#i have this weird ... urge??? to make an entirely new blog and put all my art there and start over

[kaguya-muneuji]

... tired. burnout.

[spiders-around]

YOU MUST MAKE A WEBSITE

Oh wow, look at that! YET ANOTHER post urging you to make a webbed site! What a completely new thing that people haven't made a thousand masterposts for already!!

• Making a website might look scary. It is Not.

At first, I too thought making a website was too much work. It really isn't! It turns out that all you need is

an HTML file,

a web hosting service and

w3schools tutorials,

and that's about it!

This post will point you towards these resources, and others I found useful while figuring out how to make a website.

• VERY QUICK EXPLANATIONS:

What's HTML and CSS?

HTML is the content of your webpage, the skeleton of it. What shows up in a webpage is what's written in the HTML file!

CSS is the way the HTML is styled; the colour of the background and the letters, the size of elements, the font, all that!

Do I absolutely NEED JavaScript for a website?

Not at all! You don't need to worry about learning it before getting started.

• What do I make a website for? What do I put in there?

ANYTHING AND ALMOST EVERYTHING. Here's some ideas for pages from a post of mine were I was very normal about websites:

You can make a page that's only pictures of your pets.

You can make an interactive adventure.

You can make your own academic blog full of your own essays or articles.

You can just post a ton of art or make a full music page.

You can make a blog and infodump eternally, give book reccs and reviews. You can host a thousand virtual pets and nothing else.

Upload entire books in a single html file. Make a wikipedia for your ocs. Make a fake site for a random fictional place (restaurant, hotel, whatever). You can make a thousand fanpages/shrines about your favorite media. You can upload your own webcomic and make it all like a fancy website and shit.

I could keep going but, for the sake of "brevity", I won't.

• WEBSITE EXAMPLES!

If I started listing the websites I know, this post would be bottomless. Here's only seven:

https://publictransit.neocities.org/ - A webbed site, for sure

https://ribo.zone/ - A personal site

https://leusyth.neocities.org/ - An art archive

https://solaria.neocities.org/ - Personal website with A Lot of stuff (it'll come up in a bit, because it offers web making resources)

https://hog.neocities.org/ - The Hogsite

https://thegardenofmadeline.neocities.org/ - Another personal site! It also has a web resources page and has made another masterpost like this one (but better)

https://spiders.neocities.org/ - My own website, which must be weird to see in mobile . sorry

• You've convinced me. I want a webbed site. Where do I start?

https://neocities.org/

FIRST OF ALL: Neocities. It is a free web hosting service, and it's the one I and the sites I linked use!

When I first started, my website was a black page with red letters and a drawing, and nothing else! It was like that for a month, till i started picking up on how to do things.

Here's what helped me get an idea of how to make things work:

https://sadgrl.online/learn/articles/beginners-guide-neocities

An absolute beginners guide to neocities -- while when you make an account there you get a tutorial page from the site, this one's extra support for that.

https://www.w3schools.com/

Learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript and MANY other coding things for free. All the tutorial/reference pages have live testing windows for you to mess with!! helped me a LOT while figuring this stuff out!

https://htmlcheatsheet.com/

https://htmlcheatsheet.com/css/

Cheatsheets for HTML and CSS, respectively. It includes a JavaScript one too!

https://sadgrl.online/webmastery/

Sadgrl's webmastery resources! Also includes the next resource listed here:

https://sadgrl.online/projects/layout-builder/

Sadgrl's layout builder; not a lot of customization at a first glance, but I've seen wildly different websites all using it as a base, plus it works using CSS Flexbox, so it generates a responsive layout!

(basically, a responsive layout is one that translates well in different sized screens)

https://www.tumblr.com/fysa/728086939730919424/wikitable-code?source=share

Tumblr user fysa made this layout imitating a wiki page!

https://brackets.io/

At some point, you might want to do things outside the Neocities code editor and get one outside the site. I recommend Brackets, because my old as fuck computer can run that and absolutely nothing else apparently, and it works wonderfully! Though I recommend either turning off the code autocomplete or using it after a good while of already using the Neocities code editor, so you get used to coding on your own.

http://www.unit-conversion.info/texttools/text-to-html/

Turn your text into HTML code! i use this kind of pages for my lengthy blog entries that I don't feel like formatting myself.

https://imagecompressor.com/

COMPRESS YOUR IMAGES.

The heavier an image is, the more your site weighs and the more time your page will spend loading. You don't want that, specially if your site is heavy on graphics. This might help!

https://solaria.neocities.org/guides

Some CSS, JavaScript and Accessibility guides! Worth checking out!

https://eloquentjavascript.net/

This is a free, interactive book for learning JavaScript! NOTE: It is very intuitive, but JavaScript is HARD!! I still haven't learned much of it, and my website does fine without so don't worry if you end up not doing much with it. It's still useful + the exercises are fun.

And now, accessories!

• Silly stuff for your page :]

https://gifypet.neocities.org/

Make a virtual pet, copy the code and paste it in your HTML file! You'll get a little guy in your webbed site :]

https://www.wikplayer.com/

Music player for your website!

http://www.mf2fm.com/rv/

JavaScript silly effects for your site :]

https://blinkies.neocities.org/geoblinkies

Blinkie search engine!

https://www.cbox.ws/

Add a chatbox to your site!!

https://momg.neocities.org/

Infinite gallery of gifs. i've spent hours in there looking at moving pictures and out of them all, the ONLY gif i actually ended up using on my site was a rotating tomato slice. it is still there. trapped.

https://wrender.neocities.org/tarotinstructions

A widget that gives you a random tarot card!

https://www.websudoku.com/widget.php

Sudoku widget!

That's about it for now! I don't know how to end this!!! Remember to have fun and google everything you don't know :]

[vivalas-vega]

longshot / part one / bradley 'rooster' bradshaw x reader

heyooo! new fic alert - with bradley !!! i'm not sure i even want to call this part one as it's more of an intro but here we are. super excited to finally be writing for mr. bradshaw, and even more excited to be revisiting this idea from back when this was exclusively a star wars blog and my writing was ass compared to now (professor poe dameron, anyone?) anyways, i wanted to get this out to get some feedback -- as always please please please let me know what you think !!!

longshot / part one / bradley 'rooster' bradshaw x reader (nickname dove!)

follow my taglist blog and turn on notifications to be updated @vegaslibrary

word count: 1.4k

warnings: mention of parental death -- general warnings going forward: typical 18+ content (drinking, swearing, smut, the works), me not knowing anything about college - this is my ideal world where everything works how I want it to not how it probably is :) (prob should mention this is not an au)

You relaxed as you stood in the aisle of the dimly-lit bookstore, taking in a deep breath of that new book smell and coffee from the in-house cafe, a smell so recognizable you almost felt the urge to cry as you reminisced. Your fingers nimbly opened a book, eyes scanning the description hidden within but you weren’t really absorbing the words so you closed it with a soft thud and slid it back onto the shelf. You continued to make your way through the store, thoughts as scattered as your approach to book shopping tonight but that was because you weren’t really shopping at all.

You weren’t even entirely sure why you’d come in, the comfort of your old college hangout called out to offer solace on your drive home and you couldn’t resist. You felt like the walls were caving in and to be standing in such a meaningful place, looking the same as it ever did, wrapped you in a sense of security. Your guard was beginning to drop for what felt like the first time in years and it was in that exact moment that you bumped into a familiar stranger, their voice raising the hairs on the back of your neck and flooding you with memories of a different time.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, let me help you…”

“Shit, my bad. Let me get that,” the handsome stranger that had just walked straight into you quickly knelt to pick up the books you’d both dropped. You felt your cheeks flush as you suddenly felt embarrassed, your wits already weren’t about you this morning and here you were colliding into the solid man currently gathering up your belongings in a perfectly fitted button up with a mustache that shouldn’t have worked and beautiful brown eyes. 

“That’s alright, everyone needs a little jolt to keep them awake in the mornings,” you replied easily. You wouldn’t have noticed if you weren’t checking him out, and it only made you flush further as he handed you your things, “Professor Bradshaw?” you asked, gesturing to the ID badge pinned to his pants and he nodded. “Weird coincidence, I was actually on my way to introduce myself to you,” you said before giving him your name, trying to put your earlier thoughts out of your head as his warm hand wrapped around yours to shake.

“Ah, yes… you applied to be my teaching assistant,” he said and you nodded. 

“Figured it would be harder to tell me no if I came to pitch myself in person,” you chuckled.

“I take it you haven’t checked your email yet this morning?” he asked and you gave him a confused look. “Save the elevator pitch, I was inviting you to coffee to get to know you better and go over expectations.”

“Expectations? Does that mean I got it?” you asked, excitement palpable. “I thought you only accepted students who had taken your class before?”

“Decided to make an exception for you,” he replied with an easy smile. “Does three work for you? Here?”

You nodded, “absolutely, I’ll see you then. I promise you won’t regret this, Professor Bradshaw.”

“Please, call me Bradley.”

“Professor Bradshaw,” you said with a smirk as he looked up at you, and he quickly fumbled with the books before standing to give you a proper once over. 

“Professor,” he sighed, “you know I hate that.”

“I know,” you responded. “Nice to see that this is still your go-to spot.”

“Old habits die hard,” he chuckled, “are you back home because of your parents?” he asked and you nodded, and you didn’t miss the solemn expression that passed over his features before he quickly corrected it. “I’m so sorry, Dove.”

You smiled softly, “haven’t heard that name in a while,” you replied, dodging past his condolences entirely.

“Sometimes I forget it’s not actually your name,” he chuckled. “Half expect the banner at the bottom of the screen to say Dove and I’m always shocked when it doesn’t.”

“You’ve been watching?” you asked, a slight blush creeping up your cheeks.

“Of course I have,” he replied as if it would have been absurd for him not to. You lapsed into comfortable silence as the two of you drank each other in, noting what had changed and what had stayed the same… you had to keep from squinting at him because he looked the same as he did four years ago, maybe the lines around his eyes were a little deeper when he smiled but it was the only indication that any time had passed at all. 

You were taller, which he couldn’t reconcile until he glanced down and saw the stilettos on your feet, sharp and black and perfectly matching the black suit vest and jeans you wore. Your style was the same, classic and a little academic with an edge, only now it seemed more elevated, you seemed more elevated. 

“How long have you been in town?” he finally asked.

“Only a few days,” you answered, “feel like my head is spinning with how unchanged everything is… and this certainly isn’t helping my deja vu,” you chuckled.

“If I remember correctly this is right about the same spot you ran into me all those years ago,” he said, looking around and you gave him an incredulous look.

“Me? It was you who ran into me, just like you did a few minutes ago,” you said through a laugh and he shrugged.

“He said she said,” he replied as you shook your head. “Well, how long are you here for?”

“Indefinitely, I’m afraid,” you said and he gave you a confused look. “Dealing with typical dead parents stuff, turns out there’s a lot more to it than one would think.”

He nodded in understanding, “yeah, no one prepares you for all the paperwork.”

“That and they were too busy to keep up on the house… I always knew it needed some love but I’ve got a contractor telling me it basically needs a top to bottom renovation,” you sighed. “But hey, it’s a nice distraction from Capitol Hill.”

“You’re not rushing to get back?”

“God no, if I even go back at all,” you said with a soft laugh and now he was really surprised. “Oh,” you said, suddenly a little self conscious about how much you’d already said in this bookstore aisle, “I’m keeping you.”

He shook his head, “you’re not. It’s not everyday I run into my favorite student,” he said and you couldn’t help but flush.

“Still? Guess I set the bar too high,” you teased and he nodded.

“If only you knew,” he chuckled. “I would love to see you again though, actually catch up if you have any free time?” 

You smiled as you fished your phone out of your bag, “I would love that,” you said as you exchanged phones to input your numbers. 

“I’ll text you,” he said and you were about to part ways but you were unsure of how to do so… you didn’t want to simply walk away, but you didn’t know if a handshake were too formal or a hug too personal, but he made the decision for you, already seeing the gears turning in your head as he opened his arms subtly and you softly laughed as you stepped in, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. “It really is good to see you, Dove.”

“You too, Rooster,” you replied and he gave you a squeeze before letting you go as he laughed.

“Still regret telling you that.”

“What? You can use my callsign but I can’t use yours?” you asked with a smirk as you started walking backwards away from him. 

“You don’t have a callsign!”

“Then what’s Dove?” you retorted and he didn’t have an answer, and so you gave him a soft nod as you turned for the register, and as you checked out you were unable to keep the smile off your face. Everything about returning home had been jarring, but not this… not him. Your favorite professor, your mentor, maybe even your friend towards the end of your working relationship. Your mind had been reeling as you tried to piece together what life would be like now with your career up in the air and your parents gone, and for the first time in weeks you felt like maybe this trip home wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

In the last few days, I've made two long and rambling posts about Cowgate, a short incident from 2003 that haunts my nightmares. I think people should know that when I make posts like that - the ones that go way too long about something entirely niche - I am operating under the assumption that absolutely no one is reading this bullshit. Even the small handful of people who read this blog regularly, I assume you skip over those ones.

That's not just a hypothetical assumption, I make writing choices accordingly. I assume the only purpose of this post is to give me somewhere to put the hauntings besides my nightmares, and therefore, it doesn't matter if it's readable. I know that my whole blog is full of errors, but on posts like that, I get especially lax with things like editing. I go really deep on things where on a different post, I might think - okay, that's far enough. Because no one is reading this.

I have now been proven wrong several times about those couple of posts, which both mildly embarrasses and delights me. First of all, I got this great comment from @beastlyanachronism, which is now how I love to picture myself:

Then, the wonderful @lastweeksshirttonight proved that they'd read not only the posts but the comment, by immediately messaging me a corresponding picture. I replied that I love the image, I will definitely start my post with that image the next time a new Cowgate-based detail is found and I need to write about it. I didn't expect that to be soon, though. Breakthroughs are few and far between.

But then, I got another message, proving that at least three different people have read my post (actually four, if you count the very kind British man who read my post and then sent me a message to explain the nuances in the expression "bottle it"). And that last message is the reason for this post. Because, I can't believe I've been given cause to use this image so soon:

Further content behind the cut, because not everyone needs this content all over their feed.

This relates to the message I got last night, from the extremely helpful @linkeightvideo, who not only read my posts, but joined the cause and did his own research. And came up with this link:

The Metro cow is a thing!!! I knew the wording of that YouTube comment was weird (calling it "the Metro cow", rather than something like "a cow that said Metro on it"), suggesting that this was a specific and recognizable instillation. And I was right! But I cannot take credit for figuring that out, all credit goes to @linkeightvideo, who is the best.

The above link is to an archived version of an article from August 5, 2003, about three weeks before Cowgate occurred (which was August 26, 2003 - fun fact that has absolutely nothing to do with anything because to the best of my knowledge he wasn't there or anything, but that was also Nish Kumar's eighteenth birthday). The article is from the Edinburgh Fringe website. It's short enough so I'm just going to paste its text in full:

The Fringe was hit by a bunch of cotton-pickin', rootin-tootin' cattle ruslers in the early hours of Saturday night. The almost life-sized, bright blue and red Metro bull was stolen from outside the Metro Fringe Box Office. Metro newspapers are appealing for its safe return before the police are called and urge anyone with information to come forward. Metro Fringe Box Office Manager, Gillian O'Connor said: "We're distraught to have lost such a valuable member of the Box Office team! Please bring him back." The bull had just completed a secondment outside London's Victoria station, where he stood unmoved for a month. Yet after only a few days on duty with the Fringe he has gone missing leaving today's Festival Cavalcade a bull short of a procession.

That's it!!! That's the one! It was blue and red! I know it was blue and red, because Adam hills shouted "it's got red horns, it's all the rage". And it was almost life sized! And it said Metro on the side! Further research - also done by @linkeightvideo, he deserves all the credit in the world for this - finds that Metro sponsored the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that year, and also directly sponsored the Gilded Balloon venue.

So, the company called Metro had a large cow that was used in advertisements, and for one month in the summer of 2003, it was in London, outside Victoria Station. Then it was brought to Edinburgh, because they were sponsoring the festival and running a box office. They put it outside that box office, and it got stolen within "a few days" (which makes sense, as August 5th is a few days into the festival). It was meant to be part of the Festival Cavalcade, but couldn't be due to thieves.

Then, three weeks later, it spends all night on stage during a late-night comedy show in an Edinburgh venue that Metro sponsors, where it gets taken apart. How do we get from one state of affairs to the other? I don't know, but I'm a hell of a lot closer to understanding than I was yesterday. If the cow was somehow recovered, it would make sense from them to move it indoors, where it can be guarded better (again, credit for this idea goes to @linkeightvideo, and I think it makes sense). I mean, it can be guarded from drunk thieves in the middle of the night. Apparently the stage of the Gilded Balloon is not a good place to guard it from (shockingly) sober comedians in the middle of the night.

This made me try searching again for the specific words "Metro cow", and I found this article from December 12, 2003. It's a list of people who are involved with whatever organization this is, I'm not really clear on that. But it includes this one guy named Stephen Auckland. He's from the North of England, and as of when this was written, he was listened as the managing director of Metro. The bottom of his profile says:

An able sidekick to Associated Newspaper's Mike Anderson, even when it came to keeping up appearances following the disappearance of Mootro, Metro's cow mascot, from the Edinburgh festival. Auckland offered to dress up as a pantomime version. Luckily, they found the cow.

Guys! Guys! It has a fucking name! The Cowgate cow has a name! It's named Mootro! Now that I think about it, I actually can't believe I've never named the thing, given that I named the event (Cowgate), and giving the cow a name is the sort of thing I'd do. But I don't have to, because apparently it's named Mootro.

And the story has an update. It was stolen by August 5, and then it was found at some unknown point, and by August 26 it was in the Gilded Balloon. And then it got taken apart on stage.

I think this brings up one obvious question, which is: if this thing was important enough for its theft to be reported on the Edinburgh Fringe website, how come they were allowed to destroy it? The obvious answer would be that it was specifically made for just that one Edinburgh Festival, and was meant to be destroyed at the end of it anyway. But why did it spend a month in London right before that, then? And why would they do that anyway? Surely it's not efficient to make something like that for only a month, you'd think they'd plan to have it last a while and move it around based on where they're sponsoring things.

I can't believe this. This is the biggest revelation since I figured out who the fuck Karen Koren was, the woman referenced in Adam Hills' song, after after ages of Googling comedians named "Erin Coren" (finally worked out that she was the venue owner, which seems obvious now but it hadn't occurred to me at the time, when I was expecting it to be a reference to another performer). Actually, this is a much bigger revelation than that one, which just explained a couple of Adam Hills' lyrics. This is the biggest revelation in all the Cowgate research yet. The two main questions at the heart of the Cowgate mystery are: "Why did you do it?" and "Where did you get the cow?" And now one of those questions has been answered! It has a fucking name!

That second article referred to it specifically as the Metro "mascot". I guess a company is going to make more than one version of a mascot. But still, I don't think you're allowed to just destroy a sponsor's mascot. Maybe that mascot was at the end of its life anyway? Maybe Daniel Kitson just doesn't give a fuck? Maybe Daniel Kitson stole the cow in the first place. There's a whole new question. Who stole the cow? How did they get it back? How did it get from there to its whereabouts on August 26?

I know it wasn't on the Gilded Balloon stage every night of the 2003 Edinburgh Festival, because there's no sign of it in this montage, from Late 'n' Live on August 19, 2003 (also a fun video and great snippets of Chocolate Milk Gang history, if you can get past the second-hand embarrassment of Kitson trying his rap battle thing with an actual musician, and the presence of an actual musician makes the whole thing seem less ironic and therefore harder to watch - but you do get to see David O'Doherty beat up Jason Byrne and that's hilarious, also it's very funny to watch Daniel Kitson do something as out of character as brag about "nearly" winning a Barry Award and having a girlfriend from Australia, especially given how the latter turned out):

So it wasn't there on that night. Also, it just couldn't have been there every night. The Gilded Balloon is a proper venue that has proper shows during most of its time, it couldn't just have a large cow on stage for all of those. Also, in the beginning of that montage video from August 26, you see Kitson talking to the audience about the cow, and it sounds like he considers its presence as much of a novelty as they do. I mean, he's making fun of them for thinking it's a novelty, but he doesn't seem familiar with it, it seems like something he has to address:

This is the main reason for my theory that they didn't plan it beforehand, the montage shows the audience giving Kitson challenges for easy things to do with the cow, he asks them for more difficult challenges and then the video cuts, but I think the audience then asked him to tear it apart. It's a theory that makes sense based on some circumstantial evidence, but it does open up other questions. The main one being whether you can get permission to destroy a company's mascot between the beginning and the end of a comedy show, especially a comedy show that takes place entirely in the middle of the night. It doesn't seem likely. It also opens up some smaller questions, like what they were planning as the end of the show - the finale of the last night of Late 'n' Live, so you'd think they'd have something - that got bumped for this.

This reminds me that I had some further thoughts on the other mystery, of what actually went down on the night of August 26. I was thinking of the somewhat blue sky theory of there being two previous. Evidence for this: Adam Hills referred to "three chances", they were able to pick up chisels off the ground that seemed to just be lying around (possibly having been discarded after previous attempts), and Kitson in that video does have their air of someone who's already watched this go wrong and is really determined to make sure they get it fucking right this time. Evidence against: I'm not sure that works from a show planning perspective. What if it had worked on the first try, then what would the finale have been? If they'd watched it fail twice, would they really have made it the finale, knowing it may well fail a third time and that would be a shit ending? Though this could possibly be explained by the presence of the pipe that someone runs on stage, significantly increasing their chances compared to any attempt where that pipe was not in play.

I thought of something else today: the cow was already down when they started that video. Earlier in the night, we see comedians sitting on the cow, it's standing up. But at the end, when those guys run out to try to take it apart, they don't have to knock it down first. It's already lying on its side. They could have knock it down just before starting the song, but why would they do that? Surely knocking it down would be a fun dramatic moment, so if this were the first time they'd messed with the cow, they'd leave the knocking down to be part of the process. Unless this weren't the first time, and they had dramatically knocked it down before starting to try taking it apart, but this one done at some earlier point that the video didn't catch.

Anyway. That's the revelation. Along with some further thoughts on theories, but the main thing is the revelation. Massive breakthrough, and I need to thank @linkeightvideo one more time for research that he was under absolutely no obligation to do, but he came through anyway. What a legend. Am I using the British expressions right? What a solid gold legend.

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

*Sees a post in my other, current main fandom that gives me pause and makes me realize something about my OCs in this fandom.* So, I make no secret oflong-term being into Trigun and of having been swept BACK into that fandom by the recent "Stampede" reboot. That set of fiction has influenced me greatly in life and my fiction writing (fanwork and regular writing) in a big way. I just sort of had a revelation today about my clone OCs. Everyone who ever did stuff with Horde clone stuff in this fandom, particularly when it was a fad, had their own takes on them and did "Instant OC, just add water" to them - because the canon just had them as random minions and wouldn't and couldn't spend a lot of time on them because that was not the story being told. They were essentially free for the fandom to use post-series and so, a lot of fun. We generally had fun with them being / coming from a hive mind, but still having had some independent thoughts the entire time (even though they had to suppress them, because, you know, cult) and discovering their independence. I remember even when I was full-bore into Spop and not into my old fandom as much thinking about Horde clone parallels to the Plants of Trigun. I'm especially thinking about it now, but even then... It's not entirely the same, as the Plants are not in a cult (more like what a human cult worships - see manga and Stampede, it's not detailed in the '90s anime), but they are a used and abused enslaved race. The number of "Independents" (including the protagonist and antagonist of the series) can be counted on one hand. Anyway, without digressing into chattering about my other fandom too much, I saw a thread about Vash the Stampede's and Millions Knives' brotherly relationship, particularly about Knives' twisted protectiveness of Vash and I just had this weird flashbang to my Spop Horde-clone OCs. So, Robin and Jerome, I'm talking about them again, even though I've pretty much decided never to write about them again for personal reasons (death in my family last year that I took pretty hard, making them a bit "too real" for me, given the themes of their stories). I'm glad they existed in my brain, I do believe that they prepared me for what I didn't know was coming. They helped me parse grief before I had it? Anyway, even though the two are literal clones, I gave them an adopted brotherly relationship that was an "older brother, younger brother" thing. One is of an older batch and the other is from a younger batch, but most of their relationship is more like the "gruffer, more stoic clone" and the "sensitive, emotive clone." (Granted, Robin isn't like Knives at all - he's not genocidal. I'd say he's probably more like Wolfwood if you wanted to find any parallels, sans having a giant gun and a bad smoking habit - Wolfwood's even an undertaker instead of a priest in the new series, which made me raise my eyebrows). And then Jerome has as one of his defining characteristics some rather prominent scars. (Vash-influence. Vash is just RIDDLED with scars, although there aren't any of them on his face like what I did with Jerome). So, I don't know... I think I am being confronted with how much of my love of good ol' Vash I actually put into one of my OCs here - a sensitive guy who is treated as the "younger" of a set of unnaturally-born brothers mainly based upon his sensitivity and who's got some gnarly scars (for trying to save a life). An older brother who has an urge to protect his more sensitive younger brother (albiet the fact that Robin is in no way twisted and abusive in his protection). Still, some of the same gist. I recall some of it being purposeful, but some of it was probably subconscious, too. Thank you for letting me talk about my OCs for once in a dog's age. (For all of maybe two of you who care)? (My blog, my rules, I'll talk about whatever I want, even if it's stupid).

[mikfos]

I stole my best friends boyfriend

On being a bad friend, moving to America, and having a lot of sex

Growing up in Canada was wholesome. I was an innocent tween who lived in a house three minutes away from Grouse Mountain. There was a hidden path in my backyard that led directly to a forest- some scenes from New Moon were filmed there. I’d venture out after school or on weekends, and nonchalantly saunter around the woods before miraculously arriving at the place I knew I was headed towards. The tree was charred, barely standing, hollowed out on the inside from a lightning strike that had hit it years before. If I crawled into this tiny space off the side, I could sit in it and look up to the surrounding, lush, green trees, those which billowed over my near dead comfort space.

My priorities consisted of meeting up with my friends on club penguin and running a Klaine blog on tumblr. I did musical theatre and choir, I was on a competitive swim team and spent weekends snowboarding. It was that kind of childhood that kids now don’t really get to have. There was no tiktok or instagram, no pressure to dress a certain way. Those years in Vancouver were probably the most content of my childhood. Things changed when I moved to Oregon a few months after turning 13.

I was awed at as an ‘international’ student even though Vancouver was only 300 miles away. I remember my school urging me to read my blog posts to classes because I was kind of popping off on the internet at that time. I was a ‘successful child blogger’. A few months into my American teenage life, a girl from my school started a fan account for me. It was such a whirlwind. No one in Canada cared about who I was, and I frolicked around like weird, endearing child I was. Within days of starting middle school, it was all eyes on me. That, and I was exposed to things that stripped me of my innocence immediately.

My primary school in Vancouver was very tame, very granola. Before moving to America, the most extreme thing I’d done was hide behind the dumpsters at recess with my friends, whisper fuck, shit, and cunt, and then lose my mind giggling because we were cursing. At my new school in Portland, kids would walk through the halls reeking of weed. This one kid showed me a pipe on my first or second day, and it was such a shock to me. I got invited to hang with kids by the river and it would just be them doing drugs. There was ‘slap ass Fridays’, which is what it sounds like. I’d had silly little boyfriends in Canada at that point but it was more like, we would message on kik and plan to hug at recess the next day. Within 6 months of moving to Portland, I’d both had my first kiss, and had given my first blowjob.

I didn’t handle the new girl attention well. I performed as well as I could, but internally I was stubbing my toe through conversations not knowing the right thing to say, not having a filter. After school each day, I’d mull over each tiny social interaction, wondering where I was going wrong, why I felt so misplaced and misaligned with my peers. 

Social interactions became a frightening and constant game. Even though this one was entirely new and foreign, and I didn’t know the rules, I’ve never been a person to concede. I could restart my trials on the ‘right’ ways to act when developing relationships with new people once I’d turned someone off.

Of course at the time I’d blame it on the other kids for not getting me- but no one stuck around. People seemed to be off-put by me. I made a couple friends, dated some guys, but none of it was substantial and I felt constantly insecure. The fear was either that they were with me because I was an easy, desperate option, or that I had intriguing labels placed on my person, which might make them seem cool for associating with me. I didn’t feel like anyone saw me as a real person, let alone cared what I had to say.

This was the beginning of the freak years, where I was an insane person to know or interact with, beginning age 13, and finishing around age 21.

In eighth grade, there was a new girl at my school. Eliza got the me six months prior treatment. She was pretty and got a lot of attention and we became fast friends. Our humor was entirely compatible. I’d spill the wackiest things in my brain and she seemed to understand entirely. She would say the weirdest shit too and it made perfect sense. We were made of the same stuff- pretty and popular on the outside, strange and turbulent on the inside.

For all the self doubt and shame I had from knowing I was a difficult pill to swallow, she made me feel seen and important. It’s like our brains were operating at the exact same frequency, our emotions about the world in perfect sync. She was the first real best friend I’ve ever had. Thirteen years of feeling like I had to say the right thing so that people would like me- I could say the wrong thing, and she’d still love me anyways. That’s the kind of soul stuff I wasn’t getting with peers, I wasn’t getting at home.

She taught me for the first time what it meant to find life more enjoyable when you experience it with someone. One time we found a pack of cigarettes on the ground and chain smoked them- then immediately rode the screaming eagle at Oaks park two times in a row just because we were 13 and we could. We wore each other’s clothes, we ate dinner with each other’s families, we prank called people, we thought all the same guys were cute, we loved listening to Ariana Grande and Kacey Musgraves and watching Dance Moms together. We sang together and recorded covers of Bon Iver songs and put them on Youtube. I hadn’t really sang at all since moving to the states.

Eliza had come to my middle school because of an incident that happened at her smaller, private Catholic school. Her involvement in that world introduced me to a whole new set of kids- I was only familiar with the public middle school population from my school, but once I became friends with Eliza, I met the more posh, more rich, more catholic-guilt ridden kids in my neighborhood. I ended up going to the catholic all girls private high school and Eliza went our neighborhoods public high school, so in a way we switched places. 

She represented who I wanted to be, who I hoped I was. I was in an entirely unfamiliar landscape, had a new persona attached to me as some clouted up Canadian girl, even though that felt fraudulent and misplaced. She had to switch schools and still kept her head up. I knew what she was struggling with, but at school she was just likable and a cool girl. Beautiful and talented, strong. So fun to be around, finding the humor in everything.

So when high school came around and she began doing things like smoking weed, hanging with ‘weird girls’, I began to judge her. And then we stopped hanging as much. It’s funny I was being so critical of her smoking weed, while I was being outrageously promiscuous, because those things are in similar camps of things kids do which are intended for adults.

I’d look at her social media posts and experience tremendous loss, though at the time it felt something like pity and confusion. When did that stop, that need to be together? There was no ending or fight, there was simply one day we were best friends, and the next day we weren’t. Could circumstances really be so irrevocable- we went to different schools and made different friends, so our friendship wasn’t compatible anymore? Perhaps she never felt as connected as I did, and she was glad to be rid of me. Perhaps I was too afraid to maintain something real because it would prevent me from distracting from the swelling frenzy inside. 

You know when someone asks you what’s your biggest regret in life? 

There was this guy. He was in that rich kid catholic school world that Eliza had always been in, so she introduced us at some point. Andrew lived two blocks away from me and was cute and funny and popular. He wore Golf Wang and rode around on a skateboard. As far as I was concerned, he was the most dripped out boy in all of Southeast Portland.

Andrew had a will they won’t they with Eliza. He was always a guy she spoke about with a reverence. There were the guys she didn’t like, and the guys she liked. Andrew was the main one. 

So I respected it. I talked to her about him throughout our friendship, even though it was harder once I’d met the guy. I completely understood why she was so down bad. He was the best my neighborhood had to offer for potential crushes. He was that guy. My two blocks away neighbor, and I ended up going to an all girls school. Similarly to my friendship with Eliza, I developed a friendship with Andrew that just made sense. We shared that nonsensical, unsettling sense of humor and quirkiness that you really only find in other neurodivergent people.

Will they won’t they- they did. Eliza loved Andrew, like really loved him. He was her first love. They didn’t just casually date. I knew this, and I was supportive of them. But I don’t remember being around it that much because it happened and ended by the time we were at different high schools.

I was still friendly with Eliza. We saw each other around, we’d spend afternoons together in our neighborhood with other kids, but my social world had expanded greatly into my freshman year. The two of us never had some inexplicable ending to our friendship, we just weren’t in the same spaces anymore. That once undeniable, 24/7 bond we had at all times had been severed.

In the last month of my freshman year, I visited my old friends in Vancouver. We all went to a party and got drunk and I was transported back in time, though this time with my newly acquired American rebelliousness. Hilariously, much of the trip was spent going to second base with one of my own will they wont theys. I’d briefly dated him in grade seven, after he played Grampa Joe opposite my Charlie Bucket in our school’s production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Less hilariously, he had also dated my best friend from Canada, whom I was staying with. I was such a mess.

I walked through my old neighborhood when I visited, but I didn’t go to my backyard forest. When I was a kid, sitting in that tree, most of the time inside it was spent picking at the pieces of bark inside it. I’d rub the wood between my fingers and they’d be dyed by the soot from the charred wood. I soiled a lot of my clothes that way.. wiping my fingers on my pants or my shirt.

The day I was meant to leave, I got lunch at White Spot with aforementioned Canadian best friend, Sexy Grampa Joe, and another one of our friends. Then we all hung out in a playground while I waited for my step dad to pick me up. Grampa Joe and I peeled off from the others, unable to keep our hands off each other. We’d be making out and hiding in one of those slides or platforms, and this pounding, painful reminder of time kept hitting me. I was kissing him to stop myself from crying. I didn’t want to go back to Portland. I liked Vancouver better, I wanted to be there with my old friends. I was hypothesizing how possible it would be to date Grampa Joe long distance, when I could visit again, or if I could convince my parents to move back. I cried on the way home.

Then it was summer, and it was back to my life in Portland. I was going to be a sophomore in the fall.

At the time I’d attributed my promiscuity to being hyper-sexual, which was true, but I was also filling my space with boys to distract from my daddy issues. My family issues in general, my confusion about who I was supposed to be. At night I’d feel so empty, so I’d watch Gossip Girl until I fell asleep to prevent myself from processing too much of it.

I made friends with groups from other schools and homie hopped in every one of them. I lost my virginity and made out with guys I knew other girls liked. There were a dozen unopened snapchats from different boys at any given moment. One in particular thought we were dating even though I was doing all these other shenanigans. I remember him telling me he was heartbroken because of my behavior (re: finding out about all the other boys). It was confusing because I couldn’t understand why he didn’t see life as fun as I did, and we barely even hung out. I couldn’t really keep track of the amount of boys I was talking to, crushing on, or hanging out with. There was a new #1 every week.

It was summer 2014, and that was the vibe I was on. I was a tornado of chaos, I flirted with everyone, and had zero fucks to give about anything. I was listening to Flume, Lorde, and Childish Gambino. I was going out and drinking all the time, sleeping on football fields, smoking cigarettes and taking sexy pictures. I’d leave my iPad at the friends house I lied I was staying at, so my parents could track me and see I was where I said I was going to be. Then spend the night at some boys house instead, after going to a party with juniors and seniors.

Life and relationships were my playground, and I was high on playing. I saw the opportunity to flirt and dance and live in every person, in every plan, every party. Experiencing everything possible out in the world was the only way I could outweigh the hatred I felt at home.

If my behavior that summer was any indication, I wasn’t really in a place to treat myself with respect, let alone the people around me. I was wearing American Apparel babydoll dresses, smoking cigarettes and drinking bubble tea before parties at some rich kids house. Eliza was hanging with people I deemed ‘lame’, because I had become popular and self-righteous, too caught up in my own idea of what was cool, and judging her for her lifestyle choices. For all I knew, she was smoking weed and doing drugs in the forest with the randoms from her public school. I was weirded out by what I heard about her, I thought she had changed. I wasn’t a good friend anymore, too caught up in my own tornado to check in with her and connect. 

Andrew was adjacent to the things I felt I represented- he went to another catholic private school, and he embodied a truly Kyle from Ladybird vibe with a cool instagram. I’d always admired his aesthetic and how I felt I looked when we walked through our neighborhood together.

We were just friends that summer, it was entirely innocent. As we became closer, the crush was there, but I had crushes on tons of guys. I didn’t mean for it to happen. Andrew and his friends and I would walk to the store and get sodas. We’d set off sparklers in front of the mansions in our neighborhood and they’d skate away while I chased them, phone out, recording everything for Vine. I laughed so much when I was with him, and it wasn’t even about how deeply I crushed on him. I loved the convenience. We’d text to make plans, and since he lived 2 minutes away we could hang within minutes.

One day I went to Andrews house, around the end of that summer, and we watched a movie in his basement. We were lying on our stomachs, looking up at the TV. That anticipatory tension filled the air, and my body was heavy and light at the same time. I knew it was coming.

He turned his head towards me and I turned my head towards him, and we inched towards each other. Kissed. It was sweet, soft.. and then it picked up, and turned into something more passionate. A new level of kissing for me, like there was an explosion in my chest and I clung to him in the aftershock. Pure electricity hitting me in my core. Maybe it was because all summer I was hooking up with random guys because I could, and then there was this guy who I’d fantasized about for so long and genuinely liked who was kissing me like he meant it. And it was wrong.

Was Eliza my best friend at that moment in time? Not really. I still cared about her but we’d fallen out of orbit, barely seeing each other towards the end of that summer. Eliza and Andrew weren’t together anymore. I knew she thought I stole him, from things other kids said to me. We never discussed it though. I could’ve argued that wasn’t technically true, but it was the principle. I was doing something unforgivable.

He was that guy for her, I knew it. That sort of thing doesn’t change- I would know, because he was it for me too. I was actively doing something wrong, which made it that much more exciting. Doing something forbidden, and the guilt and horror mixed with the thrill and excitement. The sizzling superiority in being chosen, it was an overdose of energy.

Andrew and I had a conversation about Eliza early on. I think it was something about how she’s gone off the deep end, we can’t help her now, and we’re in such a better place in life. Lol. I remember us discussing cocaine and the possibility of her doing it, because she was friends with someone who had done cocaine. Which is why our betrayal of her was valid? I don’t remember. Something foolish like that, a copout to compensate for how forbidden it felt.

It’s absurd to reflect on this, that we were speculating and giving reasons that would justify doing it. As if it was okay to date him because she was on some sort of moral decline, despite the fact that Andrew and I were both the problem children of our respective households, and doing things that 15 year olds definitely should not have been doing.

Andrew and I were together for most of our sophomore year. I had lost my virginity to another guy earlier that summer but it was more of a half-virginity, we didn’t have complete, satisfying sex. Andrew and I were fucking. All the time. It was kinky, porn inspired, all over the place. Not a month into my relationship with him I went on birth control, and then it was a free for all. Sex with him consumed my mind, and when we weren’t physically together, I was itching to get back to him. This is probably where my sex addiction started.

I spent a good amount of time at his school watching him play basketball. He spent a good amount of time in my basement fucking me on the couch my family sat and watched TV at. His family was ultra Catholic, and when him and his church friends went to mass, I’d wait for him to get back. One time, his mother came to my house to inquire my mother about our sex life. One time, we snuck into his best friends house when no one was home to have sex in his living room because it would be funny. Everything about us was risky because we could, because we were the same brand of impulsive and deranged.

Andrew introduced me to the concept that boys could be interesting. Before him, I perceived boys my age as, at best, attractive objects I could kiss that say nothing of value. He had one of those intense personalities, someone with a million things to say, unpredictable, hilarious, raunchy and edgy, and I could be as weird as I wanted and he didn’t care. It worked for a few months, and then as it does when two unstable people are together, it turned into a clusterfuck of fighting and clinging onto a previous feeling. I couldn’t focus in class because of the ridiculous text fights we were getting into. 

When we broke up, I cried and begged him to not break up with me. I’m pretty sure I broke up with him as an impulsive, desperate test to see if he would fight for us, and then he agreed we should break up, and I backpedaled and begged him to take it back. It was so devastating for like 2 weeks. And then I heard he went and hooked up with Eliza immediately after, which I guess I deserved. 

A few months ago, I was sitting around with some friends at one of their apartments. Someone asked the room what’s your biggest regret, and the Eliza Andrew situation popped into my head, without a second thought. These friends have only known me in my adult life. I’ll tell them stories of how I used to be, but I don’t think it fully registers. I was so wildly different from how I am now, that maybe it sounds exaggerated. Now 25, I spend a majority of my nights at home in my pajamas writing, or watching TV with my friends. I’m guarded and jaded. I avoid clubs and bars, and when I go to parties, I tend to find a couch or a corner of the room and stay there.

It happened a decade ago, but it still comes up at random. It was my answer to that question months ago. Do I think it’s the most evil thing a teenage girl could’ve done? Not really, it’s the exact kind of thing that stupid kids do to each other. Yet… it’s this massive hole in my lore, a time where I did something super cruel to the one person who deserved it least. The guilt has been slowly growing since it happened and it continues to creep up on me to this day.

Why did I do to do that? Why didn’t I stop myself? These are massive question marks in my brain. It doesn’t matter that time’s gone by or that Eliza and I are still friends. I did it and I can’t shake it. It left something in me, raw and dried up. Some might say it’s my canon event.

I wish I say I’ve had such an effortless friendship since, but I haven’t. I love my friends, I feel so lucky to be surrounded by the people I am these days. Eliza, though, was the only time where it was like, 100% of everything in life was with her. Nothing has felt quite like that, quite so beautiful and fun. It could be adulthood and responsibilities getting in the way, but there was something so once in a lifetime about that kind of friendship where everything was together- getting on the bus for school, snickering in class, hanging out after school, going to outings and discussing after, sleepovers, consuming the same media, recording Youtube videos, giving each other those looks in groups, texting constantly when we weren’t together, wearing each others clothes. Singing together took such a vulnerability from me especially. There’s one song by Ariana Grande I still can’t listen to because we used to sing it all the time together, me on the guitar and her on the ukulele.

She was hurt by what I did, though she never directly confronted me. When it happened, she posted a photo on her private instagram of her and Andrew, the caption about how he was stolen from her. Years later, when she allowed me to follow it again and I stalked the old post, I found that one and sobbed my eyes out. One of those moments where you’re saying stupid stupid stupid over and over in your head.

I apologized at some point after, but we were changed. It was stilted and awkward. I still feel the urge to say I’m sorry a thousand more times. That song is still muted on spotify and seeing photos of us still hurts me. It’s a living breathing reminder of how empty and destructive I was, and what my first real friendship felt like. That was the beginning of the end of me, being a wholesome child. My uncontrollable, sexual depravity took the front seat, and joy and connection thrown out the window. I lived like that for eight years.

The emotional economy of that situation is what left me broke in the end. Real, authentic friendships are rare. Sexual relationships can be fulfilling within minutes of introduction. As an imprudent child with emotional issues, there is much less to be desired in having a long term, slowly building friendship than an instantly gratifying romance with a guy that’s proving wrong your insecurity that you’re unworthy. 

Eliza will always hold an important place in the story of my childhood. I’ll always be one of those people for her too, though in her story I’m one that hurt her, and that’s so devastating to me. I had such a good thing and ruined it. I can write this essay and talk to her about the situation years later with wisdom and maturity, but it’s not going to undo what was done, so I’ve had to accept that. I literally still tell myself, no, you were a kid, you couldn’t have known better. Something inside me is still dissapointed in myself for doing that. The fleeting months I spent with Andrew vs. with Eliza are unquantifiable, but there was no way I was going to know that as a child. That’s what I tell myself when I remember I've met interesting men since, men that are passionate and fulfilling since, but still haven’t found a friend I feel comfortable singing with.

I’d tell a younger version of myself not to have done it, to stay away from him in general, but I don’t think she would have listened. When you’re a kid, nothing is going to stop you. There is no older version of yourself inside you to show you what will happen. You have to make the mistake. And then you have to sit with it years later.

[thelifeofnosilla]

Saturday, October 22nd

Hello there,

So I noticed that it has been exactly one month since I have posted on here. Is this why my mind is lingering and the urge to write fell upon me at 11pm at night? To be honest I cannot sleep, but I mean it is early for someone who lives in NYC. My partner has a new job and so he is already sleeping by this time. I mean that was my plan to right? To be on this entire routine? WELL, here we go again. That routine no longer exists, I lost 10 pounds to begin to gain it all over again. I do not even need to get on the scale, I can feel it in my body. Plus I have been eating so bad that I just feel terrible in general. I clearly have something mentally wrong with my brain, which I have always known but I keep falling back into the same habits. I need to really find some control over myself and get in together. I scroll on Instagram all day and I do not understand how I am even ok with looking how I look, knowing how unhappy I am.

Ugh, I feel like writing this post today seems so dark but that is just how I feel. I am back in a bad place that I only put myself into. I need to bounce back and get it together. This is why I wanted to be in a routine and I wanted to write everyday, even if it was to say I am ok because holding up for a month with my thoughts just is not the way to go. The good thing is that when I am on here, I just let myself write everything that I am feeling. I was watching The Luckiest Girl Alive on Netflix today and the best advice I ever heard was to write as if no one you know was reading it, that is when you do your best writing. I guess having this blog was the best thing I ever did for myself. I just need to take more advantage of it.

I do not really know what is going on with me but I guess I am in a weird place in life and instead of going after what makes me happy of controlling what I can control, I seem to do the opposite. I told my partner that everything would change once I got our own place and now we have been here for almost 4 years and nothing has really changed for me, other than the fact that I feel the freedom of being in my own space. I mean let me rewind here, honestly a lot has clearly changed in my life, I have a good job, we have our own space, I am more at peace with myself and can have time to myself to just think BUT I did not do anything about my weight or taking care of myself. The self sabotaging does not stop and I do not think it matters where I am. I wanted to move into this new apartment because it mostly had a gym in the building and I told myself it would push me to work out, but would it? I lock myself in this apartment and sometimes I do not even want to go up and down the stairs. Should I do therapy? Maybe but I do not feel like I am ready for that, maybe I am scared or maybe I just do not want to talk about the traumas in my life. One thing I do know is that I am 30 years old and I want better in life.

Everything I write, I always say that my mind starts to linger and it is right now. Thinking about my relationship and if my partner is even happy with me. Sometimes I feel like I am worried about everyone else and never myself. He has even said it himself. I think that if he saw me worried about myself, he would honestly be happier. Happier to be with someone who actually cares about themselves. I have been saying this out loud lately to some friends that I feel like I pulled him back from having a better life than the one he has now and knowing that I have not even tried. So many times he has told me, just save, please just save your money and I cannot even do that. I know that I need to be better and I am going to be. I am going to work on it. I know that I can be better but I have to put in the work. That is the other thing, I do not put in work into anything. Doing something for 1-2 weeks is not putting in work, it is about being consistent. Either way I know that I can be better and I need to make sure I do that.

I should definitely go to sleep soon and take in that tomorrow is a new day to work towards a better me. I hope that as I come on here and write, that I find growth in myself.

I should hopefully find myself back on here tomorrow, if not, definitely Monday for sure as I hop back into my weekly routine. I want to start moving with intention and doing things intentionally in my life.

Goodnight you beautiful people. 🥰

[tired-teacher-blog]

Hey Teach!

I'm new to your blog, but gotta say that I've loved everything I have read so far! Could I be so bold as to request head cannons or drabble where the idea of trying a poly relationship (M/M/F) is brought up? No preference for characters, simply whoever you feel most comfortable with ^^

Much love!

Sweetheart I'm so honored you liked reading my stuff!❤️ And I really enjoyed working on your request because the idea is so refreshing so I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it.

Title : Another shape of love

Characters : Shouto/ Bakugo/ Fem reader

Genre : drabble/ fluff

Trigger warning (I guess) : Characters to be involved in a polyamorous relationship, so please keep that in mind in case this is not something you're comfortable with.

Masterlist

The three of you are inseparable, and your relationship is tighter than any typical friendship.

You are each other's pillars, strength and refuge. And you would gladly die for one another.

You can never put a label on it -neither do you feel the need to- all you are certain of, is that you would never.. none in a million years.. abandon one another. That's how powerful your bond is.

So it was only a matter of time before one of you asked the question..

_ "So? What do you guys think?" Shouto proposed crossing his arms and tilting his head to the side.

_ "What?! You must be crazy! Isn't this a little weird?" Katsuki was clearly unamused. As much as he adores the both of you, he's never been good at sharing, so the idea of the three of you being officially involved in a polyamorous relationship didn't sit well with him.

_ "Well, you love me right?" Shouto pushed further, "And you clearly love y/n as well so why not?"

_ "Wait a minute, just wait!" Katsuki took a step backwards and brought his hands up defensively "Let's hear what y/n has to say about this first." His eyes searched yours for an answer and you struggled to find the right words.

Honestly speaking, you've been in love with the both of them for a long time, but you were clearly unable to express your feelings. You've always been afraid of ruining what you have in case you confessed, because frankly, what guarantee do you have? So for the longest time, you stifled your emotions for everyone's sake, even if it meant suffering in silence.. It was fine, because they're worth it.

But the opportunity was finally presenting itself, you're not alone in this, you're all together.

_ "So.. what do you think?" It was Shouto's turn to urge you to speak.

_ "I.. yeah, if you're both okay with it then, yeah.." You practically mumbled your response and looked down as you did, too embarrassed to meet their eyes, but more than anything, too afraid to tear up. It was a surreal moment, one that you never thought would come to be.

_ "See?" Shouto smiled at how cute he thought you seemed, shifting his attention to Katsuki, who said nothing for a while, and instead kept his eyes on you.

_"Come on, let's at least try it before disregarding the idea entirely, and if things don't go well, then we'll call it off." Shouto moved closer to his friend and grabbed his arm, squeezing it lightly as he coaxed.

_ "Fine, I'm in.. To be honest I don't see myself doing something as crazy as this with any others."

Katsuki could finally let out a shy smile while looking at the both of you.

_ "It's not crazy at all, it makes perfect sense!" Shouto added with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.

_ "Damn you half and half bastard, how can I possibly say no to you.. to either of you." Katsuki sighed, gazing at the both of you lovingly.

It was the happiness you craved ever since you've met them.

It was something nearly impossible but you're finally there, right where you want to be the most.

_ "I love you, and I always will." You could finally say it out loud and clear, with no fear or hesitation, and the twinkle in their eyes was enough proof of their reciprocated feelings.

@delirious-donna

[daegall]

Can you suggest me some nct fics or your fav blogs

anon i am so glad you asked

first off we have my favorite authors!!

@choerrypuffs (masterlist here)

@luvdsc (masterlist here)

@rrxnjun (just found last night but i know everything will be great!! masterlist here)

@gohyuck (masterlist here)

@hirokari (masterlist here)

@navyhyuck (masterlist here)

@osakisho (masterlist here)

@neonun-au (masterlist here)

@hyuck-obsessed (masterlist here)

@d-nghy-ck (masterlist here)

@kopikokun (also stopped writing but arin's works are still chefs kiss ^3^)

@nctsworld (masterlist here)

@ppangjae (masterlist here dude every single work this writer has is so good i kid you not)

@jaemotel (masterlist here)

@lattaeyongs (could not find a masterlist im sorry :( but they still have great works scattered everywhere!!!!)

@neovisioned (masterlist here)

now we have my fave fics!! (i think most are hyuck, i hope you dont mind :( )

and i love her just like that - l.dh (read last night, thinking of it for the next week)

You've known Lee Donghyuck your whole entire life. While he would call you a total maniac and you’d call him a menace to society, there’s a certain bond that brings you two together-- and no, I’m not talking about the obnoxiously deep friendship your mothers share and try to force down both of your throats-- it’s the obvious urge of competitiveness that both sticks you together and breaks you apart just the same. In other words, hate and love, so it seems, aren't that far from each other in the first place.

the dumbing down of love - l.jn

the six times you caught him staring at you, and the one time he caught you. ↳ alternatively: dumb and dumber fall in love.

demigods 00 line series - nct dream 00 line

summers at camp half-blood are never dull—especially when there’s a cute boy at every corner.

not another love song - l.jn

jeno has always just been the quiet (and cute) guy that sits next to you in your creative writing class, but a single open mic night changes everything.

master of all elements 00 line series - nct dream 00 line (avatar!AU)

y/n, a waterbender of the northern water tribe, has been named the new avatar. she must master all of the elements in order to keep the peace of the four nations. which path will she choose first?

not clickbait series - nct dream

do it for the views. do it for your fans. but most importantly, do it for the gigantic, secret crush you’ve been harboring on your best friend. which boy will you complete tiktok’s “today I tried to kiss my best friend” challenge with? oh, and make sure to like, comment, and subscribe, honey bees!

the chase - n.jm

you were not going to be another notch on na jaemin’s belt.

cry - l.dh (super short but hit so hard)

Theres a million things Donghyuck wants to say to Jaemin, but theres a million more reasons to stay and be here for you instead.

oh mr. lee, will you teach me how to french kiss? - l.dh

when you break up with your boyfriend after finding out you don’t know how to french kiss, your best friend offers a rather tempting offer.

this is the story of how we fell in love, apparently. - l.dh

running a youtube channel with your best friend isn’t easy, not when he’s like a ticking time bomb that’s constantly bubbling up something new. what’s worse is that you’ve had a crush on him for the past three years.

all that glitters - l.mk

no synopsis but i'll put the warnings FGIOUSFR

rich people, neglectful parents, mention of deceased pet and said deceased pet’s grave, descriptions of a panic attack, mentions of God, alcohol consumption, an argument that isn’t actually an argument, heartbreak (but it gets fixed!)

the abduction of Persephone - l.dh

part ii.

your sister is about to marry the man of her life, the wedding is in three days and you don’t have a date. Nothing weird, but I forgot to mention that you had told your parents that you were bringing your boyfriend. A boyfriend that you don’t have anymore, because he had suddenly decided you were “too much” for him and didn’t want to make you waste anymore time - one month before the wedding. You should have been the happiest person on Earth, your sister was about to get married and, since you didn’t want to bring any attention upon your lonely entrance, you had opted for something crazy. Crazy, like hiring Lee Donghyuck to be your fake-boyfriend.

home is a feeling - l.dh (FUCK DUDE THIS ONE HITS SO HARD)

Fresh off a break-up, not willing to stomach spending Christmas single with your family, you book a last minute trip overseas to escape the impending loneliness, not realizing that perhaps running away from your feelings will only serve to intensify them. You arrive at your home-away-from-home only to find you’re not the only one staying there. Through some unfortunate (or not so unfortunate) mistake, the AirBnB you booked has also been booked by a handsome young man looking for a similar escape from his own life. Now you have to choose whether or not to stay and spend your Christmas with a stranger or scramble to find a lonely hotel room last minute over the holidays.

all at once, the happiness i knew - l.dh (i cant even this was the best fic ive ever read)

part ii.

no synopsis! but i'll put the themes and warnings

genre: kind of single parent!au??, established relationship!au?( fluff, angst with happy ending, haechan is kind of best boy)  pairing/s: Haechan / Female Reader (ft Jaehyun and Chenle)  word count: 23k+  tw: unplanned pregnancy, might get kind of heavy! but dont worry! bc it ends well!

here you are, anon!! i hope you enjoy these fics and get to know more about the amazing authors!! i worked super hard on this so i hope this doesnt disappoint UHDFIS

[skipcount1]

I was rereading tmrlg as I do because it’s the love of my life and I has new stuff to ramble about

So Ponk is a nymph, and he can ‘body-share’ which I’m assuming is very taboo because it means you can control someone (and I’m assuming the fear of it has blown it all out of proportion) which I’m assuming is even more taboo b/c crimson mind control. So she don’t want peeps to know

Im so excited to see punz/boomer reaction to Ponk healing Gumi. Also if they put anything together about velvet

Also extending on my previous theory re: ponk loosing foot b/c healing velvet

- @cool-new-side-blog

So Ponk can’t really bring people back. I’m assuming velvet either got really close to death or had just died. Ponk didn’t have her tree. So sacrifice foot to get the power to heal velvet?

oooorgh you need to stop asking really good questions i have no filter and the overwhelming urge not to spoil anything and it makes it SO HARD to answer thigns

honestly i hadnt even thought about pok being abel to control people through bodysharing. if they can, theyre definitely not aware of it, and itd be something very minor partially bc i dont wanna make them too op and partially because itd SUCK on ponks end. bodysharing with someone feels weird on both ends - like, if gumi had known ponk was bodysharing wiht her (or had been coherent enough to like... feel it) she would've felt that something was off. like it makes ponks spirit feel to-the-left but it makes whoever he's bodysharing with feel three-steps-back. both participants aren't quite in their bodies, so trying to control someone would be like trying to pull a remy ratatouille while in a sensory deprivation tank.

beyond like. REAL concerns i think ponk keeps the bodysharing a secret just because its awkward and hard to explain. like if you were talking to someone and you were like "hey yeah man just gotta... inhabit your body for a bit dw its all good its good for your health" no matter what they'd be like "hey what the fuck???" and real concerns-wise i think that like. if you can invade someones body pretty much without resistance from them youre gonna inspire a witchhunt. like yeah sure ponk cant do anythign HARMFUL with it but thats some dudes body hes in. what if she was like "ooooo you wanna give me your credit card information sooooo bad ooooo" and subliminally effected their thoughts. does she deserve to steal someone's credit card? fuck yeah but thats generally frowned upon and also not-very-neutral of her lmao

also ngl im not entirely sure how ponks tree works with the healing kekw i am. literally making this shit up as i go. it definitely nullifies some of the harming effects of healing, though - its like.... mmmm this isnt a perfect metaphor but like if you gotta sustain a certain amount of burns (we're in saw, i guess???? not like... killer burns. like 20 first degree burns.) and you can choose between burning only half your body or all of it, its gonna be way more damaging to put it on half because now HALF your body is out of commission. if you spread it out over the rest of your body, its still gonna fuckin suck, but it's not condensed yknow? so when ponk heals without his tree, its like putting all those burns on half his body, but when he heals with it, its all over, and he has the added bonus of like.... default dissociation with half of the burns since he isn't actively in his tree all the time. his tree takes on some of the damage.

okay fuck it i AM spoilering bc now brain go brrrr so ignore the rest if you dont want minor spoilers

okay so ponk healed gumi's back. she

set and healed bones - broken and chipped

healed muscle

restored skin

treated burns

pushed out remaining shrapnel (which she isnt aware of)

(gumi's injury was nasty and it fucking sucked, but she was stable. if ponk had the equipment and the confidence, they could've fixed her up without healing her, but it would've left her incapacitated for so long that even if ponk thought they were capable of healing her manually, she would've been sorted into the "heal with ability" category. like.... it was BAD, but due to gumi's own regenerative abilities, it wasn't life threatening with proper treatment.)

in the next chapter ponk wakes up with a MASSIVE headache and she feels scorched out. like, it fucking sucks, and she's going to be fatigued and have some fairly bad headaches for a week or so, but it'll be manageable.

if he hadn't had his tree, he would've been completely incapacitated for over a week. (cannot elaborate for plot >:(((.) his healing is essentially just ...giving, so it takes a while for him to get himself back.

and thats an injury that technically wasnt life threatening :D velvet got it bad :D

[strangestcase]

It's not the fall that kills you

So I'm the same anon who has depersonalization and ADHD and has read every Victorian Double story in both the Russian and English language. (My parents and I live in America but have relatives in Russia. My dad is not taking the current invasion well as he still had shreds of Patriotism until this point.) I think that Robert Sheckley's "The Humors" and James Hogg's "Confessions of a Justified Sinner" are criminally underrated. I visit this blog to see rants about how no Jekyll did NOT have DID he might have had depersonalization at most. I'm the one who described my off-meds self as a hyperactive, angry, sometimes violent drunk.

so yeah, I literally post on your page every day. I was so glad when "make Jekyll's wife a badass nerd" became a meme because I posted the monster high fanfic excerpt that gave Leticia Jekyll more agency in one paragraph than the entire musical gave Emma Carew. I'm the weird Enby who dresses like Holt on a day to day basis. When somebody animated your "Hyde as the PS5" with Bill Cypher I suddenly remembered that Bill Cypher is also a great metaphor for depersonalization.

I asked to post about my personal experience with depersonalization and yeah here it is.

I feel all my feelings now. Everything is sharper and brighter and taste and smell are stronger. Sadly the repressed rage is also back and oh dear god. I snap at every little thing now. My therapist recommends isolating and only talking to people online. As if my rage is virulent illness that needs to be quarantined.

My Psychiatrist wants to put me on a brand new and expensive type of mood stabilizer that lowers aggression without flattening any other emotion. and I'm like "put me on new experimental drugs to control my baser urges? Sign me up, Doc!" He didn't get the reference.  

But see, ADHD is a minefield. Because it's a dopamine disorder and dopamine controls both relaxation and fight or flight, drugs sometimes have the exact opposite effects on sufferers of ADHD than that of neurotypicals.

So either new meds help me or they will everything so so much worse. and I worry that if the latter becomes true, in between starting and stopping the meds I might snap and commit a literal CRIME. Thankfully, I'll probably go to a Psych ward instead of jail, but still. I don't want go the Psych ward again.

So yeah if  live in North Carolina and see a headline along the line of "Area woman committed to Psych ward after sending 10 people to hospital" that could be me (because of course the papers would use my AGAB). Here's to hoping the meds will help.

——- Doc: Holy hell this was a rollercoaster but hello anon! ^-^ you make my day brighter and I think you’re very funky. You have my support (I’m sending it to North Carolina via telepathy)! I love your headcanons and your messages!!!!! *gives you a virtual hug*

[muscle-worlds-stories]

I was looking at my most recent notifications and saw that there was a user called @disabledmusclelover who recently started to enjoy my content.

I saw that they are a disabled user who loves muscle men just like we all do. I decided to make this story to be as inclusive as this blog can be and write a story involving a disabled character getting his own spotlight. Despite any disabilities, we all can be strong and be transformed to our ideal fantasies. I wanted to write this to help tell more diverse stories and help make myself a better writer. I challenge other blogs to try making inclusive stories like this and see how y'all interpret inclusivity in your own blogs. So for those who are physically impaired, I hope that you enjoy this story and would like more in the future with some constructive criticism ❤ I hope you all like this new approach I am trying to do!

It was a beautiful day, so Derek decided to take his laptop and work outside. Derek was always cooped up inside being an IT manager so it would do him some good to answer emails while getting some vitamin D.

Derek scrolled through his emails, typical deals of electronics and work reports. Derek began to be bored, until he scrolled to an unusual email he had never seen before.

"Epic offer! Come to Muscle World to claim your free 6 months membership today!"

Hmm, Derek never signed up for this gyms email list. As Derek looked at the email, he decided to try out the gym since he could try and get a little more healthier.

As a kid, Derek got in a car crash that paralyzed his lower body. He's been in a wheelchair ever since. But this didn't stop Derek, whose overcome a lot in his life.

The work day ended and Derek got changed and headed to Muscle World, which was in a part of town he never knew about. Derek entered the gym and was greeted by a receptionist who looked like he could lift Derek while he was still in his chair. Derek greeted the receptionist and showed him the email about the membership trial. The receptionist was very nice and took Derek's information and walked him to the training room. Derek was then introduced to what looked like Hercules himself. The Adonis introduced himself and said his name was Youseff, who had a German accent.

Youseff showed Derek around the facility. He also told Derek that Muscle World can accommodate for Derek's condition when they begin his training. The gym had the typical machines and weights that Derek expected a gym to have. Youseff took Derek to the gym's juice bar and picked out some containers and concocted a drink and asked Derek to try it out. Derek took a sip and was punched with a strong flavor. Derek was not expecting that to be so strong. Youseff explained that Derek would go under a diet that would help him on his journey.

Youseff put Derek through a tough first session, and Derek was very sore after the session ended. Youseff gave Derek a large jug of the concoction that he tried out and was told to take a cup of it every morning when he wakes up. Derek took the jug and went home.

Derek woke up the next day feeling super sore from the session. He rolled into his bathroom and noticed that he looked less bloated than usual. Hmm, looks like just one session had made progress. Derek poured a cup of the drink he was told to take and chugged it down, making a sour face after feeling the sensation of it going down his throat like yesterday.

Derek went to work and while he was working, he could feel his shirt sliding across his body weird, as if it got slightly tighter as the day progressed. The work day ended and Derek went straight to the gym for his second session. Youseff once again put Derek through hell with a lot of upper body cardio, weight training, and stretches.

Almost 6 months had passed and Derek had gone through so much with Youseff as his trainer. He now lost a lot of the fat in his stomach and gained a decent amount of muscle to start getting shirts in large. Derek woke up yet again and looked at his still pretty full jug of the concoction. Derek had the urge to drink the entire thing in one sitting. No, he thought, and filled the appropriate amount in his cup. Derek took it and then looked down at the empty cup. Without hesitation, Derek dropped the cup and picked up the jug and started to chug down the entire drink.

Derek set down the now empty jug and released a massive burp. Derek then called in to work and took a day off to be at the gym. Derek arrived at the gym and immediately went to the weights. It felt like Derek had literal electricity running through his veins. He began to lift heavy weights up and down, loving the adrenaline fueling his thirst to work his muscles. As Derek pumped up his muscles, his hair began to recede into his head, leaving a shining bald head where he once had a nice head of hair. Derek's biceps began to grow big and his veins began to pulse up and down as they began to thicken and show all across his arms. Derek went to work on his chest and as he moved the bar up and down, his chest slowly swelled up pushing his tank top forward filling it out to its max. Derek was so high on the concoction that he wheeled to the pull-up bar, where he never went, and began to lift himself up and down. His now enormous arms were able to lift him up still in the wheelchair and each rep made his back develop more and more muscle. Hours had past, and Derek was lifting lighter dumbells to relax and end his pretty much all day session. Derek looked at his arms and looked at his now 27" bicep go up and down.

Youseff walked into the gym and called out Derek. "Damn is that you Derek?! Looks like my special shake has helped you get up to my level my friend!". Derek thanked Youseff, not realizing his voice had dropped down like 3 octaves. The two men shook hands, with Derek's hand now the same size as Youseff's hand. Derek said he'd see him tomorrow morning and said that he's gonna have to start his actual membership in the morning. Derek was proud of how much he'd accomplished in 6 months and now had the craving to grow even bigger than he was now.

[sunqyu]

~ First kiss with Treasure pt. 1  (Hyunsuk, Jihoon, Yoshi, Junkyu, Mashiho and Jaehyuk)

Request: “ First kiss with treasure? (reaction something like that) love your blog, you ARE the cutie 💞💞 “ - Anon

OHH THANK YOUUU. That means a lot to my beginner-writers-heart. This request is also absolutely adorable so thank you for sending it in! Hope you enjoooy. Since it’s a little longer (I got carried away with Hyunsuk and then wanted to give all the boys some detail which got me carried away even more so aye, there’s that) it’s two parts, the second one is here - Nova

Hyunsuk

the type to really wait for the exact right time

wants it to be a memorable moment for you two to look back on later

which might lead to some frustration for you 

because before he actually goes for it there have been a lot of moments where you might’ve thought ‘THIS IS IT. IT’S HAPPENING.’

but no, to Hyunsuk it still needed a little extra

for some reason I feel like it would be when you are both a little sleepy 

after a long day together that was filled with fun things

but also a few less fun things

maybe you got lost somewhere or took the wrong train back

one of those days that would’ve been quite exhausting and frustrating if it hadn’t been with you

finally home he’d turn on your favorite show and you’d just lay on the couch together, exhausted but content

with that feeling in your legs you get after walking all day and finally laying down, all warm

you were talking about something which the show reminded you of but he’s just lost in thought, a little snoozy

thinking about how happy he’s actually been since he met you

‘Hey-.. look at me.’ soft drowsy voice

he’d stay still for a second when you look up from laying on his chest

just taking in the way you look and feel so warm against him

before you can ask what’s up he’d slowly close the distance

it would be a slow but simple kiss, lingering a little before he pulls back with the same admiring look on his face

‘I’m sorry- what were you saying?’

Jihoon

might be quite fast and random actually

because he likes surprising you out of nowhere

it’s the confused look on your face that makes it so much fun for him

especially if it makes you blush

‘cause god that makes you look cute

that also means it would probably be on impulse

so not necessarily at end of the date

maybe even at the beginning (damn, imagine)

he’d pick you up at your place and you’re still grabbing your stuff

the idea would pop up in his head only a few seconds before

but the execution has to be perfect ofcourse

so he leans against the doorpost all casually while pretending to do something on his phone

when he’s really just swiping side to side on his homescreen

even though he’s trying to look unbothered, on the inside he’s SCREAMING

already feels his ears getting red when he hears your footsteps coming closer

ready? action.

looks up with the most nonchalant look he can muster

‘Oh, you’re ready to go? Cool.’

the moment you stand close enough he’d put his free hand on your cheek

moving way quicker than he had planned

the kiss would be meaningful and last a few seconds so you could process what was happening before it was over

he would grab your hand while turning around right away to start walking

trying not to show the big grin on his face right away but you’d still hear it in his voice

‘Let’s goo-.’

Yoshi

such a wholesome bean

would definitely want it to be outside

with some nice scenery

the whole simplistic romance-sh’bang

preferably cold weather, maybe in the evening when it’s just starting to get dark

nearing the end of a date but not aaall the way at the end

maybe you two went out to eat at a new place he wanted to show you

and since he never gets tired of spending time with you he suggested to get hot cocoa and walk around the city after

you finished the hot cocoa over an hour ago but your conversations were endless so you just kept walking without a destination

these were the moments he loved most

just you and him connecting over little things and sharing memories that have shaped you to be who you are now

no nonsense, no chaos, just your presence and nothing to distract him from it

eventually you had walked so far that the busy city streets were now gravel paths, trees lined up on both sides

since the sun had almost set entirely it was getting colder too

he had already given you his jacket the moment you walked out of the restaurant (that BAPE one from treasure map ep 4 and 5, iconic)

but he could tell it would be smart to start heading home

who knows how far that is at this point

he’d stop and turn to you

‘Maybe we should head home, don’t you think? I don’t want you to get sick.’

seeing you nod as you look up at him all snuggly in his jacket

it would be the first actual moment of silence after hours of soft and meaningful conversations

he’d think to himself how there’s only one thing that could make this moment even better

talking slowly but clearly since, no matter the big moment, he’d still feel at ease

‘Can I kiss you?’

the big smile that lit up your face would be enough as an answer

he’d close the distance rather quickly, cupping your face in his hands

which he purposefully held in his pockets the moment he decided he was going to ask so they wouldn’t be cold

you’d be able to feel him smile slightly

and as cliché as it may sound, in that moment it really felt like nothing else mattered

‘Let’s get you home now.’

just one more quick kiss before you’d walk in the other direction

conversation continuing where you left off

Junkyu

I do think he’d try to have something planned

I know that’s not reaaally like him but since it’s the very first kiss he’s definitely thought about it in advance

at the end of your previous date he’d be laying bed thinking, ‘Next time. Yes, next time I’m going to kiss her. I have to.’

trying to hype himself up

before the date itself he’d also say it in the mirror ‘You got this. Today’s the day.’

would be acting a bit weird throughout the date because of it

zoning out from time to time, trying to think of a way to make it happen all natural and smooth

a few hours pass by

the pressure is rising

he wasn’t really planning on making it a classic goodnight’s kiss

but here you are, standing in front of your door with you telling him how much fun you had

‘I’m sorry- what did you say?’

come on brain, work with him now

he’s focusing so hard without even knowing what he’s focusing on

you waving your hand in front of his face to make him come back to earth worked as a trigger

without realizing it he takes a step closer and just goes for it

naturally reaching out to hold your hand in his, the other catching up later and gently landing on your waist

all the weight is lifted from his shoulders when he feels you kiss him back

might even sigh softly before kissing you again

that second one would last a little longer, simply because he’s so happy he finally did it

breaks the kiss shortly, staying close to you

‘If only you knew how long I’ve wanted to do that.’

Mashiho

might be the most confident out of them all

still sees it as a big moment but is aware of the fact that stressing about it won’t make it any better

also knows that there will be loads more kisses to come which makes him happy ‘n giddy

even though he’s confident I still think he’d wait a little while

he wants to be 100% sure that you are ready and he’s not rushing you

the phase at the beginning of dating where you’re both still kind of figuring each other out is also very meaningful to him, likes taking things slow

he’d plan a date at home when the rest of the boys aren’t there

a movie-date but make it EXTRA

candles, pillows and blankets on the floor (far away from the fire because safety hazard)

instead of just opening a bag of chips you’d make something together

preparing nacho’s with all the toppings he could think of

maybe even a cheese platter (HOT DAMN FANCY MAN)

just loads of very strong and obvious upgrades to your usual evenings at home

after putting the nacho’s in the oven you’d ask him ‘now what?’

the urge to say he knows something to do would be so big but he doesn’t want to ruin the moment with too much cheesiness (ha, get it? nachos?) so instead he just says 

‘well- I was going to wait until later but then again, why should I?’

you’d look at him confused

‘I’m going to kiss you, dummy.’

he’d snicker softly as your expression changed

still paying attention to how you reacted as he took a step closer

noticing you weren’t moving away at all he’d gently kiss you

a few seconds pass before he deepens the kiss, confidence increasing as he could tell you were leaning in just as much

the rest of the evening would be filled with lots of cute quick kisses

so happy he didn’t wait until later

Jaehyuk

a gentleman (but make it uwu)

reaaally takes his time

thinks he’s doing great and treating you right when in reality you’re so close to just going for it yourself

also seems quite traditional so I think he’d do it when he brings you home after a date

but unlike Junkyu he planned it that way

after you two went shopping together and he offered to buy you literally every single thing you said was even remotely nice-looking

you took loads of pictures together that day too

in one he pretends to kiss your cheek (like from a few cm away) to see your reaction

when you didn’t seem to mind it gave him a little more confidence for later on

on the walk to your house he’d let go of your hand to grab his phone and send you the pictures

you taking the initiative to grab his hand again after he put his phone away was like the icing on top of his confidencecake

once you reach your frontdoor he would feel that this is it, this is the moment he’s been preparing himself for

‘I really enjoyed spending time with you today. Every time we hang out I just have so much fun. I really reaally enjoyed it.’

nods along to emphasize some of his words

‘You already mean so much to me. I can’t wait for all the other memories we are going to make together.’

he’d take time to listen to you too, feeling his heart swell with all the sweet comments

‘Can I-?’

and lets be real you’ve waited for this so long that he doesn’t even have to finish his sentence before you start nodding

it would be so sweet, his hand featherlike on your cheek from how gentle he was

only after you kiss back he’d hold you a little tighter, still careful as if you’re made of glass

‘Could you be anymore perfect?’

[bruh-haikyuu]

@arcangel-wings REQUESTED: Heya! I’m new to your blog and I really like your writing! Can I request Tenma Udai with an s/o who’s a baker while he’s in hs? So like he’s a delinquent and she’s a sweetheart who’s always giving people the stuff she bakes? Everyone thinks it’s weird but they fit together kinda thing 🥺?

A/N: Thanks for requesting!! This is über cute. Fem!Reader as alluded in the request^^

kilig. | udai tenma

word count: 2155

warnings: manga spoilers!!

(n.) the rush or the inexplicable joy one feels after seeing or experiencing something romantic

“Chocolate is the ingredient for love~!” you say after pouring what seems to be an entire bucketful of chocolate chips into your bowl.

Your friend Saeko has seen just about enough of your nonsensical chatter about baking, your boyfriend and your abundant love for both. Already exhausted from a recent scolding by the vice-principal, she decides that it’s better off to smile and nod rather than try to come up with a snarky remark for your innocent mania.

“T-That’s a lot of chocolate,” she blurts out. When she picks up her spatula from the bowl, the girl grumbles at the sight of a liquidy trail drizzling down the utensil. “Ahh geez, it’s not supposed to be like this, isn’t it? Katagiri-sensei’s going to fail me again...”

You smile and hand her a bowl of flour. “Don’t worry, Saeko-chan. Just add a bit more flour and you’re good to go! You can never go wrong with cookies.”

The halo above your head is nearly visible. Saeko swears she can even hear angels singing to her in the background as you mix away on your fragrant bowl of dough. You don’t even seem real—from your angelic grin down to your overwhelmingly flowery aura. It’s tough enough to imagine that you’d ever talk to her of all people, but to imagine you’d go for a guy who’s just as much of a thug...

Unthinkable! Saeko shakes her head. She’d thought you’d pulled a joke on her the first time you announced that you were dating... him. Udai Tenma, star of the Boys’ Volleyball Club, a red-hot beacon of undomesticated temper.

She’d always known you liked him—though which part of him you liked is somewhat still a mystery to her—and as much as Saeko wanted to protect you from those ruffians, that absolutely infatuated look in your eyes was too much to bear. And eventually, she succumbed to your incessant ambitions of high school romance.

“You’re a saint, dude,” she sighs longingly. “I don’t get how you’re still dating that guy. I’m not really one to say anything about this, but don’t you think Udai’s kind of a jerk with the way he treats you?”

You chuckle, like a sweet grandmother about to tell a nostalgic tale to her grandchildren.

“I suppose you can say that Tenma-kun is a bit shy. He likes to act tough and mighty when he’s around people, but he’s actually just a normal boyfriend with a very sweet tooth and a penchant for manga.”

Saeko scowls. “Normal’s normal, but you have to at least let him know that you have your limits too. I really can’t stand leaving the two of you alone, w-what if Udai breaks your heart, or worse—”

“Tanaka-san. If you have time for chatter back there, then surely, you’re finished with your cookies?” at the sound of the grouchy Home Economics teacher at the front of the class, Saeko quickly returns to her bowl in a sorry attempt to look busy.

Deciding to humor her interest, you lean towards her and whisper lowly. “I’ll be fine, Saeko-chan. He may not look like it, but Tenma-kun’s actually very cute.”

In her mind, it’s much easier to simply handcuff herself to you so that you’re under her watch at all times possible. But your gaze is nothing short of genuine—you really love this guy, and the fact that you’re still with him, assures Saeko even just a tiny bit that he might not be so bad after all... with you at least.

You’re already storming away in your little world of baking. It amuses your best friend whenever you’re off making your personal masterpieces (“‘Masterpiece’ is absolutely right!” she’d say while stuffing her mouth full of your mini tarts). Each and every one of your creations are whipped up with the utmost amount of love and care, and for just the right reasons, everyone’s been pestering you to set up a bakery after high school. Your regular patrons just happen to be the Karasuno Boys’ Volleyball Club—with the addition of the lively Coach Ukai who is rather fond of how much filling you put into your red bean buns.

As regular as regular can be, you’ve found yourself visiting the Volleyball Club clubroom after school every Wednesday to hand out your treats to not only your aloof boyfriend, but also to his friends, his coach and the prostrated manager who direfully needs a pick-me-up. And suddenly, you’re ‘Karasuno’s Cookie Goddess’.

“Ah, you’re making another batch, Y/N?” Saeko perks up when you split your dough in half.

“Yep!” you giggle, essentially a high school student drowning in love. “I want to make something special for Tenma-kun today.”

“... What’s the occasion? Is it his birthday or something?”

You shrug, face absolutely alight. “Nope, I just want to give him a surprise~”

══════ ⋆★⋆ ══════

Tenma isn’t exactly unapproachable. It’s just that people tend to avoid him at all costs. Perhaps you were just bold... or remarkably stupid, but if you hadn’t addressed him that day, life would’ve probably been drabber.

Your parents and your friends (with emphasis towards your overprotective Saeko-chan) had shown their unfiltered concern when the news of your relationship circulated like wildfire. What was the analogy they used, again?

“You’re like a rabid bridge troll and a rabbit! It doesn’t work!”  You could only laugh at their valiant efforts of a correlation... if they were really trying to make one. But after a few more reassuring pushes and awkward family dinners, they’ve come to be more lenient about your little ‘liaison’.

But you never feel like you have to worry when Tenma is around. In fact, when Tenma is around, you feel calm—even when he’s spouting off curses to a taller rival.

There’s a warmth unlike any other when he holds or kisses you. And though you’d have to drive him through hell and waters to say it out loud, you already know that every action he does for you is out of love. Words are material, it’s the action that counts, right?

“Sorry for the intrusion~!” you call out into the open doors of the Boys’ Volleyball Club’s space.

A flash of obnoxious yellow hair flashes before your eyes and suddenly, an imposingly tall  figure appears in front of you out of nowhere. “Cookie Goddess!”

“Good afternoon, Yukimura-kun,” you smile. “Is there only you right now?”

“I’m here too, Y/N-chan,” the lax-faced captain Tokito emerges from the room in the midst of zipping up his jacket. His eyes flicker towards the packages in your hands and a smile cracks on his face. “Ooh, chocolate chip cookies today~”

You quickly raise the fragrant bags of treats into their view, bringing in the remaining swamp of boys from the clubroom. Suddenly, the common hallway is blocked by an influx of starving teenagers who are rampaging on about your existence.

“So good...” Yukimura murmurs dreamily, mouth full of chocolate. “Man, anyone would be lucky to have you as their wife if you were to cook them these everyday.”

A brazen first-year with frosted tips elbow him and sighs. “Too bad you’re taken, huh, Y/N-chan-senpai? If it were me instead of him, I’d always make it a point that ‘Heeey... guess what my girlfriend made for me today~ Isn’t she the best—”

“Oi, brat. Whose girlfriend do you think you’re talking about?”

The gangle of boys freeze up simultaneously at the grouchy voice behind you (aside from Tokito, who’s yawning at the whole ordeal). Whipping around to the dark aura boring holes into your back, you immediately light up at Tenma’s presence.

“Tenma-kun~!” you launch at him with your arms wide open. You’re ready for some sort of swerve from him, so you make sure you protect his bag of cookies with your arm... You’ve learned this counter-attack the hard way, of course.

But what you don’t expect is that your boyfriend makes no move to avoid you at all.

“H-hey! Don’t just lunge at me like that, you idiot! What if you fell down and knocked your head open?” Ah, at least the embarrassed comment is there.

You can only smile at him kindly. From the edge of your eyes, you swear that you can see a light blush dusting his face as your boyfriend gains newfound interest in your shoes.

“Come with me for a while,” he finally grumbles, effectively breaking the silence between the both of you. Grabbing your hand, Tenma leads you down the little aluminium staircase, eliciting small grates from the steps below you and a mass of curious whispers from the group you’d just left behind.

“Hey, Udai-kun~” Tokito calls out, a lilt of roguery in his tone, “Make sure to get back in time for practice, okay? And keep Y/N-chan in one piece, won’t you? We can’t get another Cookie Goddess if you don’t.”

When he turns into a secluded corner away from the prying eyes of his teammates, you can hear him audibly huff and mutter something under his breath. As silence lingers between you, you nearly forget about the reason why you came to visit.

“I made some cookies for you, Tenma-kun,” you say to him, urging the neatly wrapped bundle into his hands. “I hope you like it.”

You can clearly see the hesitation in his eyes when he takes it in his hands. You can probably guess why.

(“Y/N, your skills with a knife are scary, dude,” Saeko grimaced as she watched you trail over the dough with the gleaming blade of your paring knife.

“Aaand... done!” you proudly wiped the sweat off your forehead. It would’ve been more helpful with a cookie cutter around, but you figured that it would’ve been more heartfelt otherwise.

‘Heartfelt’, you pondered on the word for a moment. Would this be too heartfelt for such a rag-tag person like Tenma? It would probably be better to go for something simpler, just like the other days...

Nah. You shook your head as you chucked the tray of heart-shaped cookies into the oven.)

You’re hoping for a shocked response from him, but Tenma only grumbles meekly. You brace yourself for another scolding for acting too chummy with him, or being too affectionate, or—

“You shouldn’t get too close with other guys.”

Wait.

Tenma crosses his arms, the curls of his hair falling gently over his forehead. His pink cheeks darken into a soft maroon. “If they found out you’re giving me this sort of special treatment, they’ll be all over you the next day, asking for it too... I don’t like it.”

The laugh that rises in your throat threatens to burst. What is this, you think. Your stomach hurt from the mere image of this innocent “delinquent” professing his jealousy for you. If he was like this all the time, wouldn’t that be an interesting change... Aah, your boyfriend really is cute, isn’t he?

A giggle escapes you and you watch him jolt in chagrin. “Tenma-kun, you’re so red.”

“I’m not!” he yells rather briskly, then shoots back at you. “You can’t say I’m red when you were all burning up as you were giving me these heart-shaped cookies.”

Touché. “I’m glad you like them, Tenma-kun.”

His gaze visibly softens up as you give him an angelic smile. “Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

At times like this, you really do see the boy who’d shyly confessed to you under the shade of the summer ginko tree. It wasn’t anything of a distant memory, it was just that Tenma’s usual demeanour and your unrelenting tolerance hindered the both of you from being completely outward with one another. Maybe something like this isn’t so bad after all.

“I-I have to go back to practice. You can go home by yourself, right?” your boyfriend clears his throat, urging you to leave.

Though you wished the moment would last a little longer, you know there are other countless shared opportunities with him. “Mm-hm! You do your best in practice, okay?”

He ruffles your hair and chuckles endearingly.

“Atta girl. Now go home before Tokito catches me getting all touchy-feely with you.”

Bidding him goodbye, you sullenly trudge away from your boyfriend (and his friends waving back at you from the balcony). Then the idea strikes you.

Special cookies ought to have a special flair to them, no?

Cupping your hands around your mouth like a megaphone, you shout, loud enough for his teammates to hear. “I love you, Tenma-kun~!”

And the crowd goes wild.

══════ ⋆★⋆ ══════

From: Tenma-kun ♡

Subject: Untitled

(15:58) Now Tokito’s all over me thanks to you, making me do extra diving drills. You better make more of those cookies as compensation, idiot. Be prepared for it.

(15:58) Btw, don’t forget to look both ways when you cross the street on the way home. If you get into an accident, you won’t be able to apologize to me properly.

(15:58) ... Hey.

(16:00) I love you too.

[thesilvervixens]

Hi! I'm so happy to see a new fe3h blog 💚! The fandom is sort of dying down and with it writing blogs... I was wondering if you could do anything Felix? I love those situational things but I can't come up with anything sorry...

⇾ sfw / tw: none

⇾ reqs: *breakdances* 

a/n: i’m alive, somewhat! i’m so sorry i took so long to respond to this, and i really hope you like it. this is my first time writing felix in a long time and it probably shows xox anyways if you have any more requests feel free to send em!  - marie 

Even though you told him not to worry about it, Felix was no fool. He could see the sag in your shoulders and the way you closed your eyes and sighed when you thought no one was around. You were upset, there was no denying it. The frustrating part was that you wouldn’t tell him what had you so uncharacteristically quiet. He didn’t press- no, he valued his own privacy enough to know it better than to invade yours. But, that didn’t stop him from voicing his concerns to unwilling bystanders in typical Felix fashion.

Annette was the one to offer advice, while Mercedes solidified the suggestion with concrete action. Action. Felix was a man of action. He was pragmatic- a realist, not an idealist. A warrior at heart, he envisioned each goal as an obstacle and overcame it swiftly and ruthlessly. The goal was to make you feel better, the objective being you were sad. He could overcome this, just as he’d overcome countless battles and sparring partners.

But he couldn’t bake a damn cake.

He knew you liked sweets, and even though the mere scent of sugar made his stomach twist, he pushed aside his disdain and decided your happiness was more important than his temporary disgust. He went to the kitchens early, so early that the hustle and bustle of breakfast preparations had yet to even begin. Mercedes had given him a simple recipe for a simple, small cake, explaining chipperly that it was a beginner’s recipe as if to insinuate Felix couldn’t handle something as simple as following directions. 

Well, he couldn’t. He could measure flour and whisk eggs, sure, but when it came to adding the right amount of sugar and leveling the pans with the right amount of batter Felix was greatly lost. He was halfway through pouring an undoubtedly over-sweetened glob of batter into a pan when he realized this was ridiculous, he was very much done with this, and if this didn’t put a smile on your stupidly cute face he’d set fire to the entire monastery.  

Fortunately, the battle came to an end, and while Felix wasn’t sure if he won just yet he did know the small, simple cake in front of him was proof of his efforts. 

“This better be worth it.” He grumbled to no one in particular as he packed the cake as tidily as he could and left the kitchen. It was much later in the morning; people were already entering the dining hall to start preparing breakfast. He was quick to hurry out of the dining hall and make way to the dormitories. He got lucky this time- if anyone he knew caught him struggling with frosting the embarrassment would have killed him. He was going to make a beeline for your room, hand you this cake, and be completely done with-

“Hey, Felix! You’re up earlier than usual, whatcha got there?” Goddammit. He stopped, five feet away from your room, and turned slowly on his heels to glare daggers at Sylvain. 

“None of your business. Now leave me alone.” The taller boy wasn’t fazed by his harsh tone at all, and instead turning his attention to the pastry Felix was trying so hard to mask from view.

“Is that a cake? Don’t you hate sweets?” 

“It’s not for me, you fool. Actually, it’s none of your business. Go away.” In hindsight, he should have just prefaced with “go away”, because the brief exposition was enough to put a sly smile on Sylvain’s face.

“It’s for (y/n), isn’t it? I never took you for the romantic type,” Sylvain snickered and Felix resisted the urge to drop the cake and strangle him, “did you make it yourself? That’s actually really sweet-”

“Shut up before I throw this cake at you,” his face was beginning to heat up, “Now for the last time, go away-” Before he could finish he was cut off by a familiar voice. Your familiar voice. 

“Hey Felix, Sylvain. What’s going on?” Suddenly the room felt a lot smaller and his face felt a lot warmer. He cast a scowl at Sylvain, a warning to go, and fortunately, his friend decided to have mercy on him and take his leave.

“I was actually just leaving, I’m starving. I’ll catch you guys later, yeah?” With one last shit-eating grin he was gone, leaving you and Felix alone in the corridor. 

“Oh, uh, bye? That was weird.” You turned your attention to Felix and his irritation was replaced with apprehension.

 “I’m surprised to see you this early, usually you’re training right now.” Your eyes flickered to the cake in his hands, eyebrows instantly furrowing in confusion, and he interjected before you could ask him anything stupid. 

“I came to give you this. Here.” He held the cake out stiffly, looking at anything but you as you gingerly took the dessert from his hands. 

“This… this is for me? Why?”

“Because you’ve been sulking all week, and I thought stuffing your face with sweets might lighten your mood.” His words may have seemed harsh, but his tone was laced with a clear concern for your wellbeing. When your face softened and you smiled in response he felt his chest tighten in that familiar feeling that made his palms sweaty and his face grow hot. 

“Oh Felix, thank you,” you smiled warmly as you inspected the cake, “did you make this yourself?” 

“...Yes.” He couldn’t lie even if he wanted to. The plain, white frosting and minimal decorations (one lone strawberry) were enough for anyone to tell it was his craftsmanship. You were quiet for a moment after that, and Felix was half prepared for you to outright laugh at his shoddy work. He already had one foot turned and ready to make a swift retreat when you began... sniffling? 

“Are- Are you crying? Is it that bad?” He questioned, slightly alarmed. You laughed, sniffling again and wiping the small tears that had formed in your eyes. 

“No, it’s not that, I promise!” You looked down at the cake fondly, “It’s not bad at all, it’s perfect. I just can’t believe you went through all this trouble for me. I know how much you hate sweets...”  You trailed off sheepishly. He scoffed.

“It was nothing, so don’t worry about it. Besides,” his face softened and for a brief moment you could’ve sworn you saw him smile, “if it means putting a smile on your face I suppose it was worth it.” You were half tempted to tease him for his sudden softness, but you decided against it in fear of ruining the moment. Instead, you grinned and leaned forward to kiss his cheek, ignoring his sputtering protests and heading in the opposite direction.

“Come on, let’s go to the gazebo! We can have tea while I eat my cake!” As Felix watched you walk off without him, back to your chipper self, he shook his head. 

“Whatever.” Oh well. If it meant your happiness, he’d bake a thousand more cakes.

[goose-books]

& while i am posting things today. some more maxwriting, specifically two mini-fanfictions for yves. @yvesdot​ ’s WIP the one and only universe of kay rainier (would recommend! arguments to lovers! he/him wlw! interdimensional (?) shenanigans!) one of which also features an OC i've mentioned a few times on this blog but done historically very little with.

it’s occurred to me in my moment of posting that neither of these pieces have titles. oh well.

THE FIRST ONE

you ought to send yves. some bingo prompts. anyway, i sent them kay + daemons, and then immediately realized i had ideas and thoughts about that, too. so i wrote my own version. unlike theirs, this is vaguely set in the HDM universe, which is funny because i haven’t read HDM and learned everything i know from waya vivji, a single war and peace fanfiction, and also wikipedia just before i wrote it. the notable context here is that daemons are usually the “opposite sex” of their humans, and if i got that wrong do not tell me because i am embarrassed.

Kay is a precocious child; she is twelve years old when her daemon settles. Chesire is a sleek dark mahogany, a ferruginous hawk with a wickedly curved beak and eyes that glitter like beads. He is also male. This, for the Rainiers, is not done; even the absent Ariel, despite his eccentricities, had a properly gendered daemon. It unsettles Kay in a way she will not place for many years; still, as soon as she registers her disappointment (for it must be disappointment, surely; nothing more), she’s awash in guilt.

“How lovely,” she tells him, stroking his glossy new feathers, keeping her voice low less to keep out her father and more because it is only polite. Cheshire bobs his head and flutters his wings and seems, very slightly, to preen. He must be able to sense her uncertainty, the subdued flatness to her voice, but he is a Rainier as well; the polite thing is to ignore it, and he does.

“How curious,” Father says, stroking Fauntleroy’s velvet ears.

“Not unheard of,” the dormouse says from her seat in his breast pocket. Constantine inclines his head slightly; he does not deign to offer more.

/

When the Neighborly enters the house the jackal stalks at his heel, ears pricked at attention, wet black nose gleaming, mouth crooked open in a canine grin. With it comes a distinct smell — not unpleasant so much as it is unbalancing, an earthy scent, filling the foyer as its claws click on the floor. Like his clothes, it is black, head to toe. They aren’t usually. Kay wonders if it’s coincidence, if perhaps he dyes its fur so it will match.

She thinks of it as such — it — because to be frank she is not sure what to make of Atlas, and what to assume about his daemon. During the customary introductions, Cheshire perches atop Kay’s shoulder, and Fauntleroy emerges from her pocket to whisk up to Father’s collar and cling to the fabric to study the Neighborly. He can’t stay quite still. His hands twitch at his sides. He shifts his weight. The jackal paces maddening circles around the room, eyeing the dark walls and the fine wooden furniture, too dignified to lower its head and sniff but not too good to cast judgment without speaking. Every time it passes Kay in its slow inexorable orbit, Cheshire’s claws tighten on her coat.

“It’s a pleasure, Atlas,” Constantine says stiffly, extending a hand to shake with an expression that suggests he’d rather have it removed.

Atlas shakes, grinning easily, a looseness to his motions, and then he tilts his head and says, “Anubis.” In a moment the jackal’s at his side, curling around the backs of his legs to turn its wet smile on Kay’s father. It’s too large; that’s what she decides. How does he take it anywhere? Why hasn’t it learned to behave? Unless this is his goal: to part rooms, to announce his presence as soon as he steps through the threshold.

“Anubis,” she says, the first time she and Atlas are alone. “Like the god?” Atlas and Anubis; it is the sort of half-joke she can appreciate.

Anubis looks up at its name. Atlas looks at it. “I don’t know,” he says. “It was my sister’s idea.” He looks to Cheshire, who has settled near Kay’s inkwell to reorganize her pens. “And this is…”

“Cheshire.”

“Cheshire,” Atlas repeats, piercing glinting as his eyebrow quirks.

“When I was younger, I thought he would be a cat.”

“I thought she’d be a crow. Probably better this way. Crows are poser birds.” Anubis snorts at that, a sound both doggish and human.

“She is… she, then,” Kay says carefully.

“Oh, yeah. Apparently that’s weird.” Atlas leans back in Kay’s chair until the front legs leave the ground.

“Is it,” Kay says.

Atlas’s eyes flit around her face, like he knows what she’s asking; his smirk doesn’t lessen. “Well, women have male daemons, right? Ask Cheshire.”

Kay and Cheshire look at each other. Cheshire fluffs his feathers and says, “This is dull.”

Kay is less certain. She does not smile at Atlas, but some of the edge has smoothed from her voice. “I should like to watch you explain it to my father.”

“If he could take it,” Atlas says. “What’s the mouse’s fucking name again?”

Cheshire steps back and forth, feathers ruffling, until Kay sets a hand out to still him, gentle, comforting. “Fauntleroy.”

“Christ,” Atlas says. “Bless you.” When he catches Kay stiffening, he relents a little, letting the chair clatter back to the floor. “Fits the vibe, I guess.”

“As yours fits you,” says Kay, making it as uncomplimentary as she can.

“Guess my soul’s black,” Atlas says cheerily. He balls up a piece of paper and tosses it to Anubis, who, flopped across the floor, doesn’t move. “Not the weirdest thing about us.”

“Well,” Kay says, “I think it would be rather unfair for me to talk about oddities,” and she takes a small victory in the look they share: not friendship, not fondness, but something like an understanding, reached in the quiet moment before Cheshire hands her another pen and she resumes her work.

THE SECOND ONE

this one’s a bit older but i never posted it until now, at yves.’s urging! i think i was doing... camp nano last year? or something. and couldn’t think of what to write. or maybe i couldn’t focus on my project because i was thinking about my other project, the butch4butch hamlet retelling i still haven’t written. to which yves. said, “write kay x your lesbian hamlet character,” to which i said, “you don’t think i will, but i will,” and i did. so really this is yvesmax crossover fic.

It is annoying, Holden’s habit of dropping by whenever she likes. This can probably be attributed to the fact that Holden, herself, is annoying. Kay can only adjust the items on her desk (pens, mainly) so many times; she is caught up in an aggravating state of waiting but also not waiting, and she does not care for that.

Just as she thinks so, there’s a knock at the front door.

Holden doesn’t ring the doorbell anymore. She did that the first time and Kay came down the stairs a few seconds too late to find Father staring at the creature in his front hall, looking like he didn’t know whether he should be put out or concerned. “I think the earrings got him,” Holden said later, on Kay’s bed, tapping the crosses hanging inverted from her ears. Kay’s opinion was that it was all of her, from the messy post-buzz hair to the propensity for suits to the Doc Martens to the way Holden leans on any available surface.

She opens the door and Holden is leaning against the doorframe. Which looks a little more awkward coupled with whatever she’s carrying under her arm.

“Hi,” she says.

Kay blinks slowly.

“It is late,” she says, spinning on her heel and heading for the stairs. Behind her, she hears the quiet click of Holden closing the door. The grandfather clock in the front hall is ticking toward eleven.

“I never get over how weird this place is.” When she glances back, Holden is peering into the nearest glass cabinet. “Like a little dollhouse.”

“Thank you,” Kay says stiffly. She cannot decide whether she is irritable.

“And this is coming from someone whose parents were devoted to taxidermy.” Holden follows her up the stairs, hands shoved into the pockets of her suit jacket, looking entirely too comfortable here, and Kay decides that she is irritable after all.

“I do not know what you suppose your business is here,” she says. “Especially as it is almost an hour past ten.”

Holden shrugs.

“Do not shrug at me.”

Holden opens her mouth as if to speak, then casts a glance behind her. There’s no one in the darkened hallway; Father is in his office. Still, Holden waits for Kay to shut her bedroom door.

“I know I’m late,” she says, slouching back against it. “Sorry. I lost track of time in the bookstore.”

Kay blinks. “You are late to see me because you went to the bookstore,” she intones.

She says nothing as Holden withdraws the books from under her arm and extends them. “I really wanted to find Carmilla for you,” she says. “Like, the oldest print version I could find.”

It certainly looks old. Kay purses her lips. “I own Carmilla.”

“I know. But, like… it’s vintage.” Holden attempts one-handed jazz hands. “I have a sentence in my notes app from six months ago that just says carmilla but like the old edition.” She shuffles the stack of books. “And then I sat down for — look, I swear I was trying to be timely about it. Trying to be punctual.” She pops the P. “But time isn’t real and I read two chapters of Pride and Prejudice and I don’t know if you own that but it feels like the kind of thing you’d find sexy.” Her smile glitters. “And then — I know The Catcher in the Rye isn’t your thing. But I wrote in this one, so.”

Kay reaches out, very carefully, to take the books. She does own Pride and Prejudice, actually, but she still feels a pang. She flips through The Catcher in the Rye and is met with scrawls of black-ink handwriting, filling up the margins and underlining passages.

“Thank you,” she says, very softly, and moves to set the books on her desk. “You didn’t have to… get me anything.”

“I like knowing that my parents’ money is fueling homosexual agendas,” Holden says pleasantly. When Kay turns around, Holden catches her hand and steps in closer, showing her teeth in a smile. “But I’ll try to be on time from now on.”

“As you should,” Kay says, pulling Holden a few inches closer.

Holden raises a hand to caress Kay’s cheek. “That said,” she says in a low voice, “now that I’ve — what did you say. Now that I’ve fulfilled my business here, I can think of a few things we could do. Unless it’s too late.”

Against her will, Kay smiles.

“I suppose we can extend your stay a little longer,” she says, and their lips meet.