#i had this one sitting in the backlog forever

[batshaped]

trick(xie) question

[offside-the-lines]

let’s throw it back a little shall we?

NicoNolan

beach

One might say theres something wrong with me in the way that I can't just write something light and fun and happy, eh? Let's not explore that though. Bone apple teeth

~

Nico lets his eyes drift back over to Nolan sitting next to him; in the soft golden light cast by the sunset, he looks even more striking than usual. Well, by all accounts, he shouldn't look striking at all, with his salt crusted hair, and sand stuck to the remnants of sunscreen Nico made him apply (not enough it would seem from the flush of his shoulders and forehead). It's just— he looks relaxed— happy.

Nico looks back at the waves lapping at the shore, relentless. He thinks about how the waves can't help but crash against the beach, over and over again forever. And the sand always remains, just as unyielding.

"Did you know that most sand's like pooped out by parrotfish?" he says, listing to the side to feel Nolan's soft skin against his arm.

"Hmm?" Nolan raises an eyebrow when he looks over at Nico, the corner of his mouth tugging up in amusement.

He feels his chest tighten a little; this Nolan is so rare: jaw unclenched, brows unfurrowed, smile unsuppressed. This Nolan is just for him; he exists in these fleeting moments, little fragile bubbles they make for themselves.

This is the Nolan who he shared the hotel room with ahead of their Draft. The same Nolan who pressed him into the couch for the first time halfway through their rookie year, while they were wrestling for the Playstation controller in his Hoboken apartment. A Nolan he had gotten used to seeing before—

Well, it's a Nolan he hasn't seen in a long time. He forces himself to breath through it and smile back. He doesn't ask the question that's been on the tip of his tongue all week.

"Sand," he says, "It's made by a fish eating rocks or whatever and pooping it out. Don't you think that's kinda, I don't know, weird?"

"I guess," Nolan indulges him.

Nico falls back onto the beach towel; he's pleasantly surprised when Nolan nudges into his space, laying half on top of him, blocking his view of the sky. He forces himself to stay still as Nolan runs his fingers, agonizing and light, over his chest and stomach.

"Can I help you? I was admiring the view."

Nolan snorts, "Yeah, well, you should be admiring this view."

"Really?" Nico tries for deadpan— he's not sure he's successful— "You're kinda gross, bud."

"Bud? I'll show you 'bud'," Nolan grumbles before leaning down and pressing a firm kiss to his lips.

Nico hums into it, his hands once again finding soft skin as he pulls Nolan closer. He's happy to just be in this bubble for now. The future is for Future Nico to deal with.

~

Send me a player or pairing + a word, and I’ll write a mini fic about it. (I am running on quite a backlog right now so it might take me a while to get to your request).

Read other prompt mini fics!

[storiesforallfandoms]

when stunts go wrong ~ johnny knoxville

word count: 2238

request?: yes!

“ahh your requests are open, love your writing and literally just want johnny knoxville getting together fluff. you work with jackass and him nervous around you and yeah, that’s all. thank you so much!”

description: in which you join the jackass crew for their newest movie and try to impress johnny with a stunt, only for it to go incredibly wrong

pairing: johnny knoxville x female!reader

warnings: swearing, mentions of series injuries

masterlist (one, two)

*i changed the request a little just because i actually already had this one in my backlog*

Being a part of the newest Jackass movie meant getting hurt. You knew that. You had grown up with the show and all three movies, you were well aware of the shenanigans that the original Jackass crew got up to. But you were far from prepared for the aftermath of your biggest stunt in the movie.

You were one of two women who were cast for the new movie, which also meant you were one of the first ever women to be on the main cast. The guys tried to go easy on you and Rachel, but you made it clear from the beginning that you wanted to be a part of the stunts just as much as the guys were. This was your childhood dream, you wanted to be a part of it.

Not to mention you were trying to impress the fearless leader of the gang, Johnny Knoxville.

Yeah, Johnny was quite a number of years older than you, and yeah, maybe that should've deterred you from having feelings for him, but you couldn’t help it. You had always had a crush on Johnny even before being cast in Jackass Forever, but meeting him on set and getting to know him just made that crush grow stronger.

So, those two facts combined was how you came to find yourself looking down a water slide on a steep hill that ended on a hard, sandy land.

The stunt seemed simple enough when it was pitched to you: the guys were gonna build a make shift waterslide and have someone go down on a pool floaty onto the sandy. The pressure of the water would start slow, so that the impact would’ve be as bad, and eventually it would get higher and higher until whoever got on at the end would be shot down the hill at full speed onto the sand.

Jasper had gone first to “test it out”, then went the next two times as the water pressure was increased. Zach went down once in a floaty and then once with Wee Man on his back. Dave and Ehren raced down together at the second to highest speed, with both of them eventually colliding before even reaching the bottom.

When Johnny went to crank it up to the highest speed, you decided to volunteer to go down.

“Are you sure?” Zach asked. “It’s not a soft landing.”

“What did I tell you guys about treating me like I’m soft?” you asked. “I wanna do it. I’m sure it’s not as bad as some of the stunts I’ve done so far.”

“Oh, it definitely is,” Ehren said, an ice pack against his throbbing head.

“You collided with Dave, that’s different,” you teased. “Grab me a floaty, I’m going down.”

One of the guys passed you a floaty and you went over towards the slide. The water was rushing as such a quick speed that even stepping onto it caused you to lose your balance. Someone reached out to help steady you and when you looked up you saw it was Johnny. You felt butterflies in your stomach as you smiled up at him and he smiled back.

Steve-O came over to hold your floaty while you positioned yourself to sit down on it.

“You’re one bad ass motherfucker, (Y/N),” he said once you were ready to go.

“Thanks, man,” you said. “I’m good whenever you wanna let me go.”

Although you felt far from ready to go. Feeling how quickly the water was moving and now looking down the slide while being on it was starting to make you second guess your choice. But it was too late; you were already on the floaty and Johnny was watching. There was no turning back now.

“Okay, I’m gonna count to three and let you go,” Steve-O said. “One...two...” He hesitated, so you looked up and gave him a nod, confirming that you were ready. “Three.”

When he let you go, you shot down the slide like a rocket. You were moving so fast you were sure the wind was going to knock you off the floaty. The way down was actually kind of fun. You exclaimed in excitement as you hurtled towards the bottom of the slide, which was tilted upwards like a ramp for maximum launch.

Even being shot in the air felt like fun. You felt like you were flying. You were anticipating the painful landing, but you were sure once you got that first impact over with - as long as you didn’t land and break anything - you’d get the pain done and over with just as quickly.

But then you found yourself flipping as you made your downward decent. It felt like everything was moving in slow motion, but also like it was going too fast for you to try and fix yourself. Before you knew it, you were hitting the ground head first, and everything went black.

~~~~~~

When you came to you were sure you had died. All you could see when you opened your eyes was a bright white light. It took a few moments for your eyes to adjust to it and to realize it was just overhead lighting in a hospital room.

You were hooked up to wires that lead to a beeping machine. Your neck felt stiff and you realized it was because there was a brace around it. Actually, your entire body felt stiff. You wondered how long you had been out.

As if on cue, the door to your room opened and a doctor peaked in.

“Well hello there. Look who is awake,” he said. “Miss. (Y/L/N), do you remember how you got here?”

You went to shake your head, but groaned in pain as you did so.

“Yeah, I would advice against doing that as much as you can,” the doctor said. “You were brought in because you filmed a dangerous stunt that went wrong. You landed on your head very hard. You have a concussion and a neck injury. You’ll have to keep the brace on for a few weeks at least, and probably have to take it easy moving forward.”

You cringed to yourself. That didn’t sound great, especially in terms of your career. It wasn’t too far into the filming of Jackass Forever, and if you couldn’t finish the movie, what would that mean for you in the franchise moving forward?

“You’ll definitely have to sit out of the rest of filming that movie,” the doctor continued as if reading your mind. “No offense, but that stunt was incredibly stupid. Any one of you could’ve ended up much more seriously injured, or killed.”

All the stunts are like that, doc. Never stopped anyone before, you thought to yourself, but you wouldn’t dare say it out loud. The last thing you wanted was a lecture from a doctor you didn’t even know.

“You had someone come in with you,” he said. “We have him in the waiting room, but now that you’re awake we can send him in if you feel up for it.”

You went to nod, but remembered your neck injury and instead tried to speak for the first time.

“Yes.” It came out hoarse and squeaky, but at least you knew you could talk.

The doctor nodded and walked out of the room. You wondered who it was that came in with you. You figured it had to be one of the guys. They were probably all worried sick. You hoped they weren’t too stressed out over your injuries or anything.

You looked up at the door and felt your heart flutter when you saw Johnny standing there. He was looking at you with relief as he raced over to your bed, arms out like he was about to hug you. He stopped short before he reached you.

“Wait,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

You chuckled. “A little too late for that.”

He was cautious as he slipped his arms under your body and pulled you to him. You winced a little as a pain shot through your neck, but you tried not to let him know. When he laid you back down, the pain subsided.

“Do you remember what happened?” he asked.

“I remember the slide,” you responded. “I remember going down on it, being in the air. After that, it’s all blank.”

“Probably for the best. It wasn’t...pretty.”

“The doctor said I landed on my head.”

Johnny ran a hand through his silver hair. “Yeah...yeah you did. Really hard. We...we all thought...”

He trailed off, but you knew what he was going to say. They all thought you had died. It must’ve been a pretty bad for them to think that.

“Did you get it on film?” you asked.

“Yeah, but we’ve already decided we’re not putting it in the movie.” You opened your mouth to protest, but Johnny cut you off, “You could’ve died, (Y/N). We’re not putting that in the movie.”

“But you have had injuries just as bad or worse before, and you put that in the movie. Why is it any different if I do it? Because I’m a woman?”

“No, because I don’t wanna have to sit in the theatre and watch you get hurt again and have to relieve that fear I had when we realized you weren’t moving.”

The outburst took you back. You could understand that it was agreed to cut the scene out of respect for you, but the fact that Johnny felt so passionately about you being hurt kind of surprised you. You knew it shouldn’t, he cared for everyone in the Jackass crew, both the originals and the newbies, but there was something in his tone that made it seem different this time.

You reached out to take his hand in yours. When he looked up at you, you could still see the worry all over his face, like he was still waiting to know that you were okay.

“But I made it,” you reasoned. “You know that. You’re looking at me with your own eyes. If I’m sitting next to you in that theatre when the scene is shown, shouldn’t that count for something?”

Johnny wouldn’t meet your eye. He looked down at your connected hands, giving yours a slight squeeze before bringing it to his lips. He brushed a gentle kiss over your knuckles, both surprising you and making you dizzy with excitement.

“I feel things for you that I know are wrong,” he said. “Because in a way you’re my employee, and you’re so much younger than me. But I can’t help but feel this way. When I saw you get hurt and the medics told us you weren’t moving or waking up, I was terrified. It felt like my whole world was crashing down. I thought...I wasn’t going to be able to continue with the movie if we lost you.” He chuckled, humorlessly. “All that and we’re not even together or anything. I feel crazy.”

“You’re not crazy,” you assured him. “Honestly, not to make it sound like I’m blaming you, but I probably wouldn’t have done that stunt if it wasn’t for the fact that I feel the same way about you.”

He finally looked up at your face again, his eyes wide with shock now. “What?”

You could feel yourself heating up with embarrassment, but you kept talking anyways. “I keep participating in these big stunts because I also have feelings for you that I know I shouldn’t. I’ve been trying to impress you since day one. I had this idiotic thought in my mind that if I volunteered to do the more dangerous stunts that not even any of the guys wanted to do, that you’d be impressed and...and maybe you’d even like me back. How’s that for crazy?”

He smiled. A real smile, now. “That’s far beyond crazy. That’s utterly insane, actually.”

“Yeah, well, I think that’s par for the course when you’re part of Jackass.”

You both chuckled and soon silence filled the room. You weren’t sure where to go from here, and it didn’t seem like Johnny knew either.

Not that there was really any possibility of you going anywhere right now, considering the neck injury and the concussion. If he did happen to ask you out on a date or anything, there was no way you would be going out in public with the giant brace around your neck.

“Listen, I know you’re gonna be out of commission for a while,” Johnny said at last. “Trust me, I’ve been here more times than I can count. So, maybe with my experience in this area, I could help you get better.”

You giggled a little. “Are you gonna be my personal nurse?”

He did a mock salute and responded, “Nurse Knoxville, at your service. Anything you want or need, you just need to ask.”

You raised a suggestive eyebrow at him. “Anything?”

His face turned a light shade of pink as he awkwardly laughed. “Well, in your condition not anything, but we could work our way there eventually. If that’s what you want, I mean.”

You squeezed his hand again, almost forgetting you were still holding it. “I’d like that a lot, Johnny. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, get some rest. I’ll ask the doctor when we can have you out of here and back home.”

[poupeesdecirque]

Here he is ....

... random funfact: he can't sit down his pants are too tight. Doll Lavi will never sit in a chair :'D this makes me laugh so much. Also I love how the sizes for him and Bookman turned out, it was such a good decision to get the small body for Bookman.

Still can't believe he is done. 1 1/2 years after I bought the first shell, a bit over a year after I got told he will not happen. I had given up on him to be honest.

For those who are interested, more insight babbling under the cut:

As I got the new head I was not sure if I could make it work for Lavi, the promotional photos were a bit blurred, I just hoped for the best. The arrival was not .. sparking much for me as he was just too tainted still. The thing I enjoy the most was making wigs and even that was kind of not working for him bc the fiber was weird to deal with. I decided to give him the body I originally bought for Kanda as the other one would mess up their heights, so he became a full doll earlier. As the body got shipped I painted the head and was still pretty bummed about it but I wanted to give it a try at least.

When I finally started working towards my emotional backlog regarding the dolls and wrote a blog entry about my 'tainted' dolls it somehow .. clicked for me? Like, I had painted the head short before I wrote the entry and I went the next day and repainted him, somehow I felt like the burden was gone and I started to bond with him???

January was a super intense doll month for me, I worked through more dolls than I did in the year prior, went down from overall 14 Work in Progress dolls to ... 6. That still baffles me a bit as majority was sewing and I don't even like sewing that much.

I got the first two days of February off and decided to give Lavi a try, he felt like a bottomless pit with all the details but somehow working on him, especially the harder parts, was ... okay? Like, yeah, it took forever bc it was so much hand stitching but as I went slow and had expierence from Lenalee & Bookman I was able to trust my skills.

On the third day as I cut the wig and put him next to my window for the almost final photos I just was in denial that he was done. I added the hammer then and ... I have a Lavi.

A doll I had given up upon, it feels like the "preorders of hell" are finally done, at least mentally, the whole situation, I feel like I am more free again. I enjoy having projects of course but it was a mental burden and it's almost gone.

Edit:

I have to say, now, 2 months after finishing him, getting in character photos of him done is hard as the face is limited and I kind of regret getting that body as it's just a brick. I'm glad though i swapped it as Kanda needs a body that allows more movement, Lavi in general is not the type for dynamic poses. Overall I still have to get used to him, but it's like that with a lot of dolls. The Storyteller needed 2 years :')

[stillness-in-green]

On Chapter Posts (and What Comes After)

Just a heads-up to everyone that, at least for the time being, I’m putting the chapter posts on moratorium.  I’ve been far more critical than not for months on end, and while I do get some satisfaction out of the venting, it’s just gotten more mentally demanding than it’s worth.  Compliments are easy and fun to write!  I always end up feeling like I have to do more writing to support negativity, however, providing enough explanation to support my complaints, and often going even further to anticipate and preemptively counter responses.

That big slab of nitpicking sits at the top of my to-do list week-in and week-out, a responsibility to keep on top of lest I fall behind, pushing answering asks and working on other projects behind it, and with the chapters of late having become incredibly demotivating, not getting them done means I get nothing done.  It certainly doesn’t help that Horikoshi’s writing has become so dependent on fake-outs, asspulls, retcons, and purposefully misleading cliffhangers, all of which make it unrewarding in the extreme to put effort and thought into meaningful analysis on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

I apologize to anyone who was really enjoying them—I’ve had a number of people tell me they love my meticulous breakdowns, and I’m forever grateful that my anal-retentiveness has found some like minds!  That said, please don’t fear that I’m out of the BNHA analysis game entirely!  I’d just rather focus my attention on larger-scale material, subjects that require analyzing the work as a whole, rather than the week-to-week grind.

First up will be clearing out my ask backlog—not, I think, a terribly burdensome prospect this time—as well as give the Mina fan the answer I promised them months ago to their last reply in our series of lengthy exchanges about Chapter 383.

Afterwards, my current and wishlist projects include:

Below the jump, I've compiled a list of my projects, meta and fanfic alike.  Feel free to skim through if you’re interested in what the chapter posts have been keeping me away from!

Meta Projects:

An absolutely massive documentation of heteromorphobia in the main series and Vigilantes that I’ve been erratically working on since March of last year—41 pages and I’m still only at the beginning of the war arc!  I’ve been trying to decide if I want to just start posting this in arc-length breakdowns or finish the whole thing first for optimal organization and presentation, though I suppose I could do the former on tumblr and the latter on AO3. Anyone have a preference?    

The much-delayed essay laying out the evidence for the possession plot with AFO and Shigaraki not being the originally intended endgame for those characters, at least not in the form it wound up taking.  Currently six pages, this one is still mostly bullet points; it also hasn’t been updated to reflect some of the more recent wild inconsistencies.  I’d like to give the series time to wrap up whatever it’s going to do with AFO before I publish this one, in case of eleventh hour reveals, but there’s certainly a lot of draft work I could be doing in the meantime.    

Some follow-up/companion pieces to my MVA In Memoriam series.  I’d like to go back to the PLF Spotting posts, which were intended to run through the anime’s treatment of the PLF in the war arc, and I’ve also been compiling points for a schadenfreude-y post on the dazzling variety of ways the anime’s butchering of MVA has complicated its own future as an adaptation.  This would cover things like the anime having to hastily jam in the CRC scene as a flashback because, whoops, it turns out heteromorphobia is going to play a major role in the climax, or the whole-hog deletion of Curious talking about quirk counseling, given that Horikoshi would later directly depict how said counseling exacerbated the psychological abuse Toga was already facing from her parents.    

An essay I promised an anon last year about my perception of the MLA’s ideology.  I’m salty about what the lazy, rushed writing in the final arc has reduced my favorite villain group in the manga to, however, so at this point, I want to do two things with this piece.  First, analyze why the MLA's current portrayal is so problematic*—what they say doesn’t even match up with who they are and how they act now, much less in their MVA portrayal!  Second, discuss how I write them, extrapolating from the non-caricatured aspects of their portrayal with the intent of offering a version of the MLA who are still extremist, cultish villains but who are allowed to have some proper nuance, and an ideology that’s actually consistent with their history, their tactics, and their MVA-era characterization.    

A number of shorter fancies and trifles that I’ve thought about and taken a few notes on, but have never gotten around to fully drafting:      o A post on how heroes and villains respectively engage with dramatic unmaskings.      o A post on directionality of movement in visual media, highlighting some particularly interesting examples in BNHA to discuss what those examples indicate about the characters’ mentalities and the narrative’s silent, implicit judgement thereof.      o A post on how frustrating it’s been to see all of Toga’s powers and abilities get retroactively leashed to—and limited by—her girly love-love emotions.      o A post on the chronic underestimation of Shigaraki Tomura and the woes it consistently leads to.      o A post or two analyzing the final beats of each chapter in the War Arcs with the aim of critiquing the way the series undermines the threat presented by the villains during said arcs.

   

Fanfic Projects:

On the fanfic side, it’s been frustrating me for months now that I haven’t written a substantial piece of non-prompt-driven fanfic for BNHA since January of last year, and even that's being generous with the word "substantial." Before that, I'd have to go all the way back to 2020 to find a non-prompt-based fic with a distinct beginning/middle/end. Suffice to say I’ve got lots of projects on that front!

While the rest of these are all BNHA fic, I do have a Gundam IBO fic I'm, like, two-thirds finished with the final chapter of that I badly want to finally, finally finish. It's basically down to an awkward conversation or two and a pair of wedding vows I've consigned myself to writing by virtue of drawing attention to them in the preceding chapters, RIP.    

The perpetually languishing Obon fic, in which Re-Destro has a lot of feelings he is taking care not to examine too closely about his ancestors. Six thousand words and not even halfway finished.    

The self-indulgent ShigRD mermaid fic, which has a number of cheerleaders in my friend circle and also my id.    

Finish the MLA May AUs.    

I'd like to circle back and write something for those last three days of Spinaraki Week Level 3 I never got to.    

Brainstorming two distinct massive fix-it fic AUs I would at least like to draft some solid outlines for, even as it's unlikely I'll ever have the patience to write all the scenes about the kids they'd require.      o "Forward Different" (the current name on the OneNote tab) would start from the first war arc, being faithful to the canon up to that point, but with major and minor changes that ripple outward to take the story farther and farther from canon the longer it progresses.  (In that story: the MLA not folding like a bad hand in the raids, a Lady Nagant who's true to her professed hatred of empty platitudes, OFA being less of a perfectly good pushover, etc.)      o "Backward Different" would also start from the first war arc, but things would drastically diverge almost immediately because of a number of strategically placed changes to prior events and character motivations; these would be wildcards to be uncovered or deduced as the story progresses.  (In that story: Aoyama was revealed as the traitor all the way back at the training camp, cast members who actually matter turn out to be MLA, OFA is less of a perfectly good pushover, etc.)      

I also have a number of deeply backburnery ideas, still more in the category of "idea" than project, that I could to move to more active project status.      o The one where my might-as-well-call-them-my-MLA-fancharacter has to team up with Toga post-Jakku and travel across a rapidly unraveling Japan in order to meet back up safely with their allies.      o The one where I use an OC detective to examine the official response to the Shimura massacre, and how it got squashed.      o The Kotarou Lives AU, in which Kotarou survives said massacre. Look, gang, I just really want to write about AFO gleefully and aggressively coming on to Shimura Nana's deliciously bitter, traumatized, handsome, ignorant son. I also really like my idea for a lead-in/stinger on this one.      o The one where Geten busts himself and his allies out of prison, be it the canon-verse story with his now-confirmed cell neighbor Mr. Compress or the teenaged AU where he gets thrown in the same high-security juvie Mustard is in.

And that's about all I can dig up out of my notes at the moment. Let me know if there's anything you guys are particularly interested in, though priority is likely to go to shorter or more fully developed projects. Thanks for reading!

(* In the academic sense, not the moral one.)

[omegaremix]

Listen to me very carefully: never go into record collecting. Each and every one of you. I am not fucking around when I say this.

Music has become my entire life since the Brentwood era. I’d never realize I had the collectors’ (or hoarders’) gene until I figured out that I could get into anything and everything I come across. Throw in endless visits to record stores, making mix cassettes and CD’s, the advent of downloading, plus the infinite discovery of anything and everything you could possibly imagine hearing, and you end up with a life-long addiction with no cure.

I have a huge library across all formats as a result of habitual visits to record stores and donations from friends and family. I have no luxury in showing it during the age of doxxing. The amount of music I have sitting on the shelves and the time it takes to listen to it all easily surpass my remaining life expectancy.

During the Summer of ‘18 and ‘22, I decided to treat myself. I’d visit each and every record store on the island (even a couple of city locales) and spent as much money as I possibly could. No regrets. These record-store victory tours netted me literally hundreds of vinyl records, cassettes, and CDs I’d take home. I also purchased a few books along the way as well. While compulsively spending money and treating yourself is great short-term, in the long-term I easily fucked myself, and not in an Aaliyah Milan way. Bottom line: I buy more than what I listen to.

So why the backlog? Other than heavy compulsive buying, you can blame a short attention span, indifference, impatience, non-immediacy, or the low low sticker prices of used music in all formats, and it’d be very easy to shelve titles and fall behind on hearing everything. The time it takes for me to collectively visit each record store (say, 15) for a few hours is a snap of the finger compared to the entire total running time of every vinyl record, cassette, or disc I own combined. Easier to dig your own hole than it is to climb out of it.

That’s not all. There’s Real-Life Syndrome of having to balance a 40-hour workweek, time for the gym and supermarket, and other errands to be done. In my case, I have several ongoing projects with no end in sight such as running this new music blog, a radio show which I spend hours sound-editing for, graphic design, and photography.

And, there’s still more I want to do on top of that. I’ve been meaning to learn Italian and coding. I have a CD / DVD-R archive that needs salvaging before they all suffer disc rot. Plus, I have hundreds of VHS tapes needing to be digitized before fading out forever. 

Ask me why I feel the need to put myself through this? How did this chase of wanting to listen to everything all start? With a Polish goth girl. She was someone I never knew I was looking for all along. Locale, dress code, intellect, sexuality, and her sweet complexion. She mentioned The Forbidden Zone, a cult film featuring Herve Villechaise and Oingo Boingo. Right on the ‘free’ space. How could I forget? We traded playlists and later learned she was into early-era industrial, Adam Parfrey, Caspar Brotzman, and early-Eighties punk. Who else did I knew that were at her level?! The moment she asked me about Phillip K. Dick was when I was caught off-guard. She gave me a run for my money by knowing many things I didn’t while being curious by what she knew. That’s when I realized I should’ve known beforehand and be ready, instead of scrambling to find the answers.

We made plans on meeting up but that never happened. She announced she was taken, and I felt lead on and hurt beyond belief. I wondered why she did what she did and what could I have possibly done wrong. I first felt I wasn’t up to snuff and should’ve been ready to answer everything all along. But, it continued from there.

I posted a few INXS entries on my music blog. Enough for one of my long-time followers to reach out to me about it. She asked me what I thought of them and if I listened to any of their albums recently? I didn’t have much of an answer other than I grew up listening to “New Sensation”, “Devil Inside”, and “Need You Tonight”. I have four of their tapes but haven’t got around to hear them. In a way I felt embarrassed because I only heard their radio singles and never expected someone to stick me on Michael Hutchence. Oops. She got me!

I have others who are crazy for Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode. The former would be my saving grace because I’ve been a life-long fan of theirs. It made the latter feel like casual listening as I, once again, grew up listening to their radio singles. (Though, I did end up getting Songs Of Faith And Devotion when that came out and loved it.) She became the starting catalyst of me wanting to fill in most of the blanks from that point on; consistent enough for even Gene Rayburn to walk off the set in protest.

But the real kick in the ass came from a friend of mine from The Great Lakes who’s a TV-show and movie connoisseur. Oh, shit. It’s been a while since I watched either of them. I used to indulge in visuals all the time up until I left Stony Brook. That’s another level of expertise I’ve been falling short of. While there are some titles we both got excited about, she’ll occasionally toss a few my way which I haven’t seen. You could tell how I’d feel every time I miss.

But, she understands and never judges anyone of falling short. If there’s any consolation, she had thrown me a few familiar names that got me down a rabbit hole of everything from 1977 to 1982. The Stranglers, The Fall, Television, Orange Juice, Pere Ubu, and more. She’s set up her Spotify playlists and didn’t mind me pilfering through her music posts. For that, I am grateful because she made me appreciate alternative, peak hipster (‘00’s), chillwave, and even synthwave more. Even I resurrected my Last.fm from two years of dormancy and gladly signed up for Letterboxd which she suggested I do. I always thank her and let her know that everything she’s sent me never goes to waste and is always appreciated.

**********

There’s quite a list of artists whom I’ve been meaning to reach back and catch up on for a long time. The Cure, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Henry Rollins, Siouxsie Sioux and more. It never ends. I feel ashamed of myself because (again) these are artists I should’ve known about from the beginning. Friends, music publications, and anything else make me feel like I missed out when they sing the praises of legendary or well-lauded artists, sounds, or albums. The same for movies and TV. The Handmaid’s Tale, Orange Is The New Black, The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm. In ways, I still feel excluded. I don’t want the other person to think that I’m bullshitting my way to their heart or friendship, but I still have that fear of being rejected and shoved out of the way because of it.

Jello Biafra did say that “not everyone can do 100%”. And he’s right. It goes for what you have in common for people: a Venn diagram in which two people’s interests overlap into one. That also goes for doing massive projects like catching up on your entire media library. It’s a tough undertaking for me to achieve, and I imagine how stressful that is while staying on top of everything. That's when another mutual put their stack of Benjis in and suggest I don’t go crazy; just simply take my time in getting my listens in one at a time. That’s now a reality. Working at home means an hour more worth of time that I would’ve spent otherwise on driving to-and-from my location. I also completed digitizing my entire personal cassette dub library. All 400 of them. That took a few months on-and-off for me to complete. And, new solid-state storage installation means I'll have everything at my fingertips.

Nowadays, I don’t worry much about falling short like I used to, and I shouldn’t. No one should compare themselves to others. Though, it’s fun when you're prepared for those specifics and get double (or even triple) the points when it hits. On the other hand, I have vinyl LPs, tapes, and discs burning on my shelves, waiting to be taken out. I feel knowledge and hard-spent money will all go to waste if I don’t get to them. And, I will. Oh, trust me, I will. I'll be doing that while fending off the constant releases of new sounds, artists, albums, and other discoveries from now until eternity. Like Atari's Tempest, you know they keep coming at you.

(Hat-tips to @sweetness-doesnt-touch-my-face, @sheisthesisterofnight, @tewz, and @xdressedinblack for the push.)

[lightleckrereins]

Hi! This is my first time making an ask on this blog (though I have read through your SIX posts and tortured Elisabeth with way too many strange asks hehe). If you don't want to answer this costume question no worries, but thanks for taking the time to read this?

I have some double Bryony/Liv ask(s).

What happened to Bryony's Seymour skirt? She brought her other two skirts to London but not that one? (Esp. after her Howard skirt had broken down a ton and was looking quite sad.) Are Seymour skirts just inherently more fragile?

When Liv went on as Aragon, she wore the Grace-style Seymour skirt. However for her cruise run she wore the traditional black Aragon skirt. So I'm assuming she wore Grace's (as the only other existing one was Mallory). Is her top also Grace's or is it her own from the ship? And why didn't she wear it for her early Seymour debut instead of the band costume?

Whose Cleves costume did she wear? Was it perhaps one of Lexi's or Shaka's old iterations?

Don't worry. Interesting asks are always welcome. We might take a while to answer for a few reasons including, procrastinating on photosets or proofreading, waiting for photos, someone forgetting we left an ask in drafts and just didn't post it, me doing a billion things and not having enough time to sit down and write an answer or elisabeth's massive ask backlog.

What happened to Bryony's skirt is anyone's guess. We know many if not all the Bliss 1.0 and Breakaway 1.0 costumes made it to london in the summer before tour reopening and Breakaway 2.0 starting rehearsals. But why Bryony never got her Seymour skirt (or second top) has never been explained. Same with most of Natalie's costumes.

I have two guesses: either it was decided two skirts were enough or more practical or it was an issue with sizing. We know the biggest issues that six costumes had during lockdown were related to temperature and humidity. But that affected the vinyl specifically which the Seymour skirts don't have. What actually breaks down first in the costumes is the boning on the skirts as it is not meant to hold those shapes. Boning is intended for cosetry or bodices where it is shaping something it is fully laying against and slowly molding to that shape or hoopskirts where it heavily relies on the tension of closed circles or elipses not free standing open skirts where it keeps the same straight or curved shape forever.

As for sizing Howard skirts are the easiest to resize; depending on the construction is either moving the closure or changing the waistband. And we know some alterations happened for the tour costumes including the Jodie turned Vicki skirt getting a new waistband. We have never checked but that might be the case for Bryony's howard skirt too. During her universal alt run her Boleyn skirt seemed to have a mind of its own and moved a lot (as in it rotated during the show) which points to a small size change. While the Howard and Boleyn skirts might have been taken in a Seymour skirt would need to be at least partially taken apart and reasembled for that and they might have decided it was not worth it. Also I dont think it was the plan for Bryony to be on that much as the tour had four alts and WE four then five so two skirts might have been considered enough for the few shows she was expected to do.

About Liv's costumes. We know those at least partially made their way to the UK as Natalie wore an altered version of Liv's shorts instead of her own. Again no clue why Natalie got new pants and Cleves jacket and didn't get either her or Liv's Aragon skirt or Cleves jacket and top. But Liv joining Breakaway appeared in her program bio very early on her universal alt run so it was planned since at least the middle of tour rehearsals that she would only stay as universal alt for a few weeks. Potentially altering multiple costume pieces for such a short amount of time was probably more complicated than fitting her with existing costumes.

The black costume she wore is indeed Grace's minus the sleeves. Her black alt costume was the updated design with cutouts while the one she wore on land was the old one with mesh and a lighter colored vinyl. And yes only two costumes that existed in that design are Grace's and Mallory's.

And her early debut was actually an emergency mid show cover a few days before her planned debut. She also wore the band costume for tour tech the previous week so I think the costumes she ended up wearing were a little behind on prep work (something as simple as logistics didn't work out to go get them out of storage sooner could be the reason). Also by her planned debut date she had costumes so things did go as planned in that regard. And the Cleves costume she wore was Shekinah's.

[garlculean]

      𝐄𝐘 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐍𝐄, 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐃𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐆! For me, I'm doing well. I just wanted to take this time to give a quick update about activity on my blog just so everyone is aware of what's going on and perhaps then are more understanding on why my activity has been rather spotty // low.

      Starting on October 10th, I've been doing an absurd amount of mandatory overtime for my job STRAIGHT. Typically, I work a full time 40 hours a week schedule; Wednesdays -- Saturdays 10 hour long shifts, so then I get Sundays -- Tuesdays off. This WOULD give me more time where I can get to replies faster, to all in all, being more lively here in a general aspect. Though once mandatory overtime hit for me, I been working 11 hour long shifts Wednesdays -- Saturdays, and my Monday that I would otherwise typically have had off. This puts me at 55 hours a week of hours worked every week starting from that date in October. I strive to give my A-game here; I truly value my work here--- I never want to produce anything I am not pleased with or thats sloppy, as for that, I cannot have a exhausted and foggy mind when writing; writing takes a lot of brain power for me. Sometimes I get one reply done, one starter- if lucky I got two done in a day. I just want people to know this isn't the norm and it wont be like this forever but that its simply due to a very unfortunate predicament I'm in. Usually, cause of Christmas- mandatory over time starts RIGHT after Thanksgiving and ends once December is over, ands the new year. Its different this year though, as someone in my facility screwed up backlog making it so now it started. IN OCTOBER. Im sure that sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo stuff some wont understand; like jibberish, but BASICALLY this means we have work that stacked up so much because someone forgot to count the work we had on the lot so its just been. sitting there. unnoticed. 'wonderful'--I know.

      I will get to replies, I have not dropped any threads--I have every intention to continue the threads I've began but just know it will take time but that I really appreciate your patience. So far my time here has been truly wonderful to the core and I am very glad for all the amazing, and talented writers // people in general I have met here ands talk with or am actively writing with, and just getting the chance to meet. I value each and every one of you guys and the interactions I've gotten--- cannot wait for more to come. Thank you and I will keep you all posted on if anything changes! FINGERS CROSSED that this will be over soon and no more mandatory overtime is called WHWUAHAHAH!!!

[steppingstonesuniverseguide]

One More Step Out of the Pit: Chapter 13/26

Summary: It had been Tommy and Tubbo for practically forever. They clawed their way out of hell together. They discovered their superpowers together. They started working for the Superhero Guild together before even coming of age. Tommy probably owed Tubbo his life ten times over. So, when the three supervillains he'd been assigned to bring in managed to take Tubbo hostage, well, there was really only one thing to do.

He knew, of course, he was signing himself up for torture and death by offering that trade, but that was okay.

It'd have to be okay.

AO3 Link (See AO3 for Warnings.)

(This story is finished and has been posted on AO3 for a while, but I'm posting it on Tumblr so it's somewhere else too (considering the day AO3 was down a bit ago). The author notes will all be kept as well. If you are following the blog and don't want to see these posts, block the tag #backlog.)

“Technoblade,” a voice called, causing Techno to jerk awake from a deep sleep. His eyes landed on the figure hovering at the end of his bed. “Technoblade, hello,” he said, waving when he saw Techno was awake.

“Ugh. Do you have to watch me sleep?” Techno asked.

“I’m not watching you sleep,” Ghostbur said. “I’m waking you up.”

Techno sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Why?” he asked tiredly.

“You need to watch Tommy,” Ghostbur told him.

“Wilbur was going to watch Tommy,” Techno said with a stifled yawn.

“Yeah,” Ghostbur said, “but then he fell asleep.”

“So?” Techno asked. “You watch him then.”

“I can’t,” Ghostbur said with a frown. “I need to go do something.”

“Schlatt can wait one night. I’m sure he won’t fall back into alcoholism and make a deal with the devil that fast.”

“I’m not going to go see Schlatt.”

“Then what?” Techno asked. “All you do is talk to Schlatt and stare at me or Phil while we sleep.”

“Tommy asked me to check on his Tubbo?”

“…His what-o?” Technoblade asked.

“His Tubbo,” Ghostbur said, as though repeating the word clarified anything. Techno gave him a blank look and he started his ‘bouncing’ which was really just him hovering higher and then lower in a rhythm. “His friend! They’re really quite close, you know. Tommy’s worried he might be sad.”

“Tubbo,” Techno repeated. He was not quite awake enough for this conversation. Or for Ghostbur in general. “Tubbo is… the hero we kidnapped?” he guessed.

“Uh huh. I promised Tommy I’d check on him!”

Now, Technoblade’s brain was still in the process of waking up, but something in what Ghostbur had just said struck Techno as odd. “You know his friend’s name is Tubbo,” Techno said slowly. “And you somehow know where this Tubbo is to check on him.”

Ghostbur must have realized his mistake because the bouncing stopped abruptly until he was almost sitting on the bed and his glowing eyes went wide.

“Ghostbur,” Techno said patiently. “Have you been keeping secrets?”

“W-well you have to understand Technoblade,” he started to babble. “It really is Awakebur’s fault. He can be quite stubborn you know and kind of mean, and well, I did follow Tommy home from HQ the first time because Awakebur wanted to know more about him, but you see Techno he was really sad. And he is quite little, just a baby really. Did you know he’s only 16? And actually 16, 16 not like me or you at 16. Far too young to be doing hero work. I don’t know what they were thinking. And he lives in a little dirty apartment and doesn’t eat nearly enough. He and his Tubbo leave notes around for each other because the heroes were mean and don’t let them work at the same times, so they barely see each other and Tommy gets the bed all dirty because he’s always too tired to shower when he gets home, but Tubbo never says anything because he knows Dream is far too hard on him. And, and Alivebur would be mean, because he decided he doesn’t like him very much. You know how people who are alive can be oh so testy about things. It’s really silly, you know. So, I decided to forget about those things when I’m awake. He is tiny Technoblade.”

“…Will” Techno sighed, pinching his brow.

“And, and, you living people are so vulnerable when you’re sleeping. He’s awake right now, but what if he falls asleep and he’s alone. He can’t be alone. He’s too little. You have to watch him Technoblade. Please?”

Techno could tell Ghostbur was not in the mood to listen to reason. Even if Tommy was 16, that was definitely not too ‘little’ to sleep alone, especially when locked in a secure underground facility no one knew the location of. The ghost clearly did not see it that way, but to be fair, he had a hard time letting Phil sleep alone some nights. “Ugh, fine,” Techno groaned, resigning himself to his exhaustion. He reached over to flip on his lamp.

“Oh, thank you Technoblade!” Ghostbur cooed. “You are such a good little brother.”

Techno’s head whipped around to face him. “Don’t start that shit. We are not related! I have lived longer than you.” Probably. Ghostbur just gave him a mischievous smile. “You’re lucky I can’t smother you with a pillow again,” he grumbled.

Ghostbur just chuckled, sounding for a moment more like he did when he was awake. “Go babysit,” he requested as he faded out of sight.

“You stained my sheets blue!” Techno realized when he vanished. “Why do I even bother trying to have pink ones?”

After pulling on a green hoodie that was actually Phil’s and deciding contacts were definitely not worth it at this time of night and thus forgoing the mask in favor of glasses, Techno took the steps downstairs, grumbling all the way.

Tommy looked up from his place on the bed when Techno shoved open the door to the cell, seeming surprised. Techno had to pause at the sight of him. Ghostbur had apparently gone wild because blue stained his nose and forehead as well as his bedsheets. Apparently Ghostbur had taken it upon himself to decide the Will-please-not-the-face rule was not in place for Tommy because there was clear intent behind the kiss shaped mark above his eye. He might as well have written the word ‘mine’ across his forehead in permanent marker. Fucking, possessive bastard. That wouldn’t be coming off for days.

“What are you doing here?” the kid asked.

“Ghostbur said you were awake and that I should keep you company.”

“I don’t need company,” he grumbled.

“Too bad,” Techno said airily. He eyed Wilbur’s slumped over form leaning against the bed. Idiot. He’d complain all day if he woke with a kink in his neck from sleeping like that. With a shake of the head, Techno turned to the large pile of pillows and blankets Phil had panic gathered in fear Tommy might be cold and began spreading them all out in one corner of the room. He kicked the pile around until it looked comfortable enough and then walked over to where Wilbur sat. He carefully scooted the chair back from the bed, catching his body as it tried to fall forward. He made a confused sound in his sleep. “Hush you, it’s just me,” Techno told him. “Stay asleep.” He carefully slipped one arm under his knees and the other under his shoulder blades. Despite the bit of jostling maneuvering him so he was clutched to Techno’s chest caused, he headed Techno’s order to continue sleeping. He carried him over to the corner and laid him out on the pile of blankets, tossing one over him.

Tommy was staring at him when he turned back. Techno waited for whatever thing he wanted to say, but nothing came.

“What?” he finally asked, tired of the unplanned staring contest.

“You forgot your mask.”

“Didn’t forget,” Techno said. “Didn’t want to put my contacts in.”

“Don’t you have, like, a secret identity?”

Techno shrugged, unconcerned. He honestly wore the mask more for the aesthetic and Phil didn’t even wear one. The only one who really wandered around the city and could possibly be recognized was Will and that cat was out of the bag thanks to a certain ghost. The kid started gnawing on his lip again. “Stop that you’re going to bleed,” Techno scolded.

“Fuck you, I do what I want.”

“You want to bleed?”

“Is that a threat?” Tommy asked, bristling defensively to Techno’s confusion. “‘Cause I’m pretty sure Philza said you can’t hurt me right now, and he might be your dad or whatever, but you still shouldn’t piss him off.”

“It’s not a threat,” Techno told him, resisting rolling his eyes. “I’m not planning to hurt you. I was commenting on you hurting yourself.” The words seemed to sooth him a bit. “Also, Philza’s my friend, not my dad.”

Tommy tilted his head. “Ghostbur said Phil adopted you when you were six.” Fucking Ghostbur.

“Legally,” Techno said, “but we’re actually just friends.”

“You were six.”

“It’s complicated,” Techno said. “What else did he tell you?”

“Not much…” Tommy said. “Just stuff about how being a ghost works… and his name… and your name.”

“Of course.”

“Your supervillain names all suck, by the way,” Tommy informed him. “Having your name in the supervillain name doesn’t make sense. It’s supposed to be a secret identity. What is SBI all of your middle initials?”

“God, I wish.”

“What is it then?”

Techno looked at him. “No.”

“Aw, but what does it matter?”

“No.”

Tommy pushed his lower lip out. Techno stared at him, unimpressed. “…You look weird without the mask,” Tommy said.

“Mmm,” Techno replied, unconcerned. He walked back over to the bed.

“Seriously, no one’d be scared of you if they knew you looked like that under the mask.”

“Oh, trust me,” Techno said. “They would be.” Without warning, he flopped himself face first onto the free side of the double bed, ignoring how his glasses poked his face.

“Hey!” the kid said, sounding surprised. “This is my bed.”

“Ghostbur woke me up in the middle of a sleep cycle at, like, 2am,” he said into the pillow. “Shush.”

“Aren’t you, like, afraid I’ll murder you in your sleep and escape?”

“I’m not falling asleep,” Techno said, his eyes closed, “and no, not particularly.”

“I’m dangerous!”

“Mmm.”

“Bitch.” Techno felt him shuffle around a bit on the bed. He hissed when the movement jostled his injury and Techno opened his eyes and turned his head to look at him. “Your hair’s weird.” Techno was starting to think ‘blank is weird’ was just the way Tommy demanded attention.

“Okay.”

There was a pause. “It looks cool though when it’s all braided and you’re wearing the skull mask.”

“Thanks.”

“Why do you wear it so long though?” Tommy asked. Techno wasn’t getting out of conversation, was he? “I mean, it’s awesome and all, but your main thing is close combat.”

“Used to wear it short,” Techno admitted. “People used to shave it. Then, I’d cut it short with a knife so it wouldn’t get tangled. Phil taught me how to care for it a bit after I met him. I started to like it long when I knew how to take care of it, so now I just let it grow.”

“Well, it’s very pog man.”

Techno rolled his eyes. “Thanks,” he said again.

“Is it naturally pink?” he asked.

Techno snorted at the question. “No,” he said.

“Well, I don’t know,” Tommy said, affronted by his amusement. “Sometimes people with powers end up with weird shit like wings!” Which… was fair enough.

“It’s white naturally,” he said. “Not sure if it was when I was born or if it happened later. I’m due for a dye, see?” He tapped at his roots which he’d noticed the morning before were starting to peak through white.

Tommy leaned over to look, careful to keep his hand on his own pillow.

Techno sighed. “You can touch it.”

“Huh?” Tommy asked.

“My hair,” Techno said. “You can touch it.”

“Really?” he asked.

“It’s basically Wilbur and Phil’s favorite pastime, so it’s not like I’m not used to it.”

With the permission, he reached out a cautious hand to touch a few of the strands on the pillow, his head cocked in curiosity. “Wow,” he said, “how the hell do you get it like this?”

“Lots of time and lots of product.”

He grew a bit bolder, though he did not take near the amount of liberties Wilbur often did. He just basically pet it against the pillow so Techno could just barely feel it. His distraction gave Techno a chance to really look at him. He did look quite young especially now. Ghostbur had said he was 16 even though that made no sense. What was the Hero Guild doing if that was the case?

Sixteen, Techno contemplated. That was young, wasn’t it? Did Techno even know what it was like to be 16? He’d been 16 once, twice, and never.

Sixteen was a home made out of an old, abandoned train car and Phil always bringing back something extra when he went out for supplies, sometimes these things were functional, but often they were not, and he really did not understand. It was a white stuffed bear Techno never understood the significance of until an 8-year-old handed a much newer version of it to him years later saying he could have it. It was being on the verge of trusting after almost a year and a half, but not quite there yet.

Sixteen was also Will’s eighteenth birthday and Techno pinning him to the ground of the living room in the house upstairs, because he wouldn’t stop mocking Techno for still being a child when he was an adult even though Techno had been an adult first. It was Phil ignoring them to cut ice cream cake in the kitchen trusting Techno wouldn’t actually cut off his son’s oxygen with the pillow he’d placed over his head.

Sixteen was lost like water slipping through a drain never to be recovered. It was lost in blood and death: his own, his own, his own, until he managed to make it someone else’s. How could he possibly know when he’d existed for 16 years when for every stumbling two steps forward, he took one back? Did it pass in the blood-soaked arena or on the cold street or in a prison cell? There was no way to ever know.

What was sixteen for this boy? Techno had to wonder. He worried silently that with the gash on his stomach and the pallor to his cheeks, it might linger somewhere closer to the first or third than Techno was comfortable with.

“Why are you looking at me all funny?” Tommy asked.

“How am I looking at you?”

“Funny,” Tommy answered.

Techno rolled his eyes. “Helpful.” Tommy kicked him and Techno narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you want to sleep?” he asked.

“I apparently have had too much caffeine, so sleep is not an option right now.”

“Fantastic,” Techno said, shoving his face back into the pillow.

Tommy gave him about two seconds of silence. “Do you have a superpower?” he asked.

Techno sighed. “Yes.”

“I’ve never seen you use one,” Tommy said, “and we’ve fought a lot of times.”

Techno took his head off the pillow. “It’s not one I use often anymore.”

“Why not?” Tommy asked with a frown.

Techno turned to face him. “If you’d ever given me cause to use it, you wouldn’t be alive.”

He must have accidently done something with his voice because Tommy’s already pretty pale face went a bit paler.

Techno tilted his head. “It wasn’t a threat,” he said. “Just a fact.”

“I could kill you right now if I decided I wanted you dead isn’t a threat?” Tommy asked.

“No because I don’t have a reason to want you dead.”

“You don’t?” Tommy asked, seeming genuinely surprised.

Techno squinted at him. “Kid, what exactly do you think is going on here?”

The kid started biting his damned lip again, his hand clenching his pillow, but he didn’t say anything.

“You are aware we aren’t planning to kill you, aren’t you?” He just stared at Techno. “Shit kid, we’re not going to just murder some unarmed child in our basement. You’ll be ransomed back to the Guild eventually.” Well… at least, that had been the plan, he thought, looking at the blue marks adorning his face.

“But I’m your enemy,” he said with a frown.

“Being a general nuisance and kicking Wilbur in the face a couple of times isn’t quite enough for us to want your head on a spike.”

Tommy was looking at him all confused. Shit. How had Phil explained the fact that most people actually didn’t want to murder people indiscriminately? Technoblade was not equipped for this. Uh…

“Is that…” Tommy interrupted his thoughts.

“What?” Techno prompted when it was clear he wasn’t going to continue his sentence.

“Why didn’t you kill me that one time?” he asked quietly.

“When?” Techno asked.

“You know,” he said. “That one time I found you in the alley. We fought and you had me at sword point. I thought you were going to slit my throat then, but you just walked away. We were alone and I’d attacked you. I always wondered why you didn’t.”

“I thought that’d be obvious,” Technoblade said, but Tommy just frowned. “Did you forget the rest of that fight?” he asked. “You thought you’d snuck up on me and I didn’t notice until it was too late. You’d grabbed my sword and held me at sword point on the ground. You’d thought you’d won.”

“Yeah, but I hadn’t,” he grumbled.

“You hadn’t,” Techno agreed. “In fact, you didn’t even really find me. I lured you there on purpose.”

“Why?”

“It was a test. We’d fought a few times and I wanted to see if you were a threat.” He shrugged. “You weren’t.”

Tommy looked unhappy with that statement.

“It’s not an insult,” Techno said.

“It sure fucking sounds like one,” Tommy replied.

“It’s not,” Techno said. “It’s a compliment really. The first person I ever registered as not a threat was Phil and he’d actually just beaten me in combat. It has nothing to do with skill, though yes, obviously I could beat you in hand to hand considering I wrestled the sword away from you after.”

“I don’t get it.”

Techno hummed. “You asked me why I didn’t slit your throat. Well, why didn’t you slit mine?”

“Well… because I’m a hero,” Tommy said, “and I’d already won or thought I did, so I should just call it in to the Guild. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”

Techno snorted. “Funny joke kid. Most heroes would love to put a sword though my chest,” not that it would end, had ended, well for them, “especially with no one watching.”

“So, you didn’t kill me then because I didn’t try to kill you?”

“I give people back what they give to me,” Techno said. “It’s why Phil has my loyalty, why Wilbur has my protection, why many people are dead and buried, and it’s why you don’t need to fear dying at my hand.”

“Oh,” Tommy said. “That’s nice of you.” Like he’d just offered to give him a ride home on a rainy day. Like it was a favor he didn’t expect.

This kid was fucked up.

They were silent for a while and then Techno sat up with a sigh. He fished his phone out of the hoodie pocket. “Well, neither of us are sleeping. What types of movies do kids watch these days?”

Tommy blinked at him. “I don’t watch movies.”

“Right.” He fiddled with his phone for a bit and then handed it to Tommy. “I locked you out of everything but Netflix, so don’t even try it,” he said.

Tommy spent about 30 minutes just scrolling through Netflix, reading the titles, before he selected a horror movie seemingly at random.

He proceeded to refuse to back out for the entire 2 hours of the movie’s runtime despite the fact that he was clearly not built for horror movies. Hmm… maybe the R rating did mean something; he was only 16 after all. He ended up curling into a ball the best he could with a cow stuffed animal clutched to his chest and jumped at everything that happened on screen. Ah, so that’s what the stuffed animals in Wilbur’s room were about.

Techno tried not to laugh at the jumpy boy. He really did.

“Dickhead,” Tommy spat when the movie ended. “Stop laughing at me.”

“We could have backed out at any time.”

“No! I’m a man! A big man.”

“Sure, Tommy. Next time you’re watching a G rated movie. Animated animals only.”

“I do not like you.”

“Is that why you’re trying to cuddle me for comfort?”

“I am not. Shut up.” He pressed his forehead into Techno’s shoulder. “When is Ghostbur getting back? I like him better.”

“We could wake up Will.”

“No. Ew.”

Techno chuckled and Tommy sat up, still holding the cow stuffed animal.

“Hey, Technoblade,” he said, looking over at Wilbur’s sleeping form in the corner. “Do you have any shaving cream?”

Techno blinked at him. “What? Why?”

Tommy shrugged, his eyes cutting to Techno and then back to Wilbur and then back to Techno.

Oh, Techno thought. “You know what?” I have a better idea.”

“Technoblade, I’m going to be rather cross with you,” Ghostbur warned from the bed. He’d returned while Technoblade was sneaking up to the kitchen. He didn’t know what they’d discussed while he’d been gone, but it was likely about Tommy’s friend.

Despite his words of warning, Ghostbur didn’t move to stop Techno, likely because Tommy was full on giggling over his small bowl of chocolate ice cream topped with strawberries and whipped cream.

Technoblade shrugged. “Meh. Worth it.”

Author Note:

Ghostbur: Ah, but you see Technoblade. He is baby.

Techno: *rolls eyes*

**1 hour later**

Techno: Oh no. He is baby.

(This conversation was illustrated and you can find it here!)

[blossom-adventures]

Jaina and 22 (wildflowers)!

Thank you for this request and I’m sorry it took some long to do, but I’ve managed to get through my backlog of prompts now so here’s the finished piece ☺️💙

Wildflowers

Jaina was sitting on her bed in Jorrvaskr, reading her copy of The Hero & The Emperor when there was a knock at her door

“Come in?” She looked up from her book as the door opened and Farkas stepped in, “morning Farkas, I didn’t realise you were back, how was your job?”

“Yeah, it was good, it paid well too,” Farkas stepped into her room and closed the door, “umm… could I ask you something?”

“Sounds a bit ominous” Jaina said as she moved her legs so Farkas could sit down on the edge of her bed

“It’s nothing like that, don’t worry… it’s just… what does your sister like?” Jaina blinked at him

“You mean Maddy?”

“Yeah” Jaina stayed quiet for a moment “I… I like her, wanted to get her something, you know?”

“Farkas are you saying you’re… in love with my youngest sister?” He shrugged and turned away, the tips of his ears turned a very obvious shade of red “awww, Farkas” Jaina shifted so she could wrap her arms around his broad shoulders “she collects wildflowers,” she explained as she leant over his shoulder, “she keeps them in a journal, she never goes anywhere without it, if you picked her a few, she would cherish them in that journal forever”

“Really?”

“Without a doubt, next time you’re in the tundra, pick her some”

“Thanks Jaina”

3 days later, Jaina and Madeline were training in the courtyard of Jorrvaskr when Vilkas and Farkas returned from another job

“Jaina, could I have a word?” Vilkas waved over to her, she nodded and walked over to him, passing Farkas who approached Maddy

“What is it you…”

“Shhh… look” Vilkas nodded over her shoulder to Farkas who pulled out 3 different coloured mountain flowers from one of his belt pouches, Madeline went bright red as she took them from him. Jaina looked at Vilkas who had a smile on his face

“You knew he was going to bring her the flowers?” Jaina asked

“I talked him into it, he’s had his eye on her for ages now, he’s always been shy when it comes to this type of thing”

“And you weren’t?”

“Did I say that?”

[petnews2day]

Animal refuge at breaking point as calls to re-home COVID pets increases

New Post has been published on https://petnews2day.com/pet-industry-news/pet-charities/animal-refuge-at-breaking-point-as-calls-to-re-home-covid-pets-increases/

Animal refuge at breaking point as calls to re-home COVID pets increases

A rescue organisation that re-homes animals in need has said it has no choice but to turn away new arrivals as it battles with debt and unprecedented demand.

Key points:

Animal rescue organisations say they are busier than ever

Queensland’s Little Legs Rescue has put a temporary hold on new arrivals

Demand on rescues adding further pressure on under-resourced vet industry

Little Legs Dog and Cat Rescue Queensland, which services an area from the Sunshine Coast to the Gold Coast, said it has stopped accepting new arrivals until it got on top of a $10,000 debt, and cleared the backlog of animals in its care.

The rescue centre’s kitten coordinator Tee-Jay Dawes said the rising cost of living and the housing crisis had contributed to an influx of animals needing help.

“Sometimes people do need to … ensure that they have shelter for themselves, and sometimes that does mean they have to leave behind the pets,” she said.

Ms Dawes said as people returned to working from the office after lockdowns, many also had less time to look after their animals and were looking to re-home them.

Tee-Jay Dawes is urging people to adopt rather than shop while there are so many animals in rescues looking for homes.(Supplied: Little Legs Dog and Cat Rescue Queensland)

“Unfortunately, we’re not alone. A lot of rescues are facing the same kind of crisis we are with not enough carers, not enough spaces for people to be able to surrender those animals to us and then the financial burdens that come along with that,” she said.

Rescue shelters under pressure

While other animal rescues in the region including Sunshine Coast Animal Refuge (SCARS) and Chihuahua Rescue Queensland were still taking on new arrivals or adding them to a waitlist, those organisations have reiterated that they were feeling immense pressure to keep up with demand.

President of SCARS, Penny Brischke said she had never seen the centre or its waitlist so full.

“We’ve run a couple of promotions recently and slashed the adoption prices to less than half and had reasonably good responses,” she said.

“We nearly cleared our cattery in August, and then two weeks later, we’re full again.”

She said the organisation had hoped the recent legislative change that prevented landlords from refusing pets in rental properties without reasonable grounds would make a difference, but she said it had so far not helped to lessen demand.

Meanwhile, the number of animal adoptions were lower than ever.

“When I first started with SCARS 18 years ago, we easily rehomed 10 or 15 dogs a week. Now, we’re actually sitting at one or two a week, and that’s really making it difficult for us to actually keep taking them in,” Ms Brischke said.

She said she was very concerned about the future of small rescue organisations.

“I have never seen such desperation and such volumes of animals needing to be saved and re-homed.”

Ms Dawes said this Australian Cattle Dog x Bull Arab is one of the dogs that had spent a long time in a kennel while the team were looking for its forever home.(Supplied: Little Legs Dog and Cat Rescue Queensland)

Ms Brischke said the rescue was also facing financial pressure, with basic veterinary care costing the organisation between $250,000 and $300,000 a year.

President of Chihuahua Rescue Queensland Belinda Toms said her organisation had 13 dog surrender requests in the past week.

“I think everybody’s pretty much in the same boat being inundated with surrenders, unfortunately.”

Vet industry also under pressure

South Australian vet and owner of Port Adelaide Veterinary Clinic Shaun Scheepers said his clinic worked closely with a number of rescue organisations.

If you or anyone you know needs help:

Dr Scheepers said when pet ownership spiked during COVID-19, it added extra pressure on an industry already struggling with a national vet shortage.

“We just cannot find veterinarians. There is a countrywide shortage, well, in fact there’s a worldwide shortage.”

Dr Scheepers said he suspected that was partly due to the stress veterinarians were under.

Last year, a parliamentary committee on mental health and suicide prevention heard that the suicide rate among veterinary workers was four times greater than in the general population.

“That often leads to a cycle of despair,” he said.

Chihuahuas were often surrendered when elderly owners passed.(Supplied: Chihuahua Rescue Queensland Inc)

Dr Scheepers said the government’s change of response to the pandemic was contributing to the current high number of surrendered animals.

“We went through a phase through COVID where everybody wanted a pet, and at that time there wasn’t a pet to be had and rescues had literally been cleaned out because people wanted animals.

“Now, the shoe is on the other foot … people are finding it difficult because they’re not at home, they’re leaving their pets behind.”

The annual spring kitten influx had also led to increased demand, and Dr Scheepers said it was particularly important to make sure pets were desexed to avoid unwanted litters.

Meanwhile, Tee-Jay Dawes said Little Legs hoped to welcome new arrivals again by the end of the year.

“It’s just a chance for us to get back up on our feet, to wait for some of these donations to come in, and once we’re there, we will open our doors back up again and keep saving as many lives as we possibly can for as long as we can.”

Local news direct to your inbox

ABC Sunshine Coast will deliver a wrap of the week’s news, stories and photos every Wednesday. Sign up to stay connected.

[timbrrwolfe]

I guess I could talk a little about what I've been up to in the years since I was last on this site.

I started therapy. Then stopped therapy after like a year and a half because it seemed like we weren't making a ton of progress with therapy alone (I have plans to do the whole testing for adhd and autism so we can figure out what's in my neurodivergent soup aside from the anxiety, but there was apparently a waitlist for the few people in my area who do that kind of testing). And, to clarify, the thing we weren't making much progress with was a specific goal of therapy that seems held back by adhd/autism/anxiety that will either require more specific resources to work through than the therapy. The therapy itself was actually pretty good for what it was. Though because of how I ended up at the practice I did (i.e. my mom got me in with someone who worked in the same building as she does) it ended up being a Christianity-based therapy. As a Christian, I didn't exactly mind this. But as a Christian who's been, uh...less than active, we'll say, and has had my issues with the current state of Christianity in America, it was not without its flaws. But I can talk more about that in a different post.

I got a little more serious about wanting to be a writer and make money off of that. And then proceeded to completely fall flat on my face when it came to actually doing the writing. I still have a million ideas rattling around in my head but I've not gotten much better at actually sitting down to do it (one of the things I was trying to sort out with therapy but might require like adhd meds or something). But man once I get that sorted out and start actually writing it's over for y'all. (No I don't know who y'all refers to there).

Reading has actually been down for me lately, but I've been watching more movies and playing more games, which has been nice. Still awful at sitting down to watch shows, and my backlog in everything is ever-growing. Still gotta figure out a balance there. Right now I'm reading through Dune after watching the movie and BOY the book is slower. I think I'm right around where the movie ended, so about halfway through the book, so we'll see if it picks up now that it's newer info. On the topic of games I ended up playing board games online with a few people more now, which has mostly been games that were new to me, which has been fun. I will forever be meaning to set up game nights with friends and never actually doing it (one of these days, surely). On the video games side of things I found out my library actually has switch games available so I've started renting those (they are, unsurprisingly, a hot commodity, and the selection is admittedly limited, but it's still a good way to play games I might not have earlier). So far I've only rented New Pokemon Snap, which I didn't finish in like a month because choice fatigue from choosing which pictures to save burned me out a bit (as well as it being pretty repetitive with the area leveling system requiring multiple replays of the same area with little variation) but I got pretty close still. And I requested Super Mario Odyssey which is probably a longer game but also a more concrete game, goals-wise, so hopefully I'll be able to burn through that pretty quickly. Also my current focus in terms of ongoing games has been Pokemon Unite (which I am, I think, pretty good in and the game is decently fun but boy does it have some stuff to fix before I can call the game as a whole good) and Fall Guys. Though I realized recently that a lot of my motivation for playing those games is tied to being able to customize characters. Which like. Not that surprising in hindsight, but it still caught me off guard to notice.

Still unemployed (see aforementioned stuff about therapy), so that keeps piling on. Still single. And...probably not ready to mingle? I dunno, my lack of drive in finding a partner is mostly related to that ongoing unemployment because I don't want to be that much of a burden on a partner. But I guess if someone I was interested in and felt would be a good match asked, knowing my situation, I'd be willing to give it a shot.

[foreveralonewithmystupidthoughts]

Can’t cope with this shitty healthcare anymore!

Not allowed a stoma bag because it’s for bowel surgeries like “cancer”. BULLSHIT! That’s why people I know, who have the same condition as me, have stoma bags. You just don’t want to help me. Now I’m forced to starve myself even more by eating just one meal a week. And if that don’t work, then I have no choice but to starve completely!! I’m done, who the fuck created the NHS? Cause those cunts need to be fucking shot in the head.

No doctor wants to even help me. Not my GP, not the diabetes clinic, not gastro. Not even the eye clinic. My eyes are getting worse, but what do they care? I’m nearly 2 months over due for my checkup, at this point I’m probably going to end up blind quicker than expected. I’m actually done. I feel like just saying fuck it and leave it and when more shit happens to me like blindness, or starving myself so much that I end up in the hospital with a tube down my throat then it’s their fault and I will make sure they get the full blame.

Why don’t they care? I don’t get it. Yes I stick up for myself. Yes I do have a go sometimes. But I’ve never done anything to them. I yell at them because they treat me like shit. I stick up for myself because I’m fed up with being fobbed off.

He’s only not discharging me because he’s scared off me. He couldn’t even talk to me personally, he had to have his lackey do it for him. He’s once again also put my appointment to next year, when the lackey told me 3-6 month check up. So once again lies after lies.

I wish I could make them pay. I don’t have nothing to lose if I end up in prison. Not like I have a life to live.

I’m not even going to bother with that appointment. What is the point? Nothing is going to change. They aren’t going to let me have a stoma bag, they aren’t going to do anything else. I’m stuck like this. They don’t care.

Also it’s another telephone appointment. It’s not even covid anymore, it certainly won’t be in 2023. Why is it always telephone appointments? Are they scared to face me? Are they worried I will stomp on their pathetic faces and break their necks. I wouldn’t, but fuck is that fun to imagine.

They are pathetic, they are scared of a 25 year old for fucks sake! How pathetic. I’m 5ft fucking 3 and weigh like probably 90lbs, why the fuck are you scared? You’re a grown ass man, dude! Probably could easily overpower me, but clearly your parents raised a pathetic little bitch.

As for the eye clinic, they’re fucked! I’ve waited 10 fucking weeks for an appointment. An appointment that was meant to be a check up on my eyes. At this point, I will probably go blind sooner than 5 years. And it will be down to them.

They sit there and tell me “no we haven’t forgotten about you” when you clearly fucking have. I’ve been crying because of them. Because I’m terrified of going to sleep. Incase I wake up and I can’t see at all.

My eyes are already fucking up. But I don’t know what I am looking for, I’m not an ophthalmologist. I don’t know what is what in the eyes.

Telling me that they’ll call me back “next week” well it’s been that week and still no fucking call. I can’t do it anymore. As something as fucking important as eyesight, you’d think they’d care a little more about someone that is young and going through this.

When I eventually go in to get my pump I’m going to the eye clinic and I am not fucking leaving until I get an appointment. I don’t care if you’re backlogged, I don’t care about anything. Im sick to fucking death of being treated like shit. Especially by these fucking cunts.

You should fucking die! You don’t deserve anything good. Your names will forever be on my list. You’re never coming off. Others can redeem themselves, medical “professionals” cannot redeem themselves ever!

[miawin6]

PERCY JACKSON CHARACTERS AS EVERMORE LYRICS

Percy Jackson

And if it was an open-shut case

I never would've known from that look on your face

The more that you say, the less I know

Wherever you stray, I follow

Everybody wants you

Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you

When we were younger, down in the park

Honey, making a lark of the misery

And we live in peace, but if someone comes at us

This time, I'm ready

And when I was shipwrecked, I thought of you

In the cracks of light, I dreamed of you

Annabeth Chase

You know that my train could take you home

Anywhere else is hollow

There is happiness

Past the blood and bruise, past the curses and cries

Beyond the terror in the nightfall

Haunted by the look in my eyes

That would've loved you for a lifetime

Leave it all behind

Tell me, when did your winning smile begin to look like a smirk?

When did all our lessons start to look like weapons pointed at my deepest hurt?

I can't make it go away by making you a villain

All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness

Never be so kind, you forget to be clever

Never be so clever, you forget to be kind

Piper Mclean

I'm like the water when your ship rolled in that night

Rough on the surface but you cut through like a knife

As if you were a mythical thing

Like you were a trophy or a champion ring

And there was one prize I'd cheat to win

If I can't relate to you anymore

Then who am I related to?

And the skeletons in both our closets

Plotted hard to mess this up

Jason Grace

It's the kind of cold, fogs up windshield glass

But I felt it when I passed you

There's an ache in you put there by the ache in me

But if it's all the same to you

It's the same to me

You can run, but only so far

I escaped it too, remember how you watched me leave

But if it's okay with you, it's okay with me

I won't ask you to wait if you don't ask me to stay

Sorry for not making you my centerfold

Were you waiting at our old spot

In the tree line, by the gold clock?

Did I leave you hanging every single day?

Were you standing in the hallway with a big cake?

Happy birthday

Did I paint your bluest skies the darkest gray?

A universe away

Sometimes walking out is the one thing

That will find you the right thing

Hazel Levesque

Show me the places where the others gave you scars

I sit and watch you and notice everything you do or don't do

You're so much older and wiser and I

I wait by the door like I'm just a kid

Use my best colors for your portrait

Lay the table with the fancy shit

And watch you tolerate it

Will you forgive my soul

When you're too wise to trust me and too old to care?

No more tug of war now, I just know there's more

I rewind the tape but all it does is pause

On the very moment all was lost

If our love died young, I can't bear witness

And it's been so long

Frank Zhang

And in the disbelief, I can't face reinvention

I haven't met the new me yet

Fatefully

I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me

If the shoe fits, walk in it everywhere you go

Never be so polite, you forget your power

Never wield such power, you forget to be polite

I should've asked you questions

I should've asked you how to be

Asked you to write it down for me

All your closets of backlogged dreams

And how you left them all to me

Leo Valdez

"This dorm was once a madhouse"

I made a joke, "Well, it's made for me"

And the heart I know I'm breakin' is my own

To leave the warmest bed I've ever known

We could call it even

Even though I'm leavin'

There'll be happiness after me

But there was happiness because of me

Both of these things I believe

There is happiness

After giving you the best I had

Tell me what to give after that

I can't stop you putting roots in my dreamland

My house of stone, your ivy grows

And now I'm covered in you

I'd live and die for moments that we stole

On begged and borrowed time

And you know in your soul

When it's time to go

Nico di Angelo

I'm begging for you to take my hand

Wreck my plans, that's my man

Life was a willow and it bent right to your wind

They count me out time and time again

Gleaming, twinkling

Eyes like sinking ships on waters

So inviting, I almost jump in

But I don't like a gold rush, gold rush

I don't like anticipating my face in a red flush

I don't like slow motion double vision in rose blush

I don't like that falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush

And then it fades into the gray of my day old tea

'Cause you know it could never be

My mind turns your life into folklore

There'll be happiness after you

But there was happiness because of you

Both of these things can be true

And you passed right by

I was in the alley, surrounded on all sides

Long story short, it was the wrong guy

Now I'm all about you

Actually

I always felt I must look better in the rear view

And he's passing by

Rare as the glimmer of a comet in the sky

And he feels like home

Long story short, it was a bad time

Long story short, I survived

And I couldn't be sure

I had a feeling so peculiar

This pain wouldn't be for evermore

When the words of a sister come back in whispers

That prove she was not in fact what she seemed

Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano

You had a speech, you're speechless

Love slipped beyond your reaches

While you were out building other worlds, where was I?

Where's that man who'd throw blankets over my barbed wire?

I made you my temple, my mural, my sky

Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life

But what would you do if I, I

Break free and leave us in ruins

Took this dagger in me and removed it

Gain the weight of you then lose it

Believe me, I could do it

This place is the same as it ever was

But you don't like it that way

It's never too late

To come back to my side

Yes, I got your letter

Yes, I'm doing better

I know that it's over

I don't need your closure

I know I'm just a wrinkle in your new life

Staying friends would iron it out so nice

Guilty, guilty reaching out across the sea

That you put between you and me

Right where you left me

You left me no, you left me no

You left me no choice but to stay here forever

[superpixie42]

August Birthday Edition!

So many lovely humans have birthdays this month( @alerialblu @liz8080 and @wolfcry77 ) and I am still working through my fic backlog BUT the movers come next week so hopefully I will be able to get some time in with my laptop to finish these up. All of them have something written but moving and phone typing are a recipe for disaster when it comes to editing.

PLEASE ENJOY THESE SIX SENTENCE SNEEK PEEKS

Glamour: a magical creature AU for @wolfcry77

Inuyasha had a lot of things going for him in his life. He had a good job, good friends, a solid reputation that limited the amount of flack he took for his half-demon status. But what he didn't have was time for this shit. As he watched Sango lead the wide eyed girl past the bar and back towards the VIP seating area he made his displeasure known.

"Oi, Sango!? The fuck is with the human, you know the rules!"

"If anyone knows the rules Inuyasha, it would be me." She winked at him, but her half-assed attempt at fae charm did nothing but piss him off even more.

Bedtime Story: A canon only-one-bed for @alerialblu

Inuyasha opened his eyes with a start. His vision was a mix of black and pink and something soft was tickling his nose. He tried to sit up, but the limb wrapped around his middle pulled him tighter against something soft and squishy. He whipped his head to the side, ready to bite his captor, only to see Kagome's face, the muscles slack with sleep. He felt his heart rate slow down as his brain caught up with his senses. He was still in Kagome's room. No, more accurately he was still in Kagome's bed.

All Around Me: a soulmates ficlet for @liz8080

Inuyasha wasn't even listening to Koga anymore, his whole brain was short circuiting as he processed this newest fun fact. He needed to find the stupid fucking flea and beat some answers out of him; complete answers this time, not half assed evasive answers like he'd clearly gotten before. Inuyasha sniffed again, keeping his ears trained on Koga just in case. But Inuyasha was sure, the smell was gone, the tingly feeling was gone, and if he was right he was going to rub it in the wolf's fucking face forever.

[junicai]

lights out.

| summary | In New York, the City that Never Sleeps, Aria can’t sleep. So, her roommate comes up with a skeptical idea, and ropes Mark into it as well. 

| word count | 3.7k

| warnings | one (1) curse word

| era | circa. April 2019

92. "Just remember if we get caught, you’re deaf and I don’t speak English."

New York City.

Forever illuminated in light, forever alive and bustling down below the skyrises that towered above the people that wandered through the streets no matter what time was displayed on the clocks. The city was teeming with energy, bubbling beneath the surface as it waited for a chance to explode.

Traffic backlogged street to street, wandering souls pattering around the block in search of nothing, aimlessly strolling past the busy business-goers, those that carried briefcases with carefully filed notes and papers, and those that had dragged themselves out of their beds for the graveyard shift in the neon-lighted coffeehouse.

24-hour Coffee! The best coffee you’ll find in the Big Apple!

The noise outside the window was muffled through the thick glass but the busy sounds of the city still filtered through, gently falling in to the otherwise silent hotel room.

Aria rolled over onto her side, pressing her head into the soft pillow. The red LED lights of the alarm clock sitting on the locker beside her bed was boring the colour into her retinas, and no good could come from simply watching the minutes tick by.

The blankets were soft, if not a little cold on her skin, and she pulled her legs into her chest to rub at the exposed skin lightly. Donghyuck had insisted on leaving the air conditioning on as they slept, the boy living up to his name Fullsun as he ran hot near-constantly, but that left Aria to shiver slightly despite the mountain of blankets she had buried herself beneath. 

Rolling back over to the cool side of the pillowcase, Aria let her eyes fall on Donghyuck’s back. 

The boy wasn’t asleep - she could hear the low sounds coming from the airpods in his ears as he watched something on his phone - but he looked comfortable enough that she was reluctant to disturb him.

It had been a long day, and tomorrow was their only real designated day in this area before they were scheduled to be flown out to their next concert.

Aria loved touring, but it was hard to keep going sometimes. She assumed that Donghyuck thought the same, and that’s why instead of insisting that the pair of them watched something on his laptop, or played a game, he was letting her sleep in peace.

He had watched Aria push herself past what they both had thought her limits had been that day - watched as she stumbled through the final songs of their set with blurry eyes and a shaking frame. He’d moved to wrap an arm around her waist as soon as they had broken formation, and she’d given him a shaky smile for his efforts. 

Donghyuck had guided a rapidly blinking Aria through their ending ments and off the stage, catching her as she slipped down the last two steps. He’d practically carried her into the car, waving off an insisting Yuta, who was adamant that he could help despite still favoring the ankle he had rolled two nights ago. 

They were all running a little worse-for-wear, but, by god the crowds made up for it. 

He had known that NCT 127 had an international fanbase, had known that they were popular overseas for years. But there was nothing like seeing a crowd of five thousand, even eight thousand people from a country that didn’t speak their language, singing their songs and screaming their fanchants at the top of their lungs.

It settled into his bones, pushed him past his old boundaries to create new ones, made him want to keep going and keep singing, keep dancing, keep performing until his knees went from beneath him and he fell to the ground with a thud.

Donghyuck knew Aria felt the same, and that’s why he took it upon himself to pull her away when she needed him to.

 Despite their broadly opposite personalities - truly the sun and the moon when it came down to it - they were similar in so many ways. Scarily so.

Scary, in so far as the fact that Donghyuck knew when Aria couldn’t take it anymore, knew when she was stumbling and falling not because she was tired but because she’d hurt her back again and was unwilling to talk about it. Scary, in the fact that he knew when she wasn’t telling them something, choosing to bite her lip instead of letting whatever worry that was bouncing around in her head fall onto their shoulders to help carry the weight. 

Donghyuck wanted to help her carry those things. Even if that meant carrying her as well. 

The two of them had slipped into the hotel room at nine minutes past ten, showering briefly in the small bathroom they had adjoined to the left wall and slid into the two beds with a quiet goodnight. It had been silent since Aria had leant down to turn off the centre light, only the light peeking through the curtains from the street and the light of Donghyuck’s phone screen to illuminate the dark room left.

He had thought she had fallen asleep soon after - given the bleary squinted look she had given him in the van home as she told her to not fall asleep just yet, that they’d be home soon and then she could sleep - so you could imagine his surprise as he flipped over in the bed, letting the phone fall face down and was met with the image of Aria starfished over her single bed, staring open-eyed at the ceiling.

“Ari?” Donghyuck cleared his throat. “Ari? Why’re you awake still?”

Aria’s head flopped to the side to look at Donghyuck in the opposite bed, blinking once at him before closing her eyes and groaning. “Can’t sleep.”

He hummed, lifting up the corner of his blanket with a hand as the other pushed his phone onto the bedside locker to make sure it didn’t fall off the bed. 

Without a word, Aria slid out from underneath her own blankets - pulling one from the top layer - and padded across the room to slide into Donghyuck’s embrace, fluffing the extra blanket on top of them both. 

Donghyuck sniffed a laugh at her, but said nothing as he dropped his arm around her waist to pull her closer to him and snuggled his head into where her shoulder meets her neck.

Aria giggled lightly at his hair tickling her skin, moving her head away from the strands until the hand around her waist squeezed once. 

“It tickles,” She whispered.

“But m’comfy like this,” He responded, shoving his head further in if possible and throwing a leg over hers. 

“Just-” Aria moved some of his hair away from her face. “Better.”

“Better?”

“Its not in my face anymore.”

Donghyuck lifted his head from her shoulder to peer up at her face. “Why couldn’t you sleep? You were sleepy in the van.”

Aria huffed. “No I wasn’t.”

“You hit your head against the window when you dozed off.”

“I-”

“Twice.”

She sighed through her nose. “If it bruises I’m going to be upset. My face is my only selling point right now.”

A silence permeated the room, and Donghyuck sat up. 

“Why couldn’t you sleep?” He asked again.

Aria flipped to lay on her stomach, shoving her head into the pillow. “I dunno. Think I have some excess energy to burn off or something.”

“You were literally dead on your feet three hours ago,” Donghyuck said. 

“I know that. I just, feel like I need to go on a walk or something. Just to move or do something that isn’t lying in a bed in the middle of New York.” Aria muffled out into the fabric, kicking her legs slightly. 

Donghyuck caught a wayward ankle before it could hit him in the face. “Hey, kicking your best friend was not on that list!”

“It could be.”

Scowling, he fell back beside her, scooching closer. The pair laid together for a moment, listening to the sound of traffic from outside. 

“You want to go for a walk?” Donghyuck was the one to break the silence, looking down at Aria.

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s go.”

Aria lifted her head to blink up at him. “It’s like,” she broke off to turn her head towards the clock, blinking rapidly to bring the LED numbers into view, “Half one in the morning, I don’t think the hotel gym is open.”

“I don’t mean the gym. I mean out there.” Donghyuck pointed to the window. 

This time it was Aria who sat up, rubbing at her eyes. “Hyuck, what?”

“You want to go for a walk? Let’s go for a walk. Who’s gonna stop us?”

“Our managers? The fact that its nearly two in the morning? The fact that Taeyong will kill us?” She said, bewildered. 

Donghyuck sat up to face her properly. “They won’t know! We could be quick - promise. You can’t tell me you don’t want to see the city properly.”

Aria spluttered. “We have seen the city! We took that bus tour around when we first arrived!” 

He scoffed. “I meant properly, Ari. Like a local. How the city is meant to be.”

“We could get murdered.”

“Bold of you to assume I’d let that happen.”

Aria swallowed. “What happens if we get caught on the way out?”

“Simple: Lie.” Donghyuck leant back on his hands like this wasn’t the worst plan he had ever come up with in his nineteen years of life. 

It wasn’t often that Aria went along with his ideas - nine times out of ten, she was usually the one talking him out of them. It was only when she’d run out of patience, or the will to give the effort to barter logic out with him that she’d give in. Or in cases like this. 

“Fine.” 

Donghyuck let out a whoop, reaching over to the locker to snag his phone off the top of it and flicking the screen unlocked. Aria in turn proceeded to roll off the bed and onto the carpet, looking for the pair of leggings she had worn through the airport to cover her legs so she didn’t go wandering around the city in a pair of sleep shorts. 

Finding the black coloured material hanging on the back of the chair, she could hear Donghyuck texting someone behind her. 

“Who’s that?” She asked, not bothering to turn around as she moved into the bathroom and partially shut the door to allow her both privacy and the ability to continue her conversation with him. 

“Mark - Thought we should tell someone where we’re gone, right?”

Aria stopped. “Does he want to come?” 

“Given the angry texts I’ve just received about quote, missing out on stuff like this now that he’s not in Dream: I’d say a solid yes.”

Aria nodded, before realizing that he couldn’t see her. “Is Jungwoo coming as well then?” 

Mark was rooming with Jungwoo this time around, the members alternating on a rotational basis.

Donghyuck shook his head. “No, he says that Jungwoo is too tired. He’ll keep a lookout for Taeyong for us though, which is good.”

“Huh, that’s nice of him.” Aria re-emerged from the bathroom, leggings pulled up over her hips and a large hoodie swamping her frame. With her thin wire glasses, she looked cosy and extremely comfortable. 

Donghyuck himself was still wearing a pair of sweatpants, and pulled one of his hoodies on over his t-shirt before rummaging in the pile of shoes to find something comfortable. 

Without looking back, he tossed out Aria’s runners, who caught them with a thanks before sitting down on the ground to do up the laces. 

He succeeded in finding his own pair of shoes, pulling them in just before two light knocks sounded against their door. Aria pulled it open to reveal a bleary-eyed but excited Mark, a padded jacket pulled over his jumper.

"You are insane." Was the first thing out of his mouth.

"You're welcome to leave?" Sniffed Aria.

Mark frowned. "I never said I wasn't."

Opening the door wider, she revealed Donghyuck who had just stood up from the edge of the bed, brushing down his pants. He looked up to meet Mark's eyes and grinned.

"Let's go!" He cheered, moving to walk out into the hallway but being stopped by Aria catching the neck of his jumper and tugging him back.

Looking at her quizzically, he raised an eyebrow.

"You need a coat? It's nearly two in the morning it's going to be cold outside."

Aria herself had pulled on a jacket once Mark had arrived, but Donghyuck was still only clad in a threadbare hoodie that wouldn't protect him from the cold outside.

Reaching back over the bed, he pulled out his cost from beneath a chair and slid his arms into it wordlessly. He turned to Aria and spread his arms out into a display. "Happy?"

"It's better."

"Guys do you think we could not do this in the hallway? I really don't want to get caught by someone right now." Mark's voice came from just inside the doorway.

"Right, right," Aria agreed, shoving Donghyuck out the door and snatching the keycard off the table just before they left.

She slipped the keycard into her inside pocket of her jacket, zipping it closed before patting the padded material lightly. “Safe and sound.”

Mark, closed the door behind them. The beep sounded as the mechanism locked itself, and the trio were left standing alone in the empty hallway.

Donghyuck stretched his arms above his head, wincing slightly as his shoulder clicked. “Just remember if we get caught, you’re deaf and I don’t speak English.” 

Aria paused. “Hyuck, you don’t speak English.”

“I’m deaf and you don’t speak English.”

“And what do I do? You planning on leaving me for dead?” Mark asked, arms crossed.

Donghyuck only pat him on the shoulder, moving to rest his weight onto his elbow. “You, are fast. You’ll be fine.”

“You, are a terrible influence.” 

“A proud one.”

Aria put a hand on one of their shoulders each, pushing the two boys forward down the hallway insistently. “Let’s not have this argument where we can be found in incriminating circumstances, okay boys?”

Donghyuck snorted. “Aria we’re not going to go to jail for sneaking out.”

“Doyoung might put Aria on house arrest,” Mark countered.

“Then let’s not wait around for him to find her!”

With that, the trio made their way down the hallway, choosing to take the stairs down to the ground floor instead of the elevator - hoping to avoid as many people as possible. Aria had slipped three black facemasks into her pocket before they had left the room, knowing that if they were to be spotted they’d need something to help them blend in. 

The front doors of the hotel slid open with a quiet beep, and she was blasted with a cold front of air. She could feel her nose twitch slightly at the breeze, and knew that she’d be returning with a rosy tinge to her skin if they stayed out longer than a few minutes.

But instead of letting that bother her, Aria chose to focus on the identical wide grins Donghyuck and Mark sported, both boys looking around in wonder at the lights that surrounded them on the pavement. 

“Shall we?” Aria extended her arms playfully, giggling lightly as they both linked their arms into hers. 

Beginning their walk down the pavement, she could only look around in wonder. New York truly lived up to it’s name - dozens of people were milling about even at this time, all clad in various thicknesses of coats, and Aria felt herself relax minutely at the knowledge that the trio didn’t stick out against the colorful lights like a sore thumb. 

Each street had something new, and her eyes grew wider with every sign they passed as they walked. 

“Mark look!” Aria pointed towards a small bookstore on the corner of the block, dropping his arm to run towards the window. “Doesn’t that look like the notebook you wanted to get in Atlanta?”

A small, green leather-bound notebook had piqued Mark’s interest in the city earlier that month, but by the time he had had the time to get to the bookstore, the notebook had been sold. 

The notebook that Aria pointed out was near identical - perhaps a little bit thicker, but close enough to the original that Mark was already planning on how he was going to get back to this street tomorrow when all the shops were opened back up.

“Do you think we could come back here tomorrow to get it for you?” Aria looked away from the window, eyes shining hopefully.

Mark reached out to tug Aria underneath his arm, pulling her into his side. “I’m sure we can figure something out, Ari.”

She clapped her hands lightly to celebrate, before Donghyuck was taking them both by the hand and dragging them both back down the street which they had walked up.

“Now, while you’ve both been looking for fancy notebooks, I’ve been doing some important area recon, and have discovered that,” He trailed off, continuing walking with a firm grip on their wrists.

“Ta-da!” Donghyuck came to a stop, releasing their wrists before making jazz hands beside his face. 

Behind him, was a small food cart with an attendee that looked like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world. 

“Pretzels?” Mark asked with a tilted head.

“Pretzels.” Donghyuck nodded emphatically. 

Aria tugged lightly on the younger boy’s sleeve. “Hyuck, I don’t think any of us brought money with us-”

Donghyuck hummed, cutting her off. “Got you covered, angel.” pulling out his phone and taking several small bills from behind his opaque phone case. 

Turning to the attendee with a blinding smile he strolled forward to the cart, opening his mouth to begin speaking. 

“Can I.. we..”

Mark stepped up behind him. “Order,” he whispered, facing the pavement so his lips weren’t visible to the man.

“Order.. three.. three,”

“Pretzels,”

“Pretzels please?” Donghyuck finished, looking up at the man curiously. 

“Yeah,” Came the deadened response. “That’ll be $9.87.” 

Donghyuck fumbled with his hands momentarily, before placing three bills into the awaiting hand and stepping back from the cart, shoving his hands into his pocket.

Aria came up beside him as Mark waited at the front of the cart. “Hyuck, I don’t think I should..”

He turned his head to look at her. “Hm?”

“I don’t think I should, eat that. You know?” She looked down knawing at her lip slightly. 

“I think you should.” He said.

“No I really shouldn’t-”

Aria was cut off by Mark approaching them, three warm pretzels in his hand. He handed one to Donghyuck who took it with an affirming hum before ripping into the bread with his teeth, and handed the other to a cautious Aria. 

After Mark had taken his first bite, he looked quizzically at Aria who was staring traitorously at the bread in her hand. “Ari?”

She sighed, dropping her shoulders a little. “I’m sorry, I don’t know if I should-”

Aria squeaked when both Donghyuck’s and Mark’s glare was turned on her. “Guys I-”

“Pretzel.”

A protest formed on the top of her tongue, but fell flat when Mark raised an eyebrow. 

“Ok, ok sorry.” Aria took a bite from the now-cooling snack. 

Satisfied, both boys went back to their own snacks, sighing lightly as the trio continued their walk back down the streets they had come. From a different angle, they noticed new things each time, and it was so easy to lose track of the time when they were staring up in wonder at the neon lights.

The atmosphere was broken by a ping from Mark’s phone.

Jungwoo [2:08] uh

Jungwoo [2:08] taeyong hyung started his rounds

Jungwoo [2:08] id recommend getting ur asses back

Jungwoo [2:09] ill stall him

Mark [2:09] how long do we have 

Jungwoo [2:09] seven minutes. tops

Mark [2:09] fuck

The trio turned on their heels, pelting down the pavement.

The people they passed looked oddly at them - they must have made a comical sight. Three twenty-year-olds, dressed in padded jackets and facemasks sprinting down the street at two am. They looked like they’d just committed a robbery.

Aria could feel sweat beading at her forehead beneath her headband, pulling it off and tucking it into her pocket. These shoes were not designed for sprinting, and she could feel the rough plastic digging into her ankle already.

“How long do you think it’ll take us to get back?” Aria yelled over to the other boys, the blood rushing in her ears. 

Mark slipped out his phone from his pocket, pulling it up close to his face and checking the time. “Four minutes? We’ve gone in a big circle.”

“We’re dead.” Donghyuck breathed out harshly, picking up speed.

Silence filled in the wind rushing past their ears, feet pounding against the pavement. Mark barely stopped himself before crashing into a small child clinging sleepily to an older woman’s hand; twisting his body out of the way at the last second before profusely apologizing. 

It seemed like an eternity before they reached the front doors of the hotel they were staying at for the next two nights. 

Panting, Aria slowed to a walk, pulling at the neck of her sweater to fan herself. She took slow and deep breaths, trying to calm her pulse before they made their way into the lobby.

Starting forward, she was stopped by Donghyuck’s hand on her shoulder and Mark’s sharp intake of breath. 

“Oh. Oh god.” 

“Mark? You alright?” Aria turned to face the boy, watching his face drain of colour. 

He lifted a hand, pointing to the one window on the fifth floor with a light still on. It stood out against the other darkened windows, like a lightstick in a sea of concert-goers. And there, illuminated against the cream-coloured curtains, was Taeyong’s silhouette. 

Donghyuck huffed. “Aria, this was a terrible idea!”