#i just want this monster out of my drafts because it makes scrolling through them impossible

[preciadosbass]

21/8/24 [1X DIY <collage> — technically a draft from yesterday as it was posted on a schedule, key + significant photos at end]

wow, i’ve been doing this for a while now. i woke up at just before eight and listened to frank iero’s ‘new’ single and oh my fucking god its so good. i love frank sm. i scrolled through my tumblr feed until 8:40 when i finally got dressed. today i’m going to adventure island [a theme park] with this person i know. i wish i could call her a friend, but she makes fun of me too much for me to count and i overall just don’t feel comfortable with her. however she’s alright to me occasionally, like today she seemed happy to be around me. i only see her as my mum is bestfriends with her mum, but my mum dosent believe the way she usually acts towards me.

today i got dressed into my silent hill shirt, black ripped skinny jeans, knee high converse, two spiked cuffs [one with longer spikes and without a third row], mcr bracelet, panic! at the disco bracelet, sleeping with sirens bracelet, diy can tab bracelet, and a diy beaded bracelet. along with my kellin quinn necklace, a taxidermy scorpion necklace, a taxidermy raccoon tail and a silver studded belt across the right side of my hip/thigh.] [because i was anticipating cold weather as the park is directly behind the beach, and it’s the warmest outfit i have. and yes, i copied this from mondays journal, shh]

i listened to my main playlist instead of a cd while putting everything on as i added three more full albums to it after listening to ‘this song is a curse…’ [illuminaudio - chiodos, discovering the waterfront - silverstein [[im surprised this wasn’t in it already]], and wires…and the concept of breathing - a skylight drive.] and then went outside to see boris at 9:30 after straightening my hair + putting on eyeliner. like always, i’d already stood in the doorway and said goodmorning upon waking up, but i wanted to sit by him/talk/and cuddle. i didn’t manage to be out with him for long as R [that person im going out with] and her mum/stepdad pulled up on the drive. so i greeted them and started packing my bag on the kitchen table.

while i was doing that, R handed me a monster original and started speaking about how she dosent know what one i like, but i’ve never had any other flavour as i dont generally go out and buy food/drink. it was really sweet of her and it proves that i guess she’s getting more friendly with me. just a few months ago she wouldn’t let me speak about much/would make fun of me constantly/etc. i’m glad that someone thinks of me and that anyone would do such a thing. i hope we do end up being friendly in a friend way, if that makes sense. like i personally consider a friend someone you can trust and open up to, and i hope we get to that point. i think what’s been preventing it is the distance between where we live.

anyway, in my bag i had: my camera [i bring it everywhere], two battery packs [one’s always in there & out of battery], a lead for the battery pack[s], a coke zero, my monster energy, my wallet with my disability access card, my skullcandy headphones, my phone, a tiny bag because i’ve been losing/having my earrings break a lot recently, my safe food, a few band pins that have fallen of my backpack, hand sanitiser, a safety pin [i don’t even know why], and a bat plushie. its not even a comfort plushie, he’s just permanently in my bag since i got him at another theme park, chessington, at the vampire ride. once i’d got everything ready to leave, i said goodbye to boris and me and R’s family set off.

while we were in the car, R suggested making a blend [again, she was acting more friendly which is super nice] but it didn’t work. then i had the idea of adding each others playlists to one another and putting it on shuffle, but that didn’t work either as her spotify was only playing songs off her playlist. either way, it was nice she thought of it. we ended up listening to our own playlists on the way to the theme park. i listened to: shoot the girl first, the used, signal the escape, fall out boy, falling in reverse, patrick stump, and my chemical romance. also on the way there, we saw an older woman with cat face paint on and hair ties that made her look like she had cat ears. i wonder what the occasion was, or if there was an occasion. just something i randomally remembered about the drive.

we arrived at 10 and got in not even five minutes later. we walked over to the stall where they sort out your tickets/passes and R’s mum activated my disability access card. it was super embarrassing because they had to take a picture of me, and it took ages, but everything eventually went through and worked. the first actual thing we did was find a table and put all of our stuff down. i met J and A. J is R’s family friend, and J’s mums bestfriend. i’m not too sure who A is to the both of them, but he went around with us. he’s 19, so i thought it’d be a little awkward, but when we started walking around to the other side of the park to this ride called green scream, i realised it wasn’t going to be.

its a kids ride, but for some reason its enjoyable. unfortunately the photo thingy wasn’t open so i didn’t get to see what we all looked like, but oh well. the next ride we went on was rage, one out of two of the bigger and ‘scarier’ roller coasters. i used to not mind rage, but over the years it’s become incredibly rough and your head hurts for at least half an hour upon getting off. its a shame because it completely prevents it from being an enjoyable ride, but it looks really smooth. we got on and set off up the vertical lift hill, which is honestly the best part, because your head can’t start hurting yet. then you go down this drop which is quite similar to thorpe park’s saw the ride, just less steep. the entire time the ride was running, my scorpion necklace was tied around my eyes. i was scared itd come off because i’ve already had one break without me knowing and they’re really cool/expensive to buy as you need to make sure their ethical taxidermy.

but, it did make the photo look silly. when i first saw it, i thought i somehow forgot to take my glasses of and didn’t notice. i did take a picture of the ride photo but got told off which was really embarrassing lmaoo, there was someone else taking a photo though and nobody said anything so i don’t know what was going on with that. [photo at end] i’m not too sure in what order i went on the rides beyond this point of the day, but i’ll carry on speaking about it anyways. afterwards, we went back to the table to have some snacks and talk a little to J + R’s mum. once we’d done, we went back round to where rage is and went on the blue [outside] water slide as it was boiling and it didn’t matter whether we got wet or not. there isn’t an access queue for this ‘ride’ so we queued up with everyone else and got round to having a turn at around 12:35.

A wanted to go on the green [inside] water slide so we split up once we got to the actual queues for each slide. it went long before me and R got on our raft. i went on the front and she placed herself at the back. we got absolutely soaking wet and the photo of us was so cool because our facial expressions were questionable and you could see the full length of my converse in it. i didn’t take a photo though, as the person behind the stand looked intimidating. afterwards we went back to the table and then went on the indoor ‘scary’ ride. which isn’t scary at all - mind you, it’s another kids ride - but the props and things are cool. it’s one of those rides where you go around in little carts and as you look around there’s holograms/animatronics/figures except it’s mostly monster/clown themed.

while waiting to be loaded onto the carts, my necklace started glowing [photo at end cuz why not] its kinda embarrassing to actually get on the ride. when you have an access pass, you get on first via the exit. but because of how the ride is designed, you have to get on - then they run it around a small bit of track while everyone looks at you. and then the others queuing get on. its so awkward knowing everyone’s staring at you slowly going by 😭. it was too dark to take any proper photos but i took a blurry photo of one of the larger figures because it glows and i think it’s cool. [photo at end] the last time i went to adventure island and on this ride with my mum + prevision, the ride faulted at a small hill and punctured a literal hole in my mums arm, and bruised both of mine, but today it went down it smoothly. thank god.

after getting off, we went on a sky drop. there was another one that had just been made which we planned to go on after. there was a problem with R and how small the seat was so she had to switch to one two seats away from me. the ride itself is pretty tame, but i have a weak stomach so it didn’t feel great lmaoo // from what i remember, afterwards we went round to the rage exit to get a time to come back and get on. it’s hard to explain but that’s how the ride access works. you go up to rides, ask for a time to come back, they add on how long they think people have been queuing in the general queue, and then you come back after X amount of time. so quite a lot of the time me, R and A were waiting at the table/going on smaller rides to pass time.

so, we went back to the table [J & A left] and came back to rage after around 40 minutes + the walk to the ride. i didn’t really fancy going on again, and A didn’t come altogether, but R wanted to do it did for her, although my head was still hurting from the last time we went on. this time, i was smart enough to put my necklace in my pocket. even going up the lift hill gave me more of a headache. and because my neck was still weak i couldn’t really keep my head back to the headrests, so my head was banging on the shoulder restraints. my vision also kept on going completely white. we both felt really shaken up afterwards so we went back to the table and everyone had something to eat. me and R decided to go on some tame rides to calm our sickness. it’s weird that i felt so bad afterwards, im completely used to going on big rollercoasters like the smiler, saw, etc, it’s just so rough.

we went on this mini ferris wheel and it was freezing. it took ages for everyone to be loaded on and while the people at the bottom are getting on, your stuck at the top above the sea, where you get all the wind. behind us was a guy wearing an exodus shirt which was cool, R didn’t think so though. she was making fun of him. carrying on, the ride eventually started and it was actually really calming. [photo at end] you could see the sea and the rest of the park nicely from up there. at this point i was getting more and more exhausted because i forgot i had a monster and i don’t ever wake up as early as what i did and then be full on all day. it finished at 3:10, and then we got the time for the ride beside it. R had been on before, but i hadn’t. i say that, but i definitely have - i just dont remember. the worker said ten minutes so we sat at the table [i rested my head in my hands and nearly fell asleep], and came back at 3:22. it was once again a kids ride, but i genuinely think it was faster than rage. and that has a loop. it accelerated so quickly i genuinely thought the controls had gone haywire.

but, this made it fun. it was the best ride i went on. while we were at the table beforehand, we decided on that being our last ride, so once it finished we packed everything up. we left the official premises at 4 and then got the adventure island fish and chips outside at 4:10. i didn’t have much because i couldn’t check the calories and i could already imagine how bad they were. i didn’t want to seem rude though, as R’s mum had paid half 70% of the price. while we ate, R’s stepdad walked to the car to drive back round to the seaside where we were sitting and pick us up. i noticed a lot of seagulls sitting on the rocks around the kid area of the sea so i took a picture of them with my camera. [photo at end]

i couldn’t zoom in as much as i wanted to because my lens was switched over from the normal setting. i just took it for the fun of it so it’s in no way how i usually take photos, the lighting on the rocks isn’t bad though. he got there at 4:30 and me and R listened to our playlists on the way back again. what came on shuffle on the way home was: patrick stump, panic! at the disco, silverstein, mccafferty, and get scared. we arrived back at my house at 5:40 and i cuddled boris for however long hopefully wouldn’t be considered disrespectful to guests. i also realised that he’d finally had his itch treatment yay!!

i asked my parents how he got along with it and according to my parents, he was vocal, but not agressive out of stress like he usually is. i’m so proud of him. then i went upstairs to my sisters room because that’s where R was. she was just on her phone so i sat on the floor and organised the photos taken today into picture collages. i stayed up there until they all left at 7:40. R was getting mad at me for sitting next to her anyways. once they’d started heading home, i went out to boris, showed my dad some band stuff, and then wrote a lot of this journal. i did this until 9:30 where i went outside properly with boris. i did go and see him every now and again while journaling but not for extended periods as my phone literally wont charge. i came back in at 2:10. while i was out there i noticed there are baby ones of those generously sized spiders that hang out on the driveway at night.

once i was back in the warm, i asked my parents if they had any receipts for my collage as i only had my coraline 3D receipts + a small cutout from the card that came with my insect stickers. it just shows each individual one so you know which ones you’ve got. my dad had an asda/primark/petrol receipts and my mum gave me the leftover paperwork/receipts from adventure island. i finished at 10:45 because it took me ages to work out how i wanted the collage to be set out and whatnot. either way i like the colour combo. [photo at end] after finishing, i went out to the kitchen to sit with boris and came back into my room at 11:20 because my phone ran out again.

i wrote even more of this journal and went upstairs to ask my parents questions about boris at 11:35. around this time, my head started hurting a concerning amount so i took some meds. im aware i sound so dramatic right now but you don’t understand how torturous that ride is until you’ve experienced it and the feeling afterwards. my eyes kept on going cross eyed and parts of my vision were cutting out. i do know i’m not the only one who feels like this after rage, though, because while we were waiting to go on for the first time a woman came off and she could barely walk afterwards. however don’t know whether my eating or sleep contributed/s to how bad my head is feeling. i finished my questions at 1, wrote a few paragraphs of this, and then said goodnight to boris.

i didn’t tell him about my day as my parents told me to tell him tomorrow so my head wouldn’t get worse so i gave him a little spoiler and cleaned the dog food can tabs in the sink. im going to somehow make a flower looking chain charm out of them. i did this while speaking to boris/apologising for going out, things like that. id shown him my collage earlier so i took some different shaped can tabs, the big dog can ones, my collage book, and a j20 bottlecap into my room to put into their assigned places for when i make stuff out of them. [photo at end]

then i went back out to boris and finished saying goodnight to him. because i cant stroke around where his ointment was applied [his neck] its quite a struggle to cuddle him the way i usually would, but i eventually finished at 2:24. i was supposed to be super quick as i wasn’t telling him about today, even though i always wish i could be longer. i then gave him his last meal of the day and he went in my room 3x times while i was awake. my head was still in excruciating pain despite the paracetamol so i went to sleep at 2:50 after finishing this journal. i kept on falling asleep and letting go of my phone/almost deleting paragraphs at a time. so i hope all of this still makes sense.

🗝️ — boris/my cat, prevision/keyworker i have to see instead of being taken back into mainstream education, questions about boris/i ask my parents questions about my cat to verify he's okay + will be okay in the morning. its a compulsive thing and i'm hopefully going to be tested for OCD in the future.

have a good day/night O_o

[umbane]

she looks upon kayn's face plastered to posters and billboards across the city and presses her lips together in a thin frown as a chilling ache creeps into her chest. for years, morgana has dreamed of ways to rebuild a bridge long since burned under a deluge of gasoline and undying flames that, perhaps for a moment, waned but never ceased. so many unhealed wounds that haven't yet had a chance to scab over into fading scars... just when does it end?

morgana realizes she never trade numbers with kayn again, and a part of her withers and wilts until she remembers the one saving grace: instagram. it took a moment, but she finally found his profile. she battled with herself for the entire ride back to her home, tapping away message after message only to delete everything all over again. she stumbled into her home and collapsed on the sofa, sighing dejectedly before giving in to the final draft.

Kayn. I mean it. I really hate the way we left things. I tried reaching out, over and over, but you must've blocked my number, or something. Whatever. That's neither here nor there anymore. Come over so we can talk. Just us. No crazy party, none of the guys. Just you and me.

she wants all of them to bury the hatchet, but she doesn't want to risk arguments and screaming matches if the entirety of eclipse showed up. she isn't risking it. not now.

HEARTSTEEL is big. More than big, it's everywhere. All their names in one place made a bigger splash (in his opinion) than True Damage ever could, even with Akali in their ranks. It's as exhilarating as it is terrifying, because Kayn knows what it feels like to fall from great heights, and he's never been to a height like this before.

And on his heels, always, always, always, is the fear of failure. The monsters of his past. The memory of them.

He remembers this excitement from ECLIPSE. He remembers when they started getting big, when they sold out for the first time, when it felt like it was all finally coming together.

And he remembers how it felt to lose all that, too. That's the part that makes him scared to grab his success, lest it burn him again.

Kayn's notifications have always been full, ever since he swore not to look at them any more after waking up on Zed's couch with the worst hangover in his life, too many hours after spiralling down through the messages and comments on his account — he's toxic, he's washed up, his music was never that good anyway, ECLIPSE is better off without him — it was all too damn much.

But he's started again recently, and it's not all bad. The haters get lost between the diehards — I KNEW Kayn would make a comeback soon — and new fans — tell me how i just learned about him TODAY? — so they don't sting so much.

Until they do.

Her name appears on his screen and Kayn stops his scrolling, black-painted thumb hovering midair as his chest squeezes, tight with anxiety he thought he killed off years ago. He sees the preview — Kayn, I mean it. I really hate ... — and all he can think of is all the things she must hate — his behaviour, his success, him. But he touches the message anyways, opens it up, reads it once, then again.

It does nothing to help his fucking anxiety.

Why does Morgana want to talk, after all this time? What could they possibly have to say to each other that hasn't been screamed across the room already? That hasn't been spat out in the times they've encountered each other since then? That hasn't been posted online before Kayn deleted every sign he ever lived?

He types out something angry — it starts out with WHY? and spirals out of control before he deletes it all. He takes a walk and leaves his phone behind, spinning his tires on all the things he wants to say, all the ways their conversation could go. He comes home. He has a shot of vodka — just one — and a smoke, then settles on the shortest message he can, giving himself no runway to lose control again.

WHEN?

[sio-writes]

Tagged by @menagerie-of-monsters Thank you so much!

I tag any and everyone who wants to do this!

Five Things I Never Tire of Writing:

1. Dialoue - I adore characterization through dialogue and how you learn about a character through their interactions with others. It’s usually how I’ll start a scene if I don’t have any exposition in mind, or how I’ll move things along if they start to feel slow. Arguments, shooting the shit, banter, joking: Good dialogue makes my brain go brrrrr.

2. Small intimate moments - I love writing both, but here I mean the non-spicy kind (because I’m a huge romantic at heart.) This is a massive topic but my favorite are ones that you’d see in the montage section of a romantic movie-- slow dancing, inconsequential gifts, knowing someone’s food order, pulling a blanket over them when they’re sleeping. Love that shit. Delicious.

3. Inner monologue - Specifically getting to make and refine one. Since I mostly write in first-person, this is another big category. After I have a framework ready, getting to fill in all the nooks and crannies with emotions and reactions is super fun, and especially just starting out it I can play with a character’s inner voice and give them a personality. I’m working on making my characters all sound unique so they don’t blend together.

4. Descriptions - This one falls under the inner monologue section but it sticks out to me because it’s another way to get your character to feel like a person instead of something flat. What they notice and why they notice it is something I ask myself when combing through my WIPs, but I do admit I probably have a bit of work to do for the reader’s (ie you guys) benefit for Theater of Mind. A character might not make note that the wolf they’re talking to has gray fur, but I’m sure that’s a detail you’d all want! Lol

5. Foreplay - It’s prevalent in some of my old writing (WIPs and Drafts that shall never see the light of day, lol) but when writing spice it always took a while to get to actual intercourse, I’d write so much beforehand I’d be rereading it going “okay, let’s get on with it /scrolls another three pages/” but it’s just so much fun! Maybe I’m a tease of an author or it’s the gray-ace in me, lol, but I still love all the build up, all the opportunities for good dialogue or those small intimacies I mentioned before. I’m not a PWP type author (and there’s nothing wrong with people who are), I just always have to have some form of emotional stakes or it doesn’t feel...enough to me. Like I don’t have enough material to write about and it doesn’t hit hard enough, which is why Sacrifice has turned into a monster. Anyway, more times than I can count have my characters taken so long to actually do the do, and I had to hit them gently with a newspaper to get back on track, like an impatient director.

[brownjet-archive]

smuggled love {2}

pairing: bellamy blake x reader

summary: as (y/n) and bellamy continue to clash heads, an easy-ish yet strained bond forms between them. surviving just became a lot more difficult.  

wc: slightly less than 15.5k

warnings: have you watched the show?? Yeah, it’s like that; pain, blood, swearing, death, reader cries a lot and I have a limited vocabulary

an: takes place immediately where part 1 took off, so the first 1.5k words are literally before the first three minutes of the ep, and I fudged with the timeline a little but i’m too tired to fix it. shoutout to @pinkypiesjournal​, @mostbeautifulbroomstick, and @spiderboytotherescue for beta reading!

based of of The 100 episode Earth Kills (1x03)

TAGS AND READ MORE ON MOBILE MAY NOT BE WORKING

given that it’s 15k words and tumblr might not put on a read more i’m so sorry

“So, how much medicine can we use?” Clarke asked, and your hand went to your pocket, fishing out the bottle of painkillers, tossing it over to her. She rattled it, trying to gain a feel for how full it was, before popping the lid open, seeing that the seal was still on.

“One bottle of five hundred.” You said, watching as she examined the bottle. “It’s just acetaminophen.” You informed, as she popped the lid back on, tossing the bottle back to you. You caught it with one hand and placed it on top of the medicine crate, leaning against the crate in a way that you weren’t sitting but were nearly sitting. “And it’s all I could get.”

You stood up, lifting the crate with some difficulty, even if there wasn’t a necessarily large amount of medicine for a hundred people, it was still relatively heavy. You plopped the crate down in front of her and Bellamy, opening it, to reveal that there were a few complete first aid kids, a stack of reusable bandages, and, the few stitching supplies you were able to get.

You saw two very different looks flash over both of their faces, despite the same impressed look. Clarke was a bit in awe, though also looked very anxious, whereas Bellamy looked both angry and impressed.

“Where the hell did you get this?” He demanded, and you rolled your eyes at him.

“You know about Nygel?” You asked, a cocky smirk on your face as they both nodded. “I’m way better than her.” You said, not wanting to explain how and where, knowing that what you said would mean more anyways.

Clarke stayed silent, and in your peripheral you saw her expression become more worried, and she open her mouth as if to begin to speak, before closing it, repeating that several times.

“It’s not enough, right?” You asked, so that she wouldn’t have to say it, to which a sad smile creeped onto her face as she nodded stiffly.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have this, it’s just…” She trailed off.

“Not a lot.” You said, nodding in understanding, despite the pit settling in your stomach, a lingering sense that you could’ve gotten more, despite knowing that you couldn’t have.

“So, which crate we gonna take out first?” Bellamy asked, and you could hear the annoyance in his voice, boredom seeping into his tone.

“Tents would probably be most logical.” You said, moving over to the largest crate, picking up one end as Bellamy picked up the other, both of you struggling to move the heavy crate.

You breathily thanked Clarke as she opened the siding for the both of you, grunting as you maneuvered the large crate. You felt the weight of the crate lighten, looking over to see that Wells and Finn had both grabbed a side of the crate. The four of you set it down in front of the dropship, making a relatively loud noise, displacing some dirt.

You coughed as some dust went up your nose, squinting to avoid getting dust in your eyes fanning in front of your face to sort of clear out the air. The loud bang seemed to have attracted the rest of the hundred, all looking at the crate in awe, before looking between the four who had set down the crate.

You sighed deeply, still fanning the air in front of you, before addressing them, never really one for giving speeches. “There are fifty tents in this crate, they’re pretty small but we’re gonna have to make do. One tent for every two people, got it?” You asked, trying not to seem condescending, and people seemed to collectively nod.

“There’s some more stuff.” You continued loudly and quickly, not going to let Bellamy speak because otherwise he would do what he had been doing with the meat. The thought left a rotten taste in your mouth. “Soap, clothes, blankets. Everybody will get some, if they want to keep their band on or not!” You yelled, shooting a dirty glare at Bellamy. “We’re gonna bring out the other things, but for now choose a partner and get a tent.” You instructed.

You moved over to Wells and Finn, talking to them lowly. “You guys distribute them, I’ll keep an eye on Bellamy.” You told them, and it seems that you looked determined enough for them not to argue.

“Blake! Atom!” You yelled to them. “You’re with me.” You said, turning around and beginning to walk back to pick up more crates, wincing momentarily as you felt a sharp pain in your leg, feeling your calf begin to throb.

You continued on, grabbing the next biggest crate with the other two lifting up their sides with relative ease, and you held up your side slightly lower than theirs, trying to hide your slight limp as you brought the crate, filled with blankets, back to the front.

This continued for about an hour, till nearly the whole camp had gotten their personal supplies: one toothbrush, two bars of soap, three vats of communal shampoo and conditioner, one towel, one blanket, one spare set of clothes and a tent to share with someone else.

You let out a slight groan as you helped a girl who had volunteered to carry crates, Zoe Monroe, load the large crate filled with feminine hygiene products and condoms into the front of the dropship, Bellamy following, carrying the first aid crate.

You let out a small huff as you dropped the wooden crate on the ground, smiling softly and thanking Monroe as she left, before sitting down on the crate, grateful to be off of your leg.

You closed your eyes in relief, hearing a few brief whispers, before feeling a hand on your leg, your eyes shooting open, your reflex to kick the person away. “What are you doing?” You screeched at Clarke, feeling a bit bad that you had nearly kicked her, but still frightened.

“I’m checking your leg.” She said firmly, looking down at you with a look that dared you to disagree. You stayed quiet as she bent down in front of you, before clearing her throat awkwardly. “You’re gonna have to take off your pants.” She said, and you smiled awkwardly, before standing up and taking off your pants, holding them against your chest, feeling far too exposed.

You felt her unravel the bandage, and you hissed as the fresh air came in contact with the wound.

“You can move your leg around fine, yeah?” She asked.

You nodded in response, scratching the back of your head. “It just hurts, mostly from exhaustion.” You told her, and she nodded.

“It doesn’t look that deep, so stitches are unnecessary.” She told you while cleaning out the wound, and you nodded.

“That’s kind of what I figured.” You told her, and she offered you a small smile.

“So, try to keep off of it, and come see me every few days for it.” She informed you, applying a layer of gauze on the wound before tightly wrapping the bandage around the cut.

“Thanks.” You said softly, gently putting your bandaged leg through your pants, moving to stand up only when you needed to shimmy your pants over your hips, buttoning them and doing the zipper really quickly.

“No problem. I should go check on Jasper, though.” She said, moving to go back upstairs to where Jasper was, before gripping her shoulder.

“No, Clarke. You need to get some rest.” You told her, trying to convince her into getting a few hours of sleep. “I’ll sit by Jasper and if there’s trouble, I’ll wake you up immediately, how’s that?” You suggested, though you made it clear that that is what was going to happen.

“Sure.” She simply said, climbing up the ladder in the center of the dropship. “But, I’m gonna sleep up here.” She yelled down from the ladder.

“Fair enough.” You decided, hobbling over to the ladder, before realizing that you were screwed. You just shrugged your shoulders, and began the climb up the six-rung ladder, gritting your teeth the entire way up, feeling sharp pains shooting through your leg, before you reached the top, your feet dangling in the trap door and you figured that was good enough.

You smiled softly when you realized that Clarke was already asleep, and you looked around to see Monty and Octavia sitting next to Jasper, both asleep, your smile widening a little as you felt your heart melt a little bit, filled with an overpowering love for your friends, even if you had just truly met Clarke and Octavia.  

You scooted over to the general area where Jasper was, leaning your back against the wall of the dropship, sitting in the silence for the next few hours, trying to ignore the worries you had about Jasper and Dave.

It was quiet for awhile; Octavia had woken up and quietly excused herself. About an hour after she had left, you heard whimpers and looked over to see Jasper writhing in pain, every alarm in your head going off.

“Hey, hey, hey.” You whispered, scooching closer to him, running your hand over your face, trying to soothe him, becoming alarmed at how hot his skin felt.

“Clarke!” You whisper yelled, standing up and limping across the room as fast as you could, feeling bad that you had to wake her up, though Jasper was slowly growing louder and louder. “Clarke!” You whispered loudly, shaking her slightly, seeing her eyes open, a startled look on her face.

You had an apologetic smile on your face, before Jasper started moaning in pain again, and you saw her face eyes widen, before she rushed over to Jasper, and began soothing him. You limped over, sitting down on the other side of him, moving to hold his hand. “His fever’s too high.” You commented, and she nodded in agreement, silently reassuring you that you had done right in waking her up. You gently brought his hand up to your lips, gently kissing his hand, trying to soothe him, though it was more for your own peace of mind than his.

You looked up and saw that Monty had awaken, and had crawled to the other side of the room, and you saw the guilt instantly flash in his eyes, looking over at Jasper. He stood up and moved towards you, gently sitting down next to you, gripping lightly at Jasper’s wrist, offering a small sad smile directed towards Jasper, whispering quietly to him that he was going to be fine. You felt your heart break; you didn’t want to see your friends so hurt.

At some point as Jasper grew louder, Monty moved back to where he was before, grief and guilt overtaking him as he looked over every so often, a look of shame across his face. You smiled sympathetically at him, understanding in your eyes.

“His pulse is 380.” Clarke whispered, and you felt your own heart beat increase at hearing that. Your heart was caught in your throat, knowing that having such a high pulse was really, really bad.

“Shut the fuck up!” “Go back to sleep!” People yelled as Jasper continued to whimper in pain, and you felt anger overtaking you, angry unshed tears burning in your eyes.

“Sh, don’t listen to them.” Both you and Clarke reassured softly, as you gently squeezed on his hand to reassure him that you were there.

“You’re gonna make it through this, I promise.” Clarke said, and you looked over at her, seeing that she avoided eye contact with you, and you knew then that at this moment, his chances were looking slim.

“Can he just die already?” Someone from below yelled, and you inhaled shakily, the tears falling from your eyes, rolling down your cheeks, as you stubbornly wiped them away with the back of your hand.

“Don’t listen to them.” You murmured to him, gently carding your fingers through his hair with your other hand, and you were unsure if he had calmed down a little, seeming a little more peaceful.

“I’m gonna get clean water.” Clarke announced, and you could hear the anger, exhaustion, and, exasperation in her tone. “Keep an eye on him.” She commanded, and Monty moved over to sit where she had, immediately grabbing hold of Jasper’s hand, his gaze deliberately avoiding yours.

You looked over at him, closing your eyes momentarily as Jasper groaned loudly, feeling more tears threatening to fall. You opened your eyes, whispering softly to Jasper, as he calmed down a little more. “It’s not your fault.” You said softly, this time directing your words towards Monty.

He sighed deeply, and you looked over at him to see him on the verge of tears, his lower lip trembling. “Yes it is.” He whispered out croakily.

“Hey.” You whispered, moving your hand from Jasper’s and placed it over Monty’s squeezing a little. “It’s not.” You reassured gently. “You caused this is no way.” You continued, your eyes filling with tears.

He smiled at you sadly, and you knew that he wouldn’t believe you, so you instead squeezed his hand once more, leaning over to gently kiss him on the cheek, before standing up. “I’m gonna go see where Clarke went.” You told him, wanting to give Monty some space, limping to the trap door, before hobbling down the ladder, wincing as sharp pains shot through your calf.

“Whoa, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” You heard someone demand, and turned to face Bellamy.

“Finding Clarke.” You said tiredly, trying to discreetly wipe the unshed tears away by pretending to rub your eyes, before putting your finger up to your lip to signal for him to be quieter, pointing upstairs to remind him that Jasper was up there.

“Not on that leg.” He said, almost scoffing, and you rolled your eyes, limping out of the dropship, ignoring him, scanning the area for Clarke. “Were you trying to climb up the ladder?” He asked, and you could hear a hint of scolding in his voice.

“No, I was climbing down it.” You replied, not really thinking about what you were saying, feeling his annoyance with you grow, waving him off, before you heard a scream that definitely did not come from Jasper, and you dashed off in the direction of it, despite Bellamy shouting at you to not run, and the pain it caused.

You found the source very quickly, seeing Clarke talking to a twelve year old girl, and instantly you found yourself mad at the shitty government. You walked over, and saw that Clarke was holding the water, her arm around the younger girl.

She saw you, and smiled slightly, before turning to the other girl. “Hey, Charlotte. My good friend (y/n) here will sit with ya? How does that sound?” She asked, and you waved slightly to the little girl, a small smile on your face.

She nodded carefully, regarding you with slightly scared eyes. “Okay.” She said, her voice meek, and Clarke stood up, running for the dropship as you moved to sit next to the girl, letting out an ‘oomph’ as you hit the ground a bit harder than expected.

“Charlotte’s a really pretty name.” You told her, and you immediately saw her worry vanish, a small smile spreading carefully across her face, a guard still up.

“So’s (y/n).” She said, returning your compliment, causing a smile to appear across your face, and her face finally relaxed, her body loosing, her posture becoming slightly more relaxed.

“So, you had a nightmare, huh?” You asked, keeping your tone light, and you saw her nod. “Do you wanna talk about it?” You asked, and she moved a little closer to you, resting her head slightly on your shoulder.

“I already told Clarke.” She admitted.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” You told her, and she offered you a grateful smile.

“Jack told me about you.” She said, changing the subject. “He said that you’re really nice and you stand up for people.” She said, causing you to laugh a little.

“Some would argue about the nice part.” You quipped, and you saw her genuinely smile a little, warming your heart.

She took a deep breath, and your expression changed to worried as she began to cry silently, and you immediately wrapped your arms around her, allowing her to sob into you. You gently whispered to her, kissing the top of her head, trying your best to comfort the twelve year old, though ultimately felt ast an impasse.

She stopped crying for a little bit, and you loosened your grip on her, allowing her to pull away from you. You gently wiped away her tears, offering her a sad smile, taking her hand and squeezing lightly.

“What’s wrong?” You asked softly, and you saw a few more tears fall from her eyes, a small hiccup wracking her body.

“I have nightmares about my parents. They got floated, and, and…” She blubbered, before crying again, silent sobs wracking her body, and you wrapped your arms around her, feeling your heart break.

“I understand.” You whispered to her. “My parents were floated when I was about six.” You admitted, your bottom lip trembling as you tried to keep from crying, not for your parents but rather for hers. “Actually, I was probably younger.” You said, as you thought about it. “I wasn’t old enough to grasp the concept of death.”

“Was it hard?” She asked, her voice trembling, looking up at you with tear stained cheeks.

You shrugged slightly, a sad sympathetic smile on your face. “I was too young to actually remember my parents.” You said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as she leaned into you. “You’re strong, Charlotte.” You whispered to her.

“You get some rest, yeah?” You murmured, as she nodded sleepily, already dozing off. “I’m gonna stay here, don’t worry.” You whispered, as she fell asleep.

“Thank you.” She murmured, before soft snores emitted from her body, and you kissed the top of her head, before falling asleep yourself.

—

You awoke to see that Charlotte had gotten up already, and you smiled lightly. You moved to stand up, your legs buckling under you as your weight shifted. You inhaled deeply, placing your hands behind you on the tree trunk for support, as you slowly lifted yourself up, limping towards the center of the camp to find that everyone had seemingly fell back into a consistent rhythm.

You looked around, doing a quick mental check, alarms going off in your head as you noticed that two people were missing. “Where the hell is Trina and Pascal?” You asked rather loudly, to which people didn’t really seem to care.

“Atom’s leading a search party for them.” Bellamy called out to you, engaged in conversation with Murphy a few feet from the tree you had been sleeping at, before glancing down at your leg and then up at your face. “Why the hell are you walking?”

“You and Atom okay, then?” You asked, ignoring his second question, knowing that something had happened between the two of them because Atom made out with Octavia? You were unsure and didn’t really care.

He just nodded briefly, trowing an ax at a tree, embedding itself in the bark, as Atom and the others strutted up. “We searched a half mile, all directions. No sign of Trina or Pascal.” Atom said.

“Why didn’t you search more?” You demanded, worry seeping into your tone, although logically you understood why they didn’t.

“Visit your special tree when you were out there?” Murphy drawled, confusing you slightly, and you saw a look of shame flit across Atom’s face, realization hitting you, your body shaking with anger, though you tried to contain in, settling for physically vibrating where you stood.

“Atom took his punishment. Let it go.” Bellamy ordered Murphy, and that was a bit too much. You turned on your heel to face him, glaring dangerously at him, your hand in fists, shaking by your sides, your jaw clenched in anger.

“What the hell did you do!?” You spat at him, and he you gasped, appalled, when he half rolled his eyes.

“Could be grounders.” Atom suggested, effectively interrupting you, and you turned away from Bellamy, considering elbowing him in the stomach, though decided not to, to try and remain at least a little bit civil.

“Yeah, or they could just be in pound town.” Murphy droned, and you felt yourself beginning to shake with anger once more as Atom looked away from Murphy. “Lot of that going around recently.” Murphy continued, both you and Bellamy both shooting him a dirty look, Bellamy walking up to the tree, retrieving his ax.

You saw Atom glance over, away from the small group, and your gaze followed his, settling on Octavia. It seemed that she noticed you as she gave a small wave which you returned, Atom effectively ignoring her, as he turned away to face the older Blake sibling.

“Look, Bellamy.” He began, as you hobbled over the three or so feet to be a little closer. “People are scared, and that dying kid. He’s not helping the morale around here.”

You took in a shaky breath, anger flooding through your system, before you felt yourself overflowing, immediately yelling at Atom, your arms flailing around dangerously to emphasize your point. “That, dying kid,” you spat out, feeling your nails digging dangerously into the palms of your hands, “saved Octavia’s life. That, dying kid, is my friend, so why don’t you shut the fuck up!” You yelled at him, so angry that tears began to fall from your eyes, knowing that your argument had derailed, but it didn’t matter. Nobody was going to trash your friends. Not even another friend.

You lips quivered, hot, angry tears burning in your eyes at you glared at him, feeling a reassuring hand on your shoulder, and almost immediately you didn’t feel angry. You looked over your shoulder briefly, and saw Bellamy standing there, a rather stoic look on his face, though as he made brief eye contact with you, his face softened ever so slightly, and immediately you felt your anger melt away, only left with a pit in your stomach, the nausea that tends to follow your angry outbursts. You closed your eyes and took a shaky breath, and immediately noticed the regret in Atom’s eyes, which made you feel a bit ashamed for your outburst.

“Morale will go up when I find them more food.” Bellamy said quickly after your outburst, his response a bit pointed, as he gently removing his hand from your shoulder.

“What do we say when they ask about Trina and Pascal?” A kid asked, and you were a bit embarrassed that you did not remember his name.

“They’re probably lost.” You said surely, trying to reassure yourself that the were probably lost, despite the gut feeling that something was wrong.

“Now? Nothing.” Bellamy said gruffly. “(y/l/n)’s right, they’re probably lost.” He said, reiterating your point. “Keep an eye out for them when we go hunting later.” He said, and you took that as your cue to leave the little group, hobbling back towards the dropship, not noticing that Bellamy and Murphy had lingered behind.

You sighed as you entered the dropship, staring up at the little ladder, closing your eyes tightly. And before all of your confidence abandoned you, you started up the ladder, gritting your teeth as pain shot up your left leg. You hissed slightly as you managed to get to the top of the ladder, sitting in the trapdoor for a moment, before pulling your legs up onto the second level, as you limped over to where Jasper was, immediately grabbing his hand.

“The medicine working?” You asked Clarke who was hovering over Jasper, cleaning out his wounds, a perplexed look on her face.

She just shook her head sadly. The perplexed look returned, as the inspected the poultice (you think that’s what she had called it), before speaking. “The grounders cauterized the wound. Saved his life.”

“Couldn’t you use that for medicine?” You suggested.

“Saved his life so they could string him up for live bait.” You did a double take as you heard Finn’s voice, not realizing that he had been up there, your sole focus being Jasper.

“This is infected. It could be septic.” Clarke said, ignoring the both of you, turning frantically towards Monty. “Any progress on using the wristbands to contact the Ark?”

You tuned out momentarily, your face scrunching up as you tried to keep yourself from crying, and you felt a reassuring hand resting on top of yours, your eyes jolting open to see Wells giving you a sad, sympathetic smile.

You responded with a sad teary smile, as he let go, and you discreetly tried to wipe the unshed tears from your eyes, before standing up and hobbling over towards Monty, tuning out of whatever menial spat Wells and Clarke were having, sitting on the floor next to his chair, immediately grabbing his hand, squeezing gently.

He turned towards you, and you immediately saw the distraught in his eyes, placing a gentle kiss on his knuckles. “It wasn’t your fault.” You reassured, though from the broken look in his eyes, you knew he didn’t believe that. You didn’t really blame him; had you been him, you wouldn’t have believed you either.

“Alright, you wanna help? Hold him down.” Clarke commanded, and you immediately knew that whatever happened next, you would not be able to stomach.

“Hey, I’m gonna go help with hunting.” You said shakily, though no one was really hunting, and you gently squeezed Monty’s hand before hissing in pain as you jumped down the rungs of the ladder, trying to put as much distance between yourself and reality as you could.

You panted slightly as you reached the bottom of the ladder, looking over to see Atom sitting near the foot of the ladder. You didn’t really pay much attention to him, as you hobbled over to the miscellaneous crate, overlooking a small box in your zeal to leave, pulling out a spool of twine. You looked over and saw that Octavia had entered the dropship, and you immediately began to move faster, wanting to avoid whatever their conversation was about, as it seemed a bit personal.

You exited the dropship as Jasper bellowed in pain, your hands moving to cover your ears to keep from listening to the cries of your friend, biting down on your lip to keep from screaming out in anguish, as tears fell from your eyes. You felt your heart breaking for your friend, and you closed your eyes, trying to shut it out, as Octavia rushed past you into the dropship, confusing you a bit because you had just seen her inside of it.

The scream stopped, and it remained eerily calm for a second, your stomach dropping in fear that the worst had happened, but as you heard another groan of pain, you felt your pulse begin to regulate. You took a painful step away from the dropship, your bottom lip quivering as tears pooled in your eyes, each step you took away from the dropship -from Jasper- becoming harder and harder.

You closed your eyes briefly, taking a shaky breath, before you hobbled out of camp, pushing your anxiety deep down, your sole focus having to be finding a meal for everyone.

—

You had been walking for about an hour, before you finally stopped, leaning on a tree to rest for a brief second, before scoping the area slightly. It was at the top of a slight hill, the bottom secluded with some rocks which would make a good vantage point, as you pulled out the twine, setting two traps; one which would be better for catching small creatures and one better for catching larger ones.

You took out your knife, and quickly jabbed the tree, wincing as you did so, you didn’t want to hurt the tree giving you a marker as the where the trap was. True, these traps were really only practical with someone waiting nearby, because if the animal had too much time they would most likely be able to free themselves. But it was more important, you decided, to set up multiple traps so that the odds of catching something would be a little higher.  

You meandered around for a few more minutes, before walking limping towards a different section of the forest, which was a little closer to the camp, though in a place that was far enough away that animals wouldn’t be scared away.  

You set up a trap, and looked around, seeing a good perch a few yards away, before you sat down, wincing slightly as you did so, your leg throbbing in pain. It slowly ebbed away the longer you sat, and you glanced down at your watch, and saw that only ten minutes had passed before you stood up, hearing the oinking of a warthog, as you creeped closer to it, seeing it head in the direction of your trap.

You looked around, and saw a head of hair moving around in the tall ferns, a hand shooting up to cover your mouth, unsure of if it was a group from camp or grounders. They shifted forward, and you saw Bellamy’s face, and you relaxed a bit, slowly moving forward in the ferns towards the pig, hoping that it would walk into the trap.

A tree branch snapped from behind you, and you saw an ax fly through the air, and you ran in the direction the ax had been thrown, ignoring the pig that was running away.

“Charlotte!” You cried out, as you saw the ax embedded in the tree next to her, a small smile spread across her face as you wrapped your arms around her, enveloping her tightly in your arms.

You heard a sigh from behind you. “Oh great, you’re here too.” Bellamy mumbled, and you let go of Charlotte, and turned around to see Bellamy’s eyes closed in frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose, before he sighed once more.

“I’m not little.” Charlotte said, letting you know that you had walked in on the middle of some conversation, and you slowly moved away, heading in the direction in which the pig had went, letting them continue their conversation.

“I’m not done with you, (y/l/n)!” Bellamy yelled out, after you.

“That’s great, Blake!” You sassed, waving your hand at him, not bothering to turn around. You ignored him, purposefully veering off of the path from where the pig had gone, because you had left camp to be away from people. If you were going to be around people, you’d rather it be around people you liked. And you didn’t like Bellamy and his little posse.

You had been wandering for about 10 minutes, when you came upon a little clearing, and set up another trap, when you heard a bellow in the distance, and you looked up from where you had been squatting, seeing a large plume of yellow fog, and you felt your feet rooted in place.

You saw Bellamy running towards you, grabbing Charlotte, before you felt your wrist being yanked, as he pulled you with them. You ran with them, faster than you could painlessly, a slight whimper escaping you as the pain spread throughout your leg, feeling as if your calf was on fire.

He motioned for you and Charlotte to climb up the small little hill, and he gently pushed her into the cave. You lingered in the mouth of the cave, seeing Bellamy look around frantically, hearing someone scream his name, though the fog was now surrounding him, and you grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside of the cave.

You both walked speedily, reaching the end of the cave where Charlotte was, and saw her sitting on some rocks, and as you looked at her you saw the exhaustion settle on her face.

“You should get some rest.” You told her, as you sat down next to Bellamy. “We don’t know how long we’re gonna be here.”

That seemed to do the trick, because after about five minutes she got comfortable and was almost immediately asleep, you and Bellamy sitting down, your heart beating rapidly, exhaustion settling into your limbs.

You took a deep breath as you laid you head back against the wall of the cave, closing your eyes briefly, before opening them to see Bellamy’s angry gaze on you.

“What?” You asked, not in the mood for whatever he had to say.

“What the hell were you doing?” He asked, and you rolled your eyes slightly.

“I was setting up traps.” You said, and he looked at you blankly. “You know, for hunting?” You said condescendingly.

His face lit up with realization, before he shook his head, scoffing slightly. “We didn’t think of that.” He admitted quietly.

You rolled your eyes and scoffed. “Of course you didn’t. You never think about anything.” You said, your exasperation seeping into your light tone.

“You’re one to talk.” He quipped, and you glared at him, as if daring him to continue. “You’re not supposed to be walking around on your leg.” He scolded, motioning towards your leg.

“Clarke said it was fine.” You lied, trying to keep yourself from wincing as the pain in your leg started to throb a bit more.

He gave you a look, rolling his eyes. “No she didn’t.”

“Yes she did.” You said, a fake smile pulled across your face as your face scrunched up.

“No she didn’t because she told me that you weren’t allowed to be on your leg. Also, you should elevate your leg.” He said, and you were a bit flabbergasted, at a loss for words. When had they had this conversation? What? Why? They had talked about you?

Your mouth was slightly agape, a look of disgusted confusion on your face, as you sat there, trying to piece together what to say. He sighed deeply in exasperation, and gently gripped your leg, pulling it slightly so that it was draped across his legs, your hips touching, pulling you out of your thoughts.

“What are you doing?” You said frantically, your voice high and squeaky, feeling a bit uncomfortable being so close to someone.

“Elevating your leg.” He replied, as if it were obvious.

You stared at him in confusion for a few seconds, before shaking your head returning to his previous question. “Clarke said that I should avoid being on my leg.” You corrected, and he snorted slightly, and you could practically hear him roll his eyes.

“So then why’d your stubborn ass not listen to her?” He asked, and you stared at him, in slightly disbelief, scoffing while shaking your head.

“You’re one to talk, Blake.” You said, and he laughed slightly, shaking his head.

“I’m not the one with an injury.” He reminded you, and you shrugged your shoulders, laughing bitterly, the tone of the conversation changing.

“Bellamy.” You began, and he chose not to comment on the fact that this was the first time you had said his name as opposed to Blake other than the time you had screeched because you though a giant panther was gonna kill him, and he decided that he quite liked the way his name sounded on your lips, sounding far more natural than Blake. “We’re trapped down here.” You said, your voice slightly shaky. “We have no idea how to survive, and literally everything is killing us. Forget the grounders for a moment, we still don’t know how to survive. If I stay off my leg, I’m a sitting duck.” You said, laughing bitterly, feeling tears prickling at your eyes.

“Yeah, but you just slow everyone down with your leg.” He said rather callously, and immediately regretted it as you sniffled slightly, trying to suppress the tears that were threatening to fall.

“Bellamy, I’m not even eighteen.” You said, your voice cracking. “I don’t want to die.” Your voice quivered, and you brought your hands up to your eyes, wiping away the unshed tears, a small teary laugh escaping your mouth.

He sighed deeply, regret etched onto his features, and he subconsciously moved to drape his arm over your shoulders, but instantly stopped himself, resulting in his arm jerking slightly. He closed his eyes momentarily, before changing the subject. “Does your leg hurt?” He asked carefully, not letting his worry seep into his tone.

You instantly nodded, not realizing exactly how much it was hurting, feeling a much more acute sense of pain now that it had been mentioned. “There’s not really much I can do.” You told him, trying to focus on something other than the pain.

“Yeah, I’m sor-”

“Sorry.” You interrupted him, teeth gritted through the pain. “Can we talk about something else? Talking about this makes my leg hurt more.” You told him, indirectly indicating that you needed a distraction.  

His eyes widened briefly, before he nodded awkwardly, a bit mechanically. He cleared his throat, slightly. “Did you get any sleep last night?” He asked.

“Yeah, like two hours.” You said shrugging slightly, exhaustion seeping into your very being, as the last of the adrenaline wore off, trying to fight off the exhaustion.

“You should rest.” He commented, and you scoffed rolling your eyes.

“I’m not tired.” You say stubbornly, stifling a yawn immediately after saying it, your eyelids becoming heavier as you shivered slightly, a sharp cold wind seeming to pierce through you.

He scoffed, and cocked an eyebrow as if to say ‘really?’ before shaking his head slightly, and amused smirk on his face.

“You should rest, too.” You told him, and you glanced at your watch, seeing that you had only been stuck in the cave for 15 minutes. “How much sleep did you get last night?” You asked pointedly, because given the fact that you had seen him up at around 4 in the morning was an indicator that he got about the same amount of sleep as you.

“About the same.” He answered gruffly, reaffirming your suspicions, before continuing to ask you another question, not liking when the focus was on him. “Why did you only get two hours of sleep?”

You shook your head in thought. “Um, I was up watching Jasper so that Clarke could get some sleep. I had to wake up Clarke and then she went to get water, so after a few minutes I went to find her.”

“When you were climbing down the ladder?” He interrupted, anger seeping into his tone, his jaw clenched, and you felt yourself get angry.

“Yes, and I don’t see what the big problem is.” You said arrogantly, enunciating every word. You scoffed slightly and rolled your eyes. You didn’t understand why he was making a big deal about it, after all you were the one with the bad leg.

He laughed bitterly, staring up at the ceiling of the cave, shaking his head slightly. “You are impossible.” He muttered out.

You stared at him in disgust, your mouth agape, as an appalled gasp left you. “Excuse me!?” You demanded, as if daring him to repeat what he said. Your anger usually had an impact on people.

He just rolled his eyes, and you felt more offended. “When did you actually sleep?” He asked, ignoring your outburst, and you were so shocked that you stared at him blankly for a few minutes, no witty retort popping into your brain.

He sighed deeply, his expression changing, his brown eyes melting. “You should rest.” He repeated, though this time his voice was soft, his eyes tender, and you felt your heart catch in your throat as realization hit you.

Bellamy Blake was gorgeous.

Sure, he might be a self-centered, power-hungry jackass, but damn if he wasn’t pretty. Did good genes just run in the Blake family?  

You blinked out of your momentary stupor, shaking your head as if to shake the thought away from your head, not going to let him catch you staring at him. You leaned your head back against the wall of the cave, looking up, a small sigh escaping your lips, before sitting up again. “I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.” You admitted.

He looked at you oddly, a soft smirk on his face, waiting patiently for you to elaborate. “And why’s that?” He asked, when you didn’t, his voice rumbling deeply.

You scoffed slightly, shaking your head, because you weren’t sure if you were being ridiculous or not. “I can’t sleep when I’m cold.” You said to him, biting on your lip to keep from yourself from laughing at your ridiculousness.

A small smile appeared on his face, a small snort escaping him, and you felt his smile to be infectious, your face morphing into a small, genuine smile, giggling slightly.

“It was colder last night.” Bellamy pointed out, and you shrugged your shoulders, an exaggerated confused look on your face.

You motioned with your head over to Charlotte, who was sleeping rather peacefully. “She kind of used me as a human pillow.” You said.

Almost immediately, Bellamy wrapped an arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him, and you could feel the body heat radiating off of him, your body feeling more relaxed despite the panic that you were having.

“What are you doing?” You hissed at him, your eyes frantic, the tips of your ears burning, and your cheeks began to warm up. Too much touch made you feel uncomfortable, and you felt your anxiety begin to bubble over, a lump forming in your throat, internally yelling at yourself that this was not something to freak out about, especially since you always craved touch. Overall, you felt as if you weren’t in control, which made you feel this overwhelming sense of anxiety.

“Relax.” He said gruffly, unaware of the momentary inner turmoil you were experiencing. “Body heat.” He said simply, gently bringing you closer to him, careful so as not to disrupt your leg, still on top of his. His hand gently moved up to the side of your head, gently nudging you, so that your head rested upon his right shoulder, your anxiety instantly melting away as you felt heat radiate off of him, embracing you softly.

You breathing evened, your eyelids growing heavier, his steady heartbeat lulling you to sleep even faster. His shoulder slouched slightly, and his head rested gently atop of yours, and you could feel his breath tickle your forehead, your eyesight growing misty as sleep came closer.

“Bellamy?” You asked, your eyes closed, on the brink of sleep, voice soft and hoarse, scared that if you spoke too loud you might disrupt the peace that was slowly accumulating.

“Hmm.” He hummed in response, his chest reverberating as he did so, causing you to smile subconsciously.

“Good night.” You muttered, nearly incohesively, before you drifted to sleep.

“Good night, Miss Proper.” He muttered out, a soft smile on his face, having said it too late for you to hear.

—

You awoke to a scream, jolting up, immediately noticing that your position had shifted. Somehow you and Bellamy had ended up lying down next to the boulder which Charlotte was sleeping on, one of his arms under your neck, your head resting in the crook of his neck, one of your arms slung over his chest, his other hand resting gently on your stomach. Your left leg was still precariously draped over his, though twisted at an angle which allowed you to cuddle into him.

You both immediately untangled your limbs from one another, shooting up into sitting positions, him shaking Charlotte awake as she still thrashed in her sleep, and you instinctively reached for her hand, squeezing lightly as she woke up, fear apparent on her face.

“I’m sorry.” She said almost instinctively, a look of guilt etched onto her face.

You and Bellamy shot each other momentary glances of concern, the same look of worry and sympathy on your faces.

“Does it happen often?” He asked gently, still kneeling in front of her, as you moved to sit next to her on the boulder, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and she melted into you.

She sighed deeply, and you breathed out shakily, trying to keep your emotions in check for her sake. Getting angry or emotional wouldn’t help in this situation.

“What are you scared of?” He asked, and she looked away from him, trying to keep from looking at him and you, and instantly you knew the shame she felt. When she didn’t answer, he continued, “You know what? It doesn’t matter.” He said, and you felt angry.

You shot him a dirty look because why the hell would he try to invalidate her fear? He seemed to ignore you or not notice you, because he continued, “The only thing that matters is what you do about it.” He said, a small sympathetic smile on his face, and your angry look softened, a sad sympathetic look replacing it, feeling a bit ashamed at your lack of faith in him.

“But…I’m asleep?” Charlotte asked, despite it being a statement, confusion lacing her voice.

“Fears are fears.” Bellamy told her, his face soft and genuine, unlike the raging hothead with the clenched jaw and anger lines that you always saw. You much decided that you liked this Bellamy better.

“Slay your demons when you’re awake, they won’t be there to get you when you sleep.” He said, gently tapping her leg. The amount of wisdom in his words scarily surprised you. You winced silently, the angle you were sitting on hurting your leg.

“Yeah, but how?” Charlotte asked, while you slowly moved off of the rock, sitting so that you were leaning against it, your leg screaming in momentary pain at the sudden shift, but it ultimately subsided, and you moved your hand up again to grip Charlotte’s and she sent you a soft grateful smile, squeezing your hand gently.

“You can’t afford to be weak.” Bellamy said, and although you hated the sentiment of telling her that she couldn’t be weak, you also knew that it was necessary, which is why you couldn’t afford to rest your leg. “Down here, weakness is death. Fear is death.” He said, and she stared at him blankly.

“Think about it like this, my leg is injured.” You began, trying to explain a bit to Charlotte, while also trying to get Bellamy to truly understand his own words. “There’s nothing I can do about it, but continue on. If I don’t do that, and try to rest, I’ll be dead, like that.” You said, snapping your fingers, and it seemed that you didn’t reach her, but your words reached Bellamy, his face hardened, and you could see an angry glare in his eyes. But somehow you understood that it wasn’t directed towards you.

“Let me see that knife I gave you.” He said, his eyes softening, and she carefully took it out, and handed it to him. “Now when you feel afraid,” He continued. “You hold tight to that knife and you say, ‘Screw you. I’m not afraid.’” He said, as she gingerly took the knife back from him.

You sighed to yourself, knowing that that wasn’t the wisdom that you wanted to impart on children, but what you wanted wasn’t an option anymore. You would need to shove away some of your opinions if you were going to be able to survive.

“Screw you, I’m not afraid.” Charlotte echoed with her eyes shut, her voice monotone. She opened her eyes to be met with an amused look on both Bellamy’s and your face, before she closed her eyes momentarily, beginning again.  

“Screw you, I’m not afraid.” She said again, with a little more conviction in her voice, staring at Bellamy, and you glanced over and saw a proud smirk on his face, and suddenly you felt a pit in your stomach; this poor child, none of you in fact, should have to have that mentality, or have to say that to themselves. You turned away, nausea consuming you as you laid back down where you were before, shivering from the lack of body heat.  

“Slay your demons, kid.” Bellamy told her. “Then you’ll be able to sleep.” He said, before lying down next to you, his body inches from yours.

You were able to sense his presence, and shook your head slightly, trying to keep your teeth from chattering as you heard a sigh from next to you, as Bellamy slowly scooched closer to you, heat radiating off of his body.

“What are you doing?” You asked, your teeth chattering slightly, and you could practically hear him roll his eyes.

“God, you’re impossible, (y/l/n).” He muttered, and you just scoffed, turning around to face him, a look of disbelief on your face, unsure of how to answer that statement.

You paused as you searched his face, a look of amused frustration gracing his features. You propped your elbow in the dirt, using your hand to prop up your head, tilted slightly as you looked at him, an amused confusion spread across your face, your lips slightly parted, despite your small smirk.

He rolled his eyes, the amused smirk still present on his face, patting his right shoulder, and without thinking you rested your head there, subconsciously nuzzling into him, the warmth overtaking your body.  

You both lied there, relaxed for a few minutes, and you nearly felt all of your worries melt away. If you had thought about it a little bit more, you would’ve been a bit more concerned, because how could you have fallen into such an easy intimacy with someone you hate?

You were pulled from the moment as Charlotte shivered, seeming to jar you back into reality. You sat up, feeling your cheeks begin to warm, pressing your lips into a thin line, avoiding glancing at Bellamy.

“Charlotte.” You called out, and she glanced over at you. You threw her a small smile, before scooching slightly to your left, patting the now empty space between you and Bellamy, offering it to her.

She nodded enthusiastically and crawled over to the two of you, settling into the space, throwing you both a grateful smile. You returned it, slowly combing your fingers through her hair in a soothing motion, pressing a kiss to her hairline, while Bellamy hugged her gently.

She slowly dozed off in the center of you two, and you continued your small motions, smiling sadly at her, feeling tears prick at your eyes. You felt Bellamy’s gaze on you, before you looked over at him, worry apparent in his eyes.

“It’s my fault.” You explained hoarsely, your voice prickly with the anticipation of tears.

“Hey,” He said, moving his hand to rest on yours, squeezing gently. “It’s not your fault.”

You smiled sadly at him, shaking your head, because you knew that that wasn’t true. “It actually is my fault.” You said, shaking your head, a bitter laugh escaping your lips, before you looked back at him, your voice more even, though still whispering. “Do you remember when there was like a five or six year old that was arrested?”

His eyebrows furrowed, deep in thought, his lips parted slightly, before he remembered, his eyes widening momentarily. “Yeah, that was about, um, 12 years ago, right?” He asked, his face scrunching up as he tried to remember if he got the details correctly.

“Yeah.” You reassured breathily, exhaling before shaking your head, a sad smile on your face. “That was me.” You told him, and his eyes widened in shock as he stared at you, trying to possibly formulate what that meant.

“Shit.” Was all he could say, a sad look of sympathy on his face.

“Yeah.” You agreed, laughing slightly. “Um,” You started, unsure of whether he was the right person to share this story with, but it didn’t really matter; you had already started. “So, my parents were floated when I was either five or six.” You began.

“You don’t remember how old you were?” He asked, his question genuine, not laced with any hints of sarcasm or malice.

You just shook your head while shrugging your shoulders. “I don’t really know.” You admitted, though it was a bit hard for you. Who the hell doesn’t remember when there parents died? “I… I, was too young to understand death.” You stammered, talking about this still a bit difficult for you.

“So, I was about five or six, when they came for my parents. Um, the guards.” You clarified, and he nodded slightly in understanding. “I had no idea what the fuck was going on.” You admitted, laughing sadly. “So, I attacked a guard, and basically, they arrested me, but I was also somehow able to go see my parents get floated?” You said, a bit confused. You shrugged, and shook your head slightly. “I don’t know, I don’t really remember the details. It was a long time ago.” You said, hoping that your lack of an explanation made a little bit of sense.

“I still don’t get how Charlotte being down here is your fault.” Bellamy said, and a hollow laugh escaped your lips as you looked around hopelessly.

“Well, that was when Marcus was first appointed to the council.”

“Hold up, Marcus?” He asked while laughing, a look of bewilderment on his face, confused as to why you were referring to Kane by his first name.

“Yeah.” You nodded, your tone slightly condescending, though you wore an amused smirk. “Vice Chancellor Marcus Kane.” You said, speaking to him as if he were a child, and he just rolled his eyes the shadow of a smirk apparent on his face.

“Anyways, he thought the claim was ridiculous and fought for me not to be arrested.” You told him, going back to your story. “He ended up winning, and then they instated the ‘law,’” you said with finger quotes, “that children under the age of 10 cannot be arrested.”

When he said nothing, you just shrugged your shoulders, the feeling of hopelessness returning. “So, it really is my fault.” You explained, your voice softer than before, though your voice cracked with emotion, anger and shame seeping into your tone.

“It’s not.” Bellamy said, finally. He reached over and gently squeezed your hand to reassure you. “It’s the shitty government’s fault.”

“Yeah, but I could’ve pushed for it to be older.” You blubbered, trying to reason with him that it was truly your fault. Because nothing would ever change your mind that it wasn’t.

“You were six!” He exclaimed, flabbergasted. “And your parents had just died.” He said, shaking his head as he laughed hollowly, and you wondered why he would be so upset about this because it didn’t involve him. “It’s okay to be selfish sometimes.” He said, and instantly any warm or fuzzy feeling you had for him flew out the window.

“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you.” You commented, your voice stony, a look of pity morphing into disgust on your face.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He asked, his face hardening, no longer the soft Bellamy from moments before.

You just scoffed at him, shaking your head in disbelief. “You tell me, Blake.” You rolled your eyes, anger and disappointment seeping into your tone. “You’re hiding something, and you’ve been hiding it the entire time.” You accused, and you saw his jaw clench, a clear indicator that you were correct.

“You’ve got no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.” He hissed at you.

“I don’t?” You asked haughtily. “Because, you’re a twenty-three-year-old adult on the ground with a bunch of teenagers. You’re a jackass, and you want to stay in power, and for you, that means that all communication with the Ark is severed.” You said, laying out all the facts. “So yeah, you’re hiding something, and the rest of us are gonna die because of your selfishness, Blake.” You accused, rolling your eyes, feeling too disgusted to look at him.

He stayed quiet for a moment, and it confirmed your suspicions, feeling like a hollow victory. You heard him take a deep sigh, before speaking. “Octavia’s all I’ve got.” He whispered, his voice shaking, and you felt compelled to look back at him, seeing tears pricking at his eyes, his mouth slightly agape, his bottom lip quivering slightly.

He looked lost, a hopeless expression on his face, and he shrugged slightly, not looking you in the face. “My mom was floated last year. Never knew my dad.” He said briefly, though his comment seemed to reflect that he didn’t care much for his father, even if you assumed that he only knew very little.

“My entire life ended last year. My mom was floated and Octavia was arrested, and I was demoted to janitor. I can’t let my sister die.” He said, his voice trembling, and your reached for his hand, gently squeezing as he had done minutes before.

“I’m sorry.” You whispered, and he just laughed bitterly, shrugging his shoulders.

“Nobody really understands, because they don’t have siblings.” He said, and you realized that that was true. “I love her so much.”

“I get it.” You said, sympathizing with him. You smiled slightly at him, taking a moment to catch your breath, trying to push away the lump which had formed in your throat. “I don’t have an actual sibling, but I was raised to have one.” You said briefly.

He threw you a quizzical look, and you took a shallow breath, a small smile appearing on your face. “I always say that I’m lucky.” You began.

He looked at you oddly, as if all your statements confused him. He seemed as if he was trying to piece it together, though in the end he looked a bit more confused than he had before. “But you’ve been an orphan all your life.” He commented, and you just shrugged your shoulders.

“I don’t actually really remember my parents. But, I always say that I’m luck because I was raised by three wonderful humans.” You said, your smile growing wider as you remembered them. “So, the parents of my best friend, and Marcus.” You elaborated.

He snorted, looking at you, his eyes widening with amusement. “Kane rose you?” He asked, a tone of disbelief in his voice. “He’s a dick, though.” He said, and you laughed brightly, shaking your head slightly.

“He is now. But, he wasn’t a while ago.” You agreed, the smile from your face fading slightly as you remembered the man he was now. You sighed slightly, and shrugged your shoulders, “He’s a different person now. He was really kind, but I guess working so long for the government changed him.” You said sadly, feeling a bit hollow as you remembered the change in him.

“But anyway, my best friend’s parents raised me, and I think of him as a brother. I mean we did everything together, and we got into stupid fights about stupid things and he would push my buttons and there were days where I yelled and scolded him. I would either pretend not to know him or he would be my best friend, often my best friend.” You paused, looking over at Bellamy. “I don’t know if that’s what it’s like to have a sibling, but I always thought that he was the closest I would have to one.”

A half smile lit up Bellamy’s face as he laughed a little, a look of confusion and amusement in his face as he looked at you while you were talking. “That’s pretty close actually.” He admitted, and you smiled back at him.

“Hey, um, how long we’ve been in here?” He asked, feeling his cheeks become warm at seeing you so peaceful, an awkward pit forming in his stomach, as he avoided looking at you, trying to stomp out those sensations, his tone not reflecting any of the inner turmoil he was going through.

“Um, it has been,” You paused momentarily, squinting at your watch in the dim light, “about two hours.” You told him.

He nodded slightly. “I think I’m gonna sleep.” He said to you, momentarily adjusting himself slightly, careful not to disturb Charlotte. “You should too.” He said.

You nodded slightly in response, slowly lowering your head down, resting just below his forearm. You loosely wrapped an arm around Charlotte, smiling slightly from the warmth that she radiated, feeling your exhaustion hit you like a truck. You yawned tiredly, your body curling up slightly as you subconsciously inched closer to them, feeling a hand move to rest on your waist, a bit too tired to say anything about it.

“G’night (y/n).” Bellamy mumbled sleepily, his breath fanning across your face, and you smiled softly, feeling a bit comforted by it.

“G, night.” You mumbled back as he fell asleep, almost instantaneously, soft snores emitting from him.

Despite your exhaustion, you didn’t feel particularly sleepy. You laid there, conscious enough for your eyes to keep open, though drowsy enough for you to not be able to control your thoughts; you were admiring Bellamy’s sleeping features. The hard lines and clenched jaw which were often present, seemed to have vanished, his face softening. You were close enough that you were able to count all the freckles on his face, and you found yourself smiling a bit, because he really was gorgeous. It truly wasn’t fair.

Some distant part of your brain was yelling at you to stop doing this, because first of all it was a bit creepy, and second of all you didn’t even like him. He was rude and arrogant, although he was still somehow soft and vulnerable. You shook your head slightly, shaking the thoughts of admiration from your head, knowing that at some point soon you would clash heads once more.

You sighed, exasperated that sleep would not come to you, and you glanced at your watch once more, seeing that an hour had passed, and you groaned softly in frustration. You shivered slightly as a cold breeze entered the cave, and you scooched closer to them, before your eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

If a cold breeze had entered and none of the thick porous fog had, did that mean it was gone?

You listened silently for a few moments, no longer hearing the steady whoosh of the fog, and you softly moved away from them, before attempting to stand up, gripping onto the rock on the side of the cave for support, standing fully. You limped towards the mouth of the cave, wincing as you stepped a bit too roughly, a burning pain shooting through your calf. You closed your eyes tightly, trying to will the pain away, before walking forward with gritted teeth.

You saw that there was no fog, and you felt a small smile form on your face, as you walked back into the cave, trying to keep yourself from jogging back, knowing that it would hurt.

“Bellamy!” You whispered to him, shaking him slightly, and he woke up, looking alarmed, his face immediately relaxing at seeing you. “The fog’s gone.” You told him, and you thought he would have been happy.

Instead there was a scowl on his face. He opened his mouth, about to chastise you for walking on your leg, though stopped himself, before scoffing and shaking his head, moving to wake Charlotte up.

You huffed as he ignored you, and you rolled your eyes at him because he was being a child. You walked to the mouth of the cave waiting for him and Charlotte to catch up, both rubbing the sleep from their eyes, all of you squinting at the harsh morning light that came from the outside of the cave.

“It’s all clear.” Bellamy said, and you turned to him with a ‘what the fuck’ look.

“Yeah. I just said that.” You said, shaking your head in disbelief at him.

“Anybody out here!?” He yelled out, ignoring you, and suddenly you remembered the voice that had screamed for him, bile forming in your mouth.

“Jones!” He yelled out, and you felt a paralyzing fear that you had lost someone, feeling your stomach contort.

“We’re here!” Jones yelled out, and you and Bellamy shared a momentary glance before you headed in the direction in which he had yelled from, Charlotte following the both of you.

You felt a shaky sigh of relief escape you as you saw three other making their way towards you.

“Lost you in the stew. Where’d you go?” Bellamy asked, and your face scrunched up in confusion, because it was a bit of an odd phrase.

“Made it to a cave down there.” Jones said, motioning behind them with a makeshift spear. “The hell was that?”

“I don’t know.” Bellamy answered, and you mentally did a head count, before your mental alarm went off that someone was missing.

“Where’s Atom?” You asked shakily, though in your gut you already knew the answer. The silence from them was enough to confirm your suspicions, and you let out a choked sob, your hands moving to cover your mouth, in an attempt to keep you from screaming out.

Your bottom lip trembled, a look of panic on your face as you looked between them momentarily. “What are you waiting for? We have to find him!” You yelled, blood pounding in your ears as you took a few shaky breaths, feeling as if you were drowning, tears pricking at the corner of your eyes. Ignoring your emotions, you turned on your heel and began to run though the forest.  

“Fuck.” Bellamy muttered, immediately chasing after you, calling out for you, though you continued to run, despite the throbbing in your leg, only stopping once he caught up to you, your leg screaming with exhaustion.

“Bellamy, we have to find him.” You said to him, biting your trembling lip to keep from whimpering out, a few tears beginning to fall as you stubbornly wiped them away, knowing that they wouldn’t help.

He sighed, looking away from you, feeling his heart catch in his throat at seeing you so distressed, and he nodded slightly. “We will. I promise.” He said to you.

You heard Charlotte scream from behind you, and you and Bellamy ran towards her as she screamed again, your heart catching in your throat as you saw Atom at the bottom of the slight hill, his skin chapped and bloody, as if the fog had been eating through his flesh.

You breathed shakily, feeling your heart pounding in your chest, your feet rooted in position till you saw his chest rise shakily, and instantly you moved forward, tumbling slightly over a few roots. Bellamy followed you as you crouched beside Atom, gently grabbing his hand.

“Hey, you’re gonna be okay.” You said, your voice quivering with the lie.

His face contorted in pain, and you shifted slightly so that you gently rested your hand on his forehead, remembering that that often comforted people.

Bellamy looked concerned and unsure of what to do, and you thought that you saw a bit of shame flit through his eyes, and your other hand moved to grab Bellamy’s wrist, trying to reassure him that this wasn’t his fault.

Atom began muttering, his words slowly becoming comprehensible. “Kill me.” He begged raspily, and you shut your eyes, letting a few tears silently fall, before looking over at Bellamy who had the same unsure and scared look on his face.

You continued to gently whisper to him, gently carding your fingers through his hair. “You’re gonna be okay.” You lied tearfully, trying to believe it, as you repeated it like a mantra, as if the more you said it the more it would make it true.

You looked up and saw that the rest of the group had gotten there, and Atom continued to write in pain.

“Can’t. Breathe.” He choked out, and you shut your eyes tightly, continuing to gently card your fingers through his hair, before opening your eyes to see Charlotte hand her knife to Bellamy.

“Don’t be afraid.” She said simply, and you shook your head slightly.

“Bellamy, no.” You choked out, seeing the determination in his eyes, and you shook your head, hoping that he wouldn’t.

“Go back to camp.” He told the others, looking away from you, and you closed your eyes, trying to reason with yourself that this was something that had to be done, despite the fact that you were in pain that this was the only option.

“Charlotte, you too.” He said, his voice heavy and pleading, trying to get her to leave.

“Charlotte, please.” You elaborated, begging her to go back. You couldn’t let her stay for this.

She reluctantly walked away, and you slightly adjusted Atom’s head so that it was propped up slightly, resting on your thigh, as you began to sing gently to him, nodding slightly at Bellamy who had kneeled down next to him, placing the knife against his throat, letting him know that this had to be done.

He hesitated with the knife, and you saw the fear and anguish in his face, your other hand grabbing his free hand squeezing slightly to let him know that you were there. That he wasn’t alone in this.

“Bellamy.” You said softly, his eyes meeting yours, a look of pure anguish on his face. He gripped your hand tightly, closing his eyes tightly in pain, before his grip on your hand gentled and he looked over his shoulder, Clarke standing there.

You returned to singing to Atom, trying to ease his mind, as she immediately walked over and kneeled down on the other side of him, before looking between the both of you.

“I heard screams.” She said.

“Charlotte found him.” Bellamy told her, and your voice quivered as a slight sob escaped you, though you continued to sing softly. “I sent her back to camp.” He said, his voice breaking slightly, and you squeezed his hand again.

You saw her look between the both of you, and she smiled sadly, and your eyes widened in realization of what she was gonna do, and you shook your head softly at her, and you stopped singing briefly.

She gave you a sad smile, and a small questioning look, and you nodded in understanding, before singing to him again, carding your fingers through his hair, as he stilled a little bit, though his body still wracked with pain.

“Ok.” Clarke whispered to him, a sad small smile on her face, her voice cracking. “I’m gonna help you, all right?” She said, taking the knife from Bellamy, and you both looked at her in painful awe as she stuck the knife into the side of his throat, the blood slowly seeping out of his neck and onto your pants, as she hummed with you, gently stroking his face as the light slowly vanished from his eyes.

You lip quivered, as you whimpered slightly, and you felt Bellamy wrap his arms around you, resting your head on his chest as you quietly cried into his shirt, your hand gripping Clarke’s fiercely as the three of you sat in quiet for a moment, trying to comprehend what had just happened. What the three of you had just done.

You found the peace a bit unsettling, tasting bile in your mouth, your stomach churning as you tried to scream -you wanted to scream- though you found no voice in your throat.

“How’re we gonna take him back?” You finally asked, your voice sounding chalky and broken, scared that if you spoke too loud it might make things worse.

“I’ve got some tarp in my pack.” Bellamy answered, his voice shaky as he took it out, and you and Clarke gently rolled his body onto the tarp, as she shakily stood up.

“I’ll go get Finn and Wells.” She said softly, before running away from the blood stained dirt, leaving her backpack abandoned.

“Bellamy?” You whispered out, your voice shaking as more tears threatened to spill from your eyes.  

“Yeah?” He asked gently, staring down at you, your body not having moved from when Atom’s head rested on your lap.

“I can’t stand up.” You said softly, your voice quivering.

He looked at you briefly, his eyes shutting momentarily as he bit down at his bottom lip, before looking down at you, reaching down to grab your arms and pull you up.

“Thank you.” You whispered to him, as you stood up, your legs trembling with pain.

Clarke, Wells and Finn appeared in the clearing momentarily, Clarke grabbing her backpack as Wells grabbed the other side of the tarp that Bellamy was holding, and the five of you began the trek back to camp in silence.

You whimpered slightly as you stepped wrong, immediately feeling a reassuring hand on your shoulder and looked back to see Bellamy with a look of worry on his face.

You laugh hollowly, shaking your head as you continued to walk again. “We never got food.” You commented to yourself.

You realized that you had slowed the group down considerably, despite the fact that you were walking as fast as you could, as it was nearly pitch black once you got back to camp.

Bellamy and Wells slowly placed Atom’s tarp covered body down, and Bellamy instantly walked up to you, placing your arm around his shoulders to use him as a crutch.

“Get Clarke whatever she needs.” He ordered to some kid, and he nodded, immediately turning to follow Clarke.

“I better go get this grave dug.” Wells said to you both.

“I’ll help.” You offered.

“No. You’re not.” Bellamy said to you, and you rolled your eyes at him.

“I’m fine, Bellamy.” You argued.

“I have to agree with Bellamy on this, sorry (y/n).” Wells said, offering you a sympathetic smile. “Try to stay off your leg and let it heal.” He said kindly, moving away to begin digging the grave.

Bellamy glanced at you, and you rolled your eyes. “What?” You asked, annoyance in your tone.

“I’m not the only one who thinks you should stay off your leg.”

You rolled your eyes. “Whatever, Blake.”

You saw Octavia run to Clarke, and your eyes widened, remembering that she didn’t know. “Bellamy.” You whispered to him, and he looked at your briefly, your eyes flickering over to see Clarke trying to keep Octavia from heading towards you guys. “It’s not your fault.” You reassure quickly, before Octavia reaches you guys.

“Octavia, just stay there.” You told her, your voice a little shaky, as she tried to move past you and Bellamy.

“O, please, just stay back.” He pleaded, his voice heavy, his free arm trying to keep her from seeing him, though she pushed through.

“Stop.” She whined, gently pushing on his shoulder, and he let her pass, a look of despair on his face. You gently squeezed his hand, trying to reassure him that it would be okay, as the both of you waited for her response.

She knelt down and gently pulled the tarp back, revealing Atom’s mauled body, and you closed your eyes, instinctively hiding your face in Bellamy’s chest, his arms gently yet protectively wrapped around you, your stomach in knots at seeing his body again. You suddenly became hyper aware of the dried blood on your body, and felt a wave of queasiness wash over you, as you gulped, trying to keep your stomach from lurching, before looking back, trying to be there for Octavia.

“There’s nothing I could do.” Bellamy said, shame and guilt filling his voice.

“Don’t.” Octavia said shakily, and you shook your head at her, knowing that your response would’ve been similar, but still didn’t like the edge of accusation in her voice.

“We did all we could.” You told her, and suddenly her hardened expression reserved for her brother broke, and you saw the resemblance between them again; they had the same look of vulnerability: eyes quivering, lip trembling and shaky breathing.

She placed the tarp back onto him, her expression becoming angry as she walked past you both.

“O. O, please.” Bellamy begged, briefly leaving your side to follow her, leaving you a bit shaky.

“Don’t.” She repeated, this time extending her hand to keep Bellamy from her.

“It wasn’t his fault, Octavia.” You tried to reason with her, and she just scoffed, shaking her head.

“Whatever.” She said simply, before stalking off and you were sure that you could see tears in her eyes, though you decided not to press.

“It’s not your fault.” You repeated to Bellamy, though he avoided your gaze, and you saw the guilt on his face. “Bellamy.” You said trying to grab his attention, though he just continued ignoring you. “Bellamy, look at me.” You said gently, your hands moving to gently cup his face so that he would look at you, a hollow expression on his face.

“It’s not your fault.” You said softly, your voice quivering slightly as tears burned your eyes, threatening to fall.

You saw his broken expression change slightly, a fraction of the guilt leaving his eyes, and he seemed to nod, not quite in agreement with your words. He sniffed slightly, his expression becoming stoic as Murphy strolled up to the two of you. Your gaze hardened as he approached, still very wary of him.

“Lose anyone here?” Bellamy asked, his voice hard, and you were unsure if Murphy heard the slight tremble in his voice.

“No.” He replied curtly.

“Jasper?” Bellamy asked, and you were grateful that he did, not trusting your voice to come out in trembles if you asked about your friend, and you were not going to show vulnerability to John Murphy. Your feelings about being vulnerable in front of Bellamy Blake had changed, though.

“Still breathing. Barely.” He said, and you felt a little bit of relief set in. “I tried to take him out -”

Your eyes widened and your nostrils flared, anger seething in your bones and you would’ve lurched forward and strangled him if Bellamy hadn’t had a firm grip on your shoulder preventing you from doing so, so instead you stood still, visibly shaking with anger.

“But your psycho little sister-”

And that’s when Bellamy seemed to have lost it, his grip on you disappearing. No longer anchored, you punched Murphy in the stomach, your hand colliding slightly with Bellamy who gripped him by the collar.

“My what?” He screamed at him, and suddenly you became afraid, because even if your temper was always as bad as this outburst, Murphy wasn’t worth the amount of anger that Bellamy was exuding.

“Bellamy!” You exclaimed, placing a hand on his shoulder, trying to pull him off of Murphy, and he instinctively shoved your hand off with his shoulder. “He’s not worth it.” You told him, trying to calm him down.

“Your little sister.” Murphy said, rather calmly though you heard the slight hint of fear in his tone, and he pushed Bellamy off of him.

“Bellamy.” You cried out, trying to pull him away from Murphy, though he remained rooted in place, your hand still resting on his shoulder.

“Yeah that’s right. My little sister.” He spat out. “Got anything else you wanna say about her?” He challenged.

“Bellamy.” You begged softly, breathing shakily as you tried to pull him away from Murphy.

“Nothing.” Murphy drawled, rolling his eyes slightly. “Sorry.”

Bellamy turned away from him, gently grabbing your hand from his shoulder with a gentle squeeze as if to thank you for not letting him escalate the situation more. He looked at you briefly, guilt flashing over his face as he saw the fear and exasperation written across your features. He took a shaky breath, his anger leaving him, before glancing back at Murphy. “Get him out of here.” He said, motioning towards Atom’s body, and you could hear the exhaustion and exasperation in his tone. He walked off, a group of people moving to bring Atom’s body over to the small graveyard that had already begun.  

You followed, hobbling after him, and you saw him come up to a relatively empty section of camp, sitting on a log with his head in his hands, a look mixed between guilt and shame on his face.

“What do you want, (l/n)?” He asked, not looking up, and you ignored his question, sitting down next to him.

“You look like you could use a friend.” You said simply, and he looked up from his hands, a slight look of confusion on his face.

“We friends now?” He asked, and you laughed slightly shrugging your shoulders. Your laugh seemed to be infectious, because his lips gently curled up into a smile, though the sadness was still apparent in his eyes.

“How about on a trial basis?” You joked, and he rolled his eyes, snorting slightly, shaking his head.

“That’s awful.” He said about your joke, his warm soft melancholy smile on his face.

You shrugged your shoulders in slight defense. “I never said I was funny.” You defended. “Although it’s sort of true.” You were sort of friends.

He laughed silently, though the heaviness returned, and he sat up a little, though avoided looking at you, and you saw the vulnerable Bellamy Blake. The real Bellamy Blake, the one you were fond of.

“It’s okay, we don’t have to talk.” You gently reassured him, placing your hand on top of his, offering him a sad half-smile, understanding the inner turmoil he was feeling. He offered you a grateful smile, readjusting his hand so that he was loosely holding onto yours, looking away from you, letting his face darken, his eyes quivering, his bottom lip trembling and breathing in shaky shallow breaths.

You both remained like that for about ten minutes, before he spoke, breaking the thick, though comfortable silence.

“Do you wanna check on Jasper?” He asked, and you looked at him with surprise, because every time you went to check on Jasper he chastised you.

“Are you gonna let me, Blake?” You asked, laughing in confusion.

He laughed, shaking his head. “Even if I said no, you would do it anyway.” He pointed out, and you felt slightly embarrassed as he pointed that out, though mostly proud.

“Yeah.” You agreed, laughing with him. “But why are you asking then?” You asked him, still confused.

“It hurts to climb up the ladder, right?” He asked, and you nodded reluctantly, trying to push the memory of the pain out of your mind. “I’ll help you up then.” He said, and you looked at him with your mouth slightly agape, a doubtful look on your face.

Before you could say anything he stood up, helping you to stand on the log, before he wrapped your arms around his shoulders, his hands hooking under your legs, and you were unsure of how he had managed to get you onto his back in a matter of seconds, any witty remark leaving you.

“I still don’t see how you can get me up.” You said as he entered the dropship, still giving you a piggy-back-ride.

“Can you hold on with your legs and arms if I let go?” He asked.

“I… I think so.” You said slightly nervously, and felt the support from his hands leave your thighs, and you felt yourself slip slightly, tightening your hold, but not to the point of suffocation.

He started up the ladder, and once he reached the second to last rung, you reached behind you and pulled yourself onto the floor, offering him a small nod.

“I’m impressed, Blake.” You admitted, and he smirked at you.

“G’night (y/n).” He said, his smirk melting into his genuine smile, and you felt a smile grow on your face.

“Good night, Bellamy.” You said softly, and he offered a slight wave as he climbed back down the ladder.

“How is he?” You asked gently, crawling over to Jasper, who was surrounded by Clarke, Octavia and Finn.

Octavia just sort of turned away from you, though Clarke gave you a small nod reassuring you that he was gonna be okay.

“I’m really sorry about Atom.” Clarke said to her gently.

Instinctively your hand moved to rest on Octavia’s, gently brushing your thumb over her knuckles to silently reassure her that she wasn’t alone. She looked at you briefly, and you offered her a small smile, your lips quivering and eyes trembling with unshed tears. “I’m so sorry.” You reiterated, your voice warbling slightly.

She gently squeezed your hand, to reassure her that she wasn’t alone, sighing and looking down at Jasper before looking between you and Clarke. “Guess we’re gonna have to get used to people dying down here, aren’t we?” She stated, her voice trembling in an attempt to sound strong.

“But not you.” She whispered to Jasper, on the verge of tears. “You’re not allowed to die.” She said to him, and you closed your eyes momentarily to keep from crying.

“He’s not gonna die.” You said as softly as her, your voice trembling. “He knows that I’d kill him if he died.” You said jokingly, earning a teary laugh from Octavia and Monty, who was still sitting far-ish away from Jasper.

“Yeah, that’s why Jasper and I won’t die. (y/n) won’t let us.” Monty joked, his voice warbled from emotion, and you offered him a small smile, moving away from Jasper to sit with Monty, resting your head on his shoulder, grabbing hold of his hand.

He smiled sadly at you, and you returned his sad smile, gently kissing him on the cheek, before shifting, so that he rested his head on your shoulder, your fingers peacefully playing with the ends of his hair.

“When’s the last time you slept?” You quietly asked him, and he stayed silent, and you felt your heart lurch. “Go to sleep, okay?” You told him, and he nodded in acknowledgment, quickly dozing off.

You smiled softly at your sleeping friend, gently shifting his body so that he was now resting on his pillow, still on the cold metal floor of the dropship. You quickly grabbed the blanket that he had been using and gently placed it on top of him, pressing a small kiss to the top of his forehead, before standing up.

“I’m gonna go see how things are running in camp.” You informed them. “If anything changes, please get me.”

“I promise.” Clarke told you, and you nodded in response before you hopped down the rungs, noticing the pain though pushing it from your mind.

You exited the dropship and saw that everything was in relative peace, and it was quiet. It seemed as if most people were in their tents, and you checked your watch, before deciding that you would go see if Wells needed any help with Atom’s grave.

Nothing could’ve prepared you for what you saw.

Your breathing increased, blood pounding to your ears as you saw Wells on the ground, bleeding out from his neck, choking slightly. Instantly you fell next to him, placing pressure on the wound, a choked sob escaping you, your hands becoming warm and bloody.

“Bellamy!” You screeched, hyperventilating, unsure of what to do. “Bellamy!” You yelled again, and in less than a second he was there, his eyes widening as he saw you cradling Wells’ head, who was still choking out. “Get Clarke!” You screamed at him frantically, and he was gone.

“Hey, hey, hey.” You whispered frantically to Wells. “You’re gonna be alright.” You said, nodding your head frantically. “You’re gonna be okay.” You whispered, tears falling from your eyes, as you continued to press on the wound, your fingers slippery, feeling his pulse become weaker and weaker.

Within less than thirty seconds Bellamy and Clarke had returned, a shuddering cry escaping Clarke as she immediately sat next to you, grabbing Wells’ hand, pressing a kiss to it, sobbing.

“I’m so sorry.” She said to him. “I’m so sorry, I should’ve trusted you.”

“Wells, no.” You cried out, bunching the sleeve of your shirt over your hand, trying to absorb the blood, before pressing your hand on the wound again, barely feeling his pulse.

“Hey, you’re not gonna die.” Clarke whispered, shaking her head. “You’re gonna be fine.” She sobbed.

He gently squeezed her hand, and she looked up at him with her tear stained face, and he just smiled softly, before the light left his eyes, his head going limp in your hands.

“No. No. No!” Clarke screamed, sobbing violently, and you just sat there, your mouth agape in horror, waiting for a scream to escape you as tears pooled in your eyes.

You began hyperventilating, not being able to scream out, not accepting it. “No, no.” You rasped out, shaking your head. “Wells!” You yell at him, waiting for him to move or speak but he doesn’t. “Wells.” You whimpered out, gently shaking his shoulders, waiting for a response you knew wouldn’t come.

“No.” You whisper softly, your mouth agape as you sit there, not processing anything. You could hear Clarke crying and sobbing next to you, though it all sounded fuzzy, your vision focusing on the space in front of you, your mind blank, not being able to process what had just happened.

Bellamy had come back with a few others, who had started to begin to dig a grave for Wells, dragging Clarke back up to the dropship, and you had just sat there with Wells’ head still resting in your lap.

You didn’t remember when or how you had moved, though you knew that someone had spoken to you, and grabbed your hand, pulling your body away from Wells and you had ended up in front of the dropship, staring out into the empty night.

You didn’t sleep. You were in too much shock to even move, much less sleep. Everything felt foreign, as if you were in your body but watching from above with no control as to what was happening.

Instead, you just stared off into space, your mind trying to process the deaths of two of your friends in the span of five hours. And they’d both died with their heads in your lap. It seemed that you weren’t properly equipped to deal with that information, remaining mentally blank for hours.

At some point the feeling changed, and you slowly became more aware of your body, feeling less numb that you had before, though still too numb to properly process what had happened.

It wasn’t until the sun came out that sitting there was causing you anxiety; you reeked of blood and felt awful, before you immediately stood up, and walked to your tent grabbing your towel, soup, and spare set of clothes, mechanically walking to the stream nearby.

You didn’t necessarily know what you were doing, still a bit numb to process anything, before you came upon the stream, and your nerves seemed to calm and heighten at the same time.

You placed your towel, with your soap resting on top of it, on the edge of the river, your clean set of clothes resting next to your towel, though a little further from the shore, your boots next to your towel. You haphazardly threw off your clothes, and waddled into the river, the cold running water jolting you awake, your emotions beginning to slowly turn on, slowly beginning to pour out of you.

You slowly waddled back to shore, grabbing your bar of soap, rubbing it furiously between your hands to create suds, no longer able to see your hands. Placing the bar of soap back down you began to scrub your body furiously, before a wave of sensation hit you, silent tears beginning to wrack your body as you scrubbed harder, your skin progressively feeling more raw.

You scrubbed until you ran out of tears, before wading back into the water, the suds coming off of your body, and you looked on as it began to foam in the water, and you couldn’t help but think if this was wheat sea foam looked like, no wonder Aphrodite was born from it.

The water began to tint red as the blood came off your body, your eyes widening and you felt your throat seem to choke up, your heart beating rapidly as you stared forward, the unbearable static silence seeming to grow louder and louder, making it harder to think.

You ran to the shore of the river, wrapping your towel around you as you shivered slightly, having felt your anxiety become too much, scared that you might drown in the water, the same way you felt as if you were drowning in your mess of thoughts and emotions.

You quickly dried off, and put on your clean clothes, warmed from the sun. You involuntarily smiled, the feeling of clean clothes alone making you feel at momentary peace. You sighed, looking at your bloody and torn clothes, and with a sudden burst of energy you placed them in the water, some blood immediately washing out.

You grabbed the bar of soap once more, rubbing it on the bloody stains across your clothes, before they mixed out of the fabric, and you pulled your clothes out of the river, clean but now soaking wet.

You quickly gathered your things, a piece of your mind conscious enough to tell you that you should return back to camp, before turned away from the camp to see an angry Bellamy Blake emerge from the trees.

---

tags: (still open!) @vxidnik @multifandom-states @thearachna-kid @colie87@jodiereedus22 @greygarbage @lovingcupcake51002

[serpentarii]

my original work is not your inspiration

so, for the almost three years i’ve been on writeblr, i’ve had a few instances of suspiciously similar stories and premises from new followers and even a former mutual. i’ve seen someone exactly copy the very specific formatting i use on all of my posts for my original writing, down to the italics and bold (a format which i have been using for well over a year). the most recent incarnation of this is definitely the worst of it and i gotta say i’m sick of the bullshit. 

i will be censoring the url of this person, but due to the nature of the screenshots provided, it might be easy to find their blog. DO NOT harass this person. DO NOT go out of your way to find their blog. i’m not making this post to attack them, i just want to teach two lessons: 1) how to recognize plagiarism or lifted ideas and 2) why that’s a shitty thing to do. 

additionally, i don’t know what pronouns this person identifies with, so i will be referring to them with they/them pronouns, and i apologize if i’ve misgendered them in any way. 

RECEIPTS  

their most recent post is a wip/character introduction for a completely “new” project, but thanks to their tumblr’s default theme, you can clearly see my ahfs character post in their recent likes on the sidebar. 

aside from the obvious copy-paste of my original post’s formatting, the blue highlights are where it gets into the specifics of the various terms they’ve lifted from me. my wip a hymn for serpents, which i will abbreviate to ahfs, has a heavy focus on witches, femininity, heretics, apostates, and the ancient orders that govern everything. 

a lot of what’s presented could be seen as entirely coincidental, but once it all starts piling up, it turns into something that makes me extremely uncomfortable. 

it was posted to their blog yesterday. it is currently thursday, august 4th, as of writing this. 

the following two screenshots are from my posts. also note that i have not made a post for ahfs since december of 2021, and this person’s blog was created in july of 2022. 

screenshot from their archive. reminder that this is a main blog, not a sideblog, they like and follow from this one. i soft-blocked them in the process of drafting this post, so i’m unsure of when exactly they originally followed my writeblr. 

their activity in my notifs: 

when i asked a few friends/mutuals about this, they said that they had also seen this person in their notifs liking my posts, as some of them i’ve privated or deleted, and were therefore unavailable on my blog. this person was actively seeking out my content. 

it gets a little more complicated here, so please bear with me. the screenshots below are from their two previous wip introductions, with the dates of posting included. they’re from july 29th and june 30th respectively, but as seen above, their activity on my blog and their new wip six monsters so divine is very recent. 

also notice that the formatting is almost completely divorced from what they use in their most recent post, because it’s copying mine. i’ve scrolled through their blog as well, and none of their previous posts were formatted that way either. it’s also the first and only post about six monsters so divine on their entire blog. 

the names i’ve underlined also appear in their latest post, and were clearly repurposed for six monsters so divine a few days after they began searching through all of my posts. 

ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE   

now, if you’ve been taking note of the magenta highlights, these are relevant to my other wip and the novel i am currently in the process of writing, mordlust. both salem and aleksander are names of main characters, and i even recently made a post about their names’ meanings. 

 the story is somewhat of a sleeping beauty retelling as well, with a magical plague called the dornenheit (dornen meaning thorn), which makes me dubious of this person’s choice of surname “briarthorne”. 

i do think it might be a bit of a stretch to say that they’ve also been lifting some elements from mordlust, but given the situation, i wouldn’t be surprised. 

CONCLUSION 

i’m fucking pissed, but i’m also just done. as of now i am considering no longer posting any of my original writing/excerpts and taking down all of what i currently have up on my blog, which is years worth of content. 

i love writing. i love the craft. i love making worlds, characters, relationships, magic systems, prophecies, everything. i spend literal months worldbuilding and outlining to make something that i can be proud of, and to see someone just pick and choose what they like and repackage it as entirely their own is extremely upsetting and unmotivating. 

at the end of the day, creative writing is a deeply personal craft that takes a lifetime to master. why not write your own story instead of gleaning what you can from a complete stranger’s work? why try to form something from someone else’s out-of-context fragments and pinterest boards? it takes all the soul out of it. 

it’s ok to be inspired by others, it’s ok to have your own spin on a concept, but i’m literally just some random 19y/o posting for fun on tumblr, not an established nyt best-selling author with a massive platform and fanbase. i want to be a published author someday, and i want to publish the kind of novels that made me want to start writing. 

this is not how you do it. 

[incarnateirony]

Someone dropped this in my submission box instead of ask box, “So I’m trying to genuinely understand what you’re saying is you understand corporate execs at the CW had a hand in the ending of supernatural? I’m not judging not attacking I swear I’m just trying to make sense of it because I had no idea about any of this up till now because I had stayed out of online fandom because well for years it felt big but anyways am I getting this right?”

---

The CW has a hand in everything. Here’s how this generally works.

The authors have ~relative~ freedom on a show. That is to say, the execs really don’t sit there splitting the nuances of the storytelling the fandom is receiving. They generally don’t even identify major markers that any of us would know (see: not even recognizing what the Roadhouse is.) -- we all knew the original ending had TFW at the Roadhouse as framed and spoiled by 15.04 among other details, and the whole “heaven/mental bar” theme from DSOTM, Nihilism, and Last Call all amplified this as an inevitability--but when you ask about “hey, is there a bar in heaven?” and get a “no?” that tells you they don’t even understand *ancient* plot beats like the Roadhouse, much less the ramifications of what it’s supposed to entail. Oh look at that, the roadhouse was just in fucking heaven like we said, but you identified it as a “cabin” because of filming locations and your basic notes.

Corporate has very basic compliance demands. They expect X, Y, and Z. What X Y and Z are across different shows vary depending on their markets. As long as the authors operate within X Y and Z, the corporate face essentially works off of synopsis of pitches and ideas.

This is also why I’ve talked about queer writing history and people being careful what they call queerbait: you don’t know what their X Y and Z are. The WB for example does not really CARE about representation. I’ve blogged about this often. We’re dollar signs. If they can package a new product to market it explicitly as LGBTQ fare, then they’ll turn you into a revenue machine by feeding you that particular fodder. When it comes to legacy shows--which is funny, because when the suit went off in my DM about this, they used the exact same phrasing as me--they’re going to play it safe, especially if they don’t truly understand the returns from the demographics they’re observing.

The space between X Y and Z is where the authors have liberty to push and, the longer and harder they push, the louder the content is allowed to get.

Here! I’ll even quote them directly, somewhat truncated because they ranted for fucking PARAGRAPHS.

“In reference to the media landscape, on a corporate level we do not distinguish fandoms. [...] That said, legacy shows such at Arrow, Supernatural, and even Flash are relics and we never really endeavored to reinvent the wheel on a corporate level, we are more focused on shows that are newer and still in our pipeline to premiere. [...] As for social media like all businesses and brands the engagement itself is key, but the content of the engagement is mostly irrelevant, though every show does have certain keywords that are often used in conjunction with harsher interactions blacklisted.”

The funny part is, they thought they were preaching to me like this was new information, but those of you that have been around my blog will PROBABLY RECOGNIZE this is almost VERBATIM exactly what I have told everybody over the years. Enough I half-suspect some trolls out there will think i wrote it myself and made it up and lob that accusation around. But there’s about 50 people that watched this conversation as it unfolded.

If you guys get mad? You’re still giving them PR. If you engage the content? You’re giving them PR. If you guys get bitchy ENOUGH? They completely blacklist a certain kind of engagement. I have literally been telling you all of this for years.

They don’t care who you are or what you want, just if you’re watching and what they at-best roughly estimate your demographic as desiring. So for example, Supernatural reading as a largely non-urban white demographic in its viewership, especially with a heavier lean in red states than most shows on the network, they presume to cater to what they perceive that demographic wants, rather than individualizing the understanding of the content, because they do not distinguish the shows or fandoms. “Oh, heavier republican white non-urban demographic” is where their understanding ends at, which is why they’re going to be utterly mystified why even my trump-voting republican neighbor from rural Alabama looked at the end result and went “what the fuck?” -- they weren’t expecting a big gay confession, but they were expecting a different sort of final tone.

Of course they’re never going to take that on for themselves and go “wow, we’re giant blazing dumbasses that understand nothing about the show!” -- they’ll, for example, claim they don’t leave network notes, when they’re still the ones passing material along about demographics and expectations etc etc. Their notes are *basic*. They do not leave *extensive* notes. Because extensive notes require extensive understanding of the content.

So for example: Berens spent since S9 slowly gaying up our show. Since they do not pay attention to the fine details of the story contents (lol no bar in heaven lolololol just a cabin lololol), he never got a note to *stop*. But it was not within the original structure plans and didn’t technically fit the demographic notes. The show continued to get aggressively gayed up, and Berens never really signed a note like “hey, I’m gaying it the fuck up” so even fandom reporters were going “THERE’S NO INTENT THERE!!!!!” -- berens operated in his very basic X, Y, Z landmarks to expand content within a story the suits literally do not pay the fuck attention to.

Corporate’s understanding is basic: dudes stabbing monsters and brothers against the world. Play in that box and keep these demographic notes in mind. You’re good.

They’ll NEVER mention blacklisting issues directly beyond what they admitted in the above quote but I DO remind you I have ranted ON AND ON AND ON how much Destiel fandom shot themselves in the goddamn foot with a fucking bazooka with the Chad Kennedy incident years ago. Others like Emily handled it intelligently to inform the *authors*. No, the network will never tell you if they blacklisted Destiel, but I informed you pretty heavily years ago that odds are, yeah, they probably fucking blacklisted Destiel.

Add in paying attention to the things Berens himself liked (if you don’t believe, scroll to Nov 5 on his tl)

Like, listen. berens knows exactly what he did and did the best he could do in the situations that were set up for him. And, frankly, I had been talking about this season as a writer room rebellion all year--just like corporate DID leave them a note in S11 that they couldn’t kill god. But if they couldn’t kill him or cage him, they would find another way. In 17 we said goodbye to Meredith and, in a way, to a MAJOR portion of Dean’s substantial story. In 18, we said goodbye to Bobo, and frankly all the parts that grew into queer Castiel that came with it. 19 and 20 became residual notes of hitting expected plot beats on the head on a rhythm, tying off godforces, and then just sliding into the Dabb subversion of them having learned to grieve, let go, and process emotions-- just the surrounding delivery left the feeling of more ~wanting~ on that front which is understandable.

But these are the kind of things people don’t even ~think~ about. This is WHY I’ve turned myself into a bulletshield protecting Berens’ work for YEARS while people yelled about queerbait not understanding the years of process he used in his unbabysat space to make something unable to dodge.

More posts he liked:

This isn’t a solo story. At the same SDCC he leaned over to my friend and grinned, whispering, “I hope you like what I did this year.” -- he knew. He knew and he fought his ass off but there was an end of the line.

That end of the line having an extra note or two to drop in the finale--never a big gay confirmation, just a “everyone’s there together, assume what you want” --is its own thing. As it is, Jensen even remarked how much of his dialogue got cut in final draft out of 18, and if the brazil dubbing footage leak tells me anything, they got the raw version before it was cut. And before they ADR’ed Dean’s sniffling collapsed against the wall. They had everything right, beyond the fact that there was supposed to be more dialogue from Dean along the lines of, “You can’t go”, or “you can’t leave” (difficult to determine what a ESL person seeing an english draft then yelling in portuguese then translated back to english meant, specifically, but something in that ballpark -- just like “don’t do this” came as “no it’s not” through the translation pipeline), and other similar minor bartering about this. And we’re not even gonna get into Dean’s hilariously loudly ADRed sniffling on the wall. Here, Jensen, breathe IMMEDIATELY into this microphone.

But they’re never going to tell you this. Of course they’re not. 

Summarily, corporate had half a year of having to re-manage scheduling everybody’s flights and planners during covid rewrites to stare directly into the huge gay abyss and fuck things up. 

It’s all about the unmonitored space vs the monitored space. Of COURSE they’re never going to fucking tell you these things. 

FRANKLY I am DYING to see the Portuguese dub of the show to see what the fuck they do with it, all things considered. I’m pretty sure the suit in my inbox that’s trying to vagueblog around things sideways now never accounted for the fact that there’s copies of the raw available in some parts of the world. I’m... pretty sure they thought they were my only leak source in fact. 

Either way--it’s not that corporate micromanages and passes constant notes. It’s that they gloss over vague summaries and plans, drop a few base expectations and performance boxes. It’s up to the authors how to kick up dust inside those boxes. 

[zirkkun-uthcs]

~💙Heyoo, how have you been? Hope you take care of yourself I'll just leave my request here: UT! - UL! - UF! - ULR! Sans (separately) have been invited with their bros on a Netflix and pajamas party night by someone that might have a crush on them. This person also have been close friends with their brothers for a few months now. How do they take it? Do they take the opportunity to try and get to know this person better or they just ignore the whole deal?

Aaa I'm doing alright!💕 Unfortunately I accidentally closed this without saving the first time, so hopefully it's still okay?? My second drafts are never as good when I have to write them from memory lol..

&&&

Undertale!Sans - Sans is fairly indifferent to the idea of going out for the evening, but decides to go since his brother is very excited about the two of them going together. Papyrus is weirdly more fidgety and giddy than usual, and Sans has absolutely no idea why. When they get to the party, Papyrus almost immediately goes to introduce Sans to the friend that has a crush on him. Within seconds, Papyrus is claiming suddenly that he has to go to the bathroom, and leaves them. pap, wtf? monsters don't even have to use the bathroom, what are you doing? Sans tries to just shrug it off. But it isn't very long until he figures out for himself why his brother left the two of them to talk by themselves. Well, it certainly isn't what he expected, then again he never really expects anyone to find him appealing enough to be nervous around, but silently entertains it by getting to know them better through the evening. He'll never directly out them, that'd be just rude, especially if they're already nervous. Though, he'll secretly hope they say it at some point before the morning.

Underlust!Sans - Lust's brother doesn't even give him a choice in the matter. Charm just exclaims, "WE'RE GOING TO A PARTY TONIGHT!" and so they are. Lust isn't against it, he likes social events, but he's just surprised as to why Charm is so insistent on it. He doesn't get his answer until they start making their way to the party, when Charm gives up and just tells Lust outright that one of his friends there has a crush on Lust, and he really wanted them to meet up and talk. While Lust is flattered, he can't really fathom the idea of a relationship with someone; they'd probably just leave him right away once they got close to him and realized who he actually was. But, when they got to the party, and he actually met Charm's friend, Lust's SOUL was struck the second he saw their face flush when they met eyes. Oh boy. He wasn't about to back out now. Lust was going to do everything in his power to learn everything about them even if it took all night, and you better believe he was as close to them as possible the whole evening.

Underfell!Sans - Fell's brother just kicked down his door, instructed him that they were going to a party, and then immediately when the two of them got there, Edge just left. He just left Fell there. Wow. real nice, bro. Now he has absolutely no way of going home. He could shortcut, sure, but would it really be wise to do that when it's very probable that's where Edge was going? Fell was trapped. Great. Wonderful. He's having a ball. Whee. It's been five minutes and he already wants to leave. Fell made himself his own pouty corner in one of the least populated rooms, essentially, and spent a while scrolling on his phone before someone approached him. Wasn't that Edge's friend? Oh great, now they're going to ask him about why he left. But, to Fell's utter shock, they instead ask how he's doing. Him. Fell. Specifically. He sputtered a half-answer, internally screaming about 50 thoughts at once. is this genuine affection? what? no. they literally just asked "how are you doing?" why am i like this. Well, needless to say, he became very clingy to said friend for the evening, the smallest semblance of a crush already forming even from just one half of a conversation. He really was just desperate for any sort of positive attention, isn't he? Fell isn't sure what to do.

Underlust Reimagine!Sans - Ace's brother also doesn't give him a choice. Duo borderline literally drags Ace out of his room, forcing him to go to the party. Ace doesn't want to be there, to say the least. He's afraid of facing most people in the Underground, first of all, and second of all, he knows exactly why Duo's dragging him outside. Ace has told him a thousand different times that he's absolutely sick of being set up with people. He plans to just deal with it as usual: whoever unfortunate soul is gonna be stuck with him for the evening is really going to hate him, because he's going to do nothing but be as unappealing as possible. Fortunately, he's a master at knowing exactly what people hate, because there was a time where he could easily pick up on people's likes and desires, but now he's just changed it to work the other way. There is very, very little Duo's friend can do to even remotely waver Ace's opinion at all. He'll reject every opening of conversation, constantly be on his phone while pretending to forget they're there, and adapting around every pet peeve he can figure out in a short time. He's going to be really pissed off and confused if, for some reason, Duo's friend doesn't leave him alone after thirty minutes... an hour... two hours... three hours...?? What can a guy do to be more unappealing around here?

[embklitzke]

July 2020 Camp NaNoWriMo - The Magic Crystal Justice Squad (Chapter 1)

So this project that I'm doing for July 2020's Camp NaNoWriMo kind of snuck up on me.  I'd originally intended to start a re-draft of UNSETIC Files: Pawns for this go-around, but plans changed when lightning kind of struck my brain.

There's a meme floating around about magical girls who were supposed to be retired but have to pick it back up again when they're around 30--and have real lives, real jobs, responsibilities, etc. that would definitely be impacted by their side gigs saving the world.  When I first saw it, I laughed about it and wondered if it maybe wouldn't be a fun project to try out--someday.

Someday happens to be, quite unexpectedly, right now.

The Magic Crystal Justice Squad is something completely off-the-wall and very different for me, but definitely brings back fond memories of much younger years when I rushed home every damn day from school to watch Sailor Moon and the hours spent over the years watching Power Rangers and similar fare.  It also lets me stretch my writing muscles in some new and interesting ways, since it feels a lot more tongue-in-cheek than many of my other projects.  It's something fresh and new and has been fun so far.

We'll see how long that lasts.

Until then, enjoy joining me on this little bit of a ride.

One

Shots rang out and I pressed my back against the brick wall, sucking in a pair of ragged breaths.  Steady.  Steady.

Maybe if I told myself that I could still do this, I’d actually be able to.

God, everything hurt so much more at twenty-nine than it had at seventeen.

There’s something they don’t tell you when you sign up for this whole magical girl gig.  Of course, that assumes you’ve got the choice when the whole thing comes up—from the looks of things, most don’t, at least not when you read about them or watch them on TV.  I’ll tell you what: Sailor Moon it’s not, that’s for sure.  It’s not Magic Knight Rayearth or any of the others, either.  It’s not all sunshine and rainbows and personal growth.

And unlike in Power Rangers or any of that craziness, there’s no handing over your powers to someone else.  There’s no retirement plan.

There sure as hell isn’t a happily ever after.

I’ve spent twelve years trying to convince myself otherwise and the only thing I’ve learned is that fate is a cruel bitch and the business of saving the world sure as hell isn’t all it’s cracked up to be on TV.

I risked a glance around the corner.  Not immediately seeing my pursuit, I allowed myself a second to breathe, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to listen past the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.  They couldn’t be far.  Their pursuit had been dogged across rooftops and down through the cavernous alleyways. I’d be paying for my rappelling trick for days.

Austin would’ve told me that it was an impressive move, but probably an unnecessary stress on my body, a waste of economy.  As usual, he’d have probably been right about it, too.

But Austin wasn’t here.

Austin was why I was here.

Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer.  Someone must have called the cops, as if they’d be of any help in this situation. For all I knew, they were working for the enemy.

It would not have been the first time something like that had ever happened.

Just breathe, damn you.  It took every ounce of wherewithal not to snarl at myself.  Panicking wouldn’t do me any good, not now—not that it ever had. All it’d ever done had gotten me was into more trouble or yelled at by my former teammates.

Former.

If there was nothing else that slammed home how alone I was in this, it was that single word.

With Austin gone, too, I was well and truly on my own for the first time in twelve years.

I opened my eyes and stared at the wall ahead of me, then reached up to tap my tiara where it rested against my temple.  A crystal visor materialized a second later, numbers and figures scrolling in front of my right eye, almost too quickly for me to understand what they were telling me.

That had always been a problem, but it was one that I didn’t have the patience to fix and probably wouldn’t until the next time it almost got me killed.

Three of them closing in. I can dodge them or I can fight.

My hands curled into fists. As stupid as it was, I wanted their blood.  I wanted to put them out of my misery.

It would be three less foot soldiers for the enemy to throw at me in the future.

Hell, they might have been the ones who took my brother, which meant that I owed them more than a little payback.

I should have listened sooner.  If I’d listened sooner, none of this would have happened.  None of this would have started again.  We could have stopped it.

Dammit, we could have stopped it before it started all over again.

Too late now.

I watched the scroll for a few more seconds.  My breathing calmed and I counted my heartbeats, listening as the sirens grew closer.  The sirens—and the three men who thought that I couldn’t hear them coming.

They brought this on themselves.

Hands tightening into fists, I took one last, slow breath.

“Fuck with the Crystal Princess and see what you get,” I breathed, then pivoted out of my hiding place and into the open.  Leveling my wand—twelve inches of iridescent, crystallized silver—at them, I growled words that only felt even more ridiculous every time I said them. “Quicksilver Crystal Blade Spread!”

In the split second between the men realizing what I’d said and the blast hitting, the look on their faces was nothing short of priceless—they thought I was the most ridiculous thing walking.

They weren’t far from wrong.

Even ridiculous, however, I was still deadlier than they were.

The magic started as a brief flare of gray-white light, almost too faint to see.  It grew exponentially in a matter of seconds, gaining form and substance as crystalline daggers that flew in an arc in front of me. Dozens of them found their mark, blasting the center most of my pursuers clear off his feet, sending him flying backwards a dozen yards.  His companions had a split second to look at each other, their mocking and amusement melting into something close to fear.

One of them had the temerity to shoot at me.

He missed, though not by much.  It helped that I was already moving.

If I’d learned anything over the years, it was to keep moving before they got your measure and your number came up once and for all.

The other thing I’d learned was to come at the enemy with all you’ve got because you never know which encounter’s going to be the last.

Catching the one on my right in the chest with my foot, I pushed off him to tackle the one on the left, the one that had managed to get a shot off.  As his companion went careening into the wall, I bore the shooter to the ground, using momentum to make up for my lack of girth.  The gun clattered from his hand, went spinning away, out of reach of both of them.

They were already bleeding from the dagger spread.

Monsters, after all, bleed just like everyone else.

Whipping my wand toward his jaw like a baton as I bore him to the ground, the shooter’s head bounced off the concrete as we landed, me on top of him.  His eyes rolled up into his head for a second, then he snarled.  I could only see the whites of his eyes as he lunged upward at me, fingers hooked into claws.

Oh no, you did not just pull that shit with me.  Throwing up one arm to catch his hands, I drove the heel of my free hand into his nose.

The sound he made was the stuff of nightmares—half a scream, half a growl.  It soured my stomach and sent bile creeping into my throat, touching a primal fear built into all of us.

Unlike most, I’ve figured out over the years how to shunt that fear aside and keep on fighting.

I risked a look away from him to check on my other assailants.  The one that had taken the brunt of the daggers wasn’t moving—he was probably out, though I wasn’t sure.  The other, though—

Yeah.  I should have been a little more vigilant about him.

A booted foot sent me sprawling, knocking me from my perch on the shooter’s chest.  The other man stalked after me, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and a few places where the daggers had caught him, too.

“You should have stayed out of it,” he growled, his voice guttural, somehow human and inhuman all at once.  A shiver shot down my spine.

Just in case I needed more confirmation that something was rotten in the state of Denmark...

Well, I had it now, not that I’d needed it.

“Fat chance,” I said, brandishing my wand.  He laughed at me.

“What are you going to do with that, Princess?  It’s a sparkly stick with magic.  You don’t have too many charges left, now do you?  Bet you’re spent after that last-ditch effort to shake us off.”

“Oh,” I said quietly. “You’d be surprised.”

They were working from outdated information.  That was good to know.

While being older meant that I’d pay a heavier price for any sort of physical feats of magical-girl prowess, having become a magical woman had apparently translated to a deeper fount of magic.

“Quicksilver Mist Arise.”

His eyes widened as the air around him thickened.  I crawled back, stumbled to my feet, watching as a silver mist coalesced around him and his fallen companion.  Their faces changed as the fog swirled around them, growing heavier, thicker.

There it was.  The demonic-looking visages I’d expected, the ones I’d sensed but not seen.

They were getting better and better at hiding in plain sight.

Still, they hadn’t quite gotten good enough to fool me—not most of the time, anyway.

The mist choked off even their screams as it stole their breath.

Carefully, I stepped around the mist and headed toward their fallen companion, crouching to check for a pulse.  I found none. His face had taken on the same demonic cast in death that illusion shrouded in life.  My lips thinned as I started to search him, hoping to find something some clue to what they’d been up to—other than hunting me.

Behind me, the mist faded away, leaving the bodies of his companions lying in the alleyway. Muttering a curse as I came up empty in my initial search, I headed for the other two and repeated my search.

Nothing.

Maybe they were getting smarter after all.

I straightened and shook my head, staring at them for a few seconds, throat tightening at the shameful waste of it all.  It didn’t have to be this way.

But they’d chosen this war, and the war, in turn, had chosen me.

If I wanted to save my brother, I didn’t have any choice.  I had to keep fighting.  No one else would.

There’s no handing your power to someone else when you end up where I’m at.  No new reincarnation crops up to pick up where you left off, to take your wand and skirt that you thought you’d hung up and fight the good fight.

There’s only you and the demons that still stalk your days and your nights—both the ones that come from outside and the ones that come from your soul.

We thought the war was over.

How wrong we were.

[mittensmorgul]

eeeee I’m very happy that a dead Cas is now officially chuck's ideal ending. (Kind of? I mean,,,, he told Sam that what he showed him is what would happen if TFW won, but it was still the ending *Chuck* has been wanting.) either way! It’s now textually part of the What We Absolutely Can’t Let Happen package!

Lol, I mean, a dead Sam and Dean are officially part of Chuck’s ideal ending, so it’s kinda like... if Chuck is targeting you like that, if he specifically and horrifically wants you off the table that bad because he knows that with you alive then his plans fall apart... yeah...  

Which, honestly... explains an awful lot why Chuck’s spent so much effort keeping Cas busy with other stuff in the past. I’m entirely rethinking s6 and s7 here, because this explains so much. It’s not that Cas was being controlled by anyone, but after 5.22, Cas... poked at things. He let (half of, anyway) Sam out of the cage, he stood up to Raphael who was scheduled to finish the apocalypse, and then he teamed up with Crowley to hoover all the souls out of Purgatory. 

I mean Chuck was probably giddy with anticipation over the leviathan getting freed, you know? He didn’t even have to interfere to bring on his monster apocalypse. Just sit back and watch the chaos. He didn’t even mind Death nudging Dean in the right direction a few times, because Dean was so busy with his own immediate problems he couldn’t figure out Death’s hints in time to stop Cas anyway... And then Cas inadvertently and conveniently cleared himself off the table once the monsters were free. And yet... something about this wasn’t entirely satisfying, and Cas was brought back without his memories and stashed away to what... to give Dean a bit of hope that Chuck could just dash again? Because then Cas stashed himself away AGAIN after fixing Sam and taking on the trauma that was killing him, and then stashed himself in Purgatory for a while before coming back as an unwitting pawn of Heaven.

I think Chuck enjoys watching Cas go through this over and over again.

“Punishment resurrection.”

But s15 TFW isn’t the same fractured and scattered TFW from s6. They know Chuck’s God. And they know he’s the antagonist who keeps pushing them through more and more horrific versions of his own ugly story.

Billie is not OG Death, and she’s willing to bide her time and plan.

Sam is not soulless. He’s been through all of this before, and he’s endured, and he’s gonna endure again. He may have had his hope shaken a bit, but I don’t think that’s something Chuck can actually take from him entirely. As long as he’s alive, there’s a chance.

Dean is not the grieving, out of the loop shell of himself he was in s6. He knows what’s going on now, even if everything seems kinda bleak... He’s already established that in addition to Sam (who’s not in hell or soulless now), he also needs Cas in his life, even if it’s just the two of them sitting at the table commiserating. 

And Cas... finally understands that Dean wants him to stay, needs him to stay, and that every time Dean has told him this before (even if it was worded differently, because Dean struggles to express himself directly) Cas had left anyway-- for Dean’s own safety, to shield Dean from having to do something terrible, to sacrifice himself so Dean wouldn’t have to-- Dean didn’t care because all he could see was I asked him to stay and he left anyway. I am not enough. I am not worth staying for. And now in Purgatory, they finally began to have that conversation. Cas got a win for Dean, a year worth of s8 prayers that Cas had heard have been condensed into a single prayer that finally brought them together instead of convincing Cas he needed to keep running away to protect Dean. Instead of shoving Dean through the portal and staying behind, Cas waited at the portal for Dean and they walked back through together. Almost like ALL of the things that have been haunting Cas and driving him to penance since s6 have at least begun to be addressed and resolved in s15.

What were we talking about at the top of this? I think I’ve gone off on a tangent again...

RIGHT! Chuck’s gotta nerf Cas for his plot to work out.

It’s wild, right? Because Chuck’s whole “This Is Your Future Life” episode he crafted to convince Sam that locking him away with a Mark is a terrible idea that can only end one way... Do you know how frustrating it must’ve been for Chuck to have to stop them from caging him? Because it was a double-edged sword. I mean, on the one hand, I’m sure he LOVED the idea of Cas slowly going mad with the Mark until Dean was compelled to lock him in a ma’lak box and bury him right along with his hope and happiness, but if they had succeeded in casting that spell, then CHUCK WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO WATCH HIS FAVORITE SHOW. Like Amara in that same cage, his fun would’ve been over.

Can’t watch all the suffering if you’re locked in a cosmic dungeon!

It’s incredibly funny to me that Chuck convinced Sam that his nonsensical “future” was a true seeing, that he “shared his omniscience” with Sam with that watch. Because the one thing the show has demonstrated over the years that Chuck sincerely hopes they’ve forgotten, is that you can’t change the past, but the future is never set in stone until it comes to pass. And the future is built on choices.

Chuck can account for a lot of things, but he can’t account for Free Will. He can nudge, he can remove options, he can create roadblocks leaving only terrible choices open to them that will have awful consequences or require painful sacrifices, but... TFW has never completely done what they’re told, you know? Cas is the original “spanner in the works,” and Edlund once commented that yes, he has a “crack in his chassis,” but it’s a crack through which great things come. But Sam and Dean also have this frustrating and fascinating gift to stymie Chuck’s plot. 

And this is the true power of TFW. I think this is the tool they need to fully understand for themselves in order to finally win. They’ve been edging around it for a while, but Chuck always finds some way to foil them when they start getting close to examining their own wants. Like every time Dean starts talking about being able to take a vacation, or feeling hopeful that the future looks a little less bloodsoaked for them, Chuck steps in and throws them a monster of a curveball. Last time Dean started up with the toes-in-the-sand talk, he’d been possessed by AU Michael by the end of the episode, and crushed like a bug, his free will rendered entirely irrelevant. No amount of fighting against Michael, of telling him to get out, was able to free him. And then Chuck showed up again to hammer the lesson home. Only they learned a different lesson from the one he was trying to teach.

Heck, that’s another frustrating thing for Chuck, isn’t it? TFW has a long, long history of doing that.

Dabb even tweeted lyrics from “The End” by the Doors before this episode aired. Because this was a 5.04 redux, in a lot of ways. The circumstances of the future that Chuck imagined to horrify Sam may be entirely different, but the premise, the themes, the structure of it all... it’s functionally identical. But that was a distraction of sorts, as well. The other episode this referred back to... was 9.18.

Metatron showed his hand, revealed his process, and it’s identical to Chuck’s, because Metatron was just playing God, in the exact same way Chuck always did. He was a writer.

CASTIEL: And you did all this to make me a hero?METATRON [laughing]: Ah, that's priceless. Um no. You are not the hero in this mess-terpiece. You are the villain. I'm the hero.

and

METATRON: Didn't quite turn out as I'd planned, but that is why we rewrite. That was God's problem, you know... he published the first draft. You got to keep at it till you get all your ducks in a row.GADREEL: Was the Winchesters grabbing me part of your plan?METATRON: That was a surprise. But, hey, what writer doesn't love a good twist? My job is to set up interesting characters and see where they lead me. The by-product of having well-drawn characters is...They may surprise you. But I know something they don't know...the ending. How I get there doesn't matter as long as everybody plays their part.

Chuck also thinks he knows the ending. He’s absolutely convinced-- a la Lucifer’s conviction in 5.04 that “no matter what choices you make, we’ll always end up here,” and Metatron’s conviction that the ending was always destined to happen, couldn’t account for the true nature of humanity. Lucifer never saw it, because he never bothered to look for it. Metatron only saw it after he’d been rendered human himself. And Chuck? He thinks he understands, that his “omniscience” gives him a complete understanding of his creation, and yet... there’s things that humanity has created that he could never have dreamed up for himself.

He was right back in 11.22 (oh, hello Bobo episode again) when he told Amara that creation needed to be born, that it became something better than them. And yet Chuck can’t stop inflicting his own tired, formulaic story on his favorite characters. Because Amara was also right about him, that he was also greedy, and selfish, and only wanted to feel “big.” Chuck admitted that to Becky in 15.04, until he got over his writer’s block and started writing with a vengeance.

Wait, what was this about again? *scrolls up*

OH! Right! Nerfing Cas so the writer can have his way with everyone else. Kind of a long-standing tactic, no? And it’s not even about limiting Cas’s angel powers, but about Cas himself, and what he means to TFW. And it’s taken Cas a VERY long time to even begin to understand this. It’s not what he can do for them, it’s not being “useful” or “powerful” or being able to wave a hand and whoosh away the bad guy. It’s about him being HIM. It’s about him standing up to Dean and telling him he’s being stupid, and Dean listening and following him when if they’d gone their separate ways they both probably would’ve failed in Purgatory. It’s about them having each other’s backs and anticipating each other’s needs, and knowing that they aren’t alone and are wanted and needed because they are the best friend the other has ever had. And there’s something to that very human connection, that very human concept of family and love that Chuck... is incapable of understanding.

Whenever love rears its ugly head, Chuck rushes in to crush it. Because in love lies hope, lies a power that he can’t beat down. It’s a plot twist he can’t write his way out of.

Amara tried to give the very beginning of that to Dean in 11.23, to give him a chance to understand Mary, and Chuck couldn’t abide it. Jack is too powerful in a mojo-way, sure, but his true power for all of TFW was love. And Rowena-- pushed into self-sacrifice after Chuck “pinataed Hell”-- her entire journey into TFW had been about love.

Remember the plot of Metatron’s narrative? Love, and heartbreak, and love? Yeah. Remember how he thought he defeated Cas? By killing Dean Winchester? Yeah.

Big picture themes time? Chuck tried to drive wedges between TFW and everything they love. And has been trying to force his own contrived romance plots on them. But Chuck doesn’t understand love at all.

That’s their one true weapon against Chuck, if they each can learn to wield it.

How did my intended lol response to your question turn into this? That’s the cosmic lol for you.

[gofancyninjaworld]

I trust your tastes. Can we get some manga recommendations from you?

You can totally get recommendations, but I wouldn’t trust my taste! :D  After all, I used to love Bleach (we do not speak its name now).   I don’t read much manga, but over the years, it does add up.   I’ve restricted myself to what comes to mind in 15 minutes! :)

Stuff I’ve read through and treasure

ALL OF ONE’S OTHER WORKS. Nuff said.

Battle Angel Alita -- written and drawn by Yukito Kishiro.  I will lay my cards on the table: I am a total sucker for good stories about cyborgs.  And I do mean good. It’s so rare that authors put their humanity and agency at the centre of the character.  No fear here!  Alita is most certainly the protagonist, and we grow up with her, from an amnesiac castaway on a junk heap, through her many changes of career and fate, celebrating her increasing independence, her ferocity, and her humanity.  It’s a very interesting world with a truly vast sweep. Also, it’s nice to see someone who actually understands the physics of fighting.  Just a word of warning, Kishiro cannot write an ending to save his life and so far both installments suffer from having a rushed ending following hard on a good opening and a lush middle.

Full Metal Alchemist -- written and drawn by Arakawa Hiromu   Seriously, if I need to explain this one, have you been hiding under a rock? :D  If you have to tell a story about magic, this is how to do it. If you have to tell a story about conspiracies and secrets, this is how to do it.  The Elric brothers and their quest for the philosopher’s stone is just one of the great stories.  It’s got a great anime too: whichever way you go you won’t be disappointed. She’s currently working on a very different story,  Silver Spoon, that’s set in an agricultural college.  Also superb, but hit with hiatuses as she’s having family situations that take her away from the drafting desk.

Monster  -- written and drawn by Naoki Urasawa.  I took a day off work to finish this one. No good deed goes unpunished, so when the brilliant neurosurgeon Kenzo Tenma chooses to save a young boy who’d been shot in the head over operating on a wealthy politician, only trouble comes his way.  Which is a very mild way of saying that the ocean is wet.  Before I read this series, I thought I hated horror stories.  No, I just hated ones that leaned on disgust or shock value to horrify. Jonathan, the boy he saves, is truly one of the most evil characters ever penned, and Tenma’s pursuit of him to both clear his name and stop the horrors that boy spreads in his wake still gives me chills.

Stuff I’m still reading -- or want to finish

A Trail of Blood -- Oshimi Shuuzu.  Seriously creepy story about a boy traumatised by seeing his mother push his cousin off a cliff.  His cousin doesn’t die, but is left severely brain-damaged...and slowly, we’re watching this mother-son dyad spiral into something strange.  If you start, you will have trouble tearing your eyes away.  Still ongoing.

Battle Angel Alita: Mars Chronicle.  I’m just waiting for this story to finish so I can binge it in one fell swoop.

City Hunter -- written and drawn by Tsukasa Hojo.  I really can’t believe I’ve not finished this series yet!  I guess it’s because it just doesn’t feel right to read this one online. It’s one for me to find shelf space and budget to own.

Chainsawman  -- written and drawn by Tatsuki Fujimoto. This is to manga what junk food is to fine dining.  It’s trash but damn enjoyable trash. Violent, cheerfully gory and full of malign supernatural creatures and the mostly disposable humans trying to do something about them, somehow it’s also incredibly enjoyable.

Dämons -- written by Osamu Tezuka, drawn by Hideyuki Yonehara. I’ve only been able to review the first three volumes of this work, but if you’re into dark and gritty revenge quests, this one is for you.  Sadly, it’s never officially been released in English and no scanslation groups are currently working on it.

Dr. Stone -- written and drawn by Boichi.  Pretty good -- it’s set in a world that became petrified for some reason not as of yet fully explained and of its protagonist’s quest to restore humanity using the power of science!  I’ve gone in quite a ways but I’m waiting for it to finish so I can binge.

Dungeon Meshi --  written and drawn by Kui Ryoko.  A really good adventure story. Briefly,  Lauis is desperate to save his sister, who has been devoured by a dragon, before she’s digested and he leads a motley band (is there any other sort?) in that quest. Features lots of great recipes.  Ongoing series.

Golgo 13 --  ‘Finishing’ this manga about the assassin supreme, Duke Togo, is an impossibility. There are just too many stories.  Because the volumes are largely self-contained, this is a story I dip in and out of as and when I encounter one.

Lone Wolf and Cub -- Ridiculously, I’m just one volume short of reading the whole series.  But have I done so?  No. Because then this wonderful, heart-breaking story of the quest of a dispossessed samurai to take vengeance on those who wronged him would be over.

The Way of the House Husband  --  Slice-of-life about the adventures of a yakuza turned house husband.  This story is a scream.  You don’t need to read chapters in any particular order, so there’s no reason to not check it out!

Vertical World  -- written and drawn by Kuu Tanaka.  A story I recently started, it makes the best use of the vertical scrolling online format to describe a surrealist, nearly two dimensional world consisting of a tower that literally goes on forever.

Stuff I wandered away from but can still heartily recommend

Beastars  -- written and drawn by Paru Itagaki. I totally loved the anime of the first season and went to check out the manga.  This is a good, solid story set in a world where nearly all animals are sentient, sapient, and acculturated with predators and prey living in some uneasy harmony. And a wolf falls in love with a rabbit.  I just don’t find it grabs me as much in extended format.

My Hero Academia  -- written and drawn by Kōhei Horikoshi.  Make no mistake, there’s a damn good reason this story is popular.  It’s really a well-realised shonen series featuring the journey  from hopeful recruits to being the upstanding heroes of the world.  Don’t go in expecting One-Punch Man. I find it good, but not compelling.

Origin -- written and drawn by Boichi.  As you can tell by now, I do love good sci fi. Origin has a great premise, revolving around a self-aware robot trying to find out what it means to live a good life and is trying to pass as a human being.  But life isn’t easy.  The one thing that kicks me out is that I really hate the way he draws the women in this story.  So much so I find myself breaking off for weeks at a time.   I’ve taken it as a signal that perhaps I should just let this one sci-fi lie.  Your mileage will vary and if it’s not an issue for you, the story is a peach!

Futari Ecchi -- written and drawn by Katsu Aki.  I bet you weren’t expecting me to recommend a hentai manga, were you?  I’m surprised it’s still ongoing, but that should tell you something about it.  This story is kind. It is humane. It is warm and often funny without being farcical.  For myself ecchi isn’t a genre I’ve found hugely interesting and it’s become less interesting with time, but if this floats your boat, do check it out.

[basileusgerudo]

William’s Backstory

I had the weirdest god damn dream and I’m pretty sure it was just my William taking over my brain and laying out his life story.  I’m just copy pasting it directly in here, so it will be written as a dream, but, this is officially William’s backstory.

Big oof.

So like, it happened in the house but the layout was a bit different because my computer was in the corner of my room, and there’s usually a window and my a/c unit there, but all that was gone.  So it was truly just in the corner.  And mom was with me for some reason and wanting me to google something, or whatever, but the desktop was acting really weird so I held the power button down to restart it but it was taking a really long time??  And when it finally restarted it instantly came back on and a Fuck Ton of red nonsensical text appeared and just scrolled on and on and *on* until it stopped, went black, and then formed a face made of text.

He called himself ‘William Afton’ and the face looked like him, not like any one specific version, but like, I was looking at him dead in the cyber-eye and I knew it was him?  Anyway, he said via text that if we wanted to make out of this encounter alive, I’d have to play his game(s) and of course I didn’t believe him, it felt so vividly real that I figured something was fucking up so I said, out loud, “You’re lying, you can’t be real, this isn’t real, I remember laying down for a nap so this must be just a dream.” And he replied,

>Not real? >Just a dream?

>Well, how about I give your leg a poke then.

>Does this feel real to you, Catherine?

And I felt a pressure on my leg and, of course, freaked the fuck out and just told him to go away, there’s no way this was actually happened, etc., and the entire time I was freaking out the screen was being filled with nothing but laughter like:

>hahahaha(etc. etc.)

But then he threatened mom and said if I wouldn’t play along he’ll just have to “toy with her instead” and I flipped my damn shit cause me and mom are really close and I wouldn’t forgive myself if she got hurt because of me and I just remember sobbing and begging him not to hurt her to let her leave the room and I’ll do as you say, whole nine yards.  He agreed and she left and went and sat in the living room, I guess, but I still didn’t want to play his games because they were like, 8-bit pixel fnaf style mini games of killing kids, so I just started talking to him to stall for time.

And somehow we got into a conversation into his home life and told me about his father, whose name was also William Afton, and how his father was an abusive alcoholic and would beat him and his siblings, he had a younger sister and a younger brother, he was the oldest of the three.  I never got ages but anyway, his dad ended up killing his younger sister b/c he beat the shit out of her so bad and then when the cops showed up (i think the neighbors called?), his dad had William lie or

>He’d do the same thing to me that he did to her.

>And I was terrified, so, of course, I lied.

I started feeling really bad for him so we just kept talking, only it wasn’t because I wanted to stall, it was mainly b/c he seemed really lonely and I figured he hadn’t had a real conversation with someone in a long time.  The next thing he tells me about is the first time he ever killed someone.

>School was the only safe place we all had.

>I always like learning, I made sure to get good grades.

>I suppose because I thought that would make him proud of me, but he never cared.

>I could’ve stayed home a whole week and he wouldn’t have cared.

>Would have just given him more time to beat me.

>So, when I found out my brother was being bullied, I snapped.

>I made him tell me who, what grade, what class he shared with them.

>They were a class above me but I was taller than him, I was taller than nearly everyone in the school, so I had a clear advantage.

>They put up a fight.

>I didn’t know how to punch, but I copied what my father did, how he held his fist, and landed in a few decent hits.

>I suppose he could see he was losing so he ran but I chased after him and I tackled him.

>There was a cinder block nearby so I used it to bash his head in.

>I’ve never felt more powerful in my life.

And I told him I understood why he did it and he accused me of lying but then I went on a whole rant about how I was bullied back in school and my brother would always look out for me (not to the extent of Literal Fucking Murder™) but that I really did understand where he was coming from.  I think he said thank you, or seemed appreciative to some degree, and then I kinda shifted the subject b/c I said,

“Wait, where’s your mom in all this?”

Because he hadn’t mentioned her once.  So then he tells about how he started Afton Robotics and how his mother came into his life and then promptly out of it.

>My mother was just as much a monster and just as guilty as my father.

>She left us soon after my sister was born because she couldn’t take the abuse anymore.

>I begged her to take at least the baby and my brother with her, I would stay behind, as long as they were safe.

>I’ll remember what she said to my dying day.

>”I never wanted any of you, your father just wanted more punching bags.”

>So she left and I’ve hated her ever since.

“William, I’m so sorry.”

>It’s alright, you have no need to apologize.

>You did nothing wrong.

“I know, but I’m still sorry.  You didn’t deserve any of this.  Your siblings didn’t either.”

>...Thank you.

“I only feel a bit terrible for asking but did you ever kill your Dad?  Take over the household, all that jazz?”

>Oh, yes, of course.

>He was drunk one night, too drunk to put up a fight, so I hauled him to his feet but it didn’t quite finish him off.

>So I snapped his neck.

>I told the cops the same exact thing I told them years ago.

>”He fell down the stairs Officer, he’s always been a bit of a drunk and I guess he just lost his balance.”

>They believed me, of course.

>I was free to take over the house, the money, and I went to college and worked on a Robotics degree, started my own business and my own company, Afton Robotics.

>I ran it out of my garage, mind you, but it was successful.

“That’s great!  I mean- minus the murder, but he really fucking deserved it.”

>He did.

>Thank you, for understanding.

>I suppose I should apologize for threatening you.

“It’s okay, you didn’t actually hurt me or Mom, so don’t worry about it.  Tell me more about Afton Robotics.”

>Very well.

>Did I ever mention I had a penchant for the joy of creation?

“No?”

>Well, I did.

>I do, still.

>Ever since I killed that bully, felt such a high, I wanted to keep it.

>I read up on creation and God and decided that if he could make life, so could I.

>So I shifted my focus to technology, robotics, how to build them from scratch, which leads back into the founding of Afton Robotics.

>I was *finally* good at something so I wanted to make some money from it.

>I made kittens, puppies, and small birds for people, sold them as ‘Never-Dying Pets.’

>”Get your child a friend that’ll last them a life-time!”

>It was a hit.

>It was a stable income and it helped when my father’s money, which wasn’t much, eventually ran out.

>I kept the house stable, funded my way through college, and kept it up for a few years.

>But then business dwindled.  My creations weren’t life-like enough anymore.

>Too cold, too clinical.  That’s when I remembered something from my short stint in studying religion.

>Souls.

>My creations didn’t have souls, didn’t have *true* life.

>I decided to give it to them.

>I didn’t want to harm any animals, though so people did just fine.

>I adjusted my robots accordingly - making small dolls was far easier than animals, actually.

>And children are such fragile creatures; so easy to win their favor with promises of candy, of fun, of a friend.

>That’s when I discovered Remnant.

“What is that?”

>Without going into the finer details, it is a substance that is in everyone.  It is in you.  It is in me.

>Children have more of it, everyone does when they’re young, but when they age, it spreads and disperses.

>Much like a soul, it never truly goes away.

>But, given its abundance, it was always far easier to collect it from children.

“But you watched your sister die, didn’t you feel bad?”

>Not at all.

>You see, when my sister died in my arms, she looked so peaceful.  Happy.

>Death, in itself, must be happy.

>I always singled out children who looked sad, were lost, crying.  Unhappy.

>That was the best lure I used: what better thing to offer a sad, lonely child but a chance to be happy forever?

“I… don’t agree with that but, okay. How does your mom factor into all this?”

>It’s alright, I don’t expect you to.

>She factors in because she figured out I had money and she wanted it.

>She called me, of all things, didn’t even bother to track me down, come back to the house.

>Told me she’d heard of my success and so sorry about your father’s accident.

>It didn’t even phase her when I told her about my sister’s death. >That’s when I decided I would kill her too.

>So I told her to come to the house, we could talk about money, and she fell for it.

>She came a few days later.

>She didn’t even apologize for abandoning us.

>She only begged for mercy as I stabbed her until the screaming stopped.

He also never mentions his brother again so I really really don’t know what happened there, other than I guess he left home.  I don’t think he wanted to hurt his only sibling and I guess I didn’t ask or don’t remember, but the next thing I remember is him telling me about Fredbear’s Family Diner.

>I came up with the idea for the Diner when I was nearly caught killing another child.

>I had to come up with something inconspicuous, something that would let me hide the bodies until I could be rid of them properly.

>So I went back to college, got an undergrad in Business, and started to draft blueprints for a bigger animatronic.

>A golden bear.

>Gold is such a soft color, pleasing on the eyes, and I often saw children with stuffed bears, I thought, “what better animal to make full scale than a bear?”

>It took me a year to develop the springlock suit - I’ll get into that in a bit - and then another year to develop the second animal, a golden rabbit.

>I’ve always loved rabbits, such soft, innocent creatures.  Until they aren’t.

“What do you mean?”

>Rabbits are adorable.

>But they are unnerving to some.

>Empty, soulless eyes.  Sharp teeth.  *Quick.*

>A predator hiding behind soft fur.

“Kinda like you.”

>Yes!

>Yes.

>That’s why I made the rabbit suit for me.

>I would become a symbol of innocence, something children would love.

>I would take them away, take the lonely and the sad, and I would make them happy forever.

>I would let them live their happiest day forever.

>I would give them a family.  *My* family.

“William-”

>So I started Fredbear’s Family Diner.

>There were games, pizza, prizes, and of course, two brand new forever friends.

>Fredbear and Spring Bonnie.

>It was an immediate success.

>And the suits, oh, the wonderful springlock suits.

>They were even better, my magnum opus.

>A creation of duality, like rabbits.

>Something that could be worn by an animatronic skeleton or worn by myself.

>I was always in the rabbit suit, I was careful to never let anyone see my face.

>I hired someone as a faux manager, someone easy I could manipulate, and if they ever showed signs of betrayal, I ‘fired’ them and hired another.

>And it was much easier to lure a lost child away, into the back, with promises of meeting Fredbear.

>With a chance to play with me.

>A friend.

>I would stuff their bodies into Fredbear after I’d collected their remnant and their soul.

“Could you collect remnant from the managers you ‘fired?’”

>Caught on to that, did you?

>Clever.

>Yes, I could.

>Like I said before, remnant never truly goes away, it simply thins out.

>A few factors make it collect within the body, but I found fear to be the most enjoyable.

“Why not give adults a happy ending?”

>Because adults are cruel.

>They’ve lost their childhood innocence.

“More like they can see past your act.”

>Haha.

>Yes, I suppose that too.

>I cannot offer an adult candy and pizza and get the same excitement from a child given the same offer.

I kinda lost the plot after that because someone broke into the house and tried to steal the living room T.V. so I chased them off and then me and mom had to run for some reason and the backyard was hella foggy and there was construction equipment everywhere.   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[cam-the-orange-cat]

A Master-Guide for Overcoming Writer’s Block

Writer’s block is the woe that befalls every writer at some point. To overcome writer’s block, however, you must identify the source of the blockage. This guide will go over common reasons writers find themselves stuck and will offer some simple suggestions that can help. Although suggestions are catered to each problem, don’t hesitate to mix-and-match possible solutions; everyone is different.

The Common Blocks We’ll be Overviewing:

Problem vs. Solution

Fear & Doubt

Perfectionism

Boredom

You Have No Ideas

You're Easily Distracted

Procrastination

Problem vs. Solution

You’ve crafted an incredible conflict, a far-reaching problem that your protagonist must solve. Then you realize: you must solve it. Or you’re making progress in your first or second draft when you discover a plot hole. It’s not something easy you can cover over with a rug, it’s something you wonder you didn’t see sooner and are now overwhelmed with how to fix it and still preserve your progress. You have “painted yourself into a corner” and now you have to paint yourself out.

How do you overcome this block? 

Take a shower.

Take a nap

Go for a walk.

Or  — as Margaret Atwood recommends  — iron some clothes. 

Repetitive, mindless activites seem to work best for stimulating the mind. Most writers can testify that taking a shower is a magnet for interesting ideas. The more mindless, the better. 

Exercise gets new chemicals flowing through your brain; showering stimulates new senses; ironing is a hands-on-activity with a bit of danger involved — these are palate cleansers for your mind.

Sometimes this sort of block requires doing additional research for your story. 

Maybe there’s something in mankind’s military history that can help you solve how your protagonist’s army is to cross the uncrossable river. Maybe there’s a modern-day cure that would work against the disease you made up, and it has humble origins your protagonist can discover. Maybe your protagonist will lose this battle, but go on to win the war in a way you hadn’t considered before.

Fear & Doubt

The blank page mocks you. And the mockery hits a little too close to home. You’re afraid of criticism, you’re afraid of not doing the story justice, you’re afraid you’re not actually a good writer at all  — you’re afraid you’re a fraud.

The sucky part is, some of that is true. First drafts do tend to suck. There will be people who don’t like what you write. But what is absolutely, definitively not true is that you’re a fraud.

You’re a writer. 

You are a writer.

Say the words aloud. Say them again. Say them louder. 

You are a writer.

Now, how do you overcome this block?

Free write

Write stream of consciuosness

Brainstorm ideas in bullet points

Work on a writing-prompt for five minutes

Try your hand at a whole new genre or category

Whatever you do, write. Practice makes perfect, and practice is also the best way to conquer Fear and Doubt. Refuse to give Fear and Doubt power and soon Fear and Doubt will stop pestering you. 

Interestingly, the antidote for Fear and Doubt are similar to the antidotes for Perfectionism, writing’s most infamous villain. The next subheading, however, will go over this particular monster in more detail.

Perfectionism

You’ve been crippled by your own standards. Your story just doesn’t make sense. Your characters don’t feel right. Your writing sounds atrocious.

At least, that’s what you keep telling yourself.

Perfectionism is a choice. We choose to criticize ourselves until we’re beaten to a bloody pulp and have no will left to go on. We run ourselves through the consequences of this headspace and, despite how painfully frustrating it is, we don’t let ourselves escape.

Fear and Doubt grow from perceiving unrealistic expectations of perfection from others and being afraid of not measuring up to that standard. Whereas Perfectionism is not a fear of external criticism, but is a person imposing an unrealistic desire to be perfect unto themself. This is why Perfectionism is a cycle that cannot be broken by friends and family reassurances that you are, in fact, a great writer. You, and you alone, are holding yourself back.

In order to break free from Perfectionsim, you must accept that your writing will never be perfect. Let go of the ideal of perfection. There is no such thing as the perfect story. Writers are imperfect people as is everyone else — even the holy god of fantasy Tolkien was human. And because we are imperfect, so too is our writing.

Acceptance is not begrudging. Acceptance is contentment with the present. 

So, how do you find contentment in imperfection?

Read bad books. Make fun of them, laugh at them — enjoy them. See how beloved these awfully written books are and embrace the idea that you don’t have to be perfect. You, as you are, are more than enough.

Write badly. Do it purposefully. Research overused cliches and tropes and then write them as awfully as you can. 

Then, share how bad it is. Laugh with your friends and family over it. 

Most of all: don’t compare yourself with others. Admiring and learning from other creators and their work is healthy. Comparing yourself with them is never healthy. 

Now that you’ve faced your fear of imperfection and realized how fun it can be, writing won’t seem so daunting. Free flowing creativity relies on realistic expectations.

Boredom

You are no longer excited about writing. You’ve been working on this story for too long. You’ve been dragging yourself through it. You don’t want to give up, but this is becoming a chore. Or you love this story dearly, however writing in general has become a chore. You’re just plain bored, but that’s something you don’t want to admit because losing your passion for writing feels like your first death.

First: it’s entirely possible you have moved on from writing. That is not a bad thing. Far from it, in fact! If you’re bored, your feelings are telling you this isn’t the right fit for you right now — so try new things! Maybe, after a while, you’ll get that zeal for the written word back. Maybe not.

Don’t become discouraged, though; your time as a writer is not invalidated just because you’re not writing currently. You were a lovely writer. You have written much. Don’t be hard on yourself, but give yourself a pat on the back. You have enjoyed a very turbulent and difficult hobby for likely many years! That is something to smile fondly upon.

If, however, the above sentiments don’t settle in your stomach very well:

What can help you overcome this unending boredom?

Hands-on activities are good at jumpstarting the creative battery:

Play — play a board game with friends, play an RPG video game, build a lego house, mold with Play-Dough.

Apply your creativity to a different outlet — follow a Bob Ross tutorial, cook a new recipe or decorate a cake, crochet a scarf.

Change is a good stimulus for your mind:

Change your environment. Try going to the park and writing. Go to the library. Go to a room on the other side of your house.

Change your medium. If you often write on your computer, try handwriting; pick out a nice notebook and use a smooth-flowing pen. If you often handwrite, try typing; explore different word processesors, like Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

Listen to music or a podcast as you write. Or: if you often listen to classical, try rock. If you often listen to a podcast about true crime, try a comedy channel. Or listen to absolute silence.

You Have No Ideas

This is the essence of the blank page fear. It’s not self-bout, it’s not perfectionism, it’s not a plot hole you’re trying to fill. You simply have nothing to write. You are uninspired.

How to overcome this blockage:

Read good books. You could even study literature: follow along with Shmoop as you read Solaris; Sparknotes as you read Hamlet; or Cliffnotes as you read The Life of Pi.

Research writing: there are many books, websites, blogs, and services that offer advice and tips on writing. Whether you can afford the hefty $180/year subscription to MasterClass, or you’d prefer borrowing a book from your local library, learning something new about your craft could get your brain back to storming.

As a writer, it is your first and primary responsibility to live your life. Creating your own experiences is the best thing you can do for your writing. You write what you know — so try new things!

Spend time with friends: chat over the phone, play Jack-Box over zoom, or (when circumstances safely allow) get coffee at an obscure coffee shop.

Play with your pet; brush your dog’s teeth, or try giving your cat a bath (it will at least be entertaining for those around watching you).

Pick up a new hobby: painting, drawing, cooking, sewing, running, biking, hiking, gardening, dancing, guitar or piano, darts, soap-making, scrapbooking; here’s a list you can browse through.

Introduce yourself to a stranger (not online) — make friends with the person ahead of you in the grocery store line. Characters come from someplace real, so meet more people!

You’re Easily Distracted

It feels like there’s a toddler in your head, and the little devil is hell-bent on driving you absolutely mad. What’s that song on the radio? Let me look up the lyrics and follow along with them for an hour on loop. What’s a synonym for epitome? What’s a synonym for essence? — Extract is a movie? Let’s watch it.  

I personally feel for writers who struggle with this block. We hear time and time again: just limit your distractions! Or try this new web-browser or add-on!

But I don’t have the money to spend on a weird looking typewriter or a monthly subscription for a browser add-on. And far from it will either of those options save me from the toddler in my own mind! The typewriter doesn’t stop me from feeling like eating some ice cream. The browser add-on doesn’t keep me from scrolling through Instagram on my phone.

I have Good News, though: We’re not a hopeless case.

And no, this isn’t a self-discipline issue. As someone who grew up with an impulse-monkey of their very own running rampant inside their head, I’m still an industrious and ethical worker. 

So what’s the secret to overcoming this block?

Self-compassion. 

Instead of shaming and punishing yourself for falling down the YouTube rabbit-hole, take into consideration the toddler when you first approach a task. 

If the toddler often gets sidetracked by music with lyrics, try listening to classical music. There will be no chance then of wanting to sing along with the lyrics, and the toddler will be satisfied while you get some work done.

If the toddler often gets peckish, prepare some healthy snacks (like fruit salad, yogurt with granola, pretzels and peanut butter) ahead of time, get a large thermos of cold water, and the toddler will munch away happily while you work on your magnum opus. 

Set up a dedicated space for writing:

Maybe you don’t have a spare room — or even a desk. But you do have a soft lap pillow and a comfy chair you can move to a quiet corner. Drag your writing supplies over and dedicate this as your safe space for writing. Only write here. Don’t eat breakfast here, don’t do homework here, don’t chat with friends here. 

This may seem straightforward, but teaching the toddler is another story. To start, then, use this dedicated space only for a few minutes at a time. Spend fifteen focused minutes on a project while you sit here, then take a break. Overtime, you’ll find you can focus for longer and longer intervals in your writing space.

Procrastination

The Final Boss. The End-All Villain. Procrastination often doesn’t appear on its own. It’s inspired by something. Maybe it’s something we’ve already covered in this guide. The first thing you must do, therefore, is identify the source of your procrastination. Which may vary from project to project.

Once you identify what it is that’s deterring you from action, remember that you hold the power to break through this cycle. So when you put a plan into action, stick to it.

What are some ways you can beat procrastination?

“I’m overwhelmed by this big project.”

Prepare short-term goals: Long-term goals just about beg to be procrastinated. They’re far away and easily forgetable. Short-term goals, however, offer an opportunity to check something off a list. And boy — is that satisfying to do!

Make a list of what you’d like to get done. Prepare achievable goals; SMART goals are goals that are Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and are set within a Time-frame. So, for instance, if you have a book you’d like to write, make it a goal to write five hundred words during the next hour.

“There is only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at a time” — Desmond Tutu

“This is boring.”

This kind of boredom which inspires procrastination is not necessarily the same as creative boredom. This kind of boredom exists because you do not feel challenged in your writing. Whereas the boredom we previously discussed is caused because you are not excited about your writing. So how do you challenge yourself? — Some previous suggestions can be applied:

Try your hand at a whole new genre. Do you write a lot of Fantasy? Try Science Fiction, Urban Fantasy, or go as far out of your comfort zone as you can, like Contemporary Romance. Or have you ever written NonFiction? Jog your mind with a memior prompt or an essay topic — just make sure it interests you!

Research writing: there are many books, websites, blogs, and services that offer advice and tips on writing. On Tumblr alone, some include: @writingwithcolor, @referenceforwriters, @ wordstuck.co.vu, @writing-problems​, @thewritershelpers​, @youreallwrite​, and @fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment​

Try throwing a monkey wrench into your story! You can try picking a random prompt to try and incorporate into a scene. You can kill a character. Add some spice into your writing to renew your writing zest!

If all else fails: archive this project. Don’t delete it — never delete what you write; put this project aside for now. Step away from it. You may be too close to it to see what about it isn’t working, or what about it is making it unattractive to you. Give it some time. When you feel ready to return to this project, it will be waiting for you. In the meantime, enjoy creating a new story.

[veryimportantsparkles]

Alright I’ve kept meaning to do sort of an infodump on my projects because I’ve been really slipping lately.  I dunno how obvious it is?  Probably kind of obvious.  I’ve also been really bad about checking messages and responding to people.  So I figure I can write up a status report and then point to it when I’ve been inadequate about communication.

My IRL job has been wiping me out.  I’ve been getting short, labor-intensive shifts in the evenings, and then random surprise morning shifts shortly after, which has been really hard to manage my time around.  My sleep schedule has been extremely broken and it’s affected my productivity a LOT.  Leadership in my department is about to shuffle around and I’ve been interviewed for the manager position.  If I get it I’ll be working an entirely different schedule, which could potentially be good for my sleepy brain but will definitely leave me with less art time overall.  I’ve also been enduring some back/shoulder issues over the past few months.  Nothing urgent, but it’s limiting how much I can draw each day.  I think replacing my desk chair is going to be a big factor but it’s not the only factor.  I just need to be a smart human and take care of my joints and not hunch over so much.  Working on it.

Here’s the current status of my various art projects:

Laserwing

I ended chapter 5 in June and said I would finish up some other side projects before I start concept work for chapter 6.  One of the projects I needed to finish was the Popkas Yugioh season 4 special, which I finished.  The other big one was my Neonmob card set, which is most of what I’ve been posting lately.  Once that’s out of the way (see below) I need to do concept art.  Chapter 6 will put all the Laserwing characters in new outfits which will need reference sheets.  I’ll need background sketches and layout diagrams so I don’t have furniture shuffle randomly around between scenes.  I also need to sketch out the chapter 6 draft page by page.  I’ve made Laserwing in GIMP up until this point and am going to try switching to Krita for chapter 6.  I might need to do a test page to make sure my process transfers over well into a slightly different system.  Once I’m ready to make real pages, those take a while.  Chapter 5 pages were going up maybe every 2-3 weeks.  I don’t know how many pages are going to be in chapter 6, nor can I say for sure how many chapters are in Laserwing.  An old outline had maybe 40 chapters.  It’s a story with a defined end point, I can say that for certain, but it’s intended to be long.

Popkas

I’ve had issues with Popkas for a while.  I keep picking new themes for dailies, thinking they’re going to be quick and easy, but then end up making them hard for myself.  It’s been to my benefit, I’ve forced myself into learning new art programs and techniques through Popkas.  But it’s hard to keep up the daily schedule.  Currently I’m doing the Paper Mario: TTYD bestiary, which has 124 enemies.  At a rate of one per day, by the time I’ve finished them, Pokemon Sword and Shield should be released and we’ll have all the info about the new Pokemon.  Those will be drawn in ‘Popka classic’ style (scribbly shitposts).  After those are finished, unless my IRL work situation dramatically changes, I’m considering putting Popkas on pause.  In order to do any other monster dexes I’d have to do a lot more research (for example, people have suggested Yokai Watch but I’ve never played one) in order to have anything meaningful to post.  Same deal with Popka Specials (the anime writeup things), those take prep time and anime-watching time that I might not have.  I don’t ever want to end Popkas, but a hiatus might be necessary.

Angelfire Hime

Did anyone even know about Angelfire Hime?  Well I want to post more but that involves finding, scanning, retouching, and transcribing my old high school scribble comics.  It takes as long as any other project but is also low priority because it’s all old content.  Nobody is waiting for the latest update because nobody but me actually knows what that content is, and possibly nobody but me can even read it.  It’s more a personal journey of self-reflection than anything.  I want to return to it but not at the expense of better work.

MeganFantastic dot com

I had a domain name linked to a tumblr that was supposed to be my news blog/front page and I barely use it.  Also, I let the domain registration drop.  Also, I had let a typo in my banner graphic go unnoticed for YEARS and still haven’t fixed it.  Even now, I’m writing this big post to my personal blog instead of the one for news.  The idea was to eventually buy some real hosting and make MeganFantastic a whole site of its own, but that’s a lot of work.  I’ve got a generally good idea of HOW I’d do it (probably wordpress) but I’m not a coder, it would take a lot of trial and error.  This would be a huge undertaking and eventually Laserwing, Popkas, and all my other junk would be contained on one big non-tumblr website.  But it’s uhhhhh not happening yet.

Hundera Youtube

My contribution to our LP channel is to show up, talk about video games, and then draw title cards.  All recording, editing, and channel management is maintained by Josh, and I can’t speak on his behalf about our update schedule.  I will say there are a lot of half-finished games we want to return to.  I will also say that when the new Pokemon comes out Josh is dead set on recording it.  I don’t know if he intends that to be a stream or a regular LP.  In the meantime he streams Minecraft with his friends every Sunday and we fit in our own streams and recordings when we can.

Commissions/Patron Art/etc

I’ve not been very good about this lately and I’m truly sorry!  I have a few things I’m working on, a few things I’ve promised to start working on, and a few things I’ve told people I can do once my workload lightens up, which hasn’t been happening yet.  I really don’t have an answer.  I almost never delete anything so if I’ve been sent a message in any form I should still have it, and I’ll be sure not to forget anyone.  And if I do forget someone feel free to throw rocks at me!

Rane Story 2

What the heck is Rane Story 2?  Well I guess I have to explain Neonmob.  Imagine if ChickenSmoothie and DeviantART had a baby.  It’s a virtual trading card site, which is fun and cute, and I’m drawing out a card series to release on there.  I’ve been using it as practice for painting backgrounds and to fill out some backstory for some 4th-string Laserwing support characters.  Before Mistaire came to Earth, she went to space high school, and that’s where Rane Story takes place.  You can preview the series, and when it’s finished I’ll post about it.  I’ll also repost all the art to DA.  If you scroll through the last several pages of this blog you’ll see some of the art.  I’ve put a lot of my brain energy into getting this done in spite of my work/sleep issues because I don’t want to resume Laserwing until I’ve finished it.  This is what’s stolen my life, guys.  Right now I have 6 more cards to make, and then I have to write and finalize all the text.  I should be done SOON.

Pokemon Nonsense

When my back and shoulder get too hurty and I have to take a break from drawing, one of the easy things to do is whip out a DS and play Pokemon.  I’ve done a lot of twitter shitposting about it lately.  I’ve also drawn up a bunch of gijinkas for my Pokemon.  I’m talking about it now because I also intend to draw up gijinkas for Pokemon to trade away.  I’ve already done a few.  However, I don’t know for sure how I’m going to distribute them.  The idea is people can trade actual Pokemon with me (in either X or Let’s Go Eevee) and the Pokemon they get will come with a character design for you to keep.  I was thinking I might do a discord server for organizing trades and such, but I haven’t yet.  Mostly because it’s low priority and I have SO many other things going on.  But actually playing Pokemon can happen when I’m too fatigued for real work, so the horde keeps growing.  Hopefully my posts and scribbles about it are entertaining.

I feel like there’s other projects on hold that I wanted to discuss, but right now I’m too braintired to remember, and some of my ‘projects’ never actually got talked about online so nobody’s waiting for an update.  My greatest problem seems to be that I try to juggle too many pointless side projects and then drop them all over the place.  Sometimes I’ll shitpost about an idea and even I won’t be sure if I was serious or not.  How do I end this post?  I don’t know.

tl;dr Megan is SLEEPY and dropped her spaghetti everywhere but somehow still has time to play POKEMON and WON’T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

[damienthepious]

*flipkicks into Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday nearly late with Cool Sunglasses and a new offering of Fic*

The Rite Of Movement (Chapter 3)

[Ch 1] [Ch 2] [ao3] [Ch 4] [Ch 5]

[Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters:  Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla, The Keep, Original Monster Character(s)

Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Engagement, Post-Canon, Domestic Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Poetry, Presents, Monster Customs, Dancing

Fic Summary: Arum has a surprising revelation about his own feelings, and then decides to take matters into his own claws since his humans don't seem to realize what they are denying themselves.

Chapter Summary: A conversation before and after a long day, and a correspondence returned.

Chapter Notes: Heck I still don't know how to write summaries properly. Anyway. It's Tuesday again! Time for me to compulsively post fic. Love y'all <3 ]

-

After Rilla and Damien come through the portal back into her hut, after the vines recede into the trough-shaped flowerpot full of swamp dirt in the corner, there’s a moment when they meet each other’s eyes.

And then they both burst into laughter. Damien presses a hand to his heart as if to keep it still, and Rilla guffaws in a completely undignified way until Damien lifts her in a fierce hug.

“I can’t believe him-”

“He wants to marry us, my love!”

“He was so nervous about it too did you see-”

“His hands upon our own were steady but I saw his other hands clasped together to keep from shaking- oh Rilla our brave beast came to us with his very heart in those beautiful trembling hands! A display of such courage, such vulnerability-”

“Don’t let him hear you call him vulnerable or he’ll sulk for a week,” Rilla says, and as Damien sets her back down she drops her head to rest on his shoulder and she grins and grins and grins. “Oh, Saints…”

“I fear I will be utterly useless today,” Damien admits, smiling shyly. “Our engagement will be dancing in my mind at every moment, and I will be unable to share the source of my joy.”

“You can tell Angelo, at least,” Rilla says, drifting away from him to go get changed. “And honestly, Damien, I really don’t think anyone is gonna be surprised if you’re caught up feeling romantic today. It’s not like it’s never happened before, you know? Just- be a little more vague than normal when you speak your heart.”

Damien considers that, then nods. “I suppose you are right,” he says, and then he glances at his fiancée with just a hint of worry. He works his jaw for a long moment before the words blurt out of him, the irrational worry he needs to hear Rilla dismiss. “You don’t think that he- that Lord Arum is only asking to wed because he thinks it’s what we want, do you?”

“Damien,” Rilla shimmies into a new skirt, steps back over to him and places a hand firmly on his shoulder. “Don’t be ridiculous. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t mean it.” She aims a stern look at him, squeezing his shoulder. “C’mon, Damien, you know him better than that by now.”

“No, no, of course… of course you’re right.” He pauses. “He… of course he wants…”

“Damien. He made us chocolates,” she says, and the way her lip is curved, the soft, surprised pleasure in her smile, it eases the tension trying to build in Damien’s chest. “If it was just obligation- he wouldn’t have made us a gift, right? He wouldn't have bothered to explain how monsters do marriage, and he definitely wouldn’t have looked that nervous about it. He thought-” she bites her lip, and her expression is so deeply fond that it makes Damien’s heart sing. “Dummy thought we might actually say no.”

Damien considers that idea for a moment, the idea of not wanting to marry Lord Arum and Rilla, and it is nigh incomprehensible. He shakes his head. “We- we should treat him to a gesture in kind,” Damien says, the thought striking him suddenly and filling him with glee. “An engagement gift in return! He deserves- he deserves to have his sweetness returned to him, as he has treated us to such sweetness himself.”

“Saints you’re adorable,” Rilla breathes, and she kisses him quickly before she continues. “I think that’s a great idea. What did you have in mind?”

Damien furrows his brow. “Er- well, I could compose a-”

Rilla bursts into laughter again before he can finish the thought, and Damien stops and smiles, chagrined. “You’re always composing a something. It’s a very sweet thought, your poetry is always lovely, but maybe something more- out of the box?”

“Out of the box,” he echoes, musing. “Hmmm. I am not sure what sort of token of affection he would enjoy, my Rilla, and gifts were not a part of my original proposal,” he says. “Besides the rings, of course.”

Rilla blinks, and then a sly smile blooms across her face. Damien’s heart swells at the sight, as it always does, and then with sparkling eyes Rilla takes Damien’s hand.

“Okay, so, that gives me an idea.”

-

Arum’s messenger finds him out on the balcony, where he is sunning himself and certainly not pouting that Damien and Amaryllis are not there to warm him personally this afternoon. They still have some appearances to make near the Citadel, of course; Amaryllis with her numerous undeserving patients and Sir Damien- doing whatever Knights do when they aren’t out in the world, slaying monsterkind. It simply seems unfair, that they must be away from him so soon after agreeing to marry him.

He hears a thrumming noise and feels a soft brush at his elbow. The bee (from his hive on the uppermost part of the Keep, modified and ensorceled to be resilient and obedient and the approximate size of a generous loaf of bread) flies into his upper left arm a second time, a fuzzy buzzing whump that pulls him from his near-nap with a snarling yawn. When he looks down, she is nudging insistently against his elbow, and the little scroll case clutched in her claws has a new missive inside. He lifts the creature gently, unbuckles the scroll case, and informs her that she has done an excellent job before he sends her back towards the hive.

When he is alone on the balcony again, the Keep warbles a question and he scowls, staring at the scroll in his claws with a combination of nerves and excitement tossing around in his guts.

“I suppose we shall see,” he says with a sigh, and the Keep responds gently. He scowls. “Of course not. Nothing to fear regardless- if they disapprove of my position then I shall be glad not to have them attend. We don’t need them anyway. I desire to be married and I shall be, regardless of whether I can find a monster to declare it so. I will declare us married myself if need be.”

The Keep trills amusement.

“Call me cute again and just see what happens to you,” he mutters darkly, the scroll nearing danger in his flexing claws. “That herbalist has been a horrible influence on you, you ridiculous plant.”

It sings a distinctly unapologetic apology and Arum scowls again, but the expression slides from his face as soon as he unrolls the parchment. The Keep sings again, impatient and curious, and Arum waves a hand in the air with a hiss as his eyes dart through the correspondence.

“They- Eld Mosshorn wishes to attend,” he says in a stunned whisper. “They wish to come with their interpreter and- and they have agreed to preside over the ceremony.”

A ripple of small pale flowers bloom across the balcony as the Keep sings its joy, and Arum tries to hide his smile in a scoff.

“As I told you, nothing to fear at all. They say they will be near enough to pay a call on us close to the full moon after next, and that the full moon itself will be an auspicious day for the ceremony.”

It’s a little more than a month away, as if Eld Mosshorn knows precisely when Arum desires them to come. As if the universe itself is on Arum’s side.

The Keep sings a strangely stilted question, and Arum pauses his reading to glance up with a furrowed brow.

“What?” He scowls, dismissive. “Why would they ask about you?” His eyes dart back to the scroll to read further along, and then he wrinkles his snout in confusion. “They- they say, that they anticipate a lovely reunion with… with the “soul of the swamp itself” upon their arrival.” He pauses, his mouth hanging slightly open. “What.”

The Keep hums in smug pleasure, then warbles a quick, dismissive triplet.

“What-” he starts again, and then he shakes his head. “Irrelevant. What do I care if the two of you ancients have some new gossip to exchange? All that matters is that Mosshorn isn’t going to go inform on me to the Senate or worse. They want to- to help.” He pauses, staring down at the parchment again for a long, long moment, his thumb brushing the edge of the page. “They actually want to help me marry Amaryllis and Sir Damien.”

He doesn’t realize the Keep has lifted out a vine to curl gently around his shoulder until he feels its touch, and he snarls automatically though he doesn’t pull away. Another trick the Keep has learned from his humans, this almost-hug. He lifts a clawed hand to grip the vine, reading the words again as it sings to him in softness, in support.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. After a pause, he rolls the parchment back up, sniffing primly and gently untangling himself from the embrace of the Keep. “Well, that’s quite enough of that, I think. Open a way to my room, if you would. I believe I have an invitation or two I should begin to compose.”

-

When Rilla returns home in the evening, exhausted after dealing with her backlog of housecalls, Damien is waiting for her. He sits on the stump in front of her hut, busily scratching away at a long piece of parchment, weaving together drafts of verse with a distant look on his face. He doesn’t even notice her approaching until she wraps her arms around him from behind, pressing a kiss to the nape of his neck and making him jolt, a sharp line of ink skittering across the page in response.

“Oh, sorry,” she says, patting his shoulder sympathetically, but he’s grinning wide when he drops his paper and turns in her arms to pull her into a hug.

“At last, my love returns!”

“It’s only been a few hours, Damien,” she says through a laugh. “Did you manage to hold yourself together today?”

“As best as I was able,” Damien replies. “Sir Angelo knew that I was acting oddly, but he said it was a pleasant oddness rather than the alternative and he did not ask many questions.”

“You didn’t tell him yet?” Rilla asks, pulling Damien to his feet and helping him collect the parchment before they head inside.

“I did not have a moment alone with him,” Damien says wryly, and then he sighs as the door shuts behind them. “Besides, I think it will be best to wait until we have a date chosen before I start bandying invitations around.”

Rilla notices the note sitting innocently in front of the flowerpot, and she picks it up to read as Damien busies himself putting away his new poetry drafts. “Well,” she says as she reads, “looks like you don’t have to worry too much about that part of it.” She lifts the note and gestures with it. “Arum must’ve had the Keep send this through sometime today. Apparently his monster priest agreed to go along with this whole monster-human marriage thing.”

Damien presses a hand to his chest, eyes shining. “So quickly!”

“Well, we don’t know how long ago Arum asked, I guess,” she shrugs and looks at the note again. “He says his priest suggested the full moon after next.” She tilts her head as she does the math. “Full moon is… four or five days from now? So just barely over a month. Huh. It’s like this guy read Arum’s mind…”

“A month,” Damien breathes. “So soon and yet so far, I would be content to wed you both tonight if I could-”

“I know, Damien,” Rilla says fondly, folding the note and tucking it between a few pages of her research. “I know you would.”

His smile fades off just a bit, a worry from the back of his mind rising to the surface. He hesitates, but he can’t help himself, can’t keep himself from asking. “And you, my love?”

She blinks, then looks at him in confusion. “And me, what?”

“Are you… truly content with the speed at which this is progressing, my flower? A month feels like an age for my impatient heart, but I know that you had reservations about rushing through our engagement before…”

Rilla’s brow furrows, just a bit, and then she sighs. “I’m not in as much of a hurry as the two of you apparently are, no,” she admits wryly, “but it’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement. We’ve been through a lot together, you and me, all three of us together- and I want to get married to you, Damien.” She reaches out and cups his cheek, smiling. “I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t want to. And I wanna get married to Arum, too, even if I didn’t think that was even an option like two days ago.”

“I was only…” he pauses. “I was never sure why you postponed for so long, during our original engagement. I convinced myself over and over again that you did not want to marry at all, that you were only humoring me.”

“I’m sorry,” Rilla says gently. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like that.”

“Can I…” he winces, then reaches a hand up to press her own against his cheek again. “May I ask why you were hesitant, before?”

“I didn’t-” Rilla bites her lip, sighs at herself, and drops her hand. When she’s safely stepped back a pace, she lifts her eyes to meet Damien’s again with a self-deprecating smile. “Look, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this or anything, okay?” She pauses, and Damien nods. She worries her lip between her teeth for a moment, and then she says, “If I’m being honest, the biggest reason I kept putting off setting a date was that I didn’t want to get married if my parents weren’t gonna be there to see it.”

“Oh.” Damien’s eyes widen in surprise, his heart giving a painful lurch. “Oh, my Rilla I am-”

“Don’t- don’t get all- sappy about it,” she snaps, waving a hand in the air and scowling to the side. “I just thought- if there was a chance they could come back, maybe if I just waited a little longer maybe they’d be able to be there. Which was stupid, obviously. But now…”

“Now?” Damien asks, hesitant when she pauses for a breath or two longer than is comfortable.

“Well,” she says, voice dull, “it’s not like I could have brought them to a wedding with a monster anyway, right?” She sighs. “I’m sorry. I don’t actually- I don’t really want to talk about this. We’re engaged twice over and I’d really rather go back to being excited about that right now.”

Damien makes himself smile, gentle, and pulls Rilla into a hug. “Of course, my love. I am sorry if I pushed you.”

She thwacks him on the shoulder gently, rolling her eyes. “I’m fine, Damien.”

“I know you are. You are substantially more accomplished at being fine than I am, my flower, but you wished to go back to excitement over our engagement and that means that I would like to hold you in my arms.” He does just that for a moment, swaying slightly as if in an understated dance, before he continues. “And, if you will allow, I would very much like to kiss you, now.”

“Damien.” She’s smiling again, the expression Damien most cherishes, most delights in causing. She leans in and the smile melts into a kiss that sings through Damien, that flows through him like a river of liquid light, every time. When she pulls away again she laughs softly against his lips, resting her forehead against his, and the feeling almost overwhelms him.

“I love you so much, Rilla,” he murmurs. “I will be so, so grateful to be your husband.”

“I love you too,” she says, voice soft and eyes closed, and she kisses him again before she leans back, taking his hands in her own. “Now c’mon, we gotta get back to the Keep so you can distract our fiancé long enough for me to figure out his ring size.”

[bioticmabari]

Just so y’all’s thirst for drama is sated, here’s how friday went.

 I got lost because I never verified my date location, ended up watching battle of the bands on a college campus, got free Monster??? Got free cotton candy???? I texted my date to be like ok haha this is fine but like... where are u and where am i supposed to be because i think im lost??? I start to cry bc I figure I would have seen him by now. He’s not responding to my text. I reread an older message and figure out where I’m supposed to be... and give myself a pep talk about not needing to fix my damn makeup so stobbit. Oh shit 15 minute walk to this bar and I don’t want to move my car from the garage so... So I start booking it across the campus bridge by myself towards the city. Then I find out he thought he texted me saying he got stuck at work, but was sitting in his drafts folder. Could we do another night? *sad trombone

And I’m like “oh” so I start walking back across the bridge. At this point it’s almost 8pm, it’s getting dark, and I’m by myself, so I’m like it’s okay I can go back to my car, head home, and at least I had a nice walk around the campus and a little outing where I got free food and drink. :) Little stressful at times, but still fun in itself. Well, I let it slip that I went to the campus bc I got confused and I’m near the bar, but it’s ok we can go out some other time. He’s like nah I’ll leave work now and come see you I feel bad you came all that way! So I’m like “fuck i ain’t walking back across this damn bridge again.” I get in my car and drive to the bar. I pass it twice before finding a parking garage down the road. The streets look busyish so I don’t feel bad about the 10 minute walk when I get out. I’m walking near a lady with her doggo so I feel pretty happy, crossing the street to avoid a rando dude who looks a little wacked out on my way.

So I get there and I don’t know if this is right, but goddamn it this is a bar and I’m at least gonna have a drink and if nothing else I’ll have gotten that tonight. So like I’m sitting there, feeling weird bc there’s some dudes across the bar looking at me, but i vaguely remember my date’s face from bumble so i’m like “hmm nope pls stop. uneasy peasy pleasy leavesme.”

I finish my drink, thinking “wow that was light.” A dude comes in and sits a seat away from me and he doesn’t look familiar at all. So I’m scrolling through my phone, looking at dumb shit on tumblr, looking at the comments on my silly bts fic and i get a message that he’s here. I look up at the door and outside, nada. I look around and I don’t see him. Keep scrolling. I think about getting another drink but idk. I kind of look up at the tv and then look over and the dude that sat down is looking at me and he’s like “oh hey are you Kristi.”

And I feel so bad that I didn’t recognize my own date. But there you go i Guess. I do my best to hide my goddamn shame by ordering another drink and the alcohol starts HITTING me, like, fuck I need to sober up because now I can’t just leave if it doesn’t go well. So I guzzle that second drink and am the most pleasant, outgoing, social butterfly bitch that I have ever been. I liked his company tbh. He was nice, but he didn’t leave a lasting impression. I might do a second date if he asked, but i won’t go pushing for it tbh. I think long term I need someone who’s gonna leave that impression, who’s gonna be a little shit and make jokes with me, someone who’s gonna be willing to go out of their own comfort zone for me, like I do for them. and i just dont think this is it. but that’s okay! it’s still an experience, and it’s not a bad one, so I’ll take it. I can grow and learn from it.

So we’re talking for a couple hours and it doesn’t feel like work, which is nice bc ive been on a date like that, where it’s like “fuck how do i end this? i want to leave this is painful.” but it wasn’t. it was chill. I was drunk. Speaking way louder than I would like and being cute af, so much that it made me super exhausted and gave me cute scratchy voice from talking about lots of silly shit and telling jokes. 

So I’ve had 2 drinks and 4-5 glasses of water. It’s 11:30 and Im like fuck I need to go home. I am so drained. My energy is spent, and I need to go to bed fuck. goddamn. I’m sobered up. I’m good. I say goodbye and say it was nice to meet him, which it was. I give a big hug, not an awkward one like my last 2 date fails. like a really good, soft hug. 

And then I’m out the door. 11:30pm and I’m walking the city by myself, not even an offer to walk me back safely. and im like... okay this is fine. The streets are like dead quiet now and I like panic a little, getting my best bitchface on, zipping up and hiding that cleavage, and power-walking in the better lit areas on my route back to the car. I call my friends so I’m not alone because my anxiety is flaring like crazy and I want to cry bc i’m so scared walking alone??? but like it’s okay because it’s all experience i tell myself. I’m walking fast, being as safe as I can, talking with my friends, and I had a decent time. I get safely in my car and drive home and I just think about my night. 

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t like the one date I was on where I was fucking beaming the rest of the night like a fool. I want that feeling. I don’t want a mediocre experience. I don’t want to settle for “he’s really nice I guess and it doesn’t seem like he will hurt me.” I want “I can’t stop smiling because I like you so much and I can’t wait to see you again, but also I want to tell you what a silly shithead you are??? and i like it???”

The consensus for me is that I keep searching. Someday I’ll get that D. Maybe that V. WHo knows??? it a mystery that im cool keeping open for now.

[thatwritergirlwwe]

Sasha x Roman One Shot: Thanks to Evolution....

I love my husband...

I really do...

He's my best friend(sorry Bayley, male bestfriend I mean)...

He understands me...

He's been with me as a struggling and socially awkward (I still am) girl with big dreams...

We are compatible in every way...except sexually.

The sex is unfulfilling and I'm afraid to tell him out of fear that it'll hurt his feelings. He gets enough heat from jealous fanboys about not being good enough for me. Imagine the dagger to the heart he'll feel if I told him that he's inadequate enough in bed. It was okay when I met him at 18 because he being my first, I didn't know any better and I loved him but now I'm a woman at 26. I'm annoyed with coddling him. He asks me if I came and I say, "yes." He asks me if it's good and I say, "of course." He asks me if I like this big dick...I nod, confused. 0_o, we both know he doesn't have a big dick. But alas, he's the only man I've ever had and glancing down at the ring on my left hand, he's the only man I'll ever have.

When I walk into the locker room, I notice that all of the women from both brands are present. Whatever the announcement tonight is, it has to be big.

"What do you think it is?" Bayley asked as they changed into their gear.

"I don't know, I'm thinking tag-titles," Sasha shrugged.

As I walk around backstage, I keep either running into or making eye contact with Roman. I've always thought he was sexy and I've had more than a few fangirl moments over him when I was in NXT while he was with The Shield. I was giddy af when we tagged together that time. We've run into each other way to many times today and now I can't stop daydreaming about him. I think I'm ovulating. Ovulating is pure torture when your sex life is subpar. I wonder what Roman's sex life is life. His wife is lucky. I've never heard any whisperings in the women's locker room because he keeps it professional when it comes to us but I feel like he's hiding a monster in those black cargo pants and the way he flicks his tongue? If he isn't a freak, that's blatant false advertising.

About 15 minutes to we went live for Raw, we were told to file out onto the ramp. I took my place on the front row and Roman took his place beside me. This wasn't the first time we stood out here beside each other but this was the first time I actually wanted to fuck him.

He rotates his shoulders which causes his big arms to brush against me. I shiver. It's like the nerves in my skin had a direct line to my pussy. I squeeze my thighs together and feel wetness. I feel him staring down at me because the entire right side of my face felt hot af and my lips are on fire. I stared at the ring in front of me and imagine he and I giving the members of the WWE Universe a Rated-X show. It felt so real and had my pussy soaked. I started sweating and I wondered if he felt the vibe too because it was strong.

Mr. McMahon came out which told me that shit was real. RAW went live and Triple H and Stephanie praised us which brought tears to my eyes. My heart was pounding with anticipation when they asked the women's division to step forward.

The big reveal was an all women's pay per view, Evolution. Yet another step in the right direction. I think it's going to be a good one since creative has incentive to try. If only we could get equal pay...but I'll save that gripe for another story. I hope I have a feud with a legend, maybe Trish. I don't care as long as I have some actual direction going into the event. Unless I'm drafted to Smackdown, I've lost hope for another Raw reign in the near future with Alexa and Ronda running around. It seems as if creative has no direction for me. They also have no direction for Bayley. So logically they'd put us together to have no direction together. Bayley is my best friend so I don't mind but the only way I'll be satisfied with this cop out is if they introduce tag titles.

I had a tag match with Bayley and we reunited as besties...for now.

After the show I run into Roman yet again.

"Congrats on the pay per view," he smiled. "You girls really deserve it."

I smiled in return. Roman was a really sweet guy, almost like a giant Samoan teddy bear. I knew what he said was genuine because that's just the person he is. I've never heard him say anything negative, even about the fans who boo him. There were some guys back here who could give a damn about the women's division but fake it to avoid looking like misogynistic pricks. He wasn't one of them.

"Thank you so much. I'm getting chills just thinking about it. Is it October yet?" my voice faltered as I began getting emotional all over again thinking about it.

To my surprise Roman dropped the duffel bag he was carrying and pulled me in for a hug. I cling to him and his strong hands consoled my back, rubbing up and down. Through his black shirt, I could feel the heat radiating from his body. Being this close to him, having myself enclosed in his arms and breathing in his scent made my pussy ache for him. I was shook.

When I adjusted myself in his arms I accidentally rubbed my crotch against his. There was a bump and I instinctively jumped back.

"You alright?" he asked.

I couldn't make eye contact with him. I nodded and began rolling my bag away. "Yeah, I'm fine."

How embarrassing. I guess I can take comfort in the fact that the feeling wasn't one sided judging by his erection. Damn, I sighed, imagining his soft plump lips on my soft plump lips...the other set. Shaking my head, I try to get the thoughts out of my head. Sure Mizake isn't Roman but that's okay because he's the love of my life and that's all that mattered. He was a good, supportive man and deserved my loyalty to him and our vows.

"Sasha?" he calls out but I don't stop walking. I hear his footsteps jogging up behind me.

He cuts me off from the front and extends his hand. I raise a brow. It was custom to shake hands of everyone you cross paths with upon arrival but upon leaving? Nah. Maybe this was his way of saying everything was cool after what just happened so I reach my sweaty palm out to meet his. There was something in his hand and he pressed it into mine. He winked before walking away. I looked down at a key card in my hand.

My husband wasn't on the road with me this week so I slide in the car with Bayley and we head to the hotel.

"Why are you so quiet?" she asks.

"Just thinking," I reply.

I tossed and turned in bed all night. My mind was gone and at 2 AM I found myself sliding his key card in the lock. He was sitting in the bed scrolling on his phone. I don't know if he was waiting on me or if he too had insomnia. I didn't think he noticed me and I almost backed away until his eyes suddenly snapped up.

"You're late," Roman commented simply in a calm low voice. "What's up?"

"You tell me."

He pats a spot on the bed next to him and my stupid legs carried me forward. I picked a spot at the foot of the bed to plant myself. Chuckling, he pats the original spot next to him again.

"You know I'm married, right?" I said holding up my left hand.

"So am I," he held up his left hand in return.

"Look, I don't cheat on my husband and I won't help another man cheat on his wife. Point, blank, period!" I declared.

"Then why are you here at 2:00 AM? You could've easily stayed in your room and we could've forgotten this happened."

"Because I wanted to give this back to you," I said, holding out his key card. As he grabbed it, his fingers brushed mine sending shivers down my spine and I felt a jolt of desire pass through us.

He held my gaze for a moment before leaning himself back against the headboard. "I think you came to me because you're sexually frustrated."

"Excuse me, what?"

"It's obvious, Sasha. You turned a simple hug into a damn near dry humping session. Does that sound like someone sexually fulfilled to you?" he inquired. "That's probably why you go so hard in the ring. You have to release that pent up energy some kind of way."

"Or maybe I'm just the best at what I do," I counter.

"No argument there but I notice you didn't deny the frustration part," he pointed out. "I know you're attracted to me and I'm attracted to you."

"You are?" I looked up at him in shock. He was always nice to me but I never thought it was anything more than that.

"Why wouldn't I be?" he asked. "I just never made any moves because it's not in my nature to shit where I eat. Plus, I was also being respectful of your marriage but if the guy isn't doing what he's supposed to be doing, why shouldn't I step up?"

"Uhm, I don't, maybe because it's wrong!" I state. "You're attracted to me, I'm attracted to you. That's fine but acting on it is crossing the line."

"The only line I'm thinking about is the one leading me from your clit to your slit," he licked his lips and I almost fainted at the thought. Once again, he pats the spot on the bed next to him.

This time I went. Was I really doing this? Thoughts were swirling through my head as I crawled forward. I don't want to cheat on Mizake but I also didn't want to let this opportunity pass me by.

I don't know which one of us leaned forward first but what I do know is our lips met in the middle. His lips were soft but firm with a sense of power as they coaxed my lips apart to tease me with his tongue. His tongue entered my mouth and he flicked it, giving me a preview of what was to come. He began pulling at my muscle shirt and I assisted, disconnecting the kiss to get the piece of fabric over my head.

He slowly kissed down my neck stopping at my left nipple and rolling his tongue over it. He bit it softly and I moaned in pleasure. Roman's head bobbed down and sucked my right nipple into his mouth. His tongue lingered over it, teasing it. I let out a tiny whimper. My body began to shudder.

As he continued his assault on my nipples, he reached down and began fingering me slowly. I was soaked. Disconnecting from my chest he spread my legs apart and stared at my vagina. I thought I would've been uncomfortable with it and in the beginning I am but I start playing with myself while watching his reaction. Roman sat up on his knees and lowered his pajama pants and I finally got a glimpse at it. It was perfect, thick, long, veiny but not disgustingly so. He slowly rubbed himself to me doing the same. When I was near climax and my thighs began twitching, he slapped away my hands and dipped his head down.

I threw my head back in ecstasy as his tongue flattened against my clit. As promised he licked a line from my clit down to my slit and back again. My back arched and I could feel him smirk as he took his hand and pushed my pelvis flat. This was the moment I knew I fucked up letting him taste me. He grabbed my legs and positioned them over his shoulders as he went to work. He wasn't just paying attention to my clit, he attacked my entire pussy with complete vigor. He sucked and licked my lips, he fingered me as my juices flowed while simultaneously tongue kissing my clit. This felt like the sweetest torture I've ever had.

I whined when he ejected his fingers but my disappointment was short lived when he replaced it with his tongue. You could hear the smacking as he bobbed in and out of me. I could feel the pressure building up inside of me and I panted as my body exploded all at once, shaking in orgasm. I was actually scared for Roman because during this, my pussy tightened with convulsions on his tongue, locking it in there. Roman licked up and swallowed all of my juices. When I came down from my high, he rested his head in my pussy and nuzzled it sending little aftershocks waves over me.

Roman hovered above my body with his cock dangling between his legs. Shame arose from allowing myself to end up here spread wide and waiting in front of another man. I turned my head. He grabbed my chin, making me look him in the eyes as he held his dick at my entrance. "Tell me you want this dick."

My pride wanted me to get up, put my clothes back on and walk back to my room but my body was like, "yes, I want it."

I took him all the way on his first thrust. It was an adjustment for sure since he had a couple of inches on Mizake. His strokes were long, deep and measured. He quickly gained speed and depth, hitting all the right spots. I gasped when he made contact with g-spot. That was all he needed to hear as he gave me deliberate thrusts in the same direction. It didn't take long before I felt a tingling sensation spread throughout my body and knew I was about to cum. My pussy started contracting around his dick as I bit down into my lip to keep from screaming.

Roman leaned down to whisper in my ear. "Yeah, you didn't even want to fuck me but look how I have this pussy acting."

It felt so wrong, so right, so bad, so good all at the same time. No matter how much I tried to relax while pinned to the bed with my knees at the side of my head underneath him, no matter how I tried keeping my breathe synchronized with his deep strokes, no matter how I tried scratching, grabbing, biting and screaming for mercy hoping that he'd slow down for a while for me to regain my composure, no matter how I tried to firm my ass while he was smacked it with one hand, while holding my hip with the other from the back..he was served me divine dick for the next 40 minutes.

It's like I'm having so much pleasure that my brain feels like it can't take anymore and I need this to end soon but at the same damn time I'm dreading the fact that eventually Roman is going to come and it has no choice but to end. Tomorrow he'll fly back to his wife and children. I'll fly back to my husband.

It was pure pleasure I experienced during this session and it brought tears to my eyes as I rode him to my last and final orgasm. I was rendered speechless, both of us were, everything about it was magical.

I could barely move when we were finished, I was so sore and my knees were weak. When I looked between my legs my vagina was swollen as if I lost my virginity. I was curled up in the fetal position trying to my gather my thoughts and this bastard was smirking talking about Summerslam in a few weeks as if he didn't just fuck my life up...