#i wrote them at 1 am so please don't judge

[sunshinelivesforever]

Getting severe Gigi x Slate brainrot recently so here we are

Gigi x Slate Headcanons

They are the literal embodiment of the grumpy x sunshine trope

It wasn't love at first sight for them, more like attraction at first sight

And then they slowly fell in love

Taking care of Gigi just kind of becomes second nature to Slate

Like, when he notices her shoelaces are untied, he ties them for her

When he notices that she's cold, he takes off his jacket and puts it on her

And he's really protective of her

He can listen to her ramble for hours but Gigi being Gigi, she often gets really curious about his past and asks too many questions

When that happens, he just kisses her to shut her up

Speaking of kissing, Slate is Gigi's first kiss

After he kisses her for the first time, she becomes unnaturally quiet and her face becomes red

Savannah asks her what's wrong and thinks she has a fever

And Gigi says that it's nothing and goes to her room but then a few minutes later she bursts out of her room screaming "MATTIAS SLATER KISSED ME" at the top of her lungs

Grayson nearly murders Slate when he finds out

Gigi is very physically affectionate and it takes Slate a while to get used to that

He's usually the one who's better at flirting verbally but the first time Gigi back-hugs him, he's so flustered he can barely form words

Gigi 100% steals his jackets, hoodies and sweaters

She sends cute cat videos to him all the time and he claims to never watch them but one day, she catches him watching one of the videos with a smile on his face

They talk together for hours, about anything and everything

As he works for Eve, Slate is always relaying Eve's messages and stuff so he doesn't really ever get to express his opinion on anything

But when he's talking with Gigi, he can do that

Their outdoor dates are like mini-adventures

Their indoor dates are comfortable yet fun

Gigi often falls asleep on top of Slate

Gigi makes really creative handmade gifts for him and he's so touched because no one's ever done that for him before

Slate loves kissing her

They usually hold hands when they walk around

In conclusion, Gigi x Slate is an adorable ship that I can't get out of my head and I request JLB to make them canon. Please.

[huellitaa]

girl's guide to academic success: ep 1! ⊹˚. ♡

──★ ˙ ̟🎀 this post focuses on: actively rooting for success! ♡ part 2 -> ♡

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 1. organisation

first off, have something to organise ur academic life with! i personally use notion (which i'll add later) but u can use anything as long as it's cute, convenient, unique and accessible to you, your life and your schedule specifically. especially as a visual learner, i like to have somewhere i can dump literally everything regarding a singular area in my life, so i do this for almost everything along with school and i highly recommend this <3

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 2. recognition of talents & improvements

analyse your strengths and weaknesses. think back on tests, exams, marks, and analyse which ones you got highest and lowest on. dont beat urself up for it, obviously; it's just to check which subjects you're doing good in and which ones have room for improvement. for example i love science but im not the best at it sometimes and we had an assessment recently and i didn't get as high as i'd like so i wrote down a little list on a piece of paper in my pencilcase for the topics i got the least in for me to study on my own to practise later.

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 3. laying out goals

set down specific goals; i like to do this week by week accustomed to my schedule that week in my school notion page along with images and vision boards based on the term/semester, but you can do it for the week, the month, the year, anything as long as its helpful to you

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 4. productive planning

plan accordingly based on ur time energy. when creating any to do list or productivity plan dont pile a ridiculous amount onto it that just leaves you stressed and overwhelmed because that defeats the entire point; this works the same for academic plans and goals and lists etc.

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 5. extra credit

put extra work in to the subjects you know will help you in the future. for example, for my personal aspirations i need to excel in english, history and textiles so i always try my absolute hardest and put my all into those lessons and do extra studying for them in my free time where i can. school is to prepare you for the future so take advantage of that

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 6. asking questions

please don't be shy to ask questions! that's what teachers are there for and you won't have them forever so take advantage of it while you can! you can even do it in that little window of time just after class if ur too nervous to ask in class. for example, on my last english exam i went to my teacher after class and asked about what i needed to improve on to get the marks i missed next time, and he told me i added too much detail and some other things so i wrote it down and am keeping a note of it to remind me to improve on that next time! (i got top of my class though so i didnt mind. still kind of pissed i added too much detail though)

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 7. participation

participate! ok im saying this as someone who still struggles with social anxiety a fair amount but if u wanna get higher marks and get on good terms w ur teacher i 100% recommend this. i don't do this in every class but i do it where i can and when i'm confident in my answer, and it's really intimidating at first but what i did is i did it first in the classes i felt most comfortable on and continued from there. it gets easier every time i swear, and nobody's judging you; they'll forget about it after five minutes. plus, what would they be judging you for? being smarter than them?

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 8. prioritising ur health

this is mentioned a lot in these types of posts but if you're tired or burnt out or overworked or just feel like you need to take a break then do. do the best you can and compromise like i said earlier if you need to, just make sure u are prioritising yourself over anything. <3

──★ ˙ ̟🎀inspo

──★ ˙ ̟🎀my notion

i also really recommend this layout by @honeytonedhottie ♡

all my love 🩷✨💬🎀💗

[myunghology]

!! kazuha and freminet general boyfriend head canons

gender neutral reader, fluff, maybe crack?

a/n : freminet is so babygirl i want him. i will download genshin again just for him. (i am very normal about him), also i heard he's a minor, about bennett/chongyuns age, i think!

!! pairings : kazuha and freminet x reader (seperated)

!! KAZUHA

the most caring boyfriend ever!! actually it depends

brings you back random things that reminded him of you when he goes out on adventures. i mean this guy is literally everywhere let's bfr.

also this is for the people who have younger siblings who are still children, he absolutely adores them. he chases them around while they're giggling and it's adorableee! he doesn't mind that they're being annoying and says that "they're just kids!" when you scold them. (clearly he has never had an annoying younger sibling)

tomo's cat is obviously your child now if i never said that before

ALSO random headcanon he has one of those girly screams if yk what i mean😭

has a soft spot for old people, so he offers to take care of your elders because he likes taking care of people, he's that type of boyfriend to impress your family even though he did nothing at all, talking about asian standards btw..

everyone in your family loves him, they immediately gave him their blessing when he asked to marry you.

he isn't scared of ANYTHING, except you when your mad, especially if you have anger issues, he is definitely shaking in his boots bro

!! FREMINET

you're his number 1 annoyer, if that word even is a word man

i have a feeling he gets annoyed easily, but also easily cracks. he's like one of those people who are shy, but not like those shy uwu boys, more like a shy annoyed guy who's annoyed by anything or anyone. at least that's was my first impression of him, don't judge me if it's wrong, he wasn't out yet when i wrote this, alr?

this guy. definitely side-eyes people.

"[name] please stop calling me 'dude' i will kill you" — freminet, probably.

can you tell he doesn't like it when you call him 'dude'

it takes all his manpower for him not to swear at you

a smile creeps onto his lips sometimes when you don't notice, but as soon as you look at him, it definitely fades away

has probably hit you on the head with a book once

possibly the only person he actually talks to (initiating a convo) besides his siblings

lynette and lyney love u bro

they think you're perfect for him fr

they're your biggest shippers actually

[kopivie]

trick-or-treat.

# — pairing: spidey!kazuha x gn!reader

# — characters: gender neutral reader, spider-man!kazuha

# — warnings: a little suggestive.

# — tags: fluff, kisses (bc who am i if not a madman for kisses), mild hurt/comfort, BANTER YIPPEE!!, this is zuzu's way of making up for the fact that he all but forgot kazuha's birthday, apology fic

# — notes: (PLEASE READ!!) this is... not at all what i intended to do. it's 1:30 am and i just came down from a much needed high. as my head cleared, i noticed that this fic was like, riddled with flaws, but i feel too good about this to second guess it and feel bad. anyways, this is heavily inspired by this fic that 🎻 anon sent in my asks, as well as a follow-up to this fic i wrote on @awlumii last year on kazuha's birthday. i hope you enjoy and please do let me know what you think! i could really use some feedback.

✦ — 🎃 — ✦

There's a knock on your door. You stare at the entry to your apartment and think: "How mean would it be if I ignored them right now?"

In your defense, you've been giving out candy all day. All. Day. You figured that there would at least have been a lull in the early afternoon since children had school to attend, but no — you've been giving out candy to all ages from as early as 10:30 this morning. It's a good thing you stocked up on candy late last month, otherwise you would've had to ruin the days of some very enthusiastic trick-or-treaters. So after setting aside a bucket full of your favorites and giving out the leftovers until about 10 at night, you finally thought yourself ready to curl up on your bed with your softest blanket. You were halfway to dreamland when some monster started pounding on your door.

(So maybe you're exaggerating a little. But who could blame you? You're tired and you want to sleep.)

And so, here you sit, your legs half-tangled in your weighted fleece blanket as you glare at your door and hope that your unwanted visitor is telepathic and gets the message that you want them to leave. Scram! you think. You raise your voice in your head. Get out of here. Shoo! Begone!

…They knock again. (Kind of a dick move if they can read minds.)

The groan you let out is obnoxiously loud and is most definitely heard by whoever is on the other side of the door. You hoist yourself to your feet and trudge to the door, but you don't open it quite yet. Judging by the fact that this person has yet to say anything, you figure that they're old enough to know when their presence is not welcome and left.

Wrong. You're too optimistic. They knock again.

You sigh and once again, hope that the sound carries through the door. "Who is it?" You try to make yourself sound as unfriendly as possible. Considering how cranky you are, you don't have to try very hard.

"Trick-or-treat..?" The voice on the other side is muffled by the door, but also by something else. Fabric, probably. All you know is that their voice is deep enough to be an adult's.

You click your tongue. "Trick." You almost snicker. It's a little refreshing not doling out treats for once. "Go home."

"Can I at least give you a treat?" The person asks.

You blink. They didn't leave? "Pretty sure that's not how it works," you reply. "I give you treats and you… I dunno, TP my house or something."

"Yeah, well," the person at the door chuckles, "I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to say 'trick', either. Since you're breaking the rules, it's only fair that it's my turn, right?"

Well… Shit. They have a point.

Impressed by the stranger's reasoning, you hum. "Fine. Let me find my costume." You turn to gather your costume and notice that you can't find the full thing. You were so eager to get to bed that you didn't hesitate to drop the thing in the wash. Not wanting to make the stranger wait too long, you improvise. You blindly grab the mask and the blue throw blanket you have folded up on your couch and tie it around your shoulder like a cape. It's a shitty excuse for a costume, but you reason that your exhaustion is a good excuse. You swing open the door and cross your arms over your chest. "Alright, what do you got for-- Oh."

Standing on the other side of your door is none other than Spider-Man himself. The two of you stand in silence as you take in each other's appearances. Then, after what feels like forever, he speaks. "So… a cape, huh?"

You don't hesitate — you grab your door and swing the thing shut as fast as you can, but Spider-Man is faster, catching the door in his gloved hand. You turn your back to him. The mask is obscuring his face, but you already know what expression he has underneath. "Don't say a word." You warn him.

Spider-Man pays you no mind. You can feel him lifting your 'cape' as he inspects it. "Hmm… capes are kinda aerodynamic, but considering how dirty my enemies fight, I don't think that's a very good design choice." You can hear the shit-eating grin in his voice. "I'll give it a five out of ten."

"I said shut it!" You snatch your blanket out of his hands and march further into your apartment with Spider-Man's laughter following at your back. He walks inside and the door shuts behind the two of you. "Get the fuck out, webhead," you seethe. Your voice trembles with shame. "I didn't invite you in."

Spider-Man just walks around you to look you in the eye. "Come now, lovebug," he tilts your chin up with a finger, "you look cute wearing my mask."

You grumble and push his hand away as you struggle for words. You want to say something like, "this isn't what it looks like!" to try and save face, but there's no point in trying. This is exactly what it looks like.

Because the mask you'd been wearing for Halloween -- and the mask you haphazardly thrown on moments ago -- was none other than Spider-Man's mask.

To be fair, these things were a dime a dozen. The people of this city adore the vigilante. It was only natural that kids and adults alike would want to pretend to be him for a day, even if they had no powers like him. You're not exactly one of those people — you've seen firsthand just how brutal Spider-Man's job can be. You wouldn't trade your life for his even if you were offered money. But as you stared at the costume while shopping, you couldn't help yourself. There were obviously cooler, much more interesting costumes to choose from but this one just… called to you.

Hindsight is 20/20, after all. You should've ignored that calling.

Spider-Man takes your chin in his fingers and shakes your head side to side. "I never knew you liked me so much, lovebug. I'm touched."

You scoff. "Don't be."

"Y'know, if you wanted to wear my mask so badly, you could've just asked." Spider-Man leans in and presses a clothed kiss to your cheek. You consider yourself lucky; he can't possibly feel the burn of your cheeks through all that fabric.

You stammer. "Ha-ha. Very funny."

"What? I'm sure I have a back up somewhere." He eyes you for a moment. "You'd look good in it."

Against your will, you wonder if he's saying that he wants you to wear his clothes. Would he ever actually loan you clothes that he's worn? The thought makes your face burn hotter. "Why are you here?" You ask. Anything to change the topic.

Spider-Man chuckles, but plays along. "I haven't swung by in a few days," he says, "so I figured I'd try and surprise you as a trick-or-treater." He shrugs. "I wanted to do some reverse psychology thing where I could trick you into thinking I was just some guy in a costume so you would give me candy."

You process his words for a second. "Okay, first of all, you already are a guy in a costume."

He visibly deflates and places a hand over his chest. "Ouch, lovebug. What if you hurt my feelings?"

"Second of all," you continue, "do you have any idea how many Spider-Men I've seen today?"

"...Is that a serious question?"

"Don't be a smart ass."

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess twelve."

You pause. You actually aren't even sure if that's the right number or not. You lost count after three hours of giving out candy to cute kids.

"Am I right?" He asks.

"Who knows?"

Spider-Man huffs. "If there's that many of us around, then what am I even here for?" You giggle at his petulant behavior, and he makes another breathy sound, reminiscent of a stifled laugh. "Did you treat them the same way you treat me?"

"What?" His question takes you off-guard for a moment. You chortle. "Oh, definitely."

"You gave them band-aids and kicked them out, too?"

"Mhm." You cross your arms. "Just slapped a few on some pretend wounds and told them to get the fuck off my property."

The two of you laugh together for a moment. Once the laughter dies down, Spider-Man tugs at your cheek for a brief second. You let him get away with it for now. "You're so cute." He sighs and you can hear something somber enter his tone. "I was worried about you. It's been a week since I've seen you."

It has been a week, hasn't it? You may have been swamped with work at the hospital, but there was never a night that you didn't find yourself waiting on your balcony like an idiot in this chilly weather. You had faith that he was okay — the Daily Bugle printed something new about the "masked menace" every day this past week — but that didn't stop you from longing for his presence. Stories can't compare to the real thing, after all. You're far more taken with the masked vigilante than you'd care to admit to yourself.

You hum. "About time someone else did the worrying for once," you mumble jokingly. "It gets tiring worrying all by myself."

Spider-Man stays quiet. "I've been okay. A little worse for the wear for the past two days, but okay otherwise."

You reach for him instinctively. "Lingering pain isn't like you," you say, already in doctor-mode, "did something happen?"

"No, not like that. I've just been… sad. I guess." His confession is soft as he takes your outstretched hands in his own. He's been more vulnerable around you lately and you're not sure if that's good or bad. "It's been a rough couple of days, that's all."

You rack your brain. What could possibly be paining him that you don't know of? He's already told you that he tells you everything (within reason), so maybe it's something that you already know of? You furrow your brows as you dive deeper into your memory. Deeper, deeper… until you happen across a memory from just about a year ago.

The kiss you shared on your balcony close to midnight.

"Oh my God." You voice your incredulity aloud. "Oh my God! I missed your birthday!"

Spider-Man straightens his posture as he inhales sharply.

How could you have forgotten? He confessed to you on his birthday last year that you were the only person he had left in his life since he hated his birthday so much. October 29th was such a painful day for him — to think that you didn't stop for a second to wonder if he was okay that day. It's not like you would've been able to contact him of course, but what if he swung by after you'd fallen asleep? You should've at least left him a note or something.

"Don't beat yourself up over it, lovebug." The confidence is starting to bleed out of him, you notice. Spider-Man walks over to your couch and sits on the floor in front of it. "I'll be okay. It's not like I was going to celebrate or anything."

You move to the couch and adjust yourself so that the vigilante is between your legs. You two often assume this position when you're finished patching him up and too tired to goof around until he leaves. You would place your hands on his head and press your fingers into the fabric of his mask. Spider-Man told you once that the action was soothing, but you have yet to admit to him that it's your way of trying to conjure up an image of what his hair must look like underneath.

Like always, he gets himself into position, draping his arms across your legs. This time, however, he's looking up at you. You're not sure what expression he might be wearing.

"I wasn't saying that we should've celebrated," you say softly. "I'm just upset that you had to be alone. Are you sure you're okay?" You ask as you massage your fingers across the crown of his head.

He hums. "I am now. I promise."

"If you're ever feeling down, you know you can come and see me." Your words surprise the both of you, but you don't regret them at all. He always seems to be around when you need his company the most, so why shouldn't you do the same for him? Who else would? your mind unhelpfully supplies. "I may not be the best company in the world, but at least you won't be alone, right?"

Spider-Man moves so that he's on his knees facing you. He's so close to your face like this; you inch backwards to preserve your sanity. "You're the only company I need." He says it with so much conviction that you shiver. "But does this mean I'm getting special treatment?"

"What--? You mean from the other Spider-Men?" When he nods, you snort. "Yeah, I guess you do get V.I.P privileges. You get extra treats unlike everyone else."

"Extra?" He tilts his head. "But you haven't given me any candy at all."

You raise a brow. "All that's left is the candy I'm hoarding for myself. And before you ask, no, I'm not sharing any. Why don't you try actually trick-or-treating? People would probably give the city hero the best of the best."

He sinks a little lower, seeming defeated. "...Would you believe me if I said I tried that already?"

"Did it work?"

He's silent.

"...It didn't work, did it?"

"...No. They thought I was just some superfan."

Peals of laughter burst out of you at his admission. "So this is how they repay you, huh?" You say between giggles. "No faith and no candy? That's rough, buddy." You get the distinct impression that he's glaring at you, but that only makes you laugh harder.

Fed up with your insistence on laughing at his misfortune, Spider-Man taps your leg. "Since I get special treatment from you, can I ask for a few wishes?"

You wipe a stray tear from your eye. "I'm dressed as a superhero, not a magic genie."

"Please?"

"Fine, fine." You finally catch your breath. "You get two wishes.

"Not three?"

"I'm not a genie. Don't push it."

Spider-Man puts his hands up in defense. "Alright, two it is. The first is… let me stay with you for the rest of the night."

You shrug. Wouldn't be the first time. He's usually gone by the time you wake up, anyhow. "Granted. Next one's your last — make it count, bug boy."

Spider-Man doesn't react to your nickname. Instead, he just stares at you. A familiar sensation tickles up your spine. He's watching you; you know that stare all too well. "I think you know what I'm going to ask for next." His voice is deeper, smoother than it was mere moments ago.

You nod and he eases himself closer to you. You feel your heart pick up an unsteady rhythm and rather than kiss him normally, you lean in close and press your masked lips to his. He makes a surprised noise before he laughs and melts into the "kiss" all the same. When you pull away, he's still laughing. A very welcome change from the bitter smile you're sure he was wearing when talking about his birthday. "Consider that a freebie," you mutter.

"You're too kind," he chuckles.

Soon, your fingers come to the base of his mask to raise it just above his lips when he suddenly stops you. He reaches for your face and you feel something tug at the base of your neck. Somehow, you completely forgot you were wearing that stupid mask. "It's kinda funny," he half-laughs, "having to unmask you for once."

"You... You can't tell anyone about my identity, okay?" You tease.

Spider-Man rolls your mask up just enough to expose your lips and you do the same to him. Neither of you are sure who leaned in first, but you meet in the middle in a kiss that has fireworks bursting behind your lids. The two of you are greedy, pouring a week's worth of longing into the kiss. The mutual yearning is palpable, so much so that you can hear his breath hitch when you sigh. He rises to the couch slowly and without breaking the kiss, doing his best not to part from you for even a second.

You missed him. Oh, how you missed him — you missed how he would wrap a strong arm around your waist and pull you closer like it was nothing; how he would whisper his adoration for you between breaths; how he would chase after your lips whenever you would tease him with barely-there kisses. You missed the exhilaration, the thrill of knowing that you were the only one Spider-Man would ever treat this way. That you were his and he was yours.

He moves from your lips to your jaw, trailing kisses up to your ear and down to your neck. His pace is unhurried, though he seems eager to pull a reaction out of you. You give him what he wants whether you intend to or not. You press yourself closer to him in a silent request for more and he indulges you; his kisses become little nips, and the nips turn to bites as he starts to leave marks on your neck. He eases you back so that you're laying on your couch and he's hovering over you. The two of you stare at each other for a moment.

"Can I use my next wish?" His voice is rough. When you nod, he leans in once more. His uncovered lips brush against your ear as he whispers. "Let me give you a treat."

Something foreign yet familiar makes you shudder as you nod.

Spider-Man attacks your neck once again. Clearly he was holding himself back earlier, because every mark he leaves stings. He makes them dark and obvious, completely disregarding any warnings you may have given him on other days. You normally would tell him to ease up, to hide the marks that he so desperately wanted to leave on you. But now you let him do as he pleases. You gave him an inch and as expected, he took the mile. He soothes each one with a kiss and muffles your whimpers with his lips.

It takes a while before he's satisfied with his handiwork. Kazuha raises himself up with a shaky breath. Your wrists are in his hands and pinned against the couch. Looking down at you now, all flushed absolutely covered in his marks, he feels something uncontrollable stir within him. He has half a mind to tell you to close your eyes so he can take his mask off, but he refrains.

That's all he ever does when it comes to you. You, the greatest test of his endurance that he will ever encounter in his lifetime. No supervillain with any amount of underground connections or otherworldly technology will ever test his patience and restraint quite like you. For years, Kazuha has weighed the pros and cons of telling you who he is. He always wonders if you would still allow this, if you would still treat him like a lover if you knew who he was — if you knew that he's been lying to you. Though your reaction may not be guaranteed, it's a risk he's more than willing to take.

But he doesn't. Not tonight. Maybe another day when the time is right.

For now, Kazuha releases your wrists and sits himself up. He fixes his mask while you take yours off. You sit up and he watches as you ghost your fingers over each of your fresh hickies. You wince a little when you brush the one on the left side of your collarbone, above your heart. The silence that hangs in the air is evident, but not uncomfortable.

Then, you mutter. "I was supposed to give you a treat."

Kazuha reaches out and touches a hickey left on your pulse point. A sensitive spot for you – you shudder in response. He admires the lingering haze in your eyss. "You did. Thank you, lovebug."

✧ my goodness. @perpetualcynicism look at what you've done. you've reawakened a monster in me.

✧ edit: btw, the dividers belong to @cafekitsune!! thanks so much for making such beautiful dividers!

[syn4k]

ok chat im crowdsourcing this one. what should i name my sword in minecraft

remember, the minecraft death message when someone's been directly killed by someone else is "[player] was slain by [player] using [weapon name]"!

*This is the actual text that the sword will be named as, minus the asterisk(s).

**See footnote 1. Also, yes, I added this as an option just so that if it wins, I can kill people and then declare them guilty of getting murdered with words. Hermitgang x16

***See footnote 1. This whole phrase almost certainly will not fit inside of an anvil, but I'll type as much of it in as I can before it inevitably tragically gets cut off.

****Any and all penis jokes will be instantly disqualified. I don't have one, I don't want one, and while I am incredibly aware of the parallels between combat and sex, I prefer to keep that shit in the sheets (of a book). Sorry, Tantalus. Try reaching for some higher hanging fruit <3 (please pretend that this also applies to option 8 i realized i already wrote that question after i posted the poll orz)

[f4iry-bell]

THE PROPHECY | 2

pairing: grayson hawthorne x f!reader

summary: where grayson is an aristocrat and reader is from a working class.

warning: ANGST, mention of tobias hawthorne, mention class difference, death.

tagging: @unnoodles @nqds @alwaysthefangirl @clarissaweasley-10 @benny1989fredd @imaseabear @never-enough-novels @elysianwayy77 @whatsamongus @sheisntyou

a/n: im sorry!🫠

word count: 1.2k

part 1 , masterlist

After the embarrassing moment in front of all those people, she decided to lock herself in. Though you lived on the other side of the town, it still felt weird for you to go out. She missed taking walks in the morning under the sun. It has been a week, she has sent letters to people to hire her since she cannot let other people push her poverty further. 

She was trying to sleep, trying to not recall their judging faces, how they looked down on her, how he reacted but she failed, especially trying not to think of Grayson and his reaction. He has sent her a letter through his trusted guard. Out of rage she burnt it at the very moment. She didn't want to cry again this week, she  closed her eyes tightly and forced herself to sleep but was disturbed by constant and a hurried knocking on her door. She assumed it was her neighbour because who else would knock on her door at midnight?

When she opened the door she saw a very familiar blonde man whose face was turned to the side to look if anyone was out.  She immediately went to slam the door against his face but he stopped the door, giving his strength he pushed the door open and let himself in.

“I didn't let you in. Didn't they teach manners in your fancy school?” She spoke with obvious anger.

“Look, I'm sorry—”

“Shut up, and get out.” She demanded, it's her house.

“Please, I'm begging, just hear me out.” He pleads.

“I don't care for what you have to say. You don't know me, remember?” She scoffed, recalling his cruel words.

“Y/n…”

“No, don't even say my name. Out.” She pointed to the open door.

“There is no excuse for my behaviour—”

“You're right. So, leave.” 

“I love you.” He dropped another set of three cruel words.

She was quiet for a second. “The audacity you have.” She added. “You don't love me, if you did you would have descended on me, told them that I was with you. That we have been together for months!”

“I know. But at that moment, I was scared. Of my grandfather and everyone. You know how society works.”

“I do know. But do you? Because, people finding out that you are with a working class woman would only be a little gossip that people talk about for a month and move on. But the embarrassment that I faced led me to have no job! No one will hire me because apparently I'm a thief!” She wanted to cry, but she walked to her small closet and took out the dress he gave her. She handed it to him. “Take this and leave, Grayson.”

“No. Please, believe me. I really am in love with you. I had no choice.” 

“Yes you did. You could have fought for me but you're a coward. And you'll always be.”

He went silent for a few seconds. “We have a choice now. We could go, like I mentioned.” 

She frowned. “What?”

“Us, leaving the town. I wrote to you, in my letter. Did you not receive it?” He asked.

“I did.”

“You didn't read it? Are you that mad?”

“I burnt it.” 

That made him hurt even more. “I understand, it's okay. I wrote that we could run away from here. We could go to another country even. I have enough and more money for both of us. We could start new and live happily, no more hiding.”

“I can't just leave.”

“Yes, you can. Are you really happy here? You live alone, you don't talk to anyone in the neighbourhood.” He pointed.

“What about you? You can't leave your brothers.” Grayson has mentioned multiple times how close he is with his brothers.

“They'll understand.”

She was hesitant to say yes.

“Please say yes.” Grayson knelt down, his hands snaking around your waist. “Please.” He begged.

“What if you leave me?”

“I won't be here and suggesting this if I'm planning on doing that.”

“What about your grandfather? He'll find us.”

“I'll take care of it.”

Silence.

He placed a kiss on her stomach, and then on her hips. “Trust me.”

“Okay.” 

Grayson rested his head on your stomach, he took both her hands and kept it on his head like how she used to do before. “I promise you that I won't disappoint you.”

“You better not.”

“I love you.” He said looking up, she cupped his cheeks.

“I love you too. But it doesn't mean I'm over it.”

“I know.” He said. “I'll spend forever making up for it.” He stood up and closed the door behind, they both sat on the bed and discussed their runaway.

“We'll leave this weekend. Before sunrise, I'll meet you right here. Take whatever you want but not too much. We can get anything you want after we move.”

“Okay.”

He kissed her softly. “Nothing will separate us.”

_

Like he said, Grayson knocked on her door before sunrise. He had one suitcase with him, he took her small bag from her and led the way. They two walked on the road hoping no one would see the two, the both were walking fast as you can, once you reached the woods, they both rested for a while because after this, either they had to go across his side of the town or through the woods to go to the docks. They can't risk anyone finding the two so you had to go through the woods, Grayson already marked on trees to go to the docks so it was easy.

Everything was going well until Grayson heard a bang. “Did you hear that?” He asked her as they both stopped. Grayson turned to her as she didn't respond.

She didn't know exactly what happened but it was hurting a lot, her flesh was throbbing, she never felt such physical pain ever. Grayson caught her when her body automatically fell and her light blue started turning red.

“No, no, no.” Grayson held her in his arms.

She tried to breathe but it was hard, so hard. “I'm bleeding.”

“It's okay, it'll be okay.” He told himself that more. He ditched their bags and carried her back to the town so he could take her to the doctor. He prayed that they'll make it in time.

“Grayson.” 

“Yes, sweetheart?” His voice was shaky.

“I'm going to die.”

“No, you won't.”

“I can feel it.”

“Well, you're wrong.”

“Stop. We won't make it time.”

“I'll regret it forever if I don't try.”

“Gray. Please, I don't want to die in that town.”

“You're not dying!”

“Please don't make me die there.” His legs stopped, slowly accepting that he only had a few minutes with her.

“I want you to have my ring.” She told him.

He nodded, with tears.

“And know that I love you and forgive you.”

“I don't deserve it.”

“You do.”

“This, it's my fault. It's my grandfather, I know it is him.”

“Doesn't matter, we were doomed from the beginning.” She pointed it out.

“We deserve better. You deserve better.” He sniffed. “I had it all planned, we'll move to another country, change our names and get married. I'd shower you with gifts and kisses, and open a restaurant with your name. I was supposed to treat you like a queen and give you the world.”

“Maybe in another universe.”

“Why not in this?”

She didn't reply, she couldn't. She tried but she couldn't, both felt her life leaving her. Grayson hugged her tightly and cried. He wished for a miracle to happen and bring her back. But nothing happened.

[sgiandubh]

On leadership

This is a personal comment on @luhafraser's last post, where she wrote, in plain English:

'But I can't help but notice that since I joined this fandom, what we have in all the groups in this fandom are "leaders", they come and go, new ones appear, or reinvent themselves. There are people that stand out and lead others to follow their ideas and statements. It is these people that receive information, have sources, receive pics, and are fed by "anonymous" (Sorry, but a lot of things that have already appeared could only have come from someone "inside"). I know we are all adults, but there are those who know how to influence or who are led to be influencers, there are those who understand that and there are those who don't.'

Dear @luhafraser,

You wrote a couple of things with great confidence, as you usually do, and I feel I have to say something,

I have invited you already to name names, not allude to persons in your posts, as you so transparently seem to be doing right now. So yes, I felt looked upon and judged. By you (and not only you). Since Day 1. You thought I was never going to respond, well - you were wrong. The day has come and the day is now.

Dear @luhafraser, while I do immensely appreciate your real qualities (intelligence, humor, sleuthing, etc.), I am less a fan of this kind of little games, both in public and behind the scenes. My sudden apparition seems to have bothered you, with Anons asking you (June 20, 2023) if I was really a new person joining in and you denying it without taking the time to talk to me:

This is simply not done, my dear. I have openly and transparently engaged with people since Day 1 and never lied about my own circumstances. Your answer started a flurry of speculation that kept people interested all summer long and forced me to dox myself. So kindly prove me and all the others I am not a newbie (something completely impossible to do), do it in public and own the things you post in here.

I am not a leader of anything, @luhafraser , and I have no wish to be regarded as such. Ever. I have learned, in 20 years of my high-level public service career, that being the boss corrupts and exposes. But yes, I did want to be a disruptively positive voice in what I felt to be an intimidated community. I wanted to bring more clarity and all those research skills to all of you. I wanted honesty. And I, above anything else, wanted to help. And I am sorry that people agreeing or liking what I post seems to bother you. It is not something I can help you with. It is what it is. There is a place for all our voices to be heard in here. Every single one of them.

I have no inside information on SC and never did. I have not betrayed anything that was shared with me in DMs and only posted things when adamantly asked to do so, after careful vetting and only from people I knew. However I am a hell of a bloodhound when I am set to find something and I am rather good at what I do, also in real life. I also know when to stop and will never share things that would be legally questionable. It would expose us and it is a risk simply not worth taking.

I am not here for clicks and likes. My block list is three or four times bigger than my dash. I do not care for fame, but I do care for a couple of trusted people that became real friends. It is for them and for them only that I am not giving you satisfaction and quit.

I keep my promises. I will not go anywhere. If you do not like what I write, please unfollow and block immediately - this goes for anyone that feels bothered about me being here, in any way. I have no wish to start a war with any of you - that would make Mordor glee with joy for months. But please do me and yourself a favor: if in doubt, go now. I cannot stand duplicity, never could.

I hope that sets the record straight. Believe it or not, I have no hostility towards you. Not a single ounce.

I am not expecting an answer.

[Later edit;] I am glad I doxed myself. Very glad. But that is another story.

[blackwolfstabs]

FALL FOR THOSE EYES

No matter what their parents say, Sam can't ignore Tara. (or Tara has separation anxiety)

fandom: Scream characters: Sam Carpenter, Tara Carpenter, Christina Carpenter, Mr. Carpenter content: pre-movie (Scream V) // Tara (4), Sam (10) a/n: i wrote this MONTHS ago (like 10 months ago, back when i first started my account lol) didn't expect to post it, didn't plan to post it, but here we are because i can't be fucking consistent. having said this, if you don't like what i write about, i don't need to hear about it, just skip over it please :) side note: Mikey is Tara's cat plush.

Sam lay awake in the darkness of her room in the early hours of 1:00 AM, staring at the ceiling as she listened to her baby sister cry relentlessly. She was going back and forth from her bedroom to their parents’ room, where she’d just be taken back by one of them. Having gone through this for countless nights, the older sibling knew that Tara would spend her time targeting their mother first, and then, when she wasn’t getting her way, she’d start to ask for their father.

But it never worked.

She hated to hear Tara cry so much, but she couldn’t understand why it was so hard for her to just go to sleep. Their parents weren’t going anywhere. They were just in the other room. She’d see them in the morning. Why was it so hard for her?

This time, she heard her mother bring Tara back into her room.

“Tara, you need to go night-night.”

By the sounds of the youngest’s shaky moans and sniffles, Sam guessed she was clinging to her as she put her back into her bed.

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Noo-hoooo!” And her hysterics stirred up again. “I wa-hant you to sta-hay, Mama-haaa!”

Christina left the room, leaving her daughter’s cries echoing down the hallway.

“Mama, pleeee-hease! Mama!”

Tara’s hitching breath was sharp, which made her listening sister start to worry that she would work herself up into an asthma attack. She heard her crying be interrupted by a few coughs, before it continued, her voice getting closer as she made another attempt to leave her room.

“Mm- Mmm– Mm-hmm… Mo-hommy…” She struggled to get out words in full sentences from her accumulated mucus. “I– Ih-hi… want yo-hou… Mommy…”

Great, now she was talking to herself. Samantha covered her face with her hands and lay still, hating how sad her baby sister sounded. And she couldn’t do anything for her. She had been told by their parents to ignore her crying, because she needed to learn. But it was so hard. She just wanted to go lay with her, so they could both get some sleep. She heard Tara’s footsteps retreat into the living room. Again.

A couple more seconds and the cycle repeated, but this time, it was their father bringing her back. Judging from where her whimpers came from, he was carrying her.

“Daddy, nooo-ho-hoo…” 

“Shh-shhh, Tara,” her parent soothed. “You’re okay.”

Even though she wasn’t there, Sam could see him putting her back into bed and actually making the effort to tuck her in around her resistant squirms and sobs.

“Goodnight.”

However, Tara started to cry again as she tried to make him stay, “B-but… my-hy tummy h-hurts, Daddy!” She was already trying to get out of her blankets to prepare to follow him out.

“That’s because you’re crying so much, sweetheart,” he reasoned. A few quiet seconds passed, before he concluded his stay. “Calm down, you’re okay. Hug Mikey and take some deep breaths. Your tummy will feel better soon. Goodnight.”

“I want one more hug!”

Sam bit her lower lip. She hated it when Tara said that.

He must’ve given it to her. “Goodnight, Tara.”

Even after her last hug, the youngest Carpenter was thrown into another fit. “No, Da-ha-ha-ddy! Noooo!” Her bedroom door shut. Uhh-huh-huuhhh!”

Her older sister felt her eyes go hot as she dropped her hands to continue the one-sided stare-off with the ceiling. How long was she going to have to sit here and listen to this before Tara wore herself out? Her cries didn’t leave her room anymore, but they stayed coming through the wall, leaving Sam guessing that she was just lying there sobbing by herself. Their parents were across the house, so they didn’t have to hear how heartbroken she sounded…

A few minutes passed before all went quiet, and she thought that she must’ve cried herself to sleep. But then what she was most afraid of happened…

“Saaaam! … Sa-ha-hammy!”

The owner of the name screwed her eyes shut, but her sister’s pleas grew louder.

“Mmm– Saaaammyyy!”

She covered her ears with her hands, doing what she could to keep herself from running to her rescue. Only it wasn’t a rescue. Tara simply didn’t want to be alone in her room, but she could be. She was being trained to be. She could do it. She remembered what her mother had told her after she and her father had found out that she was sneaking into Tara’s room to keep her quiet.

“She’s a big girl now, Sam. She has to learn how to self-soothe.”

But it was so hard to ignore her.

The shaky moans grew louder, until the door to her room opened and Tara padded in, sniffling and jumping her breaths while she clutched Mikey close. Now, it was of no use. Samantha lowered her hands from her ears and picked her head up to see her sister coming up to her bedside.

“Sammy…” she whined, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I–I… I wa-hant…”

Before she could finish her broken sentences, Sam pushed her covers down and sat up with a sigh. This made Tara start to whimper again, fearful that her last resort would shut her out too. She took her hand and began to guide her towards the door, but the younger just started to break down again.

“I wa-haanna sleep with yo-hou, Sammy!” The little girl was too tired to try and hold herself back, so she was pulled against her will.

“Shhh, I know, Tara. Come on,” Sam continued to hush her as she tugged her past the threshold. She could hear her start to wheeze when she sucked in breaths, her asthma catching up with her from the inability to calm herself down.

But the other hadn’t realized it yet. She was too focused on wanting her way. “I do-hon’t wanna be by myself!” she sobbed, wiping her tears away with Mikey’s marbled faux fur.

“You’re not,” her older sister assured her, “I’m gonna sleep with you.” This seemed to make her start to calm down, sniffling and giving quiet moans to stabilize her crying onslaught. Once they got to her bedside, the taller girl picked her up and put her on the bed. “Lay down. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Tara only gave a partial nod as Sam left the room to grab the tissue box from the bathroom. When she came back into the room, she shut the door and climbed up on the bed to settle next to the recovering occupier, who had willingly got under the covers and was facing her.

She blinked up through drying tears. “Sammy, m-my tummy… hurts,” she complained.

So she wasn’t just pulling strings after all. “I know. It’s because you cried for a long time,” she answered, then went to pull a tissue out from the box, “You know how you have a hard time breathing so you swallow all of the snot in your throat to breathe again?”

Tara nodded.

“All of that snot goes into your tummy and makes it hurt.”

“I… I feel full, too…”

Sam nodded, “Yeah, so don’t swallow it anymore.” She then held the tissue up to her sibling’s nose. “Blow.” She did, and then, she went on to wipe the excess snot draining from her runny nose. “Good girl.” As Tara took in a deep breath to get an adequate amount of air, the other tucked the used tissue into the space between the pillows. “Better?”

Another nod had her placing the tissue box aside and laying down next to her baby sister. She tugged the blankets up to her shoulder and watched Tara roll onto her back to breathe better, where she softly pawed her throat, a small whimper emitting from it. “Remember what Mama said to do,” she reminded, knowing she was scared of having an asthma attack, “Smell the roses, then blow out the birthday candles.” 

And her little sister obeyed, taking a deep breath in through her nose, then letting it out of her mouth.

“Slower, Tara. You can breathe. You’re okay.”

She did so, finding it easier when Sam did it with her. She fiddled with Mikey’s fur while curling and relaxing her toes as she repeated the cycle, a tactic used to decompress her muscles as well.

Eventually, after many breathing cycles and a few tissues, she was able to exhibit a normal breath pattern, making her feel more at ease. But there was still one problem. 

Samantha, on the same hand, had relaxed too, the tactical exercise having her nearly falling asleep. She stirred herself awake. “You getting sleepy yet?” she asked as she suppressed a yawn behind her hand.

But Tara turned her head to look at her with her still-wide-awake puppy eyes. “My tummy still hurts…” she confessed.

Her big sister moved closer to her with a gentle grunt. “It’ll stop hurting in a little bit.” She laid her head down and shut her eyes. Beneath the blanket, she reached her hand over to place it over the gist of the younger’s stomach, where she began to rub in a small circle. “Does it hurt here?” 

“Mm-hmm,” was the reply. The little girl tugged her arms up to allow the caressing hand to do its work as she sank into her pillow while holding her stuffed cat close to her face. “Mama always gives me tummy rubs whenever it hurts,” she whispered.

Eyes still closed, Sam smiled with a short chuckle, “I know.” She knew that was true from seeing it many times. She knew Tara milked stomach aches from time-to-time, just so their mother would hold her. As weird as it might be, being petted like that made her baby sister feel secure. It calmed her down, kinda like a dog. “I don’t think I do it as good as Mom though,” she joked.

Tara giggled. “That’s okay. It still feels good.” She blinked at her sister’s closed eyes, happy that she wasn’t alone anymore. 

“You better not be faking,” the other then opened one eye to glance at the smile on her face.

The younger’s face dropped. “I’m not!”

“You fake stomach aches to Mom all the time, I know you do.”

“Do not!”

“Do too!”

“Liar!”

“Faker!”

“Meanie!”

If she was going to name-call like that, Sam was sure she was feeling better, and she slipped the hand that was caressing her sibling’s abdomen beneath her shirt to tickle her bare, on the offense.

Tara squealed and drowned into laughter as she tried to shove her hand away. “No-ho-ho! Sa-hammy!” She twisted onto her side to curl into herself, then reached out to retaliate, snaking her little fingers into her attacker’s neck.

The new victim pulled her shoulders forward in an awkward block, beginning to snicker herself. But then that caused Tara to move one of her hands to her open underarm, which made her shriek. She then made use of her other hand, which she plunged into the side of the younger’s neck, the side between the pillow that would make it hard to block.

Tara squirmed against the mattress, outdone by aged-strength. She kicked out, inadvertently catching Sam off-guard and having her tickling cease. This made her defend harder, moving her hands from her sister’s neck and underarm to her ribs, sides, anywhere she could to prove her dominance. 

Now, both sisters were in hysterics, trying to get the upper hand from each other, which was a losing game. So, Sam took the initiative to break it up. “Oka-hay, Ta-hara-ha! Stop! We-he need to slee-he-he-heep!” She pulled her hands away and pulled her arms close to her in order to prove her surrender.

Luckily, her sister took it, and backed off as well, her laughter fading to leave a sleepy smile. She may not have been ready to go back to sleep after crying so much, but after all of that, she was tired. 

Samantha panted, readjusting her clothing that had been disheveled from the fight. Tara didn’t seem to care about hers, so when they reverted to lying on their sides, facing each other, she took it upon herself to tug her shirt down and her shorts up.

When they both recovered, the older sibling settled with a content sigh, while the younger one nestled into her pillow with a soft hum. At first, Sam had shut her eyes to welcome the recurrence of sleep, but something possessed her to open them again. And when she raised them to check on Tara, she had done the same.

Her baby sister blinked, the flood of tears that had once ruled her having left no trace on her precious face. “I love you, Sammy.”

The other smiled and tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. “I love you too, Tara.”

Tara shuffled closer to her and nuzzled Mikey’s fur. She felt safe, happy, and sleepy now that she was with her sister. When her mother and father wouldn’t be there to give her that security, she knew Sam would always be there. “Promise you’ll stay with me all night?” she quizzed, knowing she’d usually leave in the early morning, before the sun came up, so their parents wouldn’t know.

Sam nodded, her tired blink not strong enough to pull her into darkness before she was able to promise, “Until the morning light.”

───────────────────────────

[eyesthatroll]

SCARS | JAKE SERESIN

pairing: dad!jake x fem!oc x teenage!son

warnings: angst, self harm, scars, talk of depression, this chapter reads extremely heavy and can be very triggering to some, please read with caution. established relationship. lower-case intended. i read through this a few times so there shouldn't be any typos, but if there is, i'll go through in a few days and fix them, i can't read this anymore at the moment, lowkey triggering myself lol.

suggestion: would recommend listening to the song home ll by dotan, as that’s what i listened to when i wrote this. really beautiful song.

word count: 2.5k

summary: noticing teddy acting a little weird, you ask jake to talk to him. it's worse then you and jake ever thought.

"hey bud, wanna go to 7-eleven with me?" jake asks his second oldest, leaning against the doorframe of his room.

the boy looks up from his chair, glancing to the clock that read 1:14 am before looking back to jake. "this late?"

jake smiles. "it's saturday, why not? like old times?"

theodore remains silent for a few moments, contemplating. "sure, i guess."

he slips on a random hoodie before meeting his dad at the front door.

"ready to go?" jake asks.

the young boy nods, stepping outside into the crisp night air.

the drive to 7-eleven is quick, considering it's right down the road.

the two step out of the truck, and enter the brightly lit convenience store, theodore headed to the slurpee machine, jake to the decaf coffee.

theodore gets his usual flavors, blue raspberry and cherry, and him and jake meet up at the counter.

jake pays, thanking the cashier, and they leave.

"hey, come sit with me for a sec." jake sits down on the curb, patting the space next to him.

theodore sits next to his dad on the curb.

the two sit in silence for a few minutes.

"you okay, buddy? you seem a lil' down recently." jake breaks the silence, speaking softly.

theodore shrugs. "school i guess."

jake frowns. "school?"

"ya know, the SAT, college apps, that stuff. stress."

"okay." jake nods at his sons words. "any way i can help?"

"grandpa has been saying i should apply to USNA, like cooper."

jake is taken aback. he wasn't even aware that theodore and his father were talking. "i didn't know you two were talking."

theodore shrugs. "he's been calling me a few times. keeps asking how my application is going."

jake's jaw clenches. of course, the few times his father would reach out to his grandson, would be to pressure him into joining the naval academy.

"ignore whatever he is telling you, teddy." jake says, a bitter taste in his mouth.

"would you be mad at me, if i didn't join the navy?"

jake shakes his head. "of course not, son, you know that. all i want is for you to be happy, i'll support whatever you decide."

theodore sets his slurpee down next to him. "i'm not happy."

jake frowns. "what's goin on, buddy? you can talk to me, i promise i won't judge."

lifting up his arms, he rolls his sleeves up, revealing uneven scars, band-aids covering his left wrist.

"i think something's wrong with me, dad."

jake looks away from the teenage boy next to him.

tears form in his eyes.

he takes a minute to compose himself, inhaling deep breaths, before finally turning back to his son. grabbing his hand, his calloused fingers trace over the old scars. "how long have you been doing this, teddy?"

jakes voice is low, unsteady.

theodore shrugs. "i don't know, little more than a year, i guess."

jakes eyes widen. he drops theodore's hand, before quickly standing up. "i need a minute, buddy. don't go anywhere."

jake goes back into the 7-eleven, and heads straight for the bathroom.

once inside, he falls against the back of the door, heavy sobs escaping his chest.

jake was a strong man, being his fathers son, he had to be. it took a hell of a lot to make him emotional, growing up in a household where crying is weak will do that to you, but here he was, sobbing on the bathroom floor of a 7-eleven.

becoming a father had been the best thing that ever happened to him,and an opportunity for him to break generational curses and show his children and his father and grandfather, that you could be tough and deal with your emotions in a healthy manner.

jake was taught to push those feelings deep down, and never let them out in the open, never let anyone else see them. it was in this moment, he hoped and prayed to god that theodore wasn't taking after him.

theodore had been in pain for over a year. suffering for over a year. unhappy for god knows how long.

his beautiful boy had been harming himself for over a year, and he didn't even notice.

jake felt like the worst parent in the world.

how could he not have noticed?

he tries to think back to all of the family gatherings and the birthday parties. everyone always commenting on how well mannered and mature theodore was. the nights where you guys would get home, and theodore would close himself up in his room. the weekends, where jake only saw him at dinner. the way theodore always wore long sleeves, even in the summertime.

jake had missed the signs.

growing up, theodore was always a quiet boy, very different from his siblings. his siblings were sparkplugs, reckless and always getting into trouble.

jake had liked to believe that theodore had taken after you, but after remembering the stories your mom tells of you being a raining hellfire, he wonders how truly long his boy has been feeling unhappy. was it just this past year, or was it subconsciously his whole life?

jake didn't know if he wanted the answer to that last question.

it takes a few minutes, but he finally calms himself down enough to be able to leave the bathroom.

stepping outside, he sees theodore sat in the same spot.

he frowns.

jake doesn't know what to say, or what to do. none of the parenting books covered this.

all he can do is stand and look at the broken boy in front of him.

he thinks back to when theodore was younger, about six or seven, when he and jake would go to 7-eleven every saturday at an ungodly hour (that hour being nine, 'ungodly' because his bedtime was eight.)

theodore practically running inside the store, insisting that he can dispense his own slurpee because he was a big boy. begging to get a big cup, even though he never finished it.

he was so happy then, getting to spend time with his daddy alone-without his siblings present, doing something they 'weren't supposed to do' all while keeping the promise of: no telling mama.

jake didn't see that little boy standing in front of him, and it made him so incredibly upset that he hadn't realized he was ever missing.

sitting down next to theodore, theodore looks up at him. "were you crying?"

jake nods. "i was."

theodore frowns. "i'm sorry."

jake wraps his arm around his sons shoulder, and pulls him into his side. "don't apologize, kid."

the two sit in silence for more minutes. jake, trying to figure out what to say, and theodore, silent tears rolling down his face.

jake can't put it off any longer. he grabs theodore's left wrist and holds it up between the two of them. "i don't know exactly how you are feeling, but i know that this, this is not the answer, teddy." jake pauses.

theodore remains silent.

"i love you so much, teddy bear." jake calls theodore by a nickname he hadn't used since he was a little boy.

jake had stopped calling him that when theodore became a teenager.

dad, don't call me that anymore, it's embarrassing!

theodore lets out a sob at the use of his childhood nickname, crying into his fathers jacket.

"i-im sorry, i just- i can't, dad-" theodore begins to cough over his words.

jake pulls him closer, one hand on his back, another tousled in his curly hair.

"why can't i just feel normal?"

jake remains silent, trying to formulate what he was going to say, before speaking.

"everybody loves you so much, buddy. you need help studying for your tests? i will find someone to help you. you want to explore college options? your mom and i will drive you to check out every campus in the goddamn united states if you want to. you want to join the navy? great! you don't want to join the navy? that's okay, too." jake says, his hand rubbing theodore's back soothingly.

"i don't know why you're feeling this way, teddy. i wish that there was something i could do, or say, to make it all better. i know you're not happy, and we can get you help, buddy. there's counseling, medication—we have options, teddy. better options than hurting yourself, okay?"

"okay."

jake uses his shirt to wipe the snot from theodore's nose. "i love you, nothing will ever change that."

the two of them sit together in silence, watching the cars drive past the dark road, an honest silence between them.

jake just wants his boy to be okay.

"please don't tell mom about my scars."

jake freezes. jake had completely forgotten about you, the one who had sent him to have this talk with theodore in the first place.

what was he supposed to tell you?

if you asked, he couldn't lie to you.

"promise me you won't tell her, please, dad."

god don't say that. don't make me promise. 

"dad?" theodore looks up at his dad with worry.

jake sighs. "buddy, i—i can't not tell your mom."

theodore frowns. "please don't. please, i don't want her to know."

jake sighs. if theodore didn't want him to tell you, then he wouldn't tell you.

jake reaches down, and brings theodore's wounded wrist up to his lips, placing a soft kiss there.

"i won't tell your mom about this-"he gestures to theodore's scars. "but i need you promise to try your best to not do this again."

theodore remains silent for a moment. "okay."

jake takes a deep breath. "what do you use to make these?"

teddy shrugs. "whatever i can find. knives, desk corners, mainly blades, though."

jake stills. "okay, do you think i could get them from you—when we get home? are they in your room?"

theodore nods. "under my bed."

jake nods. "i want them as soon as we get home."

"okay."

it's only a few minutes later that theodore says he's ready to go.

the car ride back home is quiet, except for the radio playing lowly in the background.

once jake and theodore get home, they quietly make their way through the house. the last thing needed was someone waking up and asking questions.

stopping at the young boy's bedroom, jake's eyes follow theodore, as he slips off his shoes, and bends down to reach under his bed. standing up, he hands you a small box full of about a dozen or so box cutters.

jake frowns at the brown tainting the bandaids theodore is wearing.

"is that all?" jake asks.

"yeah." theodore says quietly.

jake nods. "let me clean your bandages, teddy, i'll meet you in the bathroom."

"wait—what are you gonna do with those."

"i'm throwin' em' out, buddy."

"not in the kitchen garbage, mom or the boys will see."

"i know, teddy. i'll meet you in the bathroom."

jake takes the tattered box full out blades outside and throws it in the neighbors garbage can.

entering the house again, he locks the door before quietly making his way to the bathroom.

shutting the door, he grabs bandages and neosporin from the cabinet above the sink.

"when did you do this?" jake asks.

"few days ago." theodore mumbles.

"did you clean them?"

theodore shakes his head. "i never really do. i usually just slap a bandaid on them."

his words make jake wince. it's a miracle none of theodore's cuts had ever gotten infected.

slowly, jake unwrapped the bandages from his wrist. his heart absolutely breaking at the sight of theodore's freshly wounded wrist.

jake turns the water on, and lets it run until it's lukewarm. with mild soap, he gently cleans theodore's cuts.

drying theodore's wrist with a spare towel, he spreads neosporin over the wounds before applying bandages to the area.

"no more, okay?"

theodore nods. "okay."

jake pulls his son in for another hug. "get to bed, it's late. we'll talk in the morning."

"goodnight, dad." theodore says quietly.

"goodnight, teddy bear."

sighing, jake puts everything back in the cabinet and heads to bed, absolutely exhausted from what was supposed to be a simple, short conversation.

stripping to his boxers, jake tries not to wake you as he climbs into bed.

"jake." you mumble, sensing the dip in weight on your left side.

you had tried your best to be awake for when they got home, but minutes turned to hours, and you accidentally had fallen asleep.

"hey, darlin'" jake says quietly, brushing your curly hair out of your face.

"how did it go?" you asked. jakes eyes were bloodshot, his skin blotchy, you knew it couldn't have gone well but you still had a tiny bit of hope.

"he's not okay, josephine." jake says. "he's been in so much pain."

tears welled in your eyes.

"how could he have been in so much pain without us noticing?"

jake held you against his chest, you crying silently at the thought of your baby boy being as unhappy as jake is describing.

jake tells you everything.

almost everything.

he leaves out what he promised theodore he wouldn't tell you, telling you that it wasn't his place, that in time, teddy would tell you himself.

"remind me tomorrow to call my dad and ask him what the fuck he's thinking."

"i will."

the conversation ended there, and though you had a few more questions, jake looked absolutely exhausted, so you didn't push him on it.

it's been a few hours, jake had since fallen asleep, but you couldn't. you laid there, your husbands heartbeat steady in your ear.

you stared at the clock that rested on the wall across from you, counting down the minutes until it was breakfast time and you had an excuse to wake up theodore.

and when you couldn't wait any longer, the clock read 5:42am. you slowly removed yourself from jakes grasp and made your way to your sons room.

"teddy?" you said quietly.

"mom?" his voice is hoarse, strangled.

you made your way over to his bed. "hi sweetheart."

you brush stray curls out of his face.

"dad told you?" he asks.

you nodded. "only some of it. whatever he promised you he wouldn't tell me, he hasn't."

your beautiful boy frowns. "i'm sorry."

"don't apologize." you tell him. "room for me?"

theodore slides his body over, and you join him in the small bed.

he rests his head on your chest.

"you hated sleeping in your bed by yourself." you tell him, quietly.

"you would beg me for story after story just so i would stay with you until you fell asleep."

"you were such a sweet boy. you still are a sweet boy." you pause, trying to stabilize your breath. "my sweet boy."

"i love you so much, okay?" you tell him.

"okay."

"i mean it, teddy. i don't want you to ever feel like you can't come to me. even if you don't think i will understand, even if i don't understand, i will always be there to listen. so will your dad."

"you promise?"

"i promise, angel."

-

a/n: this is... i don't know. this chapter is loosely based on personal experience, except, my parents weren't as nice as teddy's. i don't know how i feel about this, it did feel good to write, though, cathartic in a way i guess. this fic takes place in a universe that i'm developing where josephine and jake have four boys (you might remember josephine from the fic 'leaving' that i posted a few days ago) obviously, this is set further in the future, and i probably should wait to post this until i post the fics of the boys growing up, but i don't have any of those written and instead i hyper fixated on this, so here it is.

teddy has such a huge piece of my heart, and if any of you are feeling like teddy right now, just know that i've been there, i see you, and it does eventually get better with time.

sidenote: i have no idea what pov i want to write this in, but i guess i don't it to be y/n? i'm reading another jake series, i believe its called my girl? where its centered around an oc, but the story is written with you pronouns, and i liked how that read, so i attempted to do that here, not sure how it worked out or will work out in the future for me. as usual, i'd love to hear your thoughts about this story. this is an extremely heavy topic, and i hope i wrote about it at least decently.

[theproverbialpen]

Musings from a Hazbin Fan and Hotel Employee

Yeah, that's right—I'm posting to this blog for the first time in years because I got into Hazbin Hotel of all things. Not only did I get into this cursed fandom, I'm writing fan fiction for it. Fan fiction. I think the last time I wrote fanfiction was...2012? 2013? And I only ever told 3 people about that one. Now here I am posting on main. The brainrot truly is unquantifiable.

If you're one of the few people that survived the purge of those I know IRL, congratulations. Please don't judge me lol. Anyways, actual musings are below the cut!

So I’m writing a fun little fanfic on AO3 and after someone left a comment (if you’re reading this, still genuinely one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me about my craft), it occured to me—as a Hazbin Hotel enjoyer, I have a pretty unique perspective on the series as an IRL hospitality professional. So! Thought it would be some cute bonus content to talk a little bit more about my life at an actual hotel and how it’s impacted my experience with Vivziepop’s hit series. 

Please note: this is written purely for shits and giggles. I don’t actually have any issues with the setting of Vivzie’s narrative or how it plays into the stories she and her team want to tell. I fucking love this show, to a potentially unhealthy degree, and I haven’t had this much fun with a series since like…okay well my hyperfixations change like every few months, but still. Point is, this isn’t actually critique, or satire, or anything with negative or critical intentions. TLDR; this post is for funsies, get off my dick.

So Who TF Am I, Anyways?

A little background on myself, for context. I’ve been employed at my hotel for almost a year now, and it’s my first hospitality job. I work in the Sales and Events department and I’ve come to learn that Group Business is actually integral for keeping a hotel up and running. When your average person (read: me before this job) thinks about hotels and traveling, you’d think it’s all about the families, bloggers, and individual travelers when it comes to guests and revenue. But in actuality, most of a hotel’s revenue—at least in the market I work in—will come from contracted room blocks and events. 

That’s where folks in my department come in. We work with clients to negotiate contracts and secure occupants for our hotel year round. Simply put, if we don’t do our jobs well, then no one else gets hours. So as much as the anti-capitalist in me will sometimes hate being a cog in the machine, it is really fulfilling to be able to help clients meet their needs while also making sure my coworkers are able to put food on the table. 

Speaking of being a cog in the machine, because of my role in Sales, this means that whenever I travel or think about hotels, I’m always thinking about the revenue side of things. I also work more with the Events team, so operations are also on the forefront of my mind. Which leads me to my principal quandary for this little blog post:

How in the Hell does the Hazbin Operate?

I have a laundry list of questions. A laundry list that’s almost as big as the actual pile of dirty laundry that is currently plaguing my bedroom floor. I will summarize (which is a generous word given how fucking verbose I can be) below:

Issue #1: Revenue Generation

Okay listen, I know Charlie is the Princess of Hell. I know she probably has unlimited capital, whatever that looks like in the HelluVerse. And I know the Hazbin is literally there to help rehabilitate people so charging them to stay would be counterproductive.

But my dude…do you understand how much money would be needed to run an operation of this scale?

At the end of Season 1, the new Hazbin is huge. Like it easily looks as big, if not bigger, than the hotel I work at which has nearly 500 rooms. Do you know how much revenue our team has to generate to keep this place running? Do you know how many millions our target goal is set at for each quarter? How many hundreds of thousands my coworkers’ individual quotas are set to? And sunshine in a bottle over here doesn’t charge her residents anything????? 

How does she get all those decorations? How does she order food or inventory? We know Hell has an economy, like Angel literally says he needs to save money for drugs in his first appearance. Is she…does she even pay her staff???

It is utterly appalling that Charlie is able to operate a hotel of this scale, both because of how it doesn’t make sense from a business perspective and because there are IRL billionaires that could probably do the same thing and solve homelessness overnight. 

Speaking of scale:

Issue #2: The Hazbin’s Systems, Or Lack Thereof

Okay so, yes, there’s only like…one official resident of the hotel, maybe two if Cherri moves in and doesn’t become a staff member (RIP Pentious, you would have loved living with Cherri Bomb). With the staff the way it is, that’s a solid 5:1 ratio, which is beyond ideal. But—and I touch on this in the fic—I feel I must reiterate: the new Hazbin is fucking massive. And you know what that means? It’s going to be able to hold a lot of guests. Guests that will need staff to take care of them. Let’s review:

Charlie is the owner and mostly teaches classes. Vaggie is the co-owner and kind of acts as the Executive Assistant to Charlie’s General Manager. I guess Alastor is the Hotel Manager? I’m gonna be honest, I have no idea what he does, but generally speaking he’s supposed to be the jack of all trades and manage the rest of the staff. Niffty handles Housekeeping and I guess would be the director of that. Husk is the bartender but like canonically only really eats pub food so he definitely can’t be the Food & Beverage head. 

Let’s say we scrap the Sales and Revenue Departments because clearly they don’t need income, but we keep a Marketing position so that Charlie can get the word out about the hotel. That leaves us with the need for Engineering, Front Desk, Rooms, and F&B staff. And like, not just one person—that would fucking suck—but proper staff. And given their track record of organization and managing the hotel…let’s just say, I would not be applying to the Hazbin Hotel anytime soon. Honestly, it sounds like that job would qualify to be the new tenth circle of Hell. 

What Does the Hazbin Get Right About IRL Hospitality?

So yes, clearly the world of the Hazbin Hotel leans towards the more fanciful—it is a story about Hell after all. However, there have been some moments that have made me chuckle as a hotel employee, things that are relatable for us in the hospitality world. Allow me to highlight them for you below:

Everyone is Bat Shit Crazy

Hospitality professionals are weird. So weird. Before I started my job, I was terrified of the level of professionality I would need to have. When I first got hired, I was given a whole packet on dress code and appropriate conduct. As you can probably tell from my writing style, this was concerning: I can be professional when I need to be, but I cannot maintain that guise for extended periods of time. Call it my toxic trait.

I also already had this impression of poised and put-together hotel staff from my previous experiences with travel. All the Front Desk agents would be in these clean and wrinkle-free clothes with kind yet business-forward attitudes, office workers would be walking around in full suits, and occasionally you’d see the hotel management on the floor if you were looking. Let me tell you now—it is a facade. An act. An incredible stage production unfolding in real time where all the staff do their absolute damndest to make you feel like you are in an organized and professional institution. Not unlike a certain hit animated musical.

My direct supervisor, the literal Director of Catering and Events, once told me that being a liiiiiittle crazy was a prerequisite for working in our department during the hiring process for a new Sales Manager. She was wrong—the prerequisite is not “a little” crazy. The prerequisite is being bat shit insane. And it’s not just our department, oh noooOoooOo, it is every department. Downstairs in our little basement dungeon, we make out of pocket comments, scream at random intervals, and swear way more than we should (that one might be my fault…according to my partner I swear more at work than at home and apparently it’s rubbing off on my colleagues), but that behavior is in no way restricted to just the Sales Team. 

I process the checks that are sent to our property and our Director of Rooms makes me say “can I get a WITNESSSS” before she signs off on the drop log (Charlie-core). If I don’t say it high pitched enough or with enough vigor, she makes me do it again. I once watched a guy in Engineering climb a tall step ladder balanced with two legs on a platform and a third leg balanced on a wooden plank his coworker was holding steady. The fourth leg was over the open air. Let me reiterate: the open. Fucking. Air. Tell me you can’t see Angel Dust and Cherri doing that shit.

Speaking of Engineering, you wanna know what dumbass thing happened just this morning? The Regional Director of the department—regional meaning he manages teams all across our area, like top level type shit—told us about this cursed ass Instagram trend he found where allegedly, putting ketchup on a Kit Kat tasted like fudge. So right there and then, him, myself, and two other coworkers decided ‘why the fuck not?’:

I would never seek it out willingly again, but I honestly didn’t hate it. 

The point of all of this is to say—the antics the Hazbin crew get up to? Totally realistic. I could see my coworker Robert throwing me into an active battlefield against my will. We have deadass done the role playing thing Angel and Pentious did during our trainings, and it was just as unhinged. Every day some shit happens at this hotel and I’m just like, “Yup. That could happen in Hazbin.”

“Call Now! Or Don’t! I Don’t Care! We Still Don’t Have a Working Phone!”

I would like to preface this section by saying: if you happen to be a Front Desk associate, I’m sorry. This is not directed at you, this is directed at your managers and their communication skills that may or may not exist. If you are somehow a manager reading this, uh—first of all, cringe. Second of all, I hope these next few paragraphs don’t apply to you. If they do and you’re offended: that’s a certified you-problem, babes. 

There are three certainties in this life: death, taxes, and miscommunication from your fucking managers. Tell me why in this past week alone I have been in 5 different email threads regarding fuck-ups and complaints from guests about things that we had clearly communicated. Tell me why in these email threads, people were attempting to throw me under the bus or shift the blame to my team. Tell me why I have gone to every single individual office in my department complaining about this. Tell me why this isn’t the first time this has happened.

Another hotel tidbit: across the board, Q1 (Jan-Mar) is supposed to be slow, for all of hospitality. It’s the time to get the metaphorical phone lines working, ya know? Our Q1 was stupidly busy, so I get it, people were slammed and short staffed. But like… we had time. Time to iron out our communication, time to create systems and processes that would ensure we’d be all set when things got busier. Yet here I am at the start of Q2 with an entire fist shoved up my ass being puppeted around to fix other people’s mistakes. 

It’s times like these when I go back to rewatch Hazbin for the like 26th time and I watch Charlie and Alastor run the hotel and I’m just like “whyyYyYyYyYyYy”. Like I KNOW Vaggie has had days where she’s like, “what…what am I supposed to be doing right now? Like what is my job, what… What?” 

It’s not just Front Desk either. It’s every department, even my own bosses. Like the call is coming from inside the house, sweetie, why did you tell this Sales Manager that I was taking care of all her commissions but you didn’t tell me this. Why am I blocking a room for an Orientation the following Monday at fucking 5:45 PM on a Friday. Why am I JUST finding out about a VIP guest when I have been asking you if you had any notes for me for the whole week.

I touch on it in my fic as well but like…pretty sure Charlie just, decides to host her classes day of. And that drives me insane. Like I…there are processes. Things that need to be done so that everyone is on the same page. You don’t just wing this shit, that’s how you end up with Susan calling your Director to tell her that you’re a useless waste of space not even deserving of the air in your lungs because you didn’t give her her fucking breakfast voucher. 

As a character, I love Alastor. If I were ever in the same room as him, I’d probably hate him. But if there’s anything relatable about that Geneva Convention Violation on Legs it’s his absolutely done attitude in Episode 1’s opening commercial.

Charlie Loves Helping People, and So Do We!

Alright, I’ve complained for enough paragraphs, let’s be positive for a second. The thing that is by far the most true to life in Hazbin Hotel is how much joy Charlie gets from taking care of her guests. Like…that’s our bread and butter in the hospitality world. Well, maybe just the butter; we need that bread in the form of cold hard cash (or direct deposits, whatever works best). But as much as I will bitch and moan about the difficulties of working in a hotel, there’s nothing quite as fulfilling as a guest telling you that you made their entire trip better. The butterflies I get reading reviews where my coworkers are mentioned by name and a guest writes about how we completely turned around their bad day are an absolute delight. It just means the world knowing that you can have that kind of impact on someone, even if it’s just in the little things.

In Episode 2, when Charlie and the crew are welcoming Sir Pentious and she just starts vibrating with excitement is exactly how I feel when I get to meet a client that we’ve been working with for months and finally welcome them to our property. When they sing “It Starts With Sorry” and just get to have a moment of empathy and compassion together, it reminds me of the clients and the phone calls I take where I get to ask them about their goals and help them feel like they’re supported and heard. In the grand scheme of things, is a nice phone call or interaction with some hotel employee going to change your life? Probably not. But for those few moments when their burdens seem lighter is why I love my job.

This goes for guests, and for my fellow coworkers. I’ve been very blessed to start my hospitality career in an unusually supportive work culture. Yeah, we can be some right petty bitches sometimes, but overall everyone is so encouraging and so quick to help lighten each other’s loads. Like in Episode 5 (best episode btw, for obvious reasons) when all the Hazbin Crew are working together to prepare the hotel for Lucifer’s arrival, that shit made me so giddy cause like- that’s us! Look at us go! We workin together so hard, we’re so cute! Like when Niffty and Pentious are baking and she looks up at him all excited n’ shit—that’s literally been me working with our Director of Restaurants on new food menus or promotional material. 

There’s something about being in an occupation where your whole purpose is to take care of people that really brings out the selflessness in you, and I think that’s what makes the hotel such a great setting for Charlie’s mission of redemption. I didn’t realize that until writing this paragraph tbh, but yeah, it just kinda…works. When your job is to make sure other people have a good time and feel supported and you’re surrounded by people that make you feel the same way, it’s a lot easier to want to choose to do good, to do right by the people around you. So as much as I have some silly little nitpicks…yeah, I can admit—I love that this show is about the Hazbin Hotel specifically.

Anyways, if you made it this far, thanks for reading! Next update for Life is In Redemption will be out in the days to come, just thought this would be a fun addition while I work on some of the content with my friends. This upcoming chapter is going to have a co-author, so get hyyyyyped :)

[shivunin]

Fanfic Writer Questions

Tagged by @greypetrel - thank you so much! 💗

I know this has made the rounds already. If I tag you and you've already done it, please feel free to tag me in the replies or disregard!

Tagging: @nightwardenminthara @vakarians-babe @transprincecaspian @star--nymph @blightbear @inquisimer @dreadfutures @scribbledquillz

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

43

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

688,185

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Published? Just Dragon Age. But I have some unfinished/unpublished Mass Effect and Baldur's Gate stuff as well.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

All of these are Cullavellan fic:

Your Fate for Mine (129,681 Words | E)

More Than Memory (5,214 Words | E)

Search Your Hands (13,581 Words | E)

Unyielding (3,083 Words | M)

The Epaulet Mate (7,303 Words | E)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes, though more slowly than I used to!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Ooh. Probably The Scourge of Sundermount, though it wound up less angsty than the original ending (in which Cullen and Lavellan are turned to stone forever)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I'm a sucker for a happy ending, so this is much harder to answer! I am avoiding answering this with the obvious innuendo haha. Maybe In Any Life? I feel like the vibe of that last chapter is so very soft, with a spring breeze blowing through the window in the house Fenris and Maria made together c:

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've gotten some snarky comments, but never outright hate (thankfully!)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes--not sure what is meant by "kind." M/F and F/F--soft and gentle, hard and fast, mildly kinky, plot-relevant and pwp, etc. A variety of smut, haha.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Not really. Crossovers aren't really my jam, but if I wrote one it would probably be Inquisition characters in Mass Effect (like a genre switch thing, not picked up and dropped into our solar system).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

When I was like 13 on FF.net, yes. It's why I stopped writing fic until I was 28.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Only in a sense! I have a few pieces sharing an OC with a friend that were largely rp first before I set them down as a narrative c:

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

God. Don't ask me this haha. My first DA ship was Fenris/Hawke and it still lives so closed to my heart, but Cullen/Lavellan got me into the fandom and Zevran/Tabris brought me someone very dear to me. I don't think I could ever judge any of them by the merits of the ship alone at this point!

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hmmm more than I'd like to admit :/ Probably The Red Crossing Arrangement, which is an arranged marriage/Halamshiral still belongs to the elves AU. It took so much more world building that my ability to write it slowly petered out. The odds are high that it will remain at roughly 80k for the foreseeable future (unless I suddenly want to get back to working out trade routes and governance and commerce, which is what did me in; I'm good at world-building culture on account of the degree and all, but the semantics of daily life don't really interest me as much) (tragically, this means the Adalene and Elandrin fix-it portions of this story may never be published :C and this does honestly make me so sad :C)

16. What are your writing strengths?

Voice and characterization/internal dialogue. I've been told that the canon characters I write feel very similar to canon and that's something I'm really proud of c:

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Physical space. I forget to define the setting very, very frequently. It's the next thing I want to focus on in my writing, actually, when I get back into it!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Eh. I think it can add flavor, especially in fantasy settings where the cultures and worlds are built dissimilarly to the real world. I don't think there's anything especially fun about not being able to discern what's happening in conversation---I think it's most effective when it's a handful of phrases that repeat (hello, I'm sorry, I love you, etc.) or when followed by a translation of some sort. As a lover of Latin, I especially find google translations very unreliable and often incorrect. Better to just italicize it and indicate it's another language, imo.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Code Lyoko

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Oof. It depends on when you ask me this haha. For the moment, I think I'm loving As Two Reflected Stars a little extra right now c: I just love wound-tending and idiots in love and this is definitely both!

Blank version below!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favorite fic you've written?

[francesminos-tt]

this joff https://x.com/foreurydice/status/1794199858523591152?t=Bxmcv0Pbjdi2zIRXjpt-ig&s=19

w this daeron

https://x.com/foreurydice/status/1794199763107410256?t=Bxmcv0Pbjdi2zIRXjpt-ig&s=19

I wrote some prompts before which fit this fancast quiet well. You can find them here↓

I also wrote a new scene between them.

When Joffrey arrived at the polo field, the sun had already been high up in the sky, which meant he was late. He yawned and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease the stiffness from sitting in front of the screens for too long. He squinted his eyes, realizing belatedly that he had forgotten his sunglasses. To be fair, Joffrey was mostly nocturnal, so he didn’t need sunglasses to begin with. In fact, he wouldn’t even be here if not for his mother’s persistence.

Something moved inside his hoodie, followed by a soft meow. Joffrey pulled the zip down a bit more to reveal a black kitten hiding in his collar.

“Sorry, buddy,” Joffrey gave the kitten a small pat on the head, “let’s go inside and I will find you something to eat.”

The kitten meowed happily as if it could understand Joffrey’s words. Normally, kittens weren’t supposed to eat anything other than formulated cat food, but Tyraxes was different. Joffrey was trying to feed it with raw meat in an attempt to recreate the kitten’s natural diet. Joffrey knew there would be a buffet after the polo game, and judging by the upscale reception, the buffet must be extravagant as well. Joffrey was sure he could find some salmon sashimi, caviar, or other delicacies to feed his cat.

“Excuse me, sir. You need to go through security first.” The receptionist stopped Joffrey as the brunette was trying to bypass security, “May I see your invitation, please?”

“Eh, I don’t have an invitation. My mom just told me to get my ass down here.” Joffrey replied as he took off his headphone, “I am late, you know. My family must have already gone inside.”

The receptionist looked Joffrey up and down, as if trying to determine if the boy was telling the truth. A polo game was a formal event that required a special dress code. The guests didn't need to come in suits and ties, but hoodies, sweatpants and trainers were considered inappropriate. The boy who claimed to be one of the honored guests was dressed wrong in every possible aspect. His hair wasn’t even properly slicked. Wait, was there something moving inside his hoodie?

“I am sorry, sir, what is the-”

“No, don't move, Tyx, buddy-” Joffrey tried to make the kitten stop, but the small ball of fur seemed determined to break out of his hoodie. The kitten stomped on Joffrey’s chest before leaping out and running towards the security check. The security guy tried to stop it, but the kitten was too quick to catch.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Joffrey cursed, “Come back, Tyx! You little devil!”

The brunette ran after his kitten, leaving the stunned receptionist and the security guy behind.

“Sir! You cannot go inside!” The receptionist almost shouted, “Stop right there, or we’ll have to call the authorities.”

Two security officers blocked Joffrey’s way. Unlike their colleagues at the entrance, these two were obviously professionals. Black suits, sunglasses, and vest, more like special ops than security officers at the polo game. There was no doubt that Joffrey’s limited experience of boxing could not get him pass these two guys, so he opted for a different approach.

“Wow, wow, guys, take it easy.” Joffrey put his hands up in surrender, “I just want to find my cat, okay? I do have an invitation. If you just let me grab my phone-”

“Don't play smart.” One of the guys said in a booming voice.

“I am not playing anything, okay?” Joffrey tried to appear innocent, because he really needed to get his kitten back as soon as possible. It was the first time he took Tyx to such a populated place, so he was getting more and more worried that his kitten would get stuck in some unimaginable places. Joffrey would never forgive himself if anything happened to his cat.

Unfortunately, the security officers didn't buy his story. Shit, Joffrey shouldn't have come here in his gamer outfit. Well, he didn't have really have a proper outfit for this formal occasion, but at least he could fish out the blazer his mother bought him for his 18th birthday. Nobody would believe a young man in hoodies and trainers was an invited guest to the polo game.

Joffrey was about to try again and argue his way out of the situation, but his savior beat him to it.

“What are you doing here, Joff?” A young man with blonde hair walked towards them. Compared to Joffrey’s messy outfit, the man was dressed smartly and elegantly. White polo shirt and grey pants, paired with a nicely polished leather oxfords. His hair was in a classy preppy style, brushed neatly to the back to reveal his youthful face. The newcomer was handsome and proper, but what attracted Joffrey the most was the ball of black fur pressed to the man’s fine shirt.

“Tyx!”

“I found it near the field.” The man said, cradling the kitten tighter, “I recognized it immediately, so I thought I would bring it to you. You must be worried.”

“Do you know this gentleman, Mr. Daeron?” The receptionist asked after he finally caught up with them.

“Oh, yes.” Daeron smiled, “He’s my nephew, Joffrey. His family is looking for him.”

“I am so sorry, Mr. Daeron. I didn’t know.” The receptionist’s face turned white as if he had just been sacked, “Please, forgive me, Mr. Joffrey.”

“It’s okay.” Joffrey waved his hand dismissively as he took the little kitten from Daeron, “Can I go inside now?”

“Of course.” The receptionist attitude changed dramatically after learning Joffrey’s identity, “Have a nice day, Mr. Joffrey.”

Hypocrite, Joffrey murmured as he walked with Daeron inside the pavilion.

“Why are you so late?” Daeron asked, walking shoulder by shoulder with Joffrey, their hands brushing against each other, “Were you up all night playing video games again?”

“No.” Joffrey replied.

“Liar.” Daeron reached out to touch the dark circle under Joffrey’s eyes, “Where did these dark circles come from?”

“I was doing a speed run,” Joffrey pouted, unaffected by the fact that his lies had just been exposed, “and I succeeded! Check the world rank.”

“I know you are good at gaming.” Daeron pinched Joffrey’s puffed cheeks before planting a quick kiss on them, “But you need to sleep from time to time. You do know that humans cannot live without sleep, right?”

“I would be sleeping if mother didn't insist that I come here.” Joffrey’s cheeks turned bright pink, but he didn't seem to mind the blonde kissing him.

“It’s the biggest event Targ Group has sponsored so far this year.” Daeron explained, “Your mother gave a wonderful speech on the opening ceremony.”

“Why are you here then? I don't think your mother will be too pleased about you showing up.” Joffrey followed Daeron to a pavilion decorated with fresh flowers and ribbons, “Where are we going?”

“To the buffet.” Daeron stepped aside to let Joffrey in first, a gentleman he was, “You must be hungry after skipping breakfast.”

“How do you know I skipped breakfast?”

Daeron smiled warmly and brushed a stray curl from Joffrey’s face.

“You always skip breakfast after an all-nighter.” The blonde said, “You are here mostly for the buffet, aren’t you?”

“No,” Joffrey pouted again, which was a telltale indication that he was lying, “I am here to support my family.”

“Your family doesn't need much support.” Daeron said, “But I do.”

“You?” Joffrey tilted his head to the side confusingly, “You haven't answered my question yet. Why are you here?”

“To participate in the game, silly.” Daeron couldn't help but lean in and kiss the boy again. How could Joffrey be so adorable when he was deprived of sleep?

Right. Joffrey almost forgot. Daeron was an excellent polo player who had his own horse called Tesserion. The blonde was the epitome of modern day aristocrat. He went to private school, participated in sports like polo and tennis, and had been the honor student all his life. He was now studying his way to his first doctor degree. Joffrey never respected anyone from THAT side of the family, but Daeron was different, if you could call your uncle/boyfriend different.

“You didn't tell me.” Joffrey said lamely.

“In fact I did, but you were too focused on your game then. You must have missed it.”

Joffrey didn't know how to react other than being utterly embarrassed. He was a lame boyfriend who didn’t pay enough attention.

“Don't worry. I am not blaming you, Joff.” Daeron shrugged, “I like it when you are so focused on something.”

“The tabloids don't share your opinion. I am clearly a disgrace of the family. My brothers were all superstars in their own fields, while I only got admitted to college because mother made a handsome donation.” Joffrey said. He didn't feel ashamed about it, but what he just said was true. He never liked academics, or sports for that matter, though he was a decent athlete.

“Your talent lies elsewhere. That’s all. Those who think otherwise just don't get it.” Daeron said with such seriousness that Joffrey believed him immediately.

“You are my boyfriend,” Joffrey murmured, “you only see the good in me.”

Daeron chuckled as he took the brunette’s hand into his. The game was yet to start, but the buffet was already laid out. Joffrey whistled happily when he found a giant sushi boat.

“Look, Tyx,” Joffrey raised the kitten up, “your favorite salmon!”

Daeron couldn’t help but smile. He wasn’t lying earlier. Joffrey was indeed a very talented person, though his talent wasn’t common fields. Unlike Daeron, Joffrey was never academic, but he was smart in his own way. He was creative in his gameplay, and his twitch account had over 1M subscribers. Joffrey might not be an artist like his brother Lucerys, but he did a fair amount of fanart for his favorite comics. Joffrey was so popular online that Daeron would sometimes be so jealous of Joffrey’s followers that he wanted to tell them to stay away from his wonderful boyfriend. Daeron was not as perfect as he looked. He was a jealous, obsessive boyfriend that wanted Joffrey only for himself.

“You go get Tyx some salmon.” Daeron said, tucking a strand of curls behind Joffrey’s ear, “I’ll bring you some food.”

“I want chips, and soda.”

“Baked veggies and sparkling water, got it.”

“Daeron!” Joffrey complained, but his boyfriend was already gone.

[starseneyes]

Chenford REWIND - Lucy Chen / Tim Bradford - The Rookie - Season 2 Ep 2

"The Night General" AKA Somebody to Lean On

This one came in as a request, and it's one that I'm really excited to do. It's fun to take a look at post-Quarantine House Tim/Lucy in more detail, especially considering Tim and Lucy's movement in Episode 1 of the season via her standing up to him and his respect of her.

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and everything that came before it are fair game. If you wish to remain un-spoiled, please don't read anymore. I do try to write these as though I'm watching them for the first time without knowledge of the future.

Everyone squared away? Then we're ready to dive in.

"Chief Williams added another book to your Sergeant's Exam Reading List." "Split Second Leadership: Leading Men in the Line of Duty." "Men?" "It's from the 60's. How is this relevant to the 21st century policing?" "Ours is not to reason why, Officer Bradford. Read the book." "Yes sir."

At this point, only Tim knows why this is bad news for him. From the outside, it might look like he is being obstinate or lazy. But Tim is struggling.

My little brother has a learning disability. He's a genius with a learning disability. No, I'm not exaggerating.

My brother can't write or spell. He'll tell you an elaborate story with five-syllable words with perfect grammar, but the minute he tries to write it, it looks like a Kindergartner wrote it.

He had a teacher in college who insisted he was faking it and throwing his papers because he didn't have a written diagnosis from a doctor. He dropped out of school. He never finished.

My point? Learning disabilities can happen to anyone and it's easy to be quick-to-judge. No wonder people don't want to share. No wonder there's so much shame and stigma.

No wonder Tim didn't say anything. No wonder he honestly doesn't know... because, in his family, it would be seen as "less than", "not good enough", a "screw-up".

"If I have to suffer, so do you. So, you're going to read this out loud to me between calls. Only way I'm gonna get it memorized in time." "Or, I could drive and you could read it by yourself."

Admit it, Lucy. You're just looking for an excuse to drive! In all seriousness, it makes sense. But, again, it's easy to assume that Tim's pride in being the one to drive is getting in the way of him "taking this seriously".

"It's hard enough to listen to it without your editorializing."

Okay, I am totally with Tim on this one. Sometimes when we're reading to the kids, Matt will do this, and suddenly 10 minutes of calm reading has turned into 30 minutes of kids bouncing off the walls because they couldn't focus to finish the story straight through.

"You're gonna have to re-read all of this anyway to really memorize it." "No. I memorize best when I hear it." "Really?"

I love this shot. Lucy leaning over the book, tight on her face as she processes the information of how he processes.

My Middle is Autistic/ADHD with an auditory processing disorder and suspected reading processing disorder. Eldest is ADD or ADHD (final diagnosis later this month) and Littlest has her full testing for Autism/ADHD at the beginning of next month. I know a lot about people processing differently.

But as Lucy's wheels are turning, she realizes what might be going on with Tim. But how do you broach a subject like that with TO Era Tim?

Lucy's had fun poking at Tim with the parts of the book she likes (especially the value of every officer), but the whole reason she poked was because of Tim's apparent sense of superiority. Yes, she knows it's a veil, but it's still hard to poke through, at this point.

This is different.

"Why?" "Nothing."

Nothing is never nothing. I think I write this once every other Meta. On this show, nothing is never nothing.

"Boot!" "You might have a learning difference." "What?" "Technically, it's classified as a disability, but it really just means that you're wired to process information differently. In your case, through, through hearing, rather than reading." "I don't have a learning disability."

I remember the conversations with my husband for years.

I told him I suspected he was ADD (my mother, brother, step-father, and step-brother are all ADD/ADHD... the only reason we know I'm not is because my little brother wouldn't take his test without me and Mom taking it, too).

Matthew would shrug it off because he didn't have a "Disorder". But when he was 38, his mother let it slip to me that he was diagnosed at 8... and they never told him. They hid it. They didn't want the stigma.

So, he spent his entire life struggling and not understanding why. He got re-diagnosed at 38, and his first morning on medication, he let me sleep in. I woke to him lying next to me, tears in his eyes.

"The clouds are gone," he breathed into the space between us. And then I was crying, too.

He'd had these clouds his entire life and thought it was just how he was. He didn't know there was help. He didn't know his life could be better. All because his parents hid his diagnosis.

We put so much damn stigma on this stuff that humans are suffering unnecessarily for the sake of societal niceties. And for Tim, there's definitely stigma and shame associated with having a learning disability. It's how he was raised.

"A lot of people have them. I bet Isabel helped you in the Academy, read through the materials and stuff." "We're not talking about this."

Talk about wheels turning... we can see Tim's as he thinks about all the times he and Isabel sat up, her reading to him.

He thought it was the sweetest thing, and it became their thing. I bet she read him other things, too, like fiction books, or autobiographies on his favorite sports figures.

But thinking about Isabel (still a very fresh hurt) and the stigma of having a learning disability is too much for Tim.

Because growing up, any "difference" was called out as a failing. Yes, I know those of you in early S2 don't yet know all of Tim's backstory, so I am reaching forward a little on this one.

But, it's important to understand why Tim reacts so strongly and so swiftly.

Tim ends conversations before he can lose his cool. Losing control could lead him to become the person he hates most in the world, so he does everything to avoid it. But, he's been on edge all year.

Hell, for more than a year. Because ever since Isabel disappeared, he lost that one little piece of his life that made sense.

Then, this ball of sunshine came into his life, blinding him with goodness and light. He tried at first to temper it, but I fully believe that the longer he's in her glow, the more his eyes adjust, and the more he shifts to helping refine her rather than dim that glow.

"Watch your tone, Boot." "Oh, you don't get to call her 'Boot', Rex. You're retired. She's the police, now."

Boom, Baby!! Tim Bradford putting an asshole in his place will always be good television.

"Let's see your bail bonds license and the warrant on your jumper." "You let her talk to you like that?"

Bitch, you don't want to see how I'm gonna talk to you if you don't back off. Tim's not biting on the "camaraderie" angle, here.

As tough as Tim can be, as much of an absolute ass as he can be... he's a stickler for the rules.

"Look, the hole you're in has nothing to do with Lopez. But she's gonna pay the price when the commander's son goes belly-up halfway through training." "I told him it's not her fault." "Yeah, so tell him, again. Lopez bent over backwards for you. She protected your ass when any other TO would've sent you packing. You owe her your career." "I know."

Don't. Mess. With. People. Tim. Loves. Tim and Angela's friendship is one of my favorite relationships on the show. Tim just stood up for Lucy and here he is standing up for Angela.

Now, I'm not saying Tim loves Lucy, yet. We're a long way off from that, if these two get their act together. But, I think it's important to see his consistency.

Tim's Tests might make him seem unpredictable, but there's a reason and a rhythm for everything that he does. And when it comes to his friends—to the people he loves—he's always going to stick out his neck. Even if it means risking himself.

"Do you want me to read to you?" "No." "Come on."

Now that she knows he has a learning disability, she wants to help. Now that he thinks she thinks he has a learning disability, he wants to run.

Lucy is a gentle, kind, loving human. She wants to help. It's her default state. But accepting help goes against everything that was ever beaten into Tim.

It was fine when he was ordering her to read to him. But now that there's a stigma involved, he doesn't want it.

"You have to learn it." "I can do that on my own."

See? And Tim's not trying to be an asshole. He's trying to 'be a man', 'cowboy up', and 'do it on your own'. You know... all the bullshit men are too-often taught from boyhood.

He's shying away from Lucy's help because he's ashamed.

Alright, Future Rachel needs to tell you that Tim Bradford hasn't had an easy life. His childhood was less than ideal. His marriage seemed good until it wasn't.

Seeing the worst in himself is easy, but having others see him as weak in any way? He can't have that. He puts up all this bravado and these thick walls around his heart to protect himself.

Lucy just found another tiny crack in his defenses. And instead of letting her light in to help heal his hurts, he's afraid it will burn.

"Training for the rematch with Nico?"

Tim's blowing off steam. That fight was tougher than expected, and Tim's going to do everything he can to stay in top shape. But, he's also processing.

Lucy processes by talking things out. Tim processes with a punching bag and sweat pouring down his brow. The beautiful thing about people is how different we are, yet we find a way to coexist. We learn to speak one another's languages.

My husband's a BIG gift person. He loves to give and receive. I struggle with physical possessions because of how I grew up.

But I know that small gifts throughout the year help him remember I'm thinking of him (buying his favorite coffee... a latte from the local café). And he knows making me a chai latte at home, or holding me when I'm upset lets me know he's thinking of me.

We love one another. We just don't experience love the same way. Same is true for Tim and Lucy. We're in the phase of them learning how to speak one another's languages. This is crucial if they're ever going to be in a romantic relationship.

Tim greets her almost with a smile as he turns to face her.

"Here." "What's this?" "It is 'Split Second Leadership: Leading Men in the Line of Duty' the Audio book." "The book's out of print. There's no audio book." "Yeah, which is why I recorded one for you."

"Lucy Chen, will you marry me?" I mean, that's what he's supposed to say, right? That's what you would say, right?

Because, let's break this down for a second—she stayed up all night doing this. This morning when she asked him if he wanted her to read to him, she knew what his answer would be.

But then they had this stressful-ass day, and she had to wait for the file to finish rendering, which might've taken all day because audio files with any quality are a beast.

Look, I was a voice over artist for over 20 years. I only left the studio where I was a contract player because I couldn't afford a home studio and now live over an hour from the studio. So, I've done a lot of commercials, on-hold messages, and, yes, books.

The kids especially love my reading of "Elmo Visits the Dentist" that they can listen to on YouTube whenever they want. Why go into all this? I know how long it takes to read a book aloud at a pace that is easy for others to process.

Immediately after learning that her TO needed to listen to learn, she took the damn book home (because she was the one holding it the next morning) and she recorded herself reading it for him.

She likely got no sleep as she set it to render and upload into the device to hand to him while she got ready to leave for work.

I bet she even went home, grabbed the device, then ran back so she could give it to him.

This is a labor of love. No, she's not in-love with Tim. But she cares about him. And this ball of sunshine is radiating in his life more and more.

We are post Quarantine House. We are post Lucy calling Tim on the Isabel stuff she should have reported. We've established that they trust one another.

But this is next level. Six months into her training, and Lucy's already breaking through so many of Tim's walls.

"Uh, listen, I talked to Isabel and from what she said, it's clear you're a kinesthetic learner, which just means you need to listen while you're being active in order to absorb things."

Girlfriend just called up her future husband's ex like a boss. Again, she did this yesterday. Lucy wastes no time when it comes to Tim. Keep that in mind for the future...

"There's no shame in it. Really."

Watch his face. His jaw clench. His body relaxes as he sighs. His eyes soften. Because, all his life any sign of being "different" was weakness. Any sign of being "not good enough" was punishable by pummeling.

Isabel didn't realize he had a learning disability from what we can tell. She just knew that he'd ask her to read to him. My husband and I used to read to one another (pre-kids) and it was a tremendous act of love.

But Lucy put a name to it. And Tim's been spiraling out about it ever since. Because there's a stigma that comes with words like that, tragically.

"Honestly, it's probably why you excel at being a cop."

Tim absorbs her words. She doesn't think he's a freak. She doesn't think he's a project. She doesn't think he's broken. She thinks he's a good cop.

Her view of him hasn't changed because of his learning disability. This is so important.

My Middle has been Autistic his entire life, right? But we only got the official diagnosis when he was 5 because he stopped eating and was rapidly losing weight. A family member actually said "How can I be [related to] an Autistic child?" I said, "You've done a fine job the last 5 years."

Who he is didn't change with his diagnosis. But there are always people who recoil at it because of the stigma associated with it.

Tim was afraid Lucy would think of him differently... but she doesn't. She still sees Tim as the hard-ass, soft-hearted, semi-asshole she has to deal with every day for another six months.

And, strange as it sounds, that's the most reassuring thing Lucy could say to him.

"Thanks."

Lucy ducks her head in a nod as she leaves. It's so sweet. Lucy knows him well enough to understand this is difficult for him. She has a strong understanding of psychology, and a growing understanding of Tim Bradford.

Sticking around won't help him. Letting him get to work will help. She knows him well enough not to hover, and she knows better than to expect compliments from Tim at this phase.

Hell, that "Thanks" was unexpected and I'm surprised she was able to keep moving after she heard it instead of calling it out.

Maybe she just really needs the sleep after all she's done for him. She deserves it!

"Split Second Leadership by Curtis Philbrick, read by the best Rookie you've ever trained."

Tim can't help but smile at that. And it's a real smile. The kind the shows his teeth and reaches his eyes. The kind Lucy won't see, yet.

Lucy offered Tim a piece of herself when she handed over that audio recording. No, it's not romantic. But it is a gift, nonetheless. This was above and beyond anything required of her as a Rookie—she did it as a friend.

And Tim accepted the gift. I don't think we talk enough about this. Lucy sent him food one episode ago and he told her she "shouldn't have". But there's no fighting this gift.

Because the events of 2x01 were a big shift for these two that we don't talk enough about. Lucy making it to the halfway mark and doing well on her exam. Lucy calling Tim on his shit when he tried to distance himself from her by being extra assholery. Lucy going beast-mode chasing that fake cop.

And here we are in 2x02 and Tim who was humbled by Lucy one episode ago is now unintentionally wounded. Because he thinks she sees him as "less than". He thinks her opinion of him somehow lessened because he's been raised to see a "learning disability" as a bad thing.

When Lucy turns it around at the end and says it's his super power, that's powerful. She helped him see himself in a different way. The king of coming at something sideways has met his match. So, what could he say after a gift like that? He wouldn't reject it. He couldn't.

Because Lucy gave him the gift of a shift in perspective. And those readers who are from the future, like me, know he'll repay that gift in a huge way in that same room not too long from now.

They're not in love, yet. But they are on their way to friendship, and learning one another's love languages on the way. So if when they finally arrive at love, it'll be a deep love. It'll be a love that grows. It'll be a love that thrives.

Because true love often takes effort... but it's worth it.

Tim Pays it Forward

Look, Tim takes care of his people. We already know that. But I also like to think that Tim recognized something of himself in Rex thanks to Lucy's kindness.

Rex doesn't like asking for help. Neither does Tim. But if Tim isn't careful, he could end up like Rex.

Now, Rex likely didn't have a Lucy. But, he does have a Tim. And that's damn good, too.

As ever, thank you for reading. This one is one I'm super passionate about with my family history and the children I'm raising.

Now, I'm not going to pretend it's all peachy-keen. It can be really, really tough raising three neurodivergent children, and there are very bad days. But for Tim, his learning disability really can be a super power.

Also, oh, isn't it fun watching Tim and Lucy of Season 2 on their way? So much fun!

Hope your weekend's been lovely! Mine's been so quiet, it's lovely. Currently have three Littles in bed with me as we have a pajama/movie day. It's the little things!

See you on the next!

[wifiwuxians]

20 questions writer meme.

tagged by @heyholmesletsgo THANK YOUUU

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

not counting things i'd rather remained anonymous, 21!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

513,621 lol

3. What fandoms do you write for?

mdzs, vaguely tgcf, hotline miami (though mostly past tense) and we'll see about the future

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Wei Wuxian's Super Special Super Secret Book Club still reigns supreme with 1229 kudos, and will most likely be my legacy despite it being the second fic i ever wrote for the fandom (i think?)

If You're Reading This, It's Too Late with 513, one would think i'd still be messing around with this AU but i'm happy to leave it where it is and just keep messing around with the crackship

Dawn Chorus, my most precious baby, at 251 by some miracle despite being oc/canon. you guys spoiled me with the love for this one tbh. none of my other xue yang centric works got anywhere near this close and i'm at peace with that because he's bonking my oc in this one and they have a kid.

The Book Club Extras at 232, which is hilarious when compared to the original but at least new readers will see there's more and maybe in the year 2055 i will publish them for fun

Frozen Pond with 156 at the end of the list, written for my friend @petitjams and taking place in a silly AU we made together (wen chao stays winning on here which is very funny)

i'm attributing the popularity of the first two to mostly being centered around super popular characters, because my later stuff is naturally better yet struggling haha

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

always unless they're like just emoji, because i like conversation! though i may also reply with a little heart hehe

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i wouldn't call it angstiest ending, it's bittersweet, but the threads that bind us is my top pick. and it also needs more readers so go read it. your hands and mine has a bit of an 'angsty' ending but only for song lan. xue yang had it coming :p 💖

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

excluding the two above, so far they all have a happy ending, or at least neutral??? i'd say Book Club, though, because that's the massive 'everybody lives!!' silly fixit fic

8. Do you get hate on fics?

nope. i hope i didn't just jinx it. i get hate on art and through anon though! woo! (not anymore on here tho thank god)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i do and i feel like it sucks so i almost always end up fading to black LMAO my actual explicit stuff remains private... it's like too embarrassing for me. i got judged for it as an 18 year old and 10 years later haven't gotten over it. i like bondage and bdsm though and that seems to crop up in private 😏

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i do on occasion! i love roleplaying them, but the only one i have out there is The Way To His Heart Is Through His Stomach (Oh God Please Don't Eat Me), which mixes mdzs and tgcf characters in a unique setting :3

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge, but i've had art stolen plenty so i wouldn't even be surprised

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, a few have been translated into russian!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

NOT YET BUT IT'S IN THE CARDS

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

all time? jeez. somebody tell me why i always freeze up and go blank when asked these simple questions? it's like i forget who the fuck i am. i feel like i should also say songxiao? but they're relatively new so it doesn't seem correct. fuck it. my all time favorite ship is [DATA MISSING OR CORRUPTED-- PLEASE PROCEED TO NEXT QUESTION]

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

haha... (looks at my abandoned hlm fic with the seventh chapter halfway written) haha...

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'd definitely say dialog. it makes sense, since the stuff i'm most used to doing is drawing silly comics. i also like to ping-pong emotions around and feel like i'm pretty good at that too

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

using the same words over and over and feeling like i never write Enough, like everything is always light and never in depth. i don't like making scenes too heavy with padding but i also feel like i need to find a balance

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i'll do it only if it's a language i speak!!! this doesn't apply to peppering words like gege and stuff just for funsies. i think the best way to go about it is to just tell the audience what language they're speaking in that moment

19. First fandom you wrote for?

we're gonna have to go back to when i was 10 years old here lol... i think it was tokyo mew mew in terms of stuff i put online (oh god)

20. Favorite fic you've written?

it's hard to pick favorites, but i once again must say the threads that bind us in terms of work i'm most proud of.

i tag whoever sees it, plus @sugarapplebaby because ily

[silvermaplealder]

Vampire Feed Requirements (informational)

I wanted to go into some depth about feed requirements for vampires in the same sort of strategy that I use for livestock. I wrote a whole funny kinda guide on fanfic .net , but since I don't like that site anymore I wanted to edit my original guide and put it here for you guys to see (also no one called me out on my mathematical mistake where I flipped two numbers rip). I'm also adding a section on using a replacer blood.. Please enjoy my terrible sarcasm and humor. You have no clue how many times I have to write little guides like this for people on Facebook who obtain animals and have no clue how to feed them.

Before I can get down to the numbers of how much blood a vampire would have to drink to survive, I need to state several assumptions:

Since lore does not cover this, I am assuming that fully fledged vampires require blood as their sole nutrient source and are unable to derive nutrients from other foods (though they can eat it and it makes them feel “full”, they will not be able to get their nutrients from it and thus eating it would further starve them). Half vampires seem to be able to digest food just fine, so they can consume and get nutrients from human foods. 

I don’t know the internal anatomy of the vampires, but I am assuming that they have 1 stomach. A human stomach can hold up to about 1 gallon of liquid at max. 1 gallon of blood = around 8 pounds. However, in the bonfire feeding scene the vampires were gorging on blood. It's unclear to tell how much blood they ingested verses just killing for fun.

 I am assuming after they are turned into a full vampire they have new enzymes and proteins that help them with getting the nutrients out of blood.

We are doing all calculations based on bodyweight. I’m going to be using 180ibs as the weight of our vampires, though I'm terrible at judging weight. You can adjust this number for whatever stories you may need to in the future.

The first thing we need to do to get an accurate understanding of how much a vampire should be eating is we need to figure out their weight. When dealing with potentially dangerous critters, it’s okay to estimate to get a general idea if you don’t have a safe management plan to contain and weigh them. Judging from a distance using David and his boys as a general guide, I will assume they weigh between 150ibs - 180ibs. Since they are most often seen feeding together, we can put them into a single feeding group assuming that each will eat their own fill. As a general note, remember that there is usually a pecking order for pack animals, so be aware that one may get more than another. If this is a prolonged issue, consider separating during feeding. 

Now that we have a general number for their weight of 180ibs, we need to figure out another crucial piece of information: what kind of diet are they in need of? There are several main types of diets such as: growing stock, maintenance, and production. Growing stock is for young critters that need the extra energy to grow. Maintenance is for critters that are fully grown and are not putting extra energy out in production. Production is for critters that are actively putting energy towards things such as reproducing, lactating, or other work. Our four vampires here would be considered needing a “maintenance” diet since they are fully grown, and they are not putting energy towards some sort of production (though if they are actively being worked, consider that they will need more calories to help perform these activities). Most maintenance diets need for the animal to have around 2.7% - 3.0% of their body weight in nutritional food per day. 

Seeing the four vampires in question are moderately active and don’t exert too much energy in hunting (looks like a majority of their food comes to them/does not put up very long fights), we will be using 2.7% of their body weight for intake per day. We can determine 2.7% of their body weight with simple math: 

180ibs x 2.7% =  4.86ibs 

Reminder: when multiplying percentages, remember to move your decimal point two spaces to the left! So when you input it into a calculator it should look like this: 

180ibs x .027 =  4.86ibs

Great! So we’ve found out that 2.7% of our 180ibs vampire  is 4.86ibs. But here’s the catch: you can’t just feed out 4.86ibs of blood to the vampires since they require 2.7% of their body weight in caloric intake. Blood is around 55% water, which has 0 calories. 45% of blood is nutrient dense for them to digest (all according to a thing I found on Google). So in reality, feeding a vampire 4.86ibs of blood only gives them 2.187ibs of actual digestible content. Time for some more math! We will need to set up two fractions and cross multiply to find the amount of blood required for the vampires. 

Our first fraction is as follows:

2.187ibs of digestible content

 -------------------------------------

4.86ibs of blood

The fraction above tells us that we currently are only getting 2.187ibs of digestible content out of the 4.86ibs of blood we’ve given them. We will need to set up another fraction to show the amount of digestible content we want to get and find the number of how much blood will that require. 

That fraction is as follows: 

4.86ibs of digestible content

-------------------------------------

X amount of blood

Now it’s time to cross multiply the fractions, but due to the formatting it will not look pleasant on here. If you don't know how to cross multiply, feel free to look it up.

Remember: multiply the 4.86 of blood to 4.86 of digestible content, and then multiply the 2.187 with X to look as follows:

23.62 = 2.187X

Now just isolate the X! Divide both sides by 2.187

10.8 = X

We have now found that each vampire (estimated weighing around 180ibs) will require 10.8 pounds of blood PER day. For 4 adult male vampires, that is 43.2 pounds of blood PER day!

As a little conversion, 1 pound of blood is just about 1 pint. So we’re looking at around 1.3 gallons of blood per vampire per day, or 5.2 gallons for the feeding group.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, "Geez, that's a lot of blood and I don't know how I'm going to get that much to feed them." The first thing I'm going to say to you is that you shouldn't have gotten a vampire in the first place if you cannot adequately feed them. However, there is a replacer you can use. Animal blood can work to feed a vampire, but it will require more energy for them to convert the digestible calories into usable energy. They will require more caloric intake because their bodies have to work harder to convert the blood to usable energy. I would add an extra 1.35% (which is half of the 2.7%) of their bodyweight. Using the same conversion we did earlier, that looks like:

180ibs x 1.35% = 2.43ibs

Which, remembering that only 45% of the 2.43ibs is digestible (1.09ibs), we need to do the same ratio that we created earlier to determine that we would need an extra 5.42ibs of blood on top of the 10.8ibs we calculated earlier. In total, for a 180ibs vampire to be drinking animal blood, they would need 16.22ibs of blood, or 2 gallons, per day.

Don’t forget about other requirements for the proper care of your vampires. Ensure that they have free choice minerals and consult your local vet to see what kinds of mineral deficiencies are in the blood of your feed. You may need to give periodic vitamin or mineral injections.

[lothcatthree]

Fic Writer 20 Questions

thank you for tagging me @forloveofcodywan (i've been wanting to do this one for a while)

under the cut so i don't plague your dash

1.) How many works do you have on ao3?

16 (i used to have >30 but i orphaned half of them bc i wrote them when i was 14 and nobody needs to see that)

2.) What’s your ao3 word count?

162,724

3.) What fandoms do you write for?

star wars all day babey. i dabbled in steve x bucky from 2017-2018 ish, but star wars has had my brain in a vice grip since 2015 (i was another victim to the sequels causing a sw renaissance).

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos?

the right feeling - from my finnpoe days :') this is part 1 of a soulmate au series. this one has 4.7k words.

i think i was blind before i met you - steve x bucky (damn we're going way back, this is 7 years old) modern au with barista steve and college student disaster bucky. 15k words.

please stay for awhile now - finnpoe, again for the win. this is part 2 of the soulmate au series. 5.6k words.

we should just kiss like real people do - finnpoe. this is the fourth and final part of the soulmate au series. hurt/comfort, recovery, all the good stuff. 8.2k words. (i suppose we all needed the soulmate finnpoe fluff in 2016, judging by these stats).

but through it all, i will need you anyways - current codywan WIP!! fix-it fic with just an insane amount of disgustingly tooth-rotting fluff. no clone death, just good feelings. this has been ENTIRELY self-indulgent and i started it when i got initial codywan brain rot. 64k words and counting!

5.) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

oh my god yes, i love comments and it puts the biggest smile on my face knowing that people took time out of their day to write something nice for my little ramblings :')

6.) What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

jesus, literally none of them. i have to do happy endings, i'm too fragile. closest would be i hate you, fuck you, please never stop looking at me which is wolfwren PWP, except they still kinda hate each other at the end. (this barely counts because i am writing a follow-up that explores more of their feelings for each other and has a happy ending)

7.) What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

ALL OF THEM. idk what to tell you. probably the cheesiest ending is the dinluke modern soulmate au i just wrote - how did i ever live without you?

8.) Do you get hate on fics?

no, thank god. i keep things pretty vanilla and i tag very thoroughly to do my best to avoid any hurt feelings. (also i've just simply been lucky to never experience that)

9.) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

oh fuck yeah. 2/3 of my fics are explicit. mostly m/m, one f/f and two m/m/m. we have fun over here.

10.) Do you write cross overs? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

no, this would break my brain. next question.

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

no, unless it has been and they're very good about hiding it (doubt it, tho. i'd be a weird choice to steal from)

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated?

no, but i would love it!

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

no, but i have been thinking more and more that i would love to do this!!

14.) What’s your all time favourite ship?

this is so hard. . i think codywan has been the one ship that has just slapped my across the face and gave me stockholm syndrome. I think about them.... All the Time. second closest would be finnpoe, judging on how many stories i wrote about them. and they just fit so well together and i adore their characters and they had so much chemistry and. (i'll stop now)

15.) What’s a WIP you’d like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

my brain will simply not allow me to leave a WIP uncompleted. by god, it's going to happen even if i am chaining myself to my laptop and typing through tears.

16.) What are your writing strengths?

i have received many compliments about my dialogue and smut scenes flowing very naturally :) i try to make them play like a movie and have it immersive enough that a character doesn't do/say something unnatural to make the reader stop and say wait what?

16.) What are your writing weaknesses?

oh god, PLOT and ANGST. can't do it for the life of me. i work best in oneshots so i can brain vomit and move on. i have a hard time planning out fics and i deeply envy writers that can create beautiful long fics in a timely fashion. i deeply lack the patience for something like that.

as for angst, yes i can technically do it, but it pains every cell in my body. just let the sad old gay men be happy.

17.) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

closest i have ever gotten is mando'a, but it's been very fun to learn!

18.) First fandom you wrote for?

oh boy. one direction (the aforementioned orphaned works).

19.) Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

i am cursed with "i immediately hate everything i write as soon as i release it" syndrome. recently, though, i was particularly proud of safe. warm. mine. because it was very outside of my comfort zone due to the involvement of three people and it was the first a/b/o i have written!

no pressure tags for @veelawings @apricusapollo @shy-wookiee. these are all the mutuals that write (that i know of) and haven't already been tagged (i think)! but please, anyone who i missed or who sees this and wants to chime in and tag me, please do!!!