#dropping off a resume in person feels So much better bc at least then I Know that my stuff was seen by Another Human Person

[hoodieimp]

TWO MORE JOB APPLICATIONS SUBMITTED BABEYYYY

now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go lay facedown on the lawn and Scream for a bit

[the-final-sif]

So, Ponk needs to leave, and Sam is the only one who can watch Dream while he’s gone. There’s absolutely nothing that could go wrong with this plan, and Dream just needs to somehow convince Ranboo and Punz of that. He’s really not having much luck.

Ponk asked several times to make sure Dream was... well comfortable was a hell of an ask, but at the very least sure in his choice to let Sam watch over him.

The two of them managed to figure out the terms of what Sam could be told. Dream assented to Sam being told that he was having temporary balance and hearing issues related to the Warden’s sonic attack. It’s important to Dream that Ponk stress that this is all temporary. And that Dream is still capable of doing stuff himself if he needed to, it’s just that Ponk couldn’t ethically leave him alone as a doctor.

Ponk agrees to all of that, and tastefully doesn’t point out that there are risks of long term damage, and that Dream absolutely could not be left alone without the risk of that long term damage increasing.

Sam’s job will just be bringing specific food (no more soup, only things that Dream can eat on his own, and from a specific list of rabbit safe items which pointedly does not include potatoes) help with Dream getting over to the bathroom for at least a few days, and help administer the ear drops.

Ponk also gives Dream like three knives with special handles just in case, because like, yeah good mobility is great but a sharp knife swung wildly will still do a hell of a lot of damage to someone whose unarmored, which is a requirement for Sam to be anywhere near Ponk’s house. Sam has been told there are safeguards in place, but not given any more details to prevent attempts to circumvent them.

Ponk himself has heavily mixed feelings, but it’s the only real option they have since the only other person staying behind that he could even think to ask is Punz, and Ponk is sure that Punz would sell Dream out. He already did it once, clearly he’d do it again. Sam hasn’t sold Dream out despite already knowing where he is and at the very least that he wasn’t in great condition, so despite his apprehensions, Ponk makes the call to leave helping Dream up to him.

 Ponk tells the rest of the server that he’s getting packed up to leave, and that Sam will be staying at his house to recover safely. Nobody should bother him since he needs lots of rest and is nervous about having other people around while his vision is still healing. Message ahead if they need to visit.

Ponk leaves that evening, hoping everything will be okay when he gets back. If nothing else, he’s got a special upgrade for his communicator that will allow for check ins every so often.

Meanwhile, Dream sits and stares at his communicator for about half an hour, trying to decide how to break the news to Punz and Ranboo who heard about Ponk going on the trip and were making suggestions for plans.

He considers lying, he really does, but if he says he’s unsupervised then they’ll want to come by and discover his lie.

So he decides to just say fuck it.

“slight change of plans. ponk has to go to the raid. cant really walk rn, or balance. will be better soon. sam already knew and on truce bc of hunters, offered to help while ponk has to leave. should only be for a week. safeguards in place. everything should be back to normal in two weeks. will resume contact at that point.”

He really wanted to just leave it there and refuse to respond to messages after that, but he knew that was liable to end very poorly.

It took about 10 seconds for punz to reply, followed directly by Ranboo.

“absolutely not.”

“^”

Dream started trying to type out a response, only for Punz to cut him off.

“i’m coming to get you.”

Fuck, no, they absolutely could not do this. Dream was fine. Nothing was going to go wrong.

“dont you dare, it’s fine, there’s safeguards and we’re on truce because of the hunter’s involvement. i won’t let him do anything. ponk gave me weapons and a few special potions. it’s totally under control. i did not go through pandora just for you to ruin your cover now.”

It was a low blow, but hopefully one that would get Punz to listen.

There was a long, long pause. Finally, Punz replied.

“you check in every day, twice a day. if you miss either check in, ranboo kills him and we get you to safety.”

Okay, thank god, Dream could work with this. He almost agreed right away, before pausing to consider feasibility.

“if i miss a checkin, ranboo can check my room at ponks. im sleeping a lot and tracking time is hard right now. theres no reason for me to be out of the room without checkin though. if one of you can sneak a tracker in here, i can stick it on my comm if that’ll convince you. if anything goes wrong, ill send a message for help.”

The message for help would be going to Foolish, not them, but Dream didn’t need to clarify that. It was a valid technicality. There was another pause, before finally he got the response he was hoping for.

“fine. ill drop off a tracker in a bit.”

A beat, and then another text followed.

“please be safe.”

It left a lump in Dream’s throat, it made all the anxiety about Sam being anywhere near him, let alone in charge of bringing him food and fuck, his knife wasn’t enough, this was such a stupid fucking idea-

For one singular, terrible moment, Dream almost caved. He reached out, wanting to send a message asking for Punz to come get him. To get him somewhere safe and far away from Sam, because he couldn’t do this again.

But his hands were shaking too much to type. Whether from his most recent damage or that from the prison, he couldn’t tell, but it reminded him of how much he’d already given up. He’d done so much to get to this point. He couldn’t waste everything now. It would be worth it in the end. When things were okay again.

He bit down the urge to ask for help like a child and instead focused on the rational. The logical. If Sam wanted to take him back to the prison or hurt him, he would’ve just called Quackity from the start. Not Ponk. He would’ve just told the server where Dream was before a bunch of people left.

Clearly, Sam felt indebted and like taking advantage of something the hunters had caused was unfair. Dream could use that for now, and once he was well enough to run, he would do so and then things would go back to exactly how they were before. Both of them could forget that anything ever happened here. It was invalid. Struck from the record.

So he took a deep breath and got himself under control. After a moment, he managed to steady his hands enough to type.

“i’ll be fine.“

With that, he shut off his communicator and flopped back on the bed. Exhausted as he repeated that one little phrase over and over again in his head, hoping to find a way to make it stop tasting like a lie.

[sunder-soul]

first of all your work is AMAZING- like damn that smut? 👀 but anyway- i’ve had this concept for awhile imagine that reader was the one who made the design for the dark mark for tom riddle? like y/n is an artist and likes to draw, paint, all that jazz, and she saw the symbol in like her dreams or something and decided to draw it. and then tommy boy sees it and takes a liking to it like, “...i could use that-“ i don’t if this is a weird ask or not but i thought it was interesting. 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

So this has been in my inbox for so long bc I just couldn’t crack how I wanted to tackle it and then yesterday BOOM I had an idea so here I am!! Hope you enjoy  💖

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. 

Consume

Summary: Reader looks into Tom Riddle’s tea leaves on an unlucky day in Divination. Something looks back.

Word count: 1.5k

Content warning: none.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

You’ve heard of the domino effect before, but never has it been so grimly demonstrated to you than in that exact moment standing in front of the entire Divination classroom with the only spare seat left opposite Tom bloody Riddle.

It started (or at least, as far as you can tell) an entire week earlier when you’d walked in on Ophelia Greengrass sobbing in the fourth-floor girl’s bathroom during second period. Up until then you’d not spoken more than half a dozen words to Ophelia across your entire time at Hogwarts, but it had felt wrong not to say anything – and as it turned out, Ophelia had been in dire need of someone saying something to her. She’d been dating Lestrange for a little over three months and by the sounds of it things were not going well.

So of course you’d comforted her as best you could but it was hardly surprising when she tentatively approached again you the next day, and the next, and the next, and then every single day for an entire week there had been a new horror story until yesterday you’d finally had enough and told her that she should break up with him.

That, of course, was why he’d confronted you in the corridor that morning on the way to Charms, angrily accusing you of losing him his girlfriend. And that was why you and Lestrange had been caught by Peeves with a watering can full of Bulbadox juice brandished gleefully in his spindly hands.

Which was how you both ended up in the hospital wing for the entirety of first period, Lestrange with boils all over his face and down his back, and you with them on your hands from where you’d managed to shield yourself.

You’d left Lestrange behind complaining loudly as the matron peeled back his school shirt, sprinting all the way up to the Divination tower at breakneck speed, throwing the trapdoor to the classroom open and scrambling inside, the trapdoor falling shut behind you, the very final domino.

“Sorry I’m late, Professor,” you gasp as you spin around to face her. “Peeves caught me and Lestrange!”

The class snickers.

“That’s quite alright, quite alright…” Cassandra Trelawney says, deep and ringing, “we have not yet started, take a seat with Mr Riddle and we shall begin…”

You freeze. Riddle…?

That’s when it hits you.

Lestrange always sat with Riddle in Divination.

And you’re so late that everyone else already has partners.

You turn to see Tom Riddle sitting at the back of the room looking at you with a polite but blank expression on his face. The class giggles again. The vast majority of Hogwarts students are at least somewhat in love with Riddle – beautiful, intelligent, polite Riddle, orphaned and poor but refined and successful. Better yet he barely speaks to anyone, leaving a lot of empty space of endless possibility for people to fill in with their personal daydreams.

He scares you.

Those horrible boys that hang around him remind you of flies hanging around rotting meat. And if they’re the flies, that makes Riddle…

You grit your teeth and step forward, weaving between the other tables and snickering students to take your seat, dropping your bag to the floor and eyeing the tea set on the small table apprehensively.

“Begin your readings!” Trelawney calls.

You frown and turn to Riddle questioningly. “We’re doing tea leaves?”

“Tasseography,” he corrects smoothly, leaning forward and picking up the burnished copper pot with one hand and pouring steaming tea into the little china cup in front of him.

You blink at him silently. There’s something manufactured about his face that you can’t put your finger on.

“Shall I go first or would you like to?” Riddle asks casually, pouring you a cup, too.

“I don’t mind,” you mumble, looking away.

Riddle sets the pot down and picks up his cup in long, elegant fingers, lifting it to his lips. “The instructions are on page seventy-nine,” he says after taking a sip, looking around the room disinterestedly.

You pull out your book and find the right chapter and scan the first few paragraphs as Riddle finishes his tea, sipping absently at your own, and by the time he finally hands you his cup your heart rate has finally returned to normal from running up eight flights of stairs.

“You have a scattered-type formation,” you say, checking it against the diagram on your page, “and it’s north-west oriented.”

“Mhmm,” Riddle says noncommittedly, his dark eyes level on the parchment before him as he takes notes.

You lean forward over Riddle’s cup and frown as you compare it to the pictures in the book. “That looks like shepherd’s crook,” you say, pointing to a cluster shaped like a pinched hook, “which means… either the responsibility to protect, or the exertion of power and authority over a group of people.”

Riddle scoffs very lightly, his lips curling into a slight smirk as he continues to write.

Something about it had clearly struck a chord with him, but you pointedly train your eyes back on your book. “Oh,” you frown, checking his cup again. “Or it’s the old glyph for seven.”

Riddle stops writing. You look up curiously at the sudden lack of his quill scratching evenly on his parchment to find him perfectly still, his eyes on your face. “Seven?” he repeats, tone distinct.

You nod and push your book around to show him. “The number seven used to be drawn like that, too.”

Riddle’s eyes drop to the page and linger there for a moment before he resumes taking his notes – though his expression is much more preoccupied than before.

But something in Riddle’s cup has caught your eye. Beside the shepherd’s crook/number seven is a lump of tea leaves so distinct in form that it’s almost comical – the round of the cranium, the square of a mandible, and gaps in the leaves to indicate two eye sockets.

“Oh,” you say in surprise, pulling your book back around. “Wow, that’s pretty clearly a…”

You trail off, frowning. You’ve noticed the tea leaves below it, the long twisting trail that leads directly into the skull’s mouth. A cold, creeping feeling is curling in your stomach as something about the image before you seems to move, you can almost see the thing writhing, it almost looks like a…

“How are we going?” Trelawney asks, suddenly right beside you.

You jump, looking up at her in panic. “Fine,” you say quickly.

She lifts her brows, assessing you thoughtfully. “Hmm,” she says, before glancing at Riddle. “And you?”

“Fine,” Riddle echoes smoothly. But he’s not looking at Trelawney.

He’s looking at you.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

The image worms into your thoughts like a deep root, twisting into places you don’t expect to find it and spreading itself out more and more. The dreams are first, and then the nightmares, and finally the night terrors. The skull hovers before you, its pitch, hollow eyes bore into you, the snake coiling endlessly with its fangs yawning wide.

Something about it is cold and evil, some sort of strange perversion of an ouroboros, the eternal snake broken by the skull’s mouth.

Consuming it.

“What is that?”

Your head snaps up from your parchment feeling like you’ve just been jolted awake from a deep sleep, and it takes you a second to process the sight of Tom Riddle before you, his eyes fixed attentively on the parchment strewn on top of the essay you’re supposed to be writing.

He’d caught you drawing it for the hundredth time.

“Nothing,” you say hastily, sliding it away under a book. “Just a doodle.”

Riddle’s eyes flick to yours. There’s a cold rigidity to his expression that you don’t like. It’s a coldness that feels horribly familiar.

For a moment you almost think he’s going to force you to show him, but after a long moment Riddle looks away and he’s gone, disappearing off further into the library. You exhale in relief and pull out the parchment again.

Drawing it made the thoughts go away for a bit, like manifesting the horrible thing distracted it from its need to live in your head. You lift your quill and carefully write a single word next to the skull.

Consume.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

The parchment goes missing the next day.

You never prove that he took it, never even mention it to him, but Riddle’s eyes have a cold glimmer to them when he catches your eye in Divination next, the smallest curl to his lips like he’s daring you to bring it up.

The dreams abruptly stop.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

When you see it next, it’s in a photo on the front page of the Daily Prophet beneath a terrified headline, a spectre hovering just like it had in your nightmares at school years prior. Except this time it’s real. This time it’s above the burning remains of the family home of a prominent Muggle-born politician and Voldemort’s name is a shadow on everyone’s lips.

You stare at it on the page, the snake writhing in ink, the black, hollow eyes of the skull, and you think about Tom Riddle’s cold smile watching you from across the classroom, his manufactured beauty, the boys that hung around him like flies around rotten meat.

He’s named it the Dark Mark.

[yamagucji]

How they treat their injured s/o

em request. “hey uhm i sprained my ankle badly today and i was wondering how tsuki, sakusa and tendou would do when they found out that their s/o sprained their ankle because im feeling really single nowadays and your account is the only way for me to not feel single fjfjdjd but uhm i hopw you can add in some speckles of angst ✨✨ ofc there should be fluffs to hehe” -anon

pairing. tsukishima x gn!reader, sakusa x gn!reader, tendou x gn!reader

note. i didn’t get to work on this as much as i wanted to bc i wanted to have it out in time! i hope you still like this all the same </3

Tsukishima

“how clumsy”, he’ll say, with a taunting look on his face

yes this beanpole is gonna tease you for it to hide the fact that he’s mildly worried

he’d just keep teasing you to no remorse tbh😿 until he sees you limp/wince in pain

ohhh that’s when he drops the act

if he’s a distance away from you and he’s holding something, he’d quickly set it down and come your way

“ow,” you wince, grabbing ahold of the wall beside you

in a flash he’s right next to you, getting a firm grip of your waist so as to anchor you

“h-hey, take it easy,”

oh so you care me now😾

you sigh in frustration, “since when did you care?”

he’ll look the other way but bring you against his chest, pouting at the fact that he’d been pointed out

“i’ve always cared... idiot,”

“now let’s put some ice on the pain,”

“...okay y/n?” 🥺 mayhaps you’re forgiven

he’ll set you down on a chair and go to look for an ice pack

and he’ll come back in a matter of a few minutes, with not JUST an ice pack, but some snacks and maybe even a pain reliever (if you take them)

“here, no- no, let me do it”

you’ll attempt to do it yourself but he takes the ice pack away from you and instead does it himself

so he’s on his knees tending to your injury, choosing to caress your skin with his thumb

“...how are you feeling?” 🥺💓

and if you say you’re feeling better, he’ll reward you with a genuine smile and maybe even a kiss on your temple

“that’s good to hear, i’m glad”

but if you’re still slightly mad at him from before? he’ll apologize in his own tsukki way

Tendou

aw bless this boy

when you come to him he’ll notice something’s wrong judging by your actions

he tilts his head, “everything okay?”

and as you’re telling him what happened, he’s already got you seated down on a chair and inspecting your injury

“hmm, doesn’t look that bad. but we should treat it incase it gets any worse, okay?”

he’ll get up and leave a big smooch on your nose, probably looking for medical supplies/ice pack as he’s humming a tune

ah he’ll probably hum something along the lines of, “my s/o is injured... and that’s no good... it’s time for their boyfriend to save the day” ok idk how to write lyrics mk

he’ll come back to you with another kiss, “stay still babe, i’m gonna take care of you,”

🥺🤲 hand in marriage rn

he’ll stay with you and force you to rest because he “wants to get better as soon as possible so the two of us can go on little dates,”

he’ll stay... until one of his friends hit him up to ask him to practice or hang out

“ah... sorry but i’ll be back, i promise!”

wait what happened to taking care of your s/o 😐

so he leaves you and spends the next FEW hours away and completely unaware that he’d broken his promise of taking care of you

so when he comes back and sees you limping your way to grab something from the shelves, he feels absolutely guilty

“oy, what are you doing? you should be resting!”

“well i was trying to get this... but i couldn’t ask for help since you weren’t here” 🥺 yes bub speak your truth

best believe he’ll try and make it up to you the rest of the day

he’s been promoted from boyfie to personal butler 😌 jkjk

Sakusa

you don’t tell him about the incident and instead pretend to act like everything’s fine

because it’s... sakusa kiyoomi. it’s natural to think he’ll be very indifferent about your injury or just not be sympathetic :(

so when he meets up with you for the day, he’s completely oblivious to the pain in your body

though, he will notice the fact that you’re walking a bit slower

with slight irritation he spoke, “can’t you walk a little faster? what’s up with you today?”

h- hhhng can he at least sugar coat it😔

“oh... sorry omi! guess i was just a little space out haha” and you force yourself to take bigger strides despite the pain

it resumes to that quiet, peaceful walk, with sakusa staring straight ahead of him and absolutely not noticing the mild limps

until... you trip on the ground, that is

you can’t see it behind his mask but he’s definitely grimacing

“how clumsy can you-” he hissed (not literally😭) until he saw you whine in pain

he takes his hands out of his pockets and hesitantly helps you up, even brushing the dirt off of you yes the sakusa did that

“i’m sorry omi... i wasn’t looking where i was going,”

“tch, forget that. are you okay? why does it look like you’re in even more pain?”

so you go to tell him the truth, leaving the act altogether

“are you serious?” 😾 “why didn’t you just tell me?”

you can tell he’s slightly frustrated with the situation, but that’s only because he feels bad that you don’t trust him enough to care about you

he ditches whatever plan the two of you had and brings you home. he’s mumbling in irritation, all the while keeping his hold on you to make sure you don’t hurt yourself even more

now... be prepared to be pampered with extra care AND be scolded at the same time

sir am i your s/o or your kid,,, pick one 🧍/🧍‍♀️

yk😳 it’s a good time to take advantage of him while he’s going all soft for you

“um... omi?”

“hm?”

“can you kiss it better?” 🥺🤲

he’ll look at you with bored eyes, but it contrasts with the blush that’s on his face

hesitatantly, he’ll run his fingers over your cast and give it a peck

“there, is that better...love?”

call me weak or whatever but that was by far one of the most loving kisses ever given

[konaizumi]

A Tale of Thousand Stars ep 9 thoughts/reaction

so gmmtv really decided to play with us this morning with those subs huh

au where torfun lives and finds a girlfriend who gives her all the love she deserves

they really give us this cute scene with torfun and phupha then come at me with “when i come back from bangkok” and remind me that torfun never comes back

the chaos of the scene where they bring phupha in

poor tian just hovering, wanting to do something, but unable to do anything to help

the tenderness of tian at his bedside and falling asleep next to him

thank you to dr nam for admitting his mistakes and apologizing

“i’m scared of losing everything i have right now” how did phupha hear this and still think tian would be happier elsewhere

tian’s dad keeps trying to use the mom as an excuse and it pisses me off bc like, they can visit?? she can see him whenever she wants, and tian would’ve moved out eventually or did she think tian would live with them forever? and i get that the mom would be concerned about tian living in a remote village but like she could adapt once she saw that tian was happy

like just say you don’t approve of your son being a poor volunteer teacher and go

“if you didn’t have fun, why would you run away from home?” the real answer that tian doesn’t want to say out loud is because he wasn’t happy at home

and tian’s dad just...doesn’t get it, doesn’t get why tian is happier here than he was at home, still thinks this is some kind of rebellion and it’s so frustrating for both of them

tian keeps talking about how he knows he eventually has to go home and i wonder if it’s ever occurred to him that he doesn’t actually have to, that he can choose the village, that he’s an adult and he can choose what to do with the rest of his life

i’m sorry but the matching slings were so distracting for me in this scene

the theme of self forgiveness in this ep is so good bc tian feels so guilty and he feels like he needs to make it up to torfun but it’s not torfun’s forgiveness that he needs it’s his own

especially bc torfun would be happy that at least her heart allowed someone else to live

god this whole scene is just so beautiful, with the sun shining behind them

when phupha said that he was also thinking about tian when he almost died and then cradled tian’s hand

so my predictions last week that the dad was involved in illegal stuff were way off, i genuinely so surprised that it was phupha who had been reporting to him (though in hindsight it does make more sense) but i slapped the table so hard when that happened

but oof, the angst is so real here and i love it

tian feels like his entire life has been lead and shaped by his family’s wealth and privilege and the village is the one thing he was able to do on his own and his relationship with phupha was genuine, then he finds out that this too was bc of his family’s wealth

and at this point i think even tian knows that phupha didn’t do all of that for wealth so he tries to get phupha to just say it, say that he genuinely cares for tian but phupha won’t say it and even confirms it and even if tian doesn’t fully believe him, phupha’s still being mean and saying that on purpose to hurt him and it does hurt

so tian accuses phupha of caring for tian for his own gain and even though that’s what phupha wants him to think it still hurts phupha to know that tian would believe everything he did was fake

and they just lash out at each other out of their own hurt

then phupha accuses tian of just having fun even though they both know that’s not true and it makes tian feel like the one person who understood him doesn’t actually see him

also i think it’s funny that phupha tried to be all mean for the express purpose of scaring tian off so he’d go home but tian, being the little shit he is, just digs his heels in harder

also i truly can not express enough how much i love and appreciate khama, like no wonder longtae is such a good boi when he was raised by khama

ugh, i can see the struggle in phupha’s eyes where he wants to drop the act and comfort tian so badly

poor longtae is so sad to lose his friend

tian is such a good teacher and it makes him so happy, how can anybody think he’d be better off doing something else

dr “despite all evidence to the contrary, i’m a doctor, not a therapist” nam

fuck, these scenes are supposed to be serious but i could not stop laughing every time I saw phupha with that fucking beard

the father’s like “i know my son well” like bitch, no you don’t, otherwise you would realize that tian is happier than he’s been in a long time and he’s not staying in the village as some way to spite you, it’s just that you and your lifestyle don’t make him happy

im sorry i still cant get over the beard

“im okay” that’s not what your hobo beard says

everybody keeps saying tian wouldn’t have listened if phupha asked nicely but did y’all really think asking meanly would work on this boy who stayed in the beginning out of spite toward phupha

they’re finally admitting their feelings so why does it have to be so heartbreaking?

tian wants to stay so badly and he wants phupha to ask him to stay so badly

phupha says tian doesn’t understand (why they can’t be together and why tian has to leave) but it’s really phupha who doesn’t understand

he genuinely thinks that tian was happy in his old life (and honestly why wouldn’t he?) and that tian is only staying in the village to assuage his guilt over torfun before leaving again to resume his old happy life, and that asking tian to stay would be depriving him of that happiness

but the village, teaching, phupha are all his happiness, he’s not giving anything up by staying but he’s giving everything up by leaving

and i think tian doesn’t fully understand that this is how phupha thinks so he doesn’t know how to explain to phupha what it would actually mean to him to stay

i also love how this show isn’t downplaying the other bonds tian has made, he wouldn’t just be staying for phupha, he would be staying for the kids, for the other rangers, for longate and dr nam--the whole village has become his family

tian looked really cute the way he bounced over to khama

god i can’t wait for next ep when tian decided to stay in the village forever and the angst is over and he and the kids get to celebrate and the kids don’t have to deal with the constant cycle of new teachers

longtae is baby and he just wants to keep his friend

tian not being able to count the stars because he can’t stop crying :(

we’re gonna find out what torfun’s wish was next ep and it’ll be something like the kids or the village or phupha being happy and it’ll be sweet as we and the characters realize that tian already carried out her wish without even knowing, no magic necessary

also i love that they used the version of the ost sung by aye (torfun) bc it really set the mood and also her voice is beautiful, i might like it better than the original

“you should do everything for yourself and not for someone else” it’s painful bc if tian really wanted to live his life for himself that would mean staying but phupha only thinks he’s staying bc of torfun

i need fanart of torfun’s ghost hugging tian and saying thank you

but your story doesn’t have to end!!!

we finally get to learn about the ring and it’s literally phupha’s heart and he gives it to tian and still sends tian away?!?

im not crying, you’re crying

tian is doing the lord’s work shaving off that ugly beard

the way his thumb brushes his lip

so, great ep as always, very angsty, both more and in different ways than i expected

can’t wait for next week when everyone finally gets to be happy, i will totally cry when tian tries to leave the village and is saying goodbye to everyone

[unstoppableforcce]

always

—CHAPTER THREE: careful

pairing: obi wan kenobi x princess! reader

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a/n: oof long wait but I think you’ll agree that it’s with it? or at least I hope you do !! bc I do !! let me know what you think !! and I apologize for any obi wan hyphen errors :))

(side note, this update came bc I love and adore @freyafell, so say your thanks)

The whole morning had been this hot. This disgustingly hot.

The second the sun rose above the horizon, it had you tossing sleeplessly in your exquisite sheets. Drifting off for a minute and suddenly you were shooting up, chest heaving out of breath as you wiped a bead of sweat from your brow and kicked your sheets off your legs.

Maybe it wasn’t solely the heat in the air that was keeping you up, maybe it had something to do with the steaming thoughts plaguing your mind.

Maybe the heat boiling within your chest was separate from the one outside...

You wiped at your brow again before sliding out of the sheets entirely and stripping your night robes to the cooler marble floors. Hanging off your mirror was the thinnest gown you owned, hand stitched with flowers from the hem to the low hanging neckline.

Fresh air was what you needed, you told yourself as you pulled it on, that would set your mind straight.

Wandering out in the gardens was the best place to find that fresh air, the orchard teeming with maids picking the vibrant red apples down from the trees.

The perfect distraction.

At least it should have been, you thought as you climbed up the ladder into the shaded leaves of the tree. But nothing was ever perfect.

From this height, above the treeline, you could see out into the adjacent open field, your stare landing on the royal guards out for training under the boiling hot sun. Specifically, onto the shirtless General with his dull long sword drawn, battling it out with the younger recruit across from him.

The sight alone enough to drop the perfectly crisp and delicious apple bite you had taken straight from your mouth, all princess-like decorum leaving you for the briefest moment.

The royal guard had been out training since before the sun rose in a desperate attempt to get some of the more strenuous training in before the heat settled. But it was no use. It was barely morning and they were all stripped of their tunics, drenched in sweat and glistening under the early morning sun as it glared down onto them.

Sweat dropped off every sharp angle of Obi Wan’s face, even his hair which had grown longer than he typically preferred it was drenched and stuck to his forehead, forcing him to swipe at it between nearly every lunge of his sword.

How long had he been living the high life of being your personal guard? He was exhausted and it was barely morning. He had a whole day left training the new recruits and Stars, he wiped at his brow once more, if it kept up like this, he’d be dead by the day’s end.

His battleworn body just wasn’t used to the strenuous days work anymore, yet none of his soldiers, new or old, dared to call him on it. With his chest and arms coated in scars, he had seen enough fighting to secure his reputation even as his chest heaved for every breath.

And you couldn’t pull your eyes away once you caught sight of him, prudent or not.

It was a hot morning in more ways than one.

“Your highness?”

Glancing down the ladder, you found one of your most trusted garden maids waiting for you with a full basket of apples in hand, her hair tied back in exquisite braids.

“Yes, Padme?” You called back, taking a bite into your apple to hold it as you climbed back down, jumping the last few rungs to land with a barefooted thud in the grass.

“You zoned out, your highness...” she smirked, her stare cutting through the final line of trees to steal a sly glance of her own out to the guards on the field.

“Seems it afflicts us all.” You laughed out some as you saw most of your maids sparing glances to the field between picks. And that was when an idea sparked in your heat stricken head, one you had no business having. “Are these apples meant for something, did the kitchen ask for them?”

“No your highness, would you like them sent to your chambers—“

“I have a better idea.”

With a wave of you hand, you created a small pack of garden maids, apple baskets in hand, to follow you as you made your way towards the field. The length of your gown was just long enough to tickle the grass around your ankles as you walked through it, warmth coating you head to toe.

And it showed in your smile, shining bright enough across the field that you and your group quickly caught the attention of the sparring guards as you drew closer. One by one, they all froze, each catching on in their own time, the strawberry haired man they looked to lead them being the last to turn and spot your approach.

But when his young opponent froze, lowering his own dull sword, Obi Wan finally caught on, turning and wiping his sweat soaked locks from his face in one swift motion.

His stare landing on you and only you as you stopped at the edge of the area they took over for training.

“Good morning General Kenobi!” You shouted through the group as they began to part, giving you a direct line of sight to the man you had seen in your dreams no less than an hour ago.

“Your highness,” he shouted back with an almost playful use of your title as he bowed his head, the rest of his men following suit in the show of respect.

Though your stare leveled on him and him alone.

“I hope we’re not causing too much of an intrusion,” you smirked, gesturing back to the baskets of freshly picked apples and the women holding them. “But we’ve got extra and you looked hungry.”

His guards looked to him with expectant stares, ones he couldn’t ignore.

He was as famished as they were.

And looking from the bottom hem of your thin gown up to your eyes, much bolder in his scan than he ever allowed himself to be, he figured himself famished in more ways than just one.

It was a terribly hot morning.

He bowed his head, matching your smirk with his own, not afraid of his guards looking on as he answered with an easy, “always, your highness.”

The guards jumped at that. Moving in the most respectful wave their eager and towering figures could muster, the guards fought towards the apples while you carved an easy path moving the opposite direction. Kenobi held his ground, leaning on his sword tipped down into the earth, waiting for you.

“Pardon the disruption...” you mused playfully as you passed him a fresh apple. “I had imaginary fruit overlords to appeal to...”

He laughed at that, a true and genuine laugh, one he hadn’t managed in what felt like years, yet it flowed so easily when it was you it was flowing for.

Maybe it was his full body exhaustion, the fact that he was feeling his mortality in ways he hadn’t since he was a fresh faced recruit himself, or maybe even just the heat, but he felt loose. Loose enough to let the laugh slip, loose enough to even let you step closer than he should have.

Close enough to catch a few of his guard’s stares as they bit into the freshest fruit they had likely ever tasted.

And he didn’t care. Stars, he even enjoyed it.

Moreso than he should have allowed himself to.

Taking the apple from your grip, he tipped it to you easily and took a bite, not even minding the fresh juices that slipped from his lips. He only mindlessly wiped at his chin with the back of his hand and nodded. Once swallowed and not a second before, he smiled, “a welcomed intrusion.”

“Please tell me you won’t be out here in this heat all day,” you said, the heat easily tripled from what you had been feeling in the orchard now that you were out on the field. “It’s deadly.”

“I assure you that I can handle it, your highness.” He mocked back simply, now hyper aware of his bare chest as you stole a glance down to his scar covered skin.

“Never doubted it, General.” You bravely took another step closer, letting his title slip off your tongue more charged than it had ever been before. “These young recruits are truly learning from the best.”

“They are quite young...” he sighed, glancing around to see his training partner off flirting with your garden maid. “Anakin more than the rest.”

You hummed as you looked over your shoulder, “well at least he has good taste.”

“As do you.” He said easily, pulling your attention back to him as he took another bite of his apple. This time as the juices beaded on his lips, your stare followed closely, tracking his tongue as it darted out to contain the mess.

It stole your attention for longer than you would have liked, only the interjecting voice from behind you snapping you out of it.

“I couldn’t tell you the last time I had a fresh apple, your highness.”

Turning quickly over your shoulder, you found the familiar tan face and broad chest of Obi Wan’s second coming around to settle in next to him with a firm slam of his hand onto his General’s shoulder.

With a laugh, you easily replied, “I don’t know when my gardens became so exclusive, Commander Cody, but you should consider yourself welcome any time.”

“You may not have any apples left if that’s the case.” He countered and your laughter easily continued out of you.

“Then we’ll plant more trees.”

Obi didn’t have nearly enough resolve to hide his laughter, he barely even had time to muffle it by dropping his chin to his chest. What was up with him? He was the model for respectful composure around you even in his weakest moments, but throw in a little sun and your bright smile and he was what? A giddy idiot?

The heat must have been getting to his head. Or maybe it was the way you were looking at him, it was downright dangerous.

Too dangerous...

“Well, we should resume, hopefully we can finish before the heat become unbearable.” Obi nodded to Cody and he quickly began rounding up the troops, leaving the two of you just a foot or so from one another.

“It’s already unbearable,” you countered, brushing your hair back behind your ears, your favorite nervous tick. “Promise me you won’t kill yourself out here?”

He just couldn’t stop smiling, not as you radiated such a happy gravity, pulling him in and brightening everything around you as you shined under the sun.

Even if he knew better.

“I wouldn’t be much help in keeping you safe if I died, would I?” He countered.

“Well I care about you more than just your position as my protection, Obi Wan...” you hummed slyly as you took a hesitant step away. “But you’re right, neither dead men nor those with heatstroke make for very good bodyguards.”

He nodded, the smile never disappearing from his lips. “I keep my men safe, your highness, no need to worry.”

You hesitated as you backed away, stopping and taking a step forward instead, bringing you as close as was safe with nearly every pair of eyes in the field turned towards the two of you.

“I have to worry. You keep your men safe but who watches you?”

He froze at that, more than he had when you had suggested so easily that you cared about him more than just as your personal guard. He froze and you wore a look of victory, the effortless back and forth between the two of you coming to a close with a smirk on your lips.

“Kenobi! Let’s get back to work!” Cody shouted from back in the fray of guards, snapping him from his you-centric haze and allowing you to take another step away.

“Thank you for the apples, your highness.” He added softly, just loud enough for your ears only. “And your company.”

With one last laugh, you turned away, but your head turned back as you walked away to add, “Always, Obi-Wan.”

And from there, his stare followed you and the rest of the maids back into the garden.

You were radiant against the green of the grass, your exquisite gown sparkling and still not coming close to the shine you were emitting. Radiant. Absolutely radiant.

“Kenobi!” Cody shouted, snapping his attention back to the resuming chaos around him, the clank of swords and the show of sweaty chests taking over his attention now. And as Cody jogged back to his side, he added carefully, “you are playing a dangerous game, General.”

He knew better than to steal a glance back to you now, his throat going dry.

“I’m not playing any game, Cody.”

Cody has the audacity to laugh at him as he fought back, not even stopping as Obi passed a stern glare his way. “Sure, I’ll just pretend I saw none of that.”

This time, Obi Wan dared to steal a glance over his shoulder back to where you were retreating to the garden, and his heart fell when he found you looking back at him over your shoulder as well. The maids around you were bubbling with excitement, and you were still glowing, a decadent design as you floated back up the gentle slope of the hill.

And you were looking at him, your bubbling happiness shifting to a smirk as you caught him looking.

“I’m not playing a game.” He sighed, bringing his stare back to his commander.

“Does she know that?”

—

The dull blades for training were meant to protect those using them, that was the whole point of having dull blades.

Yet, here Obi Wan sat, at his desk in his small living quarters, trying to read by candle light to distract himself from the sharp pain radiating out from the gnarly gash Anakin had delivered to his shoulder earlier.

It had been a slip, nothing even a practiced soldier hadn’t done a thousand times, but this one caught his bare skin and left a bruised gash along his skin. It wasn’t bad, not even close to bad, but it was just painful enough to be annoying.

An apt description of his apprentice Anakin as well.

Especially as a knock came to the door of his quarters, surely Anakin coming by again to check on him despite having been sent out on night guard duty in the East wing with the rest of the recruits.

“I swear to the stars, Anakin, I am okay—“

Swinging the door open, his words fell dead on his lips as his stare landed on you.

You in your short night gown, the bottom hem of the navy fabric only dropping as low as your knee, and with a similarly silky robe in a matching shade of blue, wrapped tight around your body.

It was out of place on you, he was all too used to seeing you in your exquisite royal gowns. And you were out of place down in the guard chambers, out of place enough to concern him deeply.

“Is something the matter, your highness?” He lowered his voice, careful going steal a look around the common room behind you, grateful to find it empty.

If being alone with you in your gardens was dangerous, having you alone in his personal chambers was toeing the line of an execution on his end. You had to know that.

So why did you just quirk your smile back to him and lean casually into his doorway.

“Nothing’s the matter,” you hummed, “can I come in?”

“You shouldn’t be down here, your highness, if you needed me, you could have hailed me to your—“

“Let me in, Obi Wan.”

Against his better judgement, he took a step back and did just that. What was more treasonous? Letting you into his meager living quarters or denying your requests...

He’d feel safer with the door open, at least he could defend you being there professionally if he kept the door open, so why was he closing it? Why was he firmly securing his fate?

Maybe it was just the power you had over him, the power he should have never let grow to the tremendous size it now occupied within his chest.

“One of the men at dinner mentioned you were hurt...” you hummed as you paced around the small square room, moving over to his desk to drag your fingers along the close spine of the book he left by the candlelight.

“It’s nothing, your highness.”

You chuckled at that, somehow managing to be just as bright as you had been this morning on the open field under the glaring sun in the dark confines of his musky room. “Will I ever get you to call me by my name?”

“Your highness, I—“

You raised your hand before he could continue. “Just, don’t call me anything if you won’t use my name, please.”

He nodded even if his heart was screaming in opposition where it pounded in his chest. Your title was his last line of defense, it was the last thing keeping him away from you, keeping the relationship between the two of you professional.

And now you were stood in his room, letting your fingers dance over the rough blanket covering his bed, and he had no defense to mount against your dangerous game.

Especially as you turned back to him, stepped directly in front of him, and reached out for the neckline of his tunic, pushing it aside to reveal the small wound. “You didn’t get it looked at?”

“It’s nothing, your—“ he stopped himself, swallowing the rest of your title down. “It’s nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing...”

“You don’t need to worry about me.” He sighed, carefully reaching up to nudge your hand away but you were persistent. “Please, I’m fine—“

“Let me worry about you, Obi...”

He opened his mouth to protest again but you dropped your hand and moved past him, pushing into the small bathroom attached to his room.

What the hell was he doing? He sighed as he sat back against his desk and waited for you. He couldn’t run over his face enough to snap him out of it, he was trapped inside this dream and he didn’t trust himself.

When you came back out, he’d have to tell you to go. He’d have to—

With a wet towel in your hand, you emerged from the bathroom and crossed the room in two steps to land yourself directly in front of where he sat. Laying the towel down on the desk next to him, you moved the candle over for better light and began working the injured shoulder out from under his tunic.

And he couldn’t find it in himself to tell you to stop. He just didn’t want you to.

He reached up and helped, pulling the tunic the rest of the way off for you to survey the whole wound.

“You know how to clean a wound?” He hummed carefully as you brought the towel to the cut and he swallowed his grunt.

“Don’t tell me you think I just pick fruit and look pretty all day?” You laughed, the sweet sound on a direct wavelength into his ears. “I know how to make myself useful.”

He turned his head to carefully watch you, closer than he had ever allowed himself to be to you. He could see every curve of your face, every line from your hairline to your chin, from your neck to the dangerously low neckline of your dress and every inch of skin in between.

“I would never doubt it.” He sighed breathlessly.

You shook your head, a playful smile toying with the edges of your lips. “You respect me too much, Obi...”

He grunted as you pressed harder into the wound, biting his bottom lip to keep quiet as you turned to watch him.

“Given the men you spend your days being courted by, I thought that would be a welcomed change.” He hummed, dangerously aware of your dutiful hands slowing in their motions. Your head quirked to him and he quickly caught himself, “Allow me to apologize, it’s not my place to say—“

“You don’t get it...”

You had that right, he didn’t understand any of what was happening as you dropped the towel and turned to face him completely. You were close now, close enough for him to feel the gentle touch of your silk dress dancing against his pant legs.

“Your highness—“ he tried to recoil, terrified of over stepping, but you just recovered the distance back as you leaned forward.

“For once, can you please just disrespect me...”

What kind of soldier would he be if he didn’t follow orders...

Your hands, still slightly damp from having held onto the damp towel, dug into his fluffy locks in the same second that his hands found your silk covered hips and tugged you in even closer than you were already standing. He didn’t know what he was doing but at the same time, he had never felt so confident doing something so wrong.

Inhaling a sharp breath from the twist of his shoulders into you, he ignored the pain and pressed the last inch into you, your lips finally meeting his.

Your sweet, sweet lips... sweeter than the freshest apple of your exquisite orchard.

Even after an exhaustive day out in the sun, he had never felt thirstier than when your lips met his. He needed you. More of you. You were an oasis in the desert that was his loneliness and he couldn’t pull you any closer if he tried.

And he tried.

Stars, did he try.

His calloused and rough fingers dug into the pure fabric of your dress, cinching the loose fabric around your waist as he pressed every inch of your front into his bare chest. Never in his wildest dreams could he have ever imagined feeling you like this.

And he had dreamed about it, ever since he had been assigned to your personal detail. But you were the princess and he was your bodyguard and this was all so wrong.

But it was all so real...

You were so real under his touch, so addicting on his tongue. How could he be expected to let go?

One of your arms draped over his shoulder, his uninjured shoulder, and fully pressed yourself into him as he pulled the silky robe down your arms and onto the hard comcrete of his floor around his feet. He could feel your heart threatening to beat of your chest in time with his own.

Best after beat as his lips dropped to your neck and your fingers began to pull at his hair, tugging sections between each knuckle to drag a groan from his lips as his tongue on your neck pulled one from you. He couldn’t get enough of you, he would never get enough of you.

“Obi...” you moaned out as the straps of your dress began to slip off your shoulders, tugged down from his clenching grip around your hips. “Please...”

He would do anything for you. Anything in the world you could possibly ask for, you had to know that.

He ventured out to let one of his hands trail even lower down your body, down your ass to hold you in between his legs even tighter now. He wanted his hands on every inch of you, he needed—

“General Kenobi!”

You flinched back from him the second you heard the violent scream from out in the common room. It wasn’t the scream of a man in any situation other than his most desperate and it shot Obi Wan onto his feet instantly.

His stare moved frantically to you but you just grabbed his tunic and pushed him to the door, “go, I’m okay.”

“Your highness—“

“Go.”

Opening the door as he slipped the tunic on and reached for his sword, he saw one of his new recruits out of breath, huffing in the entry way to the common room.

“What’s wrong?” Obi asked with a similar level of desperation in his voice while he moved with practiced fingers to strap the sword onto his hip. “What’s going on?”

The young recruit struggled for every breath.

“There’s...” in and out, “there’s an incursion...” in and out again, “in the East Wing....” in and out one last time as he doubled over, “Commander Cody hit... they need help...”

No. No this wasn’t happening.

Not with you in his quarters, the definition of unprotected.

“Wake everyone up, get them to the East Wing, reinforced every inch of the wall.” He ordered, waiting for him to leave the room before slipping back to his own and opening the door up to find you waiting close on the other side.

With your robe back on, your arms crossed tight over your chest, your hair back behind your ears and your lips still swollen, his heart began to break in his chest.

“I need to—“

“I slipped down here, I can slip back up, don’t worry about me.” You said quickly, glancing out to ensure the coast was clear before walking out with him. “You need to go.”

“I need to make sure you’re safe—“

“You have fresh recruits on the East Wing tonight, you need to be there.” You fought easily, “go, Obi.”

He glanced to the door to see the shadows of his few sleeping guards moving from their quarters out into the hall and the commotion just kept getting louder. He had no choice, you were right.

Anakin and all the young recruits were there. He had to get out there.

“I’ll come check on you when it’s safe,” he sighed, pressing a weak kiss to your cheek before taking off in the direction of all his guards.

Leaving you, your silky robes and you swollen lips standing alone in the guards room.

—

tags: @none-of-your-bullshit @elizzysnow13 @binaryssunsets @pennyllanne @mistermiraclee @haztory @dark-academics-and-florals @obi-wan-kanboneme @cyarikaaa @catsandbats13 @justrunamok @voidmonny @ravenclawbitch426 @lysawayne @thinemineours (open + if I forgot you, please let me know)

[loveafterthefact]

Love After the Fact Chapter 73: Care and After

Keith and Lance have to wait two movements to take a pregnancy test. In the meantime, Keith recuperates and some actual work gets done.

And I finally stop shitting on Krolia quite so much, bc I'm nice like that 😇

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Krolia stops by while Keith is in a deep sleep, offering the excuse that she’s bringing them more food and returning BleepBloop. Once she’s made her excuse plausible, the offerings placed in the cellar beneath the remaining packages she’d given them a movement ago, she admits her true purpose with a question.

“How is he?”

“He’s fine,” Lance murmurs, brushing hair out of Keith's face. He pushes one foot rhythmically against the wall, letting their hanging bed sway gently back and forth. “The night before last, he had some trouble holding his fever. I ended up putting him in a hot bath. Then last night, his fever broke fully.”

“When his fever dropped the first time, was it a false break or just a drop in temperature?”

“No… It was my fault. It got really cold out, and I forgot to feed the fire. He couldn’t keep up. He was still having chills, and was slightly lucid. He suggested I run him a bath. I don’t think he remembers, though.”

“A dip in fever is pretty normal for a first season. Galra are never as strong their first time around. You handled it well.”

“Mhm. I missed him, though.” Lance smiles, gaze soft as it travels over Keith’s face. “He’s my friend. My ‘Person’, y’know? And I’m his ‘Person’... I don’t know. It just- It felt like he wasn’t here anymore. Obviously, I’ll still be here for him every time, however he wants me, but I think I’ll always like it better when he’s being rude and demanding. Or complaining.”

The Altean’s mouth quirks. “I’m sure I’ll get an earful about something or other when he wakes.”

That quirk rises into a grin. He loves it when Keith gives him a hard time. It’s one of his ways of showing his love, and that he’s comfortable with him. It’s one of Lance’s favorite things.

Keith stirs in his sleep, whimpers against Lance’s throat. Long brown fingers slide up to his ear, massaging the base in just the right spot. Practiced. Caring.

When he glances up to the silent woman, she’s watching, expression perfectly neutral. When she speaks, it’s not bitter, only quiet. “Why couldn’t you be what I wanted you to be?”

“Do you know, I think you’re the first person to ask me that to my face? Most people I meet just give underhanded comments about whatever aspect of myself they take issue with.” Keith settles against him once more, sinking deeper into sleep with a sigh. Lance takes a moment to smile at him. “But either way, it doesn’t matter. I am who I am, and what I am, and if there’s one thing I’ll never apologize for, it’s that.”

Lance tips his forehead to rest against Keith’s. “He calls me his ‘good man’. I need to live up to that.”

“You’d fucking better.” The woman sighs. “I need to get back up to the compound. Take good care of him for me.”

“You have my word.”

 “So… My arm is dead. And your hair is in my mouth.”

“That sounds like a You Problem,” Keith mumbles, even as he shifts in a weak attempt to restore blood flow to Lance’s arm.

“The burdens of being the big spoon,” Lance murmurs, kissing the back of Keith’s neck while subtly trying to get fur out of his mouth. “Feeling any better? You’ve been sleeping all day.”

“A little. Guess I’ll sleep some more, take a bath, eat something, and then…”

“Find a way to keep busy for two movements?”

“Yeah.” Keith finds Lance’s hand slung over his waist, grips it tight. “I know I shouldn’t make such a fuss about this. It’s all chance, not a big deal if we’re not pregnant, but-”

“It is a big deal. Either way, this is going to dictate how the next few phoebs will go, or the rest of our lives. It’s an especially big deal for you, I know. All those social pressures and everything. But it’s ten quintants. We’ll get through it together, just like we do everything else, okay?”

“Okay.” A restless quiet stretches between them. “I need a bath.”

“You really, really do. Would you like me to run one for you?”

“Rude. But yes, please and thank you.”

“Trust me, I need one too.” Lance gets up, ignoring Keith’s grumbling when he does. “I’ll go first. You go back to sleep, or get a snack, okay?”

The prince kisses his cheek, sets one of Krolia’s leaf-meals next to him on their bed. Keith groans, not at all in the mood to return the affection. He’s so grumpy when he’s tired…

Ancients, Lance loves him.

When Keith finally emerges from the den, he’s freshly bathed, long, thick hair still dripping, hanging loose down his bare back. He’s a bit self-conscious, having noticed almost immediately that he’s lost a noticeable amount of weight. 

Lance, while (suspiciously) vocal of his appreciation for Krolia giving them food, is cooking them some fresh fish out front, complete with bread and vegetables. Keith notices that there’s definitely extra food there, no doubt in an effort to stuff him full of nutrients.

“Hey.” 

“Hey- Hi. How are you?” Lance searches him earnestly, looking for clues. 

“I feel like shit. But you probably figured that. Also, my head hurts from keeping my hair braided for so long.”

“Yes, I figured that. Do you want me to dry your hair for you?”

“Yes, please. But leave it loose.” Keith hands him a towel, sitting beside him on the ground. “I could swear I almost forgot what the sky looked like.”

“Well, right now it looks gloomy.” It does indeed, overcast and thundering. The world is cast in grey light, leeching the bright reds from the earth. Lance gently squeezes water from Keith’s hair, glancing regularly at their dinner to avoid burning anything. “Apparently, the storm ‘system’ that came over when your season started is still passing over.”

“Yeah, it happens this time of year. We’re nearing the monsoon season.”

“I thought you didn’t have seasons.”

“We do, but not temperature-y seasons. We have rainy seasons, dry seasons, harvest seasons, rutting seasons, lots of different seasons, but we definitely don’t have winter.”

“Rutting seasons?”

“The elk. They start bugling and mating and all that stuff. Then they calve, and the wolves have their pups.” Keith lifts his eyes to the heavy clouds. “It’s good you’re cooking now. It’s going to rain again in just a little bit.”

Lance finishes, leaving Keith’s hair ever so slightly damp, but at least no longer dripping. The Galra disappears back into the den, comes out with their cloaks instead of the towel. Lance sighs with relief, grateful for the warmth as a chilled breeze tumbles over them. Keith snuggles close, rests his head on Lance’s shoulder.

“Thanks for taking care of me. You did a good job.”

“Aw, thanks, beloved. It was my pleasure.” The rain finally starts, and Lance sighs. “I hope our food’s done.” 

“Seriously. I want to eat everything right now.” Keith grabbed the cast iron pan of vegetables while Lance pulled the rolls from the stone oven and grabbed the fish, sliding them off the roasting sticks and into the vegetable pan.

“If not, I’ll make a fire inside and finish it for us. Come on.”

They’re inside just as it starts pouring.

“So… When do we start thinking about names for our kits?” Keith sets their food by the inside fireplace, gets a fire going to keep it warm.

“Uh… I’m not sure.” Lance peels off his wet shirt, dropping it on the floor. “My grandmother dictated my and Allura’s name before my mother was even of legal age. Depending on which characters you use, ‘Lancel’ means ‘paladin’ and ‘providence’, or it can mean ‘bloody ruler’.”

“Well that’s a bit on the nose.” Keith scoops BleepBloop into his arms, scratching his little belly. “Which characters do you use?”

“My grandmother was an extremely unpleasant person. I suspect she wished for ‘bloody ruler’, but she died before I was born. My father chose ‘paladin’ and ‘providence’, most likely to spite her... What does your name mean?” Lance’s head pops out of a fresh shirt.

“No idea. I’d have to go to Earth to find that out, and no one alive knows where it is. Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Do you want our kits to be like you?” Keith pulls a bread roll from the tray, tearing off half and handing it to Lance. He’ll start out slow, so he doesn’t get nauseous, but Keith’s determined to start gaining weight as quickly as he can. ‘Just in case’, as with most everything he does these days. He’s even dialed back on his training, choosing not to resume his sessions with the Blade following the end of his season.

“I’d rather they be like you. I’m untested, and have little in the way of practical skills. You’ve proven your resilience, and your strength. I want them to have that.” Lance throws himself down in his chair by the table.

“I hope they have your mercy,” Keith whispers. He hops up to sit on the table, planting one of his feet between Lance’s legs. “Your balance. Your ability to learn something new. To listen… You teach them how to be charismatic and leader-y, and I’ll teach them how to kill without remorse and make a shelter and fire starting with two sticks.”

“Oh, Ancients! They’ll be unstoppable!” Lance laughs, scales glowing with humor.

“As long as they’re better than Seran and Renli’s kits, I’ll be happy.”

“That is an incredibly low bar, beloved.” Lance laughs, kissing Keith’s knee. 

“Yeah… They deserve higher expectations. Not the best, because that’s not fair, or our best, because that’s fucking stupid, but I want them to be their best, and always strive to improve. Like you.”

“Like us.” Lance smiles. “And I absolutely agree. The other side of that is that it’s up to us to figure out how our children can use their various strengths and weaknesses to succeed in the high-ranking positions they’ll eventually hold.”

“You’re Alfor-ing,” Keith mutters. “You mean we’ll take an interest in our children and be invested in their lives because we’re their parents. We’ll encourage them to pursue their passions and apply them in a way that befits their status, because we love them and are involved in their lives.”

“Oh. Right…” Lance’s ears droop just a little. He looks sad. Probably because Lance never had a parent do that for him.

“Hey.” Keith nudges the inside of Lance’s thigh with his toe. When those blue-and-pink eyes meet his face, Keith’s mind draws a blank. What does he say to someone who’s just been painfully reminded of the neglect he’s experienced? “I love you.”

Lance cracks a smile. “I love you, too.”

“You’re important to me.”

“You’re important to me, too.” Lance sighs. “Can I have a hug?”

Keith smiles, sliding off the table into Lance’s lap, straddling him as he drapes his arms over the man’s shoulders. “Absolutely.”

Keith kisses his mate, careful to work a smile into it. He forgets sometimes just how desperate Lance is to break his family’s cycle, just how afraid he must be of following in his father’s footsteps (or lack thereof). To Keith, Lance is the man who can’t wait to be a father, who’s champing at the bit to be a king. He’s the man who wants to fix everything, even if he knows it’s not possible.

Tipping forward, Lance rests his head against Keith’s collarbone, and Keith twines fingers in his hair.

“My good man, don’t be sad.” Keith kisses, lays his cheek against his head. “You’re going to be amazing, I just know it.”

“I know.” The Altean draws in a great breath. “I know. I just-”

“Shh…” Keith rubs circles into Lance’s back, somewhat alarmed by his mate’s sudden distress. “We’ll do great, my love. I know it.”

“But why couldn’t he?” Lance whispers, voice trembling dangerously. Keith’s hands freeze. “I wanted it so badly.”

“I don’t know why. But you so deserved it.” Keith’s comforting skills reach their limit. “It’s one of the many reasons I want to punch him in his stupid face.”

Lance laughs, kisses the side of Keith’s neck. “There’s the Keith I know and love.”

“Sorry. I suck at comforting people.”

“It’s okay. You’re amazing at comforting me.” Lance pulls back, smiles up at the man in his lap, eyes rimmed with just a bit of red. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Keith leans down, kisses him deeply, hands cradling his face, thumbs sliding over his scales. Lance’s hands find their way under his thighs, lifting him up as he stands, setting him back on the table.

“Mm, how much do you love me?”

“Aren’t you sick of me yet?”

“Never. Not ever.” 

Keith believes his mate, one hundred percent. Not just because Lance’s hands are still on him, but because he just does. 

That doesn’t at all mean that he can’t mess with the man a little.

“We should confront your daddy issues more often.”

“Rude!”

 Quintants later, Lance and Keith have found something to keep them busy: their duties. After movements of neglect, Lanval reports that the people miss them, finding Alfor and Coran (mostly Alfor), less approachable. As a result, the pair are wandering through the imperial library, researching methods of population control and agricultural sustainability. Growth and capacity are constantly at war.

Krolia is on her own ‘research’ mission: how the fuck do Alteans actually think?

“Gentlemen.” Krolia nods as she approaches Shiro and Adam’s table on the other end of the library. “How are you?”

“Well enough,” Shiro says. Adam doesn’t respond, busy composing a message to an associate, named Lanval. Apparently this ‘Lanval’ serves as a sort of spy for the princes, keeping tabs on the general concerns and opinions of the commonwealth and court. “You?”

Krolia hums, lounging in a free chair. “I learned something quite interesting today.” Shiro hums. Adam momentarily lifts his gaze. “It would seem that Crown Prince Lancel isn’t quite what I imagined.”

“Mnh. sounds about right.” Adam doesn’t seem to care how useless his comment is. “How exactly did you finally come to that conclusion?”

“He said he missed Keith while he was in season.”

“Ah.” Adam finally tears his attention away from his desktop, smile more of a smirk than anything else. “He would. He’s sentimental like that.”

“I assumed he liked it any way he could get it, but it seems otherwise.”

“It’s an Altean thing, I think,” Shiro says. “They’re a reserved species, but generally respectful toward their spouses, despite their promiscuity. They can also be very playful with their mates, particularly in private. I’ve observed Keith engaging in playful banter with Lance on more than one occasion. I imagine Lance values that.”

“Lance values what?” Keith peeks his head around a bookshelf.

“You’re affectionate degradation of his character,” Adam says, smiling at the young prince. “Apparently he missed you during your season.”

Keith snorts. “What a dork.” The prince snatches up a scroll. “Hey, dork!”

“Yes, beloved?!” Lance calls from a different aisle.

“You’re a dork!”

“And you’re stuck with me, so what does that make you?” Lance rounds a corner. “Come help me with this. Apparently one of our mines on Arus is compromised. We need to write an emergency missive to close it, because apparently neither the colony nor the natives have the authority to halt production.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Keith frowns.

“We can revisit native citizens’ rights after we get them and our colonists out of dangerous mines, okay?”

“So long as we revisit it… Guess we’d better get to work. Also, we should bring back some windchimes for Hunk’s new kit. Kits love them.”

Krolia watches the two head off to wherever their desk is, Lance taking Keith’s hand, the two bickering back and forth about which one of them is more of a dork. Keith’s tail curls around the altean prince’s ankle, ultimately preventing his escape as he drives a hand into the man’s white hair, leaving it sticking up in all directions.

The prince’s shrieks carry throughout the quiet room.

Adam props his head on his fist, eyeing Shiro with amusement. “Any other anthropological observations you’d like to share, captain?”

“You’re not as chilly as you want everyone to think.”

“Excuse me?” Adam glares, bristling.

“Settle down.” Shiro sips his tea. “I was speaking of your entire species, not you. Though it is interesting that you-”

“Stop talking, or I will make you.”

Krolia settles back in her chair, watching the pair banter themselves, though not in nearly as boisterous a fashion. But before long, her eyes and ears slide in the direction of her son and his problematic mate.

It’s long been her belief that the best thing someone could be is someone like Akira. Someone who’s equal parts frustrated and optimistic, and not above putting their foot down and digging their heels in like a stubborn child. Able to learn, able to understand, able to reach out and extend themselves to others, no matter how different.

Creeping up to observe the pair, watching Lance pour over documents and old, outdated policy, Krolia can’t help but realize that the young Altean is in many ways quite similar to her own mate, right down to the way he’s always giving Keith at least a modicum of his attention, even if it’s to annoy him.

She hates to admit it, but her son could do much, much worse.

With that in mind, Krolia approaches the boys' table. "Have you investigated inspection and mining maintenance procedures and regulations? Perhaps there is some underlying cause."

Lance leans back in his chair, eyeing her carefully. Finally he nods. "I haven't." There's so much caution in his eyes. "Perhaps you'd like to assist with this? We'd appreciate it."

Krolia nods, waiting for Lance to transfer the appropriate documents. A quick scan reveals the problem. "This is extremely outdated, given our peoples' current understanding of physics and changes in mining practices. Let me pulls some documents and I can help you boys draft something new."

Keith wraps his hands around Lance's arm, whispers something in his ear. Lance smiles, nods. "If you would, we'd be very grateful. If you can do that, then we can come up with a plan to help implement new procedures, and provide any resources needed to transition to more appropriate protocols."

It's an unspoken thing, the way Lance gestures for her to sit at their table upon her return, the way he makes room for her books beside his own. When Keith makes tea, there are three cups. When they call for a servant to bring them food, Lance requests three meals. A simple choice -her simple, agonizing choice- means that once again, Krolia has an open seat at her son's table.

She doesn't miss how Lance nudges Keith, the silent look they share. She doesn't miss Keith's smile as he turns back to his letter.

Worth it.

[sominbs]

hello! this is chey (she/her, 21, gmt-5) bringing you boseong’s very own castle-builder & corndog vendor — chae somin! you can view her pinterest board here, her stats here, her background here and her plots page here. under the cut, i’ll include everything you could ever want to know about her (probably?).

personality.

enfp-a   /   the assertive campaigner.   independent, playful, optimistic, brave, upfront, charismatic, adventurous, communicative, perceptive, affectionate, smothering, unrealistic. as an assertive campaigner, somin is lively and outgoing. it doesn’t matter what’s going on in her head or what kind of mood she’s in; chances are, she’ll still go out of her way to socialize. she enjoys making people laugh and usually accomplishes this by politely teasing/poking fun at those she knows well, but she can read a room and knows when it is or isn’t appropriate. she’s a great communicator which stems from her strong perceptive skills — it isn’t hard for her to get a good idea of what the general mood is and what’s expected of her at the moment. however, she does tend to be overly-enthusiastic which leads to unrealistic expectations both of herself and of others. these expectations accompanied by her somewhat smothering nature can definitely make some uncomfortable. 

aquarius   /   the water-bearer.   passionate, charming, impatient, temperamental, stubborn, rebellious, progressive, humanitarian, abrupt, intelligent. somin is often described as being unpredictable; she rarely makes her whole personality known, so she has a reputation for being surprising or even shocking. most of the time, she comes across as being genuine, warm and helpful, but there are some colder sides to her. she tends to lose her temper extremely quickly — especially when she feels like someone is trying to control her, as there’s nothing she hates more than her freedom being imposed on. will break rules without thinking twice just to prove a point and smile while she does it. overall, she doesn’t mean to be problematic, but it seems to be a part of herself that she can’t escape.

history / trivia.

the result of an accidental pregnancy. neither of her parents were ready for a baby, but her maternal grandmother promised to raise her if her mother would go through with the pregnancy. obviously, she did. her parents are not together and neither of them live in boseong. she’s met her mom a few times, but doesn’t know anything about her dad. either way, she doesn’t feel any sort of attachment to either of them. as far as she’s concerned, her grandma is all she needs.

granted....... she was kinda bratty/ungrateful towards her grandma for a LONG time. she used to think like is easy if you just try & didn’t really understand why her grandma ran a fuckin corndog stand of all things and why they were poor when they could just ~not be~. threw tons of fits in which she swore she’d never sell corndogs.

lit rally..... eunmi was the one (1) person who inspired her to be a little less MEAN. saw eunmi being nice to everyone all the time and eventually started being nicer to her grandma (and other kids lol) as a result.

speaking of eunmi!!! somin fuckin loved her so much. viewed her as one of the very few good things in her life, so she was pretty clingy towards her which evolved into being possessive. hated the idea of her being close to anyone else,,,,, f’s in the chat.

she was pretty athletic in school, so she was kinda popular bc of that? was involved in soccer & cheer, spent too much time on extracurriculars so her grades were trash but she still thought she’d get into snu because ~it can’t be that hard~. told everyone she was gonna go to snu & when she DIDN’T get in, she had too much pride to admit it so she just told everyone she was accepted.

left boseong for seoul after graduation with NO idea what the FUCK she was gonna do!!!!!! wandered around hopelessly for like a year and a half, doing part-time work and trying to get high-paying jobs with trashy resumes. even tried to become a model but no one wanted her whole 5 ft 3 inches country girl vibes </3

met a lot of people who taught her a lot about herself while she was in seoul, but she was STRUGGGLINGGG to make ends meet so she came back to boseong. told everyone she dropped out of snu bc it hurt her pride less than admitting she was never enrolled to begin with.

here’s the real kicker........ now she runs the fuckin corndog stand in the traditional market. it’s karma kicking her ass for all the complaining she did 10 years ago.... </3 p much every day of the week, you can find her down there slacking off or talking a mile a minute to whoever will listen.

always seems to have some great plan cookin up in that mind of hers, but at this point, everyone in boseong probably knows that she’ll never do any of it. she’s destined to be a corndog vendor for life...... please don’t clown her.

reputation for being unsuccessful in love, but it’s literally just because her ~unrealistic expectations~ make her give up on every relationship that isn’t kdrama material in like..... a week.

still lives with her grandma bc she doesn’t make enough money to afford her own place but she’s only 22 so.......  just wait. she’ll live in a mansion someday.....  hopefully

doesn’t necessarily think she’s better than anyone, but it’s easy to assume she does because she thinks she’s destined for greater things. she complains about boseong quite often and says stuff like “i don’t belong here” or “i know my life will amount to something bigger and better than this” but fr.... she doesn’t look down on anyone. she has no right to. she just genuinely, naively thinks that fate is on her side and something HUGE is written in her story. thinks that she deserves a happy ending and doesn’t have to work for it. that kind of thing. main character syndrome u know.

some quick plot ideas:

[0/1]  —  you know somin’s work ethic is nothing to brag about, so you “volunteer” at the corndog stand. in other words, you loiter around and reminder her to do her job and/or cover her shifts for her while she just sits around. she can’t pay you in cash, but she’ll pay you in gratitude and half-assed compliments <3

[0/1]  —  you only know of somin because you used to see her with eunmi all the time. to this day, you believe that she had something to do with her death.

[0/1]  —  you frequent the corndog stand because you have a lot to talk about and maybe there’s something therapeutic about ranting to somin while she cooks corndogs and tries her very best to give you advice.

[0/1]  —  somin pursued you VERY hard, so you decided to give her a chance. however, she dumped you after less than a week. maybe you’re bitter... or confused. (male lock)

[0/1]  —  somin was really mean to you in elementary, middle or high school because you made frequent attempts to get closer to eunmi.

[0/1]  —  you used to play sports with somin OR you used to watch her games/competitions and cheer her on.

[0/1]  —  you don’t like somin because of the way she expects good things to just fall into her lap.

[0/1]  —  you’re either VERY introverted or VERY pessimistic and somin thinks it’s her duty to brighten you up a little bit. 

[0/1]  —  you fell asleep at the one (1) single table outside the corndog stand and when somin woke you up, it wasn’t to tell you to leave but to ask if you want to sleep behind the stand, at least. maybe she thinks you have nowhere to go

[fearfearer]

i have caught up with the magnus archives.

when i started listening, i started a text file to note down any thoughts/confusion/analysis/jokes i had as i listened. i isolated a few bits of it into standalone text posts that i already posted, but here is the whole thing, my long-form liveblog

thoughts on the magnus archive as i listen

jonny sims gives an impassioned performance of someone's statement-- a diegetic impassioned performance, as we witness it being interrupted and resuming-- and follows it up with his own judgement of merciless doubt. classic. why the impassioned performance? he's just a nerd. i dearly hope this is the fandom consensus

every episode ends at the perfect volume to which i have adjusted it, and then i start the next episode and it blares in my ears. i think the volume of the intro must be like 1.75x the volume of the rest

*makes a serious effort to listen to and remember the name and date at the beginning of the statement recording* *forgets completely within 2 minutes*

i saw a fanart of gerard keay and learned [1] that he must be a good guy after all, since they drew him lookin cute, and [2] that his name is not, in fact, jared key. what, am i supposed to be looking at the transcripts? understanding names properly? in my defense, jonny sims clearly articulates "Jared" when he says it. maybe i'm not as good at decoding british accents as i thought. [footnote added in later: ok good i'm not the only one who hears "Jared" and thinks "Jared" instead of "Gerard"]

when gerard keay was described as having numerous eye tattoos on his joints, obviously my first thought was, "including the ankle? so he's count olaf?" because that's definitely a way count olaf would disguise his eye tattoo: by tattooing eyes everywhere else too and becoming The Eye Tattoo Guy. anyway this is part of why i was not at first inclined to think favorably of gerard keay

"The first thing about this statement that makes me dubious is that it comes from a fellow academic." if you know shit fuck you

it has come to my attention that there are ships. makes sense... after all, everyone in every fandom is horny af*. i'm not in deep enough to ship yet but naturally i'm keeping an eye on it

*horny af for depictions of intimacy, sexual or otherwise, but mostly sexual

definitely feel like i need to be writing down every name i hear because they're never not cropping back up but for now i'll just let it all wash over me

so sasha has been replaced with not-sasha, huh? pretty sure. though i'm not good at distinguishing voices. but that sounded pretty different, and my listening comprehension wrt that table isn't that bad. <<as time passes i doubt myself more and more on this point but not enough to go back and listen again

"You believe me?" "Yes, I think I do." (smashes button labeled "CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT" and a loud buzzer sounds)

IT'S MICHAEL!!! i hope michael is a long-term good guy... he's not seeming like a good guy right now... he says he's mostly neutral. vaguely recall seeing a tumblr post about michael in the recent past but that didn't give me any hints and i don't remember it well anyway. michael's voice is good though. good laugh

i'm not good at visualizing characters based on descriptions, let alone based merely on their voices, so the only image i have in my head of jonathan is a furrowed brow

i'm on episode 49 and i don't like jonathan's distrust of his colleagues... i don't understand why his immediate suspicion was that gertrude's murder was an inside job. hasn't he just learned firsthand that the institute is not impenetrable? it's not inconceivable that someone could enter and shoot her and leave. especially when it took place in underground tunnels connected to unknown locations.

there's a good Old Lady Voice Combo on episode 62

so agnes montague was heavily cursed... that's my conclusion after episode 67

elias seems to tell jonathan to "get some sleep" a lot. though it IS generally good advice

episode 70, 9 minutes, 41 seconds: jonny sims's cell phone goes off in the background

small brain: ghost ship medium brain: ghost train galaxy brain: dirt train

i wanted to see if there was fanart of michael so i looked it up... i might as well have googled "blonde slenderman"

sweeney todd mentions tally: II

for some reason, hearing michael described this time as "a tall man with curly blonde hair and an unnerving laugh" puts an image in my head without my consent, and that image is chris fleming. now, he's not quite blonde, is he? but that doesn't change my casting decision, which is now set in stone. hope he does a good british accent

"YES i know what a meme is."

why is melanie the first/only one to notice that sasha is now not-sasha? is it because she is experienced in firsthand paranormal encounters (whereas the archivists are experienced in decidedly SECONDhand paranormal encounters, save for the worm debacle)? oh, my question was answered handily in the next episode. ok.

the replacer definitely limits its glamour to everyone except one person just so that it can be amused by the distress and confusion of the one person who can see the truth. that must also be the reason it chooses a completely different appearance. it surely COULD replace a person with their exact likeness; it just uses another face for fun, and to be satisfied that it can get away with it.

this table has appeared in like 10 episodes... Guess It's Crucial

jonny sims yelling while swinging an axe. jonny sims goes through michael's door (eyes emoji)

the idea of the replacer killing jonathan and not even replacing him brings to mind "AT LEAST RIDE IT YOU ASSHOLE"

wasn't expecting to hear from leitner at this point... he's dropping tons of lore here. too much lore. so much is happening. i have to say i kinda like it better when the stakes are not quite so high as this.

so at the end of season 2, tim and martin believe that jonny sims killed this guy, who they probably don't know is leitner... and we the audience believe that elias, now almost certainly a double murderer, has very quietly stabbed leitner to death. do i the audience believe it? i'll keep an open mind for now. things are not always as they seem. except when sasha was replaced with not-sasha, which was exactly as it seemed. [footnote added in later: looks like elias being a double murderer was exactly as it seemed.]

so jonathan sims is the name of the actual guy voicing jonathan sims. it's a cecil situation. so are they someday going to go back and retcon every episode to change his name, like with palmer/baldwin? or does jonathan sims just not mind being a character as well? as long as it doesn't devolve into RPS i guess it's fine. if there's fanart of jonmartin i hope it doesn't depict them as their actors bc that's too close for comfort to RPS

there's been a truly hellish c*ndy cr*sh ad that has played like 40 times between episodes and i'm pretty well convinced to never ever play that curséd game

elias has some serious blackmail for daisy, huh? that's heavy, having police characters in fiction who do extrajudicial killings. life imitates art imitates life

"i'm not on drugs or anything. ...what? i could be on drugs!"

he said "ample opportunity" but like "amplopportunity" with emphasis on the "plop"

it was obviously elias who delivered the statement to jonathan in hiding, because he knew he would record it despite not being at work... bc he's a nerd

so if gerard keay has eye tattoos, does that mean he also serves the uhh the observing or whatever? [verdict arrived at later: no he just has those because he's cool. or because his mom tattooed him. ok almost certainly the latter.]

"what do i feed it?" obviously you feed it filled up cassette tapes, jon... nothing has ever been more obvious

it's okay that jon very stupidly burned his hand to a crisp. you don't need even one hand to turn on a cassette recorder. you can do that with your nose

so if these people who are wax figures serve the desolation, and not-sasha was spending time at the wax museum, does that mean there is a connection between the replacer and desolation? i think that would make sense, since both seem to enjoy making people feel bad feelings. also i'm starting to think that agnes was not actually cursed, but that would mean she burned that guy on purpose after being nice to him... was she just really selfish in that way? using him to experience Dating and mutilating him when he crossed the line, so she punished him as a cruel goodbye? or just building up his hopes so they will be even more fun to burn down when the time comes?

"perhaps doing a bit of mindless filing will help distract you." honestly that is something i would like to do in real life... i do enjoy a good mindless task. though doing mostly mindless tasks 40 hours a week is not a fun time for me lately. but it would be better if i didn't have to listen to bad radio at the same time

what?! the friendly midnight acrobat described in episode 90 sounds totally non-threatening and i hope there's fanart of it. was that gym just jared the bone turner helping people live their twisted athletic fetishes?! [footnote added in later: YES! god i hope people draw these turn-boned creatures optimized for their gymnastic of choice. show me a person who remade their body specifically for the balance beam]

so the power endowed in the archivist by the viewening is that when you sit them down across from someone they want to interview, that someone will invariably spill SOME beans and think it was their idea. maybe? [footnote added in later: yes.]

ok so Michael "The Distortion" Michael, of fractals and golden ringlets, has specifically tormented this other michael, lichtenberg michael?

jon is clearly moved to ask questions by an external force because he's a sensible guy who would not try to ask questions when daisy is holding a gun on him

i think basira has precisely the same accent as estelle... or maybe just a similarly staccato way of speaking (or of line-reading)

[episode 93] elias: (holding jon's face between two pieces of bread) what are you? jon: (sigh) the archivist...

well, they did something i didn't expect them to do with this show: create a compelling in-universe reason for jon to read statements aloud. because obviously until now there was none.

jon did the cockney accents. (insert emoji for indescribable feeling)

here's the purpose of the pit: if we all climb in the muddy pit together at night, the earthquake will only jiggle us gently and no one will be inside collapsing buildings to be crushed. it's only logical

ok i was gonna say this before but why is jon still at georgie's house??? he's not on the run for murder anymore, right? he has an apartment with all his stuff in it, right? [footnote added in later: i still don't understand why it was like this.]

i will confess that usually once the credits start to roll i zip to the next episode, but this time i zoned out a bit and it's really funny that jonny sims reads out "Rate and Review Us Online" in his archivist voice

a third michael. this one is probably already dead though. unless distortion michael takes over this guy's body or something. oh, jon came in at the end of the episode to say precisely this.

was episode 100 mostly improvised? if so, that would be appropriate. but i wouldn't put it past them to write every stuttering bit of those four statements

MARTIN...................................................................................................................................................... (typed this as martin gave some of his own money to the lady who expected payment for a statement)

i'm skipping 100.1 through 100.5 for now... just for now.

ok so michael is michael but not lightning mike michael, and two of these michaels are dead, but one is something that has never been alive nor dead. got it

everyone's morality is much more gray than i at first anticipated. the only people who seem to be solidly and earnestly on the side of good, as much as possible, are jonathan and martin and basira and georgie and maybe tim?

so michael just died and was overtaken by pseudo-helen? neo-helen? ok. that's kinda too bad, as i enjoyed michael's terrible laugh and unpredictability. but the feeling of michael being revealed as having been michael shelley feels somewhat similarly disappointing (but a bit less staggeringly groan-inducing) to when the mysterious koro-sensei in assassination classroom was revealed to have been a twink in his past. because of course he was. (that's when i stopped reading that manga. too precipitously dumb to sustain my suspension of disbelief.) it's like, ok, you had an interestingly mysterious character going on, but having solved the mystery, what interestingness is left? not much. fortunately this was resolved by promptly ending the existence of this michael and instead introducing new and improved helen

ooh martin has the asky ability too huh? nice [footnote added in later: he only used it this one time, and i'm wondering if they did that and then forgot and decided that jon is actually the only one with asky ability.] [[another footnote added in much later: How did i manage to mistake jon’s voice for martin’s voice? How?]]

the way martin said "kumo ga tabeteiru" in episode 110... alexander j newall does not watch anime

"I'm a book." ~Gerard Keay, 2017

it was a few episodes ago now but i noticed that when jon clearly articulated "Jared" referring to gerard, elias was like "Jared? you mean Gerard Keay?" (pronouncing it like "Gerard.") there is definitely a disagreement between these two (actors) about how to pronounce that name

the eye, the spiral, the end, the stranger, the lonely, the desolation, the slaughter, the vast, the buried, the dark, the corruption, the web, the flesh, the hunt.

Q: why would anyone want one of these rituals to succeed? A: it's their fetish. it's their sexual fetish

ok time to make up names for each possible apocalypse. these are the real and true names according to me, who knows such things: the eye - the viewening the spiral - down the drain the end - the really end end the stranger - oh wait we know this one. it's the unknowing. the lonely - the alonening the desolation - Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Lightless Flame the slaughter - world war all the vast - the expansion the buried - the grand lahar (or the Smothering) the dark - the extinguishment the corruption - the Great Rot the web - the spidening the flesh - the smorgasbord (or the Eatening) the hunt - come and get it

gerry said there was no dark god of indigestion, but i can tell you from personal experience that there is. though it's true that there is also fear involved, so maybe no separate pantheon is necessary

i sense that there is a battle between people who say it like "gotta get myself oriented" and "i feel disoriented" (as feels correct/natural to me) and people who say "gotta get myself orienTATed" and "i feel disorienTATed," and this podcast falls SQUARELY on the latter team. they've said it like 20 times

idk why he has to be such a dick to helen. jeez

the guy who coded his mind into a computer, which of the 14 was that? the corruption? the stranger? gotta be the corruption, but that doesn't fit perfectly with its rot/bugs aesthetic...

speed -> speeding -> sped. heed -> heeding -> hed. thus i decree

in my dream i listened to a whole episode of this show, narrated by gertrude, and i was like "whoa this is cool" and i went to write it down but i was still in the dream and writing doesn't work in dreams :( also any successful writing in dreams doesn't transfer to real life paper :( the only snippet i remember: “...in his white mouth, which had known only bread...”

"I, uh..." Jonathan Sims, a thousand times, 20XX

martin's job is PLAINLY to distract elias and elias barges in like "martin. i see you're trying to distract me." and martin's like "maybe i am!"

o, jonny took a breath. that's good

he wasn't hooked up to an EKG or anything? you spend long enough with no heartbeat that they're just like "i guess we can turn this off"

this episode about philosophical zombies sounds a lot like that NPC meme from a year or two ago... and it makes me kind of uncomfortable, the way this person inspects others to determine whether they are True Minds or Impostors based on their emotional expressions, their eyes... because i don't always do the correct or appropriate expressions, and would someone judge me as being a non-person who is trying and failing to imitate human emotions?

i generally don't enjoy ships that have more-or-less explicit canon support, but i can't say jon/martin isn't good

melanie blaming jon isn't right... no one had a better plan to stop the unknowing, did they? (they didn't!) didn't all of them agree on the plan and understand that they might die? (they did!) she's just imposing survivor's guilt upon him because he survived for supernatural reasons. but it's not like he eagerly embraced his new supernaturalness, or even asked for it outright! i think she's being unreasonable. i didn't like her insistence on trying to kill elias either, even though elias is a huge dick. what's with her?

wait, peter lukas is the lonely? (meme where calculations and equations whiz past me)

jonathan baa'd

oh, see. the bullet is making melanie act without reason. i get it now. can't say i think they had the best approach to getting the bullet out, but all's well that ends well (???)

martin is being prohibited from talking to jon >:I martin is on a first-name basis with peter lukas >:I...

martin grumbles, "i don't like being manipulated..." while obviously and continuously allowing himself to be manipulated

jon is afraid of and uncomfortable with what he's becoming, at least to a degree, right? but he seems to be going about his duties (i.e. feeding the eye) with vigor and without reluctance. is he really that motivated by his own desire to know and understand? who is he doing this for? is the eye's influence on him so strong that "doing what the eye wants" seems to manifest as what HE wants to do?

"He'd place it over the one he wore already, and he would larf and larf and larf" (from breacon’s statement... just heard it like this for some reason)

deep water could be the domain of both the buried and the vast, because you could lose yourself in the vast ocean, but experience the physical effects of being buried under thousands of feet of water...

so tom han was an avatar of the flesh but he ultimately died after being tortured by the spiral... right?

"we're not people, though, are we? not anymore." close enough, i'd say.

jonathan has deployed THREE "I, uh..."s in episode 131 alone and i want to smack him in real life. FOUR NOW. JON. JONATHAN SIMS THE REAL ACTOR. LISTEN... quit falling back on your "I, uh..."s. and if they're written into the script i'll punch whoever did that too. total of five in a single episode. never utter "I, uh..." again

i hope whoever's throat is okay after doing bone turner voice for a whole statement.

jonny sure needs saving quite often, doesn't he.

peter lukas being a slightly chipper advocate for becoming a follower of the lonely is very strange

neil lagorio and his whole cinematographic history is made up but they namedropped kevin costner, who is real

VERY, VERY GOOD laugh at 23:44 of episode 136

melanie getting her session recorded... i was doing audio transcription for a while and you'd definitely come across bits of therapy-type sessions that very much seemed like they should have been confidential.

i wonder if the eye ultimately turned its back on gertrude and allowed her to be killed. if jon could survive a collapsing building, could gertrude not have survived a couple of bullets? wouldn't the difference be the protection of the eye? [footnote added in later: of course now i see who turned their back on whom.]

i'm somewhat heartened to learn that agnes montague was, in fact, a heavily cursed individual, though she seemed to have embraced it to a degree... and she wasn't made of wax.

i like that jon now includes helen in his office politics briefing

basira's like "Edmund Halley" and jon's like "Halley's comet?" (like “Hale-ey”) and two minutes later jon's like "Edmund Hally" (not "Hale-y")

"What's this?" "OH... That's, uh... that's... my rib..." "Right." (tiny clunk of rib being set down)

so giving a statement puts a curse on you... or is it "having a statement extracted / being compelled" that puts a curse on you? and the resulting curse, the fear it reawakens, is that good for the eye, or is that good for the powers that initially caused the fear?

well, i heard a homestuck reference in one of the patreon names at the beginning of an episode, and who is surprised? of course, i'm not one to talk

episode 144- the english think their summer is bad... as a professional "hot weather is bad" person, i feel doubtful, because if the sky is grey, it is not as hot as it Could Be, and therefore one should quit one's bitching

first statement about the extinction... interesting. but hearing martin be a jerk to daisy makes me sad :(

the powers never tell avatars exactly what they need to be doing, but that's just concerning the means. the ends are always clear: the power gets fed. and all of the powers feed on fear. also jonny is horny for statements. i hope, but also doubt, that his harmful behavior is at least partially the spider's doing. oh, i see now that it's not. yeah.

jon wants to eat fresh and delicious statements produced just for him, instead of reconstituting the dusty old statements already in the archive

episode 148 - samson stiller gets a crush. but in all seriousness, is he becoming an avatar of the eye but like, not institute-related? is that a thing? i guess that would make sense, but still seems weird

episode 149 - considering ring -> rang -> rung, we seem to have stumbled upon spin -> span -> spun, and the compasses gently span around (9:40)

does martin have loneliness powers now? it's sad that he is getting lonely... as a lonely person, i know.

the lady on TV in episode 150 was just speaking simlish.

i really want jon to overcome his urge to forcefully take statements because i want to be able to root for him still

british podcasts really have a leg up over american podcasts, at least among american audiences, purely based on their interesting and varied accents

i can't say the gravedigger's envy doesn't make me myself feel like going to sleep in the cold dirt forever. but bad depression lately is also a factor, so

jonathan having to settle for reading already archived statements instead of harvesting fresh ones is exactly like a vampire (not the kind detailed in this series) who has to choose between hunting people to suck their blood or drinking bags of donated blood from a (near-endless) stockpile. there's an ethical choice with a clear right answer, but the urge is also understandable

jon following up gertrude's tape with just "fuck" was really good. now he's like "ok martin. let's run away together"

spent all day at work thinking about how i can't fuckin believe the first thing jon did when he heard how to escape the institute was to go tell martin like "there will be a great cost, but... we can elope now"

also if tim was still around jon would tell him the way out and he would do it right then and there, i'm 100% sure. like before jon was finished explaining tim would be like "the eyes? (grabs scissors) got it. (does the deed)"

earlier today i was just thinking that we would almost certainly hear gertrude's death on tape, especially given that we now understand tape recorders are wont to turn on autonomously whenever something important is happening. anyway then i came home and heard gertrude's death on tape

peter, as an avatar of the lonely, is easy to play like a cheap whistle because as someone who clearly hates spending time around other people, he is not keen to the symptoms of being played.

elias is like "you'll have to go into the lonely to get him" and jon's probably thinking "but then at least we'll be in the lonely... ~*~*~together~*~*~"

i think martin's whole thing for most of the series has been that he sounds a little doofy, for lack of a better word, and people constantly underestimate his intelligence. and now he has played peter lukas like a cheap whistle and forced me to realize that by taking for granted that he was being successfully manipulated by peter lukas, i too was underestimating martin... and his pure love for jon <:3c no but seriously i even remember explicitly making a mental note to remember that martin is smartin but it fell by the wayside as my emotions (of sadness that jon and martin seemed to be growing further apart) took precedent

i work a non-verbal job just doing mundane tasks and that gives me all the time in the world to think about things like "if they were to have jon and martin reunite in a tearful embrace, how would you convey the physical contact in an audio format? like, whap? soft thud?"

jon enters the lonely and voiceover peter comes in to try and factcheck the ship

i guess it makes sense that peter would try to do the ritual for the lonely all by himself

did he kill peter by asking him to death? or did peter just self-destruct rather than be forced to answer?

the way jon snapped martin out of the loneliness just by making him look at his face... that's powerful. as a lonely person, i know that the most cry-making thing you can realize when you feel alone is that another person is, in fact, there with you

martin went for a walk and now it's thunderstorming. i wonder if he came back as soon as it started raining and now he's standing nearby invisibly as jon reads the intimidating magnus statement. ...I GUESS NOT

i plan to read through the transcripts of all the episodes (as it’s faster than re-listening, though i might selectively re-listen) so that i may better understand some things and answer some questions in this post that i didn’t ultimately resolve. i can’t say i was paying 101% attention all the way through. also april is very far away

[lxiewrites]

Capture the Flag

The complete fic of the PJO au from klance au month

also tumblr decided to take out most if not p much all my italics but i’m too lazy to put them allll back in bc I’m an italics ho and there would be a lot

Ao3

Lance scrutinized the stance of the baby warrior in front of him. Circling around the young half-blood he kicked her right foot farther behind her. “You would have a better center of balance if you place your right foot here—you're right-handed right?”

She adjusted her stance and nodded, gripping her sword tighter in her fist, hand shaking a bit with effort. Lance bit down a sympathetic smile. She was a fresh camper; just dropped off by a satyr a few days ago. He could see the embarrassed flush on her cheeks and her eyes darting to the other campers practicing their sword fighting.

“Okay, so loosen your grip a bit. That much tension ends up straining the tendons in your elbow for whatever reason, trust me.” He scooped his sword up from the dusty ground next to her and took his stance. “Okay, let’s start with the basic attack.”

They took a step in sync, swiping their swords down with one hand slicing the air in front of them. Nadia blocked her invisible opponent with her wooden shield while Lance brought his sword up in a block. Together they sliced down once again, the air whooshing at the speed. Stepping back into formation Lance turned to his pupil with a big grin. “Good! With enough practice you’ll be beating flying pigs and hellhounds.”

Nadia offered him a small smile before biting her lip. Dropping her sword, point down, into the dirt she asked, “Could I just… skip capture the flag tonight?”

He wrapped an arm around her slight shoulders. “Sorry, kid, Coran says the best teacher is experience. And our cabin is leading this time. Our own members can’t just sit out!”

“But--!” Nadia objected, gesturing helplessly to Lucas and Katy painting each others nails off to the side of the arena. One or two more of the others dropped off from practicing and went to relax and gossip in the shade, only a few still sparring on the field.

Lance ran a hand through his hair to cup the back of his neck, sheepishly smiling at the baffled twelve-year-old. “Okay, so they’re more lovers than fighters. We’re a work in progress; sue me. But I got a feeling about you, Nadia. We’re Aphrodite cabin, we can go to fight just like anyone else, we just look better doing it.” He winked to punctuate his statement but she still looked skeptical. Finally he rolled his eyes, “Fine,I got Hecate cabin, Demeter, Athena, and the Apollo kids. And,” he said, raising his voice to be heard across the entire arena, catching the attention from their other cabin members. “If we win I’ll treat everyone to a spa day with my special face masks.”

When the clang of swords resumed, enough that they echoed around them, he snickered, not noticing the person that crept up behind him.

“So that’s how you get your team motivated. Bribery.”

Startled, Lance yelped as he spun around, shoving Nadia behind him, sword at the ready. His sword clanged against a familiar knife that extended into a sword, the dull side barely grazing his cheek.

Lance smirked, dropping his sword and smoothly ducking under Keith’s, bringing him in very close to the son of Ares. Close enough he could smell cedar and smoke from the offering fire. “You’re just jealous you can’t get your cabin to be a team on anything.”

Raising a brow Keith looked around the arena, probably taking in every flaw, every sloppy stance or messy attack. “At least my cabin can fight.”

Frowning, Lance crossed his arms. He debated firing back, saying that they’re doing their best or even taking a jab at Keith’s cabin. Instead he stepped aside, out of Keith’s space, to introduce his new recruit.

“Keith, meet Nadia of Aphrodite cabin. Nadia, this is Keith, head of Ares cabin.”

Lance watched how Keith’s stance softened, the corners of his mouth quirking up in a small smile. Biting down hard on his lips Lance forcibly turned to watch Nadia tentatively shake Keith’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Keith nodded, respectfully and still stupidly soft. “You too, Nadia.”

Clearing his throat Lance jerked his head towards Virgil who was getting disarmed way too many times in a row. “Hey, Nadia, why don’t you go over there and spar with Virg?”

Nadia’s hazel eyes darted from one head counselor to another before scurrying off to the struggling thirteen-year-old.

Watching her go, pointedly not looking at the other counselor Lance asked, “So, have you come here to check out the competition, Kogane?”

“Something like that,” Keith murmured.

Heat flushing through him, Lance bit down on his lip. He willed his cheeks to cool, unprepared for Keith’s answer. They’ve known each other for four years. They went on their first quest together, fought together, bickered, picked strawberries, did all the stupid camp activities dangerous and mundane. They didn’t do this! They didn’t… flirt. They fought, they pushed, they challenged each other. Ever since they went on their last quest to retrieve his mom’s girdle—which was really just a fancy belt that shifted to an accessory that would compliment the wearer’s outfit, kinda lame—Keith’s been… flirty.

And it’s not in Lance’s head! He’s the son of the goddess of love and beauty he knows when someone’s flirting! And furthermore, he knew Keith. He knows when Keith is being flirty, which is so subtle he normally won’t notice but—

He knows. It’s exactly like that time he was flirting with this one guy two years ago when they were going to fix whatever was happening with Iris. Gods he was so annoying, always ”mission first, Lance” and the first guy to show interest in him and he’s all ”Oh, I like your weapon” “that’s a cool knife”.

And recently he’s been looking for him for help with strategies against other cabins or partnering up with him. Somehow their stupid fights seem more lingering, softer, the rough edges sanded down to a fine grain like the beaches back home. Where Lance can’t help but stay and run his fingers over it in fascination.

And he has no idea how to handle it.

Face, unfortunately still hot, Lance said, “Well, you better watch your back, Keith. ‘Cuz Ares cabin is going down.”

Keith scoffed, eyes twinkling, “Maybe you should worry less on Ares cabin and more on your own.”

“Oh, my cabin is great. We’re a well-oiled machine. We got everything down to a science.”Lance ignored the fact he could see some of his siblings in the corner of his eye, stopping to look at them. Lucas and Katy whispering to each other and snickering. “We’re gonna whoop your ass, and I’m going to gloat it over you until the end of the summer.”

“Sure, Lance.”

“Hey, once upon a time Aphrodite was worshipped as a war goddess as well as love. Don’t underestimate us. Aphrodite cabin is gonna whoop your ass!” Behind him there was a weak cheer from his siblings and Lance had to restrain a sigh.

“Sounds like a lotta talk.”

Okay, he’s had it up to here with him. “I bet you that we whoop your butt!”

Keith paused, giving Lance enough time to hear what he just came out of his godsdamned mouth and regret. “Okay,” Keith drawled, “it’s a bet.”

“Fine! What’s the bet?”

Keith shrugged, the obnoxious orange T-shirt stretching over his shoulders. “I don’t know. I’ll think of something later.” Smirking, Keith started towards the exit, calling out, “Good luck with the troops, Lance!”

When he disappeared Lance buried his face in his hands, groaning in them.

From the side he could hear Katy shout, “Does this mean no face masks?”

-

Lance sighed as he adjourned the meeting with the other head counselors. Many were skeptical when he proposed the strategy to them, Pidge kept interjecting with other strategies—those Athena kids are such know-it-alls—but he was insistent.

He knew Keith and he knew how he worked. Impulsive, direct, but crafty and a quick adaptable thinker. He might play at strategy for a while but it won’t last long until he rushes in.

Lance has faith in his team. They might be outnumbered and facing against the kids of the god of war but they got this! They totally got this! Keith might have the numbers and strength but Lance and his ragtag group got the razzle-dazzle!

He made his way to the mess hall to devote some more garlic knots to his mom for some divine luck in capture the flag. He had full faith in his team but some godly help couldn’t hurt.

At the mess hall, he made the rounds from table to table, not staying too long for Coran to start pointedly clearing his throat. Most of the cabins he convinced to be on the side of love were because a) he was just that good or b) either they owed him a favor or he now owes them a favor. The only reason Hephaestus cabin was on Ares’s side was because Keith got to Hunk first damnit. And he saved his life during that fight with a giant pig but whatever.

He cornered his own cabin when Katy just got back from the offering fire. Bracing both hands on the table he looked at each member of his cabin in the eye. “You all know your roles?”

There seemed to be a simultaneous eye-roll across the table. Sophie waved her freshly manicured hand as if she was shooing a bug away. “Yes, yes, we all know what to do. Honestly, Lance, you’re way too into this game.”

Lucas snorted into his cup. “Oh, I don’t think it’s the game he’s into,” he said wagging his brows.

Giggles rose up around the table, each of his half-siblings chiming in at what that could possibly be. The only one not sticking their unwanted concealed nose into his love life was Nadia, who was a dear angel child who did not know what anyone was talking about.

Lance, face way too hot, closed his eyes and willed the blush from his face. Snatching a piece of garlic bread from Katy’s plate he chucked it at Lucas and hit him square between the brows. Lance turned to Nadia as Lucas was screeching about the grease and acne.

He looked into her hazel eyes and wiggled his brows, making her giggle. Crouching down he asked, “So, are you ready for capture the flag?”

She bit her lip, frowning so hard creases formed between her brows.  “I don’t think I’ll be good at it.” She turned to look at him, eyes big and pleading, using every bit of what she inherited from their mother. “Do I have to play?”

Lance gave her a sympathetic smile, hand brushing her soft, brown hair from her face and tucking it up into her bun. “Unless you’re injured you gotta play, kid, Coran says.” At her silence he sighed and darted his eyes around, lowering his voice in a conspiratorial whisper he gestured for her to get closer. “Listen, I got a really important job for you during the capture the flag alright?”

At her nod he leaned in to whisper her directions, her shoulders relaxed and she even chuckled. Patting her on the shoulder he stood up. “All you gotta do is stick with Romelle and you should be fine.”

He gave the rest of his giggling siblings a look, using the universal signal for ‘I’m watching you’ by jabbing two fingers at all of them. “Remember. No face masks unless we win.”

After a chorus of boos he left, restraining himself to only stick his tongue out instead of flipping them off because there are children.

“Real mature for a head counselor.”

Lance, for the record, did not squeak. He yelped. A very manly yelp. “Keith! What are you doing here!”

Keith scrunched up his face, nose wrinkling like a little bunny instead of the son of a war god. “It’s…the mess hall?”

Lance felt his face heat, from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. Spluttering he grabbed Keith by the shoulders, turned him around, and shoved him out of the mess hall.

Now, Keith might be mostly made out of solid muscle but he’s also a seventeen-year-old boy and Lance had witnessed him try to talk to a squirrel because he thought it was a type of dyad. Lance, similarly, has been on nearly every one of Keith’s quests and has just as much muscle. Moving him was not an issue.

The issue was feeling that muscle under his hands. How easily Keith let Lance maneuver him when sometimes he didn’t move his stubborn butt even for Coran. How stupidly adorable his face is, all scrunched up and cute.

It made Lance’s stomach twist and sweat in uncomfortable places and that was the issue.

“Nope! Nope, nuh-uh, I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to steal our strategy! Not happening buster.”

Keith’s face slowly shifted from a confused bunny to a smug bastard. He tried to press his mouth in a line but Lance could see his smirk. Whenever Keith tried to not-smile he would get damning dimples on each of his cheeks. And there they were! Damning Lance to Tartarus.

At his glare Keith gave up, lips tilting into a full smirk, one dimple disappearing. “If you’re so worried maybe you should just give up now.”

Lance stabbed a finger in his smug, stupid face. “Oh, you would like that wouldn’t you? Just wait, you’re going to eat those words.”

“I guess we’ll just have to find out won’t we?”

Cheeks burning for no good reason Lance opened his mouth to say something… only to find he had no words. Just a burning face and a heart beating way too fast.

Normally, Keith would fight back, say something just as petty and childish as Lance. Now, he fights back in a way that Lance can’t? Instead of pushing back he gives in and flipping sneak attacks him leaving Lance flustered and burning.

Smirking, Keith patted Lance on the chest before brushing past him to the mess hall, leaving Lance gaping at him still trying to find his words.

-

Lance helped slide a chest plate over one of the younger Hecate kid’s heads, securing the straps nice and tight. With that done he tied a blue handkerchief around their arm in a neat knot. The kid beamed up at him before scampering off somewhere. Their smile a shade bloodthirsty but that’s what he wanted to see! Furious little warriors that will kick Keith’s butt!

“Are you sure you don’t want me on the front lines?” A voice wheedled behind him.

Lance tipped his head back and groaned to the gods. “For the last time Romelle, I need you to hang back.” Leaning forward he lowered his voice, “I really need you to watch Nadia.”

Romelle threw up her hands, a whining noise escaping. “You’re putting me on babysitting duty? What if you break a leg? If I’m with you I could swoop in and cast a healing spell! Or, or, boost you with extra speed or strength and save the day! Oh, oh!” Lance took three quick steps back when the daughter of Hecate’s hands flew up in excitement, magic crackling off her fingers. “I’ve been working on some offense spells and this levitation spell. If I get close enough to Keith I could just levitate him and bam!”

Lance silently prayed to the gods to shut the girl up. “Romelle, please just watch Nadia?” Lance widened his eyes and laid it on thick. “You’re the only one that I can trust to protect her.”

Her lip pushed out in a pout, huffing, she crossed her arms and turned away. “Fine. But you are wasting my talents.”

“And I will forever regret it.”

She rolled her eyes, popping out her hip and pinning him with a stare. “I know you’re mocking me but you will regret it. And when you lose against Keith you’ll have no one to blame but yourself and I will laugh.”

Lance huffed and spluttered before settling on a stilted laugh. ”Ha, ahahaha, ha. No. Because I will beat Keith because I know him better than anyone here and therefore know the best way to defeat him!”

“Yeah but doesn’t that mean that he knows how to defeat you?”

“W-well, in theory—“

“Which is why you should put me in front He’ll never see it coming!”

Irritation grated on Lance’s last nerve as she rambled on. He loved Romelle and she was a key player in his plan but by gods she was annoying to deal with sometimes. She was two years younger than him and just as annoying as he was then. To a point she reminded him of himself, except more cringe—but that might just be him.

“—In fact, you should bring me with you to keep you from getting distracted by your crush on Keith—“

“Woah, woah, no, wrong,” Lance interrupted, taking Romelle by the shoulders and physically turning her and walking her forward. “No, nope, there’s no crush and you have your position. Just stay with Nadia and make sure she stays out of trouble.”

“—But!”

Lance pushed her forward towards where Nadia was fumbling with her shoulder straps. “Bye!”

Ignoring her complains he turned on his heel and marched away. Romelle was a sweet kid with ideas too big for her brain, and some of them were completely ridiculous! Him? Letting a crush ruin this? Nah, this has been in the works since Keith first flattened him on his back the first day of training. Sure, the rivalry might have not been at the forefront, especially with the last few quests but it’s still there! And it will continue to be there until Lance beats Keith.

Crush or no crush he will defeat Keith Kogane.

-

Lance waited in the front of his troops, the point in a semi-angular formation. He could barely make out the speck of red in the distance. The enemy’s flag.

He swallowed, feeling stones in his throat, pressing, making it harder to breathe. Sweat beaded up under his armor as he waited for Coran to blow the whistle, making his orange T-shirt cling to his chest under his chest plate.

As he stared at his goal with his friends and allies behind him he could almost feel his heart rate calm. He had a rock solid plan and a secret weapon. He knew Keith inside and out. In fact, Keith was probably snapping at James or Rebecca for poking at his plans.

Today was the day he was finally going to prove, at least to himself, that he could keep up with Keith.

The whistle blew and he could feel his lungs expand with humid air as he and team shouted, charging into the forest.

-

Lance’s heart pounded in his chest as his team broke into groups. Each group disappearing in the foliage and leaving the sword-competent veteran kids in front.

He and the first line of defense battled through the first wave of campers, the red handkerchiefs fluttering like butterfly wings with each disarmed kid.  He let Francesca of Athena’s cabin organize a small troop to tie them up, uncurling a length of rope from her enchanted fanny pack—which, normally, hideous, now, very useful.

Lance scanned the woods around them, so far no one in sight. He could hear the sounds of fighting in the distance, the clashing of swords and the dull thuds of weapons against shields. They couldn’t be more than a fourth of a mile away. His nose stung from the scent of smoke, someone—probably a Hephaestus kid—launching Greek fire at someone smoke rising off to the left of him.

“I’m going on ahead. Stand your ground here and wait for the archers to move up.”

Francesca didn’t look up from where she was tying up the other team. “Shall we proceed as normal or send reinforcements to—“ she nodded in the direction of the plume of black smoke.

Lance was already jogging ahead through the trees. “Send three of the archers over and go ahead!” he called over his shoulder.

Further away there was another explosion, more kids shouting in either fear or indignation. It seems like Keith didn’t waste time in bringing out the big guns. The quickest route is a straight line, after all.

He sprinted forward, uncaring to see if his group followed him, he was a man on a mission. Bursting through the trees and into a small clearing—that was smack dab in the middle way of the two flags—he shouted and brought his drawn sword down.

Another sword screeched against his as he stared right into the shocked eyes of Keith Kogane, close enough to see the whites of his eyes and the enlarged pupils surrounded by a galaxy of colors. They narrowed in concentration as he pushed against the sword. Lance smirking as he let him throw him off.

Keith didn’t look particularly surprised, maybe disgruntled at how Lance attacked first but not from his presence. Keith might be direct in his battle tactics but he was never one to search for glory for himself (something Lance learned about him after, oh, the fifth adventure he went on with him). He probably had another group headed for the flag but Lance wasn’t worried. They were fine.

Lance casually swung his sword around, twisting his wrist in what only looked like a complicated maneuver. “Surprised, Mullet? Thought I’d bring the fight to you this time.”

Keith lunged forward and swiped at Lance, making him dance back. Advancing, Keith slashed at Lance; his attacks practiced and smooth. Lance could barely keep up as he deflected each attack, each hit jolting his wrist making it ache.

Just as his back hit a tree he used his sword to guide Keith’s momentum from his swing to the tree trunk, his sword embedded into the bark above Lance’s head.

Keith panted, his chest heaving in his T-shirt, not even wearing any armor—the idiot. Sweat dripped from his temple and his eyes were lit up as a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “What fight?”

Lance felt his face screw up and his heart speed up as anger and adrenaline mixed in a dangerous cocktail in his chest. “Oh, screw you.”

And he punched Keith in the stomach.

Keith’s wheezed as his breath left him, hand slacking on the handle of his sword. Lance kicked his chest, pushing him away and losing his grip on the blade. Lance tore the blade from the tree and threw it on the ground in front of him, face hot and chest tight.

“I might not be the greatest half-blood of this generation but I’m just as good a fighter as you,” Lance gritted out, heart drumming against his breastbone.

“What?” Keith wheezed, reaching out to grab his sword, stumbling to a stand.

It took a minute for everything to catch up to him but when it did Lance felt the adrenaline dip down, leaving him shaky but there’s just enough for him to say what’s been bothering him.

“We have been on practically every quest together since we came here when we were twelve. You lead practically every quest, you’re the best fighter, you are… so hard to chase after. I just—“ Lance wanted to look away. He wanted to look away from the realization flickering across Keith’s face. He swallowed hard and kept his head up. “I just want you to take me seriously for once.”

“Lance,” Keith started, eyes scrunching up, nose wrinkling. “What are you talking about? I always take you seriously.”

Lance sighed, shoulders slumping. “Dude—“ He barely heard the whistling of air, his arm moving before he fully registered the action. His sword clanged against a familiar sword, diverting its path from his face.

“Dude! What the fuck?!” he shouted at Keith.

Keith was already on the move, running toward where Lance knocked his sword and scooping it up before running at him.

Lance blocked when Keith slashed down, the contact reverberating down his arm. They pushed against each other, swords sliding, the screech of metal on metal grating Lance’s ears.

“I always take you seriously,” Keith gritted out before dancing back on light feet. “Why do I always choose you to be on the quests with me?”

“I don’t know,” Lance snapped back, out of breath, stepping back in to swipe at Keith’s leg, barely nicking the fabric of his jeans when he dodged. “Because Coran told you to.”

“No you, dumbass.” They circled each other; eyes open for any opening in their defenses. Keith went on the offense, sprinting forward to aim at the vulnerable parts of Lance not covered by his breastplate.

Lance caught Keith’s sword with his own, locking them together and wrenching Keith’s sword out of his hand. Before he could swing his sword around Keith tackled him to the ground. Lance hit the ground hard, sword falling somewhere and the breath knocked out of him, making him wheeze.

Keith sitting on his stomach didn’t help him with the breathing situation. A hand was wrapped around his wrist and another on his shoulder, pinning him down. Lance gasped for breath, neck straining as Keith was haloed above him like some sort of godsdamned angel.

“I choose you,” he panted, “because you always have my back. I trust you.”

Keith’s expression was fierce. Brows furrowed and lips pressed in a firm line, ready to attack if Lance dared to disagree with him. His eyes were flitting over his face, searching, open.

The trick with Keith is that his scowly face and general grumpy body language only made him look like a closed book locked in a box in an underground safe. His eyes were what gives him away every time, which is why he never wins the poker nights with any of the Hermes kids. That and he sucked at lying.

Lance huffed out a laugh, head falling back to the ground with a soft thunk. He convinced himself for years that when he and Keith were equal then he’d be good enough. He spent so much time trying to convince himself and others that he was just as good as Keith when, apparently, Keith always thought he was.

Gods, he just… really liked him.

“Why are you laughing?” Keith demanded, “I’m being serious here.”

Lance quieted until he had a big, goofy grin stretched across his cheeks. Keith was still glaring at him from where he was sitting on his stomach. “I know you are.” He closed his eyes and groaned. “Gods, I’m so stupid.”

Keith’s mouth twisted like he ate a lemon. He eased the pressure on Lance’s wrist and shoulder, settling back onto the bone of his pelvis. “What was this about, Lance?”

“How about I tell you after I beat you?” Lance taunted, smirking up at him.

“I’m on top of you. I think that ship s—gah!”

Lance braced his feet against the ground, thrusting his pelvis up and jostling Keith into a tabletop position above him, his right arm still trapped but Keith’s left hand slipped to press into the dirt by Lance’s head. He used the opportunity to use his left arm to hug the one trapping his wrist at the elbow. Planting his left foot on the other side of the leg Keith has pressed against his side he pushed, toppling Keith over and landing between his thighs.

Keith was disoriented enough to allow Lance to swipe his sword from where it fell, hovering the blade above Keith’s throat.

Lance leaned over the demigod under him, his hair just long enough to fall forward and tickle his ears. He braced his hand against Keith’s shoulder, keeping him pinned just in case. His sword was close enough that with one sudden move Keith would need a medic and a ton of ambrosia.

Keith’s eyes were wide, darting back and forth between the blade and his eyes. Lance pressed harder on his shoulder. He didn’t want to actually hurt him but he still wasn’t about to lose either.

His cheeks were pink and he licked his lips, opening his mouth to speak when the woods erupted in cheers around them.

Lance straightened, head twisting around to see if he could see whose team was cheering. “Wait, who won?”

He stood up and wandered to the edge of the clearing. Where was his team? Godsdamn someone just tell him who won!

Behind him, Keith stood up, face hidden by his bangs as he dusted himself off. Combing his fingers through his hair Keith walked over. “Can you see the banner from here?”

Lance sighed and shook his head. The trees had too much cover and they were in a little dip between the two flags. Wherever he looked it was just more and more trees.

The cheering got louder, the trees shaking with celebration. From the direction of Keith’s base, a small crowd of screaming kids from the Ares and Hephaestus cabin surged through the foliage. Seeing Keith they cheered even louder, nearly popping Lance’s eardrums.

Crowding around them they grabbed onto Keith and hoisted him in the air, chanting.

Behind him, he felt a couple of hands on his shoulders. Lucas’s mouth was twisted in a rueful smile, squeezing his shoulder. Katy next to him, arms crossed and hair a mess of twigs and mud.

It took a hot second for everything to process. The exuberant cheers from the other team and how his own was tolerating it.

“We lost?” Katy sighed, chest moving with how deep it was, and nodded. She dug into her hair and flicked out a berry. Disbelief filled his entire being; he could feel his eyebrows crawl to the top of his forehead. “How?” He gestured to Keith who was finally being put down from his grinning team. “I had everything planned. I know him so well I might as well had his plans!”

“Lance,” Keith called, lips quirking at the side, head tilted slightly and eyes surprisingly soft. “You forget. I know you just as well as you know me.”

-

Lance pouted as he turned his marshmallow. The bonfire in front of him an excited red, so bright it could probably be seen from space. That color definitely came from the Ares kids, they were celebrating enough for the whole camp.

He wasn’t upset per se but he wasn’t exactly jumping for joy. He wasn’t bright red happy. Maybe a muted orange or a consolatory yellow—godsdamnit! He was so sure they would win!

He couldn’t help the pout on his lips as he let the marshmallow fall off to sizzle in the fire with a wet plop. Poking around the fire, letting the tip of his stick catch fire and watching it burn, he didn’t notice the presence that literally popped in next to him.

He jerked as Romelle and Nadia materialized into existence next to him. ”Holy Hera, don’t do that!” Romelle pouted at him, crossing her arms as she flickered in and out of existence like static. An ace bandage was slapped on her forehead and a Hello Kitty Band-Aid was barely hanging on to her chin.

Nadia settled in next to him, slowly becoming solid as Romelle’s magic wore off. He handed her a fresh marshmallow.

Romelle stomped closer, still not saying anything but clearly saying something. He eyed her warily as she glared at him, the flickering slowing down until she was fully solid. He bit the bullet.

“You couldn’t have done that during capture the flag?” he snipped at her.

Her hand shot out before he even registered her moving, smacking him on the head. “You couldn’t have told me I was a part of your little scheme?!”

“That’s because you can’t keep a secret for sh—“ Lance cut himself off and placed his hands on either side of Nadia’s head, ignoring her insulted look. “Shit,” he mouthed over her head.

Nadia smacked his hands off her head exclaiming that she knew what swear words were. She reached around him and snagged another marshmallow or three. Her voice was a little muffled as she tried to speak with her cheeks full like a little chipmunk. “When we were separated we were hit by green balls of fire. Romelle saved me but she was knocked out.”

Romelle gingerly touched her bandage, a dejected smile touching her lips. At his look she waved off his concern before squinting her eyes at him in a playful glare. “Next time, McClain, let me in on the plan instead of having your sister tell me when we’re under attack by Greek fire.”

Lance winced. “Sorry about that, won’t do it again.” He looked between Romelle and Nadia. “Other than that you two were okay?”

“Oh yeah!” Romelle exclaimed, waving her arm in a grand gesture as if to brush off his concern but only making it look like she was swatting at a mosquito. “When we were under attack I went bwoosh and Nadia was like aahhh, but in a good way. She even got a hit in before we were captured!”

“Yeah?” Lance looked over to where Nadia was blushing. “So you had a good first capture the flag?”

She looked over at him, dark cheeks still flushed with color from Romelle’s praise. “Green balls of fire,” she deadpanned.

Lance sighed, resigned and not willing to push it. She isn’t the first Aphrodite kid to be more of a lover than a fighter. And if she didn’t like it there wasn’t much he could do about it.

“…But it was fun.”

Lance felt his eyebrows climb up his forehead, a grin spreading over his face. “Really?”

With a tiny smile, Nadia nodded.

“I’m glad, Chiquita,” Lance said reaching over to ruffle her hair.

“We can totally pair up in the future,” Romelle added giving Nadia a side hug. “Now that we got a good strategy!”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Romelle, Keith already knows what I was planning. That was how he knocked you out.”

With a heavy sigh, Romelle crossed her arms and popped out a hip. “Ugh, that guy. He knows you too well.”

“Five years will do that.”

They all jerked to the new voice, Nadia releasing a little “eep” of surprise.

Keith settled in next to him on the log bench, legs stretched out in front of him with his hands tucked into a red zip-up over his orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. The fire reflecting in his eyes in reds and pinks, turning his normally blue eyes purple, as he soaked up its warmth. He had the barest touch of a smirk on his face. “You’re gonna have to work harder than that to surprise me.”

A few years back Lance would immediately think that Keith was mocking him. Rubbing the fact that he lost in his face and he would never be better than him. And, to be honest, a little voice still nags at him about it. At certain times like after losing a match or Keith being chosen for a quest. Telling him that he would never be able to be good enough, to catch up, be his equal.

But that voice has quieted. Because he knows Keith better and he knows himself better. He’s not a scared eleven-year-old running away from monsters that chased him out of his bed.

That doesn’t mean he’ll take his smack talk lying down.

“Hmm, mmhm, says the guy who I defeated today. Remember that? You know, when you were pinned down with your own sword to your throat? Hmmm?” Lance goaded, leaning ever so closer, smug smile on his face.

Red spread across Keith’s face, all the way to his ears and down his neck. “You just caught me off guard!” he shot back.

“Uh huh,” Lance was close enough to see the faint flecks of purple in Keith’s eyes. Could see how soft and smooth his skin was. A dumb, impulsive voice telling him to cup his cheek and run his thumb across it to see just how soft his skin was. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Keith scowled, lips pursing into a pout. “Whatever.” He pulled back, just an inch, and looked away, the color rising in his cheeks. “I wanted to talk to you. In—“ his eyes looked away, glancing over all the eyes on them, “private.”

Lance’s heart drummed against his breastbone. An unsteady beat that threw him off balance, unable to get back on his feet. They were too close. His heart was too fast. He had too many feelings. There were too many—

“Kiss, kiss, kiss!” A group of, unfortunately, familiar sounding voices chanted.

—people.

Lance grimaced and buried his face to hide from the world. Could a magical earthquake open up underneath him and swallow him up, please? Like right now? Where are the gods when you need them?!

Godsdamnit, he was reconsidering on the no-facemasks but not anymore those ungrateful demigods. His siblings are the worst.

Lance stood up, cheeks hot, embarrassment making his chest tight. “Come on, Keith.” He stuffed his hands in his jeans and stalked off towards the lake, ignoring the suggestive catcalls as they left.

It wasn’t a full moon but there was enough light that he could make his way down to the dock easily. The lights from the cabins fading away as the half-moon guided him to where he could think without eyes on him.

“You wanted to talk, yeah?” Lance finally asked, knowing the answer. He slowed to a stop as they approached the lake. “I’m sorry if they embarrassed you.” In his peripheral Keith shrugged.

“I don’t care what they say.”

Lance nodded, watching how the moon’s reflection wavered in the water. The silence that fell over them wasn’t uncomfortable. Just…heavy. Heavy with a lot of things left unsaid. And things that should be. He sat down on the dock, legs dangling over the edge. Keith sat down next to him.

“Are you,” Keith started in this halting, careful way of his whenever he’s dealing with Lance’s emotions. Like every word to be weighed and judged before being deemed adequate. “Okay?”

Lance sighed, trying to get some of the poison out, his chest feeling a little bit lighter for it. “I’m cool. They’re just… so fucking dumb.”

Keith snorted. “They can’t be worse than my cabin. There’s a mutiny every single day. At least your cabin respects you and listens to you.”

“Oh, oh, oh, Keith, my man, my dude, you don’t know the psychological horrors my siblings would put you through.”

Keith side-eyed him, a smirk play on his lips. “Yeah… but you seem to handle it pretty well.”

Lance… couldn’t argue with that. He tipped his head back and groaned to the stars and the moon. ”Ugh, why are you so mature and shit?”

The low chuckled sent a shiver down Lance’s spine. He crossed his arms to make it look like it was because of the cold. “I don’t know, patience yields—“

“—focus,” Lance finished. Lance shook his head. “Gods, Shiro, off adventuring and still finding ways to make us mature adults.”

“I wouldn’t say that college in New Rome is an adventure—“

“It so is an adventure!” Lance leaned forward, eyes just as big as his smile as he tried to inject some of his enthusiasm into Keith’s grumpy butt. “It’s college. A couple of years ago that wouldn’t have been an option for us. Come on, man, just imagine it, going to classes, sleeping in a dorm, getting a degree. I bet you, you would have the time of your life.”

Keith bit his lip, brow furrowed and too slow in disguising his emotions from Lance of all people. His face smoothed out into bland indifference.

“So, speaking about bets,” Keith prompted, a touch too neutral.

Lance examined Keith’s face. Watched how despite his neutral tone and how indifferent he tried to come across the muscle in his jaw still jumped and the tense muscles around his eyes asked him to leave the subject for another day. He slumped back, shoulders dropping as he whined, “what kind of horribly embarrassing thing do you want me to do? Clean out the Pegasus stalls? Follow you around with a sign that says ‘Keith is the greatest?’”

He heard a snort next to him and he felt a small thrill of victory. A smile peeked through as Keith shook his head, face relaxed once again. He cleared his throat and turned towards Lance, the color high in his cheeks.

“You have to…” Keith trailed off, the muscles in his face twitching with little micro expressions that Lance couldn’t name. “You have to… uh, I want—“ Keith’s lips twisted into a pained grimace.

Lance smirked, “You having some difficulties there, buddy?”

Keith huffed out a breath, blowing his bangs out of his red-stricken face. ”No, I just don’t want to force you to do something you don’t want to do.”

His shoulders shook from his laughter. That was so on-brand for Keith Lance isn’t even surprised. “That’s the point, man. That’s what a bet is. Making someone do something they don’t want to do.”

“Well, I don’t want to make you do what you don’t want to do.” The spots of color high on Keith’s cheeks seemed to glow brighter as his back straightened, his honor and noble-ness no doubt bolstering him. Like a knight. It would be stupid if it weren’t so attractive.

Lance smothered a smile that was starting to creep up, though Keith could probably hear it in his voice. “How about… you tell me what it is or whatever. And if I’m, like, super against it I’ll tell you no.” He fanned out his hands in a nonchalant gesture. “Sounds fair?”

Keith gnawed on his lip and nodded. His thumb ran over his knuckles as he looked at the water instead of him, clasping his hands together to stop. His lips barely moved, the sound escaping in a breathy mumble as Keith stared daggers into the fire.

“…I’m not gonna lie, I have no idea what you just said.”

Keith groaned and covered his face with his hands, still resolutely not looking at Lance.

Feeling so incredibly amused at this apparent torture Lance bit his lip because laughing at Keith’s pain would be mean. Shuffling closer, he leaned into Keith’s personal space. Close enough that he could see the flush of his skin and the faint, faint, faint freckles he sometimes gets when out in the sun too long between his fingers.

Seeing how close Lance was Keith squeezed his eyes shut and dug the heels of his palm into his eyes. A heatedly whispered, ”fuck,” later and he bites out, “do you want to go on a date with me?”

Skkkkrrt. Wait. Rewind. “What?”

Keith instantly shot up, body turning, tense and jumpy. “Fuck, never mind.”

Before he could get too far Lance had a hand on his shoulder and the other grasping his sleeve. Somehow right next to him before he even realized that he moved.

“Wait. Yes— what— yes,” he stuttered out before his mouth could do any more harm.

He used his grip to gently turn Keith more towards him. He had his arms crossed in front of him, fingers gripping the fabric of the jacket, a scowl he hasn’t seen since their first year in place. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

His heart beat faster than when he faced down that Nemean lion. And somehow this was scarier than almost becoming cat food. Heat flared in his cheeks as he lowered his voice, cautious of the prying ears around the campfire. “I want to.”

Keith’s face softened, the scowl fading into a vulnerable look Lance had only seen a handful of times. He bit his lip and sat back down.

Lance sat next to him, not close enough to touch but enough for him to easily lean over and rest his hand between them. He didn’t want to push what already felt new and fragile. Baby steps. He was 96% sure that Keith would jump out of his skin and fall into the lake if he as much as puts his arm around him.

“Are you sure?” Keith blurted out, forcing Lance to drag his gaze from shark-toothed grins.

It’s almost as if he has Hermes’ flying shoes flying around in his stomach, kicking around and messing up the place. The idea of going out with Keith… that Keith wanting to go out with him… made him far too giddy for his own good.

“Absolutely. I told you I would say no if I didn’t right?” Lance bumped his shoulder against Keith’s. “You’re not calling me a liar are ya?”

Keith scoffed, leaning back on his hands, his fingers overlapping his. His fingers practically burned at the contact. “Never.” Those same fingers shifted and weaved between his, falling together like puzzle pieces. He smirked and looked over at him, hair parting so he could see his eyes. “I know you far too well for that.”

[genderfreezone]

Do you like the Evil Within 2?

Yeah! Certainly not as much as the first one (i was not immune to being sad they left out fan favorites Jojo and Ruvik's Cube)

The rest of this post is me rambling about things i didnt like about the game, and then things i did like (most of my issues are how they treat the female characters tbh)

Its missing kind of the action-noir-gone-horrifically-wrong feel of the first game. The scare factor also suffers bc our player character has been through this before, hes a veteran at dealing with this crazy shit, it doesnt phase him anymore and by extension it doesnt phase the player. They really like tripled down on the Evil Corporation thing and both the intrigue and horror suffer for it.

This game did not drink its respect women juice (the first one didnt really either, case in point: Everything About Kidman) Sebastian is surrounded by 5+ female characters and only 2 of them survive (and one of them is his 7 year old daughter hes spent the whole game trying to rescue... and yet they never bothered to give her any kind of characterization or agency. A highly empathetic and supernaturally powerful little girl in a monster-infested hellscape?? HELLO???? Lily really had the potential to be the most interesting, sympathetic, and complex character--especially as she slowly lost her innocence--in the WHOLE GAME, but she was just sort of relegated to Plot Device McGuffin) The rest of the female supporting cast are killed off for Sebastian's Man Pain. In fact, THIS ENTIRE GAME IS CENTERED AROUND SEBASTIAN'S MAN PAIN. Torrez is a walking stereotype, shes literally just Vasquez from Aliens. Hoffman was the most likeable and believeable, except when it Turns Out She Was In Love With Liam Or Whatever (psst, guess what, i dont care. Also O'neal was kind of a dick anyway? I dont care x2)

And you know who i SUPER dont care about? Bland-White-Bread-And-Mayo-Sandwich Myra. Where's the no-nonsense firecracker of a police lieutenant Sebastian married? Not here, thats for sure. Her entire personality is "mother" and "worries about stressed-out husband". We got more characterization of Myra in seb's jornals from the first game, where she never even made a physical appearance! Horror media does this SO MUCH, women are either A. Sexy Lamp B. Hurts Men (Sexily) C. Mother or D. Innocent Virgin. It sucks. Do better.

The story lacked the "digging up old buried memories" and "theres more to this than meets the eye" of the first game. It felt too...... Straightforward. Everyone told Sebastian the truth. EVERYTHING WAS EXACTLY WHAT IT SEEMED. It all felt too simple, too easy, like there SHOULDVE been something else beneath the surface. And yet there wasnt. (I watched markipliers playthrough and i loved his theory that Kidman was actually Lily. It had such potential. Kidman's entire resume for the police station was fabricated, who's to say the rest of her past wasnt fabricated as well? It would retcon a lot of stuff and like 80% of her backstory from the DLC, but you know games like this arent above retconning important shit, and at least it wouldve been sacrificed for something with actual intrigue. Maybe it wouldnt even retcon anything! Consider: tiny Lily is taken by Evil Corporation and dropped off in a non-nurturing environment that would lead her to become the kind of person who would willingly join & work for an organization like Mobius. At least wouldve been a nice excuse for why Kidman and Lilys face models looked so similar... other than... yknow.... "WomEN ARe hArD tO DRaWwwwwee")

Okay okay ive been ranting for long enough. It probably makes it sound like i kinda hate this game, but i dont! It certainly doesnt hold the same place in my heart as the first one (which i still have very glaring issues with lmao Kidman deserved WAAAAAAY better), but i do like it! It brings back salty, grizzled, tsundere Sebastian Castinellos. It brings back spooky monsters that kill you dead. It brings back having a fun theatrical over-the-top villain who takes himself a litte too seriously.

I love Stefano. Probably not in the way some other fans do, but i love him as a ridiculous theatrical over-the-top villain. He sucks! And i love that he sucks! I love him BECAUSE he sucks! Hes terrible and exaggerated and completely up his own ass and ITS GREAT. He isnt as ACTUALLY THREATENING as Ruvik was (even in his bad assassin's creed cosplay. I could go on and on and on about why Ruvik is simultaneously a ridiculous AND frightening antagonist and how much i love it but uh..... maybe later) but hes such a FUN villain! Hes the kind of pretentious art snob shitheel i cannot STAND irl, but in this game i LOVE to HATE him. Hes just SO over-the-top you kinda wonder if he actually subscribes to the pretentiousness he spouts, or if hes just being Exceptionally Extra.

The other villains? Theodore was.... forgettable. His monsters were forgettable. (Its like how i completely forgot that Frank Manera was a character in Whistleblower for like... 5 years lmao i guess this game also kinda followed that "having multiple named/characterized antagonists in one game" thing that Outlast did) Myra, i just didnt care. Her final design was kinda cool, i liked the red clusters of insect eyes. Her monsters werent really gross enough to be memorable. The only reson theyre gross at all is bc they kinda look like theyre made of semen. (I checked the wiki and apparently Myra's white goo is "psychoplasm" and her monsters lost 99% of their gross factor. I just dont care.) The Administrator literally just looked like a 3D human model of Maxwell from dont starve, and i have to laugh every time i see him. Hes not terribly threatening, all he does is threaten characters to work faster and doesnt actually follow through on those threats. He doesnt even make fun threats like HABIT or anything. He thinks hes so powerful and ominous that his mere presence will frighten the player but hes just kinda all bark and no bite. Hes The Big Bad Company Man so you know hes gonna get whats coming to him, and you know Kidmans gonna be the one to do it to him, so hes not even that much of a threat. Hes whatever.

Stefano definitely got all of the coolest monsters. Many Arms Buzzsaw Lady was terrifying and i love her. And OBSCURA was just *Chef's Kiss* Anima was cool, she kinda looked like a mix of Laura and Samara. The Harbingers were neat, but really only bc ive got a thing for gas masks. The rest of the monsters werent really unique or weighty/threatening enough to be memorable. Now the first game is a fucking TREASURE TROVE of unique monsters *muah* you got Sadist, Sentinel, Keeper, Amalgam, Heresy, Laura, Shigyo, the Twins, Alter Egos, and im probably forgetting some!! But holy FUCK!!!!! And if we're includong the DLC?? MOTHER FUCKING SHADE. SPOTLIGHT LADY. LIGHT WOMAN.  SEXY LEGS.  Whatever you call her, i fucking love her. Her design is so simple. Helmet. Sheet. Legs. Her voice? Unnerving as hell. Love it. (Also i just personally love the diving helmet. Also like you know how a lot of games have a spotlight mechanic where you have to avoid the light and if it lands on you, you're fucked? LET'S MAKE AN ENTIRE MONSTER OUT OF THAT. She's PERFECT.) Oh and also those weird crawling exploding dudes. They made gross sounds and it was great. (Tbh Keepers still probably my favorite, if only for horny reasons)

TATIANA HOW HAVE I NOT FUCKING TALKED ABOUT TATIANA. Shes like the ONE female character that i fucking LOVE in the sequel. I love how they finally gave her a personality, and that personality is literally just "fuck you, Sebastian" Oh GOD its great shes SO FUNNY. I just.... god i love Tatiana lmao. I love how she makes you kinda uncomfortable too, like she knows something, but she wont tell you bc youre stupid. I didn't like the kind of "all-knowing guide" thing they did to try and make her creepy (like she's a "guide" but then also turns around and is like "no i wont tell you what you need to know bc you """have to discover it on your own""" or whatever") it serves no purpose since she never gave you any actual information, and it didn't succeed in making her creepier, all it did was frustrate me. She was at her creepiest when she IMPLIED she was doing something behind the scenes or knew something you didn't know and then didn't elaborate (not REFUSING to elaborate, just... stopping talking and leaving the statement to hang in the air, like the "getting her nails done" and "its been a long time, detective" and the "now what makes you say that" from the first game) and she was at her funniest when she was interacting with Sebastian from the sidelines, her snide little comments and sarcastic clapping cracked me the fuck up. Tatiana not treating Sebastian seriously was a fantastic touch for a game that otherwise would probably take itself so seriously it would double back around to being silly. Without Tatiana, it would've been just another male-centric gun-toting "survival horror" game, and for the most part, it was just that. She was definitely a much-needed source of slightly derisive comedy and a definite high-point for me, even if they didn't so a great job of making her creepy or fulfilling her "purpose."

Oh I also really love the COLORS in TEW2. The first game fell into the trap of having the colors be totally washed out that a lot of horror stuff does, but it also kind of worked for it. Especially with the color pallette of our main villain and how the whole thing was His World. The saturation of the colors in the second game is a breath of fresh air and gorgeous to look at, and you can even see the color motifs of the game change with each new villain: the game starts out with Stephano has lots of blues and purples and dark reds, when Theodore takes over we get bright orange and yellow contrasted with black and brown, and in the climax with Myra the game goes back to having washed out colors and white (and with her villain design? Let's face it: they were kinda just trying to do Ruvik again) We did get portions that were still kind of wahed out whites and greens and greys, but it wasnt the ENTIRE game, even the big blood-and-brains splatterhouse sections of the first game kinda had their colors weirdly muted for that "Horror Aethetic."

In conclusion, i do like the evil within 2, but i also had a lot of problems with it. And i complain about these problems because i like the game and know it couldve done better, tried harder, and been a LOT more than it was (the wasted character potential is my real overarching pet peeve, probably becuase i loved the characters in the first game, and character development is kind of my whole jam) . But all in all, it was still a fun monster-zombie romp with at least one entertaining villain and fun-to-look-at designs and environments. It wasn't character or horror or even REALLY story driven in the way I know it COULDVE been, but i still had a fun time and enjoyed myself.

[pistolkilled]

[ Maybe I’ll. try to write down a list of things that happened in chronological order. It probably won’t have any set dates, or if it does it won’t be for every event, but maybe I can get some things down. ]

(I’m gonna start with what happened in w/k/m)

So that shit happens, the Colonel has his breakdown, and Wilford - enraged with the entire premise that the party was built on and near-delirious from losing half his damn family in one night - probably blows up on Will. Yes, Mark had his huge hand in it, but this wouldn’t have happened if Will didn’t have his hand in it with Celine, and the fact that Will’s son came of that whole tryst, and this, and that, it’s easily a berating that lasts for over an hour. 

Obviously they can’t stay at the manor anymore. Wilford collects his very young nephew and Will and packs them both off to a hotel for them to stay at and try to regroup. There’s probably some more unbridled rage on Wilford’s part, and he ends up leaving for the night - leaves Will alone with his son and his thoughts.

Will’s not certain where Wilford goes off to, but he comes back late into the night, disheveled and splattered with blood and dirt, and it’s unclear as to just who the blood belongs to. He looks tired; broken. (What happens is that he gets into a fight and, in his already poor state, things get out of hand. More than likely, he ends up with a genuine, accidental murder on his hands - the first he’s ever committed.)

They spend the rest of the night in silence. Wilford cleans himself up, they tend to a small Red who’s fussy and unable to settle down for sleep.

From then on, they start city-hopping.

While Wilford takes care of his broken brother and nephew, they tend to move from place to place quite a bit. Both to avoid any possible trouble that might come from the events that happened at the manor and the accidental murder that Wilford committed on his own. They’re effectively on the run for at least 5 years with a slew of fake identification papers and aliases and this and that.

Effectively cut off from the rest of their family. Mark is MIA, presumed dead, Doc has dropped off the face of the planet himself, and it’s too risky for them to be with their parents, both law-wise and for the fact that they’re clearly not aging anymore, at some point.

Will is... a lot of work. While Wilford tries to maintain the various odd jobs he takes up for them, he’s also trying to keep his brother together and safe. Will talks a lot about Celine and Damien like nothing happened - like they’re still presently in their lives. He sits around for hours talking to Red about his mother and his uncle, and how they’re going to have to visit them sometime, things of that nature. On top of that, Will tends to wander. Sometimes on his own, sometimes with Red. Never anywhere dangerous, but if he does, he almost never tells Wilford where he’s going or when he’s coming back. It stresses him out endlessly.

There’s at least one time, despite how far away they may be, that Will scoops Red up and they just leave, eventually ending up back at the manor.

It’s probably another 10 years still, around the time of WW2, before Will finally starts to stabilize and fall back into something like himself again. They settle down in some city and try to start a more steady life for their now three-year-old kiddo.

Wilford’s skeptical of his brother voluntarily joining the war effort (even amidst the draft), especially given what WW1 had done to him when he’d been of sound mind, but ultimately he doesn’t/can’t stop him. 

It’s around this time that Wilford juggles college (for a business degree) and his various odd jobs, as well as trying to care for Red. Red gets stuck with babysitters or in a daycare frequently, but Wilford tries to be there for the toddler as much as he can. He feels bad enough as it is dumping him off on a stranger, and it’s important for him to know that his entire family hasn’t abandoned him.

To add to the stress, this is about when Red starts having his nightmares about the manor and all that funky stuff that Wilford has 0 idea how to deal with. 

Will makes it back from the war in one piece, and they settle down again to try and find some semblance of normalcy in their lives. It’s probably around now that they resume their identities. 

(I’m thinking that they might’ve had some strings to pull with having a friend in government, so maybe at some point they had themselves declared legally dead, and at some point again they can have birth certificates, etc., forged again that allow them to use their normal names. I’m not 100% on how that shit works, but I do know that the court is fully capable of erasing people from records entirely if you know the right people. My mom exists nowhere bc of something like this.)

By now, Wilford’s done with school and in the process of opening up a candy shop that he owns for a very long time. It’s only when they decide it’s time to pick up and move again that he decides to sell it.

Will takes up odd-jobs here and there to keep up support while Wilford tries to get his thing going. He’s dabbled in a little bit of everything.

It’s after Wilford sells his shop for a small mint that they start to travel more here and there, both to satiate Will’s wanderlust and just to get out there and see the world while they can.

Will does go on solo excavation trips every now and again. He’s something more akin to an archaeologist for years and years.

Wilf probably decides to open a bakery at some point, still feeling like candy and treats are his true calling.

Wilford’s mental health is probably starting to decline. Every time Will comes back from one of his trips, Wilf’s... different. He’s a lot more forgetful, he starts to talk about things that happened years ago as if they only just happened yesterday, or haven’t happened yet. They get a letter from Doc at some point, and it’s a good few minutes before Wilford even remembers who exactly Doc is. He’s forgotten who Red himself was at least once.

Despite it not having been so pertinent in the beginning, Wilford was just as traumatized by the events of w/k/m as Will was, if not more so. His main problem is that his trauma was just left to fester as he took care of everybody else, and he’s got nothing but years and years of pent up rage and unresolved grief, and not just from the Event. 

Eventually, it gets bad enough that Wilford lets one of his more trusted employees take over his bakery and checks himself into a mental hospital in hopes of trying to get better for his family, despite Will’s insistence that he doesn’t. He’s not so far gone just yet, but it’s bad enough that he knows he’s a burden, and he doesn’t want that for them. 

It’s been a couple years since Will stopped his archaeology, uncomfortable with the idea of leaving his vulnerable brother and son alone for such long periods of time. It’s probably around now that he finds himself working in a zoo, eventually working his way up from a position low on the ladder to an actual zookeeper.

Despite Wilford’s absence from their lives, things seem to be moving along... normally. (Ignoring the fact that he and Will don’t age, and that Red ages very slowly. Ignoring the apparent supernatural elements of their existence.) For the first time in a very, very long time. 

I think it’s around the 1970s that the exposes on how poorly patients in mental hospitals were treated. Wilford had probably been in the care of one for closer to a year by the time these stories air.

Will, sick to his stomach, manages to break his brother out of the hospital he’d checked into. (I don’t have an exact story on how that happened, but it did.) It’s clear that Wilford hadn’t had a very nice time of things in there, and try as he might, Will can’t seem to get a story out of his brother. 

It’s likely that Will uses all of his accrued vacation time at once to stay home with Wilford for as long as it’ll allow him. Rather than opting to have someone take care of his brother - still skeptical after the asylum issue - he tries to take this on himself. 

Wilford’s functional, but Will’s still worried about him. He tries to look after his brother without making it seem like he’s taking on the patronizing role of a parent.

Because Wilford still technically owns the store, part of their income does come in from his bakery.

Wilford finds more and more as time goes on that, even though these memories are more than likely repressed by now, he finds himself increasingly passionate about the state of mental hospitals as they are then. 

It’s this passion that ultimately gets Wilford into the field of journalism, mostly in hopes of truly bringing these depraved institutions into light and getting these poor people the help they actually need - and possibly bringing these employees that had been treating them so poorly to justice. He wants to do good with his journalism.

This is the career he sticks with until present day, although his fields within the field of journalism do tend to change.

Despite this, his mental state is still on the decline. Instead of talking happily about things that happened in the past as if they were present, there are lots and lots of things he genuinely doesn’t remember, and it’s apparent that the things he does remember are fading as time goes on. Will does his best to make sure that he remembers the people who matter, him and Red and Doc, though it’s a lot harder for Wilford to hold onto people he doesn’t see regularly. Will and Red are faces he’ll never forget because they’re around him so constantly. A fair chunk of their childhood is gone, their teen years, their parents and Mark. The events of w/k/m have all but been stricken from his mind, along with the memories of Celine and Damien. His personality is a little more loose and eccentric, even for someone like him who’d always been a little on the strange side, his morals seem to be a little less strict, but on the whole he’s still a functional person and a capable, reputable journalist.

They start to pick back up on their travelling again, working around Red’s school schedule and making good use of Will’s flexible work schedule. (Having been there for so long, he has a little more leeway.) 

Will starts to take lots and lots of pictures, mostly for the benefit of Wilford’s poor memory. Eventually Wilford finds interest in this subject and takes up the picture-taking himself, both for what Will says is for the sake of his memory and for work. More than a couple of their abroad trips have been for various stories/interviews Wilford wants to run for his career.

It’s during this time that they probably move one final time, into the house that they live in currently with the rest of the family.

Will says goodbye to his job as a zookeeper and, in the pursuit of finding something else to satiate his wanderlust and satisfying an old interest of his, starts bottom rung in the train conductor field.

Wilford takes up his job as an investigative journalist, though short-lived due to his... unique way of conducting these interviews (see his reports/videos on Slenderman - his first and last endeavors in this field). His mental state is more akin to what you see in canon and on this blog. A general state of manic at all times.

It’s around now that they start falling into the routine that you generally see played out on this blog. Will eventually falls into becoming a stay at home parent, and Wilford runs his own talkshow with an online business or two on the side, rather than investigative reports.

While not mentioned above, it can be assumed that Wilford’s initial accidental murder was his first, but not his last. While not a frequent thing, it did still happen.

Will plays an integral part in not only hiding bodies, but covering up his brother’s involvement entirely in these murders.

This generally coincides with how much they move around before they get to their current house.

Will doesn’t remember a thing for the next 15 years after w/k/m. He has little to no knowledge of the specifics of his breakdown and things that coincided with those years, and since Wilford’s memory is shot and Red was so young, it’s a time period that’s all but lost to history, save for a few shoddy memories on Red’s part.

There are seemingly random events in time that Wilford does remember. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why these stuck with him, but they did, and he still remembers.

At some point, Wilford probably tried to start up his own circus with Will’s begrudging help. But it was around the time that circuses were falling out of popular entertainment, and it didn’t last for very long.

The mental hospital definitely had lasting effects on Wilford as a whole, those it’s unclear as to what specifically came from the hospital and what showed up as a result of his already deteriorating mind.

At some point in time, probably some short time after WW2, they did go and visit their parents again, if only to let them meet their slightly older grandson and find out how they were doing. 

After this, they do keep up writing letters with their parents for a while, but eventually - with all the moving around on both parts - things get lost in the mail and correspondence stops. The three of them don’t get a chance to say goodbye to their parents/grandparents.

Eventually, since they’re out of contact for so long even before Wilford starts to lose himself, Wilford does genuinely forget that both Doc and Mark exist. It doesn’t take long for him to rebuild a relationship with Doc once he enters the picture again (he remembers most of who he is), but it’s not an instant process.

I’m not sure when they find out that Mark’s still alive and kicking, but Will finds out first, and he definitely keeps that knowledge from Wilford for as long as he can, given that he was one of the direct catalysts for all the shit that’s happened. He doesn’t want to risk Wilford remembering the past and really losing his shit, and part of him feels (felt) like Mark doesn’t deserve the chance to reintegrate himself into the family.

While it wasn’t all readily apparent at first, Wilford’s mind didn’t deteriorate all at once. It started with little things that wouldn’t be missed because they didn’t talk about it anyway. Such as Doc and his disappearance, their childhood, their parents. That stuff slowly started to fade away first, but if Wilford doesn’t notice it himself and he doesn’t make it obvious, then no one knows it’s happening.

The Big traumatic events in Wilford’s life are not of the few things he remembers. They’re the reason he is the way he is.

Will worked as an assistant teacher/teacher’s aid in Red’s school for a very, very short amount of time at some point. He had a particularly fond bond with that teacher who’d been happy to let him come in and help out. It was a way to occupy his time and spend a little more time with his kid.

Somewhere more recently, though not too recent, Will had also taken up the hobby of beekeeping (he’s got a real, real fondness of bees). It didn’t last long, much to his dismay.

Wilford has journals upon journals chronicling important events in his life that he’s determined not to forget. They’re in trunks in the attic, although under a specific lock and key that Wilford only has access to.

While Wilford has had numerous trysts and flings throughout the years, Will may have only had one or two other vague interests before Tori and after Celine. He was in no state of mind to deal with a relationship, and he couldn’t bring himself to put Red into any awkward situation that that might bring along.

Will’s artifact collection is so vast because 90% of them were taken illegally from the dig sites. Go figure.

While not mentioned, Dark has always been a constant in Wilford’s life somehow or another. He’s always been as familiar to him as Red and Will have, even if they haven’t been dating the entire time.

Another short-lived endeavor of both Will and Wilford’s was owning/running a drive-in theater together. Will generally manned projection and the technical aspects and Wilford dealt with the public aspect.

Mechanic may have also been among Will’s odd jobs at some point.

[queen-scribbles]

Not That Bad

Second prompt fill for PoE ficwap, from @haledamage, reusing the ‘Tavi and Aloth have to share a bed for REASONS” prompt bc I wanted to do it justice. It was harder to figure out the set up than I expected, because the usual ‘two people/one bed’ trope wouldn’t work. Tavi’s far too willing to sleep on the floor. (the ending could be better, but I’ve been trying to tweak it for an hour, and I’m just... done.)

It had been a long day, Tavi acknowledged to herself as she focused on getting her aching and exhausted legs to carry her up the steps toward the room they'd rented in the Gréf's Rest. And while long days were hardly rare, fending off an ogre attack and dragging a woman from a burning building had certainly made this one unique. Right now, however, the uniqueness wasn't her concern; how exhausting it had been was. I might actually sleep tonight, she thought, with an almost perverse amount of glee, as she found the correct door and slid the key into the lock. I don't think even Watcher dreams could keep me- The door swung open. -awake. Haeferic had forgotten to mention something when he promised her "the biggest room in the inn" --it only had four beds. Tavi froze in the doorway as that fact registered, which meant Hiravias and Aloth both almost walked into her. "What's wr-" Aloth cut himself off as a glance over Tavi's shoulder answered his question. "Ah." "Yeah, 'Ah'," Tavi sighed, stepping into the room and to the side so the others could enter. "I may not be a scholar, but six adventurers an' four beds... ain't hard to see how that ends." "With us on the floor," Sagani volunteered, gesturing for Itumaak to follow as she headed for the rug in front of the hearth. "We've made do with worse." She shrugged gamely. "Least in here it's warm." "Well, that still leaves five people and only four beds," Tavi muttered, rubbing her forehead. She just wanted to sleep, godsdammit, but here she stood; hair reeking of smoke and her armor of worse, trying to solve a logic puzzle she definitely hadn't asked for- "Why don't you two just share?" Sagani suggested, grinning slyly as she picked burrs out of Itumaak's coat. "Who share?" Tavi retorted, and almost instantly regretted it as seven eyes--and one eyepatch of Wael--slanted toward her and Aloth. "Pallegina and Hiravias," Sagani deadpanned, still grinning. "Who do you think?" "I-" Can't say I'm opposed to the idea, her brain filled in (un)helpfully. She turned to Aloth. "Are you alright-" "Would you mind-" he started at the same time. They both cut themselves off when they realized the other was speaking, prompting Sagani's grin to widen. "C'mon, Tav, it makes sense," she cajoled, expression shifting faux-innocent as she ticked off her points. "The bed's definitely big enough for two, you an' Aloth are obviously close enough-" "I'm right here," Aloth muttered pointedly. "Am I wrong?" Sagani asked even more pointedly, raising her eyebrows as her gaze shifted between the two elves. "No..." both Tavi and Aloth conceded after an awkward second's silence, while the others all pretended to be ignoring them as they chose beds and unslung their packs. "Well, then," Sagani shrugged and gave her full attention to plucking burrs and chunks of ice from Itumaak's coat. Tavi and Aloth traded a look of optimistic skepticism. "Is... that alright with you, city slicker?" she asked, fighting the urge to nervously fiddle with her hair or the buckles on her armor. Aloth hesitated for the barest fraction of a second before nodding. "If you're alright with it, so am I." Are you sure?" Tavi pressed, having caught the hesitation. "If it mmakes you uncomfortable, I can sleep on the floor, too. There's plenty of room-" "No," he cut her off. "I'm sure. You have enough trouble falling asleep as it is, I'm not going to ask you to do that. I just want to be sure this is something you're comfortable with." She chuckled. "Shit, Corfiser, it's not like we're actually Sleeping Together, just sharing a bed. What's there to be uncomfortable about?" Aloth gave her a curious look, and Tavi immediately started doubting how well her bravado had hidden the very real butterflies in her stomach. "As I said, if it's alright with you, it's alright with me." "Well, then." Tavi circled to one side of the bed and sat down, dropping her pack and pulling off her boots. "That's settled." "I suppose it is." Aloth sat almost gingerly on the other side of the bed. It didn't take long to shuck their armor and other gear, and the two of them settled in to sleep, shoulders barely brushing. Tavi still instinctively shifted half an inch away before rolling on her side. It was her preferred sleeping position, since it worked best for pretending to be asleep in the event of an ambush. Old habits died hard, she reflected as she stared at the wall. She hadn't had to worry about being ambushed in months. Behind her, Tavi could hear Aloth shifting in search of a comfortable position, and wondered if his feelings about this development were in anyway similar to her own. Namely, giddy nerves, not wanting to make things uncomfortable, but a small pulse of warmth wriggling through her gut that had liked the idea the moment Sagani brought it up. But it wasn't long before Aloth stilled and soon after his breathing settled in to the slow, steady cadence of sleep. Tavi yawned, too a moment to appreciate the irony of being the last to fall  asleep when she was the most exhausted, and drifted off herself. >><><< The dreams hit hard and they hit fast. One minute, her prediction had proven correct, and the exhaustion had brought with it the thick cover of dreamless sleep. The next Tavi felt like she was shaking as if hit by lightning. Standing on a cliff, drenched by rain, rock clutched in her hand as she waited for the body at her feet to show signs of life. A blink and it was gone, replaced by the vision of an elven woman, stretched on a rack and clearly in pain. Another beat and she was staring through the blood-hazed eyes of a mother orlan protecting her young children from some threat just beyond her field of vision. Back to the elven woman, her back arched and chest heaving as she screamed in agony. Vague, hooded figures stepped forward and reached for the levers. The elven woman locked eyes with her and when the figures tightened the rack another notch, Tavi felt the agony in her own limbs; as if every joint was being pulled from its socket. The world went white- >><><< -and she bolted awake, breathing hard, pain lingering in her wrists and elbows. It's just a dream. Tavi swore under her breath and ran a shaking hand through her hair. That's all. The covers rustled and there was a mumbled "Wha's wrong?" beside her as Aloth blinked his way awake. Tavi immediately felt guilty. "Sorry. The dreams. They... they were really vivid tonight." She looked down at the hem of her shirt, bunching the fabric in her hand and then smoothing it out. "Didn't mean to wake you." "It's fine," he said around a yawn. "Are you alright?" "Yeah, I'll be fine," Tavi promised, the words only sounding slightly hollow. She pushed down the covers and started to slide from the bed. "Maybe I should sleep on the floo-" "No." Aloth leaned over and grabbed her wrist, halting her movement. "It's alright, Tavi." "But I'll prob'ly wake you up again." He shrugged. "I learned years ago that I don't need much sleep to function. If you wake me, you wake me. At least you won't be dealing with this alone." "Aloth..." She hesitated. "Please. Stay." His thumb lightly rubbed the inside of her wrist, probably feeling her jittery pulse. "You're not inconveniencing me or making me uncomfortable or anything like that, if that's your concern. I would... very much like it if you stayed. However," he let go of her wrist. "If you would be more comfortable on the floor, by all means, don't let me stop you." Tavi smiled and quickly slid back under the covers, nestling into a good position. "Please. You couldn't stop me if you wanted to, city slicker." Aloth chuckled quietly, his hand sliding toward her until his fingers brushed hers. "We can test that theory, if you wish." Tavi smirked into the darkness and whispered, "Nah, I'm good." as she deliberately brushed her fingers against his in response. >><><< Wakefulness was--for once in her life--slow in coming. Tavi lazily blinked her way to consciousness, feeling drowsy and well-rested, cradled in the warmth of the pelts and blanket that covered the bed. As well as the warmth of another body snuggled against hers. For one muzzy, half-awake moment, she was a kid again. Piled in one bed with her brothers because the house was too small and winters were cold. But only for a moment. The smell of bacon and something else elusive but delicious tickled her senses, and Tavi pulled herself fully awake. The rough-hewn walls of the Gréf's Rest greeted her. She yawned and scrubbed sleep from her eyes with the heel of one hand. Of course it had just been a memory. She wasn't a kid anymore, she had the scars to prove it. Which meant that wasn't Khellin or one of the others next to her. Full recollection flooded in and it took an actual, physical effort not to bolt upright and instead simply take stock. Aloth had rolled over at some point and curled up against her back, one arm wrapped loosely around her midriff.  Tavi smiled to herself and lightly ran her fingers up and down the length of his forearm, occasionally pausing to trace circles around his knuckles before resuming. Okay, she admitted silently, I'm not a touchy feely person most of the time, but I gotta admit this is nice. Her next pass up Aloth's arm slipped past his elbow, brushing the skin just beyond it, and he twitched, making a small noise that was almost a laugh in his sleep. Tavi grinned giddily--silently thanking the gods no one else was awake yet--and more deliberately ran her fingers over the spot again. This time Aloth mumbled something, his breath warm against her neck, as his arm jerked away. The cadence of his breathing changed, and Tavi felt him shift and stretch as he woke. "Ticklish, huh?" she teased in a whisper. "Surprised I hadn't figured that out yet." Aloth shook his head. "Not ticklish, jus' sensitive." Tavi almost giggled at how adorably sleepy he sounded. "That so?" "Mm-hm." His breath caught as their position sank in and he started to roll away. She stopped him with a gentle hand on his wrist. "You're fine, Corfiser." Aloth only relaxed fractionally. "Are you sure?" "Mm-hm." Tavi rubbed her thumb against the heel of his hand. "I mean, if you're not comfortable, go right ahead. But you aren't makin' me uncomfortable. It's actually kinda nice." "It is, isn't it?" he said softly as he settled back in. "Your hair still smells like smoke." "Sorry. I had no idea you were such a cuddler, city slicker," she teased in an undertone as she rolled over so she was facing him. "You're just learning all kinds of new things this morning, aren't you?" he fired back, smile tugging at his lips. "Heh, guess I am." Tavi wrinkled her nose. "This sharin' a bed idea turned out not that bad after all." "I'm gonna remember you said that," Sagani piped up from somewhere behind her, and Tavi groaned as she glanced over her shoulder at the dwarf, who was, of course, grinning. "And sweet Galawain, you two are adorable." The moment effectively ruined, Tavi sat up and chucked her pillow at Sagani. "No one asked you." Sagani snorted and caught the pillow with one hand. "That never stops you, Tav." "She makes a very good point," Aloth said as he also sat up, running his fingers through his hair to gather it forward over one shoulder. "You're supposed t' be on my side!" Tavi grumbled, raking her fingers through her own hair and forcefully suppressing the urge to kiss him senseless for being so damn attractive this early in the morning. She settled for bumping her shoulder against his. "I am," Aloth countered. "Your bluntness is part of why I love you, remember?" Tavi's heart stuttered ever so slightly(which she'd always thought was a myth at best, vapid prose at worst) as she sat there grinning at Aloth until he raised an eyebrow in confused curiosity. "What?" he finally asked. "That's the first time you said the 'l' word, city slicker," Tavi informed him, reveling in Sagani's expression. "No it isn't," Aloth protested, frowning slightly as he bit his lip in thought. "After we fought off the ogres-" "You said I'd be the death of you," Tavi said, still grinning impishly. "I said I love you, too, 'cause I knew that's what you meant." His expression softened and he ran his fingers through his hair, absently twisting the ends. "I do, you know." "I know," she nodded, leaning over to steal a kiss. "And your tactfulness being part of why I love you is why I've gotten so good at readin' between the lines like that." "Good for you," Sagani interjected. "But if I hafta listen to my stomach growl one more time while you lovebirds are bein' all cute, I may commit murder. Help me wake the others so we can eat." "Dibs on waking Kana," Tavi said as she shoved down the covers and scrambled out of bed. "I'll take care of Pallegina," Aloth added, only half a second behind her. "Dammit," Sagani laughed ruefully, glancing at Hiravias' bed. "If he's feelin' grumpy, shifts, and eats me, Watcher, you get to explain to Kallu an' my kids." "Aw, c'mon, 'Gani," Tavi needled, already poking Kana's shoulder with one finger. "It's not gonna be that bad." It wasn't. Everyone was awake in short order and with minimal grumbling, and they set about planning their course of action as they ate. As she listened to Kana and Hiravias debate the virtues of camping versus returning to the inn at night, almost effortlessly pulling Sagani and Pallegina in as well, Tavi glanced at Aloth and silently hoped the rest of this adventure would work out as well as sleeping arrangements the previous night had. That wouldn't be so bad.

He caught her looking at him and smiled back.

No, Tavi thought to herself. Not bad at all.   

[pikapegasus]

101. for starmora pls!!

101. “They grow up so fast.”

when your life is so out of control that you’re posting the next ficlet at 3 am again lmao so sorry guys,,, anyway, enjoy some starmora parenting reflections while they do the dishes!! (bc I’m a slut for domestic shit asfglknf)

send me a ship + a number!!!!

“We are Groot.”

Peter actually dropsthe plate he’s washing when he hears the words, the dish making a loud klank as it hits the bottom of the sink.The water continues running over Peter’s soap-covered hands, but he’s too busystaring wide-eyed at Groot, who’s standing on the other side of the table, to takenotice.

He briefly glances at Gamora, who was collecting the rest of the dishes, but has also stopped andopted to instead stare at Groot. He’s just calmly looking at the two ofthem with his gentle smile, handing Gamora his and Rocket’s plates.

“You…remember that still?” Peter questions because,honestly, he’s never really understood how Groot’s memory worked. Sometimes, itwas apparent that he still remembered everything from his life before thebattle with Ronan, but most times, Groot acted like the age he physicallyappeared to be. “You can still say that?”

But now, nearly three years later, Groot’s practically backto his full size.

Groot nods. “I am Groot.”

“Teamwork is good, yeah,” Peter says. “Not sure if the teamwork requiredfor doing the dishes is worth an epic ‘weare Groot,’ though.”

“Thank you for your help, Groot,” Gamora says softly, takingthe dishes from Groot’s hands. “Peter and I have the rest of it handled. Youcan go.”

“I am Groot,” he says, bidding them farewell with a wave—Peterand Gamora both wave back, per usual, because some things just never change, no matter how much timepasses—before leaving the room completely.

Gamora brings the plates up to the counter beside thesink and Peter sighs, shaking his head as he picks up the plate and resumes scrubbing it. “Well, that was interesting.”

“I knew he remembered the battle and what happened to him,”Gamora says, switching to Peter’s other side and picking up the dishrag. “Butthat was the only other time he said ‘we’…”

“Glad to know I’m not the only one who was a little caught off guard there,” Petersays lightly, passing the clean plate to Gamora to dry. “I guess I just…kindablocked that memory out, while Groot was little.”

“I did, too,” she admits, running the towel over the plate. “Allit seemed to do was give Groot nightmares.”

There had been a good handful of nights in which Peter hadawoken to rushed, tiny footsteps accompanied by a flurry of knocks on his door.He’d then open the door to reveal an upset Groot, small tears running down his barkas he babbled about bad dreams where he or members of the team got hurt.

(Peter can even recall an entire week straight spent withGroot nestled between him and Gamora in the captain’s quarters, because of arecurring dream about Ronan where Groot couldn’t save everyone in time.)

“At least he seems to have grown out of it,” Peter says,absentmindedly continuing to clean. “Well. He seems to have just fully grown up, at this point.”

He sees Gamora nod in his peripheral vision, but as shestarts putting the dishes away, her actions slow. She eventually turns her eyesup to his. “Does it feel strange toyou at all?”

“Strange?” he echoes, handing her a fork. “I mean, I guessit’s weird, because it feels like it went by really fast.”

“Sometimes, I almost wish he was small again,” she admits, drying the fork. “I mean, it’simpractical for the team, as well as his own safety, but…” she trails off,pausing her drying completely. “It was nice, in a way.”

“It definitely reallyenforced the idea of us being a big family,” he says, glancing at her. “Itbrought out the best in everyone, in a way, because we all had to watch out forthe little guy.”

She laughs softly. “It felt like we were parents.”

“It still feelslike we’re parents,” he corrects, shaking his head in exasperation, because he’scertain he’ll have to scold someone at some point during the rest ofthe day for doing something stupid. “They grow up so fast.”

They finish the rest of the dishes off in a contemplative,comfortable silence. Peter really hasn’t thought much about Groot growing upuntil now. He calls upon personal familial experience for some sort ofreference to what he’s feeling now: with Yondu, things had been complicateduntil the very end, though Yondu never stopped looking over him, even from adistance, when Peter had finally left; with Peter’s actual mother, well, she’dnever even gotten the chance to seehim grow up.

He helps Gamora put the last of the dishes away. She watcheshim stretch his arms up to the highest shelf in the cabinet, handing him thelast of the plates, when she opens the discussion again. “Have you ever thoughtabout parenthood?”

The question catches him by nearly as much surprise as Groot’sremark earlier. Peter narrowly avoids knocking down what dishes are already in thecabinet down, onto his head, before turning to look at Gamora with a nervousflutter in his chest. “Um…not much, to be honest…”

That is, he really hadn’t thought about it, until Gamora haddanced her way into his life and he found himself looking after littleGroot with her.

“I think the realquestion here is,” he continues, regaining some confidence, “now that we’veactually dipped our toes into the oceanof parenthood, did we each like it enough to ever do it again, but more traditionally?”

She ducks her head to hide her smile at that, but Peter canstill see the corners of her lips pointing upward. “I suppose that is, indeed, the real question.”

“Before the Guardians, my answer would’ve been a hard no,”he admits. “But now, after I’ve had to coax a baby tree to sleep moretimes than I’d like to count…” He shrugs. “I dunno. Doesn’t sound as impossible or really out there, y’know?”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, meeting his eyes.

“What about you, babe?” he asks, closing up the cabinet. “Haveyou ever thought about it?”

Gamora holds her arms out on either side of her, lookingmore unsure than Peter’s seen in along time. She takes a few steps away from him, as if the idea is too largeto be contained in an intimate conversation between the two of them. She turnsback to look at him. “As a child, I wanted nothing more than to excel ateverything, be this warrior. But whenI was forced down that path, in a way I hadn’t anticipated or wanted, and everything changed, I lost sight of myself andmy goals.”

Peter nods along to her words. They’ve both been significantly more open with each otherin the past year or two about their pasts, especially their childhoods—both beforeand after their worlds were both turned upside down by the untimely deaths oftheir parents—and aspirations.

Her hands fall back down to her sides. “I suppose…thingslike parenthood are, as you said, no longer out of reach.”

He smiles then, coming closer to her and taking her hands inhis. “There’s no rush.”

“No rush,” she agrees. “We still have many adventures to goon, Star-Lord.”

She leans up toward him then, placing a quick kiss on hislips, as if to seal their bounded fate.

Maybe they’ll find themselves on a path similar to theexperience of raising Groot someday, or maybe not. There’s still time, and, asGamora said, they have much to do. After all, Thanos is still out there, andPeter knows that until that’s dealt with, Gamora can never truly, completelyrelax as the rest of them can.

A crash from another room interrupts their silent moment,followed by Drax and Rocket arguing. Mantis is laughing. Groot chimes inwith an “I am Groot.”

Peter and Gamora sigh, simultaneously.

“Shall we go check on the kiddos?” he teases.

“Better do it now than when Rocket accidentally blows up theship,” she jokes back.

They leave the kitchen, hand-in-hand.

send me a ship + one of these prompts about said ship having to share a bed!!!

[layesica]

Goodbye 2018: A Year in Review with Some Stuff Left Out

Guys… this year, I saw Dear Evan Hansen. Well… I guess we’re done here!

Yeah. You’re not getting off that easy. I would very much like to have a rant here, but I’m resisting the temptation. What’s done is done, so no point in wasting time thinking about it. 

Have I ever done this as bullet points? Do I always do it as bullet points, but don’t remember that because I’m tired? Well, here are the bullet points of a year gone by…

JANUARY

• Started the year with Pack people. No kiss at midnight. This was a continuing trend…

• My schedule was all over the place. Tech and Front of House all willy-nilly.

• Started Grad Revue at Second City. I worked with a whole new group of people because that’s how it worked for me. Worked in the office to pay for it.

• Started my second Whole Life Challenge.

• Auditioned for the Universal Studios Tour Guide Program. Got the callback, but failed the improv. This was a continuing trend…

• For fun? Oh! I went roller skating for Sandy’s birthday. I friggin’ love roller skating, y’all!

• Rediscovered the Los Feliz 3. Saw Lady Bird and I, Tonya.

FEBRUARY

• Things got a little more ordered. Grad Revue, Second City office, Very Famous… all my nights were allocated!

• I started working exclusively tech at The Pack and exclusively Fridays. Hunter asked me to host Go Sketch Yourself, so Katie D. and I did it from the booth. My very niche bad tech sketch went over so well with this crowd!

• Went to the Opera for the first time to see Candide. It had Kelsey Grammar in it? Still enjoyable.

• Met some friends at Gracias Madre. I’d been wanting to try it since I moved here. Finally! Expensive and scene-y, but good!

• At the end of the month, I went part-time at the hotel because… well, there were no benefits to being there full-time, and I have shit to do, y’all!

• Got a Conan taping in there.

• Ordered some Samoas from a neighborhood Girl Scout. Someone tried to sabotage me, but I got those cookies and put them in my face! Finally!

• This year had two themes: 1) Forgiveness and, conversely, 2) You are dead to me now. Forgiveness started at the end of this month. It was an awkward first step, but sometimes it’s good to take a first step. I guess it’s just looking at the big picture of whether, as a whole, someone is a positive in your life or a negative.

• I did something terrible. I killed Gary. He was a delightful little aloe (according to Reddit, an aloe aristata). He was in a sugar skull planter from Trader Joe’s. I couldn’t tell that I was overwatering him. I overwatered him to death. I am a terrible plant parent. I still feel awful.

• Another loss. My trusty Herschel backpack finally gave out. So, I got a new one. Not a Herschel. A cheaper one.

MARCH

• Mom and Dad came to visit. They got a nice AirBNB right down the street from me... but the plumbing was shot. So we got to spend a week at The Hollywood Hampty! (Thanks, George!) We went to a Conan taping. We went to Madame Tussaud’s… um… yeah. Did the double decker tour bus that I get for free because I sell them at work. We dropped by Eataly. I need to go back there. We got free breakfast every day!

• I went to a party! I don’t normally do that.

• I got to be in Book Report at The Pack. Buzz Aldrin was seated in the front row I had to do a quick change into an elaborate costume and ran out with my dress tucked into my tights.

• I learned that when you do someone a huge favor, they don’t always reciprocate in kind, so you should bear that in mind when you choose to share.

APRIL

• Took a day trip to Venice and Santa Monica. Walked around the canals. That was neat.

• I doggie-sat for George and Ian with Parker -- a very, very good dog. Their apartment is so serene PLUS they left me gin and tonic and an adorable call sheet with Parker’s day outlined. Nice!

• I interviewed for the page program at Paramount thanks to Sandy’s recommendation. Didn’t get it. Maybe they felt like I was too old. I don’t know. They seemed impressed with my resume, but I still haven’t been called in for an interview for a regular job. This is a continuing trend… At least I got to have some Texas-style margaritas in the build up.

• Started Sketch 3 at The Pack. Old version. Just talking about the history of comedy and other comedy nerd / writer pursuits with Mike Upchurch . This may have been my favorite comedy class ever. Got some insider Mr. Show information. It’s the fandom that keeps giving!

• Saw Scott Thompson’s Buddy Cole Monologues at UCB. Accidentally made eye contact with Bruce McCulloch. It was a very exciting night for me.

• During Very Famous’s April Show, I gave this gift to my family back in Texas.

MAY

• Gallegos visited and did Go Sketch Yourself.

• He and Eloy came to opening night of my Grad Revue — Clickbait & Switch. Oh yeah! My Grad Revue at Second City opened.

• FYC Season, y’all! Netflix had some good stuff! I got to take a picture of Emily with Marty Short which enjoying the open bar and passed tray foods.

• Lindsey came to visit. Lots of Marvel. I probably will not be seeing any more Marvel, though. Unless they hire me for that job I applied for. Then, I would love Marvel! We went to Universal and my favorite Harry Potter ride broke down. Then, we rode it again immediately. And then I had motion sickness that lasted 7 days

• Brent Forrester started a series of Comedy Knowledge Drops at Dynasty Typewriter. They were so good! He is great!

• Put up a sketch at The Pack’s Ladies of Sketch Night with a dream team of actors. Also, go to dance again, but, sadly, I always end up in the back. Too many ladies!

• My calendar simply says “BOB!” I imagine I saw Bob at something… Oh, Dynasty Typewriter! It was fundraiser for one of their employees to renew her visa or something. Took photos of Emily and a very nice BrBa/BCS fan with Bob before we walked through Murder Park to get to the train.

• An actor that I very much had a crush on stayed at our hotel. He’s been on a downhill slide for a while and was obviously pretty high. He was also a jerk to the person who check him in. But he was nice to me… and when he smiled at me while thanking me for calling a cab, I kind of died a little on the inside. I wish I had the video from our security cam, but I’ll just have to remember it in my mind. When I got home from work and turned on the TV, there he was in a terrible movie.

• Went on an easy hike to a waterfall in Altadena.

JUNE

• Went to ATX fest again! Mom & Dad came and stayed a night at the hotel with me. Lindsey and Andrea met up the second day. It wasn’t as fun because I live in this place where I’m constantly surrounded by TV stuff. They did a Better Call Saul thing, so I got to go to that. I had some TexMex. It was A LOT.

• Flew back from Texas earlier than I had planned because our Grad Revue closed that Sunday. We did our final show, then received our diplomas and t-shirts. I am now a Second City Graduate. But not “Alumni.” That’s different… and also not possible in Hollywood. I also resigned from my work-study job with enough hours to take 3 more classes. It was sad, but I needed that time back to make money.

• Took in some Fringe shows. I’m so supportive! But also, the lack of reciprocal support is not exclusive to comedy people. That’s a thing I learned.

• I auditioned for Sketch at Second City. Didn’t get it. This is a continuing trend…

• Went on a little weekend trip to Long Beach. Checked out the aquarium. Did a whale tour. Saw an actual whale tail. Had some decent barbecue. Got a sunburn. I recommend the Hotel Maya near the Queen Mary. All the cookies you can eat! And they have fire pits!

JULY

• This was a light month, but that was fine because…

• I went to Comic Con in San Diego! We got volunteer badges. I ended up catching a ride with my friend, Osiokeh, so I got to spend one night at the hotel connected to the Convention Center. So nice! Well, I spent part of the night because there was a Better Call Saul Panel in Hall H, so I had to camp out waiting for my wristband. Of course, they had issues and that took forever. Then, I slept for 4 hours then went to get back in line. I sat through so much stuff AND that place pretty much emptied out for some boring panels. Not enough for me to upgrade my seating, but I could have just not done that at all.I did not budget enough time to get to my volunteer shift, so I had to scoot as soon as that was over. My volunteer job SUCKED! Gordon was nice enough to come look for me, but they didn’t allow us to have phones, so I missed him. So sad. What a sweetheart, though. :(

• Volunteering at Comic-con… Oof! I just kept getting the wrong shifts. They were torturous! The last day was a complete mess, and I was one of the last volunteers standing… because of course I was. At the end of all this, I was like, “NEVER AGAIN!” I did enjoy finding a hotel to work at and just people watching. I guess the first year is when you learn. I totally missed the badge sale for 2019!

• I finally started Improv 2 at The Pack. Neal Dandade was great! All new people again!

AUGUST

• Did a better convention… CAT CON! Now, this is where I belong. I won a Litter Genie and the cat-weed company gave Penelope a CatIt Flower Fountain. She is obsessed! So, I guess it may have been better than weed. We may never know. I met Cindy from @foster_kittens. She was very nice… but the main event was meeting Felix. He was so soft, but so over being petted by strangers! I signed up to be a foster, but with a chupacabra in our apartment, I decided against it. That’ll change.

• Season 3 of Better Call Saul started. Then I started a class, so I had to miss watching it live. Emily and I watched the first one with… some refreshments. It was so good! I am turning on Jimmy as he turns into Saul though. Like, I super hated him right at the end there. We’ll wait for Gene to roll around. Oh Gene. My heart.

• Went to San Diego for a weekend. Nice to check it out as a tourist. Walked across a swinging bridge. Spent hours at the USS Midway. Went on a paddle boat ride. Checked out a Padres game at Petco Park. Almost died on a Bird scooter.

• Finally started that Late Night Writing class. It finally worked out. I love it. I wrote jokes and people liked them. I guess I can write them after all.

• Took a one-day class on sketch writing from improv with Kevin McDonald from Canada’s Kids in the Hall. It was fun. Lots of nerds. We wrote 2 sketches.

• Went to see David Cross with Emily. Took myself to Umami before hand. We got some Bonus Bob!

• Other shows: So You Do Comedy…? at UCB. Chris had John and Jessie Ennis. That was fun. Kevin McDonald did a variety show at the Lyric Hyperion Theater. First time there. Cute place! We sat so close. Tim Heidecker dropped a guitar stand on me.

SEPTEMBER

• Improv 3 at The Pack Started. Shaun Landry showed us how to be actors. We did prepared monologues for a class that John Conroy subbed. Shaun said he told her he wanted to tape one of them because it was so good. She said Justin. There was no Justin. No one even close except Jessica. So, I’m just gonna assume he meant me. Because I need it for this next thing…

• Submitted a reel to be a performer on my or a TPT Sketch Team. Didn’t get a callback. I’m starting to think maybe I am not a good performer. But giving up isn’t a thing I do, so I’ll keep trucking along. At least I get to feel like I’m SNL-era Bob Odenkirk. And from what I heard from a person who worked with him around this time, we have/had about the same pitching style for this level in our careers. That makes me feel better. But, like, he was at SNL and I’m at a little theater in Hollywood… and also he’s a genius… so maybe not that much the same.

• The good news is that I get to continue as a writer on Very Famous.

• I also got to play a terrible British stereotype in a sketch with friends at Go Sketch Yourself and UCB’s Everybody Get In Here. Multiple people told me how funny they thought I was in it. I accidentally dressed like Oliver Hardy, but thinner and with boobs.

• Dana Gould did Chopping Block at The Pack. That was amazing! They needed extras and, oh, how I wanted to be in something one of my heroes wrote… but also I wanted to watch it. So I chose the latter. I’m good with that.

• At work, a guy from Fox News yelled at me over the phone because of something dumb. I don’t even remember. Cool guy.

• Briefly joined an improv practice group. Quickly realized that I am too poor for that.

• Started another Whole Life Challenge. It had been a while.

• Went to another Conan taping. It turned out to be the last. September 18. 25 years and 5 days after I first watched Conan on late night television. A few weeks after this, the hour-long show would cease to be. A total surprise to me. A half-hour replacement coming in January.

OCTOBER

• Oh yeah! Back in September, Andrew asked if I would like to be in The Ointment at The Pack. Um… OF COURSE! So I got to play a character who murdered her husband… 10 years after she wrote a blog post about how she would do it. I also played an Octopus tentacle. It was so fun!

• Ian asked me to be in some short, blackout videos he was making to remind people to vote. That was fun, too!

• Briana asked me to be in her sketch for Tales from the Laugh Dimension at The Pack. Duh! Of course! I also did a couple of things with her for open mic sketch shows. It was a lot of fun.

• The best thing about all these parts I got was that right around this time, someone who was grasping at straws to make me a bad person declared that I was “angry about all the sketches I didn’t get cast in.” LOL Yeah, about that. So, I guess things do happen for a reason.

• After a couple months of looking for a full-time position, so I could get out of my living situation because of it being a danger to Penelope, I kicked that into overdrive. I wish I could have kept my old place, as I was the only one who really loved it, but also, all the sage in the world wouldn’t be able to vanquish the bad joo-joo. This turned out for the better in the long run.

• But more good things happen! Hunter suggested that I help produce a show at The Pack for Halloween as part of WPCK. We did an exquisite corpse with all-female writers and an all-female cast (but a male director because… I guess… let’s not go overboard?) based on the Bill Joel video for Allentown, the play No Time for Sargents (watch the TV version of this, please) and Ragnar Benson’s series of survival books. I got a pretty big part and memorized the shit out of my lines… only to have my entire intro skipped. So, I had some confusing costuming, but the whole thing was kind of that way… and I guess we can just blame the format anyway. It was still fun. And I got to go eat Doomie’s with some great ladies!

• Finally got to see 1970s-style Hollywood Boulevard thanks to that Tarantino movie. I was only there for the throwback architecture. Walking home after class, I saw Brad Pitt.

• Took myself to the beach again.

NOVEMBER

• November 1. The day I saw Dear Evan Hansen. I was not ready. It was so good! I cried the entire time. I tried to win the ticket lottery every day. I listen to the soundtrack constantly. I may have to wait, like, 3 years to see it again.

• The next day, I picked up my rental. I deserve a break, so I took one in the form of a road trip along the PCH. I ram some errands in Burbank, then drove through Malibu Canyon to start in Malibu. It was beautiful. How have I never been to Malibu before after 2+ years in LA? The first day, I stopped in San Luis Obispo. Oof! At least the Embassy had a good evening reception. I ordered some Santa Maria steak on Postmates and it was so good! Then, I just relaxed. SLO is not that exciting. 

• Day 2, I drove up to Monterey. It took forever. But it was BEAUTIFUL. Just singing Dear Evan Hansen songs and trying to pay attention to the road. In Monterey, I went to some beach locations, like where John Denver crashed his plane. Then I watched the sun set on the beach. The Embassy there did not have a good evening reception.

• On the last day of my road trip, I drove up to San Jose to go to the Winchester Mansion. It was really neat, but not as exciting as I thought it would be. Still enjoyable. Had an expensive burger, went on a disappointing detour trying to find a Peet’s, then drove in the dark on The 5 back to LA. Wow! There is nothing there.

• The last day with the car, I took Penelope to the vet. Got the works. She’s all good. Didn’t even need a teeth cleaning.

• Station Theater’s Can’t Tell Us Nothing won Matt Besser’s Improv for Humans contest. They did a show at UCB, so reunited with some Houston improv folks. And also someone I worked with at the WPCK thing. Worlds collide!

• Saw a screening of Stan & Ollie at IFC Fest. The acting was great!

• There was a book event for Paul Myers’ book about Kids in the Hall at UCB with Dave and Scott. Scott is a force of nature. I love him so much! Also, Paul Myers is Mike’s brother… or Mike Myers pretending to be a guy named Paul who is also his brother.

• When I was in high school and college, there was a stand up / storytelling show in LA called Uncabaret. If I lived in LA, I would have gone. Now that I do, I went to their 25th anniversary show. It was a room full of people from the 90s, still in the 90s. Not a complaint.

• Late one night, I saw that Katie was subletting the apartment she had just moved out of. A studio in Hollywood in my budget, bills included. By the end of the month, I had the keys to that apartment. I should have gone ahead and put my notice in for December 1, but I got nervous. I ended up paying rent on 2 places.

• Started Improv 4 at The Pack. Rich is great! He has the perfect personality of a person I can get along with.

• Thanksgiving at Fogo de Chao is TOO MUCH MEAT!

• Very Famous got into SF Sketchfest! Finally going to San Francisco!

DECEMBER

• Packing! That pretty much sums it up. I rented a car for the small stuff. Asked for help with the big stuff. We did it! Penelope and I are free!

• Ian asked me to be in his directorial debut at Second City — A Fonzie Scheme. We did rehearsals to generate material. It was fun.

• I saw Come From Away. I mean, after Dear Evan Hansen, I thought I would never be able to love a new musical, but this one got me. It was good.

• I got older. For my actual birthday, we went to a Yoga guru’s Winter Solstice Celebration — even though it wasn’t the solstice yet. We did some intention setting and white people dancing and healing breathing and tarot card pulling and labyrinth walking and fireside singing. Then we got ice cream. The following day, I invited some people to bottomless mimosa brunch. It was a great time! A single mimosa, followed by a carafe of mimosa, then another single mimosa is the perfect amount of mimosa. Then, I bought some corn cookies and a slice of crack pie from milk bar.

• Spent the next few days getting the apartment in order, so I could come back home to not a mess after the holidays. I did a lot, so I’m looking forward to getting home to Penelope.

• Capped off a creative year by submitting my very first late night-style writing packet. A warmup for the NBC Late Night Writers Workshop. Guys, I’ve known it my whole life: I friggin’ love late night!

• And just for good measure, my $400 (I got them on sale for $75) sunglasses broke. I was tempted to get some Ray Bans, but opted for some MUCH cheaper Target ones. RIP Jimmy Choo star sunglasses. They were good to me for like 3 years AT LEAST.

• Went back home for the holidays. Spent a lot of quality time with Mom and Dad. Saw Mark and Jacob. Didn’t get nearly enough writing done. Didn’t finish my book. At least I got to mostly relax. Mom let me win at Scrabble a couple times before winning like 12 times after that.

A LOOK AHEAD

Tonight for New Year’s Eve, Emily, Ian and I are going to see Bob and Naomi’s Not Inappropriate Show at UCB. Then later, we are going to the New Years Eve celebration at Dynasty Typewriter. They got a lot going on over there.

I tried to focus on the high points of this past year. The low points were pretty low. I’ve struggled this year, but have done my best to try and stay positive. I lived and I learned.

The word of the year for 2019 is BUDGET. I am going to set myself up with the tools I need to budget my money, budget my time and budget my food. The main focus will be finding a new job. That has been a big issue since I moved to LA. I’m wearing myself out. 

I need to cut myself some slack this year, but also continue to get shit done and be better at that.

I hope the rest of you have a wonderful year. And, if you made it this far, why are we not best friends and going to Salt & Straw every month or laughing and bitching over bottomless mimosas every other weekend? I need more of that!

BONUS

Annual kitty feet, anyone?