tragedy.”

“I really think Sirius would throw a full-blown tantrum,” he jokes, emerging and holding the boxed-up cake, before launching into an incredibly accurate impression of his best friend. “ ‘I came to an opening party for a bakery and didn’t even get to eat anything? This is a travesty.’ ”

“Well, I suppose we should get this cake out there to avoid such dramatics.”

“Yeah, we should,” James agrees, but he sets the cake on a nearby counter as he’s talking, and turns back to the cabinets. “I just need to do one thing first.”

He opens up the spice cabinet, which serves to remind Lily of the thing she’d been meaning to ask him about.

“Oh, James?”

He looks over at her, fingers still brushing along the bottles inside. “Hmm?”

“There’s a random box sitting in the spices somewhere, I’m guessing it’s yours?” She crosses over to where he’s standing, with the intention of pointing it out to him, just in case he has no clue what she’s referring to. “It’s right…”

The place where she’d seen the little black box earlier is now vacated. “There,” she finishes lamely. “I… how did it just disappear? You and I have been the only people back here today.”

“Do you mean this?” James reaches into his pocket and pulls out the same box she’d seen earlier.

“Yes!” she replies. “I’d been meaning to ask you if you knew what the hell it was, but then we got busy again and I completely forgot about it, and - ”

She doesn’t get to finish that sentence, because James flicks the aforementioned random box open, and whatever comment was about to follow dies on her lips.

Because inside the box sits a diamond ring.

“We agreed to wait until we’d gotten the bakery up and running, and… well, the bakery’s up and running,” he says, and Lily looks back up at his face to see an expression that can really only be described as pure adoration.

She doesn’t even have time to think - much less process what’s happening - when James drops down onto one knee in front of her.

On one hand, she’s naturally pretty surprised by this development, but on the other hand… immediately seizing the very first possible moment to propose honestly sounds exactly like something James would do.

“I’ve never exactly been a paragon of patience, have I?” he jokes, and suddenly Lily is trying to commit every aspect of this moment to memory, from the way the dimmed kitchen lights seem to be casting a glow on James’ skin, to the way the hand holding the ring box is shaking ever-so-slightly, to the...

“You do realise you’re proposing to me while wearing reindeer antlers, yeah?” she can’t help but blurt out.

He reaches up to touch his head at that, almost as if confirming that yes, he does in fact have reindeer antlers on. One corner of his lip turns upwards in a half-smile. “Seems pretty fitting, don’t you think?”

She can’t help but giggle a little at that. Truly, given how consistently James donned a pair of reindeer antlers in the time between their first meeting and their first date (and every holiday season after that, really), it kind of is only fitting that he’d be on one knee in a pair of reindeer antlers too.

“Yeah, I’d say it is,” she replies, giving him the same sort of soft smile in return.

They stay like that for a heartbeat, neither of them saying anything, before James jolts a little. “Right, I’m supposed to make a speech now, aren’t I? Lily, you’re my best friend, my dream girl, and the most Christmassy non-Christmas person I’ve ever met. And I think it’s already pretty damn clear that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, given that we’ve already opened a bakery together and I’m pretty sure that’s a bigger step than marriage anyways, but I want you by my side forever, not only in this bakery but in every other part of our lives as well.”

He gets a mischievous look in his eye, before belting out a, “Make my wish come true, all I want for Christmas is to marry you!”

The makeshift lyrics don’t exactly fit within the flow of the song, and he’s as off-key as ever, but the gesture still makes Lily smile even more broadly than before. “Well, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed from when we first met,” she tells him. “You still can’t sing.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, yeah, I know that. But please don’t leave a bloke hanging on one knee forever.”

After all of the teasing, she finally gives him the answer he’s been waiting for - the answer he knew was coming, no matter how much he jokes that she’s leaving him hanging. “Of course I’ll marry you,” she says, because there’s not another answer she could possibly give, not a single other way that question could be answered - at least, not to her.

James lights up like Christmas morning has come for a second time today. He slides the ring onto her finger and, not even stopping to pay notice to his handiwork, stands up and brings his hands up to the sides of Lily’s face, kissing her like she’s the most wonderful gift he could’ve asked for.

She’s almost content to just stay in this moment, letting the pure joy fill her up until she feels as though she might burst, but another thought hits her, and she pulls back to look at James.

“So does everyone out there know what’s happening back here?” she asks, tilting her head in the direction of the door where, on the other side, all their family and friends are still gathered.

James shakes his head. “No, I didn’t tell anyone. Well, except my parents and your mum... and your dad too, I suppose.” When Lily gives him a questioning look, he continues. “I went to his grave a few weeks ago and had a nice long chat about how I was going to ask his daughter to marry me and while I wasn’t there to ask his permission because I knew his daughter would kill me for succumbing to such a patriarchal tradition, I figured he deserved to be the first to know nonetheless.”

Lily had successfully made it through his entire speech and proposal without crying, but the way he talks about her dad, and the way that he so clearly has come to love and respect a man he’s never even met purely because of the way Lily loves him… it definitely makes her start to tear up.

“He really would’ve loved you,” she chokes out, because even though she’s told him this about a hundred times before, it’s never been quite as true as it is in this moment.

“We would’ve had a hell of a time together, gradually getting you to love every single Christmas tradition there ever is or was,” he replies, lightening the moment between the two of them in typical fashion that only he can manage.

“I don’t doubt it for a moment,” she replies, giving him one more kiss before grabbing onto one of his hands and giving it a squeeze. “Now come on, we’ve got a whole bunch of guests who are probably wondering why the hell it’s taken us so long to get a damn cake out of the fridge.”

“You think they’ll accept getting engaged as an excuse for the delay?” James grins at her, but walks back over to where he’d set the cake on the counter.

“Everyone but Sirius,” Lily answers, finally looking back down at the ring James had put on her finger a couple minutes ago, a ring that she’d almost completely forgotten about in favour of the man who gave it to her. “But he’ll get over it.”

With the cake back in his arms again, James brings it up to the front of the bakery, leaning against the door with his shoulder to push it open, and Lily follows suit.

In the front of the shop, everyone is still gathered and holding plastic flutes of ten-pound champagne, but instead of socialising amongst themselves like they had been when the two of them had disappeared into the back, they’re all looking at Lily and James, as if they’ve been expecting the two of them to reappear for a while now.

“Speech!” a random voice demands - probably Peter, if Lily was putting money on it.

And if giving speeches on demand wasn’t something James Potter was literally born for. “Well, it’s been one hell of a big day for us,” he says, grinning and addressing them all as if he’d rehearsed this a million times.

“We had an amazingly successful first day here at the bakery,” he pauses and glances at Lily with a fully mischievous expression, almost as if to confirm that all hell is about to break loose, “and… we’re engaged.”

Sure enough, the entire bakery immediately bursts into chaos - a very different type of chaos than the lunch rush eight hours earlier but filling ‘Tis the Season with energy nonetheless - and Lily thinks to herself that this random day in July is definitely going to go down in history as better than any Christmas morning.

And that does mean something, because yeah, maybe she is a Christmas person after all.

[serialthrillkisser]

99 questions tag

I was tagged by @imthetree-yourethecar

1.DO YOU SLEEP WITH YOUR CLOSET DOORS OPEN OR CLOSED?

I have no closet door, unfortunately

2. DO YOU TAKE THE SHAMPOOS AND CONDITIONER BOTTLES FROM HOTELS?

yes

3. DO YOU SLEEP WITH YOUR SHEETS TUCKED IN OR OUT?

out because i never make my bed i’m a slob

4. HAVE YOU STOLEN A STREET SIGN BEFORE?

no, but the street sign in front of our house almost fell once and we were realtempted lol

5. DO YOU LIKE TO USE POST-IT NOTES?

I use post it notes at work on the daily, but i wouldn’t say i enjoy it lol.

6. DO YOU CUT OUT COUPONS BUT THEN NEVER USE THEM?

yes, unless it’s a really good coupon.

7. WOULD YOU RATHER BE ATTACKED BY A BIG BEAR OR A SWARM OF BEES?

bees, because like you could get away from the easier

8. DO YOU HAVE FRECKLES?

no :(

9. DO YOU ALWAYS SMILE FOR PICTURES?

i don’t like my picture taken so i avoid them, but i do smile if i’m forced to lol.

10. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST PET PEEVE?

when people make really loud eating sounds, eeewwwww

11. DO YOU EVER COUNT YOUR STEPS WHEN YOU WALK?

yes, a lot, especially when using stairs

12. HAVE YOU PEED IN THE WOODS?

who hasn’t?

13. HAVE YOU EVER POOPED IN THE WOODS?

no i’ve not lol.

14. I think I deleted this question on accident. Oops. 

well..... more like 98 questions then....

15. DO YOU CHEW YOUR PENS AND PENCILS?

no

16. HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE YOU SLEPT WITH THIS WEEK?

017. WHAT SIZE IS YOUR BED?

queen

18. WHAT IS YOUR SONG OF THE WEEK?

Where Have All the Flowers Gone by Marlene Dietrich

19. IS IT OK FOR GUYS TO WEAR PINK?

Guys should wear whatever they want, who are you to tell anyone what they can or can’t do? PSSSSH

20. DO YOU STILL WATCH CARTOONS?

I never really liked cartoons much, tbh. 

21. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE?

Any of the Shrek movies, I just can’t, sorry.

22. WHERE WOULD YOU BURY HIDDEN TREASURE IF YOU HAD SOME?

I live in the desert, so like somewhere there lol.

23. WHAT DO YOU DRINK WITH DINNER?

Water or soda, not dark soda’s tho.

24. WHAT DO YOU DIP A CHICKEN NUGGET IN?

i like sweet sauces

25. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?

Okonomiyaki

26. WHAT MOVIES COULD YOU WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND STILL LOVE?

I could watch Prisoners and Sciario like 1000 times, I love most anything Denis Villeneuve touches.

27. LAST PERSON YOU KISSED/KISSED YOU?

I don’t like people to be anywhere near me, so never....

28. WERE YOU EVER A BOY/GIRL SCOUT?

I was a girl scout for a few months, but I was bullied out of girl scouts... lmao....

29. WOULD YOU EVER STRIP OR POSE NUDE IN A MAGAZINE?

NO, but I have nothing against people who would.

30. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WROTE A LETTER TO SOMEONE ON PAPER?

I wrote all the Christmas Cards this year, so in December.

31. CAN YOU CHANGE THE OIL ON A CAR?

No, but I am a quick learner.

32. EVER GOTTEN A SPEEDING TICKET?

I don’t drive.

33. EVER RAN OUT OF GAS?

See #32

34. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE KIND OF SANDWICH?

Ruebens

35. BEST THING TO EAT FOR BREAKFAST?

Crepes

36. WHAT IS YOUR USUAL BEDTIME?

Whenever I fall asleep....

37. ARE YOU LAZY?

Yes, lol.

38. WHEN YOU WERE A KID, WHAT DID YOU DRESS UP AS FOR HALLOWEEN?

Usually a cat, or a witch.

39. WHAT IS YOUR CHINESE ASTROLOGICAL SIGN?

Dragon

40. HOW MANY LANGUAGES CAN YOU SPEAK?

I can’t even speak English GOOD

41. DO YOU HAVE ANY MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS?

No, but I do want to subscribe to this one British Crime magazine that is really good.

42. WHICH ARE BETTER: LEGOS OR LINCOLN LOGS?

Legos because you can do more with them

43. ARE YOU STUBBORN?

It depends, like if I know I could do it better then the other person, yes. But if I am not confident, then I can give up control. 

44. WHO IS BETTER: LENO OR LETTERMAN?

I don’t care for either. I did meet Jay Leno once when I was a kid, his fancy car broke down at this gas station near this place I was volunteering at, I got my picture taken with him.

45. EVER WATCH SOAP OPERAS?

No, I don’t much that much TV

46. ARE YOU AFRAID OF HEIGHTS?

HELL YES

47. DO YOU SING IN THE CAR?

Yes

48. DO YOU SING IN THE SHOWER?

Yes 

49. DO YOU DANCE IN THE CAR?

Sometimes.

50. EVER USED A GUN?

Nope.

51. LAST TIME YOU GOT A PORTRAIT TAKEN BY A PHOTOGRAPHER?

At my sisters wedding.

52. DO YOU THINK MUSICALS ARE CHEESY

They aren’t my favorite, but I don’t hate them. Kind of depends on what it’s about

53. IS CHRISTMAS STRESSFUL?

Yes

54. EVER EAT A PIEROGI?

Yeah, they’re good

55. FAVORITE TYPE OF FRUIT PIE?

I don’t like pie because I don’t like cooked fruit

56. OCCUPATIONS YOU WANTED TO BE WHEN YOU WERE A KID?

I wanted to be a hairstylist, and then a crime scene investigator. I’m not smart enough to be a crime scene investigator, lol. 

57. DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?

I really want to believe them, I feel like I’ve had weird experiences, but I’ve never seen a full apparition, or anything. I really wish I could, lol. Basically I’ll believe it when I see it.

58. EVER HAVE A DEJA-VU FEELING?

I actually get this feeling a lot. It’s weird....

59. DO YOU TAKE A VITAMIN DAILY?

I should take iron every day, I’m really anemic, but I clearly don’t love myself so I don’t lol.

60. DO YOU WEAR SLIPPERS?

I’m wearing some now.

61. DO YOU WEAR A BATH ROBE?

No, I have one I never use it.

62. WHAT DO YOU WEAR TO BED?

usually just a shirt

63. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CONCERT?

Coheed and Cambria

64. WALMART, TARGET, OR KMART?

I prefer Target, but I usually go to Walmart because cheaper

65. NIKE OR ADIDAS?

Adidas

66. CHEETOS OR FRITOS?

Cheetos, Fritos are way too salty, unless they are the BBQ Twist ones, those are good.

67. PEANUTS OR SUNFLOWER SEEDS?

Either

68. EVER HEAR OF THE GROUP TRES BIEN?

No.

69. EVER TAKE DANCE LESSONS?

We did this thing in middle school were we had a victorian ball, my grandma made me a ball gown, and we learned to ballroom dance.I was the only one with an all black ballgown, but it was dope, lmao.

70. IS THERE A PROFESSION YOU PICTURE YOUR FUTURE SPOUSE DOING?

um, being an actor, you know I’m going to marry jake gyllenhaal right? = b

71. CAN YOU CURL YOUR TONGUE?

Into a taco yes, but not into a clover like some weird ppl.

72. EVER WON A SPELLING BEE?

lol. no

73. HAVE YOU EVER CRIED BECAUSE YOU WERE SO HAPPY?

I’m sure I have, but I can’t remember when. Like literally everything makes me cry, so...

74. OWN ANY RECORD ALBUMS?

I own a few, mostly Simon and Garfunkel ones, and I do own one of Tubular Bells, the Exorcist theme song

75. OWN A RECORD PLAYER?

I do

76. DO YOU REGULARLY BURN INCENSE?

I burned some last night, actually.

77. EVER BEEN IN LOVE?

No.

78. WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IN CONCERT?

BUCK-TICK

79. WHAT WAS THE LAST CONCERT YOU SAW?

2PM in 2014 or 2015? I’m not really into KPOP anymore, but I do like 2PM a lot.

80. HOT TEA OR COLD TEA?

Depends, but I like both.

81. TEA OR COFFEE?

I like both.

82. SUGAR COOKIES OR SNICKERDOODLES?

Sugar Cookies.

83. CAN YOU SWIM WELL?

Yeah, I can swim alright.

84. CAN YOU HOLD YOUR BREATH WITHOUT HOLDING YOUR NOSE?

Yes.

85. ARE YOU PATIENT?

I try to be.

86. DJ OR BAND AT A WEDDING?

DJ

87. EVER WON A CONTEST?

I once won a polaroid picture of one of the members of 2PM

88. HAVE YOU EVER HAD PLASTIC SURGERY?

I haven’t, but I’d be willing to get it

89. WHICH ARE BETTER: BLACK OR GREEN OLIVES?

I like both, I love olives.

90. CAN YOU KNIT OR CROCHET?

I can crochet

91. BEST ROOM FOR A FIREPLACE?

Living Room

92. DO YOU WANT TO GET MARRIED?

If it happens, great, but it’s not really a goal of mine

93. IF MARRIED, HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN MARRIED?

N/A

94. WHO WAS YOUR HIGH SCHOOL CRUSH?

I don’t wanna say

95. DO YOU CRY AND THROW A FIT UNTIL YOU GET YOUR OWN WAY?

No

96. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

No

97. DO YOU WANT KIDS?

No

98. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?

I like purple

99. DO YOU MISS ANYONE RIGHT NOW?

The question is, do they miss me?

tagging whomever wants to do this, this was fun, lol. 

[dobe-and-teme]

sns month

As I have mentioned here, I was working on a sns month that will be hosted from 1st december till 31st december. Each day of the month has their own theme and three different prompts. I even planned one big event, and two smaller ones [→ more information under ›special events‹]

Then, one little information: The last years, bahare re-blogged all the posts that were made for the week on her own blog and tagged them, so y’all could find them easily. I want to do the same, but with a difference. I created a extra sns blog for all the events, like sns weeks, sns days, secret santa sns, sns month - and there we will reblog everything. ›We‹ because I asked friends of mine to help me manage this blog. [You can see here who they are.] The blog is called @snsfestivals.

Also, many of you may already know, but there is a discord group for sns. Discord is basically just a message app, with special and great features, such as voice chats and servers (which are group chats). It’s very safe since you don’t have to give your personal information away and you can control who finds you and not. If you are interested in joining, please drop a message at @dobe-and-teme. 

「 RULES 」

You can post any format you want for this month: fanfiction, fanart, videos, gifs, graphics, edits, analysis, headcanon, etc but it’s has to involve sns as a main pairing or Sasuke/Naruto as a main character! Other ships and characters are allowed, but it can not be the focus.

Reposting is not allowed, unless you are the original creator or have been given the permission from the original creator. If you are not the original creator, please make sure to credit the creator and add a link to the original post.

NSFW is allowed! But it must be properly tagged, flagged as sensitive, and/or hidden beneath cuts as necessary. Also please don’t forget to tag it with #nsfw.

Please don’t post things ahead of time! You can certainly work on things before hand, and you can definitely post things late, but don’t post anything for prompts before the prompt day!

Make sure that you tag every post with #snsmonth2017 within the first five tags and the day from which the post belongs to. [like this → #day 7]

Try to stay positive and don’t spread any hate. This should be our month, don’t let some anti ruin it for you. If you see an anti-post, please try to ignore it - it’s not worth it and just ruins the sns month.

「 SPECIAL EVENTS 」 

→ the big event is the Secret Santa Event, which will take place on the 25th december. Every person that participates has to prepare a sns related presents for someone I assign them with - in exchange, they will get a present from another person. If you are interested in participating, here are some informations. Everyone who is not interested, can skip this part:

→ If you are interested in participating, you have to write me a private message, no asks! If there is someone you absolutely don’t want to make a present for, write it please in the message! You can also make three wishes for people you want to make a present for. » Warning! It can happen that this person isn’t participating or I have to assign them with someone else.  → You will not known which person you have to prepare a present for until the 1st december. You can still of course prepare a present even before you know for who it is, since you will likely not know the person personally. But it can happen that the person is a close friend of yours, so it’s better when you start preparing the present when you know for whom it is. → If you don’t know what you should prepare or you don’t have any ideas, just message me and I will contact the person for you, to ask if they would like anything in particular. → When you post the present, please add a ›Secret Santa for @url‹ → Deadline for Registrations: 30th November

→ one of the smaller events will take place on one week of december. Bahare did it last year, and I would like to continue with it. Last year she streamed all sns related episodes on rabbit, and I really love the idea. The stream will take place on 7am and 7pm (in Germany, UTC+2) and will last till 10am and 10pm, and we will watch the exact same episodes on both times. If you still have questions, come and ask me!       → The stream will take place from 11th - 17th december.

→ the other small event is the 31st of december. On the last day of the month, I would like to ask you all to spread positive vibes in the fandom.  I want the month to end with something special, something that will make everyone a little more happier. On this day, I want you guys to send lovely asks to your favorite persons! Be it a amazing sns artist, graphic maker, writer, blog or just one of your favorite persons in general. Go and write them something to make them happy. [To the people receiving this asks: It would be nice if you could tag your posts with #snsmonthvibes, so we can find them and reblog them, thank you.]

「 THEMES & PROMPTS 」

For the following, the bold ones are the themes of the day and everything after the arrow are the prompts. You are allowed to combine two or three of the prompts together, but only prompts of the same day! Or you can just ignore all three of them and do your own thing, as long as it fits the theme of the day.

1st december » Naruto Uzumaki → Everything is allowed, as long as Naruto is the main focus.

2nd december » Sasuke Uchiha → Everything is allowed, as long as Sasuke is the main focus.

3rd december » Bonds → Team 7 / Team Taka / Family

4th december » Now And Forever → Proposal and Wedding / (Adoptive) Children / Anniversary

5th december » It Shouldn’t Be → Distance / Unrequited Love / Breaking Up

6th december » The Price Of Freedom → Forest of the Dead / Partners in crime / Slaves

7th december » First Times → First Love / First Kiss / First Fight

8th december » The First Secret → Cheating / Secret Crush / Dark Past

9th december » Acceptance → Confession / Coming Out / Meeting Family

10th december » It’s Not Me You Want → Fake Relationship / Broken-Heart / Hanahaki Syndrome

11st december »  Beginnings & Endings → Time-Travel / Origins / Valley of the End

12nd december » Another World → Deja Vu / Reincarnation / Mythologies AU

13rd december » Good Old Days → Ninja Academy / Training Sessions / Rivals  

14th december » Outer Space → Moon & Stars / Shooting Star / Galaxies

15th december » The Devil Inside Me → Monster & Demons / Betrayal / Self-doubt

16th december » After The War → Nightmares / Funerals / Orphans

17th december » Day Enemies, Night Lovers → Rome & Juliet / Fighting Kingdoms / Fantasy AU

18th december » Lovers Time → Domestic / Holding Hands / Dancing

19th december » By Your Side → Pining / Trust / Vacation

20th december » War And Peace → Heroes / Burdens / Supporting Shadow

21st december » Destined → Soulmates / Yin & Yang / Sun & Moon

22nd december » Stolen Kisses → Mistletoe / Lazy Morning / Cuddling

23rd december » Christmas Preparations → Baking Cookies / Wrapping Gifts / Placing Decorations

24th december » White Holidays → Building Snowman / Snowed In / Snowball Fight

25th december » Christmas Eve → Christmas Date / Family Traditions / Christmas Spirit → Secret Santa

26th december » Please, Come Back → Mission / Promise / Leaving

27th december » Never Letting Go → Hope / Jealousy / Fear 

28th december » Don’t Leave Me Alone → Death / Last Words / Fight

29th december » Medieval → Royalty / Master & Servant / Knights & Warriors

30th december » The Goodbye Look → Amnesia / Nukenin / On the Run

31st december » Free Day → You are allowed to do whatever you want, as long as you follow the rules.  → Day to spread positive vibes.

[lokbobpop]

Disappointment

The noun disappointment comes from the Middle French word disappointer, meaning “undo the appointment,” or “remove from office.” It is true that a friend canceling your plans or losing your job is a disappointment, but today disappointment can describe anything that crushes your hopes, ruins your day, or otherwise lets

1 : unhappiness from the failure of something hoped for or expected to happen To her disappointment, the cookies were gone. 2 : someone or something that fails to satisfy hopes or expectations The movie was a disappointment.

Disappointment dis ap point ment disappoint meant disa po in t men

Writing the word disappointment

I think ive lived disappointment all my life when am i happy i ask myself im always disappointed like ive given up on anything else because i see i constantly live i want more i want better and missing the whole point of life itself ive been stuck in this life of dissatisfaction and disappointment nothing is every good enough i dont know where this comes from Christmas comes to mind having one amazing Christmas when we got bikes and no theres Christmas have been as good i see that i want it to always be like that i set a standard of who I should feel all the time as i did at that moment and whatever i got after that was never enough was ive been disappointed every time mostly i want to feel the special i felt that day loved cared for i want that all the time i see and when it doesn’t happen which is always im disappointment.

Reading the word disappointment

My daughter have given me things for Christmas an ive been disappointed it’s like they like so i would like it when I dont ive dont the same i by what i like within clothing they hate it lol but i see i feel guilty for not liking what they have bought me im upset and i even say no i dont like that liek when friends took me to the Sydney opera house im like no i dont like this they were gutted i should of just sat there and said yes its great thanks ive been so ungrateful i feel now guilt fro my un gratefulness sf

Disappointment in not winning the lottery every bloody week especially when its 60 mil like tonight i wont win and tomorrow ill think why do i do it every week why i dont will but i am helping another to become one hey by paying out every week i make another a millionaire so it cant be all bad keep trying.

I seem an underlying theme of all life of being disappointed when will i stop this constantly being disappointed when will i change this word i live to being a word that supports me like this support me why dont I just live support me and thats it

When you want something and you dont get it how this disappointment can last moments days years how this word can be your all and disappointment after disappointment piles on top of each other until you dont even realize you are living this word under thousands of layers of disappointment its so deep you cant move its so heavy on you you cant move it ruins your life and you never even realized it but it right in your face 24/7

Saying the word disappointment out loud

Whe you really look forward to something and it doesnt happen or you want something and it doesnt happen you feel disappointment like you can only see what you dont have and you want it you cant let it go.

I am disappointed that trin got dyslexia and will struggle with it forever im disappointment in mysel for giving it to her and her for getting it

Im disappointed in how my mothering was for the girls i should have done better

I disappointment within my weight at the moment being so big and fat and my healthy all because i of my thoughts i have all these problems im disappointment in myself for not being better than i am i will i was someone else and not me i wish i could of been much better than i am i see

Sf

Does this definition support me no i see im disappointed in myself in others i live the underlying emotion of being disappointed i run this all the time i live thsi just in case it happens and because im basically disappointed in myself at all times.

Disappointment This appointment

Disappointment

Breaking the disappointment the poor me inside of me disappointment is here to support me to see what i have loud within me all my life and possibly all lifetimes to let it go and to start living me.

To be no happy with something someone or an outcome

I will live this word with this being an appointment for myself with myself all the time im making an appointment for me to see what i am doing all the time when living disappointment so i can grow from it.

[writingscififantasy]

Writing Platforms and Apps

Disclaimer: Alright, I know this isn’t strictly sci-fi or fantasy-themed, BUT. Too bad, this goes out for everyone who writes, ever.

So, writing is hard. Full stop. Writing is difficult, and irritating, and oftentimes downright infuriating- and as much as we writers adore it, we could all use some help, right? 

Enter some tools of the trade- writing platforms and apps! Every writers uses something to write- be it the traditional methods of pens and notebooks to brainstorm, regular MS Word programs, online writing websites, or fancy programs like Scrivener for plotting- and all of them have their merits and downfalls. There are a ton of platforms upon which one can write. There’s no way I could get through all of them in one sitting, let afford some of the fancier ones out there (curse you, fundamental necessities!), but for this post I wanted to discuss the 4 programs that I use (and have been using for more than a year) and think are especially helpful not only for writing anything, but for...wait for it...NaNoWriMo endeavors!  Woooh, it’s time for Camp NaNo!!

Ahem.

So, let’s begin!

First up to bat is...Writeometer!!

This one here is an app available for free- yes, FREE, one of my favorite words right there- that is designed specifically for helping you track your writing progress. You can enter as many projects as you like, decide on your word count goals and your preferred deadline to reach that goal (perfect for NaNo!), and it will calculate how many words per day you’ll need to write- and, bonus, you can set subtle reminders to pop up at certain times to tell you it’s time to write. Even more bonuses- this app has tons of other features that are fun to use, including a writing log to record how you’re doing, graphs to show your progress, a list of stats pertaining to each project (for instance, your averages per day/week/month, your writing streaks, your best writing days, etc), a nifty little toolbox with a dictionary/thesaurus/word of the day/random words generator, AND a writing sprints timer that rewards you guavas each time you write for 25 minutes. Fun fact, guavas can be virtually exchanged on the app for prizes you set- mine include things like, “3 guavas to eat a cookie!” and “10 guavas to bang head onto desk while yelling!”.  Great stuff!

Next up- another app I use very often is JotterPad!

This one is very simple- while Writeometer was meant to deal with the nitty gritty statistics and tracking of writing, JotterPad is just a clean, simple mobile platform for writing. Nothing more, nothing less. You can create new documents and folders, and organize them any which way you desire- which, in my anxious writer brain, is wonderful- and if you want, add your Google Drive to it for backup so nothing is ever lost. Each folder and document is automatically made with different font colors, which I think is a nice touch, and every document has options for a viewing mode (closer spacing, no keyboard, cleaner look) and an edit mode (allows you to write, shows spelling errors, wider spacing for easier typing). Also in each doc is a dictionary and thesaurus option, a dark screen option for writing at night or sensitivity to light, and a short collection of stats for the doc (word count, character count, reading time, etc). This is all in just the basic app- there is a pro version that brings in other cool features like different writing fonts and document formats, but it costs money and I’ve never had any need for it. 

Onto the third program I like to use- myWriteClub! 

This one I just discovered a little while ago, courtesy of a fellow NaNo buddy, but I love it. The site is still in beta, so feel free to jump on the early bandwagon! This is a website, not an app (although here’s hoping they make an app for it...), but it’s 100% free and only requires an email address to make an account. The whole site is oriented towards writing sprints, and they make it fun- for NaNo and Camp NaNo, you can make a private sprint that only people with the link can join up on, and for anyone else there’s a global sprint going 24/7. What are these “sprints”, you might ask? Writing sprints last 25 minutes, and start every half hour- and on this site, you can watch your friends word count meter fill up in real time. Don’t worry- nobody can see your writing, only your word count. It makes NaNo writing sprints wayyyy easier, trust me. I’d recommend setting up a Dropbox account for all your writing on the site to be automatically uploaded to- there’s only one window you can write it, and there’s no saving documents on site- which I find is actually good, because there’s no getting lost.

Now, last and certainly not least- my FAVORITE writing site, 4thewords!

Okay, I’ll try to restrain myself here. I’ve been using 4thewords for over a year now, and I ADORE it. That being said, I will mention that this is also a fairly new site, still working out some of the bugs and getting updated all the time- I’ve never had a problem, but I wanted to mention it. This site is geared towards making writing fun, which it accomplishes by turning it into a game- a game with adorable monsters. Basically, you have a little avatar (whom you can edit and outfit as you please) and a map of different places you can unlock as you progress- each location has different monsters, which you can “fight” by writing a certain amount of words in a specific amount of minutes. For instance, to defeat the Wignow you must write 250 words in 30 minutes. To defeat the Pester, 500 words in 50 minutes; the Mawt, 1,400 words in 210 minutes. 4thewords is set up like an actual game- for each monster defeated, you get little prizes that you can trade in at the marketplace, and you can boost your fighting prowess by making or buying armor and weapons. There are also different missions you can run- namely things like, “defeat 20 of XXX monster”, after which you get a bigger prize. 

I mean, look at this little monster.  LOOK AT IT.

Even better things! I know, I know, I’ll wrap it up quick- 4thewords runs lots of different events, including Love Week (for Valentine’s Day), Tico Week (for Costa Rica Independence Day), Winter Wonderland (for Christmas and winter holidays), annnnnd...NaNoWriMo!!! Each event has special missions and monsters to fight, and has special prizes. There’s one going on right now, actually, for Camp NaNo, and an even bigger one in November for the main event. Also, 4thewords has a Read section where you can post your writing, if so desired- and every year so far, there’s been a writing contest with real prizes for people who post their writing projects. Not to mention, I’ve spoken with the creator themselves when I changed my account email, and they were so, so polite and accommodating. The only downfall to this site is that yes, it costs $4USD a month to subscribe- but, with everything it’s got going on, from active forums to incredible graphics (the ART, you guys, holy sh*t) and an lengthy, intricate ongoing storyline, I’m okay with the cost and I think it makes sense. Plus, bonus- there’s a month long free trial upon making an account, so if you’re not sure about it, you can try it out for free!

Alright, I know that was a lot of info all at once. I want to say right here, right now that I have not at all been asked to review on these sites or make a post about them in any way- this post is purely my opinions, with no coercion or bribing or whatever else. This is just me, ranting- I mean, sharing- some of the writing platforms that I, personally, find fun and helpful for me in hopes that someone else finds it useful. 

And hey, if you’ve ever used one of these platforms, tell me your thoughts! Or even better, send me your favorite apps and/or programs- maybe I’ll make a compilation post of them, who knows. Questions about them? Hit me up.

(Bonus: LOOK AT THIS LITTLE STINKER, I CAN’T EVEN FUNCTION)

Okay, I’m done, I’m done.