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#iPhone theme ideas
onionhaseyeoo · 1 month
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THOUGHTS⁉️
THIS IS MY CURRENT THEME!
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(Its themed after a album i like)
@paintedgrilledcheese, @myluckymoon
@i-brought-the-heat-back (Shrimpy you got that acc now what do u think)
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ksksksrahrah · 2 months
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appiconstudio · 8 months
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🌟 Transform your phone into a cozy corner of Hogwarts with these hand-drawn Hufflepuff AppIcons! 🦡✨ Perfect for iOS and Android, show off your HufflepuffPride on your HomeScreen.
https://appiconstudio.etsy.com/listing/1393505875/wizard-iphone-app-icons-yellow-wizarding
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slexpi · 1 year
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Hey I’m wanting to start posting themes for you guys to use! So the first one is a star one! Comment what you’d like and I’ll try to make one for you!
Lockscreen:
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Wallpaper: a plain black screen or
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App icons:
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Soild colors for apps in folders:
Grey colors! Or any you want!
Apps to use: Widgetsmith, shortcuts
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dmempowermentshop · 5 months
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(vía "Strawberry Strawberry lovers, Gifts for her, Strawberry Phone Case, Strawberry iPad Cases, Pink and White Design" Mouse Pad for Sale by Noemill)
#strawberry #pink #aesthetic #fruit #strawberries #pink vichy design #white vichy pattern #strawberry lovers #gifts for her #strawberry theme #trendy accessories #vichy #romantic gifts #girly accessories
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mistyminxx · 7 months
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steviexdarling · 1 year
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So I wanted to share my ios theme that I just set up. I haven’t done any ios themes since when ios 16 first came out with the feature. Then I got tired of each app opening shortcuts every time. Luckily it’s been updated so I sat down and took the couple hours it took to do this and it looks nice af. I still plan to do a few more to cycle through like a green one since it’s my favorite color, a cinnamoroll one since that’s one of my special interests, a manga aesthetic one, maybe a Pokémon one if I can make it look aesthetically pleasing since Pokémon is my #1 special interest and has been for years, a witchy/pagan one since I’m a pagan witch ofc, maybe a StrayKids one since they’re my number one favorite K-pop group of all time (I’ve been with them since pre-debut when Hellevator came out), And maybe a couple others I’m not sure yet. So my next post will be the first and current ios theme I made and have set on my phone.
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j0c4 · 2 years
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Visit my link 😊🔥👇🏻🎃
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adviceformefromme · 8 months
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How to re-programme your subconscious mind…(tried and tested)
When the retreats don’t seem to have a lasting effect, you’ve done therapy, prayed, been to see healers, meditated… but for the life of you, stilllll have wounds so deep that they might appear to be resolved but the moment you meet someone who is wow you suddenly feel unworthy. Maybe not even suddenly, but your relationship wounds are running deep. Relationships trigger you. You end up feeling the same 90% of the time. Unlovable, unwanted, and rejected. The key to remember is that it started with you. With the mind, with your thinking. At whatever point in your childhood (or even later) you took on the belief that you're not worthy, your needs were not met. You took on behaviours that play out still to this day. Maybe it was hiding yourself, maybe it was lashing out? Whatever it is, the same way it started with you, with your thinking, with your processing of events. Is the same way you heal your self. Here are some steps: 
1] Forgiveness. Forgiveness is going to free you from your past. Write a list of all the people and situations that caused you pain from your earliest memory to this very day. Whatever pains are etched in your mind, write them down. Once your list is collated, start going through each scenario, sending love and forgiveness to yourself and whoever was involved. Imagine yourself as a loving carer healing the parts of you that were vulnerable, hurt and not safe. Visualise giving yourself love in each scenario. Creating peace. Once you’ve been through a scenario and feel truly at peace with the situation scribble it out and once you are completely done with the papers you can burn them and set yourself free. (this process can take weeks / months depending how long your list is but it's not to be rushed).
2] Whatever is still lingering, use your journal to clear this out. For example, if I asked you right now if the man of your dreams was to appear.. would you feel worthy? Right now as your are? It might not be a man, it might be a job, a salary. Whatever it is, start challenging your old beliefs. You might not feel pretty enough, you might not feel like you are deserving… whatever it is start questioning old ideas you have about yourself. Challenge them..
3] This is the most important step… Once you’ve done the above. You’ll start to see some themes, maybe in your forgiveness list you realised your voice didn’t matter as a child, and that you were silenced, and that you hid yourself as a way to feel safe…whatever you uncover. 
3.1 - You are going to write a script, in simple terms - something a child would understand and make sense of and you’re going to write out new beliefs to re-programme your mind. Example ‘I am willing to forgive those who hurt me, I am willing to forgive myself for the hurt I went through, I am no longer hiding myself from the world, I am choosing to be seen , to be celebrated, I am allowing my voice to be heard, my true voice, I matter’ - you want to cover all basis. Every old belief about not being enough, you need to re-write.
3.2 - Record yourself on your phone in a very slow peaceful loving tone reading your script. 
3.3 - You need to listen to this recording every single night for at least 1-4 weeks. (It’s usually 21 days, but I did a recording for 1 week on feeling safe and I felt truly healed as if it was a miracle). I was able to LOOP the recording using Mac...I sent the voice recording from my iPhone to my MacBook using airdrop and then opened the sound file in iTunes and pressed repeat. This allowed a short recording to loop all night as I slept. It’s really important to play this on a loop as you want to IMPRESS your subconscious mind with the new beliefs. It’s your own voice, its your own re-wiring. 
I hope this helps! The deeper healing work is crucial if you really want to remove those old wounds that seem to be stuck and not budging!
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d3arapril · 1 year
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modern!abby headcanons
a sfw ver because i can’t get over the fact that abby isn’t real. Goodnight
⭐️ safe for all audiences. my inbox is open! any feedback, ideas or general chat is welcome <3
abby loves loving and she loves to be loved.
she loves her friends, her family and she loves you the most. she even thinks she loves the old, kind man that ran the small bookstore she’d been visiting since she was young
having lots of people around her is super important to her, she has a big heart and even though she looks like a lion she’s really just a little baby house cat that wants to make people happy <3
she’s a bit of a people pleaser sometimes. like she goes our of her way to do things for people even if she really doesn’t want to but she’s working on it 💪🏽
loves being around you but also loves time to herself to work out, read and drool on her pillow during a particularly deep sleep without being mocked by you every morning
ABBY SLEEPS LIKE A LOG. this bitch does not move during her sleep, like you could literally scream bloody murder and she’d barely flinch. she also sleeps on her front sometimes and has her face in the pillow ??? you often wonder if she’s even alive and breathing (she is) (she has little to no trauma and jerry is alive in my world so she doesn’t get nightmares etc. i want the best for her &lt;;3)
i think she’s very particular about looking after herself/keeping clean etc and it’s a super big thing for her. although she’s fairly masc presenting don’t be fooled, shes a lil girly girl deep deep down
her hair is long and healthy because she never uses heat and uses hair masks, she looks after her skin and uses the ordinary products (they work for her ok!), she exfoliates and shaves her legs frequently bc she feels like they look more muscular when they’re smooth and she enjoys feeling like a dolphin
she’s always got her hair in that damn braid and you try convince her to do other styles but she basically refuses
“you don’t like it?” she’s whining, faking it of course - she knows you like it. “no abs i love it, just wish you’d wear your hair down more. suits you”
“well that’s reserved for only you, babe” the soft kiss she presses to your temple and the brush of her hands against your hips makes you want to braid her hair forever until your fingers seize up
i feel like abby doesn’t have much of a dress sense lmao like girl just wears plain clothes and calls it a day. basically how she dresses in game but just less dirty and more kind of.. modern and put together. not the ugly brown boots tho ❌
she wears doc marten boots and adidas sambas. has 3 different pairs of sambas actually
prefers alcohol over drugs. she likes to get drunk in moderation and she can sink so much tequila (she blames manny and nora and says they are bad influences… abby is the one pouring the shots🙄) and she becomes a lot louder and clingy when she’s drunk and thinks she can dance. she can’t.
i kind of mentioned this in my nsfw hc’s but abby probably has an old like iphone 5c or something cos she doesn’t really care about upgrading it
girl hates video games so she probably isn’t big on tech in general. as long as she can call and text she doesn’t care too much
“you may as well just get a nokia, abby..” “what am i? a drug dealer? 🙄”
sticking to the theme, abby doesn’t really use social media that much. she refused to download tiktok because she didn’t want to fall into the trap of endless scrolling (she fell into said trap approx 20 minutes after downloading the app. now it’s “babe have you seen what i sent you yet?” every 10 minutes)
doesn’t care about/keep up with trends etc, confused when u ask her about the roman empire
“i mean, i’ve read about it? what kind of question is that??”
does have a burner instagram acc that she follows u and a few of her closest friends on (not mel)
also uses snapchat every so often to send u gym pics and u get excited thinking it’ll be a mirror pic of her flexing or something but instead it’s just an extreme close up of her sweaty ass red face with the caption ‘Help 🫠’
has an album in her photos called ‘Progress’ where she tracks her gains 🥰 its ur fav and u ask to look at the pics all the time 🥰 shes ur big muscly baby 🥰
abs can get a lil bit hot headed and irate sometimes so u argue every now and then but it’s never anything major, and she always buys u flowers and grovels until you’ve made up anyways
she usually just goes to the gym if she’s feeling some type of way and works out until she’s on the verge of passing out to make her feel better (you told her that she should deal with her anger better. she told you that she know’s what she’s doing…)
calls you babe but that’s kinda it, also likes to be called babe
likes to give u massages and run you a bath… and then gets in the bath with u and takes up basically all of the space
when u went on ur first holiday together she had to use the sicky bag on the plane bc of her fear of heights :(
she’s getting better now tho, just squeezes her eyes shut and holds your hand until the bones almost break… she then falls asleep for basically the entire flight and drools onto her neck pillow lol
refuses to watch anything but american dad at bedtime bc she really enjoys it for some reason
she looks after you with all she has and would go to the end of the earth for you if she could. there’s no one else like her
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princessbrunette · 11 months
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i need a longer blurb of jj teaching reader how to smoke 🙏🏻 possible shotgunning
i was hoping someone would ask teehee ♡
suggestive themes down below, mentions of weed etc
jj cringes at himself as he taps the cracked screen of his iphone, hitting play on the spotify playlist titled simply with the leaf emoji — a subtle and yet juvenile nod to it being his smoking playlist. what kind of nerd actually has a playlist made and ready to hit play when hanging out with a pretty girl, he thinks — cheeks a little red under the dim light. his shitty speaker hiccups and splutters before playing the music smoothly, just as he comes to drop down beside you on the comfy old couch.
“anyway, fuck uh— i don’t remember. it doesn’t matter.” he waves a hand, pushing his heels into the ground to lift up his hips so he can pull the rolled J out his back pocket.
“your concentration is terrible.” you tease with a giggle, legs tucked beneath you. he recalls you looking particularly adorable in that moment, and his brain malfunctions for a second as he looks at you before he forces out a response.
“uh… yeah — i got that letter thing.”
“adhd?”
“thats the one.” he presses his fingers tightly around the compact J before patting his front pockets for a lighter. “you smoke?”
it was the first time you’d had the privilege of hanging out with just JJ alone. you were sarah’s friend, and had tagged along with her to a few pogue hangouts when she’d started dating john b. you all seemed to get on well as a group, and you were pretty meek and shy most of the time — which they found pretty endearing, so they kept you around. you were harmless, and brought an oddly charming sense of innocence to their reckless and vulgar world. you’d started harbouring a little crush on JJ since you’d met, all smiles and doe eyes whenever he was up to his usual nonsense. he was loud and untameable, but always made an effort to behave around you. the special attention made you melt.
“JJ you’re yelling.” pope would accuse and the blonde would hold his hands up.
“sorry.” he’d apologise before turning specifically to you. “sorry. those pretty ears. shouldn’t be hearing that.” he waves it off and continues with whatever rant he was on, but your smile doesn’t go away for like 2 minutes.
his effort didn’t go unnoticed by the pogues, and since you weren’t technically a pogue yourself — and it wouldn’t be breaking any pogue rules, john b and sarah specifically had encouraged the two of you to hang out alone, leaving JJ the keys to the chateau. it made total sense to them, john b desperately wanted jj to be happy (and to get some, from a nice girl.) and sarah was enthralled by the idea of double dates based off ideas she’d tucked into a pinterest board. whilst the blonde was infamous for making bad decisions, he wouldn’t let turning down alone time with a pretty girl be another on his extensive track record.
you eye him where he sits beside you on the small cushy couch, shifting a little — springs clinking beneath you suggesting it may have been a pull out bed. “i’ve never… i haven’t done it before.” you shrug, embarrassed. you envied the pogues in that way, whilst you’d been sheltered your whole life up into adulthood, they’d been able to explore themselves and figure out what they like.
his eyes widen a little and his mouth forms a surprised little ‘o’ shape, before nodding quickly and stuffing the J back into his pocket.
“what are you doing?” your brows furrow.
“don’t wanna make you feel weird, if i smoke ‘n stuff.” he waves a hand dismissively and you shake your head with wide eyes, sitting up a little in your seat.
“oh, no i don’t mind! don’t let me stop you.” you smile as reassuringly as you can. he looks at you for a moment, fixing his hat on his head before pausing a little and turning more toward you.
“totally shoot me down if you don’t wanna but…” he pulls the J back out, slowly and cautiously like it’ll scare you if he moves too fast. “you down to learn? heard i’m quite the teacher.” he smirks, but there’s a friendly twinkle behind his eyes that just makes him so approachable and non-intimidating that you feel completely safe.
“m’kay, yeah, i’ve always wanted to know what it feels like.” your voice is soft behind your wide smile and he wants to slap himself for staring at you for so long.
“alright, that’s the spirit.” he mirrors your grin, tossing his lighter in the air and catching it.
“i didn’t know smoking was something that needed to be taught.” you comment, shuffling a little downward so you can lean against the couch more— getting as comfortable as you can in your sweet little sundress. you were sat so close now you could feel his body heat radiating onto you, and it was doing something crazy to your stomach. that, and the way he looked, manspreading casually on the couch, white tee and black sweatpants, frowning in concentration as he presses the joint between his lips, holding a flame to the end of it until it glows and then shaking out the flame.
registering your words, he sends you a little face of mock offence that makes you giggle. he inhales deep and holds the smoke in his lungs, voice strained when he responds. “nah, this shit is an art form. ‘course it can be taught.” exhale. you find you’re holding your breath too.
“yeah this’ll be good for your first time, asked my guy for somethin’ weaker cos’ i didn’t want you to think i was bein’ a weirdo or whatever, smoking you out with the strong stuff so i can be creepy. i know some guys do that.” he rambles before taking another shorter toke, brows creased as he concentrates on his mini review.
“you bought weed especially for hanging out with me?” you smile kindly and he gapes for a millisecond, holding the J between his fingers and he blinks, caught out.
“yeah.” he shrugs. “s’like buying you flowers. but better.” he shuffles closer to you on the seat. before you have time to overthink the flowers comment, he’s carefully holding the joint to your lips, his own eyes wide and already a little glossy.
“i’m nervous.” you giggle, briefly holding his hovering wrist to stabilise you both.
“hey, you’re in good hands i swear, i’ll look after you.” he promises, free hand cupping your cheek with a teasing but far from unkind expression. “you’re my little baby tonight.” it was made to be a joke but your stomach does a little somersault.
“‘kay.” your lips brush the tip of the J and he has to force himself not to think something inappropriate.
“what i want you to do is breathe in and then hold it, ‘kay?” he instructs and you do so, eyes looking to him for guidance. it burns and tickles your throat at the same time but it’s not awful, you don’t even cough. maybe this is rare, because he grins when you squint— holding it in your chest. “atta girl! see, you’re born for this. breathe out for me.” his voice is closer, and therefore quieter, more intimate. you’re a lightweight by nature, so by your second toke the delay starts to unwind and you start feeling a buzz.
sativa by jhené aiko starts to play through the cheap speaker by the time you’re really feeling it. he’s talking to you the whole time, talking you through it, praising you. your whole body feels hot and you revel in the euphoria of feeling so safe and comfortable in someone’s presence. you lean against his shoulder a little, giggling over a little anecdote he told you about his day with pope.
he’s grinning with pretty pink eyes, turning to look down at you, really look at you close up. his heart stammers because you’re so damn beautiful and he nearly chokes on smoke. that would have been embarrassing.
“you’re cute.” he lifts his cap for a second, running a hand through his hair and you tilt your head, joint still clasped between your fingers.
“really?”
“totally. i’d complain about anyone else getting lipgloss on the joint, but you’re cute so you’re allowed.” he jokes and you’re off again, leaning more into him as you chortle. his arm wraps around your shoulders, pulling you closer until your head rests against him. he looks down at you, a warm smile bordering on chuckle spreading across his face at the way you’re gazing up at him like he hung the moon and stars for you. “y’wanna learn something else?” he offers and you’re slow, but eager— eyes widening hazily and nodding clumsily.
“alright. y’trust me, yeah?” he adjusts his position a little.
“mhm, yeah i do JJ.” you’re all dazed and openly crushing. he seems pretty into it and you’re glad, because someone a little meaner might find it pathetic.
he takes your hand holding the joint and brings your fingers that clasp it to his lips, where he then takes a hit. his palms encase your jaw, pulling your face to his. he pulls ever so slightly, so your mouth gapes before he’s breathing the smoke slowly into your mouth. your heart hammers, and your hands are frozen but you get the hint and inhale, feeling the second hand burn. you open your eyes, not remembering having closed them and he’s staring at you— and you don’t get the chance to pull away because he’s closing the gap again and pressing his lips fully to yours.
you let out a quiet moan at the surprise, the sound from your throat a lot more vulgar than intended and he pulls back after a moment, eyes flickering between yours.
“sorry.”
“dont be. i wanna do it again. can we?”
“the smoking thing or the…” he trails off as you lean in slowly, a curious and sweet expression tainted with a glossy haze of intoxication and lust. you’d never been like this before with anyone, hell— you’d never felt like this.
you press your lips to his, kissing him simply before pulling back. your brows pinch together and be bites back a smile, thumbing at your cheekbone.
“wh’sthe matter?” he whispers.
“there’s more you need to teach me.” you bat your eyelashes at him and he feels himself wake up from the waist down, subtly adjusting himself.
“well we got all night.” he teases before leaning in, this time his mouth taking the lead. the joint is put out and forgotten about as he presses an open mouthed kiss to your swollen lips. “didn’t i say i was a good teacher?”
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Comet Donati [Chapter 7: Heart Attack]
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A/N: Hello all! Only 3 chapters left!!! 🥰 Thank you so much for loving this fic and giving all my eccentric AU ideas a chance. I’m currently in Washington DC visiting one of my best friends, so if I’m a little bit tardy replying to your comments/messages then that’s why. Don’t fear!! I will check in as soon as I can, and I am still amazed by and will forever cherish your support. 💜
Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.
Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sexual content (+18), drugs, alcohol, smoking, Shelby being a bigger plague than the locusts of Egypt, mental health struggles, references to violence and abuse, New Jersey, pregnancy, mini golf, lots of content for the Cregan girlies.
Selected Chapter Quote: “We’re meant to be together. We have so much history.”
Word count: 6.2k.
Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.
Taglist: ​​@doingfondue​ @catalina-howard​ @randomdragonfires​ @myspotofcraziness​ @arcielee​ @fan-goddess​ @talesofoldandnew​ @marvelescvpe​ @tinykryptonitewerewolf​ @mariahossain​ @chainsawsangel​ @darkenchantress​ @not-a-glad-gladiator​ @gemini-mama​ @trifoliumviridi​ @herfantasyworldd​ @babyblue711​ @namelesslosers​ @thelittleswanao3​ @daenysx​ @moonlightfoxx​ @libroparaiso​ @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics​ @mizfortuna​ @florent1s​ @heimtathurs​ @bhanclegane​ @poohxlove​ @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @heavenly1927​ @mariahossain​ @echos-muses​ @padfooteyes​ @minttea07​ @queenofshinigamis​ @juliavilu1​ @amiraisgoingthruit​ @lauraneedstochill​ @wintrr13​ @r0segard3n​ @seabasscevans​ @tsujifreya​ 
Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 💜
You type into Google as you hide in the public bathroom stall, pink tile walls and mint green porcelain, very 1950s, phantom drips of water and humming florescent lights: Can Plan B make your period late?
You scroll through the results, clutching your iPhone with both hands. Faintly, you can hear the rest of the band outside, chattering, laughing, slurping on Slush Puppies, smacking trees and rocks with their golf clubs. Yes, the consensus seems to be; Plan B can delay your period. Incidentally, so can pregnancy.
“Fuck,” you whimper. You peer down at your panties, as if you can force bloodstains to appear: sparce rosy threads of warning, dark red splotches like rust, you aren’t particular. You’ll take anything. “Fuck,” you say again, defeated. You get dressed, wash your hands, and head back out into the cloudless afternoon sunshine.
“Stargirl, it’s your turn!” Aegon shouts as you trot over to them: tenth hole, shaped like an L, featuring an intimidating loop de loop. The course is dinosaur themed; Rhaena picked it. Aegon points to Jace. “This deformed bastard wanted to skip you.”
“I told you,” Jace moans. His speech is garbled and lisping, his face comically swollen, bruised yellow-emerald-indigo and drooling blood, stitches above his left eyebrow. He just had his dental implants placed yesterday; the four teeth that he lost at Club Camelot could not be readily located for reattachment. “I can’t keep track of who’s next. I’m on like four different opiates.”
Baela frets over him. “Shh, shh, baby. Try not to talk.” There’s something about watching someone get almost-murdered that makes you want to forgive them, you suppose.
You grab your club and golf ball, dark blue, from where you left them by a tree. Rhaena gives you a covert little thumbs up and raised eyebrows. Everything good? You smile—too widely, insincere, a liar—and nod. Technically, you have yet to obtain concrete evidence to the contrary.
You take your turn, somewhat awkwardly due to the splint that still encumbers your dominant hand. You are thinking about anything but mini golf. Your ball goes halfway through the loop de loop and then comes rolling back. How many strokes? Four, five, you lose count, it doesn’t matter. Aegon is snickering, though not in a mean way, never in a mean way. Aemond is watching you. He does this constantly; you can feel his eyes—river water, otherworldly atmosphere—on you all the time, you can see him on the periphery of your vision. But when you glance at Aemond, he looks away. You’re wearing flip flops, a black NSYNC t-shirt, and bright pink shorts that Baela insists are of the very short variety. Aemond is staring a little extra hard today. Shelby alternates between glaring at him and at you.
Jace putts next. He misses the ball twice. On the third try, he hits it into a nearby pond. Golden koi fish scatter beneath the rippling sheen of the water.
“Loser,” Aegon declares mildly. “Criston, why the fuck are we in New Jersey?”
“Because you’re playing three shows at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford,” Criston says as he putts; his green golf ball sails through the loop de loop, bounces off a wall, and then rolls straight into the cup, a hole in one. “One Direction did it, Taylor Swift did it, and now you’re going to do it too. And if you don’t make it too unbearable for me, I’ll even take you to the beach while we’re here. Okay?”
“Okay,” Aegon agrees. He slurps on his Slush Puppie. “Oh, Aemond, I need the Netflix password.”
“You forgot it again?!” Daeron says. Jace, groaning softly, lies down on the ground in a patch of shade. Baela gets a bottle of Orajel rinse out of her purse and starts pouring it into his mouth.
“Get your own account,” Aemond snaps at Aegon. “I think you can afford it.”
“Bruh, that’s not the point! I don’t know where I left off in Grey’s Anatomy!”
They keep bickering. You stop listening. You can only hear the sounds of rustling leaves, squawking seagulls, the whistling of the warm August wind. You can only feel the weight of Aemond’s half-fascinated, half-resentful gaze on you. He wouldn’t believe me, you think. If I really am pregnant, he would never believe that it was an accident. He would never believe that I was that guilelessly, unambitiously stupid. Hell, I did it and I barely believe it.
You steal a glimpse of Aemond—black shirt and black sunglasses, white shorts, Adidas sneakers—and he turns away, pretending to pick dirt off his golf ball. Interestingly, he will talk to you about things not related to that night in Tokyo; perhaps it would be too suspicious not to, a neon sign for the rest of the band to read. But he never allows himself to be alone with you. And he never touches you, not even a grazing of hands or an absentminded bump as he passes you in aisles or hallways.
Bump, you think miserably. An inauspicious choice of words.
“We should watch Se7en,” Aegon is saying now. “Comet fam movie night.”
You mutter: “We’re not watching Se7en.”
“What’s Se7en about?” Rhaena asks.
“You wouldn’t like it.”
“What’s in the box?!” Aegon shouts dramatically—quoting the beautiful yet doomed David Mills, a name he once borrowed to schedule a Zoom meeting with you—and then cackles. It’s his turn. He clobbers his golf ball and sends it flying through the loop de loop; it pops over the barrier and disappears into a bush. Startled squirrels dart out of the leaves.
“Loser!” Jace slurs as he lies sprawled across the ground, vindicated.
“Stop spitting blood everywhere,” Aemond says. He putts next, and badly: poor depth perception. “You’re getting it on my sneakers.”
“Watch it, cyclops.” Jace points to his own stitches, bruises, surgically replaced teeth. “I let you have this one. Now we’re even. But next time I won’t be so charitable.”
“You’re not even,” Aegon tells Jace, abruptly severe. He whips off his aviator sunglasses, crouches over Jace, glaring and thunderous like a storm. Baela observes this warily. “Not even close.”
Jace is intrigued. “No?”
“No. Your face will heal.” Then Aegon pokes him in the jaw and Jace screams, tears slithering down his puffy, mottled cheeks. Cregan yanks Aegon away before Baela can scratch his eyes out. Criston repossesses Aegon’s blue raspberry Slush Puppie as punishment. Luke wins the game, five under par.
Comet’s first shows in the United States this tour start just like the last few in Asia: Jace is iced, painted with concealer, thoroughly medicated, numbed into semi-consciousness. He does lines of coke in the bathroom under Cregan’s supervision. He can’t perform without it. Criston tried to negotiate a month off for Jace, but the label’s message was clear: get him on stage, we don’t care how you do it, we don’t want to know about it, here’s a blank check, figure it out or we’ll find another manager who can. Now Criston watches Jace with his arms crossed over his chest, his dark eyes wounded and anxious, his shoulders slumped beneath the weight of what he believes is failure.
The story released to the press is that Jace fell down a flight of stairs but is recovering smoothly. He can barely sing; his mic is turned up, and during Jace’s verses Cregan or Luke layer their voice with his. He wobbles and flubs his way through Night 1 in East Rutherford. You spend the show staring up at the stage without seeing it. Baela and Rhaena are with you, but you aren’t really with them; you feel like if they reached out to touch you, their hands would find only translucent emptiness like a mirage. Shelby is flocked by fellow influencers that she’s invited in from New York City. Aemond is somewhere, somewhere: lurking in shadows, brooding, avoiding, musing, suffering, jotting down starlight-colored judgments in his black-paged notebook.
Per tradition, the band and their entourage coalesce in Jace’s suite after the show. Jace himself, the gracious host, promptly collapses on a couch and lies there senseless as the party spins around him like the planets of a solar system. Baela is perched dutifully beside him, holding ice packs to his jaw, wiping away drool the color of one of Aemond’s Brambles. A tattoo artist is inking a goldfinch, New Jersey’s state bird, to the top of Jace’s right foot. Criston is across the room and speaking—rather tensely, it seems—with cigar-smoking label executives. Shelby is snapping photos with her friends; they take turns posing each other out on the balcony, adjusting elbows and wrists and knees, swiping away stray flecks of mascara, rearranging hair, recommending plastic surgeons. Aegon is typing WhatsApp messages—mostly emojis, from what you can see—to Miley Cyrus. At Luke’s prompting, Aemond begins sharing his comments to the presently sentient members of Comet. He puffs on one of his Benson & Hedges cigarettes as he reads aloud. He kindly skips over any criticisms of Jace’s performance.
You can’t stand hearing Aemond’s voice; not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because there isn’t, because you can’t stop remembering what he said to you in that florescent-white bathroom at Club Camelot in Tokyo, because he uses his words on so many people who aren’t you, because sooner or later your time with Comet will be over and you’ll only ever hear him again through Spotify songs and YouTube clips from before the accident, because he will one day be a ghost who haunts you, rattling doorknobs and chilling pockets of air but never speaking. You escape to ask the bartender: “Can I get a Coke?”
“A rum and Coke?”
“No.”
“Like…white powder coke?”
“No, a Coca-Cola. With nothing else in it.”
“Okay, whatever,” the bartender says, perplexed. He fills a glass with ice and dark liquid that pops and fizzes with carbonation, then slides it across the counter to you. You meander out into the hallway where you can be alone, where you don’t have to pretend to be okay.
The carpet is gold but frayed, the walls adorned with faux marble columns and scuffs from recklessly handled suitcases. Even the hotels are worse in New Jersey. You sip your soda—nonalcoholic, huh? you think, then push it aside—and roam past suite doors and vending machines until you reach the cove of elevators. There’s a full-length mirror hanging on the wall there, gilded, gaudy. You frown at yourself, a reflection that suddenly looks a bit like a stranger. You’re wearing a short seafoam green dress, gold earrings and sandals, and an eerily vacuous expression. You turn and move your hair aside so you can peer over your shoulder at what’s been indelibly penned there since Rome: the tiny comet, the lyrics that encircle it.
I wanted to remember this band forever. To remember Aemond. You can feel your stomach drop as it grows heavy with dread. The pulsing music from Jace’s suite has followed you down the hall, Sugar by Robin Schulz and Francesco Yates. I think I might just have more than a tattoo to remember him by after all.
One of the elevators dings and opens. A man lumbers out, towering, broad, monstrous. You gape up at him: brown threadbare coat, heavy boots, unruly dark beard, grey eyes like a bleak winter sky. There is a miasma that colors the air around him with smoke and alcohol, sweat and earth.
“Hello there,” he says, politely enough. His voice is such a baritone rumble that it’s difficult to understand. He has a British accent, but not like Aegon’s, not like Aemond’s. He reminds you of someone you can’t quite place. “I’m looking for a certain young gentleman. I’m hoping you can point me in his direction.”
“Sure,” you reply, trying to disguise your shock so you don’t offend him. He could be someone important. He could be an eccentric producer or a consultant. Or a drug dealer. “Who…uh…who was it you were hoping to speak with…?”
He smiles: sharp canine teeth yellowed by nicotine, glinting eyes like silver coins. “Cregan Stark.”
“Okay,” you stammer. Drug dealer?? “Okay, okay, I’ll…uh…I’ll go get him.”
You hurry down the hall and into Jace’s crowded, smokey suite, clinking glasses and flirtatious titters in dim lighting like late twilight. You return your empty drink to the bartender, then tap Cregan on the shoulder and inform him that someone out in the hallway is asking for him. He doesn’t seem surprised to hear this. Drug dealer, you think confidently. Cregan gulps his vodka shot and follows you out of the suite. He steps through the doorway. He turns towards the stranger. And then he stops dead. His eyes go wide. The blood drains from his face. And Cregan—immovable, inscrutable, unflappable Cregan—shrinks until he is a child again.
Immediately, you know you’ve made a mistake. You reach for him. “Cregan, wait—”
“My son,” the monstrous man sighs. And of course now you’ve realized exactly who the mirrorlike grey of his eyes reminded you of. “My son.”
You can’t stop him. How could you stop him? Faster than you can think, he has crossed the space between you and entombed Cregan in a stifling embrace. Cregan stands paralyzed, his eyes shifting, searching for escape. Tentatively, appeasingly, his hands slowly rise to hug the man in return.
“Criston?!” you shout. But within the suite, he cannot hear you over the music and the berating of smoke-veiled, bejeweled label executives.
“Did you forget about me, huh?” the man asks Cregan gruffly. And as he steps back he grips one of Cregan’s shoulders: not like Criston would, not like a father, like a vice, like a bear trap. He shakes Cregan once, not too hard. “You can fly your private jet all over the world but you can’t call your own father back? Huh? Huh?!” He shakes Cregan again, harder.
“Criston!” you scream. “Security! Somebody!”
Nobody can hear me. Nobody is coming.
You sprint into Jace’s suite, seize Criston by one hand, drag him out into the hall. On the blurry periphery of your vision, you can see Aemond getting up off the couch to follow you. The second he spots the monstrous man, Criston is roaring. “No no no, get away from him!” He pushes between Cregan and the giant, terrifying, wrathful. The man dwarfs him. Criston doesn’t seem to know it. “You can’t be here. We’ve been over this, you’re not allowed to be here—”
The man tries to reach around him to clutch at Cregan’s shirt. Aemond pulls you away from the scuffle. Criston hits the man in the solar plexus; he is momentarily stunned, wheezing. By the time he straightens up, Criston—louder than you, bellowing and fierce—has summoned security. They are swarming the man and escorting him back down the hallway towards the elevators. Aemond goes to Cregan. Criston looks at you. You’re quivering, penitent.
“I had no idea…he asked for Cregan…I would never have…I thought maybe he was a friend of the band…”
“He’s on our no fly list,” Criston says. His voice is tired yet patient. “But you wouldn’t know that.”
You try to apologize to Cregan, but he isn’t listening to you. He’s listening to Aemond. Aemond is speaking to him, low and calm, too quietly for you to hear. “I’m okay,” Cregan says unsteadily. “I’m fine.”
“It’s alright if you’re not,” Aemond tells him.
And you know that right now you are unnecessary, intrusive. Criston goes downstairs to figure out how Comet’s security guards in the lobby didn’t catch this and—presumably—to ensure that the invader is properly dealt with. Aemond slings an arm across Cregan’s shoulders and leads him back to the party where he is cared for, welcome, valued, safe. You hide in your own suite and try not to think about the dates on the calendar—missing blood, summer days ticking down towards zero—as you steep in a hot bath and attempt to scrub everything you’ve done wrong, today, yesterday, ever, off your skin. Then you change into an oversized Backstreet Boys t-shirt and your favorite Cookie Monster pajama pants.
You try to sleep but of course you can’t, surrounded by a silence that only gets louder. When you hear the swipe of a keycard and the creaking of your door, you don’t know who to expect: Cregan, Criston, Rhaena, Luke, Baela, Jace, Daeron, Shelby, Aemond, ghosts. The clopping of his Crocs gives him away, neon pink to match his tank top. “I’m really not in the mood for anything resembling sex.”
Aegon replies as he kicks off his Crocs: “Did I ask, succubus?” He crawls into the bed, throws an arm casually across your waist, rests his head on your belly as your fingers thread through his chaotic blond hair, fond and tender. He burrows into you, into your softness and your warmth and your truth and your mysteries. Sometimes you feel like you’ll give until he falls into you like a trapdoor, the bones of his hands tangling around your spine, his blood vessels spilling into all of your rage-scarlet cavities, hollows of the flesh, hollows of the soul. “You’re sad.”
You stare up at the ceiling. “I have a lot on my mind.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know what. That’s the strange thing. Usually I can tell.”
“You’ve been gone.”
He looks up at you, confused. “I’ve been right here.”
“You know what I meant.”
Aegon doesn’t argue with you, doesn’t try to defend himself, doesn’t make promises both of you know he could never keep. He only lays his head down on your belly again and pulls himself closer to you, closer, closer, melting into your melancholy, dissolving into dreams.
~~~~~~~~~~
“I was eleven when he broke my arm. Thirteen when he cracked my skull for the first time. Then I got big enough to hurt him back.” Cregan looks out over the waves: blue currents, white froth, sunbeams like glinting blades. As Criston promised, Comet is spending an afternoon in Seaside Heights. You and Cregan are sitting on the sand together twenty yards from the others. “I grew up in a two-bedroom cabin with no electricity or running water. We had a metal wash tub outside, ate deer and squirrels and rabbits, never had clothes that fit, never saw a doctor except when what was wrong might kill us. We had a woodstove and chopped down trees to burn in the winter. I had eight siblings, six of whom are still alive. Barnett overdosed. Courtland drove his friend’s Nissan into a brick wall. I’m not sure it was accidental.”
Your words are soft like a whisper, like gentle hands. “Cregan, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not…” His voice breaks. He stops for a while, composes himself, begins again. “It’s not something I talk about. Not because I’m trying to forget it. I can’t forget it, I’ll never be able to, I understand that, believe me. There’s just nothing to be gained from talking about it. I never feel better afterwards. I always feel worse.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“I know that. Don’t you think I know that?”
You wait, watching him. There’s something he needs to say. Down the beach a ways, Baela is doing yoga, her bare feet sure and agile in shifting sand. Rhaena, Luke, and Aemond are flying kites in the breeze: black dragons, green dragons. Shelby is, predictably, filming them from where she stands on Aemond’s good side. Aegon and Daeron are swimming so far out that you’re beginning to worry about sharks. Criston is parked under an umbrella with an unconscious Jace, reading Memoirs Of A Geisha and eating a sandwich full of something called pork roll.
“After Comet happened, I got all of them out,” Cregan continues. “My mum, my siblings. Good houses in safe neighborhoods. Security in case Dad makes an appearance. He does, every once in a while. He’s locked up, he’s free, he’s locked up again. He has nothing else to do but haunt us. I’ve been waiting for him to die since I was old enough to understand what a graveyard is.” Cregan looks at you. “Does that make me a bad person?”
“No,” you answer immediately.
“The thing is…” He holds out one large hand, palm down, like he’s resting it on a table. Then he shakes it. “Nothing ever feels stable. Nothing ever feels safe. No matter how much money I see stack up in accounts, I lie awake at night wondering what I’ll do if it disappears. So many people rely on me. I can’t stop worrying I’ll end up back in that cabin somehow. I can still hear drops of rainwater seeping in through the gaps in the roof. I can still smell burning wood.”
“The fact that you feel this way, given your history, is completely logical…even if the fear itself is not. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” Cregan says. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Do you think it would help if we sat down and looked at the numbers and did some math? Because I suspect that even with a hundred dependents, you’d easily be able to float them for the rest of your lifetime just using the money you already have. And there will be royalties from Comet’s songs forever. Maybe if we can show you exactly how improbable your worst case scenario is, that fear will begin to fade a bit. Not go away, not completely, maybe not ever…but I think you’ll be able to quiet it down.”
“I’ll give it a try. If you recommend it.” Cregan lights a cigarette and takes a drag. Criston glances over and then pretends he didn’t notice. “I have a daughter,” Cregan says; and you can’t stop the shock from hitting your face like a fist. He smiles faintly, wistfully. “I know. I’ve worked very hard to make sure she is kept away from…” He gestures broadly. “All of this.” Fame. Debauchery. Tabloids. Reddit threads. “I was way too young. And her mother and I…we were never really together. It was contentious for a while, but we’ve sorted through things. I support them financially, obviously. And when I’m not on tour or in the studio, I disappear up to Lancaster for a few weeks at a time and no one is the wiser.”
You study him as wind tears in off the Atlantic Ocean, as seagulls swoop and screech overhead. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate how you’ve protected her once she can understand.”
“I don’t know how to be a father. Not a good one. But I try. I don’t just show up for movie nights and birthdays. I take her shopping for school supplies. I put her back to bed when she has nightmares. I take her to the dentist, to the park, to the library. She really likes pigs, so I adopted a few from a farm animal rescue and we learned how to raise them together.”
“You caring about being a good parent puts you ahead of a lot of people already,” you say. “Nobody in Comet knows?”
“Just Aemond. Once, years ago, her mother needed something and I was out of the country. I had to let somebody in on the secret, somebody I could trust. I chose Aemond. I chose right.” Now Cregan is amused. “He’s the one who suggested the pigs.”
“Of course he did,” you say; and you can’t help but smile. “How old is she?”
“Six and a half. Do you want to see a picture her?”
“Absolutely. If it’s alright with you.”
Cregan pulls his iPhone from his pocket, swipes around for a while, and then turns the screen so you can see. She looks like him, a lot like him, but with round cheeks and long dark lashes. And Cregan is beaming as he says: “Her name is Iris.”
“So you didn’t have to do the Maury paternity test thing.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “No. I knew from the second I saw her she was mine.”
“She’s lucky to have you.”
Cregan shrugs, pensive, evasive. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do.” And he believes that you mean it; you can see it on his face. Aemond is watching you and Cregan, you notice now. He glances over, pretends he didn’t, glances again. You gesture to the crashing waves and say to Cregan: “If Aegon gets attacked by a shark, will you jump in and punch it or something please?”
Cregan chuckles. “Yeah. That’s my main job here, I think. Stopping people from dying.” And then, seriously: “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I haven’t done anything that warrants it.”
“No. Really.” Cregan reaches out, takes your uninjured hand, squeezes it briefly before releasing you. “Thank you, Stargirl.” Then he stands and walks to the water’s edge, letting the surf rush up over his ankles, for just a moment feeling nothing on his shoulders but the sunlight.
Aemond gives Shelby his kite and, as she glares bitterly, makes his way over to you. He takes off his sunglasses so he can see you better and hooks them on the waistband of his swim trunks: black, of course, his usual color. You’re actually wearing black today too, a flowing coverup over a pink swimsuit. You feel very much like hiding. When Aemond speaks, there is perhaps a hint of envy, green like leaves of poison, gleaming like snakeskin. “What were you and Cregan talking about?”
“Fatherhood.” And then you realize how it might sound.
There is a split second where Aemond looks startled; then he remembers Iris. “Right. Not so easy for people like us to navigate.”
People like us. Celebrities, boy band members, haunted men. You scramble for a nonchalant way to feel out the subject with him. “How does Louis Tomlinson handle it?”
“He’s a saint,” Aemond says. And you think: Patron saint of baby daddies? “Freddie was very, very unplanned. The mother was a nobody, a rebound. And a lot of people assumed she did it on purpose to try to keep Louis. Or to get eighteen years of a luxury lifestyle out of him. Or to just get fame in general. Personally, I believe it was all of the above.”
“Right,” you say, sweating heavily beneath your coverup.
“But none of that is the kid’s fault, and Louis is a good enough guy to realize it. So he plays nice with Freddie’s mother and they don’t go to war through tabloids anymore.”
“So, uh…” How can I put this? “You’re good with kids too. Cregan told me you had the pig idea.”
And the look that crosses Aemond’s face, the look: caustic, incredulous, night-dark, self-loathing. “Are you insane? Have you met me? I terrify kids. And I should, but not just because of the eye and the scar. What the hell do I know about being a decent father? What do I know about being a decent anything? I’d have no idea where to start. I’d fuck it up even if I tried desperately not to. I’d end up with kids like Aegon: addicts who hate themselves, people who are irrevocably lost.”
You say meekly: “I think Criston is something like a father to you. He could be a role model.”
“I’m not half as good a man as Criston is.”
Change the topic, change the topic, before Aemond gets suspicious. And there’s something else you’ve been meaning to ask him. “Aemond…after you almost murdered Jace…when we didn’t know if or how he was going to be able to perform until he healed…did anyone ask you to come back to Comet and fill in for him?”
“No,” Aemond says. And he’s thunderstruck by the thought, appalled, petrified.
“You don’t think that it might have been a good idea? That it might make sense?”
“No,” he says again instantly.
“But…in Tokyo…when Daeron made that speech at the last show…I think the crowd’s reaction was pretty powerful, don’t you? People still care about you. They love and respect you. And I think…maybe…it might help you with what you’ve experienced. To get back on stage—even just one last time—and prove to yourself that you still have what it takes. To know that if you do leave Comet, it’s your choice, not anyone else’s.”
“They love who I was,” Aemond says. “Not who I am now. And that’s easy to do. They don’t have to look at me.”
“Goddammit, there’s nothing wrong with how you look, Aemond!” you burst out. “You look fantastic. I never get tired of looking at you. I want to look at you all the fucking time. I’d hang life-sized portraits of you on every wall in my apartment in Kansas City. That’s how much I enjoy looking at you.”
He thinks you’re joking, he thinks you’re trying to make him feel better. You can’t stop him from thinking these things. And yet still, as he turns away, he is smiling: just a whisper of a curl at the corner of his lips, secretive, fragile.
As Comet is leaving the beach, you stop at a souvenir shop on the boardwalk to buy your keepsake for this tour destination. You settle on a pink frisbee that has I love the Jersey Shore! embossed on it in large, abrasive letters. You think your parents’ Australian cattle dogs will enjoy fetching it when you get home. Home feels so much closer—both literally and figuratively—than it did just a few weeks ago.
Criston is browsing through the t-shirts. “Hey, what size is your mom, Aegon? Medium?”
“How the hell would I know? Probably.” He holds up a pair of red, white, and blue bikini bottoms that say Firecracker across the ass. “You think my dad would mind if you sent her these?”
Criston is blushing. “Aegon, stop.”
“You could get her a bikini top too. Oh look, that one over there is red, it matches. And it says MILF across the tits. So that’s pertinent.”
“Stop!” Criston cries, distressed, and flees the store.
Halfway through the hour-long drive back to the hotel, Aegon insists that Criston stop the Escalades so he can get a hoagie from a Wawa. Aegon has never had a hoagie before. He says he cannot truly experience America without one.
At the ordering counter, Jace—slightly less bruised and swollen today, and thus in better spirits—taunts Aegon: “Are you sure you need all that bread? You’re going to be wearing a muumuu on stage by the time we get to the Midwest.”
“You know, just because you said that, now I’m going to get two hoagies…”
On the television mounted inside the Wawa, CNN is reporting on a group of tornadoes that just struck Wichita. And it occurs to you that tornadoes don’t have trajectories to calculate like hurricanes or airplanes or comets; they are climatological sharks. They strike quickly, indiscriminately, and then they’re gone again. They aren’t named. They aren’t enshrined. They don’t even have a belly to cut open and retrieve pieces of your loved ones from. If they take someone, they’re just gone.
While the rest of the band is in line to order their food, and Aemond is scrutinizing the dried fruit and nuts selection, you sneak through the other aisles.
It’s time. I have to find out eventually. I have to know.
You pluck a pregnancy test—cute, pink, nausea-inducing—off a rack, purchase it with truly impressive speed at the checkout counter, and race to the bathroom. It’s surprisingly difficult to piss on a tiny stick of doom, especially when your primary hand is in a splint and only partially useable. Eventually, you manage. You put the cap back on the pregnancy test, set it on top of the toilet paper dispenser, and stare at the metal door of the stall. The Wawa speakers are playing The Fray’s Over My Head.
It won’t be positive. It can’t be positive.
You think of pregnancy test commercials you’ve seen: happy couples rejoicing, happy single women getting negatives. How are you supposed to react to bad news? Nobody ever tells you. Do you scream, sob, beg for forgiveness, schedule an appointment at Planned Parenthood? Do you kick the bathroom stall door down in mindless feminine fury? Do you throw yourself off a balcony?
There’s no way it will be positive. It was one time. Just one goddamn time.
And who knows if that will ever happen again with Aemond. This does not improve your mood.
You pick up the pregnancy test. It is unequivocally positive.
You shove it into the small rectangular trashcan for pads and tampons, things you won’t be needing in the immediate future. You get dressed, leave the stall, go to the sink and wash your hands. Then you grip the cool, slick, white porcelain and gaze at yourself in the mirror under nowhere-to-hide florescent lights. What do you feel? Everything, nothing, things you can’t name yet. You’re a raw nerve, you’re completely numb.
The bathroom door swings open. Shelby enters. She squares up with great purpose. Your eyes roll to her, slowly, with no tolerance left, not a drop of it. “Stay away from Aemond,” she demands.
“Make me.”
She is in disbelief. “I’m sorry, what?”
You turn all the way towards her. “Fucking make me, Shelby.”
“I knew you wanted him,” she says, she seethes. “I saw you in those paparazzi photos from Reykjavik and I knew you were already twisting your claws into him.”
You hold up your hands to show her; your thoughts are fuzzy, dazed, without inhibition. “I have no claws whatsoever. If I did, you’d know about it. Believe me. You’d be able to look down and watch your heart beating through the gashes.”
“You don’t belong here. Some Midwestern farm girl running around in flip flops and Cookie Monster pajama pants? You’re trash. You’re a user. You’re a nobody. And if you’re trying to steal a taken man, then you’re a whore too.”
“I’ve been called worse things by better people.”
“I can make them hate you,” Shelby says indignantly. “Comet. The world.”
“Good luck with that, Malibu Barbie. Nobody even knows I exist.”
“Stay away from Aemond,” she says again, trembling with her futile bleach-blond rage. “We’re meant to be together. We have so much history.”
“And yet no future.” You smile sweetly, breeze past her, step on one of her perfectly pedicured feet with a thoroughly unpretentious flip flop. By the time you return to them, the band is almost ready to leave Wawa.
You’re not hungry, but Aegon coaxes you into taking a few bites from his hoagie. You’re not able to focus on what people are saying, but you hear Aemond mention that he wishes Comet had time to visit a planetarium in some nearby town called Toms River. You think about what it would be like to lie side by side with him under the stars, under the sky where comets appear again after vanishing for centuries. You wonder if there’s anyplace where you and Aemond could ever be truthful with each other.
At night you can’t sleep. There is no shortage of reasons why. You wander from your bed to the gold-carpet hallway to the vending machines, where you stare brainlessly at the options. Am I supposed to not be drinking caffein? Did I get any Vitamin D today? How much sugar is too much? You buy a bottle of apple juice—surely a safe bet—and head back to your suite.
As you walk by Aemond and Shelby’s door, your steps slow. Some nights you can hear them in there arguing: Shelby reiterating all the reasons why they’re perfect for each other, clearly a rebuttal to an accusation you weren’t privy to. Some nights you hear muffled casual conversation or episodes of Cosmos. Some nights you hear nothing at all. Some nights your imagination colors in the gaps before you can stop it: his hands on her, his mouth on her, things you know you have no right to dread and yet you do. But tonight, Shelby is momentarily removed from the scene. You can hear the distant pattering of the shower, and then Aemond alone in the living room gathering up plates and glasses. He’s singing something very quietly, so quietly it takes you a while to recognize it. It’s not even a Comet Donati song. It’s Through The Dark.
You sit down in the empty hallway, your back to his door. And you lean your head against it as you listen to Aemond singing softly to himself, doubt sinking into you the same way that trapped blood fills a bruise: Maybe it wasn’t as good for him as it was for me. Maybe he doesn’t talk to me because he doesn’t want to. Maybe I don’t belong here anymore. Maybe I’ve invented a history that we don’t really share. Maybe he didn’t mean it when he said he loves me.
“What am I going to do?” you whisper, scalding tears brimming in your eyes, shivering hands settling on your belly. In a few months, you’ll be showing. “What the hell am I going to do?”
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rowanthestrange · 8 months
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The Master And Margarita Jacket
(Matthew Sweet’s Doctor Who version…but with a frisson of Bulgakov’s)
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It’s done! With every bit of unphotographical glittery metallic paint that I can’t capture on camera even if my iphone skills weren’t rubbish.
@spoonietimelordy, @rearranging-deck-chairs, @bearinabandana and everyone else who Did The Reading of that one ‘I Am The Master’ novel but I’ve forgotten to tag because i’m so sleep deprived i can’t think any more but hopefully other people will, assemble!
Detailed closeups and explanations (with some spoilers) below:
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Starting front top right side (face on). -Margarita herself, biting a mushroom. A more Cockatoo beak than Macaw, with red face instead of white, to make what exactly she is more mysterious. -The Master Who logo here is just gold, any shading didn’t look right when it was so thin.
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Front top right pocket. Purple, of course.
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-Next section down are these three. The ‘Never Stop Growing’ patch is my second favourite patch of the bunch. So many Master Themes, and plot relevant. -Then the little ‘Best Buds’ with the heart in the middle. I was inordinately proud of that idea. (Buds, budding, bigenerated vibe). -And then ‘Obscene Lotus’. That’s mentioned early in the book, and while it’s just described as a big purplish lotus, there’s so much sexual charging in that scene that, well, you gotta.
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Me, reusing the ‘budding’ pun in a different capacity? It’s more likely than you think.
-The cover of the Penguin Clothbound Classic version of the original The Master And Margarita, that took multiple days to complete and so much agony. -The patch is a blank one that I bought, then painted the design to look like one of those stamps people sometimes put in books. Painted the border the same colour, then tea-stained it to look like old paper. Certainly in real life the colour comes out nicely. I couldn’t find his autograph (and sadly there’s an unrelated artist with the same name lol) but he got his doctorate in Wilkie Collins so I just looked up examples of that guy’s writing and tried to give it a bit of that vibe. Hopefully it’s the thought that counts. But hey, if anyone ever meets him and gets me a signature sample I can just redo it.
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General mushroom patch - I like the fire kind of vibe and the looming.
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To the other side!
So. You’re asking what’s with the daisy theme. Fair. So Margarita is also another name for a daisy in some languages. I choose to lean into that because it’s also the widely known symbol of Three - with that scene where he talks to Jo and recounts how a hermit living on a mountain helped dispel his depression by getting him to focus on the beauty of the flower (“and it was the most daisiest daisy”). Given that Three is essentially a character in the book, this felt like the vibe we’re going for. It’s perennial. It also is a healer of bruises and wounds, how can that not be relevant meta wise too to the Master’s new companion, hm? And okay yes, Mikhail does say he’s not a botanist, but if you can think of another way to get that message across other than botanical illustration page…
I like the patch because lightbulb, idea, full of mushrooms etc.
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-‘I Am The Master’ being the name of the book the story is contained in, plus Fun With Identity. -Next the one bit of Real Art that I attempted to copy in glittery acrylics - Magritte’s ‘The Treachery Of Images’ or more commonly known ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’. The story not only of the Master’s experiences recently, but the story’s themes of hallucinations and deceptions; as well as being the symbol of Russian!Brigadier. -This patch is great isn’t it? A play on the Master’s apparent alcoholism or Russian blending in as you prefer, and of course, The Lighthouse of Martin!Doctor fame.
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-Mikhail’s guitar for playing Brown Sugar and other ominous inference songs. -The formula triangle of Love, Food, and Music (I couldn’t think of a self-evident way to show his approach to food - Russian dumplings are, well, not exactly distinct). On its side so the glittery pink triangle points in a certain direction because he’s escaped places and I can do ominous inferences too Sweet. -Maybe controversial? There is a failed love story component in here though, that I just couldn’t leave unmarked. The Doctor, K’vo, and Jo all have their parts to play in that.
Now for the arms:
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Here’s the right-side looking-on arm. -I repainted this mushroom patch to be the orange and green of K’vo’s. -You’ve already seen the long image of it above, so here’s just a snippet closeup of the motif that goes along both arms. Daisies linked in a chain with the words ‘daisiest daisy’ (if you wonder why everything’s outlined by the way, a) i like the style, and b) it makes glitter infinitely more legible and clearer to see if there’s a dark matt border around it breaking it up, especially with something as variable coloured as denim). There’s the sunflower in the middle because Margarita loves her sunflower seeds.
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This is the other arm. Margarita holding a margarita in a margarita. What’s more to add? I used my shittest white (mixed with my fabric medium as everything else has been at every step) rather than @yesokayiknow’s excellent suggestion of Liquitex, which has saved me everywhere else, including those light patches. But here shitty kids basics acrylic is translucent enough to do some excellent work pretending to be glass and ice. The parrot patch has been altered to make the beak entirely black and her face red instead of macaw white, to keep her species ambiguous as literary theme demands.
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To the back!
This Master Who logo is bigger, so it has the Master’s purple highlights like bruising.
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Here is a small UNIT patch I modified to be a Russian one, globe focused on their continent (roughly). Sweet just translated the word ‘unit’ for Russian!Brigadier’s group, and the text is the re-cyrilliced version of that.
Skipping to the bottom…
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Here referencing O’s collection of Doctor Information, Sweet adding to that with having distinct scrapbooks. ‘Manuscripts Don’t Burn’ is a line from Bulgakov’s The Master And Margarita (spoken by Satan in fact, mhmm) and became something of a rallying cry for oppressed Russian artists. I have ‘Author Unknown’ for the obvious meta with his and the Doctor’s memories, and likewise, the fact that flames are clearly present and burning lets the viewer come to whatever conclusion they like. #133 was chosen for the simple fact that in my copy of Bulgakov’s novel, and the one depicted on the front of the jacket, it is page 133 which starts the chapter The Hero Enters, where we meet The Master who has renounced all other names (who is very much, as Interference notes, the Doctor). They are glitter paint titles done on Hemline repair patches, black, brown, white, and navy blue. I know anything too painty on that area of the back will risk a lot of wear, and these are easily replaced when necessary (if still hours of lettering).
To the left most side…
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This was the most expensive patch I bought, £12. But worth it. The mushroom stalk is silk.
Here I depicted in silhouette the scene of the Master climbing up to the Doctor on the giant mushroom. I chose silhouette so as not to draw the eye too much. I also added some 2ply black-black glitter cotton as part of his climbing equipment, attached on by some silver stitches for the…things I can’t remember the name of. It gives it a bit more 3D effect, but also keeps the thread close enough it shouldn’t pull on anything.
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And at its base we have a reference to Mikhail’s chosen middle name. I chose to believe it’s relevant, Sweet’s too deep into this for it not to be. This is a cover I edited to highlight the namesake who actually travelled Russia and collected the tales of this book, and indeed, it does include the story of Koschei The Deathless. I edited the robe to be red instead of its original yellow, and added the quintessential Time Lord collar. But I think it’s perfectly passable. This is iron on transfer paper (dark) onto a very light grey polycotton to turn it into a patch. It…*cough* hasn’t had its edges finished or strictly been attached yet, but that’s a bit of handwork I can do as and when.
So finally back up to the middle
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I’ve expanded out @spoonlesss-artbook fantastic angel-winged Margarita’s Master art. The Redbubble bag was only that big as it was (hemmed with bostik fabric glue like a true pro and attached as a panel) so it cut off a little, and it didn’t go the whole way anyway, so now we get some endings of the feathers, some all the way up to the arm of the jacket. I tried to blend it into the fire, one creature of both. And trying to get a multidimensional feel, boundary breaking. And again, very glittery irl so plays very well with the fire theme. It was fun when it came to colour-matching particularly the blue wing at the top, because the glitter gives it a bit of a sheen. I blunted it with a few careful washes of black so it still sparkles but is the right colour in most angles.
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The Redbubble edit cuts @spoonietimelordy’s signature, so I copied it from the original and moved it over to the left side in some sparkly silver. Also internet doxxing my real life self on the bottom of the back as my own signature.
Doesn’t look like the sort of thing that would take weeks when you see it all together, but I’m really happy with it. I’m so grateful for everyone who’s shown their brilliant art to me and shared posts about painting all these years, cus it allowed me to absorb stuff and let me come out of the gate swinging! It feels thoroughly addictive. Even if I only know ‘use tiny brush’ for almost everything and glitter metallic is great for hiding sins. (And a ‘Ha!’ in the face of my mother keeping me away from it my whole life because of mess - I never got even a single speck on any clothes that wasn’t this jacket. I could’ve been doing this for years rather than just picking up a brush at the age of thirty-damn-one. But at least I’ve got it now).
And thanks to Matthew Sweet for feeding the worms in my brain too.
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rxqueenotd · 1 year
Text
Magic In The Hamptons
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Pairing: Lukas Matsson x f!reader
Summary: Lukas is shocked to see his new GC’s Instagram feed after she heads back home to NY for a week. (Heavily implied that reader and Matsson have NOT slept together... yet)
Warnings: literal phone sex, dubious content if you squint, mentions of alcohol/drugs, sexual themes, bodily fluids, etc. MINORS DNI!
Word count: 2033
Notes: absolutely no one requested this but I’m about to join the ranks of everyone else suffering from Matsson brain rot. I’ve been silently writing a fic involving Matsson/f!reader/Kendall and this is me testing the waters to see if anyone would even entertain the idea of reading it. This all unedited as well, so please look over any mistakes!
“Lukas,” Oskar bellows from across the room. Once again, he’s moonbeamed on edibles. The entire room is buzzing on something. Oskar holds his phone up, shaking it back and forth, “have you seen what your new counsel is posting on insta?”
Lukas looks around, quirking an eyebrow. “Should I have seen it?”
Lukas is quick to break away from the crowd of people surrounding him. Finding a small corner, he leans against the cool tile as he fishes his phone out of his pocket. He opens Instagram and there you are- happy and loose and alive. Something you hadn’t felt when you’d been in Sweden. He doesn’t take it personally. He knows it shocked your system when he asked you to come to Sweden to assist with the legalities of laying off upwards of a thousand people. With the WayStar acquisition and merger in its early stages, the both of you have been tense. Moreover, the sexual tension between the both of you seemed to hit an all time high before you were called back home for a family friend’s wedding. 
“Too bad she won’t let loose like that with all of us,” Lukas looks up at Oskar who peers over his phone and watches as he scrolls through the slides. 
 Amongst the curated feed, the newest post stands out from its tailored predecessors. Gone are the days of a carefully monitored feed. Gone are the days of Logan Roy. The first photo is innocent, it’s you and a group of friends clinging to one another. You're tanned, practically glowing, he notices. The next one is a panoramic of the estate he assumes you’re staying at for the wedding. The well curated lawn, hedgerows, and statues meticulously placed along the sprawling grounds screams ‘old money’ and a quick click of the tagged location lets him know you’re in The Hamptons. He’s back on the slides again as he thumbs over to the third photo. You’re lying back on a lounger by a pool. The smallest bikini covering the most intimate parts of you, with the rest on full display. The first thing he notices is the Jacques Marie Mage sunglasses you’re wearing. If he had exquisite vision and the capability of zooming far beyond anything an iPhone offers, he would be able to make out Kendall’s initials on the right sided temple. You’ve had them for years, an old pair Kendall had given you when you lost yours in the ocean. Things may have soured between you and Kendall but his sunglasses were your favorite amongst your precious collection. The most peculiar thing about the photo is the reflection in the lenses. Lukas zooms in further and sees, what he assumes, to be a man leaning towards you. He’s smiling down at you in an appetizing way. Like he’s going in for the kill. The next slide is a Live Photo of you letting smoke billow from your slightly agape mouth. Your eyes are glazed and slightly rolled back.  The first thing that comes to his mind is vivid. He imagines this is how you look when you cum. He thinks of his thumb on the crest of your tongue as he rolls his spit around your mouth with the pad of his finger, your doe eyes staring up at him as you come undone. He swallows the lump in his throat. He secretly wishes you were here with him. The next photo is of you sitting in a corner booth. The lights are dim, except for a small amount of candlelight spilling across your face from the centerpiece. There’s a man, someone he can’t place, sitting beside you. He looks like him. Same build, same profile. His face is brushing against your cheek, arms snaked tight around your waist. Your arm is wrapped equally as tight across his shoulders, your right hand tangled around his arm. He notices no one is tagged. No matter, he thinks, he will find out who he is regardless. The next photo stops him in his tracks totally. Your front is pressed against a marble wall, back completely bared for the photo, a slinky dress hanging off your waist. Your fingers splayed out in your hair, pushing it upwards, away from your face. You don a smirk. The one he wants to fuck right off your face. There's a small hint of a tattoo spanning the length of your right side. As much as he zooms, he’s unable to make it out. He wonders what you were thinking when the photo was snapped. Specifically, he wonders who took the photo. Without another word, he slides his phone deep in his pocket and takes off upstairs. He sits idly amongst the deep cushions of the couch spanning the wall of his bedroom before he slides his phone back out. He finds your contact with ease and initiates the call. 
It rings four times before he dejectedly pulls it back from his ear. 
“Hello?” Your sleep laden voice calls out before he can end the call.  
“What’s that tattoo on your side?” He sets off into the conversation. No need for formalities. 
You sigh loudly into the receiver, “it’s three in the morning, Lukas.” 
“Show me.” He insists. 
Another sigh leaves your lips. “It’s a sword.” 
You tell him. 
“I’m a visual learner,” he says lowly, “show me.”
Another loud sigh and he hears your phone being shuffled around. His phone vibrates against his ear and he slides it down, opening your highlighted name in his Notification Center. 
No face at all, just your left hand covering your breasts, right arm hovering above your form to snap the photo. Your stomach is partially bared to him from your position on your side with your lower half wrapped in a deep green down comforter. He pays attention to everything but the tattoo. 
It’s his turn to sigh now. 
“Did you fuck him?” You’ve begun to notice how his accent slips through when he’s turned on or worked up. This isn’t his first time getting riled up around you. You figure it won’t be the last either.  
“I did.” you admit. Lukas notices more shuffling from your end. 
“Tell me about it.” He pushes you further. There’s a certain longing in his voice. He lays his phone on his chest and taps the speaker icon as his hands come to rest on his hip bones. He pulls his cock free and it springs out, slapping against his belly, resting just below his belly button. He’s hanging on your every word. 
You inhale deeply. 
“We drove out to the beach a few days ago,” you tell him. “Just for a little while to get away from the wedding chaos. I climbed over once he parked the car and fucked him right in the driver’s seat of his Audi.”
A groan manifests deep from his chest. He has a firm grasp on his cock now, his pointer finger and thumb rolling over the swollen head repeatedly.
“You let him cum inside you?” His question comes out breathy. 
You chuckle lightly, almost sardonically, “I didn’t.” 
The phone is pressed tightly against your ear as you imagine what type of state he’s in. 
“Would you let me cum inside you?” He asks. You clench at the mere thought. His breath hitches and you can tell his hands are no longer idle. 
On the other line, he throbs viciously in his hand. He slows his movements as he waits for your answer, a tight grip around his thick base. 
“Do you want to?,” you suck in a gasp of air, “Is that what you’re thinking about?” 
“Yeah,” he breathes out, “it’s all I’ve been thinking about.” 
“Mmm,” you muse, “maybe if you ask nicely.”
“I don’t ask,” he growls out, “I take.“
Against your will, a light moan flies out of your mouth. The sheets are clinging to the edge of the mattress as you squirm and writhe around, squeezing your thighs shut for any sort of relief. 
“Yeah,” he questions with a tinge of a chuckle, “you like that?”
“I do,” you admit, “I thought about you the entire time I fucked him. I closed my eyes and imagined it was you.”
There’s no response to that. The only sound you hear is flesh on flesh. A slapping noise that echoes around the room and straight into the receiver. 
He’s working himself viciously on the other end. Thinking about you tight and slick around him, a silken vice, fucking you until you forget anyone else has ever fucked you. He imagines being deep inside you, filling you up to your belly, fucking you so good, you don’t walk right for days. 
“You like that?” It’s your turn to taunt him. 
“Yeah,” a murmur of a grunt slides out of him, “I am going to ruin you.”
You don’t doubt it. You anticipate it. 
You can tell he has met his end when a few strangled grunts pour out of him, followed by a dull, scratching sound reverberating from his side of the call. You hear him sigh loudly, chuckling as his voice comes back into earshot. 
“Dropped you.” He says with no indication of what has just transpired between the two of you. The casualness in his tone, as if you’ve both just spoken about the weather. 
You only laugh in response, squirming around in the bed, pulling yourself up to rest on the mountainous pillows.
“I am tired,” you whisper out, “still a little drunk.”
"Let me see you,” and before you can tell him ‘absolutely not,’ your phone vibrates with an incoming FaceTime from him.
You reluctantly answer, squinting briefly before adjusting to the light filtering in from behind his face.
“You look like shit,” he tells you and you laugh, nodding in agreement.
“When did you go to bed?” He asks and you glance at the time pinned in the corner of your phone.
“An hour ago?” You shrug, “if that.”
It’s obvious he is no longer paying attention to you, rather doing god knows what else on a different tab. You take the moment to glance at your reflection in the small window hovering beside his face. You’re missing an earring, your eyeliner has bled down onto your cheeks, and your hair is wild. You tuck the duvet further under your arms, making a mental note to search for the earring amongst the sea of sheets. 
And then he’s back, staring at you as you disassociate to the view out the french doors across from the bed. 
“There’s going to be a car there to pick you up at eight,” your phone vibrates with a text from him, “just sent you the details.”
You swipe down to see he has scheduled a meeting with you for later this afternoon.
“A meeting?” You groan, “The only meeting I want to have is with a pillow.”
He is up and moving now and you can tell by the new surroundings, he is in his bathroom. He has placed his phone down on the counter, crooked, and you watch as he grabs a tissue, wiping it across his lower stomach.
He shoves the cum filled tissue close to his phone.
“All for you, baby!” He maniacally laughs out. He takes his shirt off and tosses it haphazardly in the corner.
You grimace, turning the deepest shade of red. “You are disgusting.” You don’t mean it. In a sick way, you’re almost flattered. 
You inhale sharply, suddenly aware of what has transpired between the two of you. The gravity of the entire situation weighs heavily on you as you shift in bed.
“We can’t make this a thing.” You tell him, “there’s work to be done.”
“I know,” he assures you. He’s on the move again, only stilling when he plops down on his bed, “but the way I see it is either we fuck it out or we fight it out.”
‘And I don’t fight fair,” he continues, “and I know you don’t either.” He smiles at you knowingly.
“I will see you soon,” he says and you’re back on your home screen. You lock your phone with a groan and roll over. 
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fullbattleregalia · 2 months
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I’m- I’m dying. 🤣
You know how your iPhone will just randomly make you photo montages of your saved pictures? Usually the theme will be something like “pets” or “selfies” or “specific holiday.”
Well, I just opened the “For You” section of my album, and this was front and center.
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And, guys, how could I not watch this glorious creation?
Best Independence Day video ever. No idea what that music is supposed to be, but I have never been so happy that I take and save an unholy amount of screenshots.
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ominous-auburn-orbs · 9 months
Note
More sick Caine but this time within the circus?
I wanted to do this one for a while, but I wasn't quite sure how.
Heavily inspired by Caine VA's Twitter post about what Caine might be like if he got sick. I can't find it but if you know you know
Also warning for some very suggestive jokes.
The circus troop had just finished doing their theme song and were waiting on the stage for Caine to announce that day's adventure. He always gave them some time to socialise before they started it, finding it also gave them an opportunity to mentally prepare.
However, Kinger had noticed something off with the ringmaster. His voice during his introduction had sounded stuffy, and he could swear he had heard Caine unexplainably say something about a 50% off deal while he was talking to Bubble.
"Uh, Gangle?" She was trying to stay as far away as possible from Jax when Kinger approached her, startling her slightly. "Did you notice anything different about Caine? It's kinda hard for me to tell with this stuff. In case I'm just, y'know, making it up or something."
"W-well Kinger, you know Caine better than anyone, so you're probably right. Something does seem a bit weird with him today. Maybe you should ask him about it?"
While Gangle was concerned, she secretly hoped that whatever was going on would get them out of that day's adventure, or at least delay it. It was also a great opportunity for Kinger and Caine to spend more time together, which was something she always loved to see.
Just when Kinger was about to start searching for him, Caine flew up above the performers, his energy seeming a bit more forced and draining than usual.
"Hello, everyone! Are you all ready for today's- for... AHC[CLICK FOR NEW IPHONE]!" The other's jumped at the sudden yelling. They all couldn't help but compare it to a sneeze, if a very peculiar one at that.
"Huh. I guess Caine's got a cold today. Well, I'm going back to my room, tell me if he starts feeling better so I can try to make him worse again." Jax turned on his heel and walked towards the hall, followed by Ragatha and Pomni's glaring.
Turning back to Caine, Pomni cautiously inched closer to him. "Uh, are you okay, Caine? You don't sound well. And what do you mean about a 'new iPhone'?" The ringmaster looked at the floor, his gaze seeming unfocused before his head snapped up.
"Don't you fret, my dear, I- [YOU'RE OUR 1000TH CUSTOMER]" Caine made a loud string of glitching noises into his elbow, desperately trying to speak through it, "I-I'm doing just fine..."
The quiet groan that followed his words convinced Pomni and the performers otherwise. Pomni glanced back nervously, unsure if this was a regular occurrence. The confusion she found in her friends' eyes told her it wasn't.
Kinger at least now had confirmation that he was right. Something was wrong. "Caine, I really don't think you should host today."
"W-what?! Nonsense, nonsense!! The show- [CLICK HERE]- n-needs- [FOR 10 GRAND]- a host!" The troop had begun to back off while Kinger had gotten closer. While they all just wanted to have a calm day for once, Kinger was far more concerned with Caine's health and safety.
"Maybe you can just get Bubble to do it today." Out of the corner of his eye, Kinger saw the other performers frantically shaking their heads in response to the idea. "...or, rather, we just don't have an adventure today. Take a little break. You definitely sound like you need one."
"B-but-!" Before Caine could say his excuse, his eyes began quickly spinning around in his head, resulting in him having to close his mouth tightly to keep them inside. When they stopped moving, he slowly opened up again. "Alright. W-we'll just have a day off today."
The chess piece moved to put his hand around Caine's shoulder as he lowered further to the ground. While the others immediately went to their rooms, trusting Kinger to handle whatever was going on, Pomni lingered behind to check on the two.
"Are you, um, do you need any help, Kinger? I mean, I-I don't really know what to do, but if I can do anything..." Pomni trailed off, not really sure where she was going with this. She didn't want Caine to be 'sick', just as she didn't want anyone else in the circus to be unwell either. Well, maybe Jax, but that's more than reasonable.
"Oh, no, I've got it from here. You can go and relax, I can handle Caine." Pomni gave him a look of mild uncertainty just to be sure he was being honest. Kinger returned it with a reassuring smile. "It's my specialty! He'll be well again in no time."
The jester smiled, taking his word for it and heading towards her room. As she was leaving, Caine came back into reality again and frantically waved his hand, yelling, "Byyyeeee, Pomniii!!!"
The sudden burst of excitement sent him into another fit of high-pitched crackling noises. Kinger's hands moved to further support him. "Maybe just try and use an inside voice for once, dear."
"S-sorry. Thank you for helping me. I'm- [5 STEPS TO BECOME A BIG SHOT]- still not used to this happening." Caine leaned against Kinger, letting out a light sigh of relief at not having to put as much energy into keeping himself upright.
The chess piece began to walk him to the hall that held their rooms. "Do you know what's happening?"
Caine moved his feet to keep up with Kinger, although he went at a slower pace. "It's probably something wrong with my code. It doesn't seem too severe, so my built-in defences are currently working on fixing it. Buuuut it does take a bit. [TOP 30 ANIME DEATHS]!" The ringmaster looked somewhat embarrassed about his various short outbursts. "H-hopefully it doesn't take too long."
The next time his foot hit the floor, Caine's body suddenly spasmed before his head fell to the ground. His top row of teeth landed close to his bottom, but his eyes bounced and rolled further down the hall. Kinger startled, quickly moving to support Caine again and staring in disbelief at the pieces of his face now scattered across the floor.
"O-oh no- I'll get those back for you, honey!" He only moved forward slightly, not wanting to accidentally drop Caine, while one of his hands flew through the air to catch the ringmaster's eyes. When they finally lost momentum and stopped rolling, Kinger was able to pick them up and bring them back. Not knowing what to do, he placed them in the top of his robe, moving on to putting Caine's head back together.
Kinger started by trying to put Caine's bottom row of teeth back on top of his shoulders, but it was like working with very weak magnets. He eventually got it to stay floating, which allowed him to move to the top row. Caine talked to him throughout, which did make it a little harder, but Kinger could never complain about hearing his voice.
"I'm so very sorry about all of this, my dear. You should be enjoying this day off anyway, I can handle this." Placing Caine's eyes back into his head, Kinger moved his hands around him again to continue walking.
"Don't be ridiculous, I love spending time with you. Even if you weren't 'sick', this is exactly where I'd be." Kinger pressed his face to the top of Caine's gums. "Right next to you."
The ringmaster leaned into Kinger's chest as they walked, chuckling nervously. "O-oh. I hadn't realised. In that case, this is- [HOT AND THIRSTY TWINKS NEAR YOU]!"
Caine slapped a hand over his mouth, or rather his eyes and bottom teeth. He buried his face deep into Kinger's robe, attempting to hide his bright red face. The chess piece was startled, his own face heating up as well. He put his hand on Caine's back comfortingly and smiled at him.
Kinger's voice quietened somewhat. "I know, darling, believe me." Caine let out a quiet groan of embarrassment into the fluff of Kinger's robe, making him laugh. "Come on, I'll just take you to my room. Then you can rest while your system fixes itself."
Pulling his face away, Caine kept walking alongside Kinger. The pair eventually made it to the chess piece's room, with Kinger setting him down in his pillow fort. He sat down next to him, gently rubbing circles on his back. The ringmaster leant against his shoulder, sighing with content.
"Thank you for all of this, my love. I'm already starting to feel better, although I'm still not entirely fixed. Just be wary, in case I have one of those little outbursts again." Kinger returned his sweet smile as best as he could with his eyes. Unfortunately, the moment was interrupted by Caine suddenly yelling again. "[PLAY WITH ME AND YOU'LL BE CU-]"
Kinger quickly put his hands on either end of Caine's head and snapped his mouth shut, waiting for him to finish before letting him go. Both of them were blushing profusely, with Caine's eyes heavily avoiding the other's. Kinger grabbed one of Caine's hands and rubbed his thumb back and forth across it.
"It's fine, dear. I know you can only do so much to keep your programming in check. We can just stay here until it's fixed." Caine gave him a small nod and rested against him once more. The less he did, the easier it was for his code to solve the problem. The chess piece put a gentle hand around Caine's waist. "I don't really mind you saying things like that, anyway."
The ringmaster wrapped his arms around Kinger and held him close, clearly flustered despite trying to disguise it. "Shush. I thought I was meant to be resting."
Kinger chuckled, but agreed, their peace only disrupted by Caine's occasional glitches or advertisements. They eventually stopped, signifying Caine was well again, yet neither of them moved for a long time afterwards.
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