#i am incredibly bad at getting myself to write cover letters to get a NEW job

[nevadas-night-time-novelist]

Chopper Dave, Q-Bert x reader - In love with your voice

Dave

-He was quite different to most men in Nevada, most notably because of his English accent. He always greeted you the same way, a cheery smile, a kiss and a soft “‘Ello love,” You’d fallen hard for that accent, you’d quiz you lover on just about everything.

-“So where’d you learn to pilot? How’d you get your whirly bird? How do you repair it when it breaks down?” And on and on he’d talk, with little prompting, he loves that you’re taking a strong interest in his job. “Y'know love, perhaps I’ll have to teach you 'ow to fly 'er and fix 'er up.” “Sounds good to me. Anything to spend a bit more time with you, Davey.”

-Cooped up in your private quarters, you snuggle in close with your lover. “Davey, what was life like back in England?” “That ol’ place? Well love, can say there was a lot less gun crime, 'ell of a lot more knife crime though. But it’s home, can’t say too much of a bad word 'bout it.”

-He nuzzles the top of you head. “Might have to take you there some day, if it’s not a hell hole like this place. It wasn’t when I left, but that was a good while ago. Green hills for miles, quite a rich agriculture, you get used to the smell of cow shite fairly quickly hah~”

-Dave pauses and lets out a quiet sigh. “I haven’t thought about life over the pond in such a long time. I used to write letters to my Mum, before she died of course. I still 'ave them somewhere. Never 'ad the heart to throw any of 'em out.”

-“It sounds like such a wonderful place, a far cry from this living hell.” “It was back then. Dunno 'ow much lifes changed, if it’s as bad there as it is here. If … If it even still exists anymore. All I’ve known for years is just Nevada. I 'ope its orite back there, but I’ll never know for sure, not till I see it for myself.”

-He gave your arm a light squeeze. “Wotcha pryin for anyways? Never asked me about it before.” His tone was teasing. “I just wanna know you better,” And to hear that heavenly voice. “Hah~ If I didn’t know better, I’d think you just like the sound of my voice.” You tried shut him up with a kiss.

-“Take that as a yes then, eh love?”

Q-Bert

-“Well well well, if it isn’t m’ favourite customer,” Bert greets you with a wink. “And what can I do for you today, pet? I got some new armour I think you’d look rather killer in, heh.” Since he’d become attracted to you, he’d started giving discounts to you, as well as the occasional goody 'on the house,’

-You could listen to his accent all day and never tire of it, but you had missions to run, and he had a shop to keep. You’d still swing by prior to missions, he’d give your armour and guns a once over to make sure they were in top condition.

-Luckily you always come back in one piece okay maybe not always but more often than not and are more than happy to chit chat. You relay your exploits with your current crew. “Yeah, that new rifle you suggested really came in clutch. Gotta thank you for saving our asses.” Any time his expertise came in handy, you made sure to thank him profusely.

-“Aye, it’s nae bother pet. Anything you keep yer precious face safe.” He allowed you, and only you, behind the counter. You would pick a random weapon and quizzed him on it, both out of genuine interest, and also to listen to his gorgeous and foreign accent.

-“Yer thinking of going for those daggers eh? Dinnae think you’d consider them, but they’re very good, I can speak from experience.” “Perhaps I am, care to tell me more?” You turned one of the throwing daggers in your hands, expert craftsmanship, incredibly sharp and primed for killing.

-A sly smirk crept across his face, his hands covering yours as he pulled your back against his chest, whispering in your ear. “Y'know you’ve asked about them a few times now. Are ye even considering them?” Your cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

-“Of course, your endorsement in your stock is very valued. I care greatly for your opinion, saved my ass a few times.” “Really?” Goosebumps rolled across your flesh as you felt his breath on your neck. “Cause I think you love the way a’ talk.”

-You dropped the dagger and spun around, hands pressing into Bert’s cheeks as you kissed him. “Aye, I thought ye wanted me to keep talking, now yer trying to shut me up?” “Be quiet Bert.” You laughed softly. “Nae, not a chance in hell.”

[thegingeralien]

Thought I might share my “doing homework with adhd” tips in case the might help even just one person (because that would make me feel happy).

Who am I to be giving you advice? Good point! I am still terrible at studying and I’m 26 and at University for the millionth time. But I have studied A LOT in my 22 years of schooling with varying degrees of success.

I see a lot of people, especially teenagers or first year university/college students, with ADHD asking for tips on how to study. But if you do a google search most of the websites and advice that comes up can be extremely ableist. So I hope I can help someone!

TIPS TO HELP YOU STUDY WHEN YOU HAVE AN ADHD GREMLIN BRAIN!:

1. Chewing gum!

- This might come across as a weird one, but it has actually really helped me. I use it as a form of stimming to help keep me focused and concentrating. Other forms of stimming can potentially end up being more of a distraction when you actually need to be reading or writing - but they can help if you just need to be listening. Try not to get a bubble gum or fun flavoured one though - as they can end up making your mouth feel dry, lose flavour quickly, and just give your brain way too many sensory things to become distracted with.

2. Buying colour coded stationary!

- New stationary can make me really excited to start studying, but that excitement never lasts long and the act of buying stationary can sometimes become it’s own hobby. That’s not what we are going for here. I really recommend, especially if you are a visual learner like me, to buy colour coded stationary. This means removable page markers, different coloured post it notes, highlighters, sometimes even pens. This way if your mind jumps from one topic to the other, it doesn’t matter. Go with the flow. Forcing your ADHD gremlin brain to focus can be extremely counter intuitive. So pick a colour for each topic, and stick to that system to find organisation among your own chaos!

3. Buy a really cheap, boring year diary with hardly any writing inside.

- Not sure if your school/university has their own diary but they can be perfect for what I am on about. Generally you can find them for really cheap, soft cover, no writing or designs within the dates. Just dates, days, weeks and lines where you can write your homework. This helped me a lot in High School. I wish I had kept doing it in University, but I am good with giving advice, and not so much with taking it. I used to decorate the outside of it however I wanted. Some years I would redecorate the same diary every semester. In the public holidays or holiday days I would colour those lines in with different highlighters to make it look like a rainbow. But every assignment due date, homework, draft, rewrite, form I had to bring back, library book due date, school activity days, ANYTHING to do with school I would write in there with reminds and check lists. Important due dates would be highlighted, general homework and daily to do lists t(o help me not leave my assignments to the last minute) would have a tick box beside them (because ticking tick boxes is free dopamine). Try to not put birthdays or fun things in it. This is a small way to stay on track so it helps you actually stay on track with the big things when you’re home.

4. Big whiteboards stuck on the wall where you can’t avoid it.

- This is not something I had in school, but I so wish I did. I have been using this recently to keep on top of house work (as maintaining your own house is tiring) and my small business or other things I really can’t avoid. If I physically write it down (not just in my phone) it psychologically does help you commit it to memory. Again, physically putting a line through a task you just completed is a hecking great rush of dopamine. But the biggest reason I love my white board, I can’t ignore it. It is stuck to the wall and is never out of sight, out of mind. I can’t put my phone or diary down and then refuse to look at it until I’m past the due date. Again, I’m not a perfect person, there are days where I don’t do anything I have written on the white board. But the great thing is, I don’t have to continuously feel like I failure, as I can wipe it all off the next morning or week and start fresh. I also put important things I have to remember that I’m doing during the week so I don’t forget them.

5. Icky Medication.

- I know not everyone wants to be on medication, and I understand. I am not forcing you to. No matter what your opinions are, you lovely gremlin who is still reading this post, regarding medication, you are valid and I respect you. My personal experience with medication has not been the best. I have been misdiagnosed for a severe chunk of my academic life which has seen me trying to focus and maintain school work under some even worse states then I am unmedicated! However, since receiving my diagnosis and finding the right ADHD medication for me, I have the ability to get so much work done without having to unnecessarily struggle. It’s unfortunately not magic, it will not turn me into a robot that makes me do work and turn out incredible, noble peace prize winning assignments (as much as I wish that were possible). I still have the ability to be a lump, doom scrolling through tumblr, forgetting to eat, and ignoring responsibilities. But it really helps me when I sit down and start that thing that isn’t fun. Yesterday it helped me hyperfocus on cleaning my office which was a terrifying room to be in. So it’s pretty close to magic in my opinion!

6. Accessing Disability Support at your place of learning.

- Not all of you taking the time to read this will have either a) an offical diagnosis or b) a good disability support available to you wherever you are completing your studies. And that is okay. This dot point just won’t be for you right now. But keep it in mind for a time when it might apply to you, as it’s something I never thought I would need, but will never take for granted ever again.

- If you have an offical diagnosis and Disability Support, make an appointment with the disability support adviser. DO IT NOW! Get your psychiatrist to write a diagnosis letter outlining that you have <enter superpower that makes you hilarious here> and that you are receiving <enter x,y,z treatment here> and that you would benefit from receiving <enter what you have always wished you had on the days you can’t make your ADHD gremlin brain do the thing here>. Now these benefits can be, but not limit to: automatic extensions on ALL assignments, extra time on exams, extra breaks to walk around while taking exams, special consideration when marking assignments, my university allows me to take exams in a separate room with only the other students in my subject who also have disability support (occasionally I have taken an exam alone with only a tutor present) so I don’t get distracted, permission to take fidget items into class or exam (I have the option to wear headphones, as long as I can display that they are not connected to anything). Maybe you can come up with some great ones for you with your disability advisor or your psychiatrist.

- The disability advisor will often go through your course outline with you at the start of each semester or year. This is annoying and a great time for disassociating, but can be useful in hindsight because you are made aware of everything that will come up during your class so you are not surprised. Because lets be honest, it is unlikely you are going to look at the course calendar too often.

- Side Note: I make an appointment every semester with my disability support officer for my area of study to make sure I have my special considerations for the year. Now I may go through the whole year without ever using my considerations. However, the fact that I know they are there takes an insane amount of pressure off of myself. If I’m having an insanely screwy loony tune mental health moment, I can email my coordinator my disability plan and say I need an extension due to personal reasons, and WHOOP, there it izzzzz.

7. Dedicated one thing or a few things that have nothing to do with food/alcohol/other substances to reward yourself with for doing the thing!

- This may not work for everyone. It doesn’t always work for me. I used to reward myself with food, but that only reinforced my stimming with overeating and my already bad relationship with food. And I feel as though that would be the same with any other substance that can be linked with addiction. (Addiction is a tough word, cause what aren’t I addicted to, I have ADHD, but hopefully you get what I mean!).

-Now, boring try and not choose this aside, lets think of somethings that work really well as rewards!

- My partner likes to come give me a kiss and a hug when ever they have written and reread a paragraph, you might buy a book when you get a really good mark, you might want to go make a cup of tea and watch an episode of your hyperfixation after studying for <enter a good period of time here>, you might allow yourself to partake in an activity you usually do while procrastinating (but at least this time you know you aren’t putting something off), talk to someone who you know will tell you they are proud of you as they understand the mental struggle you go through to concentrate (if you can’t think of anyone, it is 110% okay if that person are the amazing people on tumblr or the adhd tumblr chats. We will freaking pop a bottle of champagne for you cause we get it!).

- Try and make what ever you choose be something in a different room or away from your working space. Getting out can really calm you down.

8. Don’t be afraid to ask for assistance.

- This is true for anything, but I don’t mean just asking your teacher to give you extra help understanding the task and marking rubric. Many people online, tutors, librarians at your school, past or present students offer assistance rereading and making small edits (they won’t make it magical unfortunately) to your assignments. If you are like me and once you have written or completed the dreaded thing, you can not imagine or force your gremlin brain reread or edit the thing. So it can help to just delegate this to someone else, who hasn’t read it before, so they won’t disassociate or skim read it. They will often notice things you never would have even if you were neurotypical as that is just what happens when you have been working on something for so long.

9. Repetitive music.

- It generally helps if this has no lyrics. Lo-fi is amazing. Classical is alright too if it works for you, but both my partner and I agree that it can really assist you to keep up pace and focus when the beat is a high and repetitive (almost meditative) tempo.

10. Limit your screen space.

- This is a tip completely from my partner @dr-adhd who also has ADHD, is an avid PC gamer and is consistently in a battle with their gremlin brain to focus on completing their PhD. They have discovered that it really helps them to limit their screen space - simply put, work on one screen only. They have done more work more easily when they have their one screen on their laptop to focus on. Whereas their office has multiple screens so they could be playing runescape, watching YouTube, listening to lo-fi and doing work - which never worked (shocking right hahaha).

11. At the risk of sounding like a Mum... Put your phone and other electronics other than the assignment necessary one, away.

- I am a Mum, but to a fluffy puppy dog, so I hate to sound like my Mum when I was in high school, but she was right. Mobiles are the single easiest and biggest distraction in ADHD history. I often, even at coffee shops, have to turn my phone over so that I am not consistently looking at it every time the screen lights up to say the pizza place has sent me a coupon, or a carpet place that has been having a sale since I was born is... still having a sale, or a friend from school wants you to watch this TikTok. Even though you might not want to ignore your friends, because people pleasing, difficulting making/keeping friends and RSD are hecking real things, but they can all wait. Trust me, none of them are urgent. That TikTok will still be funny in an hour or two. And I’m probably completely right when I say that whomever just messaged you, never replies as quickly as you want them too. So I doubt they are going to think twice if you are MIA to finish your thing.

My partner or I might add to this later, but at the moment I already know that I probably wouldn’t read this wall of words if I was the one reading it, so if you are still with me, THANK YOU and I really hope I might have helped you. Sorry for the mound of words, but maybe you can reblog, screen shot, or save this and read a dot point at a time or refer to it when you need. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, I promise what ever it is, I’ve asked the same thing once in my life or something MUCH stupider.

[amazingphanisnotonfire-imagines]

Sweet Pea//no matter what gets in my way

Request: May I please request a Sweet Pea x female reader that’s based off of the song ‘Come for You’ by Nickelback?

hey! before i start chatting at you all, just wanted to let you know about any trigger warnings, so: there’s mentions of therapy, childhood trauma (not in detail, its mainly sweet pea talking about growing up on the southside), emotions and a car accident (near the end) i hope you enjoy!!! have a great day/night!! also the plot of this is completely different to the meaning of the song/music video. just thought i’d let you know!

“This is quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever been told to do. And I used to take orders from Jones on a daily basis.” Sweet Pea huffs, flopping onto your bed. A pout takes over his appearance as he stares up at the stars decorating the ceiling and you send him a sympathetic smile, despite the fact that he isn’t paying attention to you. 

“I don’t think its that bad.” You drop your bag on the floor and lie next to him, nudging him with your elbow. He looks at you, the frown on his face somehow worsening, but when you smile at him, it flickers for just a second, the corners of his lips curling up a little. 

“Really?” 

“Well, yeah. You’ve been through a lot. There’s a lot of trauma tucked up in that big head of yours, and if your therapist thinks that you should maybe write down how you’re feeling, then maybe its worth a shot.” You shrug, not tearing your gaze away from the ceiling and he stares at you for a few seconds. His eyebrows furrow as he thinks about what you said. Maybe you were right? 

Thats stupid, you’re always right.

“Why do you always have to be the logical one?” He huffs and you smile, turning on your side to face him. Stray hairs fall in front of your face and he tucks them behind your ear almost as soon as they fall. 

“Because when I’m friends with you, someone has to be.” 

“Yeah, fair.” The two of you laugh before a peaceful silence falls over the room. The sounds of traffic coming from the street below drifts through your open window and it makes Sweet Pea sit up quickly. 

“I thought I said, don’t leave your window open when we’re out.” 

“I forgot.” You roll your eyes, now joining him in staring out the window. A soft breeze causes the curtains to move gently and the sunlight streams in, casting your room in a golden glow. 

“You won’t forget when we’re robbed.” 

“We’re not gonna get robbed.” You huff and start to unpack your bag. 

“Sure we’re not. This is New York City we’re talking about.” He watches you move around your small room, and he smiles to himself. It seems like the light follows you around, casting you in a constant shimmer. 

“We’ve lived for two years and we haven’t been robbe-” 

“Finish that sentence...I dare you.” He cuts you off, sending you a glare to which you just roll your eyes at. Sweet Pea is as threatening as a puppy to you and he knows it. But it doesn’t stop him from pulling his ridiculously adorable faces when he tries to be scary. 

“Aww, you’re so cute.” You pat his head and his scowl falls into a pout. “See, adorable.” You pinch his cheek making him bat your hand away. 

“You’re the worst.” 

“I know.” You smile sweetly at him. 

“I’m going to my room.” He huffs, clearly annoyed at how unaffected by him you are and his reaction only makes your smile widen. 

“Are you going to write about your crush in your diary? Don’t worry I won’t peek.” You tease and he grumbles to himself while walking out. He’s just about to slam your door closed when you call after him again making him stop.

“Yeah?” 

“I am really proud of you, you know?” You tell him honestly and his expression softens, a light blush dusting his cheeks as he looks down at the scuffed floor. 

“For what?” He asks once he finally recovers from the unexpected compliment. To be honest, he doesn’t know what he expected. You always make sure to say something nice to him at least once a day, and he always tries to return the favour. 

He’s just not as good as expressing his feelings as you. Thats probably another things he needs to discuss at his next session. But now he feels a little less stupid for writing in a diary if it means he gets better at talking to you. 

“For how far you’ve come. When we were in High School you never would have thought about any of this stuff. But you are and I think thats great. So, as your best friend and number one supporter, I am so incredibly proud of you. So much so, that I got you a present.” You quickly run towards your dresser, digging through the top drawer before pulling out a wrapped present with a little bow on it. 

He smiles as he takes it from you, looking at you one last time before quickly unwrapping it. “Whats this?” 

“A notebook.” You reply teasingly and he rolls his eyes at you. 

You’d bought it a few weeks ago because it had reminded you of Sweet Pea. You’d been waiting to use it, but when Sweet Pea had told you about what his therapist said, you realized that he would have much more important things to write in it than whatever you would eventually come up with. 

“I mean, whats on it?” 

“Ohh. Its a Sweet Pea. Seriously? Its your name and you don’t even know what they look like. You’ve gone through twenty years of your life and not even googled it once?” 

“First of all, you know Sweet Pea isn’t actually my name. It’s-” 

“Yes, yes. I know what you’re name is. I have been your friend for the past twenty years.” You interrupt, waving your arm at him and he grabs it, pushing it away from him. The two of you play fight for a few minutes before you eventually give in and he finally lets you out of the headlock he had you in. 

You huff, smoothing your hair out and he chuckles, ruffling it back up when you’ve finished. 

“I hate you.” You hit his arm and he feigns hurt. “We’ve been friends- 

“Not long enough.” He interrupts, a bright grin on his face.

“Too long.” You grumble. 

“Shut up.” 

“Get out.” 

“Gladly.” He smiles sarcastically and you flip him off. 

“I am really proud of you though...seriously.” You say, and he stops in the doorway. He clutches the notebook to his chest and he glances at it, a soft smile on his face before turning around to face you, the usual smirk appearing. 

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t go on about it.” 

You just shake your head at him making him chuckles before actually leaving, still slamming the door behind him. Once he’s sat down, he reluctantly places the notebook on his bed, the pale pink flowers stand out against the light blue background and he takes a deep breath, grabbing a pen from his nightstand before opening the cover. 

The pen hovers over the blank page. What the hell is he supposed to write about? His trauma? His feelings? And is so, what trauma? Which feelings? This was a stupid idea. But the he remembers how proud you were of him, and he looks at the cover of the book one last time, deciding that maybe this is something he needs to do. No matter how scary it feels. Plus, he’s done far worse things...a pen and a piece of paper can’t hurt him. 

Dear Diary, 

God, how old do I sound? Anyway, dear stupid diary? Well, now I sound even more ridiculous. My actual therapist and my unofficial therapist (y/n, remember her because she’s going to be mentioned a lot) recommended that i write how I feel down. 

I don’t have to show anyone if I don’t want to and I don’t evem even have to read it myself. But apparently its supposed to help, so I suppose I’ll give it a go. Dr Smith told me that a good place to start is to write down why I think I’m in therapy. And to that I told her that there wasn’t a big enough notebook in the world. I suppose I’ll just have to write in tiny letters to cram everything in here because I want to keep this notebook for as long as possible. So time to be honest? 

When you grew grow up on the southside, you learn to grow up a lot quicker than you should. You see a lot of shit that even adults shouldn’t be witnessing, let alone kids. Its like you’re always waiting for the clouds to lift from the darkness of the life you lead, but they never do. And by the time you get to like, 11, you’re more like a soldier than a kid. I’ve known how to fight for as long as I remember and I remember back then, before me and Y/n moved to New York, I felt like I was constantly a little wounded. I needed time to heal, but in Riverdale, on the southside, there is no time. 

Oh, by the way Y/n is my best friend. We’ve been neighbors since we were born and we’ve been practically inseparable. Whatever memories I have of my life, good and bad, she’s always in them. And when we were younger we made a pact that when we gradated, we would leave Riverdale as soon as possible and go somewhere completely different. So we worked (some jobs more legal than others), and we saved up as much money as possible to get an apartment. That was two years ago and we still live in the same shitty apartment, but now its just more out of comfort than anything else. We like it here and we have some great memories here, so even though we probably could get a nicer place, we probably won’t. 

Anyway. I try not to dwell on the past. I don’t succeed though. I suppose during school I had to just keep up appearance. I was in a gang, still am technically and I love the serpents. But its not the best environment to be around. Y/n is always talking about self love and stuff like that and to be honest, I always thought it was kind of just a girl thing. But then I went on twitter and learnt what toxic masculinity is, and with the help of Y/n, Toni and Fangs, I realized that its okay to feel the way I do. Its completely normal and I should get help for it. Which is now why I’m doing this. 

So yeah, thats it. I mean thats not it, it. But you know what i mean. Well I suppose you don’t, you’re an inanimate object but whatever. Now how do I end this. 

Bye? Bye 

To his surprise, he actually feels a little bit better. Maybe this won’t be too bad. And maybe in a little bit, he’ll feel confident enough to show people. Who knows? Maybe writing is something he could actually be good at. 

----

“You’re an ass.” You shout from your bed. What had started off as a good day has ended in the worst possible way. 

You honestly don’t know how you got here. One minute you and Sweet Pea are talking about what to make for dinner, and the next thing, you’re screaming and shouting at each other while simultaneously pissing the neighbours off. 

“I know!” He spits back and you narrow your eyes at him. 

“Get out.” There’s no playfulness in your voice, not like usual. Its just filled with spite and it makes him feel a little sick. There’s only one other time that you’ve talked to him like that, and it was when he called your boyfriend at the time an self-centered dick. He wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t the point. 

You stopped talking to him for a week after that, but when he turned up at your trailer with flowers and Pop’s takeout, you forgave him instantly. Hugging him tightly and spending the rest of the night watching movies. 

But now, neither of you know how you’ve ended up here so he doesn’t know how to make it up to you. So he does the next best thing. 

“Gladly.” He scowls, slamming the door behind him. He hears a soft thud and knows instantly that you’ve thrown a cushion at him. “Real immature Y/n.” 

“Get fucked.” You shout back and he huffs loudly before slamming his own door shut. 

The bed shakes as he throws himself down on it and he burrows his face into the grey pillow. His hand reaches underneath it and his fingers brush against something cold. His eyebrows furrow in confusion as he pulls it out and all the anger that he was feeling disappears. 

The blue catches his eye first, and then the green of the stem and then finally the pale, delicate petals. He hadn’t even thought of the notebook since he finished writing in it the first time. He sighs, his fingers tracing over the pattern, and he squeezes his eyes closed. His head drops back onto the pillow, not even bothering to move the diary from underneath his face and he moves his hand over to the cluttered night stand to find a pen. 

Dear Diary

Hey, so I know I’m supposed to be talking about my feelings and my trauma and shit and i know I kind of forgot about you, but life got in the way and I don’t have time to write down all my stupid emotions in a arguably very pretty book.

Anyway. I fucked up. I upset Y/n and I don’t know how to make it better because I honestly don’t know how we started arguing in the first place. We’ve only ever had one huge argument like this, and after a week it ended. But this time it feels different. This time my chest is aching and my head is hurting. I have this weird feeling in my stomach and I really don’t know what to do. I figured if you’re supposed to be helping me...then help me. 

I think she thinks I don’t care. That I’ve just dropped our friendship, and everything that comes along with it on the ground and then stomped on it over and over again. 

So, who knows what I’m going to do. I think saying sorry might be the best place to start. 

Hey, look at that. You did help...thanks I suppose.

Bye.

Sweet Pea doesn’t even bother closing the book, he just drops the pen in the middle of it and jumps up, kicking his leg out of the unmade duvet and stumbling out the door. 

He hesitates outside of your room, wondering the best way to go around it. Should he just walk in like he usually does? Or should he knock? 

“Y/n?”  

“...what?” You sniffle and he looks at the floor, unsure of what to say next. 

“Can I er-Can I come in?” 

“That depends.” 

“On?” He wonders. 

“If you’re still gonna be an ass.” He can tell by just the tone of your voice that you’re a little less pissed than you were ten minutes, but only by a little bit. Like 5%, and he lets out a small chuckle before opening the door. 

You’re sat on you bed, your legs tucked into your chest and when the door opens you send him a glare before dramatically looking in the opposite direction. He rolls his eyes but sits opposite you anyway. 

“I’m sorry okay.” 

Silence. 

“Please Y/n.” 

Still silence. 

“Okay, fine. I’m sorry I was being an ass. I don’t even know what we were arguing about and it kinda just snowballed into one big fight. But if it makes you feel any better, the ten minutes I spent in my room I missed you. Like that JLS song, every seconds like an hour or something like that. Anyway the point is, I’m sorry and I missed you so much that I even wrote in my stupid diary. So there’s that. Now please can you forgive me because I hate fighting with you, you’re like the only person I don’t like fighting with...and I’ll buy us takeout to make up for it.” 

“1. Its ‘every minute’s like an hour, every hour’s like a da-’ 

“I don’t need a full rendition.” 

“And 2. You’re diary is not stupid and even though I also don’t like fighting with you either, I’m glad you wrote in it again...so yes, you’re forgiven. And I’m sorry too. I was also arguing with you.” You mumble reluctantly, trying to hide a smile and he smirks, poking at your cheeks teasingly. “Leave me alone.” You grumble, swatting his hand away. 

“So, are we friends again?” He asks, his heart suddenly starts pounding, but you punching him in the arm distracts him from whatever medical problem he is currently experiencing. 

“Yeah...dingus.” 

“Aww, I love you too.” For some reason, both of you feel a blush spreading up your necks after he speaks and the two of you look away for a few seconds. 

“So.” You break the slightly awkward tension. In the twenty years of friendship, you have literally never experienced any kind of awkwardness, but that was weird, for some reason those four specific words had some sort of effect on you both, and now you’re not entirely sure what to do. “What are we having for dinner?” 

“Oh, I er. I dunno.” He shrugs. “Whatever you want...my treat.” 

“Yeah, it better be.” You try to joke but it doesn’t really work. Instead the room feels weird. There seems to be some sort of tension lingering, but its not anger...so who knows what it is? All you know is that you need to both leave.

So you stand. Unfortunately he does the same and the two of you end up bumping into each other. His hands reach out to steady you, grabbing your shoulders and the two of you laugh, although its more forced than anything. 

“I’m gonna go check the menu on the fridge” 

“I need to pee.” He says at the same time. 

“Oh.” You say, slightly surprised and he mentally curses himself. But he really doesn’t know why. He’s told you a lot worse about his bodily functions, and every time you also mutter a small ‘gross’, followed by a laugh. But this just feels icky. “Okay.” 

He gestures for you to leave first, and you do gladly. That whole encounter was weird and you vow never to argue with him again if it makes you feel like that. All strange and awkward and unsure what to do with yourself while trying to calm your heartbeat down. 

---

Dear...should I give you a name or is that weird? What could I call you? Who the hell knows? I’ll come back to that later. I’m feeling better. I think writing is this is actually working. Its only been two months, but I’m actually becoming a lot better at talking about my feelings and shit. Its like I was blindfolded (kinky) to being able to feel, but now I’m seeing. Talking is great! I’m still a little wary about talking about myself to just anyone, lets be real, anyone can be a snitch, or from another gang. 

But I think I’m better at communicating my thoughts and emotions with the people I love like the most. I feel like before I was very close minded, not in like the usual way...because if you know me personally I’m very vocal about human rights and stuff...thats not the point. But I was very closed minded about my own emotions and how to deal with them. But now, thanks to Dr Smith and Y/n, I’m actually starting to believe in myself. Maybe this is how Y/n see’s me. Huh...she must think I’m great. 

I know what it means to let someone in and I think I kind of like it. But that’s also where I have one small issue. 

I know that I’m supposed to talk about my trauma and shit, but I’ve been doing this for like two months so I think I’m good now. Well, not good. But I need to talk about something else thats much more important than whatever is happening in my brain. 

Its Y/n. 

Now usually, if I had any issues involving her, I would talk to Toni and Fangs, but they just involved birthday presents and who is that dickwad talking her on a date? But I can’t talk to anyone about this problem, because I know exactly what Toni and Fangs will say. They’ll say its because we’re in love...we’re not. 

Its just, ever since our fight. Things have been weird around here. We can barely be in the same room as one another for more than five minutes without one or both of us saying something incredibly stupid. And usually, I’m fine with losing friends, its just part of life. But I don’t want to lose her. I’ve been losing sleep over this. Every time I think about her not being here, my palms get sweaty and there’s like a heavy weight on my chest. It sucks. 

Y/n has organized a movie night for us tonight. I think she can feel the tension too and I think its driving her just as mad. She always seems so unsure around me now, and despite how hard she tries, she is terrible at trying to hide it. 

I don’t really know what to do and I know you can’t reply unless you’re something from Harry Potter, but I just thought if I wrote it down, I might get some ideas. 

Spoilers...I didn’t. 

“Sweet Pea!” You’re yelling makes him jump and slam the book closed, despite you being nowhere near him. 

“Coming!” He replies, quickly scribbling the end of his stream of thoughts before closing the book again and throwing in under his bed. 

Gotta go...byeeeee

“Hey.” You’re already sat on the sofa by the time he leaves his room. The film is  set up, waiting for one of you to press play and two pizza’s are sat on the coffee table. 

He smiles as he sits down on the other end of the couch, remembering all the other movie nights you guys have had. He enjoyed the ones back home when it was all four of you. But some of his favourites have been with just you. The film is usually forgotten about half way through, and you just spend the rest of the night talking and laughing and playing stupid games, before falling asleep on top of each other at like 5am. 

But as he looks over at you, staring straight at the tv, his chest aches. Usually you would end up sitting as close to each other as possible, but now, you’re both sat as far away as you can be. 

He can’t remember the last time you laughed at something he said, or you told him a stupid story from work. It feels like you’re just two strangers living as roommates instead of two best friends. 

“Do you want me to press play?” You wonder and he nods. The opening titles play, casting the room in a soft glow and Sweet Pea watches you silently while shadows flicker across your face. “What?” You say suddenly, locking eyes with him. 

“I-er. Nothing.” He stumbles and you send him a look. 

“Okay.” You reply. You don’t believe him, but you give him the benefit of the doubt anyway, and start watching the film again. 

You really don’t know what you were expecting to get from this night but you have a feeling you’re not going to get it. Things have been awkward for over a month now. And its the worst. You feel a little lost without him to be honest. You used to spend all your time together, but now you can’t remember the last time you spent more than five minutes together without one of you making up some excuse to leave. 

You miss him, and you miss how you used to be and you have no idea how to get back to the point...if you can.

Its the first time in twenty years that you’ve actually seen a film all the way through. And its torture. The closing credits play, and you stretch before standing. 

“Do you want anything?” You look down and him but he just shrugs before unlocking his phone. 

“Hey, if you ever get lost in the middle of the woods with a creepy ghost lady trying to track you down and tear you limb from limb. I’d search forever for you and then I’d bring you home...possessed or not.” You stop on your way to the kitchen, a small smile appearing on your face as you see a flicker of how you used to be.

”Awww...you’re so sweet.” You smile sweetly at him and he feels a blush creep up his cheeks, although, he’s not really sure why. 

“I know.” He says smugly making you roll your eyes. 

Its silent. So very silent. 

What do people say to each other? 

How do you have a conversation?

“Well, goodnight.” You both say at the same time. You quickly shut your bedroom door behind you and Sweet Pea goes to his room. You slide down the door, your head falling into your hands while you squeeze your eyes shut. 

He does the same in his own room and both of you wonder the same thing 

what the hell happened? 

----

List of diary names: 

- Doris 

- Petunia 

- Harry 

- Louis

- Liam 

- Niall

- Z

Wait, hold on a minute somebody’s calling me. Who calls anymore? And why am I telling you this, you’re a diary? Whatever...oh shit, I’m gonna mis

“Hello?” He answers lazily, barely pulling his attention from the tv playing some cheesy sitcom. His notebook lies closed on his lap, and his fingers trace over the pattern as he waits for a reply. 

“Hello. Is this a, er...Sweet Pea?” A woman asks, there’s a hint of confusion in her tone and he rolls his eyes.

“Yep.” 

“Hi. This is Dr Floyd from the New York City Hospital. You’re listed as Y/n Y/l/n’s emergency contact.” He sits up quickly, almost dropping the phone and his eyes widen. The TV, his diary, the rest of the world is completely forgotten. 

“Is she okay?” He swears he can heart his heartbeat in his ears while he waits for a reply. 

The Dr takes far too long to respond. The few seconds seem to drag on for days while he waits to hear if you’re okay. Its already felt like you’re not around anymore, but what if you are really not going to be hear anymore.

He doesn’t even want to think about that, his chest tightening and he has to hold back a sob. 

“She has been brought in after a car collision. She was crossing the street when a car hit her. I just want-” 

“I’m on my way.” He’s already replied and hung up before she can finish her sentence, grabbing his keys and jacket before running out the front door. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever ran so fast or so far and by the time he makes it to the hospital, he’s sure he looks like he should be in one of the wards. But it doesn’t matter when he finds you. Your eyes are closed and you look so peaceful in your bed. 

The room is a bright white, with faded green furniture that hasn’t been updated since the 70′s are dotted across the room. A blanket covering your body, a green chair with an awful pattern by your bedside, green curtains that are more sun damage than fabric. 

“Shit? Are you dead.” He mumbles, more to himself than to you as he cautiously walks through the door. 

“Nah, just lying down. Whats up?” You ask, opening an eye to look at him. 

“Whats up? Seriously I have just ran to the hospital because I got a call saying you’d been hit by a car. And you ask me whats up?” He huffs, sitting in the chair.  

“Yeah...so whats up?” 

“Nothing much.” He shrugs before realizing where he is again. “Actually a lot is up. You’re body in the air is whats up from what I heard.” 

“You are so dramatic. You always have been. Its just a mild concussion and a few cuts and bruises. I’m fine.” 

“Are you sure.” He looks you up and down, his eyes scanning every part of you, looking out for something the doctors might of missed. When he’s sure you’re okay, he lets his gaze rest on your scratched and bruised face and he lets out a deep sigh. 

Despite the bruises blooming on your cheeks, you still look as pretty as usual and his eyes widen as that thought dawns on him.

“What? Are you okay?” You ask, now worried as you try and sit up, but he’s quickly pushing you back down. 

“I er. I’m fine.” He stutters. “I think I just realized something.” He admits, a deep blush spreading across his cheeks while he looks at the scratchy blanket covering you...shit. 

“Pea?” You ask, your voice quiet. He’s never heard you so unsure of something before. Almost like you’re scared to know the answer to your question. “Are we okay now?” 

“What do you mean?” He forces the words out. He knows exactly what you mean. But now he thinks he’s figured out what’s been wrong the whole time. You may have been scared to hear the answer to your question, but he is absolutely terrified to answer it himself. 

Its been so obvious but he’s been so oblivious. Toni and Fangs were right. Or at least half right. He’s in love with you. And that makes his heart race, but for good or bad reasons, he doesn’t know. 

“Its just. When I saw that car I thought I was going to die. And I remembered us and how we aren’t as close as we were and I realized, that if I was going to die, my biggest regret would be not making things with us right again. I don’t know whats happened over these past few months that have made us not know how to act like human beings around each other. But I know I want it to stop. I miss you Pea. And I don’t ever want to feel that alone ever again...in my bedroom or by the side of the road.” You admit, your eyes trained on the blanket while your fingers play with the frayed edges. 

He slumps in the chair, letting out a long breath while your words settle in. 

“Did you really think you were going to die?” He asks after a few seconds and you look at him surprised. 

“Yeah. One minute I’m crossing an empty road and then all I heard was a high pitched screech and then this car was coming towards me.” You say shakily and he grabs your hand, giving it a tight squeeze. “The thing is though. For a spilt second I made eye contact withe the driver and she looked almost as scared as I did.” You laugh humorously and he sends you a sympathetic smile. “When I was lying on the pavement. I was looking up at everyone panicking around me, and all I thought about was you and how you weren’t there. And how if I died, I never would have got to say goo-” You’re cut off by your own sobs and he quickly wraps his arms around you. His chin resting on your head while he cries his own silent tears. 

“Its okay.” He whispers. “You’re okay now. We’re okay.” 

“I’m glad.” You give him a teary smile once he lets go, and you notice him wiping his own tears away. You grab his hand again and squeeze it reassuringly. The gesture makes his cheeks heat up a little and he has to look away for a little bit until they go back to normal. “Hey.” You start, wanting to distract the two of you. “How many cars do you think you could take on?” 

“Me?” He raises an eyebrow. “A solid ten. If not more. And I’d fight any that tried to get to you too.” 

“You’re so sweet.” You giggle. 

“I know.” He smirks. 

“I keep meaning to ask, how’s your diary going? Have you doodled your crushes name in hearts yet?” You tease making him roll his eyes. 

“Shut up.” He mumbles. 

“Hmm...nah.”

“Its going good. I’m kinda worried though.” 

“About?” You wonder. 

“What if I’m too good at expressing my emotions.” He asks seriously and you have to stifle a laugh. 

“How can you be too good at that?” 

“I could just constantly tell people what I’m feeling. Or, I could use really big, fancy words to emote...see, I did it then. And then I just come off as pretentious.” He rambles and it takes everything in your power to keep a straight face.

“Yeah, I don’t think you have to worry about that.”  

“Oh yeah? Try this.” He clears his throat. “Y/n. I’d crawl across this world for you.” He tries to say it seriously, but the two of you end up laughing loudly, and he thinks to himself that maybe this won’t be so bad. Maybe he can keep being your friend, even if he is in love with you. Plus, he’d rather keep being your friend and just admire you afar, than lose you forever. “I’m in love with you.” He blurts out and his eyes widen. 

“What?” You look at him, your expression mirroring his and he quickly starts backtracking. 

“I mean. I love you as a friend. I’m not in love with you. That would be ridiculous. Sorry.” 

“Is that why everything has been so weird between us?” You ask and he nods slowly. 

“I think so. But I’ve only just actually realized like ten minutes ago.” 

“Thats okay.” You laugh. “I only realized when I was lying on the ground wishing to see your face.” 

“You mean...you love me too?” 

“I think so.” You nod. “Although, it could just be the concussion.” You shrug and he punches your arm lightly. 

“I’ll take take.” He smiles. “So, when you’re feeling better, do you want to have a movie and pizza night, but like, as a date?” 

“I’d love to.” You beam, and press a soft kiss to his cheek. 

“Hey Y/n?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I have so much to write in Harry!” 

“Who the hell is Harry?” 

“...my diary.” 

“...okay?”

[jyvurentropyblog]

How To Choose a POV?

One of my writer friends asked me to write something about POV. She didn’t have a specific question, but basically asked if I might cover the different types of POVs and which ones work better in certain circumstances. 

Well, like I told her, this is going to be a VERY biased post. I am incredibly partial to third limited. I choose third limited almost every story I write. 

Let me start by explaining the different POVs. 

First Person: Uses the pronoun I 

“I went to the store.”

Second Person: Uses the pronoun You

“First you need to go to the store, get some eggs and vanilla extract.”

Second person is rare in fiction. It is most often used in non-fiction books that include instructions, or recipes, or other how-to guides. 

Every once in awhile, a writer will be really artsy-fartsy and use second person in fiction. 

Second person in fiction would look like this:

“You go to the store. You see a long line of people. You sigh and shuffle down the aisle.”

One notable example of second person in non-artsy-fartsy fiction would be the choose your own adventure books. 

Third Person: Uses third-person pronouns such as “She/He/They/Ze/etc

“Ze went to the store.”

But within third-person you have two options:

Third Limited or Third Omniscient

With third limited, readers are privy to the thoughts and feelings of only one character per chapter or scene. A story can still have multiple POVs, but within a scene or chapter, the POV remains only with one character. 

In my novel ‘Desire and Destruction’, I alternate POVs every other chapter. So it goes one chapter in Cole’s POV and one chapter in Ingrid’s POV. When we’re in a Cole chapter, we can see what Ingrid does, but not what she thinks or feels. We can not see into her head. And the reverse is true when we’re in an Ingrid chapter. 

With third omniscient, there is a god-like narrator who is looking into the minds of ALL the characters. This narrator is often somewhat detached and may look down on certain characters and praise other characters. Basically, it isn’t that deep-third that we get with third-limited. The narrator often has their own personality and way of viewing the characters. Within any scene, the narrator can relate the thoughts, feelings, or backstory of any character. 

I do not recommend third omniscient. As I covered in my last post, very few people have the skill to know when to use it AND how to pull it off effectively. Most stories are not enhanced by third omniscient. I’m not saying you should never use it, but don’t jump in and give it a whirl just because a lot of the old classics use this style. 

Remember the time period that was hard AF for third-limited also experimented with narrative style to the point that Frankenstein is told via letters by someone who has nothing to do with the story and just happened to meet Dr. Frankenstein out in the wilderness. It’s a summary of a summary. Wuthering Heights is told exclusively in conversations between the housekeeper and a tenant, neither of whom are main characters. Look.....the classics of the Romantic and Victorian era were....on some real other shit. Writing like the classics isn’t always a solid plan. 

So that’s my extreme cautioning against third omniscient. I just don’t think it adds anything to most stories and is far too likely to jar or confuse readers and come across as head-hopping. 

But third-limited on the other hand....

I ADORE third-limited. Let me explain why I like it. 

You get all the perks of first person AND all the perks of third-person. You can be somewhat detached, but you still get a front row seat to the thoughts and feelings of one character at a time. When you really pull off a nice deep-third, you’re fully immersed in the character’s inner world, but there’s still a bit of a buffer. You still aren’t writing AS the character. 

Here is a section of my book ‘Combustion’ in third-limited where I was going for deep-third. 

~The flame birthed itself at the end of the match. It danced, red and orange, against the backdrop of the still night. Rachel opened her mouth as wide as she could, until the corners of her lips were stretched as far as they would go. She made sure that her mouth was a wide, round circle. Just like the man on fire. Probably just like Mary Reeser had done. She was going to spontaneously combust. She would do it now.

And she could stop waiting for it to happen. She was never going to have to be afraid of it happening again. It was all about to be over. Rachel watched the flame slide down lower, burning away at the wood of the match. It was going to reach her hand soon, so she had to do this fast. Spontaneous Human Combustion started inside the body.

Rachel understood why the man on fire had his mouth wide open.

There wasn't any time left.

Rachel took the match and placed it into her open mouth.~

It’s in third-person, but it’s still written in a way where we can feel her fear, her confusion, her dissociation. We can see her reasoning. Of course, her reasoning is flawed. She should not be trying to make herself spontaneously combust JUST so that she can stop being afraid of it happening. 

So how do you know if you should choose third-limited or first? (because third omniscient and second person should rarely be used). Well, I’m biased, and I believe third-limited works well for most stories. 

That being said, I have chosen first person for two of my stories. One is my now shelved manuscript ‘Femcel’ which I will eventually be rewriting and it will be retitled ‘Pick Me.’ The other is my collab story with Emily Hurricane ‘When The Darkness Takes Us.’

For ‘When The Darkness Takes Us’ I had a very specific reason for choosing first person. This character is a self-insert. It’s a fictionalized account of something very difficult I went through semi-recently. 

So I suppose I’d say, when it’s a really emotional story with strong voice, first person may be a better choice. When it’s a very personal story, first person may be a better choice. When you’re writing a character who rants and raves and switches gears mid-thought-stream so quickly that a third-person narrator wouldn’t do it justice-it would only slow the stream-of-consiousness down. 

I also chose first person for my book ‘Femcel’ which is not currently online, because I need to make some changes to it. 

Here is an excerpt from ‘Femcel.’ 

~If every single day was a day off from work with Sailor Moon dvds and an entire pickle pizza all to myself, well, then I think life would be a-okay. Today has been great. I cleaned my room and then I pulled out my trusty Sailor Moon box set. Auntie and Mom-mom are both at work, so nobody to bug me about what I'm eating. I ordered a large pizza and I got the owner on the phone when the new guy didn't understand that they can put pickles on a pizza. It isn't on the menu, but they do it for me all the time.

I told him, "You charge me for a pepperoni pizza and tell the guy cooking it to put on pickles. Ask Jim. He always does it." But the guy still thought I was full of it.

Eventually they sorted it out though. And yeah, I know it's bad to eat an entire large pizza myself. Don't go thinking I'm a total pig. I only eat like this when I watch anime.

Usually I don't eat enough. Mom-mom says I'm too thin and she isn't wrong. If I lay on my stomach too long at night, my ribs start to hurt. I'm the only woman in my family with a stick body. Everybody else has nice curves. I barely have boobs and my butt is flat. I tried doing squats for awhile, but when nothing much happened, I figured it was probably all nonsense. You know? A placebo.

It's only four in the afternoon, but already it's getting dark. I hate winter. Especially once Christmas is over. I feel so upset and anxious every day in that long dead span of winter, January through March, when there's nothing to look forward to and it feels like the world just dead ass stopped. Sludge in every parking lot. Everything is cold and wet. Kek. And it's the middle of January. Top kek. (I mean that sarcastically. Obviously).~

I chose first for Ana’s story, because I imagined her as this very voicey character with this sweet and sarcastic personality. She’s also incredibly immature (which does make sense since she’s in her very early 20s) and I felt that youth and naiveté would across more strongly in first person. 

So....what’s the hard and fast rule for deciding between third-limited and first?

I....uh.... 

 I wish I could tell you lol

Like my last post about balancing dialogue with other storytelling elements, I have to say, I just play it by ear. 

I will say, I think every writer should figure out early on which POV they prefer to write in. Try them all out. Try writing the same scenes in first and third and see which one you like better. 

I did this while I was getting my B.A in Creative Writing and after several rounds of playing with third-limited and first, I discovered I’m incredibly partial to third-limited. 

That doesn’t mean there isn’t any room for first. Like I said, I realized first was the better choice for two of my WIPs. But knowing that third-limited is my default style, I always have a starting point. I start most stories in third-limited and it’s only when third-limited starts to feel....well...limiting that I give first a whirl. 

In the end, it’s about what YOU as the writer are most comfortable with. Some people say it depends on the story you want to tell, and I agree to an extent, but at the same time, if you hate writing in first person and you try to force it, the story may suffer for it. For years, I wrote exclusively in third-limited before I was comfortable enough to test out first person. 

Third-limited and first both accomplish different things. First person has more voice and immediacy, while third-person allows a writer to be more poetic and detached. 

Which POV do you like best? When you experiment with both POVs, which allows your story to come to life more?

There’s no real rule of thumb. 

Like everything with writing, it’s all a matter of intuition; following your gut and looking at every story as a unique experience. 

I know that was wishy-washy, but it’s the best I can do while still being honest!

There just aren’t any true absolutes with writing. 

Good luck fellow writers <3

[joecial-distancing]

July Roundup

Lifestyle:

I’ve been getting back into running this summer. It’s been about 4 years since I’ve done any serious running, and I have been made painfully aware of the differences in my body at age 29 compared to 25. My knees hurt more, I need to attend to stretching much more seriously than I used to. I’m coming at the task with better self-knowledge than last time, though; I know how far and how fast I’ve been capable of pushing, and I find an enormous amount of comfort and strength from that familiarity. 

I’ve also been applying to jobs, a process which started as nauseatingly daunting, but has gradually settled into just a regular chore of the week (ideally chore of the day, if I’m to keep up with new years resolutions). Getting a resume mushed into a satisfying shape has felt nice, as has getting together a form cover letter that I know hasn’t hurt my chances of getting my foot in doors. Annoyance Boxes checked off, and the rest is getting familiar with the rest of the grind. Interviews have been and will be the same process.

Games:

I’ve also been playing a lot of Sekiro. I’ve always “liked” Fromsoft games, but it’s been rare that I’ve been able to justify the time investment. There’s an appeal in the structure, endless chances to bash myself against a problem until it clicks, being able to run drills when stuck or inadequate (and there is a hook in the inadequacy; nothing frustrates me more than being unable to Just figure out a solution, or requiring too much time to get there. I have a tense relationship with time and deadline pressure. Impatience is one of my greatest vices). So with school finished, I’m diving into this as a treat to myself. The systems are fun, and the camera is so fucking awful that I get unreasonably angry about it. One thing I always do with these games that I think is anathema to a lot of their fans is to spoil myself on what I’m up against. In dark souls I would always have open area maps, rather than try to navigate the combat and exploration simultaneously. It put my mind at ease, I didn’t like the discomfort of the tension of untriggered surprise. And with Sekiro, I know roughly the zones I’m up against, I’m not above watching videos of the boss fights to learn the proper counters etc. No shame, no honor, that’s not what I get out of these games, really.

As with running, so with jobsearch, so with Sekiro, the method is diligence, the appeal is the pleasure of feeling my improvement over time. There is nothing more exciting to me than casually accomplishing something that I know would have annihilated me only a short time ago. I can finish 2 miles in 20 minutes, I want to get it down to 15. This also means the videogame tends to lose out on the priorities list—if I’m wanting to dedicate myself to practice, there’s almost always a different outlet that’d be better outcomes in the long run

very 8 of pentacles mood overall, lately.

Books:

I’m almost done with Pynchon’s Against the Day, which had taken up all of my Reading attention span this month. Unless it does something in the final 8% to lose me hard, it’ll probably clock in as my 2nd favorite of his stuff, behind Gravity’s Rainbow.  Anarchism as expressed against American mining companies, European empires, and the Mexican state; searches for a lost paradise city; warfare between schools of mathematics; the nature of Light. At face value, it feels closest to Gravity’s Rainbow and Mason & Dixon, compared to the rest of his work (I know there’s a lot of subtext and referencing going over my head with all of these in terms of both history and literature; I noticed a lot of reviews of AtD focused about the variety of genre style work that he’s pulling from in certain sections, nearly all of which is lost on me. It has, however, been very fun to me that I’m able to keep up with the mathematic academia infighting depicted in this). There’s a “fairy tales coming to life” quality to all three, if instead of Grimms’ stories it’s historical models of the world: Supersonic rockets wreck the flow of pavlovian cause & effect, the destruction of natural landscape in the course of linear surveying becomes a direct conduit for a massive influx of evil energy, quaternion mathematics casting time as real and space as imaginary allow a yogi to contort himself out of sight and into the imaginary plane. The aether is experimentally disproven in the beginning of Against the Day’s timeline, which doesn’t stop holdout engineers and mystics from working wonders with it.

It feels like there’s about as much going on in here as GR, but where GR is claustrophobically overstuffed (which is also part of the reason it’s a better book) and Mason & Dixon gets kind of plodding, the material here is given space to breathe, without losing momentum. It probably helps that the characters in this are a.) numerous, and b.) unusually solid as far as Pynchon goes.

It’s also got many great examples of something else I really like about Pynchon, which is that he is willing to commit 110% to incredibly stupid jokes. There’s an Elmer Fudd reference in here that completely knocked me on my ass.

Viz:

Watched the Bo Burnham netflix, which was mostly pretty good, though I’m completely out of patience for ostentations self-awareness or fake debate where the ~comedian~ who’s concerned about being ~white privileged mannn~ feels guilty he might be ~taking up space~, doesn’t know that he ~deserrrrves it~... out of patience because I already know what he did with that guilt (if genuine) — he didn’t scrap the project, he released the fucking thing anyway. What am I to do with this, Bo Burnham? Would you like my permission? Would you like an “it’s ok dude” from people of marginalized groups within your audience? Why am I watching along for a decision you’ve quite literally already made? I don’t trust displays of vulnerability before an audience of this size.

Also watched through I Think You Should Leave, which... sure it’s funny, and also very effective at making me uncomfortable, which is clearly what it’s aiming to do, but. I don’t really get why it’s got such a strong cultural draw within the online spheres I’m normally checked into. Saw some discourse about how the quotability is somehow distinct from regular memeing, which, alright get over yourselves jesus christ.

speaking of flavors of the month, watched 50 shades and lmao. I’ve been told by a trusted source the books are worse which is hilarious.

also speaking of flavors of the [century], S.O. and I have been doing a rewatch of pre-MCU comic book movies, which has been some fascinating anthropology. It meant, though, that we had to sit through howard the duck, an absolutely wretched film. Other highlights so far: willem dafoe power rangers acting, the soundtrack on affleck daredevil (incl a fuckin choice Evanescence exercise montage), Blade & Blade II still hold up.

We’ve also made it to the final season of pre-reboot xfiles. Duchovny’s mostly gone from this last season, replaced largely by robert patrick of T1000 fame, who is a better actor but a worse character, dude’s basically just A Cop. The writing’s weirdly probably better than the last couple Duchovny seasons, but the show doesn’t work without him — his bad acting was the main thing keeping things together, the tone’s all off now.

[aqvarius]

[WALKTHROUGH + REVIEW] Masquerade Kiss: Yuzuru Shiba Season 2

Expectations:

I just want to start off by saying that the prologue is absolutely outrageous. There are probably so many targets that hang around the EAC headquarters, especially since HQ is presumably 3 miles within the UN Headquarters and let’s not pretend that there isn’t at least one target going to work there everyday. I actually spent 30 mins on google maps street view trying to find exactly where this location is supposed to be modelled after so I could find all the companies and buildings that have potential targets and then just gave up lol. BUT either way, I refuse to believe that a top international intelligence agency would just go WARNING WARNING and go into emergency lockdown because a target entered a 3 mile radius of HQ. Ridiculous. Also, the letter from the EAC even in the Yuzuru prologue also calls her Arisa Mifune which is her Kazuomi alias lol.

EDIT: I found the location of that background which implies that EAC HQ is modelled after 2 Hammarskjold Plaza or somewhere near (which is right next to the British Consulate btw, how did MC not see that on her way to the building. Also conveniently near something called Japan Society.). Note the octagonal-roofed thing on the bottom left, the general shape of the building, the covered part of the building lobby, the blue sign (afaik street signs in NYC are green) and the position and shape of the building down the road. And I know I’m taking this whole thing way too seriously, but Jeffrey Epstein had a mansion about 2 miles away from here so this whole 3 mile emergency alert thing is just ridiculous. Sure, Epstein probably never existed in the world of Masquerade Kiss but come on, it is highly unlikely that not a single target lives, works or passes by for a kebab within a 3 mile radius of the EAC HQ.

With that out of the way, let’s talk Yuzuru. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to even play Masquerade Kiss ever again. I like most things about the game but Love Choice is honestly just a turn off and the only LC game that I am genuinely drawn to is actually Destind. But then I had 287 unused hearts because I bought a bunch of hearts with the intent of playing Kyogoku’s route in Romance MD (and then I didn’t because I actually just don’t like that game) so I decided to give it a shot. I actually (surprisingly?) prefer Kazuomi to Yuzuru as a character, but I like Yuzuru’s MC more than Kazuomi’s MC and I was intrigued that Voltage would push this whole love quadrangle thing. We’ve seen hyper-jealous Yuzuru before in a substory so I think I went into this route more interested in the plot aspect and to see how they would develop the kind of strange relationship between Yuzuru and his MC. I genuinely enjoyed Yuzuru’s S1 MS a lot and wanted to see how he and his MC would grow as a couple. Also I wanted to play it in order to write a review to bring some traffic back to my semi-hiatus stagnant blog lol. Please give this a like/reblog please I’m begging you please :’(

Keep reading to the walkthrough and review. I’ve calculated a way for you to get to EE with all CGs (50 hearts saved), SHE with CGs (83 hearts saved), or a cheapest overall option to SHE (107 hearts saved).

Stop scrolling after the walkthrough and guide if you haven’t yet played and don’t want the route to be spoiled.

Walkthrough:

Story 1:

Yes, we should keep an eye on him.

No, it’s not necessary

Story 2:

“You came to be with me.” (Love Meter +1) (6 hearts)

I can’t say.

Story 3:

I sign without hesitating.

I hesitate for a moment.

Story 4:

Text Yuzuru.

Don’t text him.

Story 5:

I’ll sign it. (Love Meter +1, CG) (13 hearts)

I’m not going to sign a New York contract.

 Story 6:

Casually intervene. (Love Meter +2) (11 hearts)

Pretend not to notice.

Story 7:

See him out without asking what’s wrong.

Ask what’s going on.

Story 8:

It’s payback time. (Love Meter +1, CG) (16 hearts)

Don’t do anything.

Story 9:

Start touching him. (Love Meter +2) (12 hearts)

I can’t interrupt.

Story 10:

Seduce the info out of him. (Love Meter +1) (8 hearts)

Try to force it out of him.

Story 11: (second chance)

Gently ask about it. (Love Meter +3) (18 hearts)

Now is not the time.

Story 12:

“I’m thinking about you.” (Love Meter +3) (13 hearts)

“Nothin’.”

Story 13:

“It was fun.”

“It was relaxing.”

 Story 14:

Apologize and keep talking. (Love Meter +1) (7 hearts)

Ouch. I have nothing to say for myself…

Story 15:

Play dumb: “What are you talking about?”

Ask: “What if I am?”

Story 16:

Find out if he’s jealous. (Love Meter +2) (18 hearts)

Don’t ask any questions.

Story 17:

“I’ll stay ten more minutes.” (Love Meter +2) (14 hearts)

I have nothing to say.

Story 18:

Ask about his Texas accent.

Don’t ask about it now.

Story 19:

Call out to Yuzuru.

Let him go.

Story 20:

Put up a strong front: “I’m okay.”

Tell the truth: “I’m not okay.”

Story 21: (second chance)

Ask Yuzuru why he did it. (Love Meter +3, CG) (25 hearts)

Don’t ask any questions.

Story 22:

“Not as stubborn as you.”

“You already knew that.”

Story 23 (useless):

Trust Yuzuru and don’t go. (Love Meter +1) (13 hearts)

Right now, I have to go to Jeremy.

Story 24: (second chance but she saves him either way)

Rush over to protect Yuzuru. (Love Meter +3) (19 hearts)

I can’t get there quickly enough.

Guides:

I calculated the cheapest ways to get to Eden End and Super Happy End with CGs and without CGs. Just opt for the heart scenes that I’ve highlighted in each guide below.

Click the read more below for my review. Stop here if you haven’t yet read the route because there are spoilers galore.

Review:

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this route. As I read through, I thought the pacing was excellent and I was really drawn in by everything about it, especially the relationship between Yuzuru and his MC. It has definitely been a while since a LC route really captured my full attention. However, upon rereading my notes and writing this review, I do have quite a few issues with it, particularly the plot. I’ll go through the things I enjoyed about the route first and then discuss what I find to be its limitations.  

So Yuzuru is great in this route. We get a far more expressive and soft Yuzuru. We get to see the most charming side of Yuzuru again, his childlike passion for engineering and innovation. This, in my opinion, is Yuzuru at his softest and most appealing, when he is genuinely passionate and not just doing the hyper-organised scheduling thing (although naturally most of this is hidden behind a heart scene). Sometimes it’s nice to remember that Yuzuru is human.

He’s definitely more playful with his MC in this route, even going as far as to blur the lines between work and personal life a little bit in a way that I found quite unexpected. There’s a lot of flirty banter between them, as well as just little suggestions of flirtations here and there in their body language – in front of people too! Scandalous. It almost reminds me a bit of Kazuomi and his MC, which is definitely a pleasant surprise. A lot of these scenes are hidden behind heart scenes, which I’ll get into later, but I will say that these cute and suggestive moments between the two are probably some of the best moments of the route, and part of the reason why it was so easy to keep reading.

I’ve mentioned this before but Yuzuru’s MC is my favourite version of the Masquerade Kiss MC. She’s great in this route too – cool, calm, great at her job. I also love that she likes Night at the Museum? Lmao me too girl. She has such trashy taste in movies and it’s a cute quirk that definitely makes her more relatable within the sensational premise of the game. Personality-wise, I think they did a good job at bridging the professional and personal aspects of her personality too, making her read like someone who has different personas that are different aspects of the same person. You definitely get a sense of the conflict within the MC when she has to extract information by using her sExUaLiTy when her boyfriend is watching on lol, even when they kind of make it out like a game. It is interesting and quite novel to see a Voltage MC successfully pull off a honey trap on a guy who kind of repulses her. We get snippets of it in other games such as Her Love in the Force but HLITF MC is always careful to keep boundaries so we never get to explore the full potential of the jealousy that can crop up in such situations. MK MC goes above and beyond to give us (and Yuzuru) a show. With that being said, I do feel like they kind of drew back from it a little by having Jeremy be super forward with his affection so the MC just has to respond, keep him on the hook and pull back every now and again, rather than actively needing to pursue someone to obtain information.

I also really enjoyed that moment when Yuzuru tells her to shower before going to his bed to wash off “Mia.” It solidifies that he’s really in love with her and not her charismatic, flirtatious hostess alias. Throughout the route, the blurring of the personal and the professional is definitely a theme that we see cropping up in the lives of both the MC and Yuzuru. It’s something that I find particularly interesting and I’m glad they picked this developmental direction since both Yuzuru and his MC are notoriously bad at mixing those two worlds, with both of them consistently and repeatedly picking work over love. We also get to see Yuruzu and his MC almost working together at times, which I adored. At times, they feel like a team. As always, they have tons of sexual and physical chemistry but they are slowly building up on the emotional chemistry and communication issues which is so crucial for character and relationship development. 

The SHE and EE in particular has some incredibly cute moments. Yuzu’s MC describing them as part of a machine is *chefs kiss* incredible. Their sex scenes are intimate, loving and incredibly romantic. Yuzu preparing his NYC home for MC? Adorable. And, most importantly, him not only tolerating but welcoming his MC’s “bugs” in their relationship? That’s character growth babey. 

With super long LC routes, I always get tired about 7 chapters in and give up and then have to come back and finish it later. However, this route sped along. The pacing of this route is pretty quick and snappy – in fact, I wouldn’t have minded if it was actually longer? Developments tend to happen pretty quickly, there are plenty of moments between Yuzuru and the MC that keep the story moving, and there’s basically very little, if any, ‘downtime’ in this route. Because they are constantly in the club or at Yuzuru’s place lol.

The writing/language quality is great. I felt genuinely tense every time Yuzuru and the MC almost got caught in the club and even more so when the MC went to Jeremy’s home. I couldn’t spot any significant typos or coding errors. The readability of this route is definitely top quality.

Moving onto my gripes with this route, I would say that they have to do mostly with flimsy plot, characters being reduced to plot devices, and lack of relationship conflict.

Firstly, something that I always find a bit off about the premise of EAC is how public their relationships sometimes are and how the MC’s private life even works. Yuzuru literally gets swarmed with people in the prologue asking for autographs and photos and yet later in the route can somehow go on a public date to busy tourist spots in central NYC with a spy? (That being said, I refuse to take that prologue as canon because of how sensationally ridiculous it is.) Let’s not pretend the EAC isn’t watching them lol (they even imply multiple times that this is the case). Is she not worried that Jeremy or Grace or any SHIBA or Space Crystal employees or any of the numerous powerful and dangerous people who frequent Freja will spot them together? There is no way she looks significantly different as Mia than as herself unless she’s wearing prosthetics or can turn off her star aura like Britney Spears can.  Also, is the MC supposed to be mixed? No one has any questions about how a native Japanese woman can get away with being called Mia Knightley?

They also set up this tension of something happening to the MC without Yuzuru ever knowing which never really plays out. There’s a brief callback to it but it’s more about the MC finding an excuse to see Yuzu. I thought the drama would have more to do with the MC having to keep secrets from Yuzu and disappearing but that never happens and so the repeated mentions of this particular source of anxiety don’t really amount to anything. I also wish they made better use of the stun bracelet! I think it would have been cool if that was what took Jeremy out. Symbolically, it could have worked as a physical manifestation of Yuzu’s trust and support of his MC and her job helping to protect her against the Big Bad.

Okay so my main issue is about the villains and the flimsy plot. Jeremy and Grace were such wasted villains!! If this guy went crazy and murdered 3 people… how did he manage to not only reinvent himself but in fact become a very high profile tech executive with more or less the same name? Imagine if Elon Musk was actually a crazy murderer who used to be called Elon Avrevic… there’s no way that he would be able to bury this, especially if he came from nothing and had no connections during the time in his life when he committed these murders. If there are actual criminal reports about his crimes that can be accessed by the EAC and SHIBA, how did he not get taken in for life after murdering 3 people? Why is he even free in the world? It’s such a big plot hole to me… doesn’t have the same fingerprints? Did he get such extensive plastic surgery that he’s not recognisable and also burn off his fingerprints? Evidently not, since the MC can recognise both him and Grace from childhood photos!

I also didn’t think his motivations were really that convincing. We get a throwaway line about his alcoholic father killing his mother because she tried to leave him, but in general they set Jeremy up with so much potential as this psychopath who hunts a very specific type of woman but then they just kind of throw it away with him just going crazy and shooting people because he just wants “girls and money”. Nooo Jeremy they did you so dirty!!!

I just think they built him up as this incredibly dangerous and manipulative predator but then just made him a standard alcoholic incel. He could have been such a good villain. He could have maybe drawn the MC in with sob stories about his mother and actually made her doubt her instincts with his charisma and vulnerability, with it turning out that the whole time he was just luring her in, instead of just relentlessly hitting on her and then getting carelessly drunk and going crazy. He spends so much of the route attempting to play and get with the MC and then just throws it all away by getting pissed and letting her basically have free reign of his apartment? I just don’t buy that a co-founder of Space Crystal would get to the top without being more clever, suspicious and manipulative – especially since he murdered 3 women and still is somehow a free man, ‘disguised’ as a very successful CEO?  Also, if he really just wanted girls and money, there were a thousand other ways of doing it. He could have been so clever and instead they just made him have occasional psychotic breaks with no discernible trigger. Disappointing.

(On a side note, they made his house look weirdly similar to Epstein’s manor. Or maybe all Upper East Side homes look like this, I have no idea. I did look around on Google Maps and I guess a lot of the homes in this area are kind of similar.)

Grace is also a wasted character. She kind of feels like a MacGuffin just to have this love quadrangle in order to play out the jealousy plot but ultimately plays no significant role. Actually, both Grace and Jeremy basically just act as jealousy plot devices, only the jealousy plot isn’t strong enough to actually threaten Yuzu and his MC’s relationship (except for one moment which to be honest doesn’t even play out like that because of jealousy and rather because Yuzu is trying to protect his girl).

Speaking of that moment, I thought that Yuzuru’s “push the MC away plan” could have been stronger. I feel like it’s not like him to do make such a basic attempt at fooling his MC. It might have worked in a different game but all of the MK guys usually know that they can’t trick their MC with cheap Harry and the Hendersons plots and they tend to not disrespect her enough to try. I know that as readers, we enjoy not knowing what the love interest is up to because it ups the tension and drama but I feel like there was a way of having that insecurity and conflict play out while keeping everything a mystery and making better use of the characters. Like maybe it could seem like Yuzuru is running into Grace’s arms after finding his MC in a compromising position with Jeremy when he’s actually doing his own covert investigations and making plans to foil their ultimate plans. Or maybe even working with Grace to take Jeremy’s wild country-bombing plans out. That way, we would prolong the jealousy/love quadrangle plot with the MC stressing about Yuzuru and Grace’s relationship, especially when she already doesn’t trust Grace. It would also make better use of Grace as a character and her position as both someone with a ginormous crush on Yuzuru and as Jeremy’s ‘partner’. If Grace also ended up betraying Jeremy to help Yuzuru and the MC, we could also have had some extra heartbreak about Grace having to betray the one person she has always had in her life (and maybe some extra backstory about Jeremy going nuts as part of having to protect himself and Grace from their parents and the world). #voltagehireme lol. I also find it highly unlikely that Jeremy managed to set up this whole missile-launching phone app business under Grace’s nose, especially when Yuzuru knew about it. Also, the idea of an American attempting to launch a missile to destroy the whole of Japan is a bit… on the nose lol.

The season isn’t really driven by relationship conflict even though they were pushing the whole jealousy line in the marketing. In the end, I don’t think the route is as much about jealousy as it is about trust – but then again, Yuzuru has always placed ultimate trust in his MC even in S1. I can see this being an issue for people who went into this route wanting genuine conflict in their relationship so that they can overcome and work through it to develop. There’s only a little bit of conflict towards the end when the MC goes to Jeremy’s home, and then that kind of gets discarded pretty quickly anyway. They just happen to be better at communication this season, and a lot of that is because of Yuzuru going out of his way to keep tabs on his MC. This is probably what makes the route so easy to read, because Yuzu is more open. However, because of this, while it is great that their communication as a couple improves, it may not necessarily feel that earned? With that said, credit to the writers for making Yuzu more open without making it feel jarring or like he’s had a sudden personality change.

And on another note entirely, I wish there was a bit more detail about the three “S”es and more involvement from Kazu and Kei, who basically just make gratuitous appearances in this route. Learning about them making Takoyaki together at Oxford is such a cute detail and also such an international student in the UK thing to do. Find me one Asian student studying abroad in the UK who hasn’t collectively cooked home food in halls with friends from their country (it’s always hotpot for me lol). I wish there were more moment with them actively involved in helping the MC.

Finally, I have my usual issues about the Love Choice system. If you play the route for free, you get very few cute scenes between Yuzu and his MC, miss out on some major character development moments (esp that planetarium scene) and you get a fade to black ending in the Normal End. Personally, I started playing Voltage in the early 2010s so I don’t mind fade to black endings, but I think the mature/sex scenes are what a lot of MK readers are here for, so it’s a shame that there isn’t even a kiss scene in the NE.

Overall, I would say that the chemistry between Yuzuru and his MC is what keeps this route going and flowing. I would recommend it if you just adore Yuzuru, want to maximise time with him and don’t really care much about plot. Otherwise, while their relationship is brought to new levels, it does not happen because of the plot as much as Yuzu’s response to events we don’t necessarily see, and it does not necessarily feel that earned because the plot doesn’t really put their relationship in that much jeopardy.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually really enjoyed reading this route – I found it super easy to keep reading, and Yuzu kept me hooked. I also love Yuzu more than ever. I think it’s a similar situation to Takane’s route, where the route made me love the love interest more, but has an average/flimsy plot. I imagine that his PoV will reveal more about those events that make him go out of his way to keep an eye on his MC, but as a standalone route, I wish there was more actual relationship conflict leading to more development.

[mypoisonedvine]

Hiya! Could you maybe write a sad/angsty Jaskier imagine where the reader is dying from an illness or something, but when she dies she kinds of a transformation (like yen) where not only does she come back to life, but she’s even more beautiful. After years she eventually finds Jaskier and Geralt again and they reunite ect ect. Could you please make it really emotional? I’m in the mood to cry 😩

Hoo boy, I really ran with this one, because I actually had a vaguely similar idea before I got this ask and I ended up sorta frankensteining the two together into something hopefully enjoyable!  Sorry it took so long, but with a word count of 6k it’s not too shocking that it took me a few days!  Hope you’re still in the mood to cry!  I took a few liberties with the original prompt although I actually had a second idea that followed it more closely in some ways and less so in others.  Maybe I’ll write that one up someday as well but I don’t want to be known for killing readers lol so I’ll need to get some normal stuff out there in between.

Quick disclaimer, I sort of made canon squishy in this one… it’s supposed to be set after Jaskier breaks up with Geralt after the dragon hunt.  Theoretically, he heads straight back home and that instigates this whole plot.  The thing is that he and the reader would be 40 for that to really make sense.  So, I kind of left it vague…. depending on your age, feel free to imagine that less than 22 years have passed lol.  So, just a heads up on that.

WARNING: major character death, in fact it’s the reader and it is depicted graphically.  I would not recommend this story to someone struggling with suicidal thoughts because it does straight up describe you dying, all in second person.  If you think you would find that really disturbing and/or really enticing, please don’t read this!  The good news is, as is made clear in the original request, there’s a happy ending!

Never Really Over (a Jaskier x Reader oneshot)

Rating: T (violence but only implied smut)Word Count: 6kTaglist: never had one of these for an ask before but lol @100percentamess you asked to be tagged in everything so here’s your first!

You were cleaning out an old closet when you found it, tucked away under a floorboard.  When you saw the small decorated chest, you instantly remembered what was inside.  Throughout your childhood you had written him a number of love letters, confessing your undying commitment to him every few years like some kind of triennial tradition.  None of the letters ever made it to him, because you knew better than to dream of him ever returning the sentiment.  Even knowing that, you felt embarrassment burning in your chest when you remembered some of the ridiculous things you had written.  Julian, you’re the love of my life and I know that we’re meant to be together, shit like that.  

You had always wanted to get out of this town, see the world, experience life, but you never got your chance.  That made it sting all the more when you found the letter from him under your door so many years ago.  You didn’t even need to open the box to read it, you remembered it like you had it right in front of you: You’ve been my best friend my whole life and I’ve loved you like a sister.  I hope you won’t be hurt that I’m leaving, but I can’t stay in this place.  I need adventure, and I plan to find it while I tour the Continent with my songs.  If I ever return I’ll be sure to stop by… and if I become a famous bard, you can always say you knew me back when!  -Julian

When you heard a knock at the door you jumped, having lost yourself in the memory.  You slid the floorboard back quickly, and moved a rug over it to cover the cracks.  Running to the door, you swung it open and what you saw made you sure you’d gone mad.

It was Julian.  He’d barely aged, so much so that at first you thought he was some sort of corporeal memory of the day he left.  

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he remarked casually.  

~

“Julian-” you began.

“I go by Jaskier now,” he corrected.

“Unless you’re here to perform, I’m not going to call you by a stage name,” you frowned. 

“It’s not just a stage name: I’ve reinvented myself,” he boasted. 

“Jules, I’ve known you my whole life, and you’re the same you’ve always been,” you shot him down with an eye roll.  He smiled at you and it made your heart ache.

“You’re the same, too.  But you look different,” he observed.  You must have made a face of disappointment because he instantly corrected himself. “Not older, necessarily.  Well, not old.  You look different…” he paused, “but it suits you.”

“Don’t sound so hesitant,” you laughed.

“It’s just strange!” he defended. “But it’s good to see you again.  I missed you greatly.”

You sighed, looking away. 

“You don’t hate me for leaving, do you?” he asked nervously, taking your hand in his.  His touch shot through your entire body, and you wished he wouldn’t do things like that- things that were so unimportant and nonchalant to him but meant so much to you.

“I only hate you as much as I ever did,” you answered quietly, looking back at him.  He looked like he really needed to believe that you didn’t hate him, which was strange: normally he seemed to either not care what people thought of him, or maybe even thrive on negative attention.  He was always meant to be a star: a firm believer in the idea that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

“Strangely, I don’t find that comforting,” he replied with a chuckle.

“You best not come to me for comfort, don’t you remember how mean I am?” you smiled back.

“Yes, but never to me!” 

“Well, you left,” you responded, and the mood was dampened.  Regretting to have lost the energy, you piped up quickly with a question. “How were your travels?”

It didn’t seem to help.

“Oh, lovely,” he said, but his energy didn’t match the words. “Saw all sorts of wild things.  You’d have loved it.  We were going to make it to the coast- we never did.  But you’d have loved it,” he reflected somberly.

You sighed, imagining how incredible it would be.  To think that he thought of you in such interesting places made you wonder if he would be willing to go with you, like you’d always wanted.

“Maybe we should go,” you suggested hesitantly.

“No, you’d have a terrible time,” he deflected.

“But you just said I’d have loved it,” you remembered.

“I meant being there, but travelling?  You don’t have the constitution for it,” he scoffed.

“What I don’t have the constitution for is staying here,” you countered, sadness palpable in your voice.

“Well, now that I’m back I’m wishing I’d never left,” he groaned.

“Don’t be ridiculous.  Please tell me you won’t be staying long,” you replied incredulously.

“Best not to, I suppose.  Maybe I’ll go to the coast on my own-” he began.

“Take me with you,” you pleaded, gripping his doublet, having lost all sense of dignity, “I need to leave this place.  I can’t die in this town, Julian.  I need to see the world!  I’ve never seen the ocean, the mountains-”

“No,” he repeated.

“Please,” you begged.

“I don’t do that anymore,” he grumbled, turning away to pick up his bag and starting to walk away. “It’s over, alright?”

“What?”

“I was travelling with someone but… I guess I drove him as crazy as I always drove you.  And he told me to leave him alone,” he sighed.

You felt guilty for pressing on it, not realizing it was still a sore spot.

“You didn’t drive me crazy,” you comforted, “not really.”

“I think I’m just too much.  I’m too intense for most people,” he explained.

“Most people are terrible,” you groaned. “Remember how we talked when we were young?  How everyone was so pompous and ridiculous and fake?”

“Yeah,” he smiled a little at the memory.

“Well, we were right.  I mean, I know we were whiny little brats,” you smirked, “but this town hasn’t changed much.  All gossip and nonsense.”

“It’s not this town, it’s the whole Continent,” he corrected.  “Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of it, and people are the same everywhere.”

You didn’t say anything at first.

“Except you,” he added, “of course.”

You smiled but it hurt when he said things like that.  All the “love you like a sister” crap that made being his friend so painful, and now more than ever you couldn’t escape from it.  Of course a part of you was glad to see him again, but now that he was in front of you, it was like not even a day had passed since he left: you still loved him so completely, so desperately, and so pointlessly.  

~

You heard him singing, ever so quietly, from around the corner.  You always thought he had a lovely voice but he’d never liked to play for you.  He said it gave him stage fright, something he failed to experience on actual stages.  You figured he was just holding out on you, for whatever reason.  You didn’t want to spy but also you couldn’t really help it, since you were visiting his family’s home and he had been silly enough to play a song with the door open.  He started and stopped and started over a few times, but once he got going for good, you were close enough to be able to hear the words…

She is the sun, bright and unforgivingBurning the grass and drying the rainI never looked at her, afraid to go blindI loved her light though she brought me such pain

She is the sun and when she walks awayThe world gets colder though the sky is in bloomAs the sun sets I ask if I’ve lost my chance foreverBut she could never stay and to the night I am doomed

“Ah, fuck, doomed doesn’t really rhyme with bloom, does it?” he interrupted himself.  You jumped a little, not realizing how entranced you were by the song, and you reached up to wipe a few stray tears from your cheeks.  You couldn’t be mad at him for singing a song about another woman when he didn’t even know you could hear, but you were angry regardless.  Moreso than angry, just sad.  Wasn’t love supposed to make you feel good?  Loving Julian was a thankless job, certainly.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, and you jumped again, not even having noticed he’d turned the corner.

“Just mopping,” you blurted out.

He looked around for a moment with a raised eyebrow.

“…where’s your mop, then?” he (fairly) queried.

“Still in the kitchen,” you explained, “I’m planning where I’m going to mop.”

“I figured you could sort of just wing it with mopping.  Didn’t realize there was a pre-mopping phase.”

“Oh, absolutely,” you nodded, “it’s really important.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to keep you.  Get on with it,” he encouraged, starting to go back into his room.

“Wait,” you prompted.  He stopped, turning back to face you. “I liked the song.”

“I was hoping you hadn’t heard that,” he replied nervously.

“Why?”

“I didn’t want anyone to hear it until it was finished,” he explained.

“And when it’s finished, will you play it at the local pub or something?” you asked, remembering his earliest performances when you were fifteen or so.

“No, too personal for that: I was planning to play it for the subject,” he explained.  You winced.

“I’m sure she’ll love it,” you responded quietly

“Yeah, the Countess is fickle and all but she usually spreads her legs for a good song,” he smiled mischievously.

Thinking of him with someone else, especially like that, made you want to vomit… then you would actually need to mop.  

“Why did you come here?” you asked him, finally, after wanting to understand for so long.

“I… I needed some time at home,” he answered, but you didn’t buy it.

“Why now?  And why did you come to my door?” you growled.

“Are you offended by that?  Am I not allowed to visit a friend?” he responded in confusion.

“I didn’t even realize we were still friends!” you admitted.

“Why wouldn’t we be?” he asked like it made no sense at all, and you were thankful you weren’t holding anything because you likely would’ve thrown it.

“You left without a proper warning, I didn’t hear from you at all for… a long fucking time, and now you have the audacity to come back!” you barked.  “I already gave you everything, and you threw it away, searching for adventure!  What could you possibly want from me now?”

"It’s just my selfishness, I suppose, but I wanted to know there was someone out there who still cared for me,” he defended.

"You’re asking me if I care for you?  Is that really what’s on your mind?” you asked incredulously.  He didn’t respond, seeming confused.You felt tears sting the back of your eyes, rage burning through your chest.  You were tired of lying, tired of running around and being his pet all so you could be near him when he wanted nothing from you but a reminder he wasn’t totally alone in the world after he’d burned every bridge- including the one you had been standing on, waiting, for all these years.

“Julian Alfred Pankratz, I will love you until the day I die.  I promise you that.”  You tried to say it with the anger, hatred even, that you felt, but most of it was lost as your voice wavered from crying.  You turned away and walked outside, sobbing so hard you weren’t sure that you would be able to walk home properly.  You did, eventually, and immediately crawled into bed and cried yourself to sleep.

~

Maybe it wasn’t even noon yet, but it felt like time for a drink.  The pub was empty, at least at first; halfway through your fourth mug, an old acquaintance, Viktor, walked in and sat beside you.

“Bit early for that, isn’t it?” he frowned.  

“Then what are you doing here?” you asked.

“Looking for you,” he answered.

You chuckled, considering how disappointed he must be to find you like this: eyes still swollen from crying, half-drunk, more cynical and calloused than ever.

“So, listen, I’ve been thinking,” Viktor began, and you fought the urge to roll your eyes.  Despite being nearly an old maid at this point, Viktor had always sought you.  You’d known him your whole life and he was always a pest: rude, aggressive, dull.  Dumb enough to think you hadn’t realized his feelings for you.  He had proposed marriage twice, never having much of a better reason than “we’re both still single and it would make our families happy if we married.”  And now here he was, bothering you while you were trying to have a drink in peace, presumably so he could do it all over again.

“I’m not here to ask you to marry me,” he clarified, as if reading your mind.  You perked up a bit at that.

“I’m finally too old for you?” you scoffed.

“Don’t be like that,” he frowned, “you’re not old.  It makes perfect sense to me that you’re unmarried at this age, even if everyone calls you an old hag and a spinster.”

Viktor had a way of trying to be nice but it always ending in an insult.  Not that it was news to you that people talked about you that way.

“And why do you think I’m unmarried?” you pressed.

“Because you haven’t gotten to know anybody well enough,” he posited. “Look, I’ve known you my whole life, so I always figured I knew you well enough for marriage, but I see that you’re right now.  We don’t really know each other that way.”

You nodded. “Good, you’ve come to see reason then.”

“There must be some way that we could, though,” he added. “A date; courting.”

“Courting?  I’m not fourteen,” you grimaced.

“Whatever you’d want to call it.  I’d come by tomorrow and we’d go for a walk.  And we’d talk about whatever we wanted to, and we’d see how we get along when it’s just us,” he offered.

“Sound boring,” you mumbled.

“Don’t be so mean,” he requested.

“I was always mean and you still fell for me.”

“I was always nice and you still ignore me.  If you would just stop chasing something you’ll never get-” he began, but as you looked at him he stopped and started over.  “You have to stop hurting yourself over people who don’t care about you,” he explained. “If you gave me a chance, you’d appreciate how nice it feels to know someone cares for you.”

I wanted to know there was someone out there who still cared for me, you remembered Julian saying.  Apparently everyone else wanted to be cared for, but you were too busy caring to consider your own feelings.  You were so tired of fighting for Julian and rebuffing Viktor and shouldering the burden of spinsterhood in a conservative town like this one.

“Alright, come by tomorrow, then,” you acquiesced.  Viktor smiled.

“You won’t regret it- you’ll learn to appreciate me,” he predicted as he stood up to leave.

“The beginning of every successful relationship,” you replied sarcastically, but he seemed to take you literally.  What a moron.  At least he was nice enough- and actually had the integrity and honesty to tell you how he felt… not that you felt particularly integritous after your confession to Julian.  But you were optimistic; maybe this was a step in the right direction.  So why did the idea of letting go of him, even when you had known you needed to for years, hurt so deeply?

~

You stayed drunk through the afternoon but stopped drinking after a while, so you could go to bed sober.  You stayed up later than normal, avoiding sleep and the torturous dreams of love that it always brought.  It had started to rain- downpour, actually- and the thunder would’ve kept you up anyhow.

You heard a knock at your door and answered hesitantly, unsure who would be coming by so late.  When you opened it you saw Julian, soaked through with rain, looking like a lost puppy.  Of course you wanted to invite him in from the rain but you were still angry so you let him stand out there a bit longer.

“What are you doing here?” you asked.

He looked at you, and when you looked back into his eyes, you saw it.  You understood instantly what was really going on.

“Oh, oh no,” you reprimanded as you stepped back, wagging a finger at him. “No, Julian- don’t you dare.”

“I can’t help it,” he defended.

“No, no, don’t you dare love me now!” you ordered.

“Why can’t I?” he asked quietly, stepping towards you, through the doorway and out of the rain.  You stepped back again, running into a wall and bracing against it.

“It’s too late.  Jules, after all these years…” you trailed off, but then shook your head. “It’s too late,” you repeated.

“It can’t be too late,” he refused, “there has to be another chance.”

“You ran out of chances,” you explained, starting to cry, “it’s over.  Julian, it’s too late.  At some point, it has to be too late.”

“There has to be another chance for us,” he asserted.  You sobbed when you heard him say that word, ‘us.’

“Jules, no,” you wept, “I waited for so long.  I thought that if I loved you hard enough, that you would have to love me back.  And you left.  Julian, you left.  I had to give up.  I had to let it go.  I had to stop loving you.”

“But you didn’t,” he remembered, and you watched as a tear ran down his own face.

“Because you’re my fucking curse!” you screamed. “You’re my ghost!  You fucking haunt me!  Loving you has taken everything from me!”

“I never asked you to love me all those years!” he countered, his voice raising but not matching yours.

“But you’re asking me to now,” you scoffed.

“I’m not asking for anything.  I just need you to know the truth,” he explained.

“Bullshit,” you spat. “You came here because I was always your back-up plan.  You tired of whoring around, and you decided to come back because I was the stable option, the safe option.  You never wanted my love, you just wanted my attention.”

“For a long time, I didn’t understand the difference between love and attention,” he responded with a quiet, somber tone.  Your anger subsided partially.  “I didn’t understand the need for loyalty or reliability.  And then I lost everything.  The first thing I thought of when I considered coming here wasn’t my family, my house, my culture.  It was you.  I wanted to go home,” his voice began to waver tearfully, “and coming back to you was coming home.  I lost everything and all I had left was you.  And it’s not because you were my second choice.  It’s because I’m a fucking idiot who couldn’t see how much I needed you until-”

“Until it was too late,” you finished.

“Don’t say that,” he pleaded, stepping towards you again, this time touching you, grabbing your arms gently but with urgency.  His hands were warm, even when they were wet with cold rain. “Gods, don’t say that, please.”

You looked up at him and cried; you cried because you knew that there was no ending for you but heartbreak. 

“The day I met you, when I was just a few years old, was the day my life was ruined,” you whispered. “Cursed forever to live a life at your beck and call, because I loved you with everything I had.  I’ve never been able to stop, even when I hated you and even when I needed to let you go and move on so that I could live.  Julian, I waited my whole life for you…”

“You don’t have to wait anymore,” he whispered back, leaning down as his face moved closer to yours.  You whimpered weakly, your crying beginning to soothe.  His hand wiped your tears away, and you rested your face into his palm.  His touch was so warm, delicate, comforting.  

“I love you,” he confessed, examining your face.  You nodded, still crying partially from the initial hurt and partially from a solemn joy of everything you ever wanted suddenly right in front of you.  He was so close now that his face was just a few centimetres from yours, you could even feel his breath, see every drop of water running down from his hair into his face.  “Tell me it isn’t over,” he begged.

“It was never over,” you reassured, closing the distance between you and kissing him softly.  You were both still crying, just a little, perhaps mourning all the time lost that you could never get back.  And yet, all the anger of the past and the fear of the future washed away, and all that was left was being together in this moment.  The hand on your face moved to hold your head and neck, and the other pulled you closer at the waist.  Feeling his body pressed against yours was like cozying up to a warm fireplace, his presence a golden glow against the cold, dark world outside.  You wrapped your arms around his neck, deepening the kiss and starting to fall back into his arms.  He held you tightly, the wetness of his clothes soaking through yours quickly.  You didn’t even gasp when he picked you up, too lost in the kiss and trusting him too much to be afraid of falling.  He carried you down the hall, kicking the bedroom door open but setting you down onto the quilt gently.

~ 

You awoke to sunlight streaming in through the window, and the feeling of Julian’s fingers running through your hair.  You turned to face him, appreciating how lovely he looked washed in the sunrise.  You indulged yourself in looking at his muscular shoulders and chest where they weren’t covered by the bedsheets.

“Good morning,” he smiled.

“I can’t believe that really happened,” you whispered, mostly to yourself.

“I can,” he replied. “It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” you answered, feeling yourself blush a bit. 

“We should go somewhere,” he suggested suddenly.

“Where?” you asked.

“Wherever you’d like,” he shrugged.  You ran your fingers down his chest, admiring the thick layer of dark hair, imagining all the places you could go.

“Take me to the ocean, then,” you requested.

“The middle of the ocean?  Or is the coast alright?” he smirked.

You laughed.

“I’m serious!” he defended. “I’m not opposed to sailing.  It’s rather peaceful.”

“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?  The water?” you imagined.

“Nothing quite like it,” he smiled serenely.

“Promise you’ll take me,” you demanded.

“I promise,” he whispered as he moved a stray lock of hair out of your face.

“Soon?” you pressed.

“There’s nothing keeping us here.  We could leave tomorrow if you’d like,” he offered. 

“Not planning on running off without me again, are you?  This wasn’t all some convoluted ploy to get me into bed?” you asked, mostly joking.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he laughed, sitting up and pulling you closer.  Soon he was hovering over you, and your legs wrapped around his waist before you could even think about it.

“Twice in a night didn’t satisfy you?” he smirked.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be satisfied,” you replied.

“And to think you accused me of wanting to run off!  I’m not sure I’ll ever get out of this bed, if you have your way,” he teased, leaning down to kiss your neck.

“I waited so long for this,” you explained, “I suppose my patience has run thin.”

“Then I won’t keep you waiting any longer,” he growled, and you bit your lip as you smiled.

You startled when you heard a knock on the front door.

“Who’d be coming by at this hour?” Julian asked with confusion.

As if to answer, you heard Viktor’s voice coming from across the house: “Are you all right?” 

“Fuck,” you whispered, rolling out from under him and hopping out of the bed.  Despite the commotion and the events of the night previous, Julian still took a moment to look you up and down as your naked form was exposed.  “I forgot he was coming over today,” you hissed.

“Tell him to bugger off,” he scoffed.

“Alright, but I need to get dressed and you need to stay hidden,” you commanded.

You searched for your clothing strewn about the floor, slipping back on your wrinkled dress and attempting to make some sense of your hair.

Dressed enough to answer the door, you shooed a half-clothed Julian into a corner where he couldn’t be seen from the entryway.  You dashed down the hall and opened the door, and Viktor was waiting on the other side.

“Viktor!  Good morning!” you said cheerfully, holding the door only enough to fit your body into it, hoping he wouldn’t see much of the messy room behind you.

“Isn’t that what you were wearing last night?” he noticed instantly.  You sighed, not realizing your plan wouldn’t last even through one sentence.  What you especially didn’t realize was that, upon understanding what most likely had happened, Viktor would push past you, entering in a rage.

“Wait, stop!” you protested, but it was too late.  Viktor stormed towards the bedroom, from which Julian had emerged and then immediately started to run away. 

“You,” Viktor growled as he pointed to the topless bard.

“Hey, long time no see!” Julian cheered weakly.

“Bastard!” Viktor bellowed, chasing Julian down and pinning him against the wall. 

“Stop!” you demanded, rushing towards them.  Viktor released Julian only for a moment to grab you by the collar of your dress, and you yelped.

“I’ll deal with you next, whore!” he spat, the back of his hand slapping you across the face so hard that you spun onto the floor.

Julian launched at Viktor, the two falling next to you on the ground and wrestling in a flurry of punches.  You tried to kick them off of each other but the fight grew more brutal quickly.  Soon Viktor had forced Julian onto the ground and was punching him over and over, each hit bloodying his face more and more.

“Stop, please!” you begged, but he wasn’t listening.  You were sure that he was going to kill him, and you scrambled towards your bedside chest.  Opening it, your dagger was laid right on top, and you wasted no time grabbing it and running over to the two of them.  You grunted as you swung the blade down, stabbing Viktor in the back.  He cried out, falling onto his side on the floor.  Julian weakly sat up, sliding along the ground to get away from his attacker.  You watched Viktor struggle for a moment and then relax, a large pool of blood already forming under him.  You rushed to Julian’s side on the floor, examining his face.

“I’ll be fine,” he reassured before you could even ask.

“It looks pretty bad,” you winced.

“You saved me- I thought he was going to kill me,” he groaned.

“I couldn’t let you go that easy,” you smiled.  Julian closed his eyes, leaning his back against the wall as he sat in the corner of the room.  You looked at him with a smile: even bloodied and beaten he looked like everything you’d ever wanted.

You stood up and turned around, hoping to be able to care for Viktor’s wound, and everything happened so fast that you were on the floor before you realized exactly what had occurred.  You looked up just in time to see Viktor topple to the ground and die, a trail of blood behind him.  The wound in his back was empty, and you looked down to see your own dagger plunged into your gut.

“No!” Julian yelled, crawling towards you and examining the wound before grabbing your face. “No, no, no, no,” he rushed, tears running down his face as he scrambled around you to try to decide what to do.

“Julian,” you tried to soothe him, feeling a burning heat radiating from where you’d been stabbed.

“Oh Gods, I’ll go get someone- there must be a healer nearby-” he began desperately.

“Julian, look at me,” you requested, your voice weaker.  You felt so tired.  He obeyed, the fear in his expression clear even as you couldn’t see him that well through your tears.

“It’s over,” you whispered.

“No, no, it’s not,” he reassured as he shook his head, “it can’t be.  You’re going to be okay.  And we’re going to be together.”

"We were together, and it was beautiful,” you remembered, stopping to cough which sprayed blood from your mouth.

“It’s not over,” he repeated, but the way his voice wavered made it clear that he didn’t believe it entirely.  “I can’t lose you again.”

It was getting harder to fight to stay awake, and you didn’t want to fight anymore.  You felt like if you just let go, you could fall back into something warm and dark and peaceful.  And you were ready to let it wrap around you and take you home.  He grabbed your hand and held it in his, planting a kiss on your knuckles and holding your fingers against his forehead.  His touch kept you lucid a bit longer, but your fingers were already so cold…

“I kept my promise,” you whispered, a warm tear rolling down your cheek as you felt everything blur and soften, your vision narrowing down to a point even though you couldn’t tell if your eyes were closing.

“No, no, please don’t go…" Julian’s begging faded away into the quiet static of sleep.  

~

You startled awake, and instantly you couldn’t see or breathe.  Your body flailed against the oppressive darkness and you felt it moving against you, felt that there was something to struggle against.  Pushing back against the weight, your hands were suddenly cold and you remembered the feeling as air.  Sitting up, you were freed, coughing hoarsely as you breathed for the first time you could remember in a long time.  Opening your eyes, you saw you were on the beach, surrounded by and covered in sand.  You looked behind you and observed the hole you had just crawled out of.  Just above where your head must’ve been lay a pile of rocks, and remnants of dead flowers.  This was a burial ground.  Your burial ground.

You vaguely remembered dying, the sensation of holding Julian’s hand as you slipped away.  You could imagine it so clearly that it almost felt real, like you’d only let go of him a moment ago.  You reached down to your stomach where the knife had been, and found a bloodied hole in your clothes but no damage on your skin.  

You touched your hair and it was braided.  You looked through the sand and found flowers everywhere, even a bouquet.  You began to cry as you realized that Julian had kept his promise to take you to the ocean, and even gone so far as to prepare your body for a funeral and decorate your sandy coffin with flowers.

There has to be another chance, his words from the night before you died rang in your head.  You stood up, your legs still a little wobbly as you got used to walking again.  But quickly you were running, determined on your mission to find Julian and fix this for good.  You weren’t sure how you were alive, but you knew why: he and your teenage self were right.  You were meant to be together.  And now not even Death could stop you.

~

“Tell me the date,” you demanded as you swung open the door to the mage’s office.  He motioned to an astrological calendar on the wall, and you examined it.  

“It’s been exactly a year,” you realized aloud.

“Since when?” the mage asked curiously.

“Since I died,” you said casually.

The mage stood up, pulling out a chair and gesturing towards it.

“Please, have a seat,” he requested.

~

“I’m not sure I came back from the dead,” you groaned as you looked at yourself in the mirror.  You saw some features that you shared with your memory of how you’d looked before, but you saw yourself as a stranger.  Everything you’d hated about your face and body (and there was a lot) was gone.  No pockmarks from your childhood illness.  No wrinkles around your eyes and mouth.  Stronger jawline, bigger eyes, fuller lips.  Your hair was fuller as well, and even the colour was different.  It wasn’t like looking at an entirely different person necessarily, moreso just yourself with several minor changes that really added up, but it was quite the shock regardless.

“In my experience with resurrection, a physical change is normal,” the mage explained.

“You have experience with resurrection?” you asked incredulously as you turned to him.

“No,” he frowned.

You grimaced, looking back to yourself in the mirror, tugging at your skin as if the mask would peel off and you’d look like the old you again.

“So, you don’t know how or why you’ve changed?” the mage interrogated.

“Yes, of course,” you sighed.

“And you don’t know how or why you’re alive?” he asked.

“I don’t know how,” you answered, “but I know why.”

The mage waited for an explanation.

“Love,” you stated plainly.  “Do you think love can create miracles?”

He pondered for a moment before he replied. “Destiny gets her way,” he decided, “and even Death bends to her will.”

“I’ve always known he was my destiny,” you remembered.

“I have to say, I’ve had quite a peculiar day,” the mage admitted.  You glared at him.  “Not quite peculiar enough to compete with yours, of course, but peculiar nonetheless.  I don’t usually spend all day talking about destiny.”

“I thought that was normal fare for a mage.”

“Most people come here asking to either lift a curse or cast one.  Destiny is a rarer issue.  Just before you came in, I was discussing it with someone else- a witcher, if you’d believe it,” he recalled.

“I’d believe anything now,” you smirked.

“Say, do witchers normally have travelling companions?”

Your face dropped and you stood up from your seat.

“Tell me where they went,” you demanded.

“I try to offer my clients privacy, a sense of discretion-” he began, but he choked when you grabbed him by the collar.

“Tell me where they were headed, now,” you repeated through your teeth.

~

“You’ve aged more in the past year than you did in all our travels together,” Geralt observed.

“I lost everything,” was all Jaskier said.

Suddenly he looked to the horizon, not for any reason, just a feeling that he should.  Staring ahead he saw a silhouette begin to emerge from over the hill.  You looked back at him and you prepared to explain who you were, what had happened, why you changed (not that you understood all of that yourself).  Instead he started to run to you, and you couldn’t fight back your ecstatic smile as you began to run to him as well.  When you met in the middle he embraced you, spinning you around and pulling you into a kiss that made you feel properly alive again, more than before.

“It was never over,” he told you quietly as he pulled back from the kiss.  

“How did you know it was me?” you asked, running your fingers down his cheek. “You buried me.  I look completely different.  I don’t even recognize myself.”

“I could just… tell,” he shrugged.

“But how?” you demanded.

“Because it’s you,” he answered simply, using his hand to brush some hair out of your face. “It was always you.”

You kissed him again, with enough passion to make up for the all the time lost, and yet, brimming with hope and excitement for the future.

[otomeloversunite]

Gideon, Episode 1

(Welcome to my fanfic, lol. I tried to write it as close to an actual episode as I could, down to the background and expression changes -- limited by Tumblr -- as well as the music for each scene. I even kept the word count the same. Committed to authenticity. 😤  At this point teaching is keeping me incredibly busy, so I thought I would at least post the first episode, in case I never get to continue it. Enjoy!)

Music: Everyday 1

ADARAEN: “Hello and welcome! Can I get you a pint of ale?”

It’s another day at the tavern, and business is bustling as usual. I barely have time to greet a new group of customers before my co-worker Rosie catches my eye with a glance as she passes. 

ROSIE: “Adaraen, the table in the corner is looking a little dry,” she says, wiping down a table with a wet rag.

I follow her gaze towards the back. It’s the same group of drunken hunters that comes to the inn every week. They’re a rowdy bunch, but nothing I can’t handle.  

ADARAEN: “It’s okay, I’ve got them.” 

They flirt with me as I refill their drinks, but it’s easy to ignore -- just another part of the job. I swat one of their hands away when he reaches out to pinch my backside, though.

“Ah, ah ah. Mind your manners.” I wag my finger at him, tsking. “I hope I’m getting a tip for all this trouble.”

The hunter at least has the decency to look sheepish. Another of them flips me a coin, and I pocket it before heading back behind the counter to catch my breath. 

Rosie settles down beside me, leaning on her elbows on the bar.  “How will we manage without you?” she asks with a sigh. 

I give her a smile. “You are amazing, and you will do just fine."

It’s been a week now since I got a letter summoning me to Altadellys. I still don’t know why, but a carriage is supposed to be arriving for me today.

(Soon! Any minute, maybe!)

By Rosie’s smile I can tell that she’s as happy for me as I am. 

Sometimes we can see the floating city on clear days, and travelers often bring stories. I’ve heard the city is separated into quarters representing all four seasons, instead being locked in eternal winter like the Wilds.

(What would another season even feel like?)

I’m excited to find out, but I have no time to let my thoughts wander further when there’s another call for drinks.

After a few hours the tavern crowd has thinned out, and that’s when I hear the whinnying of a horse as a carriage rolls to a stop outside.

(It’s here at last! For so many years I’ve dreamed of going to the capital, and now that dream is finally coming true!)

I’ll miss the village, and I’ll miss Rosie, but I can’t wait to know what my future holds.

ADARAEN: “Bye, Rosie! Take care!” 

I grab my things and fling my arms around her for a final hug.

Music: Wilderness Magic

It’s flurrying lightly when I step outside into the snow. I look upwards through the trees at a sky full of gray clouds, and soft flakes fall onto my eyelashes. I blink them away, then smile gratefully at the footman waiting to help me into the carriage. 

The horses’ hooves clop steadily along as we ride, and the village gradually fades to a dark speck among the trees.

As I watch it disappear from view, I think of all my memories there, both happy and sad -- the good times and the hard times. 

(It was never easy being an orphan. But plenty of people treated me kindly. Maybe in Altadellys I’ll have the chance to look for my real family.)

The carriage rocks gently as we ride through the snow-covered forest. Eventually my eyes begin to droop, and I lean my head against the padded carriage seat.

PHONE EFFECT: VIBRATION

Music: Suspense 1

(What in the slush!)

My eyes fly open as I jolt awake, and I steady myself against the carriage’s sudden stop. 

I can hear raised voices coming from outside. Blinking rapidly to clear my head of grogginess, I lurch forward to peer through the window.

It’s dark outside now, and the snow is falling so densely that I can barely see past the first line of trees. The wind gusts suddenly, sending up a swirl of thick flakes.

(Oh no. I know this kind of weather. This is going to turn bad quickly.)

One of the horses neighs in alarm, and I hear another angry exchange of words from outside. I can’t hear what’s being said, but it’s definitely an argument.

For a second I freeze, unsure of what to do since I don't know what’s happening. But then a sudden shout makes up my mind. Something thunks against the outside of the carriage.

(There’s no way I’m going to wait in here to find out what’s going on. Not when someone might need my help.)

Everyone raised in the Wilds knows how to defend themselves, and I’m no different. I slip my hunting knife from its sheath, and open the carriage door, scowling towards the sound of the voices as my boots sink into the snow.

Music: Dramatic 2

DEFINITELY NOT A FOOTMAN: “Her! She’s the one!” 

I hear a voice coming from near the tree line, and can barely make out the shape of a man in dark colors. Others stand near him, and I can feel their attention snap towards me.

Then they start moving towards the carriage.

Something zips past me into the snow, and only too late I realize that what hit the carriage was an arrow.

My heart begins to pound.

(Highwaymen? Could it be the Silver Dagger?)

The famous outlaw has been seen often in these parts, but he isn’t known for hurting anyone.

FOOTMAN: “Run, miss!” 

I see the glint of metal as our attackers draw swords, and quickly realize my tiny dagger will be of no use.

I do the only thing I can. I turn towards the opposite side of the forest and run.

The wind whips against me as I sprint through the barren trees. Storms come quickly in the Wilds, and the snow storm has already started to worsen.

I can’t tell if I’ve escaped my pursuers until a tall figure suddenly blocks my path. 

Before I can react, I see the flash of their weapon, and throw up a hand to protect myself. My vision flashes white with pain as the sword slashes into my skin.

As if from a distance, I hear myself screaming.

Then the attacker is upon me again, and I stab upwards with my own dagger, struggling with all my might to protect myself.

(No no no!)

The snow is red around us as I scramble away from the groaning bandit. 

I fling myself headfirst into the storm, clutching my bloody fingers.

(Why is this happening? Why were they after me?)

The pain is almost too much to bear and I scream aloud in agony, before quickly remembering that there are other attackers still out there.

Biting down on my lip with a whimper, I grit my teeth and push onwards through the forest. 

I don’t know where I’m going. It’s impossible to see more than a few feet in front of me in the raging storm. The wind cuts through my coat like a knife. 

I’m so cold.

(I must be hours from my village. But I’ll die if I don’t find shelter soon.)

I stumble over a rock buried under the snow, and I shout again when I have to throw my hands out to catch myself.

As I raise my head I see another figure moving towards me, obscured by a field of white. 

I fumble for my dagger with numb fingers, but as the figure gets closer I can finally see them clearly -- and he doesn’t look like a highwayman at all.

[FIRST CG: Gideon as seen from below, wearing a heavy coat and a look of surprise. Snow swirls around him.]

Music: Gideon Theme

He’s tall and broad shouldered, with a neatly trimmed beard, and a curious clockwork apparatus over one eye. And he looks absolutely shocked to see me.

PROBABLY A LITERAL LIFESAVER: “What is someone doing out in this storm?”

ADARAEN: “I wasn’t-- I didn’t mean to be. I--” 

My tongue feels heavy, and I shudder. I clutch at my injured hand, struggling to put my thoughts together.

The man drops to one knee beside me, intelligent green eyes sweeping me over. They widen when they fall on my hand.

Only now do I notice that the snow is darkened with blood where I fell.

HANDSOME AND HELPFUL: “What happened to you?”

He shakes his head almost as soon as he speaks.

“Nevermind, don’t tell me now. Conserve your strength.”

“I’m going to get you somewhere safe. Can you walk?”

My legs wobble as I try to rise. The stranger throws out his hands to keep me from toppling over, and I stumble forward into him instead.

(I need to warn him. I don’t want to put him in danger.)

But I’m too tired to speak. Before I even realize what’s happening, I’m being scooped up by strong arms. My head lolls gently against his chest.

My eyelids flutter closed. I’m vaguely aware of a sense of motion and of snowflakes falling against my cheek, but my consciousness fades into a haze of white.

Music: Everyday 3

When I blink my eyes open again I’m somewhere I don’t recognize. I’m in a room with stone walls, tucked beneath a warm blanket.

(Wait, I was being attacked! What happened?)

I jolt upright in a strange bed. The motion sends pain shooting through my hand, but when I look down I see that it’s been wrapped in a clean bandage.

I push off the covers. From the floor above me I can hear something clattering across the floor, followed by a muffled curse.

ADARAEN:  “Hello?”

I follow a winding staircase upwards, and emerge into what looks like some kind of laboratory.

The man who rescued me -- Gideon -- is wiping down a piece of glassware, and looks up with a friendly smile when I enter. 

GIDEON: “Well, look who finally woke up.”

He’s working at a table laden with various tools and herbs and instruments, and seems preoccupied with a purplish mixture bubbling over a flame.

When he pours the mixture into the rescued glass, I notice that one of his arms is made from gleaming, golden clockwork. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks. His eyes briefly flicker away from his work.

CHOICE 1:  I feel great.

CHOICE 2:  Okay, I guess.

CHOICE 3:  I’ve been better.

IF CHOICE 1:

I force a smile. If working at the inn taught me nothing else, it’s that sometimes you need to fake a mood to feel a mood.

ADARAEN: “I feel great. Just… great. I woke up feeling really rested.”

Gideon arches a brow.

GIDEON: “I didn’t realize you’d taken a bump to the head as well.”

My fingers throb with pain when I try to flex them, and I let out a hiss.

ADARAEN: “Okay, that may have been a slight exaggeration.”

(Or a big one.)

IF CHOICE 2:

ADARAEN: “I feel okay. You know, not bad, not great.”

I haven’t had the chance to think about it much yet. Everything happened so quickly last night, and I still feel disoriented.

GIDEON: “That’s better than I’d expect after you nearly bled out.”

Remembering the feeling of metal slicing across my palm, I look down at my hand and try to flex my fingers.

Even the small movement makes me wince.

IF CHOICE 3:

ADARAEN: “I feel…”

Woozy. Like I left a lot of blood in the snow and nearly froze to death.

“Like I have the worst hangover ever, without the fun of getting it.”

GIDEON: “Part of that might be from the medication I gave you.”

My hand is still throbbing faintly, and I try to move my fingers to test them. I gasp at the flare of pain that shoots through me.

CONTINUING AFTER CHOICE:

GIDEON: “I wouldn’t try to do much with that hand for a while if I were you. I did what I could for it, but…”

He grimaces as he fiddles with a contraption at his table, and I’m unsure if the expression is related to his work or his words.

ADARAEN: “But what?”

When he glances up again his eyes are sympathetic.

GIDEON: “Well. Let’s just say it required a lot of stitches.”

It feels best to not think about that more than I need to, so I decide to change the subject.

ADARAEN: “By the way, where are we?”

I’ve realized suddenly that I still don’t know.

Gideon makes a sweeping gesture towards the wide, open windows.

GIDEON: “You can see for yourself.”

He brushes his hands together as he finishes what he’s doing and comes to stand beside me at the rail. 

The view leaves me nearly breathless. We’re high above a city, and beautiful buildings stretch out for as far as I can see. 

It's easy to forget my pain when looking out at something so wondrous.

And there are trees with actual leaves! I see splashes of red and yellow and green. I can feel myself grinning like a fool.

(It’s not winter here!)

ADARAEN: “How did you get me all the way to Altadellys?”

GIDEON: “You’d be surprised how easy it is to cart someone around when they’re limp as a sack of potatoes.”

ADARAEN: “Surely not in that storm though?”

GIDEON: “No, we were only a short distance from my cabin. I took you there and cared for your wound first.”

ADARAEN: “And then I became the sack of potatoes.”

GIDEON: “Precisely.” 

I chuckle, and hear him huff a small laugh in response. Standing this near to him, he seems even taller and broader than he did before.  

(He’s actually quite attractive.)

(But this is hardly the time to be thinking about that, Adaraen!)

ADARAEN: “I was supposed to meet someone before my carriage was attacked. Do you know how I can get word to them?”

GIDEON: “No, but I know who you can ask.”

Music: Gideon Theme

He turns from the window and fixes me with an unreadable expression. His green eyes are sharp and curious, suddenly seeming to take me apart in their gaze.

GIDEON: “But what you should be asking yourself is… why was someone trying to kill you?”

TO BE CONTINUED... (maybe...)

-@redseptemberdream

[buzzdixonwriter]

I've Told You A Million Times To Avoid Cliches Like The Plague

Recently a year old re-print of a 1959 Writer’s Digest article by Donald Westlake started circulating on social media.

First off, if you don’t know who Donald Westlake is, go find out.  You like rough edge crime stories, try his Parker books published under his Richard Stark pseudonym; you like funny crime, dig up the Dortmunder series under his own name; you like odd ball history, check out Under An English Heaven “being a true recital of the events leading up to and down from the British invasion of Anguilla on March 19th, 1969 in which no one was killed but many people were embarrassed.”

Second, Westlake was a serious writer in that he took the craft of writing Very Seriously indeed, no matter how light hearted and funny some of his books could be.  He wrote a blistering letter (later turned into an essay) in the fanzine Xero (starts on page 97) where he excoriated  the sci-fi field of the era as being neither artistically nor commercially viable.*

So who am I to challenge this master’s assertions?

Well, I take the craft of writing Very Seriously indeed myself, and to quote a late, lamented friend:  “Fools rush in, and there we are…”

The Writer’s Digest article is a mixed bag, partially a quick off-the-cuff job for a few bucks, partially a valid observation on pitfalls in writing popular fiction in September of 1959.

Bear the date in mind, it’s crucial to this discussion.

This was an era when Americans read a lot.  Millions of people subscribed to The Saturday Evening Post or dozens of other slick magazines (not to mention the digests, which are what the form the old genre pulps mutated into), and this meant each week dozens of new short stories or serialized novels were available to them (and that’s not counting non-fiction).

Westlake in 1959 was commenting on an over saturated market, one where too many writers and editors simply replayed old tropes over again and again because they knew a significant portion of their audience felt comfortable with them (this is particularly true in the slicks, more so than the digests).

Westlake divides his 36 plots into three groups:  Mysteries, science fiction, and slicks.

My first quibble lays in what Westlake means when he says “plot”.

From the original article:

“A plot is a planned series of connected events, building through conflict to a crisis and ending in a satisfactory conclusion. A formula is a particular plot which has become stale through over-use.

“My own working definition of plot is what I call “5C.” First, a character. Anybody at all, from Hemingway’s old man to Salinger’s teenager. Second, conflict. Something for that character to get upset about, and for the reader to get upset about through the character. Third, complications. If the story runs too smoothly, without any trouble for the character, the reader isn’t going to get awfully interested in what’s going on. Fourth, climax. The opposing forces in conflict are brought together. Like the fissionable material in an H-bomb and there’s an explosion. Fifth, conclusion. The result of the explosion is known, the conflict is over, the character has either won or lost, and there are no questions left unanswered.

“5C: Character. Conflict. Complications. Climax. Conclusion.”

All well and good, but in his article Westlake provides almost no examples of same.

To me, a plot is a quick summary of a story that lays out beginning, middle, and end:   G.I. Joe captures a Cobra secret weapon but doesn’t realize what it is.  Cobra needs to get the weapon back without alerting the Joes to its potential, and the Joes must figure out what Cobra is after before they can get their hands on it.

(There’s a lot you can do with that plot.  It can be a slam-bang action oriented story, a techno thriller, or a slapstick farce depending on your angle of attack.)

What Westlake presents are more along the lines of story springboards:  ”What would happen if…”

A lot of the situations Westlake presents are rife with potential: “John Smith is sitting in the park, feeding the other squirrels, when a beautiful girl runs up, kisses him, and whispers, ‘Pretend you know me.’”

Okay, let’s list the possibilities, shall we?

She’s being stalked by a creepy guy and needs protection…

She’s been hired to set Smith up for some reason…

She’s mentally disturbed from trauma in her past…

She’s a flipping psycho intending to kill Smith…

She’s a secret agent slipping a secret code in Smith’s pocket…

She’s a silly college girl doing this on a dare, unaware Smith is a serial killer…

Six stories right off the top of my head, and each one could be played in several different ways, from deadly serious to over the top farce.

That’s a lot of potential in a single trope.

Here’s another: “John Smith, private eye, is sitting at his desk, when Marshall Bigelow, thimble tycoon, trundles in waving thousand-dollar bills and shouting, ‘My daughter has disappeared!’”

Well, d’uh, isn’t that what private eyes do?  Find missing people?  Or uncover who committed a crime when people don’t want the police involved?  Or find out if a spouse is cheating?

Name a private eye story that doesn’t play off some variant of this.  From Murder, My Sweet to Harper to Shaft, hiring a private eye to find a missing person is a perfect way to get a story started.  “You find my Velma.”

Of the dozen story springboards he offers in his mystery section, none are unworkable, though two remain overly familiar to this day and probably are best avoided unless the writer can provide some incredible new spin.  

The science fiction section is more problematic, and here’s where I suspect Westlake was slumming (there ought to be an article on the type of articles one shouldn’t write for Writer’s Digest that includes articles like the one Westlake wrote).

Seven of the eleven clearly reference classics of the genre, and if this wasn’t a deliberate dig at those authors on Westlake’s part, one can only argue that while they may be shopworn now due to retreads by the untalented, these ideas remain strong enough to support a good story.

The other four remain headscratchers.  Two -- Adam & Eve and “atoms are tiny solar systems” -- are indeed hoary old ideas, burned off by EC comics earlier in the decade. 

I can’t say there weren’t thirteen year old aspiring sci-fi writers who submitted these to publishers and editors back in the day, but they seem more likely to have been found on the pages of fanzines (i.e., what sci-fi geeks had before the Internet) than a professional slush pile.

We know Westlake was active to some degree in sci-fi fandom of that era; could those two tropes have come from seeing those stories in the pages of amateur magazines?

The remaining two ideas represent a ribald attitude I don’t recall seeing in sci-fi digests of that era.

Oh, sex was starting to rear its beautiful head in science fiction, and there were a few cutting edge stories, but these two seem more like set ups for smutty fanfic, not genuine submissions of the time.

Again, something I’d expect to see in a fanzine, not a professional market.

Like I said, I think this tips off that Westlake is having us on, that this whole article came off the top of his head in a matter of minutes instead of being carefully thought out.

On the other hand, his critique of slick magazine fiction seems pretty spot on and devastating.

While he covers several sub-genres, his primary focus seems to be on stories written for a female audience, the type found in McCall’s and Ladies Home Journal.  He doesn’t come close to a dozen examples, however, as several (even those labeled as sub-examples) are just the same story springboard in different settings.

Two of his bad examples, however, stand out quite clearly as a dislike (whether personal / professional / aesthetic, I can’t tell) aimed at a specific series of stories found in The Saturday Evening Post, i.e., the Alexander Botts, tractor salesman stories of William Hazlett Upson.

One of Westlake’s verboten plots isn’t even a plot but a literary device: “Any story told in an exchange of letters”.  The other one that ties into Upson’s oeuvre is “Joe Doakes, a traveling salesman for a paper clip company, gets involved in some pretty unbelievable adventures in a small town in the Midwest. The other participants are a local belle and a salesman for a rival paper clip company.”

The two combined describe Upson’s Botts stories to a T.  The second one is richly ironic since Westlake eventually used the same basic premise for his Dortmunder series (the only change being Dortmunder is a thief, not a salesman; po-tay-to, po-tah-to).

Finally, Westlake left himself a huge out with “If you can take one of the 36 clichés listed above, and give it a brand new twist, so it doesn’t look like the same story any more, you may have a sale on your hands. If you search hard enough in the magazines on the stands today, you’ll find one or more of these variations currently in print.”

Look, I get it.  I’ve faced deadline doom before myself, and more than once have fired off a short piece that contained all the depth of a dixie cup.

This isn’t the worst writing advice I’ve seen, but it’s far from the best, and Westlake coulda and shoulda done better.

  © Buzz Dixon

   *  He wasn’t alone in his opinion, though ironically the 1960s proved to be one of the most fertile eras for the genre.  Yet Westlake and other writers such as John D. MacDonald, Frederic Brown, and John Jakes left sci-fi for other genres because it couldn’t support them either as artists or professionals.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #289

“life by life / waste to waste / i’m the harbinger, the master of decay”

How often do you watch the news? Never. Would you rather read the news online? Yeah. Speaking of being online, what website do you visit the most? YouTube. Have you ever held a snake? Plenty. Ever caught a turtle? What about a crawfish? Turtles, yes, as a kid. Please do not take animals out of the wild for no good reason, people. I never touched crawfish because they looked scary lmao. Have you ever eaten gumbo? Idk what that is. Or do you not like spicy food? I enjoy spicy food, but not nearly as much as when I was a teen. Back then, I loved the adrenaline rush, now I just wanna enjoy my food like a normal person, lol. Do you own a bottle of hand sanitizer? Do you like how it smells? Does anyone NOT at this time? Or even before, really? But anyway, no, I don't like the smell. Do you own a pool table? What about an air hockey table? Or a foosball table? Okay so one of the coolest things we had when I was younger was this table that had different "tops" to change out to turn it into various games like these. Like, it was all in one. I don't THINK we still have it? Do you live with your parents? Are you cool with that? I live with my mom, and right now, it's the better idea for many reasons. I feel like shit about it, though. I'm nearly 25. Even if I was financially independent though, I would not be able to handle living all alone with my depression and all. When did/when do you want to move out? Hopefully when I have a stable job and long-term relationship. Have you ever been on a cruise? No. Are you better at catching or throwing? Probably throwing. I can't catch for shit. Do you ever play computer games? Just WoW nowadays. Did you used to have a lunchbox? Yeah, I went through a few. How often do you/did you bring your lunch to school? Whenever I didn't like what was on the menu. And mind you, I was and still am very picky. What was/is your favorite school lunch? I think the chicken sandwiches. When was the last time you wore a hat? What kind of hat was it? Oh yikes, who on Earth knows. It has to have been years. Maybe a Carolina Hurricanes one to a hockey game I went to with Dad. I don't really wear hats. Have you ever tried to ghost hunt? If so, did you catch anything? No. Do you prefer gold or silver? What about diamonds or pearls? Earrings or bracelets? Necklace or rings? Or are you not a jewelry person? Gold; diamonds; earrings; rings (I think). I don't care all that much about jewelry, though. Have you ever made jewelry? Not really, just kiddy crafts stuff. Do you have any unique hobbies? Meerkat RP. Have you ever broken a window? If so, what with? I don't believe so, no. Have you ever had surgery? If so, what on? Yeah. I had tubes put in my ears as a kid, and I had a cyst removed from... directly above my ass lmaoooo. Pilonidal cysts are awesome. Do you know any boys named Ashley or Lesley or Lynn? I don't believe so. Do you prefer coffee or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate, for sure. Do you like green tea? Tea is gross. Do you like to play Freecell? What about Hearts? Or Mahjong? I only know Mahjong, and I've never played that. I used to watch Mom play it on the computer as a kid, though. Idr the rules. Does your family own guns? No. Have you ever been given flowers? Were they from a relative or someone special? Both. Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle? No, and I doubt I will. I'm not like... really scared of them, as a matter of fact they seem really fun, they're just too risky for my liking. Have you ever seen a dead body? At an open-casket wake, yes. What does your umbrella look like? It's just an ordinary black one. Is anyone you know pregnant? HOLY FUCK, I think 90% of my Facebook friends are preggo. It seems like EVERYONE is expecting. Ha, one of my closest friends is legit pregnant with triplets after JUST having a son... She's in for a ride. Does your family do reunion gatherings? No, we're too spread out. What would you order to drink if you were in a bar right now? A strawberry sangria sounds pretty great. When was the last time you had a first kiss? I'm guessing you mean like, my first kiss with the last person I was with? A few summers ago when we were out on the porch making s'mores and dancing like some cheesy fucks lmao. How many homes have you ever lived in? If you don't count the apartment I wasn't an official resident of or staying with a friend for a month due to homelessness, we just moved into our fifth. Or sixth. It's too early when I'm taking this for math. Have you ever donated money to charity? Yeah. What’s your favourite type of exercise? Swimming. How many jobs have you had? Three or four... I'm not even sure because they were so incredibly short because fuck me and my anxiety, right? Who do you stalk the most through Facebook? Nobody. Have you ever deleted your Facebook, then brought it back? No. Write the first song that pops into your head: Well, I'm listening to "Freak On a Leash" right now. Has anything interesting come for you in the mail lately, besides bills? Nah. What is your main responsibility each day? Making sure my cat has food, water, and a clean litterbox. Do you feel like you fulfill those responsibilities? Yeah. I've slacked on the box before on bad mental health days where I can barely force myself to do anything, but I'm usually on top of it. Were you in the wrong during your last argument with someone? I don't recall what my last argument was. I think something w/ Mom. What bands did you used to love, that you don’t listen to much anymore? Hm. It's pretty rare I leave behind bands I've LOVED, so. Are you counting down to anything? tomorrow crihmus When was the last time you used spray paint? Oh, I have no idea. Maybe for an art project in HS? What color are the chairs at your kitchen table? Brown. Have you ever or do you plan on donating to any charities? Which ones? I've donated to some you would like pass by in the store if I had some spare coins or dollars on me, and when I cut my hair to as short as it is now, I donated it all to Children With Hair Loss. One of my most cherished memories is getting the certificate that it was used. I'm sure there's more, especially for school, but idr them. I 110% want to donate to charity streams when I have my own income source. Do you believe that life only gets harder or easier? I mean, this depends on your unique life. Do you know the middle name of the last person you kissed? Hm. I don't think Girt has a middle name, and I don't think Tyler ever told me because he was embarrassed by it. I know Sara's. Have you ever had sex with 2 different people in the same week? No. Who is the friendliest person you know? Probably my friend Girt. Last song you listened to? "Milk and Cookies" by Melanie Martinez is on rn. Something that annoys you about summer: Just ONE thing???? Just about everything does. The only thing I enjoy is all the flowers. Well hell, that's even mostly a spring thing. It's mostly just... plain green in the summer. At least here. Too hot for damn flowers to survive. Something that annoys you about winter: The fact that if it snows here, we get barely anything at all. e_e Are the doors of your fridge side by side or on top of one another? Side by side. When was the last time you burned a body part other than your hands/fingers? I actually just burned the roof of my mouth yesterday. If you’ve moved out of the house you were born in, do you know the people who live in that house now? Nope. What’s one food that you eat more than twice a week? Definitely some form of bread. Do you like zombie movies? No opinion, really. What's the grossest/worst thing you’ve ever seen in a public restroom? UGH. This one time I was in the bathroom with Colleen (it's a girl thing lmao) at a gas station, she did what she normally does and checks under the seat, aND IT WAS COVERED IN BLOOD. It was fucking disgusting. What’s the most wasteful thing you regularly do? Ugh... use plastic bags when disposing of Roman's "business" in the litterbox. I feel absolutely awful using one every other day. If I wait any longer than that, Mom gets mad. What’s the most difficult apology you’ve ever had to give? Probably to Jason via that letter. That honestly wasn't that difficult after having fully accepted I fucked up too, though. I don't generally find it hard to apologize when I know I was wrong. Have you ever volunteered in a hospital? If not, would you ever want to? Fuck no. They depress the hell out of me. What was your worst Halloween costume? Idk, I don't remember almost any of mine. When was the first time you can remember feeling mature? When I checked into the doctor by myself. Yes, I know how sad that is at nearly 25. Have you ever had a disappointing Christmas, or any disappointing holiday if you don’t celebrate Christmas? As a kid, there was just one where I was disappointed in what I got. SO fucking ungrateful looking back on that shit. I can't even imagine feeling anything like that now. I cherish Christmas deeply, especially now with nieces and a nephew who experience such joy at Christmastime, and I get to see my dad and his wife and stepson, too. At this age, it truly is about family to me. Do you have any character bandaids in your house right now, or just plain ones? I think we may have some princess ones and some "boy" kind for if the kids are ever over. AKA never because their dad is far more concerned about only including his family in their lives. I don't think Ryder's ever even visited our house, and he's like, four years old. My sister's husband's parents live directly down their road, but still. It hurts Mom and I a lot that we don't seem to matter when it comes to visiting *us*. Have you ever had to give a pet away? Yeah, plenty of times with our old cat nest. What's the junkiest junk food you’ve ever eaten? I dunno, probably something at Disney as a kid. Did you play pretend a lot as a child? Were there any recurring plots or themes? Yeah. I had my "good guys" - a family of alligators, deer (um they were married and had kids don't ask me, man), and some Pokemon figurines - and three big dinos that were the "bad guys." How do you feel about runny egg yolks? Egg yolk is fucking repulsive. The one and only way it's going down my throat is in scrambled eggs. Has a teacher ever tried to teach you something that was undeniably wrong? Not that I remember. If for some reason you had to give up one of your hobbies, which would you choose? I dunno, I have so few already... Maybe World of Warcraft? I almost quit it recently anyway because I was bored and yet it took up so much of my time, but it'd be hard now with a new expansion having just come out with soooo much to do. Man... I dunno. Have you ever hidden a relationship from your family? No. How much do you know about first aid? No more than the average joe, really. Which of your relatives do you know the least about? Sadly, probably my dad's oldest daughter. I know only two things about her with certainty. Have you ever meditated? If so, did it do anything for you? Yes, and all it does is make me fidgety and lets me think too much. When was the last time you got ice cream from a truck? Hm... maybe when I was at a beach when I was on vacation with a friend? I was like, a pre-teen then though, so it's been forever. Do you know any sex workers? If so, how do they feel about their job? Not that I'm aware of. And honestly, I have mixed feelings, but I think I lean more towards it being just fine so long as boundaries are set and there are very clear understandings with each other. And you ABSOLUTELY need to be safe about it. I'd far rather people get off with a consenting individual than in... y'know, other ways. It's not my business, anyway. What’s the biggest art project you’ve ever attempted? How did it go? In high school, I did a huge acrylic painting on burlap of meerkats grooming. I am to this day still so proud of it; I worked so hard on it. I love how the fur came out, especially. I do wish I could do over the background, though. What kind of wild animals do you see most frequently where you live? Excluding the obvious birds, there are tons of squirrels, and you see opossum and racoon roadkill a lot, tragically... Every now and then, you'll see deer in fields in the morning or dusk. Have you ever cooked anything other than s’mores over a fire? Yeah, hot dog.s Are there any items in your house that you use for something other than its intended purpose? I'm positive there's something. Probably everyone has an example. OH! Looking in just my room, Venus' terrarium has saran wrap covering the top to help keep humidity in. What do you hope the afterlife is like? Really, I go back and forth between hoping it's like... this state of nirvana and where you reunite with loved ones and experience infinite peace if deserved, or just the entire lack of existence anymore. I wonder sometimes if I'd want to be sentient forever. But, with me believing in a spirit realm, I don't think the latter is the case. What’s the worst behavior you’ve ever seen from a child? I think I once saw a kid smack their parent's arm or something? I don't really know. Have you ever planned an act of revenge? "No, but i daydream about it." <<<< Ha, yeah, I have. Do you and your parents share any of the same hobbies? Yeah. Mom surprised me when she told me she likes writing (even though I never see her do it), and Dad likes video games. Do you have any physical photo albums? Yes. Would you feel comfortable working at a sex shop? NOPE. Who was the worst friend you ever had? It's funny, Colleen did incredible things for me, but she also fits this description, too... Have you ever campaigned for a political candidate, or otherwise played an active role in an election? I mean, I voted, does that count? What’s the coolest hand-me-down you’ve ever gotten? What about the best one you’ve ever given? I have no idea. Do your parents and grandparents get along with each other? Dad got along perfectly fine with his parents, but my mom and her mother had a rocky history. Grammy treated her awfully sometimes. They'd been fine for many, many years, but Mom could never forget some things and always felt like she wasn't "good enough" in her eyes. I'm pretty sure Mom got along just fine with her dad. Do you have any framed photos of your pet(s)? Yes. Do you share photos of your pet(s) on social media? Um, duh. In 3 words, describe the last male you talked to. Who WAS the last guy I talked to... Do you own any of your favorite films on DVD? Which one(s)? No. Have you watched anything on Netflix lately? No. The last thing I did on Netflix was watch the first episode of The Witcher, and even though I liked it, I didn't continue. I just... don't enjoy watching TV, especially if it really requires you to pay attention. Have you ever heard someone snoring and thought it sounded cute? Besides animals, no. Are you particular about what you eat? In what way(s)? Yeah, I'm VERY picky, especially with textures. Is anyone close to you particular about what they eat? In what way(s)? Yes, my niece. She's autistic and has the symptom of being incredibly picky with things like textures, too. She is the one child I have ever known that doesn't really like eating. Is there someone in your life who can always make you smile? Always, no. Have you worn lipstick at any time recently? What color? No. I last wore black forever ago just to take pictures. Do you like wearing eyeshadow to match the color of your clothes? No; in the very rare instance I put on makeup, the eyeshadow is always black. What song reminds you of your childhood? Jesse McCartney songs, for sure. And Backstreet Boys. What’s your least favorite month? Maybe August. I'm sick and beyond tired of summer by that point. Nothing exciting going on. What do you do when you’re bored in class and not paying attention to the teacher? When I was in school, I honestly always paid attention because I wanted to pass. Have you ever baked a pie? No. Last person you shared food with? Mom. Do you know any mechanical stuff about cars? Definitely not. Were you smiling in the last picture taken of you? I don't think so, if that witchy photoshoot was the last time I had a pic taken of me. Do you answer the phones at your job? I did at two old jobs. Were you a hyper or mellow kid? I was kinda hyper. What are you drinking? Would you believe me if I answered "water"????? Did you get any compliments today? No. What last made you laugh? I think a moment in a WoW stream I was watching last night. Which of your friends is the easiest to talk to? Sara. What was your best summer ever? /shrug Do you have a favourite sibling? No. What color is the blanket/quilt on your bed? Navy and black. Favorite milkshake flavour? Just chocolate. Sometimes I'm in the mood for vanilla, though. Best year of your life? 2017. It's funny how that year started with a suicide attempt but wound up being the best year of my life. NEVER hestitate to reach out for help when you need it. How loud do you like your music in the car? Too loud lmao. Prefer to write or read? Write. Favourite apps? Pokemon GO, haha. What is a fruit you refuse to eat? Absolutely refuse? Maybe like, cantaloupe. Would you rather gain weight or lose weight? It'd to fuckin fantastic if I could lose 100 pounds. :^) I gained like thirty since moving... Would you rather gain height or lose height? Gain a tiny bit, I guess? But I'm fine with where I'm at. Are both your eyes the same color? Yes. Do you like glittery things? Yes, but not touching them and getting glitter everywhere. Ever watched a play in the theatre? Yes, at Disney World and also for school field trips. How many followers do you have on instagram? A depressing amount for someone desperately trying to be a photographer lmaooo. I mean I don't post on it a lot, so that doesn't help, but yeah. My secondary photography account (for roadkill/vulture culture stuff) has more than my main one. How about twitter? Don't use it. How much would I have to pay you to get you to do karaoke? I don't know, I'd be terrified of embarrassing myself. Last time you went ice skating? Never. Painting or drawing? Drawing, by far. Art or science? Now that's tough, but art. Dancing or singing? Dancing. History or geography? Geography is interesting. Favourite season? Autumn. Do you watch Supernatural? I did up to the end of Season 6. I loved it, I just was losing interest in TV, and also Jason and I broke up (we always watched it together) so I didn't want to watch something triggering memories. If you could change your eye color would you? Yes, to either a pure sapphire blue or emerald green. Are both your ears pierced? Yes. Are you lying down? Yes. Is there a tv in your room? No. Do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Yeah. Do you like fortune cookies? Yeah, they're oddly tasty. Do you have anxiety? You fuckin bet I do. Favorite clothing shop? RebelsMarket. How do you feel about peeing in a cup at the hospital? Is it embarrassing? No? It's too normal to be embarrassing. I mean I wrap toilet paper around it so you don't actually see, y'know, but I'm not embarrassed carrying that. Do you prefer fruit or vegetables? Fruit, by a long shot. What do you hate being called? "Bee." An old best friend who did nothing but lie about her entire life called me that. What color is the last car you were in? White. Ever studied abroad? No. Ever pulled out a tooth? Yeah, when I was a kid. Three celebrity crushes? Mark Fischbach, Link Neal, Hannah Hart. Ever been married? No. Are you proud of yourself? In most ways, no. Do you like grapes? Yep. How often do you cook for your family? Never. Is anyone in your family a lawyer? My cousin is, actually. Is anyone in your family an architect? Don't think so. Own any crystals? No. Favourite thing to write with? (pen, pencil, highlighter) Pencil. Top 5 favourite alcoholic drinks? I don't know, I haven't tried enough that I actually enjoy. Would you date someone bald? Yeah. Would you date someone who doesn’t want kids? I don't want kids either, so that's the only kind of person I'd date. That's something you can't really disagree on if you plan on lasting. Do you like candles? Sure. Favorite memory with a sibling? I dunno, probably something from when we were little kids playing together.

[midnightartemis]

Chapters: 30/? Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Finn/Rose Tico, Poe Dameron/Rey, Poe Dameron/Finn, Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren Characters: Rey (Star Wars), Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, Finn (Star Wars), Poe Dameron, Rose Tico, Leia Organa, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Maz Kanata, Larma D'Acy, Amilyn Holdo, Snoke (Star Wars), Boba Fett, Bossk (Star Wars), Armitage Hux, Chewbacca (Star Wars) Additional Tags: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abuse, Drug Use, Suicide Attempt, Star-crossed, Dreams, Alternate Universe - High School, High School, School Dances, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Foster Care, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Near Death Experiences, Multiverse, Reincarnation, Attempted Sexual Assault, Assault, Graphic Description, Teenage Drama, Horny Teenagers, Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Past Drug Use, Drug Dealing

Chapter Two

The first day, a new school. I take a deep breath. It wasn’t my first new school, but I hoped it would be the last. It was a lot to process- Maz, Holdo. Every one of my instincts told me it was too good to be,  but I trusted Holdo, and if Maz raised Holdo, I could trust her too. She was right. This was different.

I wake up early, wanting to make a good impression. I brush my teeth and shower and- Is that a razor? It takes a lot longer, but I eventually make it through my leg and armpit hair and jump out of the shower. The closet- My closet is filled with clothes of every shape and size and style and I wonder just how many girls Maz has fostered over the years.

I fish through the clothes until I find a soft dandelion yellow overall style dress and pair it with a white, faux turtleneck shirt made of incredibly stretchy, soft material. There’s a pile of shoes under the clothes, but I decide to stick with my ratty, old white converse… Well, they used to be white. I grab my bag and head downstairs, vibrating with excitement and nervousness. Maz is sitting on the back deck nursing a coffee and overlooking her garden. She’s still in purple and pink pajamas and looks up in surprise when I walk out the door. “You’re up early. Sleep well, kid?”

I nod and stare hungrily at the platter of eggs and bacon. “Yes, thank you.”

Maz notices my hunger. “Well, don’t just stand there, they’re there for you, too. Dig in.”

I quickly sit and fill my plate.

“Do you drink coffee?” I nod and she stands, fetching another cup for me. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Just plain black, please.”

“Ah, you’re one of the good ones I can tell.” Maz chuckles and I giggle, accepting the coffee from her. It smells amazing.

“How many girls have you fostered?”

Maz sits back, a pleasant speculative look in her eye. “Oh… I lose track sometimes. I’ll have to pull out the scrapbook, but I think at least twenty over the years. There was a period of time where I fostered siblings, but now I just take only children. Two people are more than enough for this house. I’ve adopted five of them.”

“Five!?” I nearly choke on my eggs.

“Yes, Amilyn is the only one I see regularly since she’s so close, they’re all spread out all over the world, but most of them call or text or send letters a lot.”

“And it’s just you? No one else?”

“Nope, no one else. I’ve had my fair share of romances,” she winks. “But I do best on my own. I prefer it, with you all for the good company of course.”

“Why do you do it?”

“Well, I know what it feels like. I was in the system once, too. Long, long before your time. I got taken in when I was sixteen by my adoptive parents. And when they died, I decided to carry on that legacy. Help others how they helped me.”

“That sounds very noble.”

Maz snorts. “Hardly. I’m a senile old woman who just wants a little company. It’s for all those-how do you kids say it- juicy government checks.” There’s a twinkle in her eye as she jokes. She takes a glance at the watch on her wrist. “Finish up, wash up. I’ll put on my grandma’s pants and we’ll get you off to school. They’ll want me to sign a bunch of stuff and I gotta get to the bar to deal with their usual incompetencies. Did she mention the bar?”

I nod through my last bite of eggs.

“You’ll never have to go there if you don’t want to, but you’re more than welcome to come by after school. Also, you should send me your number. I don’t want a minute by minute notice of where you are, but you are my responsibility, so I would like to know your general locations and plans. Fair?”

I nod. “Fair.”

There weren't a lot of places I planned on going to. I didn’t know anyone here. Though… I wouldn’t say no to exploring the downtown area.

Maz left to change and I finished my breakfast and cleaned my dishes. I searched through the cupboards until I found a set of glass Tupperware and placed the leftover eggs and bacon inside. I waited patiently on the couch, twiddling my thumbs and trying to not think about things so much. The first day of classes always made me anxious, and now my life has completely turned around in the last twenty-four hours. Maz appeared at the bottom of the stairs and I tried and failed to not smile at her “grandma pants”. For one thing, they were bright purple and covered in embroidery, and, for another, they were paired with an equally bright pink and blue top. Everything screamed hippy grandma. She grabbed a set of keys from a hook on the wall. “Alright, kid, got everything?”

I nod and follow her out the car to her small garage where there is, of course, an original bright yellow Volkswagen bug. Who is this lady and where has she been my entire life? I climb in the passenger seat and we take off down the road to the school.

My stomach does a flip at the sight of the school. There are a few cars in the parking lot, but we’re still half an hour early. Maz parks and we walk through the doors of New Republic High together. The entrance lobby is huge, surrounded by windows and filled with light from a round skylight in the ceiling. The floor is white tile and in the center of the lobby floor, there is a huge mosaic crest of a Falcon clutching a sword. A red banner flies below it inscribed with Latin: In absentia lucis, Tenebrae vincunt.

“It means ‘In the absence of light, darkness prevails.’”

I jump at the voice and look up to see a bubbly girl with jet black hair and a cute face smiling at me. “Uh… Okay.”

“You must be Rey, I’m Rose and I get to be your student ambassador. I also help out in the office and I saw you were starting today, so I thought I would meet you at the door.” Rose sticks her hand out and I shake it. “Hi, Miss Kanata.”

“Rose…” Maz raises her eyebrows.

“Sorry. Miss Maz.” Rose’s smile doesn’t falter. “It’s the school’s motto. It’s supposed to inspire us to ‘be the good in the world’ or something.” She waves her hand through the air, brushing past the meaning. “Principal Organa is ready for you if you. She’s excited to meet you.”

Rose practically skips away and we follow her, ascending the stairs to an open door that leads to a reception area. Rose walks through the reception center and to an open door near the back. We follow her through and I find myself in a spacious office. Everything is wood and lavender, warm and inviting. Sitting at the desk is an older woman with greying hair, perfectly styled in a braided bun. She’s wearing a tailored blue dress and silver cat eyeglasses on the bridge of her nose. She takes her glasses off as we enter and stands with a smile. “Rey Niima?”

I nod and shake her hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Principal Leia Organa. And good to see you again, Maz.” Principal Organa’s smile is warm, inviting. Still, I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side. “Rose, thank you. Would you please get Maz the right paperwork and I’ll talk with Rey?”

My stomach flips with nerves again. Principal Organa gestures to the chairs in front of her desk and I sit as Rose and Maz leave. Organa puts on her glasses once more and moves to her computer. “Just a moment, let me pull up your file.”

I sit up straight, on edge as I look around the room. There are bookshelves filled with books and art. An orchid blooms on a windowsill, and I think that the window overlooks a courtyard.

“Here you are. Very impressive Rey. It says that you finished up Trigonometry and English Two, a history class, a social studies class, Earth Science, and computer programming. No language courses?”

“They didn’t exactly offer any,” I say, nervous. “I know a little bit of Spanish. One of my foster families lived in the Hispanic neighborhood of Jakku.”

“Would you like to take a placement test in Spanish?”

I shake my head. “I only know how to say a few things, not read or write.”

“We require three years of language to graduate.” She peers at me over her glasses and I sink in my seat. She turns her gaze back to her computer and clicks a few things. “We will just have to get you all caught up. You can either take an extra summer course or have two blocks of language, it’s up to you.”

“Uh…” I’m completely out of my depth. I’m not even sure if I’ll still be here in the summer, much less what a block is. “What’s a block?”

Principal Organa’s eyes soften. “We run New Republic more like a college than a high school so that you’re prepared when you go to college. It builds responsibility and trust. So, you’ll have some classes that you only have Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Tuesday, Thursday. Blocks are forty-five minutes. Some of your classes may only take up one block, some two or three.”

College. I shake my head. It was a dream. “Okay. Um… I guess I’ll do two blocks of language.”

“We offer French, Spanish, Russian, and Latin.”

“Latin.” Might as well. Organa smiles.

“So, I’ll mark you down for the junior year history class- Current World Events and most juniors take Psychology unless you’d rather take Religion?” She glances at me and I shake my head. “And, P.E. That’s the basics, the rest have a little wriggle room for what you want to do here. So, tell me about yourself. What are you interested in? What are your plans for post-graduation?”

“Uh… I have no idea what I’m going to do after graduation. I like science and math… Figuring out how things work.”

“Taking things apart and putting them back together?” She asks.

I nod. “It used to get me in a lot of trouble.”

“A little bit of trouble never hurt anyone.” Principal Organa winks. “I want you to meet with our Guidance Counselor. There’s a lot of avenues for girls like you who want to go into STEM fields. For now, since your math and science grades are so high, I’m going to place you in… Pre-Calculus, Physics, and… Small engines.”

I wrinkle my eyebrows. “Small engines?”

“It’s more fun than you think. I’m no good at it, but my husband is, and I think you’ll like him.”

She barely knows me, but okay. “Okay.”

“And last, but not least, I like everyone to take at least one art class. There’s painting, drawing, photography, band, orchestra, choir, sculpture, woodworking… Are any of these peeking your interest?”

“Drawing, I guess.” I had taken a drawing class before. I wasn’t the best at it, but I wasn’t horrible either.

“Okay.” Principal Organa hit a few more buttons. I heard a printer whirl beneath her and she bent down to grab a piece of paper.

“This is your schedule,” she grabbed another sheet of paper as well and handed both to me. “And the second one is a list of all the groups and activities on campus as well as a list of emails for staff and phone numbers for any services you may or may not need during your time here. And my door is always open, Miss Niima. I’m happy to have you here. Rose will handle you from here and show you around to all of your classes.”

I walk out of Principal Organa’s office to find Maz and Rose crackling at the counter. Rose wipes away tears from her eyes and Maz grabs her bag from the counter at the sight of me. “Looks like they got you all ready to go, hun. I’ll pick you up at four unless you let me know differently. You have my number, and Rose will take good care of you.”

I’m a little sad to watch her go. And excited. And nervous. And still trying to process everything. Rose seems nice enough. I usually didn’t get a guide on the first day. Jakku’s schools were more of the ‘fend for yourself’ type. Rose waves good-bye to Maz and turns to me. “You get your schedule?”

“Yeah.” I hand the paper to her and she looks it over, growing more and more excited. “What is it?”

“Lucky for you, we have a lot of the same classes. Both STEM girls.” Rose winks and I blush uncomfortably. “Ugh, I loved small engines. Mr. Solo is so cool.”

“Is that Principal Organa’s husband?”

“Yup!” Rose bounces from around the counter. “Come on. I’ll give you a tour and show you your locker. The assembly doesn’t start for another half-hour.”

I follow her closely out into the halls and it’s completely different from earlier. I can hardly see the school seal there’s so many people rushing back and forth, talking, laughing, hugging. Rose takes my hand and before I know it I’m dragged into the chaos.

“So, you already saw the seal. We’re the Millenium Falcons, established in 1960 by the Skywalker family, of which Principal Organa is descended from. It’s a long history with a lot of drama. This is the freshman wing,” Rose pointed down a long hallway and then to the mirroring one. “And the Sophomore wing. Basically, the founder got killed by her husband and nearly got killed himself, even though he really really loved her and she was pregnant. It’s kinda sad actually. No one really knows the full story.”

Rose pushed through glass double doors and we walked into a courtyard. The sidewalk divided the green into quarters. Every inch of the courtyard was maintained and perfectly landscaped. There was even a fountain in the center. Rose gestured to the wall of the building on her right. “That side houses the gymnasium. There’s a swimming pool and a rock wall and a weight room. Oh, you’ll need to bring tennis shoes for that and stuff to shower with, but they provide a shirt and shorts. The other side,” Rose nodded to the left side of the square courtyard. “That’s where the lunchroom and the art rooms are.”

I follow Rose straight across the courtyard, trying to take it all in. It was so massive, so grand compared to everything I had never known. A pool? Really? I hope they don’t make people swim… I push the thought away. I’ll burn that bridge when I get there. Just survive the first day. We walk through an identical pair of double doors and we’re in the back of the square. It looks almost identical to the front of the building. I can see a parking lot through the windows and rolling forests beyond that. The seal is there again, and it’s crowded with students rushing around.

“Finn! Poe!” Rose dropped my hand and raced towards two guys in varsity jackets. The tall, dark one caught her and swung her into a deep kiss. They broke apart laughing and Rose gave the other a quick hug. His hair was dark and curly, a smirk on his lips. It wasn’t hard to miss the class clown. Rose waved me over. “Rey, this is Finn and Poe.” She nodded to the boy she kissed and the class clown respectively.

“Hi.” I smile and wave shyly. Finn gives me a giant grin and immediately pulls me into a bear hug. “Oh.”

“It’s great to meet you, Rey,” Finn says once he sets me down.

“Diddo.” Poe winks at me and Rose slaps his chest.

“Poe, don’t scare her away. She’s a science girl, too, and I need more girl power in those classes. I’m outnumbered and tired of it.”

“It’s okay,” I laugh. “He doesn’t scare me.”

Finn laughs. “Okay, I like her. Are you giving her the famous Rose Tico tour?”

“I’m trying to, and then I got distracted.” Rose gives Finn a quick kiss on the lips and I blush, looking away. “Save us seats at assembly?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Finn smiles, a man in love.

The people around me are bustling and loud, obnoxious teenagers. I’m suddenly grateful for my newfound friends.

Rose is gesturing down the hall on the right. “That’s the senior hall. You might go in there sometimes, especially in winter to go to lunch. They get really pissed if you’re loud during class time, but you don’t seem like the loud type.”

I smile. No, not really. Loud spaces were difficult sometimes, especially when I was as uncomfortable as I am now. Rose takes my arm and leads me down the last hall. “This is the Junior hall.”

We walk down a hall filled with blue lockers. There’s a door to a classroom about every twenty or thirty feet. Rose looks at my class schedule. “You’re locker 364, not that far from me!”

We find my locker and Rose tells me to leave my bag there. I do, after struggling with the combination for ten minutes. The end of the hall comes to a corner with a staircase and a wall of windows. Around the corner is a door marked Gymnasium. Rose lets me peek in and I can only gape at the two basketball courts, and, beyond that, a huge glass wall. There are treadmills and workout equipment on the top floor, and I get a glimpse of the pool on the first level. Rose drags me up the stairs and I’m in an identical hall as the one below us. More lockers, more classrooms. Rose points out which ones are which, but I know that I’ll forget.

We came to the area where Principal Organa’s office had been on the other side, but here it's a student lounge overlooking the courtyard. There’s a little kitchen area with a vending machine and a microwave and plenty of chairs, couches, and tables for studying. Rose is explaining something about the vending machines when an announcement comes over the speakers. “Will all students and staff please report to the auditorium for the Welcome Back Assembly? All students and staff please report to the auditorium for the assembly. Thank you.”

Rose’s eyes light up as if she lives for assemblies. Maybe she’s just excited to see Finn again. She grabs my arm and power walks me through the hall and down the stairs. We enter the auditorium through double doors and the room is buzzing with noise and excitement. Poe and Finn wave at us from the front of the room.

We join them as the lights dim and Principal Organa comes up on stage. The buzz in the room dies out and she waits for silence. “Hello, New Republic High!”

A riotous cheer echoes through the auditorium and Poe and Finn are whooping beside me. Organa raises her hands and the room quiets once more. “I hope you all had a great summer and are excited to get back to work. I only have a few announcements and then I’ll send you on your way. First, there will be absolutely NO pranks played on the cheerleaders this year, Mr. Dameron.” Her eyes are shooting lasers at Poe.

He gives her a cheerful thumbs up and leans over to me. “I’m planning on the swim team, instead.”

I giggle. Organa’s already moved on to more usual school things. Laptop roll out, schedule questions, where to look for club sign-ups. I should pay attention, but I’m still trying to process everything around me. It’s all so new and crazy. I close my eyes and try to calm my breathing, just have to get through the first day. The first week.

The assembly ends and Rose takes my hand, leading me out the side. First on the agenda, English Comp. We make our way back to my locker and she leaves me for a second to grab her own bag. The hall is filled with students rushing to classes and I cling to my bag, anxiety filling my chest. Rose touches my arm. “I’m not sure what I would do without you. It’s a lot to take in.”

Rose beams. “I got you. It’s exciting having a new friend. My sister went off to college this year, so I’ve been a bit lonely. And it all calms down after the first week. Everyone is crazy trying to figure out their schedules and where they need to be.”

We have English together, then Latin, then Math, then Physics. My stomach is rumbling by the time lunch rolls around and I find myself standing in line with Rose, staring out over the huge bustling lunchroom. “How long do we have to eat?”

“What?” Rose gives me a strange look. “Oh, it’s not timed, really. You just have to make it to your next class on time. Which is… Drawing at two. Nice. So, like, an hour.”

Lunch looks better than anything I had ever been served back on Jakku. For one, it resembles actual food. For another, I get to choose what I want to eat. Maybe I could get used to this. My stomach turns. Maybe I shouldn’t get used to this. I knew how quickly things could get taken away.

When we sit down, Poe and Finn are in the middle of arguing about football, I think. It’s all just sports talk to me. Rose leans over to me, “Don’t worry, I have no idea what they’re saying either. Are you liking your classes so far?”

“Yeah, but I think I’ll need a cart to carry all these books around.” I grin and poke at my peas.

Rose snorts. “Me too. It’s torture. Hey, we should definitely start a study group together. I saw that you have a free block with me Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“That would be great.” A friend! I smile and dig into my chicken.

“Do you think you’re going to join any clubs or anything? There’s A Capella, chess, film…”

I shrug. “I’ve never really been a group person.” Rose gives me the saddest look. “But, I can see. What are you in?”

A giant smile breaks across Rose’s face.

“Oh, now you’ve released the beast.” Finn chuckles, making eyes across the table at his girlfriend.

“So, there’s this group I’ve been wanting to get started.” Rose’s eyes are bright and excited and I can’t help but laugh. “It’s called FEM-STEM for women in science. And we’d be part robotics team, part STEM buds, and it would really just be you and me for right now, but that’s enough to start and I, like, need a Vice President.”

“I would love, too!” There’s a flash of anxiety in my gut as I drop out of the dream for a second. “But I don’t know how long I’m staying here. It’s all so new, you know. But, I’ll definitely think about it. I just want to make sure Maz is like a sure thing. I haven’t had the greatest time with foster parents.”

I finish softly and there’s a soft oh from Rose’s lips. I look up and my eyes connect with his. Dark, brooding, intense. I gasp and look away. I look back up and he’s turned away, head in a book, scribbling, black hair falling over his eyes. I know those eyes… I know them from… Somewhere. I tune back in.

“It’s totally okay. I totally understand. I didn’t mean to bring up-”

“I’ll do it.” I force a smile. Rose squeals and pulls me into a huge hug. What is it with these people and hugs? “I have to talk to Maz first.”

“Oh, Rey. Thank you.” Rose is bouncing in her seat with excitement.

I glance back at him and he looks up at me. Something imperceptible passes across his eyes and he gathers his things to leave. The table he’s at is empty. “Who’s that?”

Poe, Finn, and Rose’s eyes track mine as I watch him leave the giant lunch hall. Poe’s face immediately darkens into anger while Rose and Finn share a knowing look and glance at Poe. Poe takes a deep breath and lets it out. “It’s fine. She’ll find out sooner or later and it may as well be from us.”

Poe’s eyes meet mine and I’m filled with a burning curiosity. He’s immediately on edge, tensed.

“I can’t believe she let him come back.” Rose mutters.

“Well, he is her son.” Finn replies softly. I glance between the three of them confused.

“What happened?”

Rose sighs. Her voice is almost a whisper like she’s telling me a secret. “That’s Ben Solo.”

“Solo?” It sounds familiar but I can’t quite find it amongst the ocean of information that’s been driven into my head today.

“Yeah, Principal Organa and Mr. Solo’s son.” Finn fills in. Suddenly, Poe slams his fist down on the table and the whole cafeteria goes quiet. He stands and walks out. My eyes go wide. Finn grabs both their trays. “I’ll go calm him down.”

The chatter starts up again as Finn leaves. My heart is racing. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up something bad. I-“

“No, Rey, it's okay. You didn’t know. You couldn’t have.” Rose’s voice is steady. Calming. “I just wouldn’t bring Ben Solo up in front of Poe again.”

“Yeah, of course.” I poke at the remaining peas on my plate, no longer hungry.

“Poe and Ben… well I think they used to be really good friends as kids. I’m not sure. I moved here in middle school. But as they grew up, well, Poe is really easy to like. And Ben, I guess, not so much. I’m a little fuzzy on the details. But I guess Ben started having a lot of mental health problems and anger issues and I think he got started down the wrong path. No one is really sure, but a lot of people say he might sell drugs or something. And Poe thinks that Ben sold Poe’s twin sister the drugs that Lily overdosed on. And it all kind of culminated at the end of last year when Ben showed up to the funeral. Poe came to school and it was so scary. I’ve never seen him so angry. And he and Ben got into a fight in the courtyard that sent both of them to the hospital. The police got involved. It was horrible. And I guess Ben got shipped off to some reform summer camp. And it’s why Poe can’t play any varsity or junior lacrosse this year.”

“Gods. That’s horrible.” Anxiety knits my stomach. Maybe I should find Poe and apologize.

“Yeah...” Rose wipes away a tear and looks at the time on her phone. “Oh! I should probably get you to your next class. I have vocal so it’s in the same wing at least.”

We discard out trays and walk out of the cafeteria and up a flight of stairs to the Art Hall as Rose called it. There were three art studios on one side of the hall and the orchestra/band room on the other side. Two double doors at the end of the hall were for the balcony seats of the auditorium. I waved goodbye to Rose and she ran off to the auditorium for vocal and for the first time today I’m alone. The classroom looks empty since I’m about ten minutes early so I go in and nearly jump out of my skin.

Ben Solo is sitting in the corner of the classroom at one of the high drawing desks eating an apple. He looks up in surprise as I enter and takes a bite. I can’t get rid of the feeling that I know him from somewhere. But where?

“Sorry… I thought it was empty.” No reply. “Is it okay if I sit in here too?”

His intense eyes regard me carefully. “It’s a free country.”

His voice is deep, gravelly, sensual almost. I… was not expecting that. I pick one of the desks almost directly across from him. He goes back to his work as I take out my schedule and club list, as well as a thick welcome packet Rose had given to me. It’s the first time today I’m able to sit and breathe and think. I let out a deep sigh. First days are the worst.

I feel a tingle on my skin like someone’s watching me and I look up only to see him look back down at his sketchbook. A strand of long black hair falls in front of his face and I catch myself wondering what it would feel like to brush it back.

What the hell, Niima? I look back down at my papers electing to ignore him. He probably just had one of those faces. Besides, if anything Rose said was true, I shouldn’t  trust this guy at all. It’s not trust, it's curiosity. Okay, well, then I shouldn’t be curious either. He’s bad enough to make funny, happy-go-lucky Poe Dameron go nuclear.

I glance back up at him and our eyes lock. I don’t know if we’re looking at each other for minutes or hours or just seconds. He moves like he wants to ask me something and the classroom door swings open breaking our trance.

A tall woman struggles through the door carrying a giant armful of drawing pads and utensils. I rush to help her, taking some of her things.

“Oh, thank you, dear. You’re so kind. Yes, just put one on each desk for me.”

I’ve taken a box of boxes of drawing pencils from her. I set to work placing boxes of pencils on my desk, deliberately starting as far away from him as possible. I work my way around the U of desks and come to him. He stiffens as I draw near and dammit he smells good too. I hastily shove a pencil box at him and he takes it. His fingers brush against mine and I gasp, hurrying away from him. My heart is pounding in my chest and I can feel him watching me. I’m so ready for this day to end.

I set the empty box down on the desk and the art teacher is desperately trying to get the overhead projector to turn on.

“Do you mind?” She hands me the remote and I turn on the projector with one click. She laughs and takes it back. “I swear, technology hates me. I don’t recognize you so you must be…. Rey Nemo.”

“Niima.” I smile.

She clicks her tongue. “Yes, that’s what Rose said. Pretty name. I’m Mrs. Tico, the drawing teacher.”

“Rose’s mom?”

She smiles brightly. I can tell where Rose gets her sunshine personality from.  “The one and only. I hope my daughter hasn’t scared you off yet.”

There’s a light scoff behind me and I look back to see Ben concentrating very hard on his notebook. Did he know me? Did he recognize me from somewhere, too?

I turn back to Mrs. Tico. “Not at all. She’s been really nice and welcoming. I think it’s the best welcome party I’ve ever had.”

The door swings open and students start to roll in. Mrs. Tico smiles. “Well, we’re more than happy to have you here and I’m delighted to have you as a student, Rey. Maybe you can convince my daughter to take one class with her momma. I sure can’t.”

I laugh and head back to my seat. I don’t catch him looking at me the rest of the block, but for some reason I know he is.

The bell rings, signifying the end of the block and I gather myself. Rose is waiting for me outside the door, a petrified look on her face.

“What?”

“You have class with him? After I told you all that stuff? Oh jeez, I’m so sorry.” Rose's eyes are wide.

I shrug. “Don’t worry about it.”

Should I mention the staring? The eye contact? The fact that I find him kinda hot? The weird feeling in my chest when he looks at me? Probably not. Probably should just chalk this up to weird teenage hormones.

“So the shop is a bit different. It’s across the parking lot because it has to be a separate building because of building codes or something.” Rose says as we walk through the hall, down the stairs, and through the double glass doors into the back parking lot. We head towards a building made of white tin and Rose drops me off at the door.

“I like your mom, by the way. She seems nice.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty cool. She keeps wanting me to take art classes but I can’t draw to save my life.” Rose shrugs. “Do you have any plans after school? I usually go to the coffee shop and work on homework or hang out until Finn gets done with practice.”

“That sounds fun. I think Maz wanted to take me shopping for some things tonight though. Maybe some other time?”

“Oh sure! How about tomorrow?” Rose raises her eyebrows. “I mean you can totally say no, but I think it would be fun to hang out outside of school.”

It was hard to not want to be Rose’s friend. She made it so easy. Don’t get attached. She’s just being nice. I pushed the thought out of my head. “Yeah! Tomorrow sounds great.”

Rose beamed.  “Sweet! I’ll see you tomorrow then! Bye, Rey!”

I watched her race across the parking lot back to school. I opened the door to the huge white shop and was greeted with a small classroom. A couple tables with benches faced a white board. And in front of the white board, staring at me again was Ben. Why me. Why today.

It looks like I’ve just interrupted a strained conversation between him and the man at the desk. Ben immediately takes a seat near the outside wall of the room. The man at the desk stands and saunters over to me. He’s wearing a white shirt and jeans with grease spots. He’s got greying hair and a twinkle in his eye. “Rey Niima?”

I nod.

“Han Solo, how you doing, kid?” He sticks his hand out and I shake it. I’m trying to put three and three together. The grungy man before me and the polished lady I met earlier and their mysterious son in the corner.

“I’m okay, thank you.”

“Nice to have a girl in here. Maybe it will teach some of these boys a lesson.”

Not sure what that means, but I catch Ben glaring grumpily at the desk in front of him.

“Have you worked with engines before, kid?”

I nod. “A little bit. Kinda. I… Stayed with someone who owned a junkyard and he let me take stuff apart. Mostly I think he just wanted me to learn how to strip cars for parts cause my hands were small.”

Is that too much information? My stomach twists but Mr. Solo seems delighted and Ben is staring at me again. He quickly looks away.

“Oh, yeah, Maz had told me she was fostering a new kid. Look at you. You’ll do fine here. Just pick a seat. We’ll start once the others show up.”

I sit down two rows behind Ben. Try to stare at me now. I smirk. But now you get to be the one who stares. I roll my eyes at my subconscious. It’s curiosity. And hormones. Pure and simple.

By the time I get home that night, I’m completely exhausted from the day and from answering a million questions. The moment I lay down, I’m passed out and dreaming of dark eyes and endless darkness. Flashes of him pass through, fleeting. When I wake in the morning, I can’t remember much of it.

[yfere]

Shipping Calculus! Live updates from C2E64

They say that fire exposes a person’s priorities, but we here at the lab believe that a gaggle of overly friendly moaning demons can also do the trick. Thank you to @softazelma, @fyeahthominho, and @alarnia for helping with data entry! Masterpost here.

+500 to The Mighty Nein/Totally Not Anachronisms. Beau invented the phrase “Don’t shoot the messenger,” and also ravioli, with her hidden chef talent. Caleb, having wheeled and dealed with the rich assholes of the Empire, naturally invented the game of golf during his year at the Academy. And Moro watched only half of the first season of Stranger Things. Don’t spoil her, okay?

+150 to Caleb/Astrid/Eodwulf “FOR FUTURE REFERENCE, JESTER, I’ll have you know that Eodwulf who I have never mentioned to you and who was not mentioned in the letter was buff and muscular and strong and so talented whoops that’s not even a physical description anymore but did I mention he was impressive? So if Marion Lavorre meets a black haired blue eyed incredibly eligible and attractive and gifted heartthrob of a man that’s the one you’re looking for BEWARE.” Okay, Caleb. Gone are the days of being content with all the love being directed at Astrid, I see. All right.

+0 to Jester/Beau Well, if an indirect kiss involves drinking from the same water glass, is it an indirect flirt if you both flirt with the same person? Moro became the unlikely receptacle of both these gal’s affections this episode, between Beau’s loud and enthusiastic appreciation of Moro’s criminal hustle, and Jester making sure Moro knows that Jester thinks she’s cute (and that she’ll kill her for lying to them). Beau as usual hyping up Jester’s awesomeness to everyone (in this case Caduceus) who will listen. Shockingly, this episode Beau seems to have acquired the ability to actually fool Jester into thinking she’s fine, which resulted in point loss and meant Caleb instead had to pick up the slack to gracefully get some help for the poor beat up monk. (For him, that’s +6 to Caleb/Faking Injury for Friendship)

-30 to Fjord/Shortcuts Just as when Captain of the Ball-Eater, Fjord is ALL ABOUT running into clear danger if it means shaving one or two days off of a trip. Into the eye of the storm! Into Ground Zero of the Calamity! We care for speed here, not safety!

+18 to Caleb/Jester and speaking of Caleb having a Thing for strong people, how he continues to single out Jester as the Strongest Woman, who even is Yasha, which creates a perfect combination of #ItPaysToBeADamselInDistress and #LovesToBeAKnightInShiningArmor between the two of them, as Caleb begs for assistance getting a horse on his moorbounder of COURSE Jester can do this alone, Jester squashing Caleb adorably and staying there for….a length of time while at Moro’s (I guess Caleb is the type to have people sit on his face huh), and Caleb very effectively pulling his “Oh no, I am so weak and delicate I must have a fainting couch to rest upon for a spell” to Jester’s delighted crowing over how weak he is. Caleb as usual thinking Jester’s out-of-the-box thinking with an aerial view is The Best Thing Ever. Jester wanting to get in on the Healing Caleb Action Caduceus has been hogging with a Cure Wounds, what do you mean Fjord is injured too? (#ItReallyDoesPayToBeADamselInDistress). Caleb’s Worrywarting directed at full strength at Marion Lavorre. +4 to Yasha/Cockblocking for Jester bringing Yasha in on the horse moving action. Point loss for Caleb’s Worrywarting creating Jester Worrying and making her lose sleep. Nein! Not okay!

+17 to Beau/Yasha because as we all know mutilating corpses with Beau is a sure way to her big gooey heart. Also, Beau adopting a Striking Pose after striking the enemy dead, and the Gay Power of that alone probably making Yasha’s rage drop, as she struggles to pick her jaw up off the floor and reorient towards combat.

-10 to The Mighty Nein/The Neighbors as they apparently carry a couplea severed heads in plain view all across town on their way to the Xhorhaus before storing them. According to the local Mighty Nein Neighborhood Watch, this is only the third or fourth weirdest thing they’ve done.

+24 to Caleb/Caduceus as Caduceus continues as always to think Caleb is the solution to all problems always with his cool magic and his alarms, though +5 to Cockblocking for both Jester and Beau who tragically remind him that there are other people out there who can also do things. The slip into nearly calling Caleb “Mr. Clay” instead of “Mr. Caleb” is of note, and someone needs to investigate what he’s been writing in those hearts in his journal pronto. Caduceus making Caleb his #1 priority in battle, #ItPaysToBeADamselInDistress, with his ray of enfeeblement, healing, attacks, and physically standing over the wizard in a defensive stance to protect him! Batting away attacking bats (while Caleb crawls around collecting guano!). Points taken away because poor Caduceus forgets for a moment that the next brightest thing after his own pink hair is Caleb’s. It’s still romantic if you’re saving people from trouble you sent their way, right? Right? Points gained for asking if Caleb is okay after the fight, and for them both being very dark, between advocating for decapitation and threatening Moro and her employee with decapitation, simmer down a second Caleb.

+10 to Caleb/Vulture Culture. Between Frumpkin’s new shape and getting Those Good Spell Components, our dear Caleb, covered once more in gore and shit and Death, is his happiest self. Hopefully he didn’t ruin his new fancy threads.

+2 to Beau/Hosting as Beau practices Manners and Decorum with a “no, sir” to the attacking demons (#CustomerService). Some mixed messages by following this up with pummeling them to death, but An Effort Was Made.

+4 to Caduceus/Nature as he found a new mushroom! Which will definitely not be a bad mushroom in any way.

+90 to Caleb/Cat-Shaped Creatures. There’s the usual spying Frumpkin rigmarole, but it says something about your love for cats when you’re willing to forgive, nay, even love, suspiciously dog-like behavior of gross licking for affection—so long as it’s coming from a cat. Caleb cleverly disposing of troublesome corpses and feeding his favorite members of the M9 at the same time. Caleb also adorably taking Jannick out for a little run on the Fields of Death, and all the Moorbounders coming in clutch as fighting machines (with some wonderful light-based assistance from Caleb, Support Catster Extraordinare), and somehow remaining unscathed during battle.

+45 to Fjord/Jester. Lips. Made. Contact. With. A. Cheek. That is very cheeky of you Fjord, if I do say so myself. Jessie is said, not once but twice, and Jester gets to be her true #LovesToBeAKnightInShiningArmor self as she saves Fjord repeatedly by murdering the demons attacking him, only getting slightly annoyed that he gets in trouble immediately after she saves him the first time. Seriously though, the amount of Goopy Feelings Jester has for saving this poor man….well, #ItPaysToBeADamselInDistress. Point loss for poor Jester failing to look as cool as the knights in the novels as she falls flat on her face with the handaxe strike, but she makes up for it by pounding the creature to death with her spiritual weapon instead, that was totally intentional. Point gains for Fjord being very Pleased with anything and everything Jester got up to, Jester pumping up Fjord’s accent and impersonation skills, contributing to Corpse Interrogation with her own Disguise Self, and the Excellence that was the fake Insta-Death spell the two of them threatened Moro with.

-8 to Nott/Yeza “Tell Veth I love her” does not make up for fucking ditching your husband without a word, Nott, you absolute asshole. Please talk to your spouse.

+13 to Caleb/Fjord/Jester In another great week for this triad, they all prove to be Excellent at Delivering Deceptive Threats, though Caleb is as per usual a little too serious about his contributions (though the other two are uh a bit more on the serious side as well this is a Bloodthirsty Throuple) The Epic Triangle Of Saving Each Other, as Jester rescues Fjord and Fjord hustles to rescue Caleb, followed by Jester’s healing action. Fjord taking joy in Jester falling on top of Caleb, and the both of them being very good about letting the Totally Actually Injured And Not At All Faking dramatic wizard take a short rest for Beau.

+1 to Fjord/Caleb. Most of their points this week were more applicable to Caleb/Fjord./Jester, but the instant “Moro, you got to die” when Caleb Can’t-Switch-Tasks Assassin Wizard suggests it is still very fun. Fjord sort of leaps to Caleb’s suggestions this episode, the ultimate yes-and-man.

+6 to Fjord/Detective Work as he steers the party clear of the Bad Tar Pits, they might have landed in quite a sticky situation otherwise

+20 to Critters/Detective Work, as the cast very loudly run through the Totally Natural Conclusion to the clues provided in the last ep, they Definitely Solved This Themselves, they had No Help From The Internet.

+14 to Fjord/Caduceus. Fjord offers to “loom” over Caduceus’ shoulder and points out that he looks “fleek” like damn, Caduceus, the boy is making an effort for you! As usual they are On The Same Wavelength and good cop/bad cop Moro and co. like pros, no discussion or even a conspiratorial glance required, they know what the jig is before anyone else. Fjord advocating for sending Moro money because that was Caduceus’ plan, no one is allowed to argue. Also being excellent interrogators of corpses together. Fjord is a huge fan of Caduceus’ magical food powers, #MagicalCrush, would “not turn down” Caduceus’ healing, and he kills some bats Cads was slapping around. Unfortunately without the bats Caduceus proceeds to slap a bunch of points out of the ship by saying he “doesn’t care.” That is cold.

+7 to Jester/Caduceus as they do a little awkward dance on the steps to make it around each other, and spending hours annoying everyone else in the party by talking about Cleric Things. Caduceus being impressed over Jester totally lying about being able to talk to dead horses, and Jester going wild over HOW COOL the Corpse Interrogation was. The Clerics Cuddling for comfort when the enemies first attack, since that was definitely what Jester and Caduceus were doing no questions here. Points taken away because Jester’s enthusiasm for Corpse Interrogation sort of glosses over how Caduceus “feels dirty” over the whole affair, they are apparently not too compatible in this area.

-5 to Nott/Yasha as Nott makes a sincere and successful effort to apologize to Yasha for sticking her like a pincushion and trying to be Nice and Supportive with memory games to help Yasha remember the “drow.” But points are drained away into the negatives as Nott goes a little too hard with the interrogation over Yasha having potentially killed people to make orphans (“that’s a cool name” and “Orphie” is terrible and does not make up for this nonsense), and Yasha’s well-received but still terrible allowance of Nott’s alcoholic predilections. They are a wonderful trainwreck to watch.

-20 to The Mighty Nein/Names. As of right now, there appears to be one (1) member of the Mighty Nein in Caduceus Clay who did not at some point either change their name or have some type of Name Angst over what someone else has named them. Though making faces at ‘Ducey might come to count for something, in time.

+11 to Nott/Jester Speaking of Disguise Self Shenanigans, how Nott is the Moro to Jester’s invisible bugbear, making them the logical pairing of the Corpse Interrogation Caper. Jester’s adorable confusion over her nickname being “Little Sapphire” which leads to Nott instantly screeching about how beautiful and perfect Jester is, that lovable dumbass. Nott using the word “shiny” to describe Jester, which seems technically a little odd but says loads about Nott’s affection for the gal, as this is the #1 lover of Shiny Valuable Things in the party speaking.

+8 to Jester/Yasha as Yasha in her sweet soft way also points out how Jester is very pretty and brings up Fluffernutter as a potential badass name that some of the people in her tribe might have been named for. Jester, for her part, directing Worrywarting in Yasha’s direction over how she was recognized and trying to give Yasha control over what they do next and what Yasha wants, though dear Yasha who cannot assert herself to save her life only manages to tentatively say she wants to know what’s going on before saying she’ll do whatever the group wants. (They! Want! What! You! Want! Yasha!)

-6 to Jester/Curtains, which surprisingly don’t taste as good to tieflings as they do to moths. Further experimentation required to determine how delicious they are to goblins, firbolgs, half orcs, aasimar and humans.

-101,019.01 to Critters/Child Poverty. TAKE THAT, CHILD POVERTY! This is how much was raised at the end of the stream, and a deserved kick in the face to all Child Poverty ships everywhere #AntiChildPoverty

[letsdiscoverkitty]

CPA update (30th August 2019)

I did not plan to write this this evening but I needed to get this out somewhere.

I know I haven’t been very present online and I can only apologise for that but as you can imagine things have been quite challenging since being admitted. I had my first CPA so I thought I would make a little post to help me begin to process it/get some thoughts down....(warning: very long post ahead, snacks may be necessary, and I am sorry if it does not read well/make much sense, I literally just typed my heart out)

For those who are not sure of what one is, a CPA is basically a care plan review where your treatment team review the past few weeks/months (time since the last review) and then start to plan the next stages of your care. It is a chance for different members of your treatment to meet and make sure that everyone is on the same page. Today my CPA consisted of my consultant, one of the nursing staff from the ward, the OP ED nurse I was seeing before I came in, myself and my parents. The first half of the review was just between professionals, I was then called into the room for a discussion followed by my parents nearer the end.

It is hard to remember what I have shared online so I am sorry if some of the things I mention do not make sense but I will try to cover most of what happened. I had my ward round on Thursday (due to the bank holiday weekend just gone), in which a lot of new ideas were brought to the table as, well, no one really knows what to do with me… A week or so ago I wrote a letter to my consultant as I was beginning to worry about what the plan was for when I was discharged (as it was being implied that I was to be discharged over the next few weeks)/that my community team were not replying to any messages and that I was concerned about going back home to live at my parents house.

My main worries with returning home were mainly because it is a place where I have been unwell for many years and I find that when I go back there it is almost like anorexia snaps back without me realising it/I can’t control it. Sadly due to being unwell at home for years, I do associate home with bad things, I also do not currently have no goals or things to be working towards (i.e. I have no education to go back to, no job lined up or thought about to go back to) and the worry is that I would be going back home to just anorexia and relapsing backwards. Throw into the mix that my mum retired last week, as well as the family dynamics always being quite rocky (along with being geographically being incredibly socially isolated), I think it is fair to say that I was extremely worried about the prospect of home leave let alone moving back home permanently and with very limited outpatient support.

A long story short, my consultant agrees that going back home is likely not going to help me move on/recover/give me a chance of living a life beyond this, however she also does not believe that staying in an acute EDU will help (which I do understand). In terms of why she thinks that being on the unit for longer might not help include that my weight has not been reaching the targets that are expected, I am struggling on leave/when I get given more control, as well as the usual pitfalls of being on an EDU like being trapped around a lot of other acutely unwell people, having the identity reinforced and the lack of responsibility/it not necessarily coming from me. I floated the idea of going to live in Reading with Andi however she shot me down straight away at that stage saying that I was far too unwell for that…

Anyway, to get to the point, she wants to apply for funding for me to go into residential treatment. This is not something that I know much about, although I do know that getting funding for a place is very very hard and that there are very few places that offer it in the country….from what she explained to me it is a more holistic approach, with the focus on helping you build a life beyond anorexia whilst also supporting you nutritionally. (it sounds far too fairytale-esque for my liking…)She said that as I have had a lot of psychological input and have been under services with very few gaps over the years, that it was obvious that a new approach was needed and that this style might be that. Apparently I have incredible insight/understanding however because the anorexic neural pathways/cognitions have become so strong and rigid, I find it near impossible to force myself to follow through with the theory that I know so well.

I honestly have no idea how I feel right now. I am utterly lost and confused and don’t really know what to do with myself. I feel like no one knows what to do with me/what will help and they are just trying to get rid of me. I want to recover, I really do.  My consultant said that it is not that I don’t want to or don’t have motivation, but that it is the degree of severity of the illness and the complexity of my case, which kind of helped but also left me feeling very broken and hopeless.

She tried to explain all of this to my parents today and I am actually relieved that she was able to speak to them about it as there is no way that I would have been able to approach the subject. She explained it in scientific terms and tried to be realistic about the whole process (which could likely take months to apply for funding, let alone get on the waiting list/pass assessments).

My OP team are apparently supportive of this and are going to work together with the IP team, my consultant and the therapist I was seeing as an OP to put together a proposal for the CCG. Sadly, as I have mentioned this is going to be quite a lengthy process and I don’t really know where it leaves me…If this were not being explored then I would be getting discharged to the same very minimal support that I have had over the past x years, which has not been enough in the past.

So what now? Good question. Basically I have been told that I have to “prove” to the CCG that I am not just in need of an acute EDU admission and that the funding would not be going to waste…this means that I have to show that I can maintain my weight in the community (or gain if possible) as if I were to relapse they would likely just say that I need an acute admission and refuse the funding, leaving me back at square one.

This admission was never going to be a long one, I knew that, but part of me was hoping for a bit longer…I suppose it has brought to the surface the necessity for a different approach to be explored, which I hope means something. Basically my admission can’t be extended, that has been made clear, and I now have a discharge date for two weeks time…with little to no idea of time length beyond that in regards to this talk of residential.

I honestly don’t know what to think or how to feel right now, I really don’t. Part of me thinks that they are making a big fuss over nothing and that there is no way that I will get funding as there are so many people out there with far worse scenarios than mine who need it more. At least I have a home to go to, I know there are many people who dont, so I should really just suck it up and try and do what I can at home with the support that I have.

I have no idea what the residential would entail practically but I am worried that it could end up feeding into my eating disorder even more? I know the reason for the admission would be to help me build a life beyond anorexia, but surely being stuck in a place like that almost reinforces that identity? I dont know, I am very confused about everything right now :(

Short term plan: I have an appointment set up with the ED nurse I am to see in the community for Monday morning and have been given a bit of extra leave this weekend to make it possible for me to attend. When I return to the ward on Monday afternoon I will be moving onto transition and have been promised that I will have a number of appointments with the dietitian over my last two weeks in order to create a realistic maintenance plan for when I go home (as well as trying to get my mum to attend an appointment with the two of us). I am also trying to get an appointment for my mum to come to a family therapy session (they have pretty much written off my dad as someone who can be supportive for a number of reasons which I do not want to go into right now) Being on transition hopefully will give me a bit of an opportunity to self-cater some meals and practice before I move back home for the foreseeable future.

It all feels very rushed and uncertain and I was not expecting to get this much leave this weekend so don’t really know what to do with myself but yeah I suppose this is where things are at. The ward has been quite a tricky environment so on the one hand I am glad to have some space, however Im also worried about it too.

I am sorry, I realise that this whole post probably comes across as extremely selfish and stupid - I wish I could shake myself/pull myself together and just do what I know I need to do but whywhywhy do I keep ending up back in the same place time and time again? I have tried so bloody hard over the past x years but it has never been enough….I do not want to end up being sent to a unit where I will spend months/my consultant briefly mentioned that admissions are usually between 1 and 2 years long…I really dont. but I dont know what else to do with myself when so many options have been explored. I am tired of it all, of everything. It is like I dont know where to turn anymore. Part of me feels like I am just getting palmed off from place to the next because no body knows what to do with me. sigh. I am sorry for throwing this pity party. I wish I had some more positive news to share with you all. I suppose yes I have made some progress since I was admitted. I have gained weight. I am no longer in as much danger as I was. I have had to face a lot of changes in terms of routines, eating different foods, times, I can think a little clearer, I have more concentration etc. Things are just very hard at the moment and having everything in terms of my treatment thrown up in the air like this has made me feel even more unsettled and uncertain about everything. I have no idea what the next few weeks/months may hold so for now I am going to have to continue to take each day as it comes and see where it takes me. Sorry again for the ridiculous  length of this post, you genuinely deserve a gold medal if you have stuck with me through this.

[jay-and-dean]

Love me once, shame on me Chapter 3 : Teach me.

Dean x named reader (is this a thing ?)

Love me Once, Shame on me MASTERLIST

Serie Warnings : Violence, swearing, Angst, Smut, unprotected sex (you are smarter than this), Fluffy fluff.

Chapter warnings : Violence, swearing, angst, smut, loss of virginity, fluff.

Words : 7k (yeah... I know)

Chapter summary : Dean can’t say no anymore.

          I walk through Lebanon, tired, terrified. Dean will pick me up and I’ll have to be close to him, I’ll have to sit in his beloved car and smell him everywhere. And he will take me home… Sometimes I wish I had never met him, sometimes I wish I could forget just like he did. But most of the time my memories are the only precious thing I own and I play his voice telling me he loves me in repeat in my head.

           My phone rings and it’s a text from him. The first one in fourteen years, the very last one said “Can’t wait. Love you so much”, this one says “Hi it’s Dean, where are you ?”. I’m going to be sick.

           When I start to write an answer, looking around me to give him precise indications, the Impala parks next to me. He comes out of it and my heart stops again. It’s like my life had been in black and white all those years, dark and cold, he’s the colors, he’s the sun, just him being here lights up everything. I look at him coming toward me in his grey flannel and black jacket and my stomach hurts. Perfect Dean, how could you forsake me ?

“Hey” he says with a light smile.

I try to smile but I know it’s sad, I can’t do better.

“You okay ?” he asks with that deep velvety voice I love even more than the one he had when he was mine.

“Yeah… yeah. Thank you for your help and your invitation you know… about the case”

God, I sound so awkward.

“No problem” he says opening the passenger door.

           This car is so much more than a car, its smell, above all, makes a tornado of memories rush inside me, threatening to drown me for good. While he goes around the car I can’t help but open the glove box?

It’s still there.

J.

The mark he carved one night, hidden inside the glove box to prevent his father to see it. “One day I’ll carved it next to mine and my brother’s initials” he had said. And I had believe him. I close it before he enters and smile at him the best I can.

“Let’s go” he says starting the car.

And for a moment I loose myself in the sound of the engine, thinking of that time I fell asleep, head on his knees, with him stroking my hair.

“So… any hunt since the last time we saw ?” he asks a bit awkwardly, trying to break the silence.

“Hum, no. I… I have to find a job, I’m broke. My car died and can’t be fixed, I have to by a new one…”

“Maybe I could” he says with a shrug.

“No, I don’t think so, it fell off a cliff. Long story.”

“Ooookay… I want to hear that story one day !” he says with a warm smile I still can’t offer back.

******************************

2005

I kissed her. I fucking kissed her. I put her in danger, told her about the supernatural and kissed her. She’s in high school for Christ sake !

I kissed her twice, once chaste and once passionate. And I fucking left. I am a mess, John would kill me and he would be right. Now all I can think of is to see her again because she’s my friend and I can’t imagine spending the evening alone, knowing she’s too. I should leave town. Tell her I have to go and leave before I make more mistakes.

The motel room is not only dirty, ugly and smelly, it’s also sad. I try to call dad but he didn’t answer, so I’m cleaning my guns in silence, thinking about her.

Three knocks on the door. Maybe it’s dad ! Or, maybe it’s the fat smelly neighbor again, asking for condoms, yuk.

“Hey Dean, if you felt bad about this kiss you could just have told me ! I thought something bad happened to you !” she says lifting her hands.

I can’t believe she’s here. I look outside, seeing her old car parked next to the Impala.

“How… how did you find me ?” I ask, not even thinking to invite her in.

“I looked for your car, took me some time” She says with a hint of sadness I rarely see in her eyes. “If, if you don’t want to see me again, just say so, I’ll leave you alone.”

“No… no. It’s just… It’s complicated. Come in.” I finally say.

           She looks at the guns on the bed and at the Chinese box food on the table. After I told her I have nothing here to give, no beer, no coffee, nothing, I offer her to sit on the bed. She does, carefully, not to mess the guns up, looking around her.

“I’m sorry about the kiss…” I dare and she lifts her beautiful eyes on me.

“You don’t have to. It was a great kiss” she smiles.

“I don’t usually kiss my friends. Even less illegal ones” I joke carefully.

“Okay” she just says. “So I’m your friend” she adds with a wide smile.

“Of course you are !”

           She makes it so easy as always. And the day after, I pick her after school again, not even trying to pretext a reason, she’s just my friends and it’s the weekend now, we can hang out.

           At her place, outside as always, we talk, drinking a beer and eating the mac and cheese she made in bowls. I tell her about my mom and the quest my dad and I are in since then. I tell her about Sammy, without realizing it, I talk to her about what I felt when he left, and about my dad’s wrath. She’s so good at listening.

           She talks to me about the abusive foster family she lived with, about the street, the hunger and the fight to keep her dignity, to resist selling herself for food… She talks to me about her dreams : She’s good at learning, and maybe one day she’ll go to college, if she works hard enough. She’ll go to college and she will travel the world. She says she needs to see the world out of this stupid town. She has a lot of dreams… And under the tiny lights she puts in her world to lighten it, I drink her words.

           When I ask her for the bathroom, she lets me in for the first time. It’s very small in here, but she made it sweet too. Her bedroom is not a bedroom, it’s just a large bed, like there was a square big hole on the wall leading directly on a mattress, with a lot of pillows. It’s like she was sleeping in a solid camping bed, and, like the little lightbulb stars outside, this is enchanting.

           She as only one little table, with a unique chair (apart from the ones outside) and the table is covered by books and notebooks. I never realize she worked so hard. I barely fit in the bathroom and I can grab her shower product while peeing. Her shampoo smells so good, I shouldn’t be smelling it I guess.

“It’s nice inside” I say going out again, making her get up to pass by her, before she sits on the step again.

“It’s small, but as you can see I’m outside all the time. At least the weather is great here” she says handing me another beer.

When I take it, my hand touches hers and I can’t help but look at her deeply. She’s beautiful, not only because her eyes are so bright, and her skin so soft. But it’s her attitude, the way she moves and talks, that habit she has to play with the hair that escape her messy bun on her neck, the way her eyes become mischievous every time she smiles.

I want to kiss her again.

“What ?” she asks reading my face as usual.

“Nothing” I whisper looking down, peeling the beer label.

“Okay. So you were telling me that story about the…”

“I was thinking about kissing you again” I cut her and she freezes.

“I… I guess I can’t blame you Dean…” she murmurs.

“Why ?”

“Because I have to concentrate not to think about it every time I lay my eyes on your lips” she smile shyly biting her lip.

I throw myself at her and capture her lips with mine, loudly sighing with relief. This time she wraps her arms around me and touches my neck eagerly, kissing me back. Her tongue dance with mine like we were making love and I feel myself getting hard. I should break the kiss to breath, I should break it before she feels my enthusiasm, but I can’t stop kissing her.

And I already know I won’t be able to stop.

***************************

           The rest of the drive is silent. We’ve never been silent. I mean, we have, because we wanted it, because we were laying in my bed, looking at each other with love after sex, or because I was studying and he was just looking at me, drinking coffee almost naked. But we’ve never been silent like this, like we don’t know what to say, like things weren’t easy between us.

           When I look at him, I see Dean, my Dean, my love. But also a total stranger, like he was another man. This makes me incredibly sad because the more I see this Dean, the one that isn’t mine, the more I miss mine. But maybe it is a good thing, maybe I won’t love this new Dean. Maybe my scars will heal… Maybe.

           When he opens the bunker’s door, my breathing stops. I’ve never seen such a beautiful, huge yet so intimate place. It smells like leather and old books and Dean. Heaven. We go down the stair in silence, me following him and he starts to talk.

“This is the war room, you remember I told you we inherited it from the Men of Letters ? So this place have been built for this job, which is, you know, convenient” he says. “Sam is in the library… as always…”

           Sam shows me the place and I love it even more. I will never have something this nice, and I think about the crappy motels I sleep in. I remember telling Dean, my Dean back then, that I’ll never want a home. I was wrong, so wrong. I thought I didn’t need it just because I already had one, it was tiny and humble and lonely, but at least it was mine. My bed smelled like me and even like him after that, it didn’t smell like stranger’s sweat, mold and bleach. I had a home and I thought travelling meant living on the road, but it really meant that you had a home to come from and to come back, otherwise it’s just roaming. And I burnt it down. My tiny little nest, I burnt it to the ground.

“You can put you bag in here, this bedroom is free, and not too cold at night, you can have it while you stay” Sam says opening a door.

“Thank you Sammy… Sam” I stammer.

Dean always said Sammy, it came like that. He looks at me with a hint of amusement and leaves me alone in the room.

           After my bag is on the bedroom chair, I take a minute to breath. This is a lot to take in and my legs are shaking.

“Hi!” says a smiley voice behind me, making me jump. “I’m Jack, and you must be Jay.”

“H-hi Jack. I heard a lot about you” I smile easily as his own thrilled face is contagious.

           Dean cooked. And he cooked well. No marshmallow on nachos or cereal in orange juice like he told me about. He made burgers, and it’s delicious. He sat in front of me at the kitchen table and I have trouble eating, my throat is tight and my stomach hurts.

           Sam is talking about angels and their ability to erase memories. He asks me a lot of questions and I try not to use unnecessary lies.

“So your friend suddenly lost every memories of you fourteen years ago ? That’s what you said, right ?” he asks.

“In fact, I don’t know when she lost her memories. We were good friends and then she disappeared, and after that I learned that she didn’t remember me at all, like I never existed. No medical issue, no head trauma. And she remembered everything but me.”

“Why would angels erase just you from her memories ?” Jack asks.

“That’s complicated” Dean grunts. “Maybe someone did that to protect her, sometimes it’s the only way”.

I can see Sam and he know something Jack and I don’t. I don’t know what they’re talking about, but Dean seems to be justifying this choice, so I guess he already did it : use an angel to erase someone’s memory. Shit I’m so lost.

“Why me ?” I ask in a whisper. “She was my only friend, we were both human. Why an angel would bother to take me from her life ? I always… I always thought it was a monster. I just don’t know which one and why.”

“It would be easier if we could talk to her” Sam says and I panic, even if I thought about that.

“You can’t. She’s dead now.”

“Do you know how she died ? Was it supernatural ?” Dean asks and I look deep in his eyes.

“Nothing supernatural…” I say more sadly than I expected.

**********************

2005

           I kissed her for what feels like hours I think and I feel like a teenager. Horny and exited, addicted to her and nervous. She’s straddling me on that folding chair, looking in my eyes while I randomly kiss her lips and her jaw. I slip my hand under her tank top and rub the skin of her back, she shivers. She suddenly seems nervous, and I can feel her thighs contract.

“Are you okay ?” I ask almost breathless.

“Yeah” she smiles but I can see she’s hiding something.

“If you don’t want me to go further, tell me now, please” I say, feeling my body will soon take control of me.

“No, I want it…I just. I don’t want you to be disappointed…” she looks down, taking my pendant in her trembling hand.

“Why would I be ?” I ask taking her hand in mine.

“Because I’m not so experienced, at all… Dean… that kiss last night… it was… my first. Kiss” she whispers and my hearts starts pounding.

“Are you serious Jay ?”

“Are you mad ?” she asks with worry, letting my necklace go.

“What ? No ! I just… I can’t do that. You’re too young and I’m not… I’m not a boyfriend, I’m your friend. A horny friend. But you deserve better than that for your first time.”

           She told me she was okay with me going back to the motel. She smiled and she told me everything was okay. But I still feel bad. I shouldn’t have stolen her first kiss, I shouldn’t have gone so far, why can’t I just keep a friend ? She’s not a sexy waitress, she’s a high school student. What am I doing ?

           I messed up, again. I didn’t want her to think I was avoiding her like last time, and I desperately wanted to see her, so I came to the trailer.

           And here I am, hardly an hour after I joined her, taking her in my arms to kiss her again. Shit. She wraps her arms around my waist under my leather jacket, my Henley the only thing keeping her soft hands from touching my burning skin.

“I’m not having sex with you” I say against her mouth, taking her lip between mine straightaway.

“I know” she sighs in my mouth. “I know…” she whispers kissing my jaw.

I press her against the trailer and deepen the kiss. I’m so fucking hard it hurts. This is ridiculous. I break the kiss, leaving her panting, and take a step away.

“I don’t care that you’re not boyfriend material, Dean. I would really love my first time to be with someone I care about, with someone I trust” she pants.

“No.”

She shrugs and throws herself at me, kissing me again.

“Dean” she moans and that sound makes my cock twitch.

“No” I pant.

The water is cold. Of course ! I already took two long showers today, it’s the only place in this motel room that doesn’t smell funny. I stop the water and keep touching myself anyway, my hand moving in steady movement around my cock, my breathing heavy. I don’t have to think about much, just remembering the feeling of her against me makes me hard as rock, and now I just think about her moan of my name“Dean”, imagining her hand in place of mine. She must taste so good, has she ever come like that ? I don’t think so… Her body is, fuck, her body must be so reactive… Is she touching herself thinking about me right now ? Oh fuck ! I come with a groan and rest my head on the tiles.

I thought touching myself before joining her would help, but it’s even worse. Now she’s stuffing pizza in her mouth searching through my tape collection and all I can think of is her hand around my cock, like I imagined in the shower.

“This one is great !” she squeals. “I wish I had something to play them. But my radio broke and now I have nothing to play music. Nevermind ! It’s always a party in here” she says pointing at her head and I smile moved by her enthusiasm.

           Despite myself, I bend and kiss her lips softly, it makes her chuckle and she puts a hand on her lips for a moment, chewing faster and swallowing her pizza quickly. She’s so adorable. Then she smiles and bites her lip, taking my face in her hands. I kiss her tenderly, not rushing this one into a horny makeout session. I just want to feel her face so close to mine.

           After a while, she looks me in the eye and sighs.

“Dean… Why don’t you want to be my first ? I swear I’m not planning a wedding, just…”

“No.”

“Does it disgust you ? Is it a problem ?” she asks seriously.

“Of course not, there is nothing disgusting about it, or about you…”

“If I wasn’t a virgin we would have had sex, am I right ?” she asks and I see her genius brain working behind her eyes.

“I guess, but…”

“So If I’m not a virgin anymore you won’t be afraid to deprive me of a romcom deflowering or whatever ?” she smiles.

“What ?”

She suddenly gets up and takes her glass in the air, yelling toward nothing.

“Beware boys ! I’m putting my virginity on sale ! If any of you have the guts not to be a gentleman, he can have it right now !”

I can’t help but laugh, catching her in my arms and putting a hand firmly on her mouth.

“Stop that ! That’s not how it works ! Don’t be stupid” I say, I little afraid she would do that for real.

“And how does it works ?” she asks in my hand.

“You’re too young” I state.

She puts my hand away and rolls her eyes.

“Come on Dean I’m eighteen !”

“Not yet” I state pointing my beer at her.

“Smartass” she sighs.

“You’re the smartass !”

           I open my eyes and blink at the intensity of the light coming from outside. I feel chilled and warm. Jay is there, her eyes closed, her head resting on my chest, arms around me. Just then I realize I’m sleeping in her bed, we fell asleep talking and kissing in the middle of the night.

           I look at her. Her face is always so expressive and now she’s still and quiet, she looks so peaceful. Her hand is firmly wrapped on my ribs, like she was afraid of letting me go, and I love feeling her so close to me. I gently stroke her hair not to wake her up and keep looking at her. Shit I want to spend the day like that.

“You keep being my first everything” she murmurs in a light smile, her eyes still closed. “I had never slept with anybody in my life.”

“Really ?”

“Yeah… No one ever picked me up after school, and no one ever offered me chocolate. Plus the kiss….”

“You are barely awake and you’re already asking me to have sex with you !” I say lifting one arm in the air.

She smiles and gets up suddenly, making me wince. She laughs and puts her feet on the ground, rubbing her adorable sleepy face.

“Coffee ?”

I nod.

           I don’t go back to the motel. Not once during the entire weekend. I sometimes check my phone, but there’s no news from dad. After coffee she asks me if it bothers me that she finished writing an essay, because she doesn’t want to do it on Sunday evening. It doesn’t. I tell her I have some shopping to do and she just shrugs as she is already focused on her work. Our dynamic is well-founded, like we’ve been friends for years.

           I buy food and beer, and at the store, I come across her shampoo. I smell it like a fucking creep… Then I buy a radio that reads tapes.

           She is so thrilled when I give it to her, I think she almost cries. And we spend the rest of the day listening to my tapes, talking about the meaning of the songs, replaying guitar solos, debating about our preferences.

           When she loves a song, really loves it, she can’t help but dance. Always. She’s there, moving her shoulders with the drums as I assure her this is not the best song of the album.

“Shut up ! You know nothing about music !” she says getting up to mime playing guitar.

Before I can hold back, I get up and kiss her with desire, moaning on her lips while she clings to me, flattening her breasts on my chest. It’s like the music goes louder and louder around us, like the climax scene of a movie. The enchanting tinsel embellishing the sky with more stars, the warm wind of the young night, the smell of the wood, the touch of her tongue… everything is overwhelming. I want her so bad. Her kisses are more confident than the first time, and they’re perfect. She learned to kiss on my lips, it’s like she’s made for me.

           I start to nibble her jaw and her throat, she lets her head back to grant me full access. Her hands comes under the hem of my Henley, the soft very shy brush of her fingers making me shiver. I take two steps to steady her against the trailer and she wraps her legs around me.

“Wow… stop, Jay, stop” I manage to say before my brain totally shuts down, taking her hands away from my skin.

“No ! Not again, Dean. Fuck you” she says getting off of me and pushing me back.

She pants and looks at me in the eye, flushed and shaking, with an angry frown, her lips mime a fuck you, and she goes inside her trailer.

           After a few minutes alone outside, I don’t know if she wants me gone or not. And I can’t let this perfect day finish like that, so I knock on her trailer.

“Who is this ?” she yells.

“Are you serious ?” I ask lifting my hands on disbelief.

She opens the door and looks at me biting her lips. With her hand she tells me to come in.

“I’m still mad at you” she says sitting on her bed, with a pout. “Would you stay tonight, just to sleep ? Or am I too young ?”

***********************************

           I'm looking at the ceiling again, trying to ease the pain in my chest. I hear nothing, Sam went to bed so I went to my room, I can't be alone with Dean again.

           A knock on my door. I get up and arrange my long sleeves shirt to hide the scars. Even at night I keep it, giving myself only small times of intimacy to look at the lines on my forearms.

           Dean. Dean is at my door, I was hoping it would be Jack.

"Hey, I was thinking... maybe you'd like to have a drink. I just opened a nice bottle of whiskey" he says showing me the bottle in his hands.

He looks at me with kind eyes and I want to slap him. Why would he want to spend time with me ? After what he did... Except he doesn't remember, according to him we just met.

"Hum. Okay Dean" I just say with a little more bitterness in my voice that I intended to.

           Sitting at the library table I watch him take two glasses to serve us. I just can't get over how perfect he is to me : This smooth pain behind his eyes, this incredible way of being big and strong, moving like a warrior, while being the most comforting figure I ever lay eyes on, this way he rubs his face when he's tired -he still does that...-

"So..." he tries. "When did you start hunting ?"

I sigh and breathe painfully. He looks at me strangely, like he was afraid of bothering me. I haven't been so friendly to him, I have to be nicer. He did nothing to me, I mean, this Dean has done nothing to me.

"I hunted a little with my boyfriend by eighteen. When he..." I clear my voice. "Left. I started hunting alone."

"I started  with my dad" he says, obviously embarrassed by the sorrow in my voice.

"Yeah I know" I smile kindly, the best I can. "I read the books."

"Oh, come on ! Not you !" he rolls his eyes and that makes me smile for real because I always loved his annoyed look…

           Morning. Sam is sitting at the table reading a spell book. I put a coffee in front of him. This night have been awful, sobbing in my bed for hours, tortured by exhaustion and the massive hole in my chest. Talking with Dean for almost two hours made everything worse and I couldn't breathe properly for hours, feeling the ache caused by his absence in every cell of my body. It took three pills to put myself to sleep for only four hours, and a very cold shower to reduce the marks of pain on my face.

"What if it was a spell ?" Sam says taking the coffee. "What if a witch made your friend forget ?"

"Maybe, but why ?" I say.

"I'm calling Rowena."

           When Dean comes out of the bathroom, my entire body starts to shiver.

"Who is he talking to ?" he asks me with his grumpy morning voice and I can't stop staring at him.

"Rowena" I say.

Just then I realize he's staring too. With a strange look on his face, he searches my face. Almost like he knew, like he felt the connexion for an instant.

"Rowena is in Scotland, she comes back in three days." Sam says breaking the strange silence between his brother and I. "You could stay. I mean, if you want."

"I hum..." I look at Dean and feel a hint of panic grow inside my stomach. "I don't know."

"Oh okay..." Sam just says.

And I realize how ungrateful I am being, the man is trying to help me.

"I just, I just don't want to bother you guys" I say trying to be nicer.

"Don't worry about that" Dean says with this low voice that always makes me quiver.

           On the first day I stayed in the library with Sam and Jack, looking for everything that could talk about memory loss. We eliminated strange theories about ancient gods and a Chinese monster. Dean stayed in his room almost all day until he came out with his laptop in his hand.

"I've got a case" he said. "I can go alone."

The idea of him being so close is painful, but the idea of this bunker without him in it is unbearable. So when Sam looks at me asking if I wanted to stay here doing research, I tell them we should go for that hunt together, while wanting for Rowena.

*****************************

2005

           I look at my watch. She must be out by now, almost every student left school, but no sign of Jay. I Start to worry, what if something happened to her ? I dropped her off just here this morning, after spending every damn minute of the weekend with her, she knows I'm waiting for her, we talked about going to that diner that serves the best chocolate milkshakes according to her. I check my phone, no news from dad.

           Then I see her, she talking with a boy. I frown looking at the spiky hair douche bending to talk to her closer. What is she doing ? The way she's acting, I never saw her like that, not even with me she's pulling her stomach in and laughing like she had no brain. Fuck, she's flirting !

           Without even thinking twice I get out of the car and walk toward them, clenching my fists in my pockets. She sees me and smiles with that real, wide smartass smile of hers. The guy turns around and stares at me unimpressed, I want to punch he's stupid little snot's face.

"I was waiting for you" I groan.

"Dean, this is Matt. Matt is nice and I was thinking about inviting him home tonight" she says with a smirk that makes me want to slap her.

"Are you serious ?" I ask, looking down at the boy.

"Who are you creep ?" says Matt.

I have to clench my fists not to punch him. I take her by the arm and drag her with me toward the car. I hear the guy ask her how I am and she yells I'm her brother, laughing. When she's in I slam the door and try to calm not to yell at her. I want to tell her she's acting inconsiderably but the truth is I am jealous. Burning with fear, nauseous at the idea of that boy touching her, fucking her quickly in a locker room, without even looking at her, and telling his friends how he just fucked the weird girl. I hate myself for thinking so low of her.

           When I park next to her trailer, I haven't said a word yet, and her impish smile has fade. I get out of the car and so does she. She stands there, looking at me with a serious look.

"I'm going back to the motel" I say coldly.

"No" she says surprising me.

"Yes I am, Jay. This is stupid, you're going to far" I try not to scream.

"You're stupid" she shrugs.

"I am... What ? What were you doing there, huh ? Trying to make me jealous ?" My anger is creeping.

"Tell me you don't want me" she orders and I notice her burning eyes are wet.

"What ?" the sadness in her tone makes me answer softer. "You know I do."

"Tell me you don't want me or take what you want" she repeats coldly. "Or I'll sleep with Matt."

"Are you... Fuck !" I say taking my head in my hands. "Are you serious ? You want a douche bag to screw you selfishly in the back of his truck ? Is that what you want ?" I finally yell.

"This is what I get, Dean !" she yells back at me, tears filling her eyes.

"What are you talking about ?"

"Come on Dean ! I live in a stolen trailer ! My microwaves broke a year ago and I still eat my pizza cold because I have no money to buy a new one ! I'm a weirdo ! I never had real friends and I never got out of this shitty town ! I'm not even sure I ever will ! What do you think ? That I will have many friends like you in my life ?" A tear comes down her cheek and she stops screaming. "When you leave I'll never see you again, and eventually it will be Matt or another Matt for me... I just... Maybe you just don't want me, say it."

I take her in my arms, squeezing tightly. I sigh. She thinks so low of herself it hurts to hear.

"It won't be Matt, or any Matt. You're a warrior and everything you dream of will come true because you'll fight for it. Just like you fight for me. Nothing can resist you" I kiss her forehead and she breathes heavily in my arms.

           Night fell and I everything went quiet again. I asked her if she was hungry and, as she was, I took her to that diner we were supposed to go. After her burger she couldn't finish her milkshake, so I drank it after mine, and now I feel so full I can't even drink that beer she gave me back to her trailer.

"You look tired" she says to me and I shrug, not sure if I'm tired of sad, really.

Why everything has to be so complicated in life ?

"Come on" she says, dragging me inside. "I'm taking a quick shower and we can sleep... If you still want to sleep here."

I smile and she disappears inside her small bathroom. After a few minutes she comes out wearing her sweatpants and a black t-shirt. Fuck, no bra. I was already sitting on her bed and she climbs it like a cat, laying behind me. I take my jacket and shoes off, and lay.

           Turning toward her I look at her face, she already is staring at me. She smiles and reaches for the light to turn it off as usual, but I catch her and before she can.

           I bend on her and slowly brush my lips against hers. She takes a shaky breath. I kiss her once, twice and then deepen the kiss, caressing her tongue with mine. My hand comes to her side and she wraps her arms around my neck, playing with my hair as she always does. As I kiss her, my body comes above hers and she spreads her legs.

           This is it, I want her too much. My hands come to her chest and I take one covered breast in my hand, moaning at the feeling of her nipple finally poking my fingers. She slips her two hands under my shirt and takes it up my back touching my skin eagerly all the way up.

"Dean" she moans and I break the kiss to look into her eyes.

She's flushed and burning, her eyes dark with desire, but her breathing short with nervousness. I let my hips down to let her feel me through our clothes. Her eyes widen when my crotch comes in contact with her pussy.

"You can still tell me to go home" I pant.

"No. Please no. I want you, I'm just..." she stammers.

"I know. What did you experienced yet ?" I ask, trying to resist the urge to thrust against her.

"Hum... Nothing" she says biting her lips with worry.

I take a deep breath and kiss her jaw.

"Not even to yourself ?" I try while nibbling at her throat angrily.

"I touched... Wow, this is... Dean this is... Oh God" she moans.

I smile against her and start to gently move my hips, just to give her, and me, some friction ; her body shivers and she lets out a deep moan of pleasure, her hands coming at my butt to try and press me more against her.

"More" she begs and I get up to open my jeans.

"Can you..." she starts shyly, and then she hides her face in her hands.

"If we're going to do that, I want you to talk to me" I say taking me belt off.

"Can you take off your shirt, Dean ?" she finally whispers.

I take it off, kneeling between her thighs and she bites her lips in a sigh.

"You are..." she starts.

But her hands come up to reach my chest and she starts exploring me, her soft hands everywhere on my skin. I come down to kiss her again, her palms never living me, wrapping around me.

           Going slow, I take her tank to above her head and her hands come to hide her chest.

"No, no" I say taking her hands away. "You have nothing to hide."

When I bend to take one of her nipple in my mouth, she squeals in surprise and her body starts to shake. She's delicious, and her skin makes me go crazy.

"Dean, this is..." she moans.

"Tell me" I order, kissing and biting at her sweet skin, rubbing my thumb on her other nipple. "How do you feel ?"

"I... Han ! I don't know. This is…" her breath is short and her hands are gently tousling my hair. "My lower belly is burning up. And... Fuck Dean my... I'm soaking my sheets."

Fuck. I have to stop and breathe because her words and the desperate tone in her voice is making me lose my cool. I can feel my cock pressing against my jeans and it starts to hurt.

           I get up again and take my jeans off, carefully keeping my underwear not to make her too nervous just now. Then I slip my fingers in the waistband of her sweatpants and slowly take it down. She's not wearing panties so I swear under my breath, looking at her, my mouth watering. She's shaking now, her legs trying to close, but I come between her thighs again, soaking my boxers with how wet she is.

"Wow, she says." You... you're..."

I can see the worry on her face, the feeling of my cock rubbing against her is scaring her. I'm not small, and she must be asking herself how she is supposed to take me in.

"Hey don't worry baby" I say kissing her softly. "Do you want me to stop ?"

"No" she says trembling. "Just, do you... is it always... Do you think I can ?"

"Of course you can, but if you don't want to..."

"I want to Dean. Kiss me, please touch me again"

One of my hands is in her hair, the other comes down slowly. I kiss her like she begged for and feel her all body shake when I brush my fingers against her pussy. She freezes and looks me in the eye. I can see she's trying not to panic, but she's terrified.

"Do you want me to stop ?" I ask again.

"No, but... What are you going to do ?" she whispers shyly.

"I need to prepare you. I'm going to put a finger..."

"Okay, okay !" she cuts me burning red, hiding her face again. "You're the expert."

"Look at me, Jay. Don't hide, kiss me" I ask. "You're beautiful. You're perfect."

My fingers find her clit and she loudly moans on my lips. I take my time, rubbing her clit carefully with my thumb while my fingers find her entrance, not entering yet, just exploring. She's panting and shaking.

"Dean I..." she tries but her words died on her red throat.

"You're about to come, let go baby" I say trying not to follow her down the cliff.

"But you..." she moans, her eyes unfocused, her hands grabbing my shoulders.

"Don't worry about me. You're perfect, baby."

Saying that I slip a finger insider her and she clenches around me. She swears incoherent words and I slip another, making her dig her nails on my skin. She's so tight I start to get nervous too, will I hurt her ? What if we can't... It feels like I'm filling her completely with just two fingers, how am I supposed to...

           But all of my thoughts suddenly fade when she comes ardently. Her mouth opens wide without making any sound, her body shakes like she was convulsing with pleasure, her beautiful breasts pointing at me, her pussy clenching hard around me, keeping my fingers inside her and trying to reject them in the same time, soaking my hand. This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and felt.

           It's like I'm the virgin, I feel like I could come right now, my dick still in my pants. Getting up I take my boxers down my thighs, and grab a condom in my wallet, on my jeans pocket. Just touching myself to put it on me is a challenge.

           She’s looking at me dizzy and breathless. Her hands search me hazily and grip me when I lay between her thighs again. My cock is at her entrance and I can feel her body tense.

“Don’t tense, baby” I kiss her lips and her face.

When she deepens a kiss, lost in me, focused on my mouth, I start to push inside her slowly. She frowns and opens her mouth slightly, her beautiful eyes piercing mine. My forehead comes to rest on hers and I feel how intensely I am stretching her, feeling her body resist a bit.

“Are you okay ?” I pant, pushing deeper languorously.

“Yeah…” she winces. “Is it okay for you ?” she worries again.

I moan at the feeling of her pussy fluttering around me and put my head on the crook of her neck. I would like to reassure her, tell her she doesn’t need to worry but I’m lost in the feeling of her, in the intimacy of this moment ; my own body begging me to chase the pleasure I crave. So I just pant a strangled “yeah” on her skin, and I feel her walls clench when I moan. Not sure my voice is making her react like that, I groan in pleasure loudly and her legs wrap around me, keeping me deep inside her. She whimpers… I can feel it. I can literally perceive her body accepting me, her pussy getting wetter and wetter, allowing me to go deeper, her walls opening to welcome me. For a moment, a new fire starts in me, possessiveness. I conquered her and now she’s mine, nobody can touch her…

           I start thrusting gently and she relaxes, holding me tight, a hand on my hair, trembling, kissing my temple like she was the one taking care of me.

“You feel so good” I whisper in her ear, thrusting deeper, and my voice makes her hold me tighter.

I am already close I know it, and I try to hold on, one of my hand wondering on her sweaty skin, taking her right breast like I could cling to it. My hand goes down and finds her clit, gently rubbing it. Her head goes back and her eyes roll, her stomach shake and she tries to tell me something, her lips moving, but no sound comes out.

“Tell me” I pant, winded by the beauty of her, and by the closeness of my own orgasm.

But she can’t answer. She comes again, clenching me so hard I come forcefully without any control. Her legs are crushing me, and her hand is clinging on my short hair.

           I feel empty and blissed, lazily thrusting inside of her, getting softer.

“Dean please” she wails.

I understand she needs me to withdraw, because she too sensitive now. So I do, and take the condom off, stretching my arm to throw it in the kitchen trashcan.

“Are you okay ?” I ask her, getting on my elbows to look at her.

“Yeah…” she smiles. “Just sore. I didn’t know…”

As she stops I kiss her lips and beg her :

“Talk to me, don’t be shy with me. I need you be open…”

“I didn’t know I could come the first time” she says avoiding my face.

I smile, I can’t help it, I wasn’t sure either, considering she was anxious and it hurt a bit in the beginning. I am proud and grateful.

           I get on my knees and notice a bit of blood on the sheets, so I get up to clean her with a wet towel. Her shyness is back, because her arousal is coming down, and she tries to close her legs.

“Don’t” I say. “You are beautiful. Don’t hide from me”.

“Can I…” she hesitates but dares after a deep breath. “Can I look at you ?”

Wow she makes me nervous now. I lay on my back and let her roam her fingers on my skin, kissing here and there, scratching me lightly. Then she looks at my cock and I feel myself burning red, I can see she wants to touch it, but she stays still. Nobody ever looked at me like this, so naively, so tenderly.

           She finally smiles and lies against me, drawing invisible patterns on my chest. She kisses my cheek.

“You really know what you are doing, Dean” she says and I just smile at her. “I want to learn. I want to learn how your body works. Would you teach me ?”

I nod.

She can have all of me.

Feedback is was keeps me writing :)

@mirandaaustin93 @tftumblin

[spacereadinglesbian]

35 reasons why I love you

Summary: TJ hasn’t really seemed like himself for about three days. Cyrus tries everything to wrap his mind around it but he can’t. So he decides to write a list on why he is son important to him. (This is a spin off of 45 reasons by Theo @you-get-to-exhale-now-Cyrus, please check her fic our! )

Word count: 1882

1. You’re kind


The first real interaction we ever had together, you were nothing but kind to me. You took time out of your day to talk to some nerd who was all sweaty on a swing set, for what? For a split second I thought you were there to make fun of me, to laugh at how I look but you surprised me. You sat down and talked to me, and that’s the day I realized you were kind. It’s been over 4 years and you haven’t stop showing me kindness. It’s not even just me you show kindness to now, you’ve expanded and now your kindness radiates off of you like the sun on the lake during summer. You’re the kindest person I know.

2. You ask about my day
No matter how shitty your day is, you make sure that you ask about my day. At first I thought it was a courtesy thing, but you actually listen to my answer. You listen to every word I say, and hang onto them like a needle on a thread.

3. You have a special smile reserved for me
You’re smile is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and if I can make you smile for the rest of your life, I promise I will. 


4. You’re intelligent
God, you’re so intelligent. You can state history facts off the tip of your tongue, and you have a quote from literature for almost any situation. Even in math your excelling, you took the hardship and got help, even when you didn’t want to. You’re doing amazing now Teej, and I couldn’t be more proud.

5. You’re sympathetic 
You care. You care more than any person I’ve met. That day when I came home because my dog died, you were there holding me and reminding me that I was going to be okay. When Andi and Amber had their first fight, you comforted Amber then were at Andi Shack in a matter of 10 minutes. And Buffy. When Buffy has a problem with Marty she doesn’t ask me, she asks you, that’s a huge step, especially for her. And when Jonah has panic attacks, he talks to you. You’re the first person he goes to, he says he does it because you’re the best listener, I agree. 


6. You don’t put hair gel in you hair when it’s just us


7. You’re incredible with kids 
Whenever I go to bring you lunch at work you have at least two children clinging to your leg. They say that Mr.TJ is the best gym instructor they’ve ever had. 


8. You’re strong
When your parents went through that divorce you were the glue that held the family together while you were also falling apart. You kept it together in front of your mom, your little brother, and Amber. You said they needed at least one man that wouldn’t screw them over. You were only 15 at the time but wanted to make sure everyone was taken care of. You’re the strongest person I know.

9. You’re a great story teller
Damn I could listen to your stories all day, every day. The amount of detail you go into when you’re telling story and the little light in your eyes when you realize somebody actually cares about it is breathtaking.

10. You’re warm 
When I’m cuddling with you I don’t even need a blanket. I think you’re so warm because you have such a warm heart, but that's just my personal opinion.


11. You make the best coffee


12. You can ramble about history for hours

13. Glasses 
When you wake up from a nap and have your hair misplaced and your glasses on you look like the softest little teddy bear. 


14. You care about the environment 
Do you remember the day when we had a beach date? We didn’t even end up swimming, we ended up picking up as much trash as we possibly could on the beach. And after that, your smile was radiating so we went to a different beach and picked that one up too. I also gave up beef for you because your love for the environment is so infectious, and you know how much I loved hamburgers.

15. You respect and love your mom 
I’ve never seen someone have so much respect for their mom. I don’t know if its because you’re a respectful person or because of everything your mom has done for you. From being a single mom to accepting you when you came out. All I know is that you look at her like she holds the world, and you’re not wrong because she held you for 9 months and now you’re my world.


16. You text me to make sure I get home safe 
Nobody has ever taken the time to make sure I get home safe every single time I leave them, it just reminds me how lucky I am to have you.

17. You’re an awful person to watch sad movies with. Yeah I said it. You get so emotional while watching sad movies we always end up changing them, but I don’t mind because I hate thinking about sad things when I’m with you. 


18. You collect socks 
Whenever I have a bad day I look at your socks. You always have something cool on them whether it’s dogs, or basketballs, but my personal favorite are the ones with unicorns.


19. You don’t have one plain pair of sheets 
You say that if you fall asleep on plain sheets your brain doesn’t get enough imagination. Now I know why you’re such a creative person


20. Every time we are out we have to get your dog a new toy 
I swear Bonnie has at least 30 toys all from you. “Cy, we have to go get her a toy! We went out without her she’s going to hate us!” Every time I cave. 


21. You like to capture the moment
At first I hated it that you took so many pictures, I always said “let’s live in the moment.” But you always wanted to take at least one picture. Now I’m lucky that you did that, we have a picture from every movie night to every date.


22. You have soft hands 
I always take your hands in mine because they are so soft, I just can’t help it, plus I love playing with your fingers.


23. Your eyes light up when you talk about something you love
I don’t know if you know this, but you get a sparkle in your eye whenever you talk about something you care about. That’s why I watch history documentaries with you and help you pick up beaches. I never want to see your eyes without sparkle.


24. You don’t half ass shit 
No matter how hard something is, you give it your all. You put everything you have into it, I can’t help but admire that part of you. 


25. You’ve worked for everything you have 
You have worked since you were 14 years old, almost nobody does that. You pay for your phone bill, you’re gas, and your car insurance, and you still beg to pay while we’re on dates. 


26. You volunteer at the elementary school
Every Wednesday you read to a second grade class, I don’t know why you do it, you’ve never told me, but I know it holds a special place in your heart. 


27. You’re an incredible brother
You always help Cooper with his homework when you get home from school. You’re always there to talk to him, you even talk to him about girl troubles even though in your words “I have no experience”. And Amber. Oh my god you’re such an incredible brother to Amber. You’re there for her to talk to or yell at, or use as a punching bag when needed. You even letter put makeup on you when she wants to try something new, you’re the only person I know who lets their sister do that.

28. You’re a good cuddler
That’s it, that’s the whole reason. 


29. You put your friends first 
Ever since we adopted you into our friend group you’ve cared about everyone. If they look down you make sure to text them ask them privately, if they are having a hard family time you offer them to stay at your house. You treat everybody like family, it’s one of the many reasons I love you. 


30. You always offer to pay 
Even though I got a job, you still offer to pay, ALWAYS! We have to rock, paper, scissor, it out every time to decide who gets to pay.

31. You’re a great captain
Ever since 8th grade you’ve respected your teammates and you made sure they get the attention they need. You put your practices first, you’re kind to every single person, you even have game nights once a month at your house.

32. You have a good relationship with my family 
My mom literally treats you like her own son, she always asks why you aren’t at the house and when you’re coming over next. My dad asks when your games are and shows up to every one, he always tells me how great you are basketball. He’s thankful that one day he might have a son that loves sports just as much as he does.

33. God, you have really soft lips 


34. You’re sincere 
I feel like I’ve already said this, but I guess I’ll say it again, you love with your whole heart and nothing less. You care about people, you truly care about people TJ and it shows, you’re just an incredible person.


35. You’re the most important thing in my life 
From the day I met you I knew you were special. I knew you held a special place in my heart and I didn’t know why. Then I got to know you, I really got to know you and I started to understand why my heart felt so full while you were around. It’s because of everything that I’ve listed and more. When I’m not with you, you’re all I think about, and when I’m with you I think about the next time I can see you. I think about your voice, and your eyes. I think about how soft your lips feel on mine. I think about when you giggle and try to hide it by covering your mouth with your hand. God Theodore, i just think about you. I think about what I would do without you, and my mind goes blank because I can’t. I can’t see myself without you by my side. You are the most important thing in my life, and I love you more than you can ever imagine. And all I want for you is to be happy.

Love always,

Cyrus

[miguel-manbemel]

Aspects & Fanfics Ep. 11: Bitten by Laziness: Beware the Sanders Sprites

Entry number 11 of Aspects & Fanfics, the fanfic based on “Sanders Sides” by Thomas Sanders, Joan and the Foster Dawg Team. Yes, I know I said this entry could be delayed, but when the muse kisses you, work runs incredibly fast, I wish this happened more often. In this entry I introduce a new original concept that I think it’s gonna be juicy in future episodes. Also, there’s gonna be a stellar appearance by Sleep. Well not exactly the Remy we know, but a character based on him, just like the Prince Guy, the Teacher Guy and the Dad Guy inspired Roman, Logan and Patton. Thomas said that he would never make Sleep a Side, and I have respected his wishes. Sleep is not gonna be a Side in this fanfic. He’s gonna be... something different. You’ll have to read further to know more. Also, in the end card I decided that the story called for me to get in full Prinxiety mode, so get ready for that if you like it and be warned if you don’t. As always, you can read all the previous entries of Aspects & Fanfics here. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Until next time.  P.S. At last I’ve learnt how to put a “read more” link on Tumblr. Sorry for all the times I published the long posts on the tags and the nuisance it may have caused. I’m still pretty new on Tumblr, I’m still learning.

SYNOPSIS: Thomas feels like he’s lost all his creative capacity, so he calls Roman. When he doesn’t answer, they get scared and go to his room to check if he’s okay. It turns out he’s been bitten by a Sprite, a creature that represents a minor trait of Thomas’ personality, not strong enough to be a Side of its own. A Side bitten by a Sprite is possessed by it and if it stays attached to him for too long, it can erase the Side completely and take his place in his body. Soon, the Sprite starts talking through Roman’s body. All the Sides and especially Virgil, worry about Roman’s safety and try to find a way to set Roman free from the Sprite’s control before it’s too late.

WARNINGS: Some main characters are gonna live situations of danger, specifically body control by another entity, all in the context of a fantasy story that shouldn’t be a bad trigger, just thrilling, but just in case it could be a trigger, there’s the warning. As I said, there’s Prinxiety at the end of the story, and not platonic, but there is not nsfw material in there, it’s all romantic, the warning is here for those who don’t like ships in Sanders Sides fanfics.

EPISODE INDEX

THOMAS: [dejected voice] Yes. I was supposed to open this video with a joke or a pun of some kind… But I couldn’t come out with anything, so let’s go straight to the title screen which is what you’re waiting for anyway, shall we?

[intro sequence]

THOMAS: [same dejected voice] What is up, everybody? Sorry about earlier. I swear that I tried my best to deliver something good for you, guys, but, strangely enough, I feel dried out. Did you hear of that thing called the blank page syndrome? Well it’s not a pleasant feeling, I can tell you, but it’s what I’ve been getting lately, and I don’t know why. Getting to put some letters in my word processor for a project is a task that lately I’ve been finding exhausting. I thought it would pass, that when I least expected it, I’d get an idea and I would go back to normal… but… it’s only getting worse and worse… It’s… I don’t know… as if I had lost my will to create, completely.

LOGAN: [rising up, concerned] What?

THOMAS: Yes, Logan, and I don’t know why. I suddenly lost the drive to create, and, on the contrary, all I’ve been wanting is to sit down on the couch and watch TV.

LOGAN: Thomas, that’s not good. I hope that at least you haven’t indulged in that unproductive feeling.

THOMAS: No, Logan, as a matter of fact, I didn’t, because…

VIRGIL: [appearing, his creepy music box tune starts in the background] I didn’t give him that pleasure. Thomas! You have videos to make, songs to sing, media to release! Remember? It’s your job! Your way of earning a living! If you don’t create anything, you’ll lose your audience and you’ll end up starving! And so will your employees! Think about Joan, Talyn, Camden, Adri, AJ, Quil, and the others! What will become of them if you don’t deliver!?

THOMAS: [anxious] Okay, okay! I already know that, Virgil! That’s what makes me… anxious about it! What will become of us if I cannot create anymore?

PATTON: [rising up] I certainly don’t like this either! This is not like you at all, Thomas.

THOMAS: I know, Patton.

PATTON: But what’s worrying me more than anything now is… This is a problem of creativity on your part. Where is Roman?

VIRGIL: [puzzled] That’s right… We’ve been criticizing his working routine and he hasn’t showed up with his offended Princey noises!

PATTON: Perhaps something happened to him?

THOMAS: It would be the most probable thing. He’s my creativity. If I lost my will to create, that means he’s switched off for some reason. I think we should call him. Roman? Roman, can you hear me? Roman, come right here at once!

[there’s no response from him, but a faint sound of jingle bells is heard]

THOMAS: Nothing. Maybe he’s in autopilot?

LOGAN: Wait a second… Thomas, call him again, and then everybody stay quiet and listen carefully. Go ahead.

THOMAS: Roman! Come here!

[again, he doesn’t respond, and again the sound of jingle bells is heard]

LOGAN: Did you hear that sound?

VIRGIL: I did hear it. What was it?

PATTON: [scared] Oh, my gosh… do you think that…?

LOGAN: [concerned] I’m afraid so, Patton… This is serious…

THOMAS: Guys… I hate when you do this thing of talking to each other about something I don’t know about without explaining to me first.

LOGAN: Apologies, Thomas. But if you want to know more, you’ll have to let Deceit let us speak.

DECEIT: [appearing] Did someone say prince?

THOMAS: No… and why are you using Roman’s catchphrase?

DECEIT: I intended to say “did someone say Deceit”, but it looked better in lie form, it suited me better.

THOMAS: Okay… Well, as a matter of fact we did mention your name. What are you making Logan and Patton hide from me?

DECEIT: I don’t know what you mean…

THOMAS: Let’s not get back to falsehoods, Deceit. How could you not know what you’re hiding from me?

VIRGIL: I don’t know either, I have no idea what Logan and Patton are talking about.

LOGAN: It’s about the sounds of jingle bells we heard earlier that clearly indicate that… [puts his hand on his mouth] …mmm, mmm!

THOMAS: [annoyed] Deceit!

DECEIT: I’m not doing it on purpose. I know I’m a liar, but I swear that I don’t know myself what Logan’s talking about, and I’m being honest. I just have the impulse of hiding it to you, whatever it is, because you unconsciously don’t want to know about it.

PATTON: He’s telling the truth, Thomas. Neither Deceit nor Virgil know anything about this.

THOMAS: Well, that means it’s something bad…

DECEIT: Like the first time, Thomas, the power is yours. Only you can make me break the spell and let them speak, but you must truly and sincerely get ready to hear what they’re going to say. Until then I can’t do anything other than following your wishes, Thomas.

THOMAS: This is scary…

VIRGIL: Thomas… even I am intrigued about all of this, so please, overcome me and say yes. I do want to know too.

[Thomas takes a deep breath and closes his eyes]

THOMAS: Okay… I think I’m ready… Let him speak, Deceit.

[Logan takes his hand off]

LOGAN: Thank you, Thomas. As I was going to say… Roman may have been bitten by a Sprite.

PATTON: I was afraid you’d say that!

THOMAS: A Sprite? What’s that?

VIRGIL: Yes, what’s that?

LOGAN: Sprites are little spirits, with the shape of bright floating lights, similar to fireflies, that populate the Mind Palace. Like any other living entity in the Mind Palace, they surge from traits from your personality, Thomas. We are the Sanders Sides, the main entities in the Mind Palace, because we come from your strongest traits in your personality. The Dark Sides are equally strong traits, but originally repressed in your subconscious. However, there are multiple facets in you, Thomas, that also have an influence on you but which are not strong enough to be Sides, and neither are repressed enough to be Dark Sides, they’re somewhere in the middle. These are the Sanders Sprites.

VIRGIL: Why didn’t I hear about them until now?

DECEIT: Yeah, me neither!

LOGAN: The Sanders Sprites are allergic to the Dark Sides, they never approach you. Furthermore, they’re invisible to you as a self-defense mechanism.

PATTON: We can see them, but usually too late, as they can be quite sneaky when they want. Only the jingle bell sound they emit when they bite and the little light they emit when they approach serve as an alert of their presence. That jingle bell sound we heard must mean that Roman has been bitten by one of these Sprites…

THOMAS: Why do they have to bite you? And what happens when they do which scares you so much?

LOGAN: I think it would be better if you see it for yourself, Thomas. We should go to Roman’s room to check on him, as he will be needing our help anyway. I warn you, you’re not gonna like what you’re gonna see.

THOMAS: All these warnings in advance are only scaring me even more… Is that bite poisonous? Is Roman sick? [face of horror] Or worse, is he…?

PATTON: No, no, don’t worry, Roman is still alive… The problem right now is… of a different kind.

THOMAS: Still talking in riddles… Okay, let’s get over with it. Are you all coming?

LOGAN: [to Deceit and Virgil] It would be better if you come too. You could serve as a protection for us. Should any unseen Sprite be there, he won’t approach us if you’re there covering us.

VIRGIL: So we’re coming as your bodyguards? This is new.

DECEIT: I saw it coming that someday you would give us this task… Just kidding.

THOMAS: Okay… Let’s go to Roman’s room…

[Thomas and the Sides sink down. Then, they appear in Roman’s room. As seen the previous time Thomas, Logan and Joan were there, in the back wall there’s a huge royal portrait of Roman riding a horse, holding his samurai sword with one hand. Below the portrait, on the back couch, there’s Mrs. Fluffybottom, the bunny doll, and the shelving is full of fairy-tale books. The kitchen counter is full of medieval-like pots, huge wooden spoons, a roasted turkey, and other stuff. In Logan’s spot there are books of spells, magic wands and bottles with potions. In Virgil’s spot, the walls are covered with a forest of thorns, but there’s a beautiful purple rose blooming from one of them. Roman’s spot has a huge golden throne with Roman’s shield hanging above it, and red curtains framing it. Thomas and the others show a face of horror when they see Roman lying on the throne with his head resting on his right arm. There’s a red pixie light on the back of his neck and the sound of jingle bells is coming from it.]

VIRGIL: [horrified] Roman! Are you okay!? Roman!

[Roman doesn’t respond and doesn’t move a muscle]

THOMAS: Oh, my gosh! What’s wrong with Roman? That red light… Is that the Sprite?

VIRGIL: What red light?

LOGAN: Yes, Thomas, that’s him. You can’t see it, Virgil, but it’s there.

PATTON: Do you think we’ve arrived on time to…?

LOGAN: I don’t think so, Patton. He’s already unconscious, he must have been fighting that darn creature for a long time and he’s losing the battle. Probably he’s on the verge of…

THOMAS: [over the top terrified squealing] …dying!?

LOGAN: My goodness, Thomas, what is that obsession with death? It’s not that.

THOMAS: Then wha…?

[He doesn’t finish his question, as the jingle bell sound gets stronger and Roman’s body starts shaking. He then wakes up and sits on the throne. At first he shows an emotionless, robotic face, as if he was a dummy doll. Then he looks around and starts sporting a mischievous, slightly evil smile]

THOMAS: Roman? Are you okay?

ROMAN: [sassy voice never heard before on Roman] Roman is gone, sweetie, it’s only me.

THOMAS: What? What does that mean?

LOGAN: You see, Thomas, the Sanders Sprites are not strong enough to manifest physical bodies of their own, so they use us as hosts whenever they get to bite us. Roman is… you could call it… possessed… by the Sprite, who is using his body as a puppet to do his will. The Roman we know is still there, somewhere, but he’s unconscious. And of course, in that state, your creativity is completely inoperative. That’s why you didn’t have the will to create anything.

VIRGIL: My gosh, thank goodness we don’t have to deal with that…

DECEIT: True…

THOMAS: [to the Sprite in Roman’s body] Then who are you? What’s your name?

SPRITE: [through Roman’s body, with the same sassy, unconcerned voice] I’m not in the mood of telling my name, sweetie. It’s been a long struggle to get this body working and today I don’t feel like doing anything. Nothing at all.

THOMAS: [imperative voice] I command you to tell me your name!

SPRITE: [mocking him] Ooooh… look how I’m shaking… Well, I command you to… back the F… up, okay, honey?

THOMAS: What?

LOGAN: Thomas, unfortunately you don’t have control over the Sprites. They’re creatures so ethereal that they don’t follow anyone’s orders, not even the Light Master’s. They always do whatever they want, whenever it pleases them.

SPRITE: Oh, so you’re the Light Master in person, huh? [mocking him] What an honor…

THOMAS: Yes, I am Thomas. Why don’t you want to share your name with us?

SPRITE: Well, since you’ve been so nice to tell me your name…

THOMAS: Yes?

SPRITE: [lowering his voice] My name is…

[there’s a huge silence]

SPRITE: [high pitched scream] NOOOOOOOO!!!!

[Everyone yelps, scared. The Sprite laughs lively]

SPRITE: Oh, my goodness, you should have seen your faces! You almost made a dent on the ceiling with your heads, so high you jumped! And Roman wouldn’t have liked that you destroyed his room, would he?

THOMAS: [with his hand covering his heart, recovering breath, with an annoyed voice] Only two minutes in and I’m already hating this guy…

SPRITE: [negating with his finger] Uh, uh, uh, Thomas… Hatred is wrong. Right, Patton?

[The Sprite starts laughing like a maniac]

THOMAS: Well, it’s clear we’re not getting anything from him. So what do we do now?

VIRGIL: Perhaps I should get closer to him. You said that the Sanders Sprites are allergic to Dark Sides, right? I wouldn’t mind giving him a little… tackle of friendship.

SPRITE: [affected sigh] Why do you always have to resort to violence? Where is your sense of humor?

VIRGIL: As if you were being funny at all.

SPRITE: [imitating Virgil’s voice] Said the most sulky individual I’ve ever met in my life.

VIRGIL: [angry, reaching out his fists, Logan holds his shoulder] Why you…

SPRITE: [imitating the scene from Snow White, with low pitch voice and crossing his arms over his chest] Oooohhh… You must be grumpy!

LOGAN: Stop, Virgil. Remember if you try to hurt the Sprite, you’ll only be hurting Roman.

VIRGIL: But you said they were vulnerable to us!

LOGAN: If we had arrived on time, he would have been, but sadly he’s taken control of Roman’s body, and while he’s in there, he’s protected from you. He’s using Roman’s body as a shield.

[The Sprite sticks out his tongue at Virgil]

VIRGIL: [sighs nervously] I can’t believe someone would get on my nerves so much. He’s much worse than the real Roman in his worst times…

LOGAN: Don’t fall into his trap, Virgil. Ignore him. I suggest that we get back to the living room to tackle the situation.

SPRITE: [fake sad voice] Awww, you’re leaving, after, like, ten minutes of being together?

THOMAS: But what about Roman? We can’t leave him like that!

LOGAN: He’ll be okay, Thomas. The Sprite needs him, he wouldn’t hurt him. Besides, we need to talk on our own without him present.

SPRITE: Oh, keeping your plans under wraps? As if it was going to make a difference…

LOGAN: [ignoring him] Thomas, let’s go now, quickly.

THOMAS: Okay, if you say so, let’s go…

[Thomas and the Sides sink down, the Sprite smiles and waves goodbye]

SPRITE: See you later, pretty faces!

[There’s a white flash and Thomas and the Sides rise up in the living room. Virgil and Deceit get a little dizzy after rising up, but they recover soon]

THOMAS: Okay. Are you sure Roman will be okay, Logan?

LOGAN: As a matter of fact, Thomas, I have my concerns.

THOMAS: [scared] What? But you said…

LOGAN: I know what I said, and I only said it to avoid revealing anything to the Sprite, Thomas. The truth is the situation is really tricky.

THOMAS: Why?

LOGAN: Roman will be okay… for the time being. But his time is running out. If we don’t expel the Sprite out of his body soon, he could bond with him, and if that happens, Roman will be gone forever.

VIRGIL: [horrified] Oh, no!

DECEIT: This is totally not serious at all, less than I anticipated…

THOMAS: There has to be a solution, right? Right?

LOGAN: We have to identify exactly what Sprite has bitten Roman. Once we know, it will be easy to defeat him. You’ll just have to perform an action that conflicts with the trait that Sprite represents to weaken him enough to let Roman fight to reclaim control over his body.

THOMAS: So that’s why he didn’t want to tell us his name. But how will we know who he is?

LOGAN: Let’s see… Sanders Sprites are of different colors, just like us, Sanders Sides, and the color they have is the color of the Side they affect. In the case of Roman, his color is red, and red was the Sprite Roman had on his neck. Therefore, that Sprite comes from a trait that affects creativity… what could it be? Dang, if Roman was here, he could help us… Thomas, don’t you have anything?

THOMAS: I… I don’t know…

LOGAN: Describe the exact way you’re feeling in regards of creating something.

THOMAS: I… I…

VIRGIL: [anxious begging voice] Please, Thomas, do an effort! Roman’s life depends on it! [mumbling to himself with a whining trembling voice, his eyes fill with tears] I… I don’t want to lose him… [noticing the others have heard him, he quickly dries his eyes with his hand] I mean as a friend!

DECEIT: [mischievous smile] Excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta… See? I know Latin too.

VIRGIL: What?

DECEIT: Never mind, it’s not the moment right now.

LOGAN: [a little angry] You’re right, it isn’t. Could you all focus, if you please? Thomas, we’re waiting.

THOMAS: Let’s see… When I try to think of something to write… I feel dried out, like I said, completely empty… I also feel…

LOGAN: Yes?

THOMAS: I also feel a strange tiredness, also like I said before… I just want to lay on my couch and do nothing for the rest of the day…

LOGAN: [thinking] Mmm…

THOMAS: Was that helpful?

LOGAN: [suddenly his face lights up as if he had an idea] Of course! The Sprite said it himself and we didn’t notice!

THOMAS: What?

LOGAN: Remember what he said when you asked for his name the first time? He literally said: “Today, I don’t feel like doing anything, nothing at all.”

THOMAS: And what…?

LOGAN: That’s from “The Lazy Song” by Bruno Mars!

VIRGIL: How do you know about Bruno Mars…?

LOGAN: We’re dealing with your laziness, Thomas! The Sprite that has bitten Roman is Laziness! It affects creativity in the sense that you can’t create anything if you’re dominated by laziness.

THOMAS: [in disbelief] My laziness? I mean, I’m lazy at times, but I’m not so lazy. I try to stay productive as much as I can, and you know it.

PATTON: Well, that’s why Laziness is a Sprite in you, kiddo, and not his own Side. It comes and goes, but when it sits down, it can cause trouble if you indulge in it and let it set roots in you.

THOMAS: I suppose this is my fault, then…

VIRGIL: That doesn’t matter now. The point is what are we going to do to rescue Roman. We’re wasting time! We’ll be late if we wait for too long!

PATTON: Relax, Virgil, getting everyone anxious won’t solve anything!

VIRGIL: I know, but…

PATTON: You’ll see how everything comes out right, kiddo. Now, let the grown-ups speak.

VIRGIL: [frowning] I’m a grown-up too, Patton.

PATTON: [cute voice] Of course you are, my precious boy!

[Virgil sighs and decides to ignore Patton and keep on listening]

LOGAN: As I said, Thomas, you must fight your laziness and try to stimulate your creativity to give some strength to Roman. If he manages to set himself free, we have two pest exterminators here who can take care of the bug… and sorry for the qualifier.

VIRGIL: Oh, don’t worry, We’ve been called worse… and it’s a job I would be more than delighted to do…

PATTON: Who called you bad things, Virgil!? Tell me so I can call their parents or physically fight them!

VIRGIL: Now it’s you who should relax, Dad.

THOMAS: What do I do to fight Laziness?

LOGAN: Well, creativity is not my department. My suggestion is that you think of new ideas for shows, new shorts, new songs… Anything may do, but concentrate on it, and try to develop these ideas to stimulate creativity, and Roman with it. Laziness won’t make it easy for you, but you must endure. You can do it, Thomas. We’re rooting for you.

PATTON: We’re with you Thomas. You can win this battle.

VIRGIL: If anyone can be helpful for Roman at this moment, I can’t think of anyone better than you.

DECEIT: I’m totally not going to say that I agree with them all. But I do.

THOMAS: Thanks, guys…

LOGAN: Let’s get started, then. First, we need to bring Roman and Laziness here. Call Laziness.

THOMAS: Can we? You said I had no control over him.

LOGAN: You don’t have direct control over his actions, but now that you know his name, you can summon him like anybody else.

THOMAS: Laziness! I command you to come here right now!

[Roman appears, he’s frowning and Laziness shines bright red in his neck]

LAZINESS: So… I see that you know who I am, Thomas. But that won’t make any difference. Look how strong I am now!

[Suddenly, Roman’s shape changes into Sleep’s shape, only that his shirt is red instead of white and there’s no label on his chest]

LAZINESS: Just give up, gurl. You can do nothing against me, and Roman is almost gone anyway.

THOMAS: It will sound cliche that I say it, but I really mean it: we’ll see about that.

LOGAN: Go ahead, Thomas. You can do it.

THOMAS: Okay, a new idea for a short…

LAZINESS: [evil giggle] You have nothing… [tempting voice] And don’t you think that couch behind you is comfy? You want to lay down to watch TV… Even better, you want to spend a whole day sleeping in the couch, don’t you?

THOMAS: [mesmerized by Laziness] Yes… [putting himself together] No! I don’t! And I have an idea for a short, precisely.

LAZINESS: [shows a face of slight shock] No…

THOMAS: Yes. It goes like this. I haven’t been able to sleep all night. My Sleep comes in at the worst time, and he looks exactly like you do like now… Although I think I’ll need to put a label on the chest that reads “Sleep”, to avoid confusion among viewers…

LAZINESS: Stop it!

THOMAS: …I ask him where he was last night and he tells me there was a concert downtown, and offers to work in that moment, but it’s two in the afternoon, not exactly bedtime, so I complain.

LAZINESS: [angry] That’s story is awful! Stop it!

THOMAS: And he goes away again, “oooutt”, as he says… And I’m fed up with him because Sleep is never there when I need him and shows up always when he should be away…

LAZINESS: [loses balance] Ugh…

THOMAS: I think I’ll title it… “So Rebellious, Out of Control”. I’ll film it just tonight. And who knows? Maybe I’ll make a series out of it. That Sleep character could blow the audience away!

ROMAN: [struggling voice] Get… out… of meee…

LOGAN: It’s working!

PATTON: You can do it, kiddo!

VIRGIL: Come on, Roman! You’re the bravest and mightiest knight I’ve ever met! You can do this! Fight!

LAZINESS: [now struggling too] No… Noooo… I’m losing control! I’ll be back! I swear I’ll be back! Noooo….!

ROMAN: [struggling yell] Get… oooouut… NOOOOW!

[There’s a red flash. Roman recovers his usual shape and falls down unconscious. Laziness, now a Sprite pixie again, flies around for a moment and disappears]

LOGAN: He’s gone! You did it!

VIRGIL: Come back, Laziness! I just want to give you a big round of applause… with you between my hands!

[Roman regains consciousness. He gets up, a little dizzy]

ROMAN: Ooff… That was outrageous. How dare that miserable Sprite do this to me?

VIRGIL: [emotional happy] Roman… Roman!

[Virgil runs and jumps on Roman and hugs him, squeezing his shoulders]

ROMAN: [wide smile] Whoa, whoa! Relax, Emo Viking! It takes more than a red firefly to defeat Prince Roman!

[However, he also hugs Virgil and they stay like that for a minute or so]

PATTON: Awww… This is so pure…

[Finally they separate and Virgil goes back to his spot]

VIRGIL: [emotional, a black tear has fallen down his cheek] I thought that I… [quickly corrects himself nervously] I mean… we, were losing you… We were so heartbroken… You better watch out for bugs carefully next time, don’t you dare scaring me… I mean, us…  like that again!

ROMAN: [loving, grateful smile] I promise, Virgil… [to Thomas] And thank you, Thomas. I couldn’t have won this battle without you.

THOMAS: Of course, Roman. I was not going to abandon you, my dear friend. And we also must thank Logan. Without his knowledge, this wouldn’t have been possible.

ROMAN: Thank you, King of Specs.

LOGAN: You’re welcome, Prince of Ilusions.

PATTON: How are you feeling, Roman? Are you okay?

ROMAN: I was feeling awful… [furtive glance to Virgil] but now I feel like I could conquer the world. I’m so lucky to have you all as my best friends… [suddenly grimaces in pain and covers his neck] Aww!

VIRGIL: [scared] What’s the matter?

ROMAN: It’s suddenly hurting in my neck, right where the Sprite bit me.

THOMAS: Should we be concerned? Maybe Laziness sneaked back and bit him again.

LOGAN: Nah… It’s completely normal. Have you ever been stung or bitten by a wasp, Thomas?

THOMAS: Yes, a couple of times, and it was painful…

LOGAN: This is something similar. It’s the pain Roman wasn’t feeling earlier over being under control of Laziness, that now he’s feeling in all its extension, but he’ll survive. A Sprite can’t bite a Side twice in the same day, they need a few days to recuperate.

VIRGIL: However, we should take care of that lump. It could get infected, right? Have you got any med kit in your room?

ROMAN: Yes, I think I do.

VIRGIL: [sinking down] Then let’s go, Princey.

ROMAN: [sinking down] Um… okay, Virgil, if you insist.

PATTON: Isn’t it cute? They’re such good friends now.

DECEIT: [giggles mischievously] The best kind of friends, I think.

PATTON: Why that giggle?

DECEIT: Have you ever seen one of our wounds getting infected, Patton? We’re not humans, we’re immune to mundane microorganisms. [voice of being obviously lying] I wonder why Virgil was so interested in getting to be with Roman in his room all alone…

PATTON: [confused] To have a cup of tea?

DECEIT: [sighs, while sinking down] Oh, Patton, sometimes you’re so naive it puzzles me how, among all of us, you’re the only one who’s managed to be a father…

PATTON: [sinking down] I don’t understand you. Deecey, explain?

LOGAN: I wonder that too…

THOMAS: Well, thank you again, Logan.

LOGAN: You’re welcome, Thomas. I’m glad that I could be of help this time.

THOMAS: Will we ever hear of the Sanders Sprites again?

LOGAN: Most certainly. They’ve been a constant pest, even though it was always hidden from you.

THOMAS: Have you ever been bitten by Sprites before?

LOGAN: Sometimes. Not all of the Sprites are as dangerous as Laziness. Some are more benign, they bite us, play with our bodies for some time, say whatever they need to say, and then leave us. They are a little bothersome but harmless in the long term. Others, like Laziness try to replace us and are more difficult to defeat. Thank Franklin that these don’t show up often. But we’ll have to be more alert to our surroundings. Roman, Patton, Honesty and I are potential victims of them and we can’t drop our guard. Well, I think Honesty may be safe. He was once part Dark Side and I’m sure there are still remnants of Deceit in him that may make him immune to the Sanders Sprites. Who knows?

THOMAS: I hope so, the less of you they can affect, the better.

LOGAN: By the way, I’m going to tell Honesty about this. He’s not gonna like that he’s missed another adventure of ours again. [sinking down] But that’s what he gets for being in autopilot so often.

THOMAS: Bye, Logan. Tell Honesty hi for me. [to the camera] We all can be bitten by laziness from time to time. It’s completely normal and it happens to all of us, one moment or another. Of course, we must get the proper amounts of rest that our body requires after a long day of work, school or whatever, but we must try to stay active so that laziness doesn’t conquer us and makes us lose our capacity to shine as much as we can. Sometimes it’s difficult, but I’m rooting for you. I’m lazy too at times, as you’ve seen, and if I did it, so can you. Let’s get rid of this lazy bug together. Until next time, take it easy, guys, gals and non binary pals. Peace out!

[ending card]

[Virgil is putting a band aid on Roman’s neck]

VIRGIL: There you go. That should do.

ROMAN: Thank you so much, Virgil.

VIRGIL: Of course, Roman. You’ve gone through a lot today. You deserve to be taken care of for a little while.

ROMAN: I’m sorry I worried you.

VIRGIL: What are you talking about? It wasn’t your fault.

ROMAN: In a way, it was. I should have paid more attention. I was caught off-guard like a fool. If only I could have asked for help… But I couldn’t speak. From the very first moment I sensed the bite, I felt his consciousness invading me, slowly numbing all my members, turning me into a worthless puppet… It was a horrible sensation…

VIRGIL: [grabs Roman’s hand] It’s okay, Roman. It’s over now, and you’re here with me… I mean, us, again.

ROMAN: [grabbing Virgil’s hand] Virgil…

VIRGIL: Yes?

ROMAN: Isn’t it funny how our relation has evolved? We started as the worst enemies, then with our silly arguments, the name callings, the bickering… and then, almost without noticing, we became best friends, and now…

VIRGIL: You were right, Roman.

ROMAN: About what?

VIRGIL: About how worried I was about you… When Logan said that you could have been gone forever… I pictured a life without you there. Even without your over-dramatic acts and occasional nuisance, and I felt so empty… I don’t ever wanna feel like that again. Please, always stay safe. You’re important to us… You’re important to me. You have no idea how much.

[Roman looks at Virgil with a loving glance]

ROMAN: All of my life I have always been looking for the prince of my dreams, even back when I was young and they told me that I was required to marry a princess to secure an heir to the throne, you know, the royal protocol and all that jazz…

[While he speaks, Roman gently caresses Virgil’s cheek with his hand and passes his finger over Virgil’s eye-shadow, while Virgil holds that hand and looks sweetly at Roman. Roman’s finger gets stained in black from the eye-shadow, as it is wet from Virgil’s earlier tearing]

ROMAN: Who would have thought that the perfect one, the real prince of my dreams I was looking for, was right here under my nose all the time, wearing a hood instead of a crown.

[Roman approaches Virgil to kiss him. Suddenly, Virgil shows a face of fear and walks back, dropping Roman’s hand]

ROMAN: [confused] What? What’s the matter?

VIRGIL: We can’t do this, Roman.

ROMAN: But I thought…

VIRGIL: And what you thought is true, Roman. I… I love you. I love you more than I love myself. But… Precisely for that, we can’t be together. I’ve let myself get carried away, but we can’t do this.

ROMAN: I don’t understand…

VIRGIL: Our relationship would be dangerous, Roman, dangerous for you. I’m a Dark Side, and you’re a Light Side. Remember what happened when you stayed in my room for too long? What could I do to you if we stayed together for a lifetime?

ROMAN: I don’t care about the danger. I just want to be with you…

VIRGIL: Please, try to understand. I don’t want to run the risk of doing the exact same thing that Sprite almost did to you today. I don’t want you to be endangered because of me.  If something happened to you because of me, that would kill me. I must renounce to you, because I love you, and I care about your safety and well being more than I care about my feelings. I’m sure you’ll find someone better than me who will make you happier than I ever could.

ROMAN: But Virgil, I…

VIRGIL: I must go, Roman. This was a mistake. Let’s do as if this had never happened and remain being friends, okay? Please don’t tell anyone about this. And if it serves as a consolation, always remember that my love will always be yours, till our final day. See you later.

[Virgil sinks down, leaving Roman’s room. Roman approaches Virgil’s spot and looks at the purple rose in the forest of thorns]

ROMAN: And what’s the use of a long and safe life if I have to live it without you, Virgil? I don’t want anyone better than you, should that person even exist. I want you, my hooded dark prince. I love you, Virgil…

[Roman looks at the purple rose, then at his finger, still covered in Virgil’s eye-shadow, and starts silently crying]