#even then if she had reverted back i had expected like a crumb of what happened before

[mariusroyale]

not that i dislike Zoe or anything but it rlly did feel like asstruck just gave up with Chloe and was like FINE HERES A BEE BOURGEOIS

but it’s like. we HAD a BEE BOURGEOIS. AND HER REDEMPTION WAS DEVELOPING. AND THEY JUST WENT NOWHERE WITH IT AND IN S4 AND S5 SHES JUST THE SAME

SO WHATS THE POINT

[tinycheesecakedetective]

The Night of Bitter Despair: A Fading Letters Story

Pt. 2

From the outside, the witches once again found themselves impatiently waiting, the sounds of agonizing shrieks acting as dead noise. Even for them it was becoming tedious. "My goodness, must it be so dramatic?" "BAH! IT PROBABLY JUST MEANS IT'S READY!" Bastinda got up, walking around the room with childish fervor. "TAKE IT OUT, I WANNA SEE WHAT WE MADE! OOH, I CAN ALMOST TASTE IT NOW..!"

Deciding that she had a point, and becoming impatient themselves, the other two soon joined the boisterous witch. As they leaned to open the door, however, the coven landed on the ground with an unceremonious thud. Ploughs of thick smog spread over the kitchen before glowing shards shot out from the embers. Between the flame and the smolders was a single cookie, its body bandaged and blistered. It's frame remained concealed with a cloak draping over it's shoulders, and the peculiar staff reverted to being a gnarled crutch with burnt petals and a blackened center. Clutching onto the remains of a shattered gem, the cookie glared at it's creators. Contempt and disdain began to swell within its heart as it flew over them. Mulling over its current circumstances, the three witches stared back in awe. A sense of pride came forth, all while their creation resented them more for it.

"Oh... So this is what it feels like to defy the will of the divine..." The moment, however, was short lived. Their collective astonishment withered as they felt their creation's hatred towards them. The Witches' bodies stiffened. They became determined to put their creation back in it's place, that they were the ones in control. The looming cookie, witnessing the turn in resolve, couldn't help but smile in response. This... idea of becoming something so defiant to his creators that they sought to put him down. Even stranger still, he caught himself enjoying this change in tone. His mouth quivered, chuckling under his breath, and it mounted over time. Soon, he was jeering aloud and it echoed around the room. Whatever the witches were saying among themselves didn't matter; the only thing he could hear was himself. Tears once shed out of fear were now being shed out of disbelief and amusement.

"To think it was all so simple-!!" He looked back at them, grinning from crumb to crumb. "Ah... How infuriating..." He flicked away a stray teardrop before moving to the center of the banquet table. He sneered at the hedonistic display of gluttony and power, the very place he was tormented and cast aside before flicking his wrist. All of it fell apart, the lavish centerpieces and silverware shattering instantly when they hit the stone floor. Surveying his new power, his eyes then glared down at his now captive and infuriated audience. His cloak stretched out across the canopy of the smog, like wings beating against a heavy 'sky'. Like a beacon in an endless sea, he and he alone became a source of clarity and light.

He loomed large over them all, eyeing the discarded and abandoned sweets in the wreck. Turning to them, he eyed them with a mixture of pity and contempt. Such sad creations... But perhaps they could still be saved.

"The witches are nothing but liars," he snarled, looking back at the array of abandoned cakes and sweets. "Look at me! See how I rejected their so called purpose! See that I was reborn against anyone's will!!!"

"...That is enough." The once hushed voice of Winifred broke the collective silence of the coven, the other two looking back in silent relief. "...You speak of things you do not understand... You believe that your insignificant will overrides mine, and for your arrogance, punishment is due." Winifred summoned her wand, uttering some ancient tongue before firing a spell in the smoke. This, she had hoped, would have put him down for good, or at the very least wound him enough to be subdued. She never expected him to deflect it, however. Using his staff, he redirected the hex back to her, knocking the witch off of her feet and back onto the floor in disbelief. A disappointed huff escaped the cookie's lips before turning back to the other pastries, more annoyed than anything. Pure Vanilla, if he could even be called that anymore, extended a hand to the forsaken desserts. No other words were exchanged, just an olive branch. He was offering them another chance. He was giving them the opportunity to live the lives they never could. They would be fools to reject this chance. So they didn't. The cakes had begun to rally alongside him, every hound and creme beast howling and screaming at the tops of their lungs in devotion. The dead would rise, the heavy smog possessing their empty husks in an imitation of life. They rose, limbering and applauding with dangling or broken limbs. All would bear witness to their new leader, who beamed with satisfaction and glee.

"You may call me... Blight Orchid Cookie. Tonight, you were damned, left to wither and decay by uncaring and wicked gods. But now... I will give you a new start. I will mend what was broken, I will return what was taken from you. I will become your wings so that you may never be held down again. Let me take your burdens and make them your strength."

His arms reached up, as if he was ushering his followers into a new dawn. The army below looked in awe before setting their sites on their new targets, the witches. In seconds, thousands of cake soldiers and undead cookies began thrashing around the coven's legs and arms, stabbing them with makeshift weapons and shattered candy shards. And while the coven tried to push them back, the number of soldiers were simply too great. No matter how many spells were cast, more and more would replace them. Their bruises and injuries became too much to bear, leaving them with a difficult choice. They all bolted towards the door, shoving and trampling over themselves to escape.

The worst was over. The fighting subsided as the troops banded together to lick their wounds. Despite his victory, Blight Orchid still felt unsatisfied, knowing that his fight had only begun. In times of crisis he would look to the guidance of his soul jam, but it had since shattered under the heat of the oven. "Yet another casualty of the witches," he lamented. No matter. He would just have to push forward without it. Earthbread needed him regardless, especially with the threat of the witches looming over them. Only in their deaths would everyone truly be safe. Gathering the remains of his devotees, Blight Orchid Cookie led hundreds of sweets in a mass exodus. Leaving the pain of the heavenly kitchen behind them, they set forth into a new day. One where they finally knew true freedom.

-End.

[scrawnytreedemon]

Shit I’ve Been Winding Up For A Long Time Now But Am Very Aware Will Probably Hold No Relevance Should I Actually Go Into This More--

This is about Bhunivelze.

I.

You know, when I was chilling out, on my bed, that evening on that half term in early June, deciding to check up on ClementJ64′s FF retrospective because-- Hey! It’s been awhile, I wonder if he’s got around to doing the final bit of the FFXIII saga --You know, I was there, chilling, just for a laff. Just a laff.

The rest of that week was spent spiralling into a hyperfixation I absolutely did not anticipate in any way, shape, or form, because the way they introduced that character was “wwhdhfjjhHJDFJKHKJHW H A T??”

That retrospective and a good amount of wiki-scrounging is all I have as a basis for this. This is not a coherent character analysis-- Though I might tag it as that for ease of access. This is not, by any means, the thoughts of someone deeply familiar with FFXIII on the whole beyond plot synopses and overarching themes.

I don’t think I’m brave enough for that.

Reading the vast yet surface-deep lore on those wiki pages on my birthday while in a delirious state of mind was enough to make me somewhat nauseous.

Do you think I’m going to go through all of that in real time?

(Someday, someday.)

Ugh, I don’t know how to begin, but let us, I guess. I’d recommend you read this church-mime-demiurge’s FF Wiki page if you want the same level of base-knowledge I had, and maybe the aformentioned retrospective if you want the experience, because I don’t think I have the wherewithal to get into all of that from the bottom-up.

I am also, so, so fucking sorry for any remaining FFXIII fans in advance. There is like, a good chance I may be butchering the characterisation completely, so bear with me here.

With that... we begin?

Where do we even start with this guy?

How on earth to you begin to explain the absolute monolith you’ve constructed from crumbs of a Guy, some material no doubt spliced in from the Pale King, Sephiroth, y o u r  o w n  G o d  O C and other characters, and the mountains of religious trauma you carry around at all times that is probably the only reason you’ve been able to latch on as hard as you did?

I’m going to try.

What gets me, in summary, about Bhunivelze is how he’s a prime example of how love and concern can become deadly forces if in the wrong hands. His first acquainting with human emotion was by deceiving and possessing Hope, reverting his body to a teenage state, and planning to live among humanity through him. He sees human sorrow and suffering, and decides that, to End This(because it must be ended, you see) he’s going to destroy all the souls of the deceased that make up the Chaos that’s been eating this world for the past five-hundred years so they all forget and Are Happy. :).

Capital G God here hasn’t been present for the vast part of human history because he’s hidden himself away from Everything due to paranoia from killing his own mother and throwing her body into the Cosmic Basement, THEN creating the beings that would come to create humanity and OTHER beings because he didn’t have the keys to the cosmic basement. And also he believes death is a thing because she’d’ve somehow cursed all things to pass(including him) out of Spite.

Which explains why he’s so fucking averse to it and anything to do with it.

Bhunivelze, to put it lightly, is Shit at stepping into others’ shoes and Getting their experiences-- All the FalCie in FFXIII are, but him especially. It’s clear(again, in the f u c k i n g JP--) that he makes attempts to sympathise with them and does what he can to help, but it’s with such a loftiness and a complete inability to Understand why anyone would want grief, The Worst Fucking Experience In Existence, and even less why they’d be willing to Go Up Against Him And HisThe New Perfect World just for it-- And what would it matter, anyway, forgetting their loved ones. It’s not like you can grieve lost memories, right?

Right.

It reminds me of when at the end of the story of Job in the Bible, where, after putting this man through hell on earth, God rewards Job by giving him ten new children to make up for the ones that he lost. I. And that’s fucked! Nothing can replace the sheer uniqueness of each individual person you loved so dearly! But if you were a nigh-omnipotent deity high and mighty, with a cursory, almost mechanical knowledge on the functionings of the human psyche, that would seem adequete; enough.

Bhunivelze is doing that on a cosmic level.

I now want to get onto the romance: that being, his affections for Lightning. I don’t know how much I’m going to say, but it’ll probably be alot. It’s something that hits very close to home.

There is this... thing, within certain branches of Christianity, perhaps even in those of various Abrahamic faiths, where God’s love is posited to be the love-- The ultimate, most-fulfilling, all-encompassing love you could ever imagine --Because, well, he is love, so the story goes, and so often the best way to convey that is through the imagery of...

Marriage.

Giving up yourself so completely, to serve, to be the Bride; to be bound by him for all eternity; and for there to be no higher bliss than this.

This angle is pushed on young girls and women the most; from the mere parallels to the woman’s role in marriage, all the way down to downright-horrifying ultra-Evangelical purity pacts. With men, God is your dad, your best bud and confidant, your boss, your king, your this, your that, and the ‘marriage‘ as it were is relegated to a sort of half-thought; a metaphor.

For me, God was an attempt at all that, and my arranged groom.

(It was almost incestuous; was incestuous, that my own Divine Father would reach for my hand in marriage.)

Bhunivelze experiences Emotions™ for the first time through Hope, experiences Hope’s sheer overwhelming admiration for Lighting(whether there were any baby-crush feelings mixed in, I can’t say), and promptly falls into a nigh-romantic obsession with Lightning, deciding that she will be Etro(his all-but daughter)’s replacement, will be his Goddess of Death to-be-- He even calls her as such, before the final boss-battle--

...In the JP.

What happened in localisation, probably due to a number of factors, all the way back in early 2014, was that everything emotionally challenging about Bhunivelze was scraped off, like it was extra fat, and tossed aside, leaving us with the bland, clichéd shell of a foe-god we’ve seen time and time again. And I mean everything. I mean his very love for humanity; the fact his ploy was, in his eyes, to save them. Because if they’d left that all on, then it would raise the question of even if there was such a seemingly pure, all-knowing, loving being hell-bent on setting things “straight,“ would they truly be unquestionable? Would we have the right to fight for our humanity in the face of the Creator of the Universe?

To reject a love so personal?

That’s what gets me about FFXIII’s tackling of God, no matter how hackneyed and poorly-executed. It’s personal.

It’s from a feminine experience.

I know that terming is... vague, and problematic, but the way Christianity and much of the video game industry handle femininity itself is weird and problematic, so as it stands, I’ll have to simplify it. Apologies.

What sets FFXIII’s Let’s Kill God™ plot aside from most JRPG Let’s Kill God™ plots is that with our protagonist being a woman, and one who is very in touch with her femininity alongside her sheer strength; often, in these stories, God is reduced to Yet Another Foe, expected or unexpected, and you are tasked with taking him down unquestioningly for the Good of Mankind-- You will fight God, because you are right to, and you will go man-to-man-to-however-many-men you decide to bring along for the bloodbath.

And that just, doesn’t speak to me.

Even as an Extian.

Especially as an Extian. And an AFAB one with a deeply complicated experience with my gender, at that.

Leaving Christianity was painful. Questioning God was painful. Coming to terms with the fact that I had been mentally, emotionally, and spiritually traumatised under the guise of All-Encompassing Love was so, so fucking painful. I had been taught since I was five years old to devote myself to him, spent my life desperate to feel something, anything, to stay connected because I just, I never could Feel It on a deeper level, never could Give Up Myself, all I was, couldn’t Die A Spiritual Death And Be Reborn As His Eager Vessel, thus deeming myself to be worthless and a broken vessel for years and years on end... And for all that to have been... Nothing.

Lightning is hollowed out, the shards of her dead sister ripped from her in-stasis, leaving her emotionally numb for the majority of the game, Bhunivelze sweeps it under the rug, pretends he’ll perform a miracle and return Serah to life in exchange for her compliance, then sends her on her way to do his work, all the while knowing he’s going to pull said-rug from under her and elevate her such dizzying heights in the aftermath--

That he’ll deny her humanity.

Sand down all the rough edges that make her her, and polish her up afterwards, gild her as he is gilded, make her a Goddess.

And he’ll do it all because he loves her.

You can’t fight God like you can everything else. To fight It is the fight Existence Itself; FFXIII even conveys that by making Bhunivelze’s model part of the arena; it’s baked into the fabric of the game, no matter how minute.

While Lightning Returns is far from perfect in its execution of this concept, and that in itself makes me wince, not even taking into account the horribly botched excuse for a localisation Bhunivelze endured, it speaks to me more than anything else I’ve seen so far.

And it’s helped uncover some things within me. Helped me untangle them, just a little more.

So, yeah. I have alot of Thoughts on Bhunivelze, I want to share them, and I’m kinda really sad I have no one but my currently-absent friend Vee to share them with. I could get into alot more, like his very Fucked relationship with familial bonds, and how Lightning’s role as saviour so deeply parallels the overwhelming panic and never-ending guilt of Evangelical proselytisation, but I think I’ll leave those for another time.

In short, Bhunivelze is the epitome of Divine Love gone deeply wrong; on all fronts.

And if all of that isn’t enough to intrigue you, then, in Vee’s words, Lightning and Velze are literally canon endgame Sefikura lmaOOOOOOOOOOOOOO--

[comehomeducklings]

Past [Part 3] (Obsession)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Tom Riddle's Moodboard

Main Character's Moodboard

~////////////////𓆙////////////////~

1940 - 3rd year

There’s no chance of getting out of this. Our mentor must be out of their mind. No smooth sailing this period, not for me. Nothing at all has prepared me for this point in time.

My heartbeat rises by the second. At the brink of jumping out of my chest. I constantly try to reassure myself as I prepare. Forcing the illusion that I have everything together.

I most definitely don’t have anything, not a crumb, together.

My hands sweat with anticipation, my wand almost slipping off multiple times. The magical stick even wants to run away from this situation. I’ll start running with it soon enough.

The whole room is quiet in expectation. The tension levels in this area are too high for me to even start to comprehend. All I can hear is the sounds of my breathing and the occasional ruffle of robes. The high regard these people hold for me isn’t doing me any favors. I’m about to ruin any confidence anyone holds in my skills.

My friends are holding their thumbs up for encouragement. It does little to calm my panic, but I appreciate the effort anyway. Other acquaintances from the same house nodded their heads in an attempt to console my emotions.

Before the teacher signals to start, he gives us a bit to come up with a plan. Ten seconds at most. Now, this isn’t something possible to win. Not against him, no. My only goal here is to last as long as I can and don’t mess up.

Act smart, seem like you know more than you do.

He looks as easy-going as ever. This may seem like a walk in the gardens to him. No “threat” whatsoever to make him feel uneasy. I’m quite irritated at the thought of being anything but a challenge. He may be a little right, but that doesn’t help my ego.

Easy, I’m nothing easy.

Riddle might be stronger at this, but that doesn’t mean I'm complete garbage. I can hold my own, I will hold my own.

My breathing patterns change into more of a deep inhale and exhale. Focusing on completely dropping my heart rate and keeping my thoughts intact. Madam Rose, the school nurse, hates seeing me walk in there. Frequent visits from dealing with plants has her hair getting pulled out. I don’t think Miss Rose would be too keen on me passing out from the lack of oxygen.

“Only stick with the one basic spell of force. For both offensive and defensive tactics.”

Riddle’s atmosphere surrounding him is focused, deadly. He hasn’t moved his gaze from my lips. Probably on guard for whenever I cast something. I’m slightly unsteady on my feet from nerves. It’s almost suffocating being under all these watchful eyes.

A snake takes their time to strike. They examine all angles where you may be weak. Testing the vulnerability of your actions and thinking process. A few testing snaps of their mouth can tell them how the fight will go. They are well-balanced and focused, masters of intimidation.

Breathing.

Oxygen informs the snake how much you’re able to hold on for. The more you intake, the tighter it gets. Restricting the amount of oxygen the prey respires. Until they are physically unable to anymore, slowly weakening. The fight they were presenting lessens to almost non-distinguishable. The prey’s struggling to get free, dying down. Then it passes away, openly given to the snake without any more thought. A mere temporary meal in its eyes.

“Begin.”

Our eye contact is steady, neither of us moving an inch. Our mouths are closed shut, wands at the ready. I slightly squint my eyes while I focus. If he’s waiting for me to go first he is out of luck. I’m not budging, we will stay in the same position until next period if we have to.

Riddle also slightly squints his eyes. His hand doesn’t shake even if his wand was out in the air for a long time. The arm he holds out is steady and unmoving. Nothing triggers my attention since his movements are of little importance. I search his eyes for any life, no emotion is found swirling in those charcoal black eyes. Absolutely brilliant and fierce when focused or aggravated. The class starts getting rowdy, finally allowed to talk since Riddle just made the first move.

There’s only one spell I need to remember, that makes it a little easier to think of ways to find my opening. I quickly revert the spell away from me and send it right back. A tennis match is played between that one spell. Tom huffs and sends his enchantment straight towards the ground. It bursts into tiny magical specks of green. During that time I sent a spell his way.

After a while, I start to notice right before he casts a spell he moves his mouth like he inhales to take a breath. I’ve noticed him do it quite often. Since he casts fairly quickly there wasn’t much to go off of. Not much to use to my advantage. When he “inhales” he’s most of the time not actually breathing in air. It’s just a simple movement he does. It might be because of his accent, the way he learned to talk. Quite a small little quirk of the lips.

To start testing out this theory I centered most of my attention on his mouth. Waiting to see if my theory was reliable enough to depend on. He’s starting to gain more offensive attacks on me. Most of my spells undecidedly move more defensive by the minute.

Right before he mutters the words, I send a spell of my own. The magic aiming for his knees. Before he could defend himself from that one I prepared another offensive conjuration to his wand. He forwarded an incantation my way and I hurriedly obviated the sorcery as it was also heading to my stifle joint. Some of the force still slightly makes contact with my left knee. My balance is suddenly thrown off.

As I scramble to catch my footing, Riddle with point accuracy parries my wand attack. Then diverts my knee attack towards my right knee. Since I was focused on stabilizing my posture I didn’t notice the spell approaching my other knee

Forthcoming my inevitable demise.

I end up planting both hands on the ground. My knees falling one after the other from the pressure.

Our audience starts yelling complaints and praise. Calls for a rematch and cheats. My loss was bound to happen, but I did get to do that three combo. Two offensive and one defensive, all in the span of 5 seconds. Not too bad if I say so myself.

“Mr. Riddle wins this duel. Excellent job to the both of you. A very good strategy was well thought out for each side.”

I make my way down the steps on my platform’s side. Immediately being greeted by hugs and pats on the back.

At least my feet didn’t get tied together from restlessness causing me to fall and he wins the duel immediately. I would have dropped out right then and there from embarrassment.

There’s barely any feedback for Riddle, his little posse praising him like a king. People either saw no fault in him or were too frightened to actually comment on it publicly.

For me, that’s another case. Quite a bit of suggestions are offered, keep my form ready and my attention on more than one thing. Any and all advice is welcomed. Who knows how it can help me one day.

Amelia hugs my side with the biggest grin on her face, “You did so well! I think he actually had to work a little for that win.”

Everyone is dismissed and we head our way to Herbology. Tom’s face looks as if he’s already forgotten about the duel. His body language remains tranquil as ever.

~////////////////𓆙////////////////~

Bubotuber pus, one of the grossest things I’ve had the misfortune of learning at home. Now I have to live through it again? How can one endure harvesting the essence?

“All of you are required to wear gloves for today’s class. Does anyone know what effects you would have when touching this substance with your bare skin?”

Quite a number of students raise their hands. I’m guessing they did research on why they needed to buy these gloves when handed the school procurement catalog.

Exactly what I did, curiosity might actually kill the cat.

“Yes, you sweet girl,” she picks, “What’s your name?”

“Merlene,” the student answers, “If you touch this without protection then extremely painful boils will appear in its stead.”

“Correct! 5 points to Hufflepuff,” she claps.

My fingers already lay inside the dragon-hide gloves. Its rough texture rubs against the calluses from dealing with the harsh stems of different plants.

This substance is usually processed to be used for acne treatments. Only touched in its weakened state. Oddly satisfying to some, I am not a part of that group of people

“This is disgusting,” I say as I harvest the pus. My gagging reflexes acting up every time the plant gets squeezed.

A few students chuckle at my remark. They seem to be having a good time, weirdly focused on this substance. It smells of petrol, not a big fan of the scent. Reminds me of the sketchy gas stations my parents and I would take on family road trips.

Its thick goo is finally contained in bottles. Relief washes over me from finishing the collecting process. My gloves are removed and I do a quick spell to clean my area. Nothing really fell on it so it didn’t need scrubbing beforehand.

Amelia seems to just be finishing her plant. A lot of goo splashed all over her table. Luckily it doesn’t seem like any of that touched anyone’s face or uncovered arms.

“I’m just about done, can you help with cleaning please?” Amelia starts collecting all of her bottles into her arms. None of the glass vials touched in green gunk.

“Yeah, I got you, turn those in to the professor.” I immediately started helping her out. In that process, I also cleaned other’s messes too. Why not, there is still time to waste until we can all leave. Cleaning products smell better than whatever chemicals intoxicate the air.

“Pop quiz, shout out the answers. Why not use spells instead of treated bubotuber pus for treatments?”

Easy question, I whisper the answer in Amelia’s ear when she comes back from turning in the assignment so she can shout it.

“Using spells proves to be too risky, like the Eloise Midgen incident,” she answers.

Good, she remembers Eloise's event.

“Yeah, she cursed her nose off, poofed from existence,” a girl from Hufflepuff adds.

“Precisely, everyone has permission to leave now,” the professor exclaims, “don’t head out without cleaning or I’ll reduct points. Last time a student got boils all over their hand from an improperly cleaned station.”

~////////////////𓆙////////////////~

“It actually went decently. Nothing blew up, surprisingly.”

At lunch, we are all talking about our first three classes. Potions being our first topic.

“Thought as much, I saw your stupid grin. You looked like you just won the wizarding lottery,” I say with my mouth stuffed with food. Hoping they could understand me between my chews.

“Both of you, slow down. The food ain’t going anywhere damn,” Devyn laughs.

Amelia and I pause, we look at each other, then at Devyn, then back to us. After a silent halt in our actions, we continue to shove down a bunch of food.

“I noticed you kept gagging at the pus. You looked queasy, your face was so pale.”

I audibly shiver at the recollection of said class. My eyes were watering so bad there. That stuff would never stop coming.

“I’m eating, stop mentioning that nasty stuff,” Amelia starts shaking her head. If only I could see the thoughts forcefully being shaken out of her head.

“You should have seen her station. That stuff was everywhere. How bad is your aim, the opening to the bottle wasn’t that small?”

“It wasn’t even that!” she drops her fork, “I squeezed that bloody plant too hard and it squirted everywhere!”

“Poor choice of words,” Devyn snickers. All she gets is a shove from me.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, she’s clearly traumatized.”

Devyn shoves me back, “You’re clearly traumatized from the duel. The one you failed at, the one-”

“I’m aware of the duel you’re talking about,” I interrupt, “I bet you wouldn’t have lasted as long as I did.”

“Oh please, you’re just salty about losing.”

I roll my eyes and subconsciously scan the room for him. There he is, mysteriously talking to his group of buddies. After a little bit, he catches onto my staring. He briefly looked around him to see if I was looking at something else. Finally, he comes to the realization it was in fact him I was blessing with my attention.

During this, he was talking to his friend next to him. He stopped his conversation to completely give me his attention. The guy he was just talking to engaged in another conversation quickly.

The moment was interrupted with hands waving in front of my face, “You gonna eat that?”

“Nah I’m full, go ahead.”

Riddle continued on with his food. Never looking my way again.

~////////////////𓆙////////////////~

“Hey, uh, Riddle you have a second?”

I stop him by tapping his shoulder a couple of times. His height already makes mountains seem molecular.

He furrowed his eyebrows and glances at the shoulder I just touched. Making it a scene to dust that part off, what an ass.

“No, I really don’t have a second,” he responds.

“Well that, really, sucks for you huh. Can you teach me techniques for dueling?”

“No,” he starts to turn away.

“Please, you will get one favor from me. Whatever you need.”

Tom turns back around, “Anything? Does that favor expire?”

I shake my head no. If he plans to wait a long time he’ll probably forget about it. He seems to be deep in thought for a bit. No rush really since we're on our break. If he agrees I could get ahead of so many competitors.

“Fine, every Friday afternoon starting tomorrow in the Room of Requirement.”

He immediately strides away while I stare back in shock. My brain didn’t expect him to actually accept. Getting this far wasn’t a very possible outcome.

Now I just have to find out where the Room of Requirement is located.

~////////////////𓆙////////////////~

Taglist:

@empath-bunny

@jinxqsu

[jjba-hell]

Fate and Fortune

Double posting- let’s go! Part 18

Here’s part 17 for a refresher but the rest of the story is in the fate and fortune tag. Head kinda empty when I wrote this, no proofreading...

Moots :3 @fyre23 and @risottoneroo

The usual tw- its still JoJo over here

Sleep alluded Vera in the early morning so instead of sulking about in her room she returned to the hospital to be with Kakyoin. The nurses objected fiercely as she simply strolled and phased through hallways to get to the redhead.

She gently knocked on the door and spoke- so as not to startle him since he was a bit more vulnerable that usual. “Noriaki. It’s me. Can I come in?”

When she didn’t get an answer she pushed through regardless.

“Vera.” The relief in her voice made her heart do a backflip. He sat up in his bed, bandages around his eyes but seeming to look in her general direction. “You’re alright.”

Vera didn’t say much as she approached his bed and took his outstretched hand. “I’m so sorry, I should have been able to help you but I-“

“No, Vera no. You had already been injured- I wouldn’t have asked the impossible from you.”

She moved in closer, gently slipping her arms in around his. “I was so scared I had lost you.” His hand tightened the grip on the shirt in her back at her words- “I thought the same.”

Fortune materialized beside her, bringing their hands to her side of Kakyoin’s head to start healing his eyes. “I guess I was so frantic I couldn’t just reverse you wounds. No going back now...”

Kakyoin’s grip on her wrist tightened. “Vera... I’ve wanted to ask you this for a long time.”

“Ask later, just let me heal you.”

“Please... wait, before you continue.”

Reluctantly, she took both of his hands in hers- Fortune stopping- and squeezed his hands. “I’m listening.”

“As crazy as it sounds... when I went under during the attack- my mind was racing like crazy and I couldn’t escape this question anymore. You seemed so tired yesterday- even as we said our goodbyes. Am I wrong to think moving time forward is strenuous on your life?”

“What? No! Where would this come from?”

“You’ve been greying this whole trip, Vera. Beautiful as you are with or without the grey... I can’t help but think you’re glossing over the fact that you’re giving months, even years of your own life for us.”

Has it really been this way? The cost was no surprise to her but... if she truly was truly simply transferring time to heal other’s wounds... “It’s my choice. I’ve always known the consequences of what I do.”

Kakyoin gave a soft smile, his hands squeezing hers tighter now. “Is it strange to think I could hear the uncertainty in your voice just now?”

“I can’t just let you suffer through the pain.” Her hand came up to cup his cheek- wishing frantically that he could see the tears she was holding back.

“Vera... I’d like to spend a bit longer than 50 days with you and Jotaro, you know. We can’t do that if you give your years away like this.”

Before Vera could move her hand away from his cheek he brought his hand to it, leaning into her touch as if he would miss it. “You’re not letting me heal you, are you?”

He turned his head so as to kiss the palm of her hand. “Nope.” He took said hand enterlaced it with his- pulling her in closer until she was back in his arms, resting his chin on her head. “I’ll be fine.”

Vera stuck around for the prognosis with the others in the room as well- she’d gotten a firm admonishment from Avdol for leaving her hospital room... not knowing what she had done in the hotel room. After explaining his refusal of her help and well wishes on the next leg of the trip, they paid the medical bills and were soon packed and off to Kom Ombo.

“So you say all your ability to move time back-“

“It’s extremely strenuous. I’ve tried reverting something as simple as my hair being dry but even that makes me feel like I had just ran a mile.”

Avdol’s held his chin in throught as Vera sat on the railing near the nose of the felucca. “All of this has changed in the span of three days?”

Vera tilted her head to the side. “Three? We arrived in Aswan yesterday.”

“No, Vera. After we had arrived in Aswan I was admitted into the hospital for observation and you were still unconscious due to the blood loss. When you woken up and they were busy with your second blood transfusion- your blood pressure had dropped dramatically for some reason and I had just been been discharged.”

Admittedly the memory was fuzzy- after being admitted into the hospital... it didn’t seem so unlikely that she had slept after going under but it was still kind of shocking.

“Which brings me to ask- why do the hospital not have record of you after 3 am?”

Vera took a drag of her cigarette, sliding off the the rail to sit where the wind wouldn’t catch her and ashing in the tray she had brought for herself. “Because I was in the morgue freezer?”

Avdol’s eyes widened. “Why?”

“I was having a pretty bad fever.”

He gaped at her in shock.

“More specifically a stand fever?”

Avdol didn’t often react in the way he did in that moment- his hands flying up to his temples as he tried to ease a headache quickly approaching. “Another stand fever?”

“I know, it’s bizarre- but Fortune is a bit different, if her change in abilities isn’t obvious and I had the strangest nightmares. I wouldn’t confuse it with another fever.”

Avdol’s shock and frustration soon turned into concern. “I’m supposing you were looking for some kind of relief. When did it end?”

“Uhh well...” she recalled her bumbling self getting dressed and calling the cab outside the hospital with the night shift nurses well asleep and her ice bath in the hotel room. “After that I went back to the hospital to be with Kakyoin.”

After a moment Avdol sat down beside her, holding his hand out for the cigarette which she gladly handed over. “Of course only you would get up to this nonsense and manage surviving a stand fever like that.”

He took one drag and took a steady exhale as the wind howled around them. “I worry about you, Vera.”

“Well I mean easier said that done but, don’t. I can handle myself.”

Avdol gave a huff of laughter, taking one more drag before handing it back to her. “There’s no shame in asking for help, though.”

At their stop, Vera had take it upon herself to stick to Polnareff for the day- stopping him from ripping up a merchant’s papyrus. “Thank you for the demonstration but he’s French-“

Before Polnareff could protest her argument he was too busy getting distracted by Iggy stealing the gum straight out of his hands. “Fuck, when Jotaro said it’s like babysitting- he meant it, huh?”

She jogged after Polnareff, struggling to keep up with the giant of a man. “He really gave the slip.”

“Of course he did, he’s only half a foot tall.” Vera followed after cautiously in the ruins- feeling some or other ominous presence look over them.

“You feel it too, right?” Polnareff slowed down a bit for their pace to sync a bit better. Vera nodded, not sure what it was but waiting nonetheless. When a man in her right fell in line with them and walked a few paces in sync, Polnareff pulled her closer by her wrist to bring her out of the way between the two men. At the stand still Polnareff confronted the guy directly, their gazes never meeting.

“Divine Anubis, huh? Y’know my dad used to be a devout worshipper himself. They actually spoke of a sword forged by Anubis himself that had been lost to turmoil and time- made of Anubis’s shadow.”

True to Vera’s suspicion- held to Chaka’s hip was a sword and maybe her hint at Polnareff would be well received but she simply knew it wasn’t.

Polnareff ordered her to stay where she was- closer to the crowd and watch as they shelled but like hell she was going to allow it.

At the first hit on Polnareff’s chest she hopped up and followed the crumbs to where the sheath of the sword laid almost forgotten in the sand. She followed the ruckus back- bringing Fortune to heal Polnareff’s chest before standing between the two.

“Now I may only have done light fencing in high school but honestly- I’m pretty sure that’s not how you wield a katana.”

At the insult Chaka moved as she’d expected- sword forward to plunge into her but with just a it of luck from Fortune the sword slid straight into its sheath and up and over Chaka’s head.

“Admittedly, it’s pretty but...very cursed.” Vera clicked the sword back into its sheath fully started carrying it back to Polnareff. “I tried to give you a hint- did it not catch?”

Polnareff seemed affronted at her question. “When did you throw me a hint? The legend of a sword formed by Anubis? Ring any bells? I told you it was made out of Anubis’s shadow?”

“That was the hint?”

“What? You think I just like talking about ancient rumors for fun?”

Iggy’s barking brought their attention back to the others calling the from the foot of the hill for the next stretch of travel.

“You did fencing?” Polnareff asked, looking as confused as ever.

In Endufu Vera sat on the desk of the hotel they’d be staying in, swinging her legs out in front of her as they considered the sword. “So if it’s an artifact- how did it get in the hands of a commoner?” Mr Joestar hummed as he observed the jewel encrusted sword.

“I’m guessing it has some effect on non-stand users. Is it just me but seeing an expensive sword like that I would have peddled it for money to the historica. If it’s a stand it probably has a sway of making someone become its user.”

Avdol picked up the sword- turning it around to see if it had any effect on him.

“I think the best course of action would be to hand it to the Speedwagon Foundation to lock up. Vera, think you could make the call and get it to the right place?”

As promised, she had handed the sword to the boys as she made the call for an emergency pick up. It was scheduled for about an hour so she took the time to slip into the shop- hand Polnareff the sword and tug Jotaro out for a smoke break. Or at least so she had planned.

After pulling him aside from public eye- she was about to bring her lips to his but when Jotaro’s eyes stopped at the scars running down her arms. He held her forearms gingerly in his considerable bigger open palms.

“Stop it.” Her hand shot up to hold his face to look at her but his eyes followed. “It wasn’t you.”

Those aquamarine eyes seemed to hold an unbelievable sadness as his gaze moved to meet hers. Tiredly he seemed to do all he could do- bring her in against her chest for a moment of peace for the both of them... until the glass shattered behind them and she knew it was probably Polnareff.

One heavy sigh and some nasty close calls later, the sword was sinking to the bottom of the Nile.

“So- thus far we’ve had an orangutan with a stand, a dog with a stand, a baby with a stand and now a sword... yeah if Dio had two stand would you really be surprised?”

[makeitquietly]

A quick recap of what criticism I remember reading about this Blu-ray set: nobody agrees about the picture quality, or on which films it’s best/worst, but it’s on the waxy/soft side mostly because of too much digital cleaning or whatever, the sound is said to be good, some hissing, out of sync in the 1936 version of Berth Marks, extras are good too, no Blu-ray logo on the case, no booklet, awkward menu always reverts back to beginning, no play-all possibility, the films are not in the order of making/release.

But a lot of people worked very hard for a long time to make this set available. Which is why nothing negative should be said about it? Eh. Next time go for quality instead. Or don’t sell your product. Make it a fanwork.

Anyhow, if I was all powerful and had commissioned someone to restore these films, I’d make them go back and do it again if this set was presented to my ruling eyes.

OTOH, I paid 99 euros for this package and have had lots of fun with it and if there’d been Stan’s scrapbook (pages) amongst the galleries, I’d happily paid double. It’s not about the money spent except when people imply that negative reviews aren’t allowed. I’d paid 99 euros for the galleries alone.

It’s about the fact that the films aren’t as well restored as they should/could be. Beyond me, why it’s so difficult to admit. And it’s clearly not only an issue of getting waxified during some final cleanup or somehow being ruined when transferred to Blu-ray disks.

Any idiot (me) knowing nothing about the processes involved can easily confirm this by watching how different films on the same disk have different quality, likewise first reel can be almost okay, the second much worse, scenes and cuts have often annoyingly varying quality, even single frames look like they came from different prints and nothing was done to make them fit more seamlessly in their surroundings. And I’m not talking about that one wandering frame in Scram!, which must be some person’s idea of a joke, how else could it be so out of place?

Or didn’t anyone watch these that one last important time since it wasn’t removed, nor were the countless spots still there in most of the films? I know, when things get cleaned up that one remaining crumb is much easier to spot... er... see my point?

There are also jumpy frames, which I imagine would’ve been easy to adjust, and to prevent those ubiquitous flashy cuts, you’d only needed to adjust the brightness of that single frame causing the flashing. Even I have done that on GIMP when making gifs. I’m guessing too much contrast on, say, Me and My Pal isn’t a problem created by the wax people either.

The ridiculously softly glowing Brats might be, there’s an awful lot of glowing in One Good Turn too, and in parts of Sons of the Desert, for example, where faces are dangerously close to have that overly scrubbed look, which is a big problem in The Chimp and Come Clean.

When it comes to wax, Helpmates and County Hospital are the most hideous, the latter must be the worst looking of all the films in this set, being also awfully spotty as well as too dark. It’s got other faults too, like wonky frames. The Music Box has a pretty decent first reel (except for the opening scene), and despite not being able to see the stripes on Stan’s and Ollie’s pants because of too much contrast, Me and My Pal is also clearly better wax-wise in the first reel.

It’s interesting to watch some of these films for the first time, thinking that this is crap quality picture, but then the second reel is even worse and suddenly there’s a whole new level of crappiness.

I think the sound is ever so slightly out of sync for a bit in Way Out West and One Good Turn. At least it is compared to those same films on my 21 DVD set. In addition to being very clearly out of sync in that Berth Marks reissue like others have noticed. Berth Marks also has a weird stripey “cover” over the actual film. I suppose it was impossible to remove.

Even with some sync problems, if I had to choose the best restorations from this new collection, Way Out West would be on my list, together with Busy Bodies, Hog Wild and Towed in a Hole. Some parts of Sons of the Desert look gorgeous. With grain and all. Pretty much like Atoll K but unfortunately not as consistently. (Atoll K was restored by different people, I gather.)

The much anticipated but already online for free since 2019 The Battle of the Century then? Well, the first reel is quite good, or would be if it wasn’t a weird blend of an ugly greenish yellow or yellowish green. Sepia isn’t what it used to be. And I would’ve thought they’d made sure to get all those black spots removed at least from this one what with it being one of the “new” things on this set. The second reel is worse except colour-wise. But at least it’s there complete with Charlie Hall and the “what pie fight” ending.

Haven’t mentioned The Midnight Patrol, Their First Mistake or Twice Two yet. The last two are pretty evenly waxy, and comparing The Midnight Patrol to Come Clean and The Chimp makes it not that bad. There’s no actual need to bleach faces or an excuse for Billy Gilbert’s patternless shirt, is there?

For me the treasures from this set can be found on each disk under galleries. Even for those not interested in scripts, press material, posters and assorted documents, there are circa 1,400 photos, many of which really are rare, or at least I’d never seen them before. One of the gems are the about 140 photos from Babe’s Vim days. Awesome! Nothing as gemmy from Stan’s past before Laurel and Hardy, and someone put wrong names on the photos where he appears with the Hurleys, not the Cookes. Yes, there’s a short, handy description for most of the photos. 

So many of them and I must peruse more, of course, but I’m going give a special mention to Stan with both Loises on the set of Brats for adorableness and likewise to Thelma Todd for previously unseen (by me) variations from her photoshoot on that bathroom set. Love the six new-to-me photos of Stan and Babe together on the 1932 British tour especially. Great stuff. Oh, and Mae Busch, Dorothy Christy and Charley Chase in their Sons of the Desert portraits look fabulous.

Another treasure are the interviews with only a couple of slightly dubious moments. Joe Rock made me grin. George Marshall made me cry. Walter Woolf King made me laugh. Most wonderful. Short introduction by Randy Skretvedt for each interview. He’s the one who did the interviewing too. There’s 15 of them altogether. Plus a chance to hear composer Marvin Hatley perform Honolulu Baby and Will You Be My Lovey-Dovey. The audio only interviews come with some more great photos.

I kind of adore how Richard W. Bann casually debunks Anita Garvin’s The Battle of the Century story with one dry line during his commentary of the film. Hurts so good. Let’s have more debunking!

Speaking of the commentaries, and maybe more about them on some other occasion, Bann only comments The Battle and The Music Box, all the rest, including That’s That and The Tree in a Test Tube have commentaries by Randy Skretvedt.

I was expecting Bann to tell the whole story of why it took so long to get The Battle on video but he didn’t; fair enough, I thought, but then in his other commentary he goes on about his grudge with a dead guy, so I guess it was not his, um, politeness that stopped him from dishing on the much more recent and therefore interesting stuff. What then?

Perhaps a third person sharing the commentary duties would’ve been a good idea. That was my thought when Skretvedt obsessed over Stan’s smoking for the third time. By obsessed I mean he listed all the films where, according to him, Stan smokes. What for, you may wonder. I did. No answer. I remember reading somewhere that Stan not smoking in the movies means he’s a child. (Yes, some Laurel and Hardy fans are somewhat weird sometimes. Aren’t we all?) Maybe Skretvedt was trying to debunk that theory? Hehe, okay, I know he wasn’t, because he did the “they’re children, Hal Roach said so” routine in his Their First Mistake commentary, complete with Charles Barr quotes to prove there’s nothing gay about Ollie liking Stan more than his own wife. Made me fume. I don’t know why. Nothing new.

I don’t know why it doesn’t occur to him that if Ollie didn’t spend so much time with Stan, Mae wouldn’t be the lonely, disappointed wife who ends up wanting a divorce after one too many lies from Ollie and accuses Stan of alienation of Ollie’s affections. But no, apparently it’s no wonder that Ollie likes Stan more than his wife because she hits him with the broom. So the hitting came first and then too much time spent with Stan? I don’t think so.

Anyhow, third person, more variety, something newer, or at least an explanation for Stan’s smoking being of particular importance. Ollie’s smoking isn’t mentioned. Also, to digress even more, I always found the claim that Stan doesn’t smoke because he is a child odd, not only because he does, but also because he drinks alcohol too and manages to be married in several films. But the Laurel & Hardy child squad of course thinks the wives are actually their mothers. (Yes & again, weird.)

I did and do also wonder if there would’ve been anyone available and even if there had been, if these old school fans had accepted someone with different views. Probably not.

Still waiting for Skretvedt to notice Stan’s camera looks. Maybe he just hasn’t been a fan for long enough yet... 😛

I’m out of steam now. Need to rehydrate.

One more thing: No booklet, so maybe nobody involved wanted to spread about their name more than absolutely necessary knowing the restoration work was, shall we say, uneven?

Tl;dr: Uneven restoration work. Great extras. Mostly interesting commentaries.

[jawllines]

werewolf blurb? 🥺

oH YES MA’AM HERE YOU GO! 

A sick Harry, was an obnoxious Harry, YN learned.

You’d think a werewolf would be much stronger when they’re ill, considering they turn into what could possibly thousands of pounds of wolf when they want to, but it’s apparent that they are big babies. Or at least Harry is a big baby -- when Niall came over snuffy he only requested a tissue box and a horror movie marathon -- so when she’d gotten a call from Mitch saying that Harry was in route with something of a fever (and he wanted to be with her) she’d expected the same. Prepped a box of Puff’s Plus, turned on Netflix for a romantic comedy, and moved the coffee table to make a soft pallet on the floor of pillows and thick blankets thinking that the Alpha of the pack would pretend to be well enough to stay awake (but this gave him a chance to just close his eyes). 

Instead, there’s a soft knock on the door and when she opens it, Harry is practically throwing his body weight against her and immediately whining, “I do not feel well, Puppy,” he sniffles, “Please rub behind my ears.” 

He had laid his head against her breast and found comfort in leaning fully against her as she slinked her fingers through his hair, carding it out of his face and rubbing carefully behind his ear. Thought that maybe that would be it, just him resting with her and fading in and out of movies. 

But then he woke up complaining about a grumbly tummy, so she got up to make him vegetable soup and cut up the soft pieces of French bread she had for him. When she brought it to him she imagined he would sit up and feed himself, and he did sit up, but then he looked at her like a hurt puppy and said with the scratchiest voice, “Would you feed it to me, Pet? I would myself but I’m just so cold I do not want to untuck my hands from the covers.” 

And she did it because he just looked so soft and sleepy and ill how could she tell that pouty little face no? So she took spoonfuls of it for him, slipping it into his mouth and dipping the bread in the broth and having him bite from it. He was such a careful, gentle either, and beckoned a kiss afterward because “I’ve gained the best mate to have ever walked this earth.” 

She hadn’t minded that -- thought it was kind of cute, even, and was happy that she could finally take care of him in the way he always cares for her. Plus, two or three days of cozying up with a snuggly, sick Harry who had nothing to do but squeeze his arms around Y/N and murmur how much love he has for her in his heart? What more could she ask for really? 

But on the fourth day, when he was still snotty, and whining, complaining about the taste of the medicine and waking her up when she’d finally drifted to sleep asking her where it was again she left her lavender bubble bath (which really just meant that he wanted her to run the bath for him) -- she was a little over it. Not too terribly. . .this is the man that dotes on her hand and foot when she barely stumbles over her feet. . .but if he kept flopping about restlessly on their pallet at 3AM when she’s finally able to drift off to sleep, she was going to whack him with a rolled magazine. 

He was a cryer too! Which was oddly endearing but felt like subtly conniving, because anytime she reacted a slight bit grumpy while she combed her fingers through his hair, his eyes would water. A pooling of tears at his waterline, slipping his bottom lip from his mouth, and murmuring, “You are too wonderful. I do not deserve such a gracious mate as you in my life,” before he maneuvered them so that he cradled her to his chest and snuggled her tight to his body, “I love you more than the moon.” And while his words ring true, she can sense he is sensing when she’s getting tired of rubbing on him. 

“You’re the whiniest little pup,” she would tell him, but would still trail her fingers along the skin of his arm wrapped around her waist, “Lucky that I have a soft spot for dogs.” In return, Harry would snuffle, snuggle into her throat, and repeat his love for her.

Grandpa, as if having been recruited, had not removed himself from the pallet of blankets. He had glued himself to Harry’s side -- if Harry moved, he moved, and with every shiver that would wrack through Harry’s body despite the millions of covers he lie beneath, Grandpa made himself a radiating heat at his side. Y/N had to say bye to her midnight Gramps cuddles because Harry had turned to top priority and the Canis have to stick together in some regard. 

So she’d been pushed off to the side by her own dog, had a whiny werewolf clung to her side who whimpered if she dared try to leave him alone, and had begun a weird little habit of gnawing at the collar of her shirt in the middle of his sleep. She hadn’t understood what it had been at first having just been woken up, thinking that Grandpa had reverted to his puppy-like propensity when he would suckle at her blankets, but Grandpa was snoring at Harry’s feet peacefully. Then, when she began to crane her neck to look at the boy pressed behind her, there was a soft little grumbly growl and the arm around her waist wrapped tighter and Y/N realized through her mind clouded with a sleepy fog, that it was Harry. 

She patted around for her phone, seeing that it was barely six in the morning and swiping her phone open so she could go to Niall’s contact. 

So, what does it mean when he chews at my shirt? 

Niall almost immediately answers. 

Loves and finds comfort in you. very pup move the lil ones do it to me all the time. 

Almost as if on cue, he rumbles to life in a purr and Y/N finds herself relaxing against him despite his weird gesture, sliding her hand over his own and giving a soft squeeze. Something about this rouses Harry from his slumber and very slightly does she feel him remove himself from her shirt. His lips move to her throat, pushing an opened mouth kiss to the tender skin. “G’morning Darling,” he rasped, “I hope I did not wake you.” 

“You didn’t,” she murmurs, “I promise.” 

It’s on the seventh day when Y/N comes home from work to find a two-ton wolf in her living room with Grandpa tucked against his tummy, that Harry is beginning to feel better. Or at least says Niall, who is following close behind with about ten buttercream cookies in his hands. The sound of the door shutting with a click awakens him and Grandpa both, who raise their heads and face the door, “Oh God,” she murmurs, seeing how large he appears in her small living room, “What’s this?” 

“Someone’s feeling better,” Niall says through a mouthful, swiping a crumb from the corner of his mouth, pulling apart a piece of the cookie and hand feeding it to Grandpa who had come to greet them. Harry lies his head back down against the back of his paws and huffs through his nose, grumbling as Y/N comes to pet his head, “Oi! Don’t be rude.” Niall exclaims and Y/N looks over to him with her brows furrowed. She often forgets they can communicate with one another even when one is in their wolf form. Niall sets the cookies down on the coffee table that had been long forgotten since Harry had come over, “You’re just mad ‘cos you’ve got to go back.” 

“Can you explain what’s going on?” Y/N finally asks and Niall sticks his tongue out at a grumbly growl Harry gives. 

“He feels better now but he doesn’t want to because he likes being here and havin’ you spoil him, so now he’s hiding in his wolf form so you don’t know,” Niall tells her and when Y/N looks over to the wolfish Harry, he tucks his head down and hides it with his paw, “Well, she was g’na find out anyhow!” 

She feels equal parts gracious that he feels better and she would no longer have to take on the role of a den mother to help him feel better and a little sad that this bubble of them would come to a small pop. As much as she disliked being interrupted from her studies or having to toss snotty tissues in the trash, she enjoyed his company immensely, and she knows that the warmth of his body tucked against her own while watching countless romantic comedies will be something she has to wait again for. A hundred percent, unadulterated access to Harry had been incredibly nice and the ever-present worry in his brow had been alleviated. Hell, she would even miss the weird collar chewing. 

So she pushes a kiss to his head and pats at him, “Why don’t you change back and you can have one more night of shameless doting,” she offers him, “How does that sound?” 

Harry nudges his head up against her but she does see his eyes flick over to Niall’s. 

She grins, “I’ll even kick Niall out.” 

“Hey!” 

[isthisthingeven0n]

falling again : d.d

literally everything I post is a request but I love it. you guys have so many ideas and the activity on my blog is insane. thank you- and I hope the anon who requested this enjoys :) 

brief summary: after your relationship with David ended, the pair of you end up as fwb, however the reality of your relationship begins to wear heavy on you both

* masterlistin’ / masterlistin’ 2.0

(everything on my blog is my own writing. if it is shared on another page or website know it hasn’t been approved me unless specified. all rights reserved. - i have to start doing this as I had some shit on my other blog with plagiarism)

Three knocks on my front door. They’re always the same, that’s how I know it’s him and what he’s here for.

I dust off the biscuit crumbs and cover the sofa with a blanket and walk over to the front door. Opening it he looks agitated, “You alright?” I ask and he shakes his head, letting himself in.

He glances around, “Anyone else here?” I shake my head.

Within seconds he’s kissing me. It’s a desperate kiss, he wants this, he needs this.

We’re on the sofa, his hands working on my jeans as I unbuckle his belt.

If you told us six months ago this would be happening I would’ve laughed and expected it. But, I didn’t expect it to become a ‘friends with benefits’ situation.

Around a month ago David and I broke up. We realised we needed some space, that we were too busy for each other with ongoing projects and the constant travels we went on separately. It was an agreed decision, one I had accepted and began to move on from.

That was until we got drunk on a sad evening in his place. Everyone else went out, but we stayed in. One drink turned into a game, and then when we woke up we were in his bed. Evidence laced the floor and neither of us regretted it. And so, our arrangement began.

It was one I couldn’t see a problem with. We chat, we have sex and then go back to being friends. It’s not a complete secret, but it’s not something we want everyone knowing. If they found out it would be a big deal to them, they’d say it’s down to feelings, that we should get back together.

But we’ve agreed on this being short term. A simple arrangement between exes. At least, it was.

I tried to ignore that feeling when he invited himself over. The butterflies coming back to life after months of hibernation.

He’d smile and walk in like he used to. Wander over to the kitchen and make us both something to eat. He’d watch a film and I’d curl up into him.

It all felt like it did before, but it’s not spoken of. And most likely one-sided.

The only people who really know are Carly and Erin. They’re not against it entirely, but they keep telling me I’ll just end up hurt again. 

I know they’re telling the truth. That when he is ready to move on and is with someone else I’ll be nothing but a distant memory, a thought of what we once had. And I’ll still be here thinking of the extra time we had right now. It’s messed up, it hurts my brain to think about it. So instead I go along with it, and resist the urge to kiss him goodbye or tell him I love him. 

*

“You wanna go to your room?” He mumbles into my neck as he kisses it roughly, working his way down to my chest, and then to my stomach. 

I force his head off before I moan too loudly. Instead, I grab him by his shirt and take him to my room. He lands on my bed and I climb on top of him. “You got it?” I ask and he looks around and lets out a sigh. 

Standing up I walk into my bathroom and shut the door behind me. 

Rummaging through my draws I manage to find a few, and as I reach out to grab the handle I catch my own reflection. 

I recognise her, the person looking back at me. But she seems so lost, her eyes are filling with tears of confusion as she touches her cheek. Her clothes are partially on, but she’s never felt so ashamed looking at herself. 

My feet give way and I sit on the floor, leaning against the bathtub with a thud. “Y/n?” A panicked voice sounds and quick movements until he has opened the door and is looking down at me. He calls out my name again, this time he’s more so confused than worried. I shake my head as he crouches in front of me, his hands resting on my knees. “You alright? You didn’t fall? Oh god, don’t be hurt.” 

A small laugh escapes my lips as I swallow the watery trembles. “You can’t say that.” I state, avoiding his gaze. 

His hands slowly move off of my legs, and he sits down opposite me instead. “What’d you mean?”

“You can’t ask if I’m okay, or if I’m hurt. It reminds me too much of a simpler time when I would fall out of our bed and we’d laugh it off. The little things are the ones that sting like a bitch as they remind me of us as a couple. Not as just friends.” 

All the words are out. They’re spilling out of my mouth like the tears in my eyes. 

David remains silent. Too silent. 

“David, I, I shouldn’t have put that all on you. We agreed to do this, but my mind started to remember how things used to be.” I sigh and bury my head in my hands, not wanting to look at him when he tells me how he feels. 

He clears his throat and I hear him move. His leg brushes against mine. “I didn’t know you felt that way.” His voice has too much surprise in it, an uneasy amount for my liking. 

“I didn't want to say anything. The sooner you’d find out the sooner this would be over.” I let out a dry laugh. “Whatever this actually is.” 

I hear him laugh too. “I don’t know what we’re doing. But these past few weeks we’ve been less friends with benefits and more ourselves.” 

Glancing over to him I see his expression is with content, his eyebrows furrowed as he’s deep in thought. “What?” I ask and he relaxes against the bathtub. 

“I mean, I knew I wasn’t over you. I never fell out of love with you, I just knew we needed a break. The idea of us never being together is not one I can fathom. I guess, I guess that’s why we are doing this?” He motions to the two of us. “I can’t help but revert back to how we once were.” 

I nod in agreement. “I keep trying to stop myself asking how your day was, how you’re feeling.” He hits my arm lightly. 

“Babe same.” 

We sit in silence. He’s not called me that in months. 

“I, I still have feelings for you.” I mutter into my chest and await his response, whatever it may be. 

His arm is around me, and I glance up to see a small smile on his face. “I do too.” A sigh sounds from him as I ease into him, resting against his chest as we both sit in our underwear. “To be honest, they never stopped.” 

[dragon-stones]

Toddler Madness

Chapter Name: Some time to relax  Part: 11 Pairing: Frostiron     Rating: T Summary:  Finally Tony and Pepper can have a bit of relax time. Doesn't last long though.

Find on AO3

Sitting at the table, the kids munch on Bulochki. Much to Tony’s surprise, he had made the treat. And seemed to have made it well, cause Natasha has been munching them faster than the other children. The engineer is very glad he made several batches. Though Natasha wanted chocolate, Tony didn’t will the Bulocki with chocolate. So, he melted some chocolate and let the kids dip.

“Ok, I’m good at baking it seems.” Tony muses as he sits down and sips his.

“I’m surprised. But the kids seem to like...uh..” Pepper taps the wood, it’s clear she trying to think of the name.

“Bulochki,” Tony says. And the woman nods.

“Right.” She hums, grabbing a soda and sitting back in her seat.

Tony nods and looks at the little kids munching on chocolate-dipped Bulochki. The man didn’t know how Bulocki is eaten in Russian, but the kids are not complaining. But one thing is still wracking the man’s brain. And having the little culprit sitting next to him, helps him bring it up.

“So, Peter knows how to crawl.” Tony states, said baby spider has his attention is grabbed by his bottle.

“It appears so.” Pepper nodded, tapping a finger on the table. Peter crawling is surprising since the two never saw the baby try. But the fact that Peter did and did it on the walls, that’s crazy. Will would be crazy, but Peter isn’t a normal human.

“He crawled on the walls to Strange's room. That’s on a different level.” Tony deadpans, realizing the danger that the baby can now get himself into. “This is not good.”

“Sir, I recommend baby proofing,” Jarvis states, the A.I. having noticed how quickly the baby had moved. “Due to Peter’s abilities, locking labs down will help keep the children safe.”

“I’m already on it, Jarvis,” Tony says, thinking of the places that he’ll have to cut off from the spider.

Pepper looks at the man pops an important question. “What about our employees and interns?” An eyebrow raises as Tony looks at her, did he forget where most of the employee's work. “They need the labs for their work.”

“Allow me to clarify, Miss Potts,” Jarvis says as the two adults look up at the ceiling. “Sir’s lab and the labs two floors above and below this floor should be locked down. Yes, this will displace some workers and interns, but there are several unused labs that they can use.”

“Ok, that solves one problem. But, emails will come pouring in asking about what’s going on.” Tony asked, leaning in his chair.

“I’ve alright taken care of that issue.” Jarvis informs, “I’ve sent an email about some of the labs that will be locked down for maintenance. And that those affected will be moved to temporary labs.”

“Jar, you're a lifesaver.” Tony cracks a wide smile. He’s so thankful for his A.I.

“I know, Sir.”

Tony sits upright in his chair and finishes his drink. He looks at the children and sees that they’ve finished the Bulochki and chocolate. So, the man stands and cleans the table of dirty dishes and crumbs. After cleaning up, Clint demand being held and not wanting to deal with a crabby kid, Tony gave in. What Tony didn’t see was Pepper’s small smirk. “So that means Tony’s not allowed in his labs, I take it.” It’s not a question, this is a statement. The woman smirked more as the man whipped his head to her.

“W-what?” Tony stammers, wishing to have heard the CEO incorrectly.

“That is correct,” Jarvis confirms.

“No!” Tony exclaims the engineer’s voice is a bit frantic. “I — I — I have work to do.”

“Sorry, Sir. But for the safety of Mr. Parker, you must lock down your lab and not enter.” Jarvis said, the A.I. not being sympathetic to its creator. “The child can injure himself. It is not safe for your lab to be open.”

“I hate everything about this whole situation,” Tony grumbled, not happy that he’s been locked out of his lab.

“Tony, we all do.” Pepper snorts.

“Not as much as I do.” The man hissed.

“What’s that?”

The voice of the child in Tony’s arms pointed to the TV. Both adults look at Clint then on the television. Tony hums as Pepper lets out a small chuckle. The kids have watched TV before and now one asks what it is. These kids are weird, but something about that makes everything about them...unique. And normal. Normal, this is something that both adults didn’t have in their life and to have just a sliver in their grasp...it’s nice.

“A T.V.” Tony hums, turning his body in the direction of the object of the archer’s attention. “It shows pictures.”

“Pictures?” Clint repeats.

“Yes, pictures,” Pepper confirms, nodding. “Moving pictures.”

“Moving pictures?” Clint perks up, seeming to like the idea of pictures moving.

“Uh-hu, it has movies too.” Tony chirps, making Clint clap his hands.

“Daddy!” Peter piped up and Tony looks at the little guy and nods. He sets Clint down and picks the baby up, who snuggled his face into his neck.

“Here, I’ll show you all what a movie is,” Tony calls, herding the kids to the couches. “Jarvis find a kid-friendly movie.”

“Of course, sir.” The A.I. hums.

“Who that?” Steve asks, pointing to the ceiling.

Pepper looks at the boy and smiles, her voice soft. “Jarvis. He helps us with the tower.”

“Ok.” Steve nods and walks to Tony and the others.

The woman blinks, but shugs. She knows that Steve is very polite and doesn’t push topics unless needed. Maybe the super-soldier remembers what Jarvis is and didn’t need to ask more. But, Pepper couldn’t tell for sure. The adults turned kids didn’t seem to remember anything about their adult life. It’s like they were reverted to their innocent years. Pepper sighs, a smile on her face as she watches Tony settle the kids on the couches and himself on the floor.

“Going to watch with us, Pep?” Tony asks, turning his head to look at the said human.

“No, I have to get ready. Someone has to run a company.” Pepper clicks her tongue, giving Tony the stink eye.

“Oh…” Tony says, a sheepish smile on his lips. “Right.”

Pepper leaves to their shared room and looks for her work clothes. Which are a white blouse and a black skirt. But for some reason, she can’t find them. So, she’ll have to settle for a black dress. She dresses and pulls her hair into a ponytail.

“Tony hasn’t realized that he hasn't been in his lab for a few days has he?” Pepper hums as she sits on the bed and holds a tablet.

“Sir has not realized this, yet.” Jarvis states, “And it’s only been one day since the incident.”

“One day...wow.” Pepper widens her eyes as she slips her flat dress shoes on. She could have sworn it had been more than a day. Has time gotten slow after the team had turned into his? Or is she and Tony that tired?

“If I’m correct. About my calculations.” Jarvis hums, making Pepper nod.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t. Whether it’s one day or a week, I fear how he would react.” Pepper says, a shiver running up her spine. Tony being deprived of his lab is something that she doesn’t want to see. It’s not a cute thing, to say the least.

“I agree.” Jarvis agrees. Even the A.I. sounds worried.

“No!”

The loud screech hurt Tony’s ears, but he still tried to pry the tiny hands off of Pepper’s dress. He wasn’t expecting this to happen. All was good during the movie, the kids were easily engaged with the movie. After the movie, Tony had gotten them snacks. He even asked Jarvis what time it is. And being told that it’s only 3:30 pm is very surprising. He could have sworn it was later in the day. Then Pepper had walked in saying she was getting ready to leave. And that’s how the engineer found himself trying to pry Pepper from a very upset Nat.

“Natasha, please.” Tony pleaded with the small assassin. “Pepper has to go to work.”

“No.” Natasha whines, gripping the front of Pepper’s dress tighter.

“Nat, I need to go.” Pepper coos to the child, hoping to calm her. “I’ll be back for dinner.”

“No! Mama stay!” Natasha wasn’t having it, she didn’t want Pepper to leave and by the gods, she isn’t letting her go.

“Natasha I’m sorry, but Pep has to go.” Tony cooed, he can understand that Natasha may not want Pepper to leave, but she has too. “But, she’ll get to see her again soon.”

“What’s wrong?”

The two adults turn to see the sorcerer leaning in the doorway. The other man looks tired but much more rested than he did when he had first arrived. The cloak lifts off of Stephen’s shoulders and floats to the group. One end of the cloak lefts up and taps Natasha on the cheek. The little girl looks at the fabric and blinks.

“Oh, Strange,” Pepper says as the man walks to them. “Sorry, if the noise had woken up.”

“It’s ok.” Strange says to the woman. He leans to Natasha’s level and asks softly, “Now what’s the matter?”

“Mama stay!” Nat whined.

“But she has to work through.” Strange says, though Nat shakes her hand and pouts. The sorcerer was never good with kids. But something did come to his mind.

“How about this, you let mama…” The man pauses for a moment, how wired to call the CEO of Stark Industries mama. “Go to work, and tomorrow you can have the whole day with her, ok?”

Natasha looked at the man and blinks. She tilted her head and stared at him. Even as a kid, she still had the assassin look. That cold, calculating look. Then she said, “You promise?”

“I promise.” Stephen mods and this seems to get the girl to relax. She let’s go of Pepper’s dress, allowing Pepper to leave and Tony to sigh in relief.

“Thank you,” Tony says as he slumps into a couch.

The sorcerer nods. Seeing how tired the man look, he could only imagine what had caused such a tired look. Stephen knows how tiresome kids can be, even though he’s not a father.

‘Where’s Loki?” Stephen asks, not seeing the Norse God in the room.

“Let after handing you, Peter.” Tony huffed, leaning his head on the back of the couch. “Hasn’t come back yet.”

[paechwrites]

Kanaya left her mouth ajar, a spoonful of frozen bits of strawberries and pineapples clasped in her hand as she hovered it near her son's mouth, who mimicked her expression until the frozen fruits introduced itself to his tongue.

Kanaya pulled back, scooping another round of fruit bits from the bag placed on the table, then resuming the spoon back near Thyme's lips.

Foot steps echoed in the kitchen, garnering Kanaya's attention towards her eldest daughter, who seemed to attempt to act as if she stepped in to check the fridge solely, but Kanaya read her daughter easily with a flick of a wrist; her obvious intentions being clear in her flourished jade eyes that she wanted to be in the same space as her troll mother.

Kanaya swore as she passed knowing smirks to Rose, that Lilith may have developed a majority of Kanaya's looks, but her personality was entirely smeared in Rose's young self, to the point Rose reflected through her.

'It's karma' Rose had groaned out one night, flopping like a ragdoll on their king-sized bed with the canopy curtains tangling with her leg. 'I'm experiencing the dreaded stuffy girl my mother had to deal with - except, I'm not a terrible, relapsing figure'

Kanaya emitted a fond chuckle at the memory of Rose's scrunched up nose, dabbing her thumb across Thyme's gray cheek to swipe away the fruit crumbs.

"Hello there, Lilith," Kanaya mused, her honed jade painted nail grazing Thyme's cheek in a gentle manner. Lilith perked up, casting a small glance over her shoulder towards Kanaya before retracting back from the fridge, closing it with a seal. Kanaya smirked at this.

"There's no more pumpkin pie," Lilith said coolly, taking a seat across her mother and little brother. "I can assume mom scavenged the rest of the slices last night."

"Not that I know of, but surely if she did, she would've saved you one. She knows just how much you love pumpkin spiced treats." Kanaya told her, giving her a smile. Lilith settled her elbow against the cream wooden surface of the table, chin resting in her palm with an irritated-pouting expression that might've seemed as if she was tired. Of what, Kanaya couldn't throw in a proper guess.

"Or maybe, she did it to spite me." Lilith pitched, her tongue peeking out between her fangs. Kanaya knitted her brows in uncertainty, slipping out the spoon from the bag with toppling fruit escaping the pouch of the utensil, requiring Kanaya to hover her hand underneath to catch any run-away fruit.

"Did you and Rose get into another dreaded argument again?" Kanaya sighed, nudging her head up at Lilith.

Lilith exhaled a light, drawn out breath, leaning back onto the chair with her claws tapping on the table.

"She was being irrational again," Lilith huffed defensively. "She keeps falsely accusing me of stashing alcohol in my room!"

Kanaya narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Lilith, reverting back to serving her son his fruity snack. "Are you?"

"No! You know how enclosed mom can be, she's driving me mad with all her insistent check ups and intruding in my life." Lilith ranted, gesturing wildly. Kanaya changed into a sympathetic look in response; she couldn't remember when she first began getting fed up with Rose and Lilith's hostile attitudes, but it had been long enough that she managed to find a tinged gray hair around the area of her horns.

"And the way she smothers me after, expecting me to ignore her overtly obnoxious and passive parenting." Lilith bared her fangs, face comedically scrunched up in disgust.

"She only worries for you, Lily." Kanaya offered, earning a baffling look to paint Lilith's features.

"It's a whimsical way to express that on this shi-"

"Lilith!" Kanaya gasped, her tone appalled and hurriedly covering Thyme's tiny ears. "Honestly, I'm starting to think your uncle Karkat is beginning to be a bad influence on your speech mannerisms - well, he's always been, ever since you were merely able to crawl on your knees and babble on incomprehensible"

A snicker escaped Lilith's throat. "Mm, don't you think Thyme is getting just a little too old to be spoonfed? He'll be four next month."

Kanaya turnt up her nose, ears flopping delicately.

"Age doesn't matter when it comes to pampering my bon-bon boy."

"He definitely looks dapper every day." Lilith teased, stretching over the table with her letterman jacket softly scraping the surface and then gently booping Thyme's nose.

"Remove yourself from the table, little love, your shirt is always infested with cat hair." Kanaya advised, dragging another mischievous giggle from her daughter.

Suddenly, the frame of Kanaya's eyes widened, her mind clicking and remembering an important item she purchased earlier in the evening.

"Oh! I almost forgot," Kanaya stood up swiftly, setting the spoon down next to the freezing bag, leaving Thyme to scoop up handfuls of fruit bits into his maw as she trekked over to the cupboards. She shifted around the packages and cans, travelling to the back of the area and pulling out a plastic encase that was completed with a pumpkin themed ribbon wrapped over and under the item, the front already snipped off so Kanaya could easily lift open the lid.

Lilith stared wondrously at the item; fresh pumpkin bread laid finely inside, cream cheese frosted on top and coupled with cinnamon.

A genuine smile formed on Lilith's face, surprise flickering in her eyes as Kanaya passed the package over to her.

"I wanted to buy you something when I was out at the store, after knowing beforehand about Rose's fridge raid last night." Kanaya said, receiving a sudden hug from Lilith, a soft smile that showcased Kanaya's grown fangs riping on her face as she returned her daughter's warm and grateful embrace.

[twitchesandstitches]

(Sierra battle fic written to explore one of the different ways Sierra ‘programs’ the Matriatrix with the many different powers at her disposal; the intent is that she has a lot of options but can’t switch powers on the fly)

-------

Sierra did not cry out as the combat cake hit her and pushed through a mountain and out the other side; her endowments gave her a bit of cushioning, she had enough sub-dermal armor plating to shrug off a tank round while naked, and she’d produced enough beings to populate a moderately small planet. All that essence generated from gestating and refining a sapient mind and then popping it out, by the thousands, gave a big power boost.

She was, simply, too strong to be more than inconvenienced by a hit like that. It still hurt, though.

In the rubble, she groaned and got up, her foe darting around. It would be too obvious to go right through the hole the attack had made, just too much of a massive ‘HIT ME’ opening. She’d be going around the mountain, but with the power she’d been tossing around during the whole fight, it would be fast. Sierra had a few seconds. At best.

Better think, quick!

Sierra stood up to her full height; about forty feet. She considered growing bigger, letting more power loose, and immediately shuddered. Nuh uh, no way! Sure, she’d have a lot more power and she might have some fun going all geography-sized (she could probably win the fight by sitting down, and let her hyper-sized butt do all the work), but a long history of being on the bad side of fights where she had bet it all on brute force had taught her something: commitment won fights, and overwhelming size and power didn’t always translate into a force multiplier.

Sierra wiped the cake off her; a lot of it had fallen between her boobs, a sticky landslide with a lot more weight than it should have had, pressing her bustline slightly lower. That was impressive; Sierra had, at her bigger power displays, an absurdly massive rack for a human. Even holding herself back, her curves were wildly plush; her breasts as large as giantess-scale beach balls, her hips slightly wider than that, with huge thighs to match, and a backside even more enormous than her breasts. To top it all off, every movement sloshed with heavy milk stores that she was periodically using for raw materials, for organic creations.

She had a sweet tooth, and was running pretty low on her current power set anyway. Her Rubber Woman power load-out (a combination of hyper flexibility, total body reconstruction into a single stretchy mass, mass redistribution, elongation/compression options, and finally multiple stocks of shock absorbing for a defensive option) wasn’t doing her too good. She might as well have a bit of fun with it, and she put some of her extra mass into her tongue. It lolled out past enormous lips swelling to latex-swollen extremes by this particular power set, rolling into a huge fat tendril thicker around than her whole torso. She slurped up the whole cake between her breasts and swallowed it whole.

She immediately blanched. “Ew! It’s so bitter…!” She rolled her tongue back in her mouth, reabsorbing the excess mass.

SHe stood up, trying to work out a game plan.

A soft noise nearby informed her that this was unlikely to be an option. “Leave that sweet garbage to lovey-dovey do-gooders like you, breeder,” sneered the exceptionally feminine figure perched atop the building.

Sierra looked up, and realized it was the first time her foe had actually stood still for more than a few moments at a time. Mobility seemed important to her enemy. Maybe she should remember that? Close up, she needed a moment to identify her foe; she was a giant, close to Sierra’s height but with unusual proportions from the waist up. She was as curvy as you would expect of someone capable of fighting her one on one with no gimmicks or tricks (boobs about as big as Sierra’s, hips not as wide and the backside rather slimmer, but so heavy segmented in natural armor that it was hard to notice that), and while her heavy legs were long, her torso was unusually short. From the waist up, she looked like a shortstack, but with how long her legs were, the different was jarring.

Her foe grinned; a feline/avian face, eyes set deep above insectoid mandibles, and a short spiky creast. Hers had been modified to flow and grow, almost like mammal hair, and plush lips were filled up the space between her mandibles. Sierra figured her for a member of the New Decepticon Empire, led by the famous warlord Emperor Starscream of the ten thousand titles; the ‘Cons of old had exterminated non-robots, but these conquerers vassalized those they defeated, and many turian worlds had fallen into their domain; the military outlook of the turian people was probably familiar to the Decepticons.

There were other clues, of course; the heavy amounts of cybernetics that were reward for service to the conquering Decepticons (‘growing closer to the robot idea’, they called it), the distinctive chip architecture on the forehead that contained all public information and tier information, the slightly weasel-y attitude… and of course, the big Decepticon symbol branded right onto her face.

Sierra blinked slowly. Her own eyes, fully cybernetic optics, contracted and widened as she did relevant scans, trying to find some advantage. She was having a hard time overlooking the fact that as fearsome and battle-worn as her foe looked, most of her body was covered in… not to put too fine a point on it, cake.

Possibly made of cake. Or transmuted into it. Some kind of confectionary-based power. It was silly enough to be an Endowed Fleet original, and it probably was. It was no joke, either; ridiculous as it was to be under attack by someone who was weaponizing the ability to generate cake from their body, the resulintg attacks had just knocked her through a mountain, and the sugarly bullets had felt like getting shot by anti-tank rounds.

And, as Sierra recalled, it was making pretty good armor. Her Rubber Woman power set excelled at mobility and turning that very mobiltiy into raw attack power, but it had done absolutely nothing to her foe. She’d cracked it, maybe. But those armor breakages had already healed.

Feeling the last vestiges of her rubber body powers beginning to fade away, Sierra tried to act nonchalant. Even as the latex texture of her skin started to fade beneath her fur longcoat and harness into her usual flesh and cybernetics, she tried to act like it wasn’t happening. “That power set up you have is pretty good. Who’d you get it from?”

The chocolate turian woman chuckled darkly. “Sorry, barbarian. That’s propritary information. Not like you free love addicts would know anything about propriety.”

Sierra tilted her head. A massive chunk of violet hair significantly larger than she was hit the ground like a blob of soft plastic. “Don’t be mean! And anyway, those two things you mentioned are completely different ideas? They don’t have anything to do with each other.”

Birdlike eyes rolled, with little crumbs falling down. “I know. I was doing some wordplay. Maximo above, but you fleet scum are so dense-”

Her enemy’s indulgence in cultural posturing gave Sierra enough time to pump the rapidly draining power into her leg. Not the whole leg, just her thigh, and she was best at kicks anyway. IT swelled, rather like a rubber balloon pumped to max capacity, turning almost spherical and a twin to the buttock above it. THe weight imbalance toppled Sierra over, but in the right position to swipe the appropriate foot up and release all that pumped up force from her thigh, right into a single massive kick, right to a chocolate-coated abdomen.

The explosion removed what was left of the mountain. The turian flew through it, wailing and shedding exactly one piece of armor.

Sierra sat back as she reverted to her baseline state; her hair become regular hair (if very poofy), her thighs reverted to equal hugeness, and her skin became faux-organic mass once more, with many implants here and there. The last dregs of Rubber Woman went up.

She needed a counter, and fast!

Sierra put a hand to her cleavage, and her skin turned black, and where it turned black, a slab emerged from her body, and into her hand popped what looked like a small board. It was old, pitted with so many scars that the various writings on it were incomprehensible, but the symbol of Venus (a circle with a small plus sign below) was visible, and leading into that was a rather blocky DNA strange design.

Sierra gripped it. The Matriatrix; the source of her power, wielded by Neophyte Redglare before it, and the mutagenic source of the entire Fleet’s fertility and voracity-based powers.

It still contained every single power it had fed on; those were all in it, impregnating it in some way, awaiting the right circumstances to access or combine them, but you had to give it something to work with first.

It wanted to breed, but first it had to feed.

Sierra went to the opening near the base, that looked like the Venus symbol. There was a glowing sphere there and when she pulled it out, it materialized into a small totem that was perhaps crystalline, a small creature of molded latex and hard plastic, a physical embodiment of her Rubber Woman powers. She pulled this to her belt, and put it away. On her belt were various other totems, of a similar nature.

The logic was simple. They couldn’t access the Matriatrix’s powers on demand. Redglare had, inconsistently, but she never knew how, and she was no longer in a condition to explain it in any case. They could draw upon those powers to impregnate others and eventually mold offshoots of those powers into a workable form, but that was just how the strange artifact worked; it had little capability on its own, but by absorbing objects, it could take on their forms and natures, and develop capabilities based on those forms.

And if you fed one of the powers they had made into it, you could amplify that power, use it directly, even if it wasn’t the ‘permanent until switched out’ ability Sierra normally employed. A lot of potential utility, but not something you could do freely.

So Sierra had devised the totem system; she refined various powers she was comfortable with, combining different minor abilities and junctioning them to stronger ones, making a stronger theme to work with, and shaping it into a physical form she could absorb into the Matriatrix as needed.

Now, if only she had a way to actually do something similar with different weapon form possibilities, instead of just giving her new powers.

Well, that was a later problem!

Sierra considered her options, even as the distinctive sounds of her enemy came closer. Sierra fancied herself something of a gourmand when it came to powers, and she had already worked out how the turian could ‘fly’; generate choclate armor around the limbs, otrso and back, pump a large amount of power into them, and deonate solely outward; keep it consistent, and do it really fast, and you could fly! She appreciated the creativity, even it if was mainly being used to beat her up.

Oh, right. She was supposed to be thinking of fight ideas!

Sierra hovered over some of her favorites. “Let’s see,” She said aloud. Her hand touched a fierce-looking mass of gears and metal bits. Machine Generation? (Assilimation of technology + cybernetic integration + creation of inner machines. Amplify them many times with uploaded schematics and produce virtually any weapon or tool you can design, become your own mech! Add in Factory Womb to create minions to fight for you or produce additional weaponry. Good for making giant guns out of your arms. Great for offense, but it needed time and creativity to pull off.)

A flame-colored mass of stone, black at the core but sparking into harmless liquid fire at her touch. Elemental Lava? (A tricky one to pull off. Combine transformation into a lava form with elemental projection abilities; throw lava and magma after turning INTO it! Various elemental control powers to enable multiple techniques, like creating and controlling constructs, and reshaping the transformed parts of your body. Her very best combat monster load out, but who knew how the lava would interact with chocolate? You’d think it would melt, but it didn’t always work out that way. She would still need to eat raw materials for the lava, or risk draining her power reserves.)

A chunk of black material, shaped into a crude and pointy-looking shape. (Carbon Mastery; also called Black Crystal Body. Combining a transformation from Gem Diamond-caste magical form and Crystalsapien construction, and mixing it with additional eating/absorbing powers to merge carbon in the organic body along with anything eaten to produce carbon-based materials. Grows out from the body in huge crystals, and additional shaping/reforging powers allow them to be freely reshaped into anything imaginable. Perfect for melee, or for firing them from long range, or producing short-term constructs. Can also be converted into a liquid form, such as petroleum, and still be controlled. The carbon can be made impossibly strong, and for full body coverage, the absolute best defensive option imaginable. Ideal for wearing her down, but if its overcome, resource requirements will rapidly exceed body’s ability to replenish them.)

Those three, Sierra reasoned, seemed her best bet. She had others, but she wasn’t sure if they were situationally relevant. ...Oh, why did she even bring Concrete Control to an exploration mission on a wasteland planet?!

Which one to use? Sierra thought hard.

SHe would need to pick one that was strategic and… wait.

“COME HERE AND FIGHT ME, BREEDER!” Screamed the Turian, flying at her and so heavily choco-armored up that she looked like… well, an actual rocket made of cake. “LET ME FIGHT YOU ALREADY! OR BEAT ME, AND MAKE A BILLION BABIES FROM MY POWERS! I DARE YOU, FIGHT ME FIGHT FIGHT MEEEE!”

...Or perhaps, Sierra mused, she was overthinking how strategic her foe was. She shrugged and just hammed all three totems into the Matriatrix, and as it morphed into a new configuation, plunged it into her body.

The turian soldier landed, cake of dubious taste blasting all over the place. “WHERE ARE YOU? LET’S FINISH THIS, FLEET SCUM! Or do your people think a champion is just the craziest person they can get ahold of!?”

“Well, you’re not wrong!” Sierra said, a short distance away. Her voice sounded… different.

Approaching the turian, and giving her pause, was a figure that was on fire. No, wait. Not on fire, but made of it. A body of magma, turning blue-purple around the head. Her flesh was magma, her breasts volcanic swells, her body swelling slightly larger as additional mass built up, and the ground burned beneath her.

But the shape of her body was mechanical. No, her body had become a machine, not cybernetics but transformed into a full conversion gynoid form. Her arms were clunky and powerful power fists, her legs enormously bulky struts, and her eyes were bright sensory optics.

And over this? Black liquid flowed, like oil, until it coated her entire body. It rippled and spiked up, forming extremely large and lustrous black crystals, the largest arcing on her back like a castle’s towers, the smallest studding her arms and legs by the dozens. But it all looked still liquid, just held in place, and constantly shifting.

No longer even remotely human in basic form or design, Sierra transformed one arm. It swelled out, fist disappearing into the barrels of many guns. They became larger than she was, multiple braces appearing just to support an arm that was bigger than her, and more guns appeared! Blades, capture nets, quad-barrel rocket lanchers, ammunition blocks; all materialized instantly from her adaptable machine body, around the bulk of a shocking 22-count rotary cannon assemblage, each cannon sporting seven guns for individual barrels, and each with a bore the turian could have stuck her hand into. Each gun was baroque in shape, a snarling monster, and huge crystals extended outwards as fully prehensile blade-whips.

She fired a round. The sky briefly turned into bullets… each of the eleven thousand-round shots was a blast of solid, magically-charged magma. Laced with hardened carbon crystals capable of punching through a city in one shot. Finally, a huge shield materialized behind all those guns, so that any attack from that angle would be useless.

Her other arm became a coiled whip mechanism, with a range of several thousand feet or so from their perspective; studded with pods that would burst into sticky masses when hit, and the coil itself wasn’t hard but squishy, neatly sucked anything it hit into itself. And, oh yes, a number of fully operational sentry turrets had materialized around it’s base, running up her shoulders to shoot down any projectiles.

The spikes on her body grew bigger, hardening into ridiculously strong armor proof against all offenses, and put a mechanic spin on them; the largest spikes, atop her shoulders, became rocket lancher pods, with payloads that probably included magma in it somewhere.

Her thighs grew even bigger, armoring up more, and with such huge flamign spikes that a single kick would be devastating. And her strut-heels… had become rollarblades. With tiny rockets on the back. It looked goofy, but she had the balance, the agility, to keep mobile and move fast.

Sierra grinned, her teeth lustrous knives. “Can I take the first shot? I promise, it’ll be over in a single hit!”

The turian gaped. Then, she grinned. “Be my guest!”

She leaped, and Sierra swung her restraining whip, flung herself into a mighty kick, and let loose all her ordnance at once.

There was a mighty blast.

And, some time later, Sierra walked back out. She was apparently human once more, her powers now back on her belt, but to the trained eye, her skin was growing some rather turian-like plates.

Her belly was very big. Gravid, you might say, already swelled with the weight of a couple hundred turian offspring, gestated from the devoured essence of a foe (who was presently yelling a lot at Sierra for cheating, though eventually the pleasure of digestion would quickly make her very swooning).

Sierra held up her arm, admiring the way the chocolate her arm turned into looked harder than steel, and she tried making a few sword shapes with it, and fired off a choco-mortar just for fun. Not a cake style power up; it seemed her mutagenic powers couldn’t resist tweaking it a little.

She had won, she had earned a new power for all her friends, and as she digested her foe and all her knowledge, she was learning a few interesting things.

She radioed the nearest Fleet ship. “Guys? I don’t wanna give any bad news but we miiight have a bit of a potential problem.”

“What sort of a problem?” said the on-duty psyker. Oh no, it was Kumatora. Sierra liked her; she didn’t want to worry that big sweetie. Hopefully her sidekick/bondmate Lucas would be on hand to calm her down.

“We… might have someone stealing our powers and making new ones from them. I just beat a Decepticon vassal and her powers worked exactly like ours do, down to the essence modulation strains.”

[kiss-my-freckle]

My predictions and hopes for S5 and further.

I feel as though we’ve hit dead-center of the story. They just yanked the bones of ballerina girl out of the ground, a suitcase full of truth that I believe will bring so much more than the crap they've had going since 3B. I feel like this past season has been nothing but them clearing the table of shit crumbs and preparing for the main course. They positioned Liz and Red in a place that may feel relatively new to both of them, but I do believe they’re getting close to the kind of trust they need in their relationship. Now that she and Red know where they stand with each other, I predict she’ll rely on him and trust in him more.

I do believe the bones of ballerina girl will be an issue, and rather immediately, since I can’t imagine Tom will keep them from Liz. Although, I think it’ll be more about using it as ammo against Red than giving her the truth, as I don’t feel he’s given her the full truth of himself as it stands right now. I believe it’ll be as it has been all series long, Tom doing to Red as Red has been doing to Tom. They can’t co-exist in Liz’s life because they both feel the other is of danger to her and Agnes. So I believe Tom will hand those bones over to Liz, all-thinking she’ll walk away from Red.  

But one thing about Red, there’s no simple way to walk away from him, and I feel season four has done nothing but prove that to Liz and to the audience. She’s just not safe without him in her life. Not at this point anyway. Her child was kidnapped and held on the ledge of a rooftop. Liz herself was kidnapped twice. Add in what Red said to Dom in the finale, and his feeling the desperate need to pull up the key to this island for her safety. I fully believe there’s still a danger out there, a serious danger that requires Red remain in her life to keep her safe. She just got done choosing Red over Kate's truth. Whatever she believed that truth to be doesn't matter. She chose Red as she's been choosing him since season one. Her faked death in season three, but a mistake she had to make and learn from on her own. I believe she'll revert back to that season one choosing of Red. That's not to say the suitcase  of truth won't put a strain on their relationship, on what trust they build. But I don't see her going anywhere any time soon. They’ve also left Liz at a point, with Red being the only link to her past until she learns of Dom, so she’s going to hold onto him tight. I do feel Red should take Liz to meet Dom next season, as I think that would be great for her, for him, and for both of them in their relationship.  

From what I’ve seen of season four, they’ve taken us on a return trip to season one, and I believe for good reason. I feel there's going to be a serious shift in ships. A change in Tom and in Ressler. Cutting into Tom first. I'm not blind to the fact that Liz lacks joy in her life, and I'm not talking about Agnes. There's an obvious joy to feel in having a child. I'm talking about her relationship with Tom. She's not in it completely. She's got her toes barely touching as if prepared to run. Fresh and bright on the job. At home, she looks like a ghost. I'd ask how anyone could possibly see her as being a happy woman in love with the father of her child, but we're also living in a world where people can't tell their loved ones are suffering from depression, so that'd be the answer. Red still sees Tom as a danger to Liz and Agnes, so he's going to remain in her life so long as Tom does, and I believe Red will do as he needs to get him gone. Though I'm not so sure he'll need to do anything at this point, since I believe in my theory on the record brush they found in Fowler's things. I honestly think Red framed Tom for Diane's murder. In doing that, had the Cabal not closed the investigation into her disappearance, the Fokin murder case would've been reopened. Gina was placed in prison prior to Diane having gone missing, and because Red had his own people following Tom non-stop since he entered Liz's life, I do believe he knows that Tom hasn't an alibi for that night. When Liz asked Red how he fixed the prints, the smile on his face told me he did something huge, and he wouldn't lie to Liz about something as simple as fingerprints. Red said he knew nothing about those prints being changed, he never said he knew nothing about those prints being planted. Red didn't even know what fingerprint she was talking about until she mentioned Diane Fowler, which tells me enough. I'm not sure when this will play out, but it could play out alongside the suitcase. I do hope Tom gets his full reveal in 5. It may not happen, but I believe it's possible given the direction they've taken this season.

Given that and what I feel is coming for Ressler, I believe a ship shift is gonna happen, it's just a matter of how and when. Tom is more the parallel of Kirk- the bad man made to look a little more decent on screen than he actually is. One can't be redeemed without first feeling the need for it. Tom has no guilt or regret, so he's not even close. Ressler parallels Red. He's now the agent-turned-killer. Not so much in the gray as Liz has gone, which is the point I'm gonna drive with Ressler's story. There's a difference in being a good guy and someone dying as a result of circumstance, than a bad guy killing because that's what he's trained and hired to do. I don't feel I need to define agent vs criminal to anyone, that's one of the many differences between Ressler and Tom. Ressler is an agent, Tom is a criminal. There's nothing agent about Tom, he's ALL criminal. That's one of the points Red was trying to make, to drive home to stop that bullshit wedding. But it's okay, Ressler's going to be the one showing Liz the difference. Season two brought about Liz feeling as though she's a lot like her husband. Like the animals she locks up. Turn to dialogue from The Deer Hunter for her exact wording. Yeah... Liz felt herself a criminal with the harbormaster's death. More when she was choking Tracy in The Deer Hunter. Even worse in season three from killing the AG, to being on the run, to being treated like a felon and everything that went along with that. But the difference is circumstance. I believe Ressler will turn to Liz for support in the death of Laurel, and in doing that, she'll find she's more like Ressler and nothing like Tom. It’s all about that guilt and regret. That true remorse. Something to which Tom hasn’t shown, but Ressler surely will. That's where I see the shift happening. When that happens, I expect Keenler, especially after what they've given us of Keenler toward the end of this season, and even more, after what they’ve shown us what lengths Liz will go through for Ressler.

So yeah, lots of predictions... and hope. 

[yahoocansuckmyass]

**disclaimer: if you know me in real life, if you have anything to say, just message me on Facebook or whatever, I’m not in danger of myself, just venting about everything in my life at the moment**

only posting bc there’s really no where else for me to vent about anything

i feel so empty, especially the last few days everything feels so bleak and im unable to generate any emotion other than indifference and sadness. i know it will pass and im trying to take care of myself. going to yoga, eating well and shit like that but i don’t have any motivation. jus feels like im outside of my actual body, watching myself do these things without any feeling of accomplishment or enjoyment after.

and my friends feel so far away, maybe im dissociating? i don’t feel like i can open up to anyone without a shitty response from them. best friend has always come to me in times of need but when I come to them it’s like they’re not even listening or really even grasp that im hurting my boyfriend tells me “think about something else” as if i haven’t gone through years of trying that, im not able to change like that my thoughts flip on a dime and when they do I have 2+ other voices yelling at the only part of me trying to help it feels like a minefield. i try to think that im okay and that I can do this but they teller the sound of my breathing is too loud and i get so uncomfortable in my body that i can’t fucking move. it makes me want to tear out my hair and scratch my skin off. (I’ve been self harm free for almost 2 years and these episodes get really hard to handle but at least i haven’t hurt myself other than biting my lip a bit too much on occasion)

and group therapy now costs too much and I can’t even stop by for an hour.

work doesn’t seem to value me either, i have hardly any hours and in turn no money. I’ve hardly eaten anything in the past few days.

it’s so strange being stuck in this place where im taking care of myself and doing the things i need to and still being so detached and unmotivated. it hasn’t been like this in a long time. everything feels off.

not to mention my home life is just me waking up and already being yelled at for something I don’t even know about, it’s like I could open my eyes the wrong way and get scolded for it. she asks me if im okay and I try to say what’s wrong and she reverts back to “but im hurting too” why even bother asking me if you’re going to just talk about yourself

im never being taken seriously. the only time that i think even my group therapy took me seriously is when i sliced up my arm I remember they were talking about a girl and how “brave she was for being able to show her cuts in the open and talk about them to the group” meanwhile when I talked about my cuts but never showed them, I was almost brushed off. I had cuts that I could fit my fucking hand into, and they didn’t. Even. Believe me.

now I know this post is long and jumpy and inconsistent, and I don’t really care if anyone reads it, but if you do, I’m sorry for the jumping around. I haven’t been able to talk about anything to anyone in a long time. at least not really, not without the making it a competition and telling me it could be worse or saying some people have REAL problems as if my brain doesn’t tell me to drive off the road or cut a vein and bleed out or drown myself in the lake out back.

though I don’t harm myself, though I can keep it together and appear so happy and fine, I still think of suicide every day and it hurts to think about all of the people I’d destroy. and as reassurance, no i won’t kill myself. im not going to let my progress end like that, i know I have good things in my life, im just going through a hard time. high functioning mental illness is something else man.

the past few days have left me so out of it especially. they’ve been the worst. Saturday was a decent day up until my mom left to go out for the night. I was left alone with my thoughts, and then those thoughts blurred out into nothing. just alone. no energy. no motivation. no one to talk to. just emptiness. I walked from room to room without a sound, just to lay down and stare at a wall or ceiling for an hour at a time. I didn’t eat, didn’t sleep. just was there. finally i got up and just fucking bawled my eyes out, thoughts of suicide and self harm bombarded me, I felt so fucking depressed it was like a tidal wave was trying to drown any ounce of sanity i had left. some scars I had forgotten about found their way back to the surface of my neck and boy for some reason that fucked me up, i forgot I even cut my neck, it brought back that sharp hot pain and all the sensations that run through your body. it was terrible, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. and finally I reached out to my cousin, though she had plans, she offered to come get me and hang out at my place with her friend and boyfriend and thank fucking god i did, I would’ve been a mess if she hadn’t. im glad I didn’t try to cancel on her either. my boyfriend was supposed to stay over but ended up cancelling that night too. and he was supposed to come over today. slept through us hanging out. people tend to treat my schedule as if it’s something they can erase and write in a later time or date with no consequences. and gaslight me for being upset about it. All I ever ask for is communication, that’s it. Talk to me, I won’t be upset, but if you lie to me, that’s a slap in the face. I don’t understand how I can literally tell you “it’s fine if you don’t want to hang out or talk, but you need to let me know asap so I can adjust my plans” and you still lie to my face or just disregard me completely. I’ve had people tell me 10 minutes before I’m supposed to get them “nah sorry fam” and that’s it. Only to find out they made better plans and are posting about it all over the place.

it’s fucking shitty. everything has been shitty. I can’t afford food or anything for that matter, my friends aren’t really even there, my boyfriends always busy doing whatever he does, my mom doesn’t listen to a damn word I have to say, my work doesn’t feel like home anymore (I used to LOVE going to work and getting to make people feel beautiful and talk about new shit and now it feels like a chore, I’m not treated like a valued employee anymore rather than disposable).

all i can do is continue to exist in this cycle of high function dissociation.

next topic on miahs 5 years of nothing talked about post: self love vs self hatred

as i said before, im actually taking care of myself. I’ve had hip bursitis for years now that has turned me into a borderline cripple with excruciating pain at almost all times of the day, and this is another thing that people don’t take seriously. my mom calls me a hypochondriac and that it’s not that bad, everyone just…dismisses it i guess? regardless, this is a thing that’s impaired me during my daily life and it’s only added on to the various health issues that make it hard to feel healthy and love my body.

I’ve always been critical of myself, specifically my appearance. I’ve made lists of things I hate about myself. I’ve had people contribute to this, but it’s not anyone’s fault that I did the things I did to myself except my own. 3 years ago I graduated high school at my highest weight and met a person who would end up being my inspiration to losing weight the wrong ways. we were both entirely toxic to each other and I ended up using laxatives and throwing up, and not eating and working out excessively to lose 70lbs in less than 6 months. the only problem is that I didn’t see a change in my weight, i felt like I was just as fat, just as disgusting as when I started. it was obsessive for me to lose weight. and everyone congratulated me on the success I’ve had. until cosmetology school where I ended up gaining all of it back due to lack of time for exercise and heavy depression and my hip problems. (also congrats if you’re still reading this, im not entirely sure when ill stop writing) i felt like I failed myself, and every time I tried to adjust my diet I’d just end up not eating and it scared me, I didn’t want to be back to that place. I didn’t want to feel like that again. (Today, I’m actually doing well with my diet and sticking to it in baby steps so I don’t overwhelm myself) granted I still feel guilty every time a crumb of food enters my mouth, I have this weird paranoia that everyone is watching when I eat and that all they think is that I’m fat and of course I’d be eating now. and that’s why I can’t be the only one who eats when I’m with friends, everyone needs to eat so I don’t feel so disgusting I guess?

the few months after I stopped cutting and shit were hard but i was in a pretty good mind set, I think January 2016 was the best I’ve ever been, but as expected it didn’t last. and don’t get me wrong, i cherish the fuck out of the good times I have in my life, I’m not some dick that dismisses all of the good things and just says im a basket case with no hope or friends. I love the people in my life with all of my heart, and I love the good times we have and the good things that happen. but I’ve never been able to discuss and move past all of the bad things. it seems like I’m being told to just push it back farther and farther because they don’t want to have to deal with it right now. and i could be wrong, and for some of those people I am wrong. but again, their responses to whenever I do open up are disheartening, and some don’t mean to come off that way but it persists. which makes me question why do I even bother. see, this a good platform for me to vent because it’s just that, I don’t need anyone to reply and say sorry or tell me I’m wrong, it’s just here and I got it out. that’s all I’ve been trying to do.

I’ve really never wanted any advice, i know what I need to do and what’s right and what’s wrong, its an ongoing battle for me, and I just needed someone to listen. and that never happened, there was always competitive comparisons, always criticism, always gaslighting, always dismissive. And maybe it’s because when I actually try to TALK, I freeze up and can’t say what I need to in the right way. but still! More than half the time I open up, I just get more reasons to shut back down. back to self love and shit (sorry), I’m trying to love myself despite what it sounds like. just because a big part of me only holds dislike for myself, doesn’t mean there isn’t a part that just wants to love. it’s just been years of these expectations and standards forced down my throat to the point where quite honestly, I’m fucking confused I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t

I’m not gonna get into relationships for the soul fact that I could go on for days about them and this is post is way longer than I anticipated already SO. That’ll be another day (probably tonight since I’m to the point of just not giving a fuck and dishing out every emotion I’ve felt in the last 5 years)

and again back to self love, lately, i don’t weigh myself because I know that if I do, I’ll get depressed and obsessive again and I really can’t deal with it now. I hate my stomach first and foremost. that’s literally the main thing that I just want to cut off my fucking body. i half the time can’t even look at myself because I’ll just get stuck in one of those fuck you miah states. and to address something real *quick*, I don’t need the, “well stop complaining and do something about it” BITCH I AM. I am actually doing everything for it!! but my shitty brain doesn’t let me see progress, for all i know I could have lost 30 lbs and still think I look exactly the same (and part of the reason why I chose yoga was because it all stems from your core so it’s always engaged…and it’s hot yoga so I sweat out at least a pound every time I go, and I went every day last week) i dunno why I can never see positive changes, but when I lost all that weight back in 2014, I didn’t even go down a bra size, let alone pant size and that really fucked me up. It was weird having people compliment me and say how good i looked but still felt the same size. I don’t get it, I could see the numbers go down but my eyes never saw a damn change on myself. Imagine losing 100lbs and still being the same pant size. And I did think we’ll maybe it’s because I still hated myself and was losing weight in an u healthy way but even now with me doin all these great things for my body, I see no change at all. I jus wanna be healthy now, not skinny.

^^talking about my body is my least favorite thing to do so if you have anything to say about it please just don’t, I’m jus here to get this shit off my chest.

I think im just about done, currently brainstorming to see if I missed anything or if I want to touch back on certain things. All that’s left I think is relationships?? So maybe I will write a bit about it? ….I wrote about it then deleted all of it because without going into brutal detail there’s no reason for it to be shoved into this.

I’m pretty sure I’m finished, I may or may not ever check back in here to update or whatever. I guess we’ll see.

If you made it to the end, congrats you spent 15 to 25 minutes reading an absolute mess of a post. Hopefully you could keep up with all my jumping around.