#meant to post these three days ago and completely forgot this was in my drafts

[septembersghost]

Elvis (2022), key art by Hus Design

[stayevildarling]

Hey! I am really enjoying reading all of the works you have been posting lately, you are such a great writer! I actually had a request if you happen to have the time? Maybe a fic with Delia, Mina, Billie, and reader where Delia uses magic on reader and accidentally hurts her in the process. Then maybe some angst between Mina and Delia because Mina is very overprotective and Billie tries to deescalate their argument? But also happy ending? 

Cordelia Goode x Wilhemina Venable x Billie Dean Howard x Reader- As the gods will

A/N: I completely forgot this in my drafts 😅 it's a bit of a short one but I didn't want to drag it on

word count: 3.3k

tw: mention of smoking, mention of blood (mild), angst, arguing, fluff at the end

taglist:

@lunaticwhittaker, @billiebeanhoward, @lanawinters-ily, @kenzbro, @minaslittleone, @httpfiftyshadesofgay, @whitelotus00, @ninaahs, @vintagepaulson, @isle-of-earle, @paulsonsratched, @stepintomyworld, @grilledcheeseandguavajelly, @lucyintheskywithxanax, @fanfics4world, @mymiraclewitch, @hazard-to-myself, @awritersometime, @ohrwurm26, @wastdstime

As Billie Dean returns home, she feels a buzz of excitement rush through her, finally at home after a long week of working, filming the last bits, mostly promotion for the upcoming season of her show. With the upcoming weekend, she had decided to treat her girlfriends to a little something, opting for a quick shopping spree after work, managing to pick just the right things for the three of you. And as the front door closes, she notices how oddly quiet it was, of course it being Friday meant most of the witches had left but she is surprised to find neither of you downstairs as she brushes past the kitchen and the living room.

,,What the hell have you done?'' Wilhemina's voice rings through the air, so loud that the medium could hear it from downstairs. Abandoning the shopping bags and kicking off her heels, she is quick to run up the stairs, with a sense of urgency, before finding a very unusually quiet and guilty Madison in front of Cordelia's office. ,,What is it?'' Billie asks nervously but quickly leaving the blonde behind, figuring she wasn't going to get any answers out of her.

What Billie Dean had missed was a very busy and uncomfortable Friday, some of the younger teenage witches testing Cordelia in a lot of ways, especially Madison on her nerves all day, teasing her and pushing her buttons. She had been that stressed and tense with her workload that she had even asked you to keep her company. Cordelia enjoyed nothing more than have you close but whenever things got a little hard and stressful she retreated to her office, dealing with it in silence, before calming herself down enough to join you three again and spend time with you. However, today she didn't feel like being alone and so she had asked if you minded sitting in her office as it was your day off and of course you didn't mind, happy to keep her company.

And despite there not being a whole lot you could do, other than regularly make her some tea, offer to make her some lunch a while ago or occasionally walking over and giving her shoulders some relief, as your hands gently massaged her, ridding her off the tension slowly. Nevertheless, your girlfriend appreciated it, appreciating to have her little sunshine close as you gave her the motivation to finish the few tasks she had left on her agenda for the day. A while ago you had made Cordelia and Wilhemina some lunch, taking it to Mina's office as she thanked you with a sweet gentle kiss, telling you she was almost finished for the day, before returning to the supreme's office, where she took a break with you, offering you to sit on her lap as she fed some of the lunch to you, her eyes sparkling with love and adoration, the tension almost gone.

When the door opened without knocking a while later, watching Madison enter so carelessly, you knew this would escalate things further. Cordelia and Madison had an odd connection, the younger witch often pushing the supremes buttons, but despite it all you could tell that your girlfriend cared about her wellbeing deeply and you also noticed how in times of trouble for the coven, Madison always stuck to Cordelia and the academy, despite only being loyal to herself usually. You swallowed hard, seeing how she walked inside with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, knowing Cordelia strictly forbid smoking inside after Fiona. And it surprised you when Cordelia didn't even look up from her laptop, simply continuing to type away and roll her eyes, quite aware who was interrupting the peace and quiet.

,,Alright I'm off to that party, so the four of you can have this place all to yourselves'' she muttered, almost nosily inspecting the supremes office, barely acknowledging your existence. ,,Give me a break Madison'' was all that Cordelia had said before waving her hand a little with the pure intention of making Madison shut up and leave her office. However, Madison knew better and so she quickly dodged the magic, and as the invisible force looked for the next life-form in the room, her magic had made you flying to the nearest wall behind you, causing for a loud thud to follow. And the thud was so loud that even Wilhemina had heard it, considering that same wall was connected to her office. And with furrowed eyebrows, she decided to investigate, wondering what the supreme and you were getting up to in there, her heels echoing through the academy ever so quietly.

And when she caught a glimpse of Madison, lingering by the door, a guilty expression on her face, she entered, watching as Cordelia typed away on her computer, thinking that all was well for a moment before noticing your frame on the floor and her eyebrows furrowed then before her voice rings through the air ,,What the hell have you done?''. Cordelia finally looks up, seeing Madison lingering by the doorway behind the redhead before her eyes travel to you in shock. She is quick on her feet, abandoning her work and kneeling beside you. ,,Oh my god'' Cordelia exclaims before taking your head into her hands as some blood pours from the back of your head, assuming that must have been from the impact. In panic and shock she meets Wilhemina's eyes, begging for her help and forgiveness at the same time.

,,Little one?'' Wilhemina tries gently but the pain is so severe that your eyes remain closed, despite aware of your surroundings and what had happened. With hands as quick as light, she hovers them over your head as you laid on the floor with your stomach, only your backside faced to them. And as Billie finally enters, watching the scene unfold in front of her, Cordelia already has the wound healed as the blood and any evidence of it completely vanishes. And finally you manage to open your eyes, composing yourself and trying to get up, still feeling a little shaky on the legs. However as you do, you notice a strange sensation, the inability to speak and looking at your girlfriends, you see the shock in their features. Cordelia's intention wasn't only to send Madison across the room but also to be quiet and so she had casted a spell which would assure just that.

However, as the magic travelled to you, Wilhemina and Billie watch in shock as their most precious thing is missing a very important feature, your mouth. ,,Cordelia what on earth?!'' Wilhemina's voice rings through the air again as crippling panic sets in on the supremes features as she begins pacing around the room after failing to rid you from the spell, her nerves playing up and causing her magic to get a little sloppy. Despite being the most powerful witch and supreme, this could happen, despite being rare. The blonde loved you three so much that the thought of seeing either of you hurt almost killed her, let alone when she was the reason for just that, despite that not in the slightest being her intention.

Unaware of what exactly is happening, panic equally kicks in as your eyes widen, pathetic sounds getting blocked in your throat as they had no way to leave you. As Billie walks closer, noticing your beginning panic, she tries to hold onto your hands, noticing how warm they are as your chest rises and falls quickly as you begin hyperventilating. ,,Cordelia fix this now'' Wilhemina demands, her voice raised, her overprotectiveness setting in as she couldn't stand to see you hurting. ,,I can't.. I've tried'' the supreme huffs as she continues pacing, trying to calm herself down in order to make this go away. Billie noticing the tension, leaves you for a moment, before walking over to Cordelia, placing her soft manicured hands on the supremes cheeks. ,,Calm down love'' she tries, ushering the supreme to follow her breathing. ,,That's it'' she praises before her eyes begin pleading with her.

,,What is this spell called darling?'' the medium tries gently, before Cordelia closes her eyes, slowly feeling calmer. ,,Perpetuum clausis'' she breathes out, still trying to focus to keep calm, not once looking at you as she couldn't stand the sight. ,,Okay honey, you can reverse it?'' Billie questions, very much hoping she could fix it considering she loved the things your pretty little mouth could do. ,,Yes'' Cordelia nods, closing her eyes before flicking her wrist. A painful mixture of an exhale, inhale and scream follows as it all returns to normal. Wilhemina moves even closer to you, taking your shaking hand into her own, her heart beating angrily against her chest. ,,Are you okay little one?'' she asks, ignoring the presence of the other two. Her main concern your wellbeing and safety right now. And all you can do is nod as your throat feels like it is on fire, your head still pounding in pain, still feeling as if you couldn't use your mouth for anything but breathing.

,,Sweetheart, I'm so so sorry'' Cordelia tries, finally walking over to you and trying to pull you into her arms. But she is stopped by Wilhemina who protectively hovers, placing herself in front of you and physically stopping the supreme. ,,Don't'' she hisses, her eyes and words filled with venom as Billie anxiously watches the scene unfold. ,,Don't touch her'' she carries on and you can't do or say anything as your body feels on fire. ,,Come on'' Wilhemina ushers, taking your hand and leading you out of the room, leaving behind a heartbroken and guilty Cordelia.

It doesn't take long before the tears stream from her beautiful features, Billie frowning seeing her girlfriend like this. ,,Sit down honey'' the medium tries, taking a seat on the sofa next to Cordelia and taking the supremes hands into her own. ,,What happened?'' the blonde asks confused, still not fully understanding what had happened and hoping the supreme would fill her in so she could fix this and help. It takes a while for Cordelia to find her composure again, but seeing Billie so compassionate, she eventually calms down. ,,I had no intention of hurting her'' she begins wanting to make sure that much is clear. ,,I know darling'' Billie coos as she tilts her head a little. ,,It was Madison..'' Cordelia sighs, remembering how the witch had tested her most of the day. ,,I wasn't even trying to use my magic on Madison, I just wanted her to shut up and leave us alone'' she explains trying to recall the events.

,,I guess when I tried to dismiss her with my hand it must have triggered my magic'' she carries on, the words now flowing freely without holding back. ,,And I'm assuming Madison dodged it and it hit..it..'' but she doesn't get to finish as tears return and Billie is quick to wipe them, understanding now what unfolded. ,,Come here'' the medium ushers and Cordelia hesitates, feeling stupid for being coddled after causing you pain, thinking about how you deserved this more as of right now and how she wanted to do nothing more than hold you like this. But she gives in as Billie pulls her forward and into her arms.

Meanwhile, Wilhemina had taken you to her office, ushering you to sit, the door banging shut in the process, as she takes in your features. You seem utterly calm given the circumstances but the redhead worried with how quiet you had been. ,,Are you okay?'' she asks, while walking away for a moment to fetch you some water. All you can do is nod, unable to talk as it still feels like the word are caught in your throat. But obviously she couldn't see your nodding and as she returns she simply looks at you, her eyebrows furrowing before asking again ,,Little one, are you okay?'' her voice now a little firmer as she hands you the water, worry washing over her. And when you nod again, she scans you a little further, and by the way she stares at the water you can tell she wants you to drink some and so pathetically you try with shaky hands but it all comes straight back up as you choke on it, your throat burning.

Wilhemina watches in shock and a sense of horror, not remotely understanding what was going on and how Cordelia's magic may have caused some serious harm and damage. ,,Can you talk?'' she tries again, trying to search your eyes. And all you can do is shake your head, scanning the room before standing up, finding a piece of paper and a pen on her desk. You look at her for permission and she nods before you write down ,,It hurts''. And as her eyes read over the words, she sighs heavily. ,,Okay little one, how about we get you some rest?'' she offers and you simply nod as she offers to take you to bed but you shake your head, your eyes wandering to her armchair and if you could speak, you would have told her how you didn't want to be alone, how you wanted to stay with her as everything was scary right now and the only safe thing was her. She nods despite not understanding and watches as you curl up in a ball on her purple armchair. All she can do is watch in sorrow before walking over, placing a blanket gently over your shaking body and when your eyes close, she opts to sit by her desk, near enough to be able to see you and keep an eye on you.

As the redhead silently sits and watches, her thoughts go back to what had happened, knowing deep down that Cordelia would and could never cause you any harm intentionally. She judges the way the supreme must have miscalculated her steps, Wilhemina perceptive and smart enough to figure out that it was aimed at Madison, that witch clever enough to dodge it. And a small part of her knows that it was probably due to how agitated Cordelia was today and how Madison must have provoked her and how the supreme probably didn't even want to use magic but it probably came natural, as she knows Cordelia wouldn't use that sort of magic, especially not when you are nearby. But she can't help and feel anger nevertheless, seeing you still shaking on her chair, only a small part of her able to understand how painful this must be. The redhead would die in a heartbeat if it meant protecting either of you three but there was always something about you, maybe the fact that you are younger than her and maybe she wanted to protect you from it all, often unsure whether being around the witches especially the younger witches was smart as they certainly got up to things that Wilhemina wouldn't approve of.

And while fighting her internal battle, a part of her wanting to forgive Cordelia and simply take care of you, the door knocks as Billie had suggested checking on you both and Cordelia hesitantly agreeing, knowing that there was going to be a raging storm as soon as Wilhemina's eyes would meet hers. But she needed to check on you, to see that you are okay, that this didn't traumatise you, that this didn't make you scared of her. Wilhemina simply watches as the door opens, Billie's head poking around it, frowning as she sees you curled up so comfortably. She enters after Wilhemina nods, giving her permission to do so but her eyes draw away from the door as soon as she sees her other blonde girlfriend walk in, her features filled with guilt and regret and cheeks stained with previous tears shed. ,,Is she okay?'' Billie asks a little nervously, kneeling in front of you.

,,No'' is all Wilhemina can say as she holds the note to the medium, who hastily takes it, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion as she looks at the supreme, who simply stands frozen a few steps away from them. ,,She can't speak still?'' Billie Dean asks and Wilhemina simply nods avoiding Cordelia's pleading eyes. ,,Cordelia, is that normal?'' the medium asks anxiously, placing her hand on your cheek and stroking it gently. The supreme doesn't hesitate before speaking ,,Unfortunately yes, it may take a while for the pain to go''. The admission is so painful that it brings tears to her eyes again, unable to believe she had caused you pain. Billie is quick to get lost in her own world a little, all she can sense as of right now, you and her as she gets lost looking at her adorable babydoll, watching over you protectively, making sure your breathing is normal.

Meanwhile, Cordelia kneels in front of Wilhemina, trying to get her to actually look at her but the redhead is having a hard time. ,,Mina darling, please let me explain'' she practically begs but the redhead is having a hard time as her stubbornness had reached it's peak point, her walls built up high, threatening to lose herself in a battle of protectiveness over you. ,,I didn't mean to hurt her Mina'' Cordelia tries again, her voice gentle as her hands rest on Wilhemina's knees, trying to ground them both. ,,Don't you think I know that?'' the redhead suddenly hisses as her emotions get ahold of her and something within her snaps. ,,How could you have been so careless around her, you should know better'' Wilhemina carries on, her statement causing for a sharp pain to burden Cordelia's heart.

,,I know, I know'' the supreme admits, tears welling up in her eyes, before she takes a deep breath. ,,I wasn't trying to use my magic, on either of them, I wouldn't have done that to Madison either, despite her having it coming'' she explains, more to herself than the redhead as she had given up hope of her girlfriend forgiving her anytime soon for this. But then something within Wilhemina softens up, maybe the confirmation that Cordelia's magic just took over, maybe the genuine forgiveness in her voice or maybe just the love Wilhemina has for this woman and you two. The thought crosses her mind how if the redhead was a witch, she would send people flying across rooms all the time, whether that being intentional or not. And so, Cordelia suddenly feels a gentle squeeze on her hand that still rests on her girlfriends knee. And as she looks up, she sees forgiveness in the redheads eyes through her teary vision and it causes her to choke on a sob. ,,I'm so sorry'' she repeats, the crashing weight of guilt slowly dropping from her shoulders.

,,De...Delia'' a very quiet broken whisper fills the room and three heads instantly snap in your direction as you had woken from the broken nap. ,,Sweetie'' Cordelia coos, instantly on her feet and walking over to you. Sleep had certainly helped as the pain from your head was mostly gone, your throat feeling less on fire and the ability to talk finally returning. ,,Are you okay? what hurts sweetie?'' the blonde asks, her voice tinged with concern and worry over you. ,,I'm okay Delia, promise'' you assure, some words still coming out broken but much better than before. ,,I'm so sorry sweetheart'' she cries now, but you are quick to sit up a little and wipe her tears.

Billie's eyes travel towards Wilhemina as they watch the scene unfold, both feeling relieved and a little at ease to have you talking again. And slowly the tension fades with each passing minute, the academy silent as you manage to shush Delia's quiet sobs and wipe her tears. ,,Well I'm certainly glad we fixed that, considering what that pretty mouth of yours can do honey'' Billie jokes, causing the four of you to giggle, even Wilhemina's low chuckle ringing through the air.

[skorchinq]

Bows Only: So, I Finally Did The Ascension Quest...

[IDs in alt text]

Hey, so, I wrote this post three weeks ago, saved it to my drafts, and then forgot to post it until now. Whoops...

So, uh. Here’s the post. That should’ve been posted three weeks ago. TTwTT

To start off, we’ve got some more Tartaglia pulls...

Another Stringless, huh? Technically even an R1 stringless is better than an R5 Raven Bow, so the logical thing to do here would be to build this as an upgrade for Fischl. But... hmmm... refinements for our current Stringless... mmmm...

I haven’t done it yet but it is certainly tempting. right now I’m just leaving the Stringless at lv. 1 and I’ll decide later whether to use it for refinement or not.

Still no sign of Childe, so we need to get some primos. And what better way than to do some story quests? It’s not like I’m still in the middle of the Inazuma Archon quest and have made barely any progress since 2.8. Hahaha. No way.

We still hadn’t gotten around to Xingqiu’s story quest, and all you do in the character trial bits is fight enemies, no element-based puzzles, so our lack of a hydro bow character was no issue.

And then, what do you know, we actually reached BP 50 in v. 3.2!

This is the first time I’ve reached BP level 50 on this account, so I’m very pleased.

And then, after days of grinding primos from daily commissions, events, and even briefly venturing back into the Spiral Abyss, the last day before Tartaglia’s banner ended:

He finally came home, at 75 pity!

We tried to get him up to speed, fighting the oceanid for his ascension and hunting down some Agents to level up Rust (a weapon which is not only good for him gameplay-wise but also really matches his design aesthetically, btw), but the most challenging thing was probably the starconch hunt... And to think Yelan uses starconches, too...

Then, server maintenance started, and the 3.3 update dropped. I made a couple of wishes in hopes of getting Faruzan, or at least perhaps some Gorou constellations, but...

Bruh...

I went to the crafting bench, because I had things to craft, and accidentally started a quest I meant to do on my main account first:

At first I was confused, but then I realized: of course, Genius Invocation TCG! That’s what this is about!

And this is just the plot of Yu-gi-oh isn’t it. Gosh

Anyway. I got both Gorou and Tartaglia A4, so it was finally time to do the ascension quest! Boy, I sure hope I don’t jump straight up to AR 50 and have to do another ascension quest!

Our boy Childe even lead the charge! And I only very briefly wished I had brought Amber instead after realizing that dendro and cryo can’t destroy the revival prism in a single charged shot like pyro can...

(except that I’m looking at the wiki right now and it says all three of those elements should take the same amount? maybe it has something to do with the level of the hypostasis then, or the individual characters applying more or less of their respective element in a charged shot than another... idk... look the point is every other time I’ve fought this thing both in ascension quest and open world Amber could take out a revival prism in a single shot and neither Diona nor Collei were able to do that this time around)

Regardless, I beat the thing easily enough and completed the domain.

And while it wasn’t quite enough to go straight to 50, it was near enough...

Oh, and DavidBowie is C6 now! How useful!

Either way, it’s time to start working on ascending and leveling up our character more (especially because people I match with in artifact domains keep thinking I’m trolling when I try to bring my lvl 60 Amber and kick me...)

Starting, of course, with the OG, our favorite Outrider Amber!

And now for the rest of them... not to mention everyone’s weapons and talents and artifacts and... ugh...

[bronanlynch]

weekly (monthly?) media roundup

ok so I do want to actually do these on some sort of schedule but unfortunately, as you already know, brains,

listening: Malice in Wonderland by Fangbanger, which I found from a tumblr post that described them as band for “if you have a complicated relationship with gender, had a falling out with god, hate the government, or just think that vampires are neat" and y’know? yeah. my notes on this song from several weeks ago are that I might not know any of these people’s genders but I do know they’ve listened to MCR

reading: the new Cassandra Clare book, Chain of Iron. it’s boring and homophobic. in the first book of this series, we find out that the heroine’s brother is gay and in a relationship with a man who has no intention of ever coming out publicly because 1) the book is set in 1903 in England, it was literally illegal and 2) he’s trying to have a career in politics. the heroine decides that this means he’s ashamed of her brother and doesn’t deserve him, and she is present and active in their breakup conversation.

above is the relationship chart I made from the first book, it really hasn’t changed much except now the main guy and the main girl are married, the lesbians got back together and then broke up again, the main girl’s gay brother hooked up with one of her husband’s friend, who’s a Good Gay and therefore worthy of love unlike the Bad Gay ex who is constantly mocked by just about every character for. checks notes. caring about appearances and manners given that his life and career are based on those things. the brother and his new love interest break up because the brother still thinks he’s a bad person for ever having dated his ex. also the main girl has now platonically run off to Paris with her husband’s platonic soulmate who is allegedly in love with her but it’s really unconvincing that he’s not actually in love with her husband (he’s not for very stupid lore reasons, the whole ‘parabatai are magically prevented from being romantically in love, except for these two straight people, when historically parabatai pairs were two men’ makes my fucking blood boil)

you might ask why I still read these books even though they make me angry and the answer is the 1) the aesthetic slaps 2) some of the characters are fun 3) the premise has enough potential that it could be good if it was good 4) sometimes I need to get cathartically angry abt bad fiction bc it just. does not matter

watching: so many things that I’m gonna just. run through them real quick

Word of Honor: gestures vaguely at how it’s slowly taking over my blog

Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty: love a found family, eh about the politics, can’t believe I predictably got a new fave character within the last two episodes of the show because one of the main characters is betrayed by his second-in-command and I think treason is the sexiest part of a relationship

SamBucky show: in the original draft of this post I said that it was so boring that week (episode 3) that I completely forgot about it until I saw the draft below this one talking about how bad and boring it is. at least more happened in later episodes and they’re finally giving me some tasty queerbaiting but the premise and the politics are. wow. it sure is military propaganda

My Hero Academia: new season is fun, love a tournament arc. don’t love that they tell us right away that the double agent character is a double agent, it was more fun in the manga when you’re not sure if he’s a traitor or not for a pretty long time

Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun: new season is cute, there sure is some gender happening. there’s a tsundere bisexual catgirl

Backflip!!: I usually avoid high school sports anime for backstory reasons but my roommate wanted to watch it with me and oh boy these gymnasts sure are gay for each other huh

Joran: The Princess of Snow and Blood: my roommate pitched this to me as ‘cyberpunk but in the 1930s’ and there sure is dark lighting, lots of glowy neon stuff, and government oppression, which are the most important elements of cyberpunk apparently. not sure how I feel about it yet, because there’s a cool shapeshifting lady assassin with a revenge quest but there’s also a trans character who was revealed to be trans in a way that I personally did not enjoy. yes you can have transphobic villains but like. hmm. maybe the audience shouldn’t find out that someone is trans because the villain cuts his shirt away specifically to ~put him in his place. or maybe I personally am just sensitive to that but either way no thank you

on the other hand, the main character is sick as shit

The World Ends with You: god I love an anime about the power of friendship. I’ve only had these kids for two episodes and I would lay down my life for them

Nirvana in Fire: we’re only three episodes in and I did spend the first half of the first ep being like. oh god which of these people are actually important who am I supposed to care about here. and then by the end of the first ep I knew which ones I cared about and am now very afraid for their safety. do love the political intrigue though

playing: got through the first mission of Brigmore Witches. I love a good undercover mission, I wish I hadn’t been too afraid of like. alarms going off if I freed the other prisoners because I think Comrade Daud should do a jailbreak, and Lizzy Stride can call me anytime

also recently have played various ttrpgs including Firebrands, more Things, Eldritch and Terrifying, Link, and of course more Beam Saber (oh shit I meant to do my recap post for last session OOPS)

making: Zan and I made some real good chicken parm the other night, vaguely based on this recipe. by which I mean, we looked at the recipe to see how many eggs to use and how long to cook it and pretty much nothing else. the egg marinade step seemed unnecessary and I made the sauce the way I always make tomato sauce, which some day I should write down because it does in fact fuck. the secret is a shit-ton of oregano and basil and no chunks of tomato because fuck that. bad texture

Zan made the zucchini which also slapped, using some of the leftover bread crumbs

writing: I’ve posted a couple of things but most recently I wrote some rarepair femslash. this is the first fic for this ship on ao3 and the second ship in the f/f tag for this fandom that’s actually about the women in the show (as opposed to showing up in the f/f tag because it’s marked as “multi” or like. genderbent versions of the main m/m ship) but like. look at them. they’re terrible evil assassin women and they’re in love. anyway I’ve gotten over being embarrassed about having written a sex scene and moved on to wanting people to read my fic. there’s sparring as foreplay it’s a good time

[onceuponaloonatic]

i was bored so i went though my old drafts from 1-2 years ago that i literally forgot existed and i thought i would post the highlights 🤷‍♀️ if you want to read any of them dm me !! but none of them have endings so you will be v e r y dissatisfied... there was a point that anytime i had an idea i would go write a 2,000-4,000 word draft and then forget about it lol so that’s where a lot of these come from i just figured i would share to see if any of them interested you guys 🤷‍♀️

one time i wrote a 3mix draft where all the other members were their adopted kids

i found this one jeongmo fic (i did not know i had ever even written for them?? but apparently i did) where jeongyeon and momo are married with kids and one night momo gets in an accident and is in a coma

there’s this one michaeng fic i found (i also did not know i had ever written for them lol) where mina is a single mom to sana, whom she adopted on a complete whim. both of them have a lot of mental issues they are working through but they have each other. chaeyoung is sana’s teacher and her and mina kind of hit it off 👀👀

i think i may pick this one back up or recycle the idea for a different ship (i do this a lot lol) so basically it’s a mimo fic where momo is mina’s second wife, her first one being jihyo. mina and jihyo had a divorce a while before the fic stayed, but they had two kids before they got divorced. the kids absolutely hate momo and the mimo child that’s born not long after their marriage. mina can’t see them as anything but her little angels but when she’s not there they do not like momo or her daughter...

this is a super short thing but it was a 3mix thing where they are their own group and they are a bit older and they adopted a kid late into their idols carrers and they basically just take her everywhere

i found this one 2na fic where sana is a struggling student (now you guys can see where struggling student sana was born... with this draft from 2018 that never got finished or published) and one day she finds a lost child, and when she tries to bring her to her mom she ends up running into the richest woman in asia, myoui mina, who just happens to have an open position for her screatary

this one was super unfinished but it was a saidahmo fic where they finally get approved to adopt a child and when they go to the foster home to meet with some of the kids they find two girls who absolutely refuse to be separated and who are clearly treated terribly, having stuffed lots of ab*se in their past, even though they only meant to adopt one kid they end up getting both of them

the origin of the 2na queens au is a satzu fic i wrote in 2018, though they are kinda different (read very different) but a lot of the original framework was created in that draft 🤷‍♀️

this one is s u p e r d a r k but it’s about nayeon being samo’s older sister in their broken household, also she’s dating jeongyeon and jihyo, i can’t get into much else without putting a trigger warning oops 🤷‍♀️

okay i barely remember where this one was going so... anyway the beginning of the draft is samo running away to a different country because sana accidentally got pregnant with her girlfriend tzuyu because tzuyu wants her to get an abortion and sana can’t agree to it 👀👀 i think it was a samo fic?? maybe??

this one is a bit embarrassing so um you know what dm me and maybe i’ll tell you the plot, basically i can’t believe i ever wrote on of these fics they are so cheesy and unrealistic 😳

when i was trying to learn how to write nsfw fics i basically made a draft with just tons of different saida abo nsfw stuff

i opened one locked document (all of my drafts are locked on pages lol) and it was literally blank...

i found one about sana and her daughter being ab*sed by her ex husband but it really wasn’t very long (literally like three pages in 20 point font) the writing was just really pretty

i found something that’s basically the same plot that’s a lot longer and the document is called sachaeng so i believe that’s the ship, but i didn’t have time to read through the whole thing just the beginning, but if i remember correctly chaeyoung is a young lawyer who takes sana’s case of finally getting her ex out of her life people bono because she wants to prove herself to the rest of her firm, i like this one a lot 👀👀

(i love this one, but tw for miscarriage) so samo have been together forever and are super happy, however they can’t get over the loss of their baby, an event that took place years before the fic starts. their friends all have kids and are happy but they can’t bring themselves to do it again and they’ve just never been able to have time for adoption, but one day momo finds a little girl watching her dance class through the back window and everything changes

this one has a super cool concept i just never really got into it much, basically misamo are triplets and jeongyeon is their mama (a random oc is their mom). they were a happy family until one day jeongyeon got into a car accident with the kids in the backseat. mina and momo are okay, but sana is in a coma. their parents had been going through some trouble before but jeongyeon’s depression after the accident was the final straw, the ex wife gets full custody of mina and momo in the divorce, leaving jeongyeon with sana (who’s still in a coma) mina and momo hate living with their mom and just want to go back to their mama and sister meanwhile jeongyeon is beyond depressed because she basically lost all her children...

i wrote a fic where tzuyu is a newly divorced woman and she has namo as her kids. she never really spent much time with the kids before the divorce and she just moved from japan to south korea, and they go through a lot of growing pains and adjustments

this one is really adorable 🥺 the only reason it never got posted was because i felt like you guys were tired of me using this kind of idea over and over so... anyway it’s a samoyeon fic that basically follows them through the birth of each of their three kids and how their lives change 🥺

um yeah that’s basically it, thanks for reading this far !!

[devourer--of--books]

Remember that one time I wrote a Tangled AU?

Context

During 2016, I submitted a few stories for Tagatha Ship Week. Not my best work, but some of my most known works nonetheless. Amongst those, I had a Tangled AU that was originally meant to be a one shot (which has been deleted because sweet lord that was bad), then turned into a draft for a multichapter story and then turned into this cursed WIP I completely forgot about, which you can find on both Ao3 and FF.net  under the name of ‘blinking in the starlight’.

Every once in a while someone comes across it, as it was the case with ‘if you’re not the bride’ and it would remind me of its existence. But unlike IYNTB, I have no interest in rewriting it or continuing this story. 

A few weeks ago I found the original draft for ‘blinking in the starlight’ in my dad’s old computer, so I thought I might do a post no one asked for (some people did, you guys are great, humoring me like that) on what the plot was supposed to be.

But after sitting with it I wasn’t fully satisfied (as usual, fml). So, like the clown that I am, I decided that since we are already here, might as well make it into an actual AU post, mind my language, I’m frustrated.

Blinking In The Starlight: Tangled AU

Okay, so I’m gonna presume that you read the WIP, so if you didn’t, maybe check that out first and then come back to this post. Or don’t, it’s not like it’s a very complex narrative anyway.

Many, many years before this story starts, there was a cruel sorcerer named Rafal.

He tormented the Endless Woods for centuries, extorting kingdoms and stuff, you know, very much a two-dimensional character whose motivations I definitely did not think through. Being evil I guess?

No one could defeat him, because he always somehow ended up knowing the traps were coming and was two steps ahead. No one knew how, so they just like, presumed it was because he was psychic or something.

Until one day, a young vain prince named Arthur of Camelot decides to order a hunt to the big blue falcons, to get their feathers as a present to the girl he was courting, one Lady Guinevere.

Would you believe those birds were Rafal’s spies? Now that everyone was hunting them, they could no longer listen in as easily.

So when Prince Arthur campaigns against Rafal’s evilness and challenges him to a duel in which he tricks the sorcerer and defeats him, stripping him of most his powers (and therefore his immortality), everyone was shook 

Don’t ask me how he did it, I honestly do not know

But instead of killing Rafal, Arthur agrees to spare his mortal life as long as he gives him a powerful love potion for Guinevere and never shows his face around Camelot ever again.

Rafal is pissed, but says sure why not, because he knew  Arthur would be crushed once the potion effects wore off and Guinevere left him anyway

So yeah, they became King and Queen, everyone thinks Rafal is dead, Camelot became known as the guardian kingdom of the Endless Woods alliance, yada yada.

Meanwhile, Rafal, now mortal and still pissed af, looks for a way to get his immortality back, because he is now old and tired all the time.He goes to one of his oldest allies and they tell him a rumor about a woman named Vanessa who found a way to stay young forever using a bird.

It takes a few years for him to track her down, but when he does, he tries to convince her to show him the bird. Vanessa is like that sounds like a you problem, so he threatens her and she tells him she ate it to save her life during her pregnancy (do not ask me how this works, why she couldn’t have healed herself like usual, I don’t know okay)

Rafal is pissed again, because Vanessa was still looking young, so either she lied or she was omitting something and decides you know what, screw you and murders everyone, trying to find the damned bird.

But then he hears soft singing from the closet. A little girl named Sophie, who apparently had inherited the bird’s ability to restore youth. 

First, he thinks of raising her as his daughter. But then, one day she’d try to leave him for a boy, so he decides to trick her into thinking he was that boy, so she’d never want to leave him.

He sells her this bullshit story about everything being a fairytale like the ones her books, makes himself look like a teenager and tells her he is now going to take care of her because they are true loves and whatnot

Using the money from his previous evilness (why am I like this), he builds a tower and gaslights the hell out of her telling her is was to keep the danger outside, when actually he was caging her in. Her guards are all mercenaries and her maids are kidnaped slaves so, hm, that’s nice

He keeps visiting her to restore his youth, but he needs the macguffin Arthur used to take away his immortality (I didn’t specify what it was in my draft, so let’s say its Excalibur, for the sake of storytelling) to restore his full greatness, so he starts a long-long-plan to overthrow Camelot once he gets him hands on the sword.

However, Sophie is a person of her own, even being manipulated and gaslighted. She wants to go outside and see the world. Obviously Rafal won’t let her, and even gives her a ring to summon him and stuff, so she won’t think about going anywhere out of his sight.

But she ends up doing it anyway because she’s Sophie

Now hold on a minute.

Back in Camelot, Arthur has already died, Guinevere ran off with Lancelot and Tedros is a brat, walking around with Excalibur (not knowing how powerful it actually is) playing glorified police officer for the royal guard as a way to prove he’ll be a good king someday.

Festival season is approaching and prince Teddy is on a man-hunt (woman-hunt?) for the thief that has been ambushing noble carriages.

They have some good banter, but the thief always manages to distract him and get away.

Guess who is the thief

It’s Agatha, leave me alone, I was 15 and loved cliches, shut up

Yes, I know I’m now almost 19 and still love cliches, moving on

Agatha is stealing money from the rich like a robin hood pro, because festival season is expensive and poor people need to eat okay

But prince-holier-than-thou keeps showing up so she decides to be petty and steal directly from him. Girl just wanted some gold, but ends up with Excalibur because Tedros is an idiot

So he chases her through the woods for days on end, hot on her trail, and Aric gets caught on the crossfire between them. Agatha presumes from his uniform that there is a castle near and decides to hide there.

Tagatha ends up in Sophie’s tower, and she hides Excalibur to bargain with them.

She strikes a deal with Tedros to show her the festival in exchange for Excalibur. 

Agatha is just f this shit im out, she didn’t want the sword in the first place and last thing she needs is going to Camelot with a pseudo-police-officer.

But then Tedros realizes he doesn't know how to go back to Camelot and Sophie makes him promise not to turn Agatha in. Agatha is still skeptical, so he promises to lift taxes for the lower classes and she agrees to be their unofficial guide back to Camelot.

Princes can't break promises, don’t ask

The three of them escape the tower. 

Shenanigans ensue.

There’s a scene of Agatha helping people in a tavern and Tedros is like???? she nice????

Sophie finding out that the old wizard from her story was the guy King Arthur supposedly killed and doubting Rafal’s lies.

There’s Tedros explaining his need to be just and abide by the laws all the time due to the pressure of his father’s rep after the three of them nearly die of hypothermia (?)

Sophie telling them about her talent.

Very wholesome really.

Meanwhile tho, Aric finally manages to alert Rafal that Sophie left, and Rafal summons his birds to look for her, figuring out that she had Excalibur (how? Idk)

When the trio reaches Camelot, it’s still a few days before the festival. Agatha says she is done and needs to be on her way, but Tedros (softly, may I add) asks her to stay, at least until the lantern scene/day/tradition/thingy

Their unspoken feelings are all over the place and Sophie decides to play matchmaker.

They stay in an inn (why did Tedros not sneak them into the castle, you ask? I don’t know, don’t ask) and Sophie makes the guy tell them there is only two rooms. She then makes up some balloney about wanting to be by herself, so Agatha and Tedros share a room.

Yeah, you know what I’m doing, don’t you: there’s only one bed.

Some other tropes for a very fluffy chapter equivalent of the score of Kingdom Dance, which is my favorite song in the Tangled Soundtrack, fight me, is such a good ‘falling in love montage’ song

But the fluff doesn’t last long, because the very night of the festival, just as you can almost hear Tagatha singing ‘and at last I see the light’, Rafal’s birds find Sophie and take off her ring by force.

Rafal crashes the festival, stealing Excalibur from Sophie and unleashing his coupe against Camelot, back to being immortal and super over-powered.

He throws Sophie back in her tower, and when she doesn't comply and asks him to stop we have a ‘I never loved you’ ‘you were always just a bird to me, a dumb bird’ moment and Sophie is just destroyed because aside from her new friends (whom she believed were dead) Rafal is all she has.

Back in Camelot, complete mayhem is being wrecked, bloodshed and stuff. Agatha manages to rescue Tedros before his execution and they figure out that they need to rescue Sophie and get Excalibur to kill Rafal for good.

“Insert part one of TLEA here”, bitch, I kid you not, that’s exactly what I wrote wtf even is this draft

Somehow it all leads into this big confrontation, in which Sophie strips Rafal of his immortality using the sword but can’t bring herself to kill him. So she asks Tedros to do it, so he can prove himself to his kingdom.

I do not know where Agatha is during this, but I’m pretty sure she’s like, fatally wounded or something

Rafal reveals to Tedros why Arthur spared his life the first time and offers him a potion to make Agatha return his (already mutual, you idiot) feelings. 

Tedros is like, nah, I’m gonna kill you, and Rafal is like are you sure she won’t just ride off and leave you like your mama?

And Tedros is just, honestly, man, I’m not, but I’m not gonna force her. Then some analogy about caging birds and Rafal is dead.

Yey, happy ending.

So Tedros and Agatha are left in this limbo, because she poor and she a criminal and he a prince. 

Tedros decides to have Agatha take the glory of killing Rafal to redeem her in the public eye, grants her a title, she makes Sophie her lady-in-waiting and they all live happily ever after the end.

[phoenixrisesoncemore]

I was tagged by @wangxianbunnydoodles (oh my, this is long and you might regret it; also I don’t follow instructions well 😉). I tend not to be very good at these things (sorry to anyone else who has tagged me in these kinds of things before—this is a rare event happening mostly because I wanna talk about Tolkien books and ships) but here goes:

Top 3 Ships

I don’t actively ship characters that often. I’m not sure why that is. I do enjoy reading fic with pairings either canon or not, but I don’t often go “all in” on ships in most narratives I consume. There are notable exceptions (more than three but these are the three most recent—I have no idea how to identify my top ships):

WangXian (CQL). This is surely obvious from the current state of my blog, right? I blame The Untamed and its impossibly tender, only-subtextual-by-a-hair’s-breadth romance. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show express ultimate devotion, deep affection, true appreciation, complete understanding (eventually), and the sheer *necessity of the other* between two people quite like this one has. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever seen two characters and desperately wanted them together and happy as much as I have these two, so bravo to the cast and crew for generating such second-hand devotion in me.

Silvergifting (Tolkien). This is all @thearrogantemu’s fault. I’d read some Silvergifting before I read These Gifts That You Have Given Me, mostly out of curiosity (some good stuff, too!), but I had never read any Tolkien fic that convinced me it was *true* (on many, many levels, though the ship level is the one pertinent to this post). In any canon-like universe this ship hurts, but in the Gifts universe it hurts the most; it hurts like Hell. It hurts in the way only razor-sharp, sorry-the-universe-works-this-way, oh-are-those-my-entrails-on-the-floor-I-didn’t-even-feel-the-knife tragedy can hurt. And it’s so convincing that it’s just...a fact now. Tolkien just forgot to tell us. So now I ship Silvergifting, but most deeply, specifically THAT Silvergifting. (Meanwhile, 14 year old me continues to look at *significantly* older me like I’m insane.)

ZeLink (Legend of Zelda). Deep down I’m still 12 years old and no amount of fine lines and wrinkles is going to change that. When is Breath of the Wild 2 coming out?

Last Song

I listen to soundtracks and bombastic and dramatic orchestral pieces much more often than I listen to what people mean when they say “songs,” and a significant chunk of the “songs” I listen to are from musicals/operas.

Earlier today it was Hanz Zimmer’s soundtrack to Dark Phoenix (don’t start me up on the continuing disappointment that Phoenix adaptations continue to be to me—you don’t want to hear it; even I don’t want to hear it).

Before that it was Barbra Streisand’s The Broadway Album. (I prefer her outer space cover of “Somewhere” to the actual thing. Fight me.)

Before that it was Carmina Burana (One of my favorite things ever was when we went to a live performance of Carmina Burana and a boy who couldn’t have been more than 7 years old sat in the aisle in front of us and head-banged enthusiastically through “O Fortuna.” It was so metal. You go, kid. You get it.).

Before that it was a splattering of Billy Joel hits with emphasis on “2000 Years”, “River of Dreams”, “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”, “The Stranger”, and “Only the Good Die Young” (thanks to that outstanding WangXian interpretation!).

Of course the soundtracks to The Untamed/CQL have been on repeat for weeks around here, particularly every single iteration of “WuJi” and the flute-heavy instrumental pieces (man, those are good!).

Not long ago I had Sarah Brightman’s covers of “Figlio Perduto” from La Luna and “Glosoli” and “One Day Like This” from Dreamchaser burning through my iPhone battery (yes, I like popera).

Enya, and especially Shepherd Moons and The Track Which Shall Not Be Named has been on repeat a lot.

Last Movie

I don’t sit down to watch movies that often any more. It just takes too much stillness and undivided attention and more resistance to multi-tasking than I have. The actual last movie that I watched (in a “have it on on another screen while I work” kind of way) was Raiders of the Lost Ark, which, of course, I’ve seen umpteen times and which followed a similar rewatch of the Back to the Future trilogy. The last movie I watched completely without distraction was Book Smart; I don’t watch comedies very often, but I really enjoyed it in an “OMG, I can totally relate to this” kind of way (except for the class president thing—that would have required that I interact with other people my own age and also not be homeschooled). Before that I think it was the Tolkien biopic. Man, I still haven’t written anything about that.

Currently Reading (in order of when I started them)

Oh dear.

The Familiar: part 1, Mark Z Danielewski. *sigh* For as much as I think Danielewski is brilliant and House of Leaves is one of my favorite books ever, I’ve just not been able to get into much of his other work. It’s universally a time and energy investment to penetrate and puzzle through, and I just don’t have as much of that as I used to. House of Leaves makes that investment worth it from early on and is absolutely a page-turner once you settle in, but other than The Fifty Year Sword I’ve just not been able to get into the rest of his work. The Familiar: part 1 is supposed to be the first in a 26 part series which is currently halted at part 4, I think. Without a guarantee of all parts ever being published, I don’t think I’m ready to invest more time into part 1 and may end up abandoning it, unfortunately.

History of The Hobbit, Douglas Anderson. Anderson did what Christopher didn’t and gave The Hobbit the HoMe treatment (if a bit less literal and opaque in format). It’s fascinating (I mean, there’s the Beren and Luthien name drop you were not expecting right there in the first draft), but reading essentially the same passages with only small changes over and over can be a slog, so reading it has been an ongoing project for over a year now.

Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World, Verlyn Fleiger. This is Fleiger’s look at Tolkien’s Middle-earth in light of his association with Owen Barfield. Particularly, she is examining Tolkien’s work in conjunction with Barfield’s Poetic Diction and his thoughts on language and meaning. I have not read Poetic Diction, but I probably will now since it apparently addresses language formation as related to the origin of human consciousness which is SO up my alley.

New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton. My late sister-in-law had a masters in theology from Notre Dame and became a huge Merton fan. Meanwhile, my best friend actually spent a weekend retreat at The Abbey of Gethsemani. Between hearing about him from the two of them, I developed an interest in Merton. I happened to read “Moral Theology of the Devil” a couple of years ago. It was one of the most illuminating theological things I have read and deeply inspired my own Tolkien fic-writing (let’s just say the progress there is otherwise slow). This book is a collection of pieces which happens to contain that piece, and I’ve been skipping around through it for a while now.

The Lord of the Rings reread (Tolkien, obviously). I hate this, but I am so deep in so many critical Tolkien books that I’ve not had the chance to really sit down and relax into my reread for months and months and will likely just end up starting over. Plus I want to read it concurrently with the next entry in this list and the next entry is taking longer to get through because of its format. That entry being:

The Lord of the the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, Hammond and Scull. This is a treasure trove of data and insights for those really wanting to dig critically-historically into The Lord of the Rings on a chapter-by-chapter, passage-by-passage basis. The only issue with it is that jumping back and forth between the two (as you have to: this is a reference book) tends to kill the mood of The Lord of the Rings when read as it’s meant to be read: for enjoyment!

The Power of Limits: Proportional Harmonies in Nature, Art, and Architecture, Gyorgy Doczi. This has been an ongoing read here and there since Christmas, especially as I work on two personal projects.

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Lesslie Newbigin. To be honest I don’t think I am going to finish this one. I like a few of the things he says, things I think are truthful and which need to be confronted in American Christian culture in particular, but it’s just too much Calvin for my taste, too many assumptions I do not share being the heretic that I am, and I spend too much time anger-notating about theology to read it with grace.

In Full Measure I Return to You, thearrogantemu. This is a reread of the (relatively) happy AU fic for my most favoritest Tolkien fic (Gifts), but I’ve put my reread on hold while I finish one of the two projects, after which I am diving in and screw the rest of this list for the time being.

Food Craving

Sushi. My kingdom for some good sushi. I’ve only had sushi once since we got back from NY and while it was the best sushi I have had locally IT WAS NOT OMAKASE AT SUSHI NOZ. It also didn’t require a personal loan to pay for, but *shrug* I’m spoiled now and will forever crave what I can no longer have.

People I’d Like To Get To Know Better

I hate tagging people in these things because I’m awkward and shy and do them so rarely myself that it feels hypocritical for me to ask it of others. That being said: if you’re a follower of my blog and you want to do this, please do! And please tag me! I’d love to get to know more about you 😊.

[rickondickon]

Three Times You Met Robin Arryn

Hi guys! So um, can we talk about how Robin Arryn went from 0 to He’s Going To Places real quick? Yeah? Alright. So this is just me being shook and finally posting this draft that sat here and collected dust for like, a month. Enjoy!

Pairing: Robin Arryn x Reader

Word count: 1441

Summary: Something made Robin Arryn drastically change, but you’re not the one who’ll complain about it

Warnings: surprisingly none.

Note: Since Robin is like, 16 years old in season 8, I made reader 17. Don’t make this weird guys.

The first time you met Robin Arryn, it had been a disaster.

You were born inside a wealthy family of the Vale, so you were bound to marry equal or higher than your status. However, when your parents told you of your bethroted, your face fell.

When he comes of age, they said, you will marry Lord Robin Arryn.

It wasn't a secret that the boy was weird. You had never met him, but the rumors about him were oddly specific, so you didn't really have a choice but to believe them. It didn't help that you had to constantly hear the snickers and mockery of your stitching group after the news came out.

So, are you looking forward to marry the whiniest Lord of Westeros?

You'll have a child to look after before he even puts one in your belly!

I do wonder if he'll suckle at your tit like he did to his mother for all those years.

That one had been particularily crude, and you had to threaten to cut financial support to her house to make her finally shut up.

Lord Arryn was even more terrible in person than in reputation. Your family had travelled to the Eyrie after the deal was concluded, question for you to meet your bethroted.

It went as well as you could have expected, which meant it was uncomfortable, embarassing and overall terrible. The young Lord, one year your junior, had stuck to you like glue and even began talking about your future.

You're going to be my wife! We'll have so many children, and falcons, and we'll throw our enemies through the moon door!

And to make matter worse, Lady Arryn was creeping you out. She seemed all too eager for you to be wed to her son already, she could have proceded with the wedding here and there if it wasn't for Lord Yohn Royce reminding her Robin needed to learn his role better before taking wife.

You had then left, a few days later, with a bitter taste in your mouth and a dread for the next time you'd be back at the Eyrie.

The second time you saw Robin Arryn, however, was a completely different experience.

After everything went down, the death of Lady Arryn and Lord Baelish, the war for the living, the war for Kings Landing, the idea of marrying Lord Arryn was so far in your head that you almost forgot.

More like you genuinely thought he'd forget about you and move on.

But he apparently didn't, and one morning, shortly after the beginning of the winter, you were surprised by a visit of Yohn Royce with none other than Lord Arryn. Your parents had called you to the hall to welcome them after you had been told to put on your best dress, and you waited anxiously for the Lord to show up.

You could still hear the snickers of the ladies behind you, who had refused to leave after the interruption of your tea. They had wanted to see this.

You held your breath as the door was opened, and for a brief moment, your brain did not register what it saw.

You recognized instantly Yohn, but not the young man beside him. He was holding himself up right, he was elegantly dressed and his hair was well combed. It took you a moment to realize thay it was, in fact, Robin Arryn.

The ladies stopped talking entirely, and you were sure they were just as gawking at him as you were.

"My lady" He took one step toward you, a bright smile lighting up his features. He completely ignored one of the ladies, Lora, that was sending him flirtarious looks by walking right past her without aknowledging her the slightest. "You are even more beautiful than the last time I saw you"

He spoke so suavely, it made you truly wonder if it was the same person you met three years ago.

"Thank you, my Lord" You replied softly, unable to pitch your voice any higher. You were stunned. "Time was kind to you as well, as it seems"

His smile got even brighter, if it was possible, at you returning the compliment.

"I was hoping we could talk alone, if you don't mind" He politely requested. You looked around to see your parents extasic, and the ladies of the court, green with jealousy. Your gaze finally met his expectant one and you nodded.

"Of course, my Lord" You agreed, and he gave you his arm. You hooked yours to it and he lead you outside, away from prying eyes.

He set a comfortable pace through the gardens, looking around with tamed wonder. Your home was far from a castle, and widely different from the Eyrie, but it was a beautiful, comfortable estate nonetheless. And apparently, Robin seemed to appreciate it.

"My Lady, I meant to ask about this engagement" He suddenly spoke, but you hid your startled reaction so well that he didn't even notice.

"Of course, what about it?" You replied carefully, suddenly unsure of his intentions. That would be a blow in front of your family if he decided to call it off here and there.

"I understand it was made many years ago, under different circumstances" He glanced down at you. "A lot have change ever since, for you and I, I'm sure"

"They have indeed" You nodded along, wishing he would get to his point already.

"Tell me, my Lady" He halted his steps and turned toward you. "Is that what you want?"

"I-- I'm not sure I understand" You stammered, blinking rapidely.

A small smile crossed his feature. "I am asking you if the engagement is what you desire" He repeated, then chuckled when all you gave him was a confused expression. "I have learned a lot of things from my cousin Sansa during those last years, such as decisions made for you by other people without your consent are not always the best"

Your jaw could have hit the floor, if it wasn't for Robin gently pulling it back up with two fingers. Your cheeks burned in embarasment, but he seemed to find it mostly amusing rather than weird.

"I..." You trailed off, before blurting out against your will "Don't you wanna be with me?"

Way to go...

His eyes twinkled with laughter. "I'd wish nothing more" He confessed. "I've been in love with you since the moment I met you. But it's not up to me"

Your brain was spinning. This could not be the Robin you met three years ago, the little spoiled brat who couldn't understand that the world was not his. Whatever happened to him, you were glad it did.

"I'd... Like to uphold the engagement" You finally answered after a long moment of silence, pondering the choice he gave you. That answer definitely pleased him, because the wide smile he had when he saw you earlier returned.

"Then it's settled..." He trailed off, before getting down on one knee and holding up a ring. Your eyes widened so big you thought they'd fall out of their socket. It was simple, yet beautiful with its silver band and three small dark blue rocks ornering it. It must have been a family heirloom. "Lady (Y/N), would you become my wife, become Lady Arryn and Lady of the Vale by my side?"

"Yes, Lord Arryn" You whispered, nodding slowly. He slipped the ring on your finger and stood up, now way closer to you than he'd been earlier.

"Wonderful" He grinned, brushing a lose strand of hair behind your ear. He leaned in and placed a tender kiss on your cheek, and you felt you face once again heat up.

"S-Should we go back and tell the news?" You suggested, a bit overwhelmed by the whole situation. You still didn't know how well this was going to turn out, but you really liked this new Robin. You glanced down at your hand, and the ring fitted you perfectly.

Maybe this was meant to be, after all.

"I'd much rather keep walking around and get to know you" He offered his arm once again, and for once you truly couldn't object with him. "If you'd like"

You smiled and took his arm as an answer, this time, setting the pace yourself. The afternoon you spent with him was nice, and you actually looked forward spending more time with him. You almost wished he'd stay a couple more days at the estate, just to have others afternoons like that.

And you thought, the third time you'd see Robin Arryn would be your wedding day.

[be9rhee]

Two Opposite Poles / Yoongi

Pairing: slytherin yoongi x hufflepuff reader

Word count: 4.9k

Description: Everyone knew that you and Yoongi were completely different. You were a social butterfly with a bubbly personality. He, on the other side, was an introvert who was talented at intimidating everyone, which is the main reason you didn’t want to come in contact with a person like him. Though after the black-haired boy gets hit by a bludger, you begin to think that opposite poles might be able to attract.

A/N: Hello, everyone! This is my first ever au posted here! I usually write for myself and never post any of my work, but I’ve been so obsessed with bts x harry potter lately, and after reading a couple of aus I’ve decided to write some myself ;-; I hope you like it! If I make mistakes, please forgive me, as English is not my first language.

P.S: I forgot to save the changes for the draft and lost a good amount of this and almost started crying :’)

Just a teeny tiny bit. . .

You carefully took a bite out of your energy bar under your desk, praying to God that Professor McGonagall won’t see you. Lunch was just ‘round the corner, but you didn’t get to eat much at breakfast, and your stomach couldn’t take it anymore. So you took an energy bar out of your bag and started munching slowly.

Soo good. . .

“Miss L/N!” Professor McGonagall asks on a loud tone, startling you so bad you hit your head on the desk, making you moan in pain at the contact. “What are you doing there?”

Your brain quickly thinks of a good-enough excuse before it was too late. “I, uhm. . . I dropped my pen!” You say in your defence, though your half-full mouth doesn’t help you much. The whole class starts laughing upon seeing you get caught for eating during class.

“And I suppose you stopped for a bite half-way?” The woman raises an eyebrow, trying to hide a smile of her own. You hurry to finish the remaining food in your mouth before leaving hour head hung low in embarassment.

“I apologize, Professor McGonagall,” you start, hoping she won’t take off house points. Hufflepuff was so close to beating Slytherin to first place, it would be a shame if there’d be a bigger gap because of you. “It won’t happen again.”

“Next time, control your appetite until lunch, Miss L/N,” Professor McGonagall advises you, turning her back to the class and continuing her lesson. A few laughs could still fadely be heard in the class.

Heat rushes to your cheeks as you drop your head in your arms, trying to hide away the embarassment. You usually never disturbed classes, but you knew that you had food on you, and the urge was so big—

You felt someone staring at you. And God, it suddenly felt so cold in the Transfiguration classroom. . . You raise your gaze, scanning the room to see who the culpit was. And suddenly, your eyes lock with someone you were surprised to see. A few tables in front of you, in the corner of your eye, Min Yoongi, a slytherin boy that was the same year as you, was deeply staring at you.

And as you stared back, he didn’t urge to look away. With a questioning look, you continued to look at him until Professor McGonagall requested for the whole class to write down the next piece of information she was about to give us about today’s lesson.

Weird. . .

You obviously knew who Yoongi was. Basically everyone in this goddamn school always compared the two of you to the other. “Wow, Y/N is so cheerful and Yoongi is so cold,” they say. “They’d make a great couple!”

You never usually understood the last part. Why would the two of you make a good couple? You barely spoke a word to each other. The only times you had interacted with him was whenever Namjoon, your best friend, met up with him while you were present. You had a lot of mutual friends, though you couldn’t consider yourselves friends.

The bell wakes you up from your thoughts, and you hurry to gather your things and blast into a sprint towards the Great Hall, your stomach still protesting.

In your hurry, you accidentally bump in a couple of students, and when you turn to apologize, you notice that one of them was none other than Yoongi. Great, he was staring at you again. That cold stare of his, one that sent shivers down your spine.

Gosh he really was intimidating.

“I’m s-sorry,” you stutter, standing frozen for a couple of seconds before remembering what you were meant to do. Right, lunch. So you gather the power to escape the boy’s aura that had you trapped like a bird in a cage, and sprint to the Great Hall in your second attempt.

There, you hurry to dig into the food available, joining Hoseok and Taehyung, your other friends who were also in the same house as you. The boys were talking about their next Quidditch match, which was against Slytherin, when you dropped in a seat beside them.

“Missed anything while I was away?” You ask, not even bothering to look at them as you guide a chicken leg to your mouth. Hoseok and Taehyung watched the sight of you devouring you food in awe before answering.

“We have a huge problem!” Hoseok whines, making fake crying sounds. For the sake of your friends, you stop eating for a second. “Oh? What happened?” You ask, curiousity getting the best of you.

“Woojin is utterly ill and we have no seeker for tomorrow! This is a disaster!” Taehyung cries, sitting back in his chair, sighing deeply. For a second, you thought the two of them were pulling a scene on stage. You try your best to hide a smile, for the sake of not hurting their feelings.

As you guide a spoonful of mashed potatoes to your mouth, Hoseok suddenly stands up, his chair making a loud screeching noise which startles you so bad that your precious mashed potatoes meet your cheek instead of mouth. You mutter a profanity under your breath as you grab a tissue to wipe the food off your face. Instead of mashed potatoes, you favor your glass of water.

“Y/N,” he turns to you, a dumb smile doninating his face, “aren’t you fast on a broom? What do you say?” He suggests, a spark of hope glistening in his hazel eyes.

The water in your mouth almost erupts like a fountain upon hearing his offer. “Me? A s-seeker?” You scream in disbelief. Heads turn upon hearing the loud sound. Crossing your hands over your chest, you shake your head in disapproval.

“Please! You are our only chance! It’s just this game! We only need you for one game!” Hoseok cries, clapping his hands together and falling on his knees. “Hoseok, what are you—“

“We beg you, Y/N!” Taehyung joins the red-headed boy, doing the exact same gesture. “I’ll give you the Marauder’s Map for a whole week!”

“And I’ll wash your robes and convince Namjoon to do your Arithmancy homework!” Hoseok throws his offer on the table as well. Now the whole Great Hall was curious to see what the hell was going on at your table, eager to find out if it was a fight or a confession.

But, to their disappointment, it was just two idiots trying to win you over.

And to spare the three of you more public embarassment, you decide to give up. “Fine, I’ll do it,” you say, almost as a whisper, but loud enough for the two to hear.

“YES! THANK YOU!” They both scream in unison, starting to dance and pulling each other into a hug, cheering in victory. You could feel the stares of so many people that you lean in your seat, almost falling under the table as heat rushes to your cheeks, the exact same thing that had happened less than half an hour ago.

Soon after, the two sit back down and return to their meal, acting like they didn’t just cause a scene a couple minute before. Why were you even friends with such idiots? But you answer to your own question as your lips curl into a smile. They were just too funny.

“Wait, hyung,” Taehyung suddenly starting, sipping on his pumpkin juice. “If Y/N is our seeker, that means she’ll have to beat Yoongi-hyung.”

Y-yoongi. . .?

Gosh, you had completely forgotten that he was Slytherin’s seeker. Not only that, but he was a really good one. . . It was settled then. You were no match against him.

“If he’s the seeker, then I’ll be as good against him as no one,” you sigh, stuffing the last piece of chicken in your mouth. Why did they even ask you if they knew—

“Don’t think so lowly of yourself, Y/N!” Hoseok sweetly says. “With your swift and motivation, I can bet that the golden snitch will fly directly in your hands!”

“You just have to catch it, sweetheart,” Taehyung says. “That will secure our win. That’s all we ask from you!”

It seemed so little, but it felt like so much to ask for. . .

.

.

.

Why were you here?

That question had lingered in your mind for the past week, ever since you started training for the Quidditch match. And after a whole week’s worth of training, you thought you were in a pretty good place, but that still didn’t make all the fear of screwing everything up go away.

On the third day of training, you managed to catch the golden snitch for two times, and that’s when your streak started. The next day, three times, the next one, four, and so on. And the first time you caught it, your heart filled up with joy, because being a seeker is probably the most important position on a Quidditch team, and the fact that you were able to do that. . .

Wow.

You felt complete.

You try to wipe the confident smirk off your face as you fix your gloves on your hands. You and the team were in the locker room, a few minutes away from the beginning of the match. 

“You can do it, sunshine,” Hoseok crouches in front of you, throwing an encouraging smile. “Thanks, Hobi. I still feel like I’ll do a shitty job,” you confess, your gaze falling.

“Stop saying that. You’re really good. You were great even before training started. I’m sure you’ll do a great job today, even if we don’t win.”

You can’t help but blush at his encouraging words.

Just then, Madam Hooch storms into the locker room, telling you all to get ready to go out on the field and start the game. You took a last deep breath before standing up from your seat, broom in hand.

Taehyung and Hoseok find way to both of your sides, each placing a hand on your shoulder. 

“We believe in you,” they both say in unison before the doors slide open.

In front of you appears the Quidditch pitch. All bleachers were full with students, everyone present to watch what was predicted to be the hottest match this term. You felt every pair of eyes piercing through you, making you feel uneasy. But you tried to push the bad emotions away. You needed confidence tonight.

“Our first team is Hufflepuff, with the most sudden replacement! Please welcome them and their new seeker for the night, Y/N L/N!” Kim Jongdae, the commentator, screams into the microphone, the crowd following his instructions.

They cheer for your team, for you.

To know that more than a hundred people were rooting for you felt extreme. It felt big, and it surely warmed your heart.

“And their opponent for tonight, this season’s favourite team. . . Slytherin!” Jongdae cheers once again, and so does the crowd as the slytherins enter the field. 

You look through your opponents, searching for one particular black-haired boy. And there he was, behind Park Jimin, his face expressionless, as always. His eyes lock with yours for the second time today, and the second time ever. His stare pierces through you, and you try to not show the fear that was slowly but surely taking over you.

“Players, mount your brooms!”

All fourteen do as instructed, and when Jongdae screams ‘Ready, set, game!’, you all blast off into the sky.

Your first plan is to go as high as anyone and start scanning the pitch, in hopes you’d spot the golden snitch. And after a couple minutes, you see it flying around the Ravenclaw bleachers, so you fly as fast as possible to get to it.

“Not so fast, replacement,” you hear a deep voice behind you, and before you know it, Yoongi passes by you, trying to reach the golden snitch before you. Replacement, you say? That was his nickname for you?

“It’s just a game. Let’s not start insulting each other,” you scream through the wind, deciding to be a pacifist. Yoongi turns his gaze to you, smirking.

“You’re such a Hufflepuff, it makes me vomit.”

“Thanks. You’re a good Slytherin yourself,” you say back, proud of yourself. Because of your small bickering, the two of you lose sight of the golden snitch, and surely Yoongi isn’t quite happy with that.

The boy growls in annoyance, flying off to God knows where. You ignore him and start going around the pitch once again.

"Oh Sehun of Slytherin scores once again! Seventy-fifty for Slytherin!" Jongdae's voice echoes, ringing in your ears. He sure had an interesting voice. . .

The golden spark catches your eye in an instant now, and before you know it, you and Yoongi are back at each other, trying to catch the golden snitch.

"I can't lose to a beginner," he huffs, leaning in to reach for the small ball. You were pretty high now. You try to push him away from the snitch. "It seems today is not your lu—"

You don't get to finish the sentence as a bludger smashes into your arm so hard that it pushes you off your broom. "No!" You scream in despair and notice Yoongi stopping in his tracks to look at you falling.

As you were falling, you manage to pull your wand out and yell 'Accio!', your broom coming to you as fast as lightning. Before you meet the ground, you mount your broom once again.

Phew, that was close.

"Are you okay?" Yoongi comes beside you, the slight show of worry making you feel weird. Though you decide to ignore it. "Yeah, I guess," you reply, an awkward tension building up between the two of you.

"Y/N! I'm so sorry for not protecting you!" Hoseok flies to you, pouting. "It's okay. Go back! Get your head in the game!" You yell, adrenaline getting the best of you.

A couple more attempts later, you decide that this was the final straw. You were better than to try and catch it for over five times. This had to end. Not only were you getting tired, but you were also getting sick of the repetitive routine.

Yoongi was back at being first to try and catch the golden snitch, and you were ready to do anything to stop him and steal it, securing Hufflepuff's win.

You quickly glance to your left, thanking God for your good reflexes.

"Bludger!"

You point your broom down and dodge the dangerous ball, catching speed and taking advantage, your grip tightening around the golden snitch.

You almost fall off your broom, happy that it had finally ended.

A scream full of joy runs off your lips as you feel the golden snitch in your hand, the whole pitch screaming, except for the Slytherins. You quickly land, and soon, your teammates join you, hugging you tightly.

"I knew you could do it!" Taehyung says, quickly wiping a tear off his cheek. "I'm so proud of you, Y/N!" He adds, ruffling your hair. All you could do was giggle like an idiot, overwhelmed by the amount of love you were getting, as well as the joy that was building up inside of you.

"Out of the way! This is an emergency!"

Madam Pomfrey's irritating voice catches your attention. You turn around, curious to see why she was present on the field. But then, your eyes land on the famous black-haired boy that laid on the ground. Worry overtook you.

Apparently, the bludger you had dodged had hit Yoongi in the head and made him fall off his broom, but luckily it wasn't from too high up. Maybe five meters, if not less. But still.

You and your six other friends —who were also Yoongi's— hurry to see if he's okay, but Madam Pomfrey puts a hand out, making you stop.

"I expect not to see you in the hospital wing until after he's woken up! Jesus!" She whines, sprinting off with the unconscious boy and Headmistress McGonagall to the hospital wing.

You didn't even realize that he had gotten hurt because you were so caught up in your win. Now it didn't even feel like a win anymore.

But why were you so marked by Yoongi's injury?

The question remained in your thoughts while you waited for him to wake up. It was probably the fact that he showed worry when you fell, and you wanted to get back at him. You felt like you owed him one, since you ignored him getting his head smashed by a ball.

That should have been it. .

.

.

"Why are you doing this? Is there something going on between you and I didn't know?" Namjoon asked, flipping through his Alchemy book. You had always envied Namjoon for being absolutely intelligent, hence he was able to take classes that he was meant to take in the sixth or seventh year.

"No. I just feel bad. You know how I am," you replied, doing your Transfiguration homework. It was the afternoon after the match between Hufflepuff and Slytherin. You had gotten information that Yoongi had woken up some time in the night yesterday, but he decided to go back to sleep.

"He asked me if I was okay when I fell off my broom, but when he got hit, I was so caught up with the win that I forgot about him and I feel bad for acting like that."

Namjoon came beside you, pinching your cheek. "Our sweet Hufflepuff," he cooed, the appearance of his dimples making you smile slightly. "That's really nice of you. Maybe this way you and Yoongi hyung could start being friends."

You couldn't imagine befriending someone who was the completely opposite of you. It felt weird. But, in all honesty, you always took the chance of making a new friend.

Which is why after classes, you make your way to the hospital wing. Today, hence you accepted Taehyung's and Hoseok's offer to be Hufflepuff's seeker for the night, you were in the possession of the Marauder's Map. So early in the morning, you sneaked into one of the tunnels that lead to Hogsmeade.

You didn't know what Yoongi liked, so you bought a Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, Assorted Sour Strips and two Chocolate Frogs.

You could only hope for him to not get diabetes.

You knock on the door, Madam Pomfrey greeting you with a forced smile. "Dear, what brings you here?" She asks in a sweet tone.

"Good evening. I'm here to see Min Yoongi," you announce, trying to talk as quietly as possible.

"Wow, such a popular boy! His friends have been going in and out all day today!" She laughs, motioning you to come in. "He's the last one on the left. Have fun, sweetheart."

You nod and make your way to the said bed, trying to stop your heart thumping at your chest.  And there, you see the famous jet-black-haired boy, who was in his bed, reading what seemed to be a book about ghosts.

You take a deep breath.

"H-hi, Yoongi," you stutter, his head turning your direction as your words leave your mouth. He raises an eyebrow, probably surprised by your sudden visit.

"Why are you here?"

You try not to take it in an offensive matter, though the fact that you've heard that question for so many times had started to annoy you at last.

"Uhm. . . I'm here because I feel bad for not checking up on you when you were injured, since I was so busy with winning the match. And I'm sorry, so I'm trying to make it up to you."

"You don't owe me anything. You can go."

You close your eyes for a second. "You see, I went to Hogsmeade really early today and got you all kinds of stuff. . . I thought maybe you'd want them."

You take the sweets out of your bag, placing them on his nightstand. Then you dare to take a seat on the bed, surprising not only yourself, but Yoongi as well.

You search through your bag once again, pulling out a piece of parchment. "This is a summary of today's classes we have together, as well as the homework we got. Are you well?"

One thing you learnt about Yoongi that instant is that his other default expression was the one of confusion. As you look at him, you try your best not to chuckle at his funny face.

"Honestly, I was supposed to leave two hours ago, but Pomfrey's beds are surprisingly comfortable," he says after a good ten seconds, stretching his limbs.

That's when your lips curl into a small smile. "Well, I'm glad it wasn't too serious," you reply, putting the parchment on the nightstand as well. "Now, out of these three, which one would you like to devour first?" You ask, smiling.

Yoongi stands up, scanning the sweets. "How did you know I like sour candy?" He asks, picking up the bag of Assorted Sour Strips, his eyes going big.

"Well, who doesn't?" At that, you both burst out laughing, but quickly shut up, an awkward tension building between the two of you.

So you start eating the sour strips together, neither one of you saying something.

What's with the sudden closeness you had with Yoongi? It was like you've been friends for a long time, when in fact, today was probably the first time you had exchanged more than one word.

"Would you like to play the game with Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans?" You suggest, grabbing the box. Yoongi groans, staring at you deeply.

But this time, you don't feel your body freezing.

You feel it warming up.

"Fine."

And so he stands up again and you move closer, opening the box. "Do you think we'll be able to finish the whole thing?" He asks, yawning. He has been sleeping all day but he was still sleepy?

"I don't know, but there's only one way to find out," you smirk, throwing the first one in your mouth carelessly.

For the next half an hour, you two try out the beans. Honestly, it was you mostly laughing at Yoongi for getting bad flavors.

"This isn't fair, Puff! Why are most of mine bad ones? Did you curse the box or what?" He asks, groaning in frustration. You continue giggling like a maniac, catching Yoongi smiling while looking at you from the corner of your eye.

Heat rushes to your cheeks.

The last two beans laid on the bottom of the box. "One last bean to endure," you announce, taking one for yourself, the boy doing the same.

Yoongi counts to three before the both of you throw the beans in your mouths. You start chewing, immediately feeling like getting ill.

"Dirty sock!" You scream in utter terror.

"Buttered popcorn!" Yoongi yells in delight, an evil smile forming on his face, looking at you in victory. You could bet your face was looking disgusted as ever right now, and the fact that a boy was seeing you in this state made you uneasy.

"What is this fuss going on here?"

Madam Pomfrey's voice makes the both of you turn your heads. "Mr. Min, weren't you supposed to leave a long time ago?"

"I—Uhm— Oops?" He mutters, eventually getting out of bed. "I'm sorry. I'll get going now." He takes his bag, the parchment and the chocolate frog from you. "Let's go, Y/N."

He takes a hold of your arm, dragging you along. Your heart starts racing for an unknown reason as you leave the hospital wing. You didn't know where Yoongi was taking you, but as you started going down the stairs to the basement, you figured it'd be either the kitchens or the Hufflepuff dorms.

"Well, thanks for walking me to my dorm," you say, fidgeting with your fingers. "I guess I'll see you a—"

"Thanks for stopping by and for the sweets," he cuts you off, leaning on the wall. "And I'm sorry I called you a replacement and all that. I get really competitive when it comes to Quidditch," he mutters, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment.

You smile at his attempt at apologizing. "It's okay, Yoongi. And I enjoyed spending time with you eating jelly beans. We should do this more often. You're different than I thought."

"Different? What did you think of me?" He arches an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side.

"Well. . . I'm not sure if you know, but almost everyone in school likes comparing us, saying how hyped I am and how cold you are, what a social butterfly I am and you're and introvert and things like that. Whenever you stared at me I could feel my whole body freezing because God you have such an intimidating stare," you say, your gaze falling to your shoes.

"But you proved me wrong. You don't seem as cold and intimidating as everyone says."

It was dark in the hall, though a torch was subtly lighting his face, and you notice his cheeks turning crimson. And then, you started studying his handsome features. You had heard girls drooling over his appearance, but you had never gotten the chance to see for yourself from up close.

Your eyes lock. And that's how you both start staring at each other for what seemed like a lifetime, but it was just for ten seconds.

"Uhm. . . I s-should head inside," you stutter, pulling your wand out. "Yeah, y-you should rest," he replies. And so you hit the barrel at the entrance in the rhythm of Helga Hufflepuff. The door opens, but just as you were about to enter, you hear Yoongi's voice again.

"L-listen, Y/N. . . Since tomorrow is Saturday. . . W-would you like to go with me to Hogsmeade and spend our time at Honeydukes?"

The way he stuttered only filled your body with warmth.

"Sure. I'd love to," you say before closing the door behind you.

On the other side of the barrel, Yoongi began walking to the Slytherin tower, trying to wipe the smirk off his face.

All these years you've known about each other's existence, there was never something more than that. Yoongi wasn't good at making friends, hence he was only close to six boys. Together, they called themselves Bangtan.

But even if you weren't friends, that didn't mean that Yoongi didn't know about you. About how popular you were for your amazing personality. Every place he went to, it was impossible to not hear about that 'cute and sweet Hufflepuff girl'.

All the times he was staring at you was because he simply enjoyed looking at you. You were always smiling, and somehow, that warmed the boy's heart every time.

"Hyung?" Yoongi heard his cousin's voice as he entered the Slytherin common room. "Where were you? You were supposed to be discharged four hours ago! Did something happen?"

"Don't worry, Jiminie," the older assured, throwing himself on the couch. "I got caught up with something." As his words escaped his mouth, he couldn't help smile upon thinking about you.

That only made Jimin arch his eyebrow in curiosity. "Or should I say someone?" The silver-haired Slytherin suggested, a grin planting itself on his handsome face. "Say, is it the first time you're happy a bludger hits you, hyung?" Jimin smiled.

Obviously caught in the act, Yoongi pulled off a mad look.

"Shut up before I turn you into a chipmunk."

. .

You didn't know why you were so nervous to meet up with Yoongi today.

It wasn't like he asked you on a date. It was just a hangout between two people who are trying to befriend each other.

Right?

You slide your feet into a pair of black ankle boots, finishing today's look. You've decided to keep it simple today, wearing a plain shirt and a matchy skirt, hiding them under your long coat. Today's weather forecast announced a good temperature, considering it was the end of February.

"Where are you going, Y/N?" Your roommate enters the room, noticing you all dressed up. "Uhm, I'm going out to meet with someone," you reply, watching as Hoseok starts watering his plants.

"Oh? Is it perhaps a date?" He curiously asks, wiggling his eyebrows. You can't help but giggle. "I don't think so?" You say, unsure of your answer. "It's Yoongi. I think we're finally becoming friends."

"Right. Friends," he turns around, hiding his dumb smile. All the Bangtan boys knew about Yoongi's crush on you. It seemed he had finally built up the guts to do something about it.

"Well, I hope you have fun!" He happily says, pulling you into a quick hug. You greet your friend goodbye and leave the Hufflepuff dorms.

Two hours ago, your owl delivered you a letter written by Yoongi, suggesting you guys meet on the train to Hogsmeade at exactly 11:30am. Fifteen minutes before the meeting time, you start sprinting down the corridors.

When you get to the train station, you quickly hop into the train and start looking for him.

Of course, he was in a compartment on his own, looking out the window. You smile and open the door, greeting him. He turns to you, a smile of his own forming on his face. A small rose was in his hands, surprising you as he reached to give it to you.

"Ready to start our date, Puff?"

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Editing Advice Part 1: Continuity

Although I said I wouldn't be giving writing advice on this blog, I never said anything about editing advice. Plenty of people give (unhelpful, short-sighted, or far too niche) writing advice, but few focus on the crucial final part of the writing process, and yet, editing is what gives a lot of writers the most trouble. I personally love editing far more than the initial writing stage and so am here to offer my advice in not one, not two, not even three, but four—yes four!—blog posts!

First, let's look at continuity, in three categories: Time, Place, and People. Technically, you ought to keep continuity in mind throughout the writing process, but it's still easy to forget one or two things. Thus, when you finally decide "I'm going to edit this WIP!", you need to double check that everything is consistent, not just from a plot standpoint, but from a spacial, chronological, and personal standpoint as well.

Time

This includes character ages (especially in flashbacks and exposition), the beginning and endings of school years, the seasons and their weather patterns, moon phases (especially when writing about werewolves), times of day, how long it takes for events to happen (a wound to heal, DNA to come back from the lab, traveling from point A to point B), historical matters (phraseology, having characters use things that hadn't been invented yet, people in the middle ages eating potatoes, etc.) and so on.

One time, I was reading a WIP where their main character's (or MC's) sister, who was twelve, was being discussed. The MC said that her sister had been dating someone at the same time the MC was first learning to use her magic powers. Fine, except that later it was stated that she first learned to use those powers five years ago. Which would make the sister seven at the time. Ain't no seven-year-old datin' nobody. The author of the WIP had just forgotten that all the characters ages would change, not just the main character's.

In my own writing, I had to be very careful in Outcast Shadows, because two groups of characters were in two locations doing two things: Group A was traveling across a continent, while Group B were hanging out in a single building in a single city. But they had to meet up at the end of the book, under specific circumstances, so I had to make sure that both storylines took the same amount of time. In the first draft, Group A took far longer than Group B, which was disastrous! I had to go back and, first, measure exactly how long it would take Group A to do all their traveling and find things for Group B to do that made sense for the story to fill up that specific amount of time.

As careful as I was in Outcast Shadows, though, I completely forgot that Misha left a certain location a day earlier than everyone else in Recast Light—and this was after four rewrites. I had to account for what he was doing for an entire day, which meant rewriting several scenes. It ended up working out in the end, but is a cautionary tale I won't soon forget.

Place

This includes anything spacial, such as the layouts of rooms, buildings, cities, and continents; the blocking of character movements; light sources; the configuration of the the solar system; and so on.

For example, if your character was flat on his back a few sentences ago, but now he's standing, were we ever told that he got up? Did your characters, while touring the lower rooms of a castle, ever climb something in order to get to that second story room where they end up (mine didn't, in the first draft of Miscast Spells!). If your scene takes place in a dark and dingy torch-lit tavern, how can your characters notice tiny details, or are you picturing the scene as brightly lit as it would be with electric lighting?

Obviously, some of this can be fudged a bit—I don't think anyone but me cares about how scenes are lit—but some of it can't. And readers will notice. There was the famous case of Larry Niven's Ringworld, in which a character is teleporting east in order to extend his birthday, but of course the earth rotates east, meaning he would actually be moving later into the day, or even into the next, rather than earlier. So many readers noticed that Niven actually corrected it in later editions. Then there is Stephanie Meyer's Breaking Dawn, in which the Cullens have a house on an island off the west coast of Rio de Janeiro which, you know, doesn't have a west coast. These authors had professional editors who didn't catch these mistakes, so you can't rely on other people to notice continuity errors for you. Do your own research and know the layout of your own setting, especially if it's the setting we all live in.

People

This category includes what your characters have, what they know, and who they are.

For what they have, consider clothing and accessories, weapons, and useful items. If they don't have an umbrella, but it's raining in your scene, do they just stand there in the rain? Do they like it? Aren't they cold? If your character has some huge rucksack full of gear, they should always have that rucksack full of gear unless we can assume they left it in a safe place; if they're traveling from one end of the continent to the other, mention how heavy that rucksack is from time to time, and consider where it is during a fight or action scene (Are they still carrying it? Do they drop it? Do they pick it back up when they flee?).

Another thing that characters can have is injuries, which, unless magically healed, have lasting effects. If your character got punched in the face yesterday, they should have a bruise show up in a day or two, and last for about a week (she writes, realizing that she has had a character bruise far too fast in her own published book!). If your character has lost a lot of blood, or broken a bone, or received a concussion, all of that needs to be taken into account in the coming chapters. Again, this can usually be solved by a quick mention that such and such still hurt, but injuries will also impact how much traveling and fighting your character can do, so keep that in mind, too.

Be mindful, also, of what people in your story know, including POV and non-POV characters. A pet peeve of mine is when authors in multi-viewpoint narratives slip up and have the viewpoint character be privy to what other characters are thinking when there is no reason for them to know that. Then there is the opposite problem, typically in first person present tense stories, where, in order to have exposition, the MC will randomly be thinking about information that everyone in the setting already knows. It would be like reading a novel set in our world and having the first person narrator think "243 years ago, America declared independence from Britain, which it had formerly been a colony of. This was followed by what is known as the Revolutionary War, where the Patriots, on the American side, fought the Red Coats, the British soldiers". No one thinks that way, because they personally already know it; who are they explaining it to, themselves? Find a more natural way for this information across to the audience. Maybe the character is arguing about it with an friend or is helping a younger sibling with their homework.  For this sort of thing, dialogue is definitely your friend, but still, double check to make sure this seems natural.

Finally, think about who your characters are, as opposed to who you wanted them to be. Characters change and grow over the course of writing, and what you might have considered in-character when you were outlining the novel might be out-of-character now. Consider your character's emotional reactions, moral choices, word choice, and so on. Never let an intended message be a reason to railroad a character into some preconceived destiny. Take the time to look at your character, not as a writer, but as a reader.

This last bit of advice holds true for all parts of editing. Think about how you would view your story as a reader. While beta readers and editors are helpful, you can't put everything on them (especially considering that there are published stories with continuity errors). Think about what a reader might nitpick, and what they might not care about. I suggest caring about it anyway, because it's your story, and it should be the best you can make it. Polishing your story into its bright and shiny best self is what editing is all about, and we've only just begun!

[starspatter]

WIP Challenge

Tagged by: @summertime-children

Tagging: @astrologista, @atsushishelteredinmoonlitjasmine, @benditlikegumby, @cryptoriawebb, @ibmiller, @iceperialprincess, and @otherwise-uncolonized

Challenge: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

I'll also do what deta did and post comments + short fragments.  (Be warned it'll be very long though, and most of these are actually Pokémon fics since I was a much more prolific writer when I was younger, and that was the fandom I wrote mainly for.)  I also won't be including "Heroes and Thieves" on here (or any DC/superhero stuff really since I’ve essentially “done” everything I had planned for now), as *technically* it is all already completed in draft form, and I'd like to keep things a surprise for whenever I do end up posting~

Hero and Seek

“Well, we’re all together now, so let’s have some fun, all right?  Don’t worry, it’s really simple.  One person is the ‘demon’, and the others have to hide from him.” “Eh?  A ‘demon’?  But that’s scary!” Three pairs of eyes turned up to her in fear.  Those eyes, which screamed and streamed the stark color of blood the first time she saw them – not just from tears, but from the ‘monster’ they believed dwelled deep within.  She thought for a moment, then removed her scarf. “How about this then?  Whoever’s the ‘hero’ has to find and rescue the others.  It’s a very important Blindfold Brigade mission!”

I’ll start with the one Kagepro fic I did attempt at least, which I described previously here, but is basically about Ayano + the Meka Trio playing “Hide and Seek” for the first time.  (I actually had it originally titled as that but just came up with this new version on the spot lol I’m so clever~)  For some reason I’ve always been hesitant about reading/writing Kagefic, but I actually got a fair bit farther in this than I thought, so perhaps I should try to finish it someday... Princes and Frogs

“K-Koizumi-senpai… Um… Please go out with me!” Itsuki stared down at the tiny underclassman, watching a rose mantle spread slowly over her cheeks as she gazed back with shy, but determined hope in her bespectacled eyes.  The older boy could make out his own handsome face reflected off the lens, a virtual image embellished by sparkling hearts and stars.  With dim satisfaction and relief, Itsuki ensured that his bright, patient smile betrayed no hint of the weary sigh that whispered behind it.

This is an intro excerpt of the first chapter I planned to write for an ItsuHaru fic from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which I only ever posted the prologue for.  ItsuHaru was my first obsessive OTP, and I still think about returning to this story someday (especially since I have now proven to myself I *can* finish a full chapter fic if I put my mind to it), but it’s been so long I feel like I’d need to refresh my memory of the whole series/am still holding out hope for a Season 3 to motivate me again. *shot*

Fall to Pieces

As Itsuki stared at Yuki’s vacant visage, his resentment kept building.  His hands clenched, rigidly gripping the edge of the table.  Somehow, it just didn’t seem fair.  That she could so easily ignore the madness fate had dealt them, never reveal any signs of suffering or bitterness towards her situation, and yet always, always wear the same damn expression on her face. How could she possibly stand it? He can’t stand it. (any more)

An ItsuYuki one-shot, where Itsuki basically blows up at her from pent-up frustration over having to wear a mask all the time and his hidden feelings for Haruhi.  The two start to form a connection over their respective “unrequited loves”/understanding of each other’s pain, and one thing leads to another...  Like “Heroes and Thieves”, this is in fact technically “complete”, since I actually used the leftover steam from the former towards finishing at least one thing I started a long time ago - although I’m still not sure I’m totally satisfied with it/kinda want to wait to figure out what I’m doing with my other ItsuHaru fics before I publish it by itself.  (Incidentally the working title comes from an Avril Lavigne song lol.)

Little White Lies

“Perhaps the best thing for the princess would have been to fall in love.  But how a princess who had no gravity could fall into anything is a difficulty--perhaps the difficulty.” -George MacDonald, The Light Princess - Haruhi Suzumiya was walking on air. Itsuki could tell by the way she glided into the clubroom, sailing like a paper airplane – or a balloon with an inflated ego to match.

...Yeah that’s as far as I got with this.  This was meant to be a “White Day” story, which is Japan’s “answer holiday” to Valentine’s Day, where guys reciprocate by giving gifts to the girls who gave them chocolates.  I always wondered how the boys actually responded in-universe, and I imagine Itsuki secretly stressing out a lot about taking care to not upstage Kyon, but at the same time wanting to sincerely express his genuine appreciation and feelings towards Haruhi - whatever they may be.  In the end, he settles on a copy of “The Light Princess” by George MacDonald, which I highly recommend reading since it reminds me so much of this pair, and in general is such a fun and snappy “tongue-in-cheek” take on the fairytale genre. Sora in Wonderland

But wait- this one was a bit different from all its brothers and sisters.  For one thing, it was wearing a fancy waistcoat with pockets- and sleeves that were far too long for it.  As soon as it passed by her head, it stopped and slowly turned its head around to stare directly at her with its huge circular yellow eyes.  Sora stared vacantly back for a full five seconds before the information registered in her brain and she suddenly yelled, “Hey!”, and sat bolt upright.  The Heartless panicked upon hearing her voice and fled at top speed across the white sands, headed towards an opening in the rocks; Sora jumped down off her perch and immediately chased after it, no longer caring about the heat.  The Heartless hastily disappeared inside the cave, and Sora soon followed after, determined to catch the freaky little thing and ask it some questions, like what it was doing on the island at this time, and where on earth did it get a waistcoat.

OKAY SO I TOTALLY FORGOT THIS WAS A THING but apparently I tried to write a Kingdom Hearts parody of “Alice in Wonderland” lmao.  I’ve never actually played the games (aside from half of CoM), but it was probably inspired by a crossover art my friend drew? ^^; Also Sora is a girl in this bc that’s my headcanon and I’m sticking to it. XP *shot* Note: The following fics are all Pokémon-related so I’ll just be listing them in roughly chronological order (from most recent to ancient, although they’re all pretty old at this point). Stranger

The elder slowly rose to his feet, gazing at the boy, the champion, the stranger.  “In all this time, why didn’t you come back?  You could have seen for yourself how she was.” Lance wanted to yell something defiant, like a child.  But he wasn’t a child.  Children were forgiven for their mistakes.  And he didn’t want to be forgiven. The professor’s ancient hand came to rest on the boy’s shoulder.  “It’s the way this town works.  We don’t talk about things that happen outside our own world.  Maybe it was too long ago – too late for you to understand.” Lance didn’t say anything. “At least talk to Delia.  She’s been wanting to see you.” “Sorry.  It’s too late.” “You’re a bastard.” “I know.”

So this looks to be among the last things I’d written before taking a long break from fanfiction circa... 2007, jeeze.  Over 10 years, huh.  But, I think it speaks a certain amount of maturity that it’s the piece I liked most upon rediscovering.  It’s based on an idea I once had that Lance was (unknowingly) Gary Oak’s father, and he was friends/rivals with Ash’s father, who originally won the title of Champion but relinquished it so he could be with his “wife” and kid (or rather, then-pregnant teenage girlfriend).  *Something* happened though (I forget what I had in mind) and he ended up dying, leaving Lance bitter and depressed so he refused to return to Pallet Town because of too many painful memories.  (Though he *cough* “comforted” their other female childhood friend for one night of drunken grief before he left. ;()  What I like most about it honestly is the parallels bw Lance’s relationship with Ash’s dad and their sons’, and that amidst all the angst I enjoyed portraying the earnest energy and optimism of Ketchum(?) senior (”like father like son” after all).  I was definitely inspired by Mitsuki’s father in Full Moon wo Sagashite/Maes Hughes from Fullmetal Alchemist by making him a total “dork dad” who’d brag about his (illegitimate) family on national TV during the championship tournament lol.

Ihavenoidea

Either way, I get the feeling this really wasn’t what I had in mind when I made my decision to quit training.  I mean that in an intuitive sort of way.  Like, sometimes I feel as if I’m not meant to be here, like my life should have ended up differently someplace else.  Perhaps this is just one of those weird inconsistencies I told you about.  Perhaps not.  Even after all that’s happened to me recently, I still can’t really be sure about it.

...No seriously, I have no idea where I was going with this.  As far as I can tell it’s written from the POV of Gary Oak, whom I’ve always had a lot of... “complicated” feelings towards.  It probably has something to do with another concept I’ll discuss next, although for some reason it sounds like I was going for some sort of AU? *shrug* By contrast to the above, it reads like a whiny teenager complaining about his life - which makes me cringe but is probably an accurate portrayal of who I was at the time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This one was actually dated a little after the previous, so my best guess is it was some kind of vent rant where I would “give up” writing/creating and “childish” ideals for a while, as I was wont to do - but I still always come back to it somehow... RainbowMolly

Molly stepped out from the car and onto the dusty road, her heart beating wildly.  She could hardly believe she was actually here, of all places. The ride had been long and mind-numbing with anticipation, and now that they’d finally arrived at the destination, it all felt somewhat surreal to her. A small bear clambered out from the vehicle, joining her as she stopped to take in the rustic view that met her bright blue eyes.  She smiled and picked up her Teddiursa, cuddling its warm, fuzzy body close to her own. Her gaze traveled down the road which stretched in both directions, houses lining up against its margins. She followed it with her eyes towards a hill in the distance, on top of which sat what looked like a quaint little farmhouse with a windmill, turning in the summer breeze.  She breathed in the country air, catching whiff of a faint salt smell from an ocean in the distance. So this was Pallet Town.

...Why I didn’t actually name the file “Chasing Rainbows” - which was the title I had planned for this - I don’t know.  This dates back to an old idea I had where I believed Molly Hale from the third Pokémon movie was secretly the true “God” of the Pokémon world - in the sense that the entire universe was an unknowing fantasy of her own creation, similar to Haruhi Suzumiya (ok fine this was totally a crossover/rip-off of the same concept so sue me OTL).  In a place where children never seem to grow up and can go on grand fantastical adventures forever, Gary always struck me as an anomaly who willingly *chose* to forego such a life to pursue more “adult” interests by becoming a researcher.  So I saw him as filling the role of “Kyon” - the cynical narrator who was destined to ground “God” and bring her back down to earth, but at the same time be won over by her innocence and charm and learn to appreciate “kids’ stuff” again.  However, the Legendaries were actually aware of the power Molly holds, and so saw Gary as a threat to their very being - as by “waking” the dreamer and having her face reality meant erasing their kinds’ entire existence.  As the “apocalypse” nearly occurred in the third film, Mew and Celebi took on human disguises (in the form of May and Max respectively) to investigate Ash, who was able to calm Molly and “save” the world by “perpetuating” the delusion (and whom Molly totally has a crush on btw *shot*).  So it’s a bit of a love triangle lol, with Mew and Celebi (*cough* an alien and a time traveler, get it? *shot*) acting as mediators/interference.  (Although Mew might’ve secretly shipped Gary and Molly herself. ;O)

Betrayal

And these blades, these damned scythes that attached themselves to my arms when I was born, a curse upon me since birth, though it had not been apparent up until now.  They were covered with blood, the vital crimson liquid that flows through our bodies, now dripping down the steel surface in a webbed pattern, drops beginning to splatter the pure, emerald grass below.  The arm felt heavy and weak as I tried to lift it, as if it did not belong to me, but that was only a wishful thought.  I gazed calmly at it, inspecting the intricate designs the flow of the substance had created, as if it were an abstract piece of artwork. Tentatively, a pink tongue rolled out and caught a small droplet of it just before it fell from the sharp edge, just to convince myself that it was real.  The semi-sweet, metallic taste confirmed this.  I had indeed taken these men’s lives, just as I had taken hers.

So I remember this was written from the POV of a Scyther who seemingly went on a murderous rampage.  I only know that I wanted to give him an “Edward Scissorhands”-like story, since the idea of having such sharp objects attached to one’s limbs so that one could never directly “touch” another without being a danger is pretty tragic.  I suspect “her” was someone (a human?) he cared about but killed by accident, and after that he was only seen as a symbol of power/treated as a tool to incite fear before eventually rebelling against his “master”... Roses

“If you love someone, you should give them something that’s yours. That shows how much you care for them.” In the darkness, I pictured his smiling face, explaining to me as he wrapped a present for his girlfriend. His blue eyes were shining with a sort of spirit unfamiliar to me; I guessed, a feeling of love.

Another “dark” take on a Pokémon’s biology (I really liked writing explorations of those back then lol), this time of Roselia.  The idea was that a Roselia was so in love with her trainer that she would do anything for him - including allow him to cut off her arms so he could give them to his girlfriend.  I actually ended up turning it into a poem at one point:

Love is like a rose they say, And affection leads to grief they warned. For in the end love betrays, Its Beauty maimed by a poisoned thorn. You gave me pure water with a smile. Your cheerful face became my sun. I offered up my blood to you, And in return demanded none. Chop off my wrists, and tie them together. I’ll gladly bleed myself to death. In order to give you that which I hold most dear. My dear, my dear, Won’t you accept this bouquet? You take it, smiling warily. A blush creeps onto your face. And in those eyes I can see A garden of roses stretched out, Composing a wondrous place. Then you bound my hands in lace, And brought them to the girl next door. You presented them to her with grace. … My blood continued to pour.

Fanfic

She smiled at me, although something about her expression indicated something wasn't quite right.  I watched as she glanced over towards the west, her gaze lingering momentarily on the setting sun.  The glowing, orange sphere was slowly sinking behind the distant mountains, peaks cloaked in a pale, lavender haze illuminated by flickering beams of gold and scarlet cast across the horizon.

More accurately, I found this buried in a “catch-all” file where I had several (mostly finished) fics saved.  This was meant to be from the POV of an Eevee who had just evolved - supposedly into an Espeon due to happiness and bond with her trainer, which is what both wanted.  However, since it took place at sunset, she didn’t realize she had become an Umbreon instead, and her trainer ended up abandoning her for it. ;( It was a warm

Children’s shrieks and laughter echoed across the park as they flocked towards each other, and soon were chasing one another round the playground, weaving in and out between the swings as they partook in an innocent game of Tag.  One child was It; she was trying desperately to catch one of her friends so that they would take over the job instead.  Then it would be her turn to run away, for none of them wished to play the loathsome role of It.  Or was it because they feared being tainted by the person’s touch?  It must have been one of the two, for while she would struggle to reach them, catch hold of them, they would only flee, thoroughly enjoying the fact that they were vexing her.  Twice she nearly caught one.  Her fingertips were almost within reach of one of the other girls’ dresses, whose russet tresses were flowing wildly from the rush of movement and shining with golden highlights as the rays of the sun struck individual strands.  The target shrieked and shook her head, whisking her skirt free in time to escape capture, laughing with glee at the sight of the girl left behind, miserable and alone. 

Yeah I totally just went with the default beginning of the first sentence lol.  I guess this comes full circle with the first Kagepro fic I mentioned (although I’m not even sure I was aware back then that the Japanese version of the game literally called “It” a “demon”, which is even more fitting).  I believe this was part of a Pokémon series I was writing involving a creepy little girl and Mewtwo who would bring about the end of the world or something like that, but generally I guess I was just going for a “Catcher in the Rye” feel. *shrug* Golden Lights

The pale, rosy fingers of dawn were filtering in through the Granite Cave entrance, basking a small area near the opening in pinkish illumination.  Just out of reach of its expanse sat little Mika, huddled in the gloom of the shadows, watching the light creep steadily towards her as the glowing ball of fire rose slowly towards the East.  She knew about the Light that came from Outside.  There were plenty other small apertures broken into the cavern walls and ceiling that allowed some thin streams of gold brilliance to trickle through.  She had always done well to avoid them.  The brightness was like poison to her skin.  But they weren’t the Lights she’d had described to her by the old Crobat that always resided now deeper within the underground chambers, dozing now, most likely.  He wouldn’t awaken until night came round, and she did not wish to rouse him and perhaps disturb him from a pleasant dream.  She was very wise about things like that, being the young child that she was.  Still, she would have liked to hear a story to comfort her just then.

Last one I could find, about a Sableye who, like Icarus, literally “flew too close to the sun”.  In this interpretation I imagined that Sableye were creatures who could not stand sunlight at all, as it would cause their skin to burn.  But Mika (pronounced like “Mica”) always dreamed of going outside to see the “Light” anyway.  She was eventually tempted by Mew to leave the cavern under her angelic PROTECTion and step into the Light, who was acting as Ho-Oh’s messenger to “recruit” souls to “live eternal as an element of Ho-Oh’s Guarding Flame“, as the PROTECT faded and a “holy fire” began to spread.  I guess I was going for a Biblical/”Rapture”-esque reference.  (...Man I sure was obsessed with the endtimes as a kid. *shot*)

[not-so-lonely-star]

(B)romance in the NHL

Summary: A viral article about Kent and Tater’s bromance sparks some confessions. Word Count: 3,700 Rating: G

  The music skips with an incoming text that Alexei ignores as he mixes his smoothie and hums along. Once he adds the last chunk of banana he slips the lid on the blender and turns it on. A few moments later he turns it off and the silence is jarring. Alexei walks over towards where his phone is laying on the counter, hoping his battery hasn't died yet again. His phone has been on the last leg of life for a couple weeks now, but he's too attached to it to change it in for a new one, no matter how much the rookies tease him. 

Alexei picks up the phone. It isn't dead. It buzzes incessantly in his hand as 20 messages turned to thirty with three missed calls and several voicemails. Alexei swipes in his password and scrolls down the list of names until he reaches the first message. It's from Kent. The first is a link with three messages in quick succession after.  

Kent (8:57 am): I didn't even notice them take this   Kent (8:57 am): It makes us look kind of gay... don't you think? Kent (8:58 am): Okay yeah other ppl think it's hella gay too wtf 

Alexei clicks on the link from the first text and his heart feels like it's beating out an erratic rhythm in his chest as he waits for it to load. Once it loads he breathes a sigh of relief, it's just the article about bromance in the NHL. A couple months ago he'd been contacted by Cosmo to participate alongside Kent in a best bros piece about cross team friendships in the NHL in an attempt to broaden the hockey audience. The concept was simple enough, they'd contacted a bunch of different hockey players with friendships well documented via social media and called them in to take pictures and give a short interview. 

Two weeks ago, once they were both free with plenty of time in the off season, he and Kent had flown out to LA and posed for a bunch of pictures together. Each pair of friends was photographed playing some sport other than hockey. 

Alexei knew Snowy and his buddy Kicker from the Schooners were doing water polo, because Snowy had complained to Alexei for a solid three days afterwards that it was 'the lamest of all polos'. Alexei and Kent had been given wrestling. The singlet they gave him was so small Alexei had popped into Kent's dressing room, certain that it was his - it wasn't. Kent's was tight and in aces black unlike the one Alexei was holding in falconer's blue.

Once they'd gotten dressed, after a lot of wiggling on Alexei's part, they'd been brought out to the set where a wrestling mat was set up and they were told how to pose. Most of it was fairly benign, Alexei pretending to have Kent in a headlock, Kent crouching to knock Alexei over, them standing together with arms slung around one another's shoulders, that sort of thing. After a couple hours of taking photos the woman in charge of the shoot, Shelly, stopped them.  

"Alright boys," she'd said, walking over towards them and shaking both their hands. "I think we've got a bunch of great shots here. So you can feel free to go ahead and get changed. We've got a few more photoshoots and interviews scheduled, but the article should be posted in a couple weeks so keep your eye out." She smiled at them before walking back to the photographer. "Thanks again for coming," she said over her shoulder at them, "It's been a pleasure." 

"Thank you," Kent had said, smiling, "it gives me an excuse to drag this lug out to LA finally." 

Alexei had rolled his eyes good naturedly, "I am telling Kent I been to LA many times before -" 

"Playing hockey and never leaving your hotel doesn't count." Kent smirked at him and before Alexei could even think about what he was doing he'd lifted Kent up and they'd both gone crashing down onto the mat. After grappling for a minute Alexei had ended up on his back staring up dazedly at Kent standing above him with his hand outstretched to help him up. 

Alexei puts his head in his hands as he stares down at the photo. He hadn't even realized that the cameras were still rolling while he and Kent were messing around. The picture was taken a moment after Alexei knocked them both to the mat. In it he's pinning Kent's arms above his head and his legs are straddling Kent's waist. Kent has a grin on his face, that's more smirk than smile, which at the time had Alexei's heart skipping a beat before returning in double time. Kent's left brow is raised in challenge, but it's Alexei's face coupled with their position that's incriminating. His eyes are soft, his smile joyous and it's obvious to anyone looking that he's in love. 

Alexei groans, and lets his head thunk down onto the cool counter. He hadn't realized he's been so transparent with his affection for Kent, if he had he never would've agreed to do the photoshoot together in the first place. Maybe no one else really noticed though, he thinks hopefully as he runs to get his laptop because his phone really is a piece of shit. 

His laptop boots up quickly and Alexei holds his breath as he googles his own name. Before he even finishes typing it autofills with Alexei Mashkov Kent Parson gay? He curses softly before clicking on the first article that comes up and it has more than just the picture from the Cosmo site. There's paparazzi photos all the way going back to their rookie year, to when Alexei played for the Aces. None of the pictures would be all that incriminating on their own, but together... 

Alexei groans and takes a deep breath before scrolling down through no less than twenty pictures of the two of them sitting just a little too close at sporting events, smiling at each other over dinner, sitting together in pubs, and most notably a picture of them slow dancing at Chaser's wedding last year. Chaser was the only other rookie on the Aces in their first year and had invited them both to his wedding even though none of them were still on the same team anymore. 

"Why you are not dancing?" Alexei'd asked, having just come back from the dance floor where he'd had six kids hanging off of him like a jungle gym. 

Kent had rolled his eyes and held up his glass, "This is more my style." 

Alexei had plopped down into the chair beside Kent and smiled at him. "I know you like dancing. I see pictures all the time of Ace's Captain dance at club." 

"This isn't really my type of dancing." Kent's nose had crinkled at the thought. Alexei's heart was still a little erratic from his time on the dance floor. 

"You are not knowing how," Alexei'd teased in a singsong voice. 

Kent had scoffed. "I know how to fucking dance." 

Alexei stood up and stretched out his hand to Kent in invitation. "Prove it." 

They'd twirled around the dance floor together, laughing with fingers entwined. At one point Kent had buried his head into Alexei's shoulder and it'd made Alexei's heart race and his palms sweat. The other hockey players at the wedding had teased them afterwards, but the smile Kent couldn't seem to completely wipe from his face the rest of the night had been worth any chirping they'd received.

Alexei knew their picture had been taken, but they'd been goofing off, he hadn't thought anything of it at the time, but now it was showing up on a gossip site less than twenty minutes after Cosmo posted incriminating photos. He isn't sure he wants to read whatever this site has to say about him and Kent, but it's like a car wreck he can't look away from as he scrolls down. 

The article following the photos is short and mostly excerpts from the Cosmo interview.  

Cosmo: So you two have been friends since your rookie year. Can you tell us about how you guys went from being teammates to friends? KP: Well my rookie year was pretty rough, it was a big change from the Q [Parson was in Juniors prior to the 2009 draft] and Tater didn't know anyone - AM: Or any English KP: [smiling at Mashkov] We bonded over a mutual inability to cook and be actual adults. 

Alexei knows there was a follow up question to that about what sort adult things they didn't know how to do, it somehow devolved into Kent ranting about Kit. Alexei's not exactly shocked the site he's on chose not to include that conversation - if it even ended up in the final interview of Cosmo's website. Alexei had gotten so distracted by the picture he forgot to even look. 

Cosmo: I'm sure our readers would be interested to know what the two of you do when you hang out together. AM: We like going [to] movies, I can cook now and Parsnip like[s] to [Mashkov looks to Parson and gestures at him] KP: [laughs] Mooch AM: Yes, yes he mooch[es] off of me. Cosmo: Is he a good cook Kent? KP: Oh yeah, definitely. I love when he cooks for me. 

Cosmo: Do you two have anything planned together during the offseason? AM: Kent is come [sic] to Russia with me. KP: Since when? AM: I [told] you my mama want[s] to meet you. KP: Yeah I thought you meant in the US man. AM: No, no. I mean in Russia. KP: [Laughing] Apparently we're going to Russia together. 

Cosmo: Kent you always seem to have a new beautiful woman on your arm. Any chance of you settling down soon? KP: [laughs] Is this your polite way of telling me to stop being a player? Cosmo: No, no of course not. I just want to let our female readers to know if they've got a chance. KP: Oh alright then, [laughs] as long as you're not trying to ruin my image.     Alexei knows, he knows he shouldn't be reading the comments but he can't stop himself from scrolling. 

There's already over 800 comments when he starts to read them, and the number keeps scrolling up. There's argumentative comments defending Alexei from what they think are false accusations tinged with disgust at the implications, debates continue in threads below that, a surprising number are supportive and there's a single comment, fifteen responses deep from a gay teen who says he's decided not to quit hockey now from just the idea that there might be professional hockey players like him. Alexei stops reading after that one.  

When he attempts to go back to the original article to see what else had been included from their interview he can't because the site has crashed. Alexei pushes his laptop aside and walks back to his kitchen, ignoring the incessant buzzing and dialing Kent's number without even glancing at his missed calls and texts. It doesn't even finish the first ring before Kent's picking up.  

"Dude, where the fuck were you? I've been trying to call you for twenty minutes." His voice sounds tinny and far away like he's using the speakerphone. 

"Sorry," Alexei says, running a hand through his hair and feeling his heart rate slow from the panicked seizing it was doing moments before. He'd rather not think too deeply about that. "I - are you alone?" 

"Yeah," Kent sighs through the line and Alexei can picture him fingering the brim of his snapback. "I'm in the car on my way to your place now."

"What?" Alexei asks. 

"I was in New York visiting my mom," he says, "I'll be there in like two hours." 

Alexei feels selfish, but the fact that he'll get to see Kent today nearly outweighs everything else. "Okay," he says, taking a deep breath, "I am sorry, котенок.  Is my fault they are saying these things. I should not have -" 

"Shut up Aloysha," Kent says. Alexei sucks in a quick breath at the rare use of his nickname. "This isn't on you. I'll explain when I get there - just don't promise PR or your GM anything before I do alright?" 

Alexei nods, "Yes okay. I tell them we wait to talk to Aces before say anything." "Sounds good man," Kent says before hanging up. 

Instead of sitting in his apartment letting his anxiety brew while he waits for Kent, Alexei calls Georgia and PR who are both surprisingly not upset with him. PR is pissed at Cosmo for using that shot, but the conversation actually goes far better than he thought it would. They even tell him that they were coming up with a plan for one of their other players who's planning on coming out and Alexei has absolutely no idea what to say to that. Georgia tells him that how they proceed is completely up to him; whether or not it's true he can deny it, or if he wants to come out the organization is behind him 100%. Alexei doesn't really know what to say to that because the number of people who know he's gay are exactly 2  - including himself, and the boy he kissed behind the bleachers in Russia nearly a decade ago who he's fairly sure doesn't even remember his name. He tells them he has to think about everything and hangs up before they can say anything else.

His phone won't stop buzzing and Alexei considers turning it off before deciding that it might not be a good idea. He checks the clock every five minutes trying to figure out when Kent'll get here, and when he's got about twenty more minutes to wait if Kent doesn't hit traffic when his phone buzzes with a name he'll actually bother picking up for. 

"Alexei are you alright?" His given name sounds foreign on Jack's lips and he furrows his brow in distaste. 

"Zimmboni," Tater exclaims, attempting to maintain some sense of normalcy. "How are you? When am I getting more pie from your baker?" 

"Tater. You have - you've seen the article, haven't you?"  

Tater sighs and his facade falls. "Yes, I'm seeing." 

"I'm bi," Jack blurts, "well either that or pan. I'm not entirely sure yet, but I just - I thought it was something I should tell you. I mean, no that's not right," Jack says, words tumbling out so fast Alexei thinks Jack may have surprised himself a little with the confession. "It's something I wanted to tell you." 

"Thank you," Alexei whispers, unsure of what else to say. 

"I'm planning on coming out soon," Jack says, "while it's still off season, eh?" Alexei nods. "Is good time I think." 

"I can -" Alexei can hear Jacks gulp clear through the line, "I can do it now. If it'll help - if it'll take the pressure off of you." 

"NO," Alexei near shouts, "no, no. You do not come out for me. You come out for you when you are ready. Yes Zimmboni?" 

The line is silent for a moment and when he speaks, Alexei can hear the undertone of relief in Jack's voice. "Yeah, yeah okay, you're right. I just - I know it can't be easy for you to have these rumors about you." 

"They are not being rumors," Alexei says before he can stop himself. 

"What?" 

"Rumors means not true, yes? " Alexei's never said the words out loud before, and even though his heart feels like it's about to pound out from his chest he continues, "Well they are not rumors because I am gay."  The words fall off his tongue as easy as any other and it seems anticlimactic that his roof doesn't cave in and the world around him doesn't come crashing down. Everything is the same as it was moments before, but it's different too. 

"Thank you for trusting me with this," Jack says, as though it's a phrase he's memorized. "So you and Kenny are..."  Jack's voice has a lilt to it now Alexei can't identify and he feels his heart cracking and splintering around the seams. 

"No, no is not what seems." Alexei corrects him, walking over to the window with his phone held up to his ear before peeking through to see the swarm of reporters camped out at the end of his mercifully long driveway. 

"Then I think you should talk to Kent," Jack says, as though it's that easy. Before Alexei can respond Jack is ending the call and there's a commotion at the end of his property.

A dark blue four door sports car barely even slows for the reporters blocking the end of his driveway. Alexei stumbles towards the switch by his door leading to the garage and presses it, opening the garage door just as the sports car reaches the house. An impossibly quick moment later his door is opening and he's got an armful of Kent Parson. 

Alexei wraps his arms around Kent's shoulders and Kent buries his face deeper into Alexei's chest. After a long moment Alexei moves to pull back out of the hug, but Kent's arms remain firm around his shoulders and Alexei relaxes back into the embrace. When they finally pull apart several long moments later Kent's eyes are rimmed with red.   

"I'm so sorry,"  Alexei says. 

"What?" Kent asks, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. "Dude why're you sorry? It's my dumb ass that got us into this mess." 

Alexei looks at Kent with confusion twisting his brow and Kent huffs a sigh, flopping down onto his couch and throwing an arm over his face dramatically. Alexei follows him and lifts Kent's feet so he can sit at the end of the couch. Kent doesn't put his feet in Alexei's lap - which is weird, because they sit like that all the time. He's got his legs squished up in a way that absolutely cannot be comfortable instead. Alexei picks Kent's feet up gingerly and places them in his lap. 

Kent peaks out from under his arm and groans. "Why do you have to be such a perfect asshole, man?" Before Alexei can even come up with a response for that Kent plows on. "I'm gay." 

Blood rushes through Alexei's ears and he drops his head down as his vision swims. Kent is gay, Alexei's best friend who he's in love with is not straight. He isn't sure how to process this information. 

"And I'm sorry that you've gotten roped into this - I didn't think some little fluff piece for Cosmo would -" Kent pinches the bridge of his nose and looks anywhere other than at Alexei, "The interview, along with how I'm looking at you in that fucking picture. I - " Kent pulls his feet from Alexei's lap and sits up straight. "I can fix this, I was planning on coming out soon anyway. I can tell everyone to fuck off that just cause I -" 

"What do you mean?" Alexei says slowly, Kent's words on repeat in his head. "What do you mean how you look at me?" 

Kent rolls his eyes and huffs, but Alexei knows him well enough to see the nerves beneath his frosty exterior. "Are you really going to make me say it man?" 

Alexei shrugs because the only way Kent's sentence would make sense is if he liked him, and that - he knows that isn't what Kent means. 

Kent sighs and his gaze flicks away from Alexei's before meeting it defiantly. "I'm into you, okay? Not in a way that means we can't still be friends or anything because you don't love me back and you're also straight so - "

"I'm not straight," Alexei says, mind stuck on an endless loop of the words love me back. His heart is going to pump right out of his chest. "I am very much not straight," he repeats because it seems like Kent didn't hear him. 

"What?" Kent asks after a long moment, eyes wide and brimming with something Alexei desperately wants to be hope. 

"And I do," he says, and Ken'ts looking at him like he isn't quite sure what Alexei means, so he clears his throat and says, "love you back, I'm meaning." He ducks his head because that is most definitely not when he intended to say but he's not going to take it back because it's true and Kent deserves to hear it.

Kent launches himself at Alexei and suddenly they're kissing and it's - it's everything. It's years of memories seen in a completely different light. It's two rookies who hold hands just a hair too long when they shake for the first time. It's finding Kent crying in the locker room after a reporter interrogates him about Zimmermann the night of their first game and not knowing the words in either language but scooping him up into his arms anyway and leaving that night with a newly minted best friend. It's smiling just a little too long and laughing just a little too hard at jokes that no one else in the room finds funny. It's the bright red flush that creeps up Kent's neck and settles on his cheeks when Alexei catches his eye in locker room. It's playing on opposing teams and going to the fanciest restaurant in town to make the loser pay. It's every touch and look that sends off a flickering trail of sparks deep in his chest that he always tried desperately to smother. 

It's Kent climbing into his lap and kissing him within an inch of his life. It's Alexei's hands dropping down low on Kent's waist as he pulls him closer. It's Kent breaking the kiss to catch his breath, forehead resting against Alexei's.

 It's Kent mumbling, "We're so fucking stupid. We could've been doing this for years," into Alexei's mouth before kissing him again.

[captainjackfuckingbarakat-blog]

So I’m working on an Ian/Mickey fic, but refuse to post it, until I’ve got a rough draft completed. Now, I’m not very far in it right now, but with college right now, motivation dwindles. So, I thought I’d post a snippet (ok, not exactly a snippet, it’s a few thousand words long...), and hopefully get some feedback on it.

Enjoy!

Felicia’s hand was flung in front of her, the diamond on her finger glinting with the sunlight beaming through the window and reflecting off it. Ian dug into the depths of his memory, for any recollection of a boyfriend, but he found none. He’d known the fiery auburn haired girl for three years – their first meeting definitely left them a story to tell. Despite the length of their friendship, Ian could only remember Felicia single, even last night she’d been eagerly grinding against some guy. “Oi, don’t be thinking too hard there.” She spoke with a thick British accent; she’d only moved to the states three years ago, shortly before meeting Ian, and she did nothing to cover her origins.

           “You’re just telling me about this now!” Ian seized her left hand, eyes glazing over the rock that took up half of her finger. Felicia had been a mysterious woman from the beginning, and had no problem constantly throwing him for a loop – like the ex-boyfriend she’d left behind with their infant daughter when she was 18.

           “He only proposed this morning. Sorry I decided to have celebratory sex with my fiancé to tell your sorry ass.” Felicia yanked back her hand, flashing one more adoring smile at her ring finger before shoving it into the pocket of her black romper. “Oh come on, I’ve told you about Mickey, dark and handsome. Haven’t I?” Felicia threw a gob smacked hand to her forehead and her face flushed. “Ey Ian, forgot to tell you, there’s this bloke I’ve been seein.”

           “Well jeez Felicia, surprised you didn’t wait until I was walking you down the aisle.” Ian had always been one to tell her about his latest fling, however he’s pretty sure she stopped paying attention at guy number 5, and that had only been a month in. He used to believe every guy would be the one, but after a harsh break up with a guy he’d dated for a year, he jumped off that train.

           “Who says you’re givin me away?” She put on a serious face, arms crossing across her chest in dismay, but they both knew that unless she was having the wedding in London, Ian was the only one that fit the job. Felicia’s mom had passed years ago, and her dad was barely hanging on since then, cancer eating away at his lungs. Her only brother stuck around to care for their father, while she’d run away at 16, and only went back for her mother’s funeral – he hated her. “I wanted to wait till it got serious. It got serious, then I forgot.”

           “Probably a few too many lines of coke. I told you that shit isn’t good for you.” Ian tutted his best friend – she was a party girl, but Ian figured out how to maneuver around it. He always let her do her thing, and did a good job at standing up to peer pressure. He had a lot more restraint than his older brother Lip, who was 24 and already a raging alcoholic. Ian was past his party days, and had enough on his plate these days without the booze and drugs plaguing him.

           “Good thing my fiancé don’t care how dumb I am. He loves me regardless.” Felicia flashed her ring again, if only so she could stare longingly at it, as if the man who’d given it to her would appear upon her wishes. “Tomorrow,” she pointed adamantly at Ian. “You’re taking me out for a celebratory drink.”

           “It’ll have to be an early drink. I go in at five, won’t be off until well after midnight.” Ian’s work hours were shit, and the job mundane. He crossed his arms all night as he worked as an intimidation technique at the fairytale, a gay club in Boys town. That’s how he’d met Felicia, a rowdy patron who was way too drunk, and he hadn’t taken a single step up the latter in three years. At least he still have a steady flow of cock, his one remaining vice – he’d even given up cigarettes along the way, allowing his lungs a break from nicotine and weed.

           “Pick me up at two for an afternoon cocktail.” Felicia shook his hand as if that were normal behavior – what, were they setting up some sort of business deal – the two friends had been more of huggers. “Tonight, it’s back to my fiancé, so you’ll have to party hard without me.” For Ian, that meant one beer in the privacy of his crappy apartment in the heart of Chicago, streaming Netflix through the night.

~

           “So, you have got to tell me about this guy.” They had been at the bar for all but ten minutes, with Felicia trying to distract him with crazy coworker stories – she worked reception at a law firm. The girl was already sipping her way through her second glass of whiskey, while Ian had taken a few sips from his Coca-Cola. The bartender had given him a dirty look when he turned down even a beer with minimal alcohol content. He was ready to find it a maddening bar like in the movie Coyote Ugly that would spray him down with water for his choice. “Come on, what’s his name again?”

           “Mickey,” Felicia said with a slap on his shoulder. “He’s the one.” She had always claimed not to believe in love, always cynical about the future, which likely explained why she’d kept this quiet. Boyfriends had only fucked her over in the past. “He’s fucking short, only an inch taller than me, but he never complains when I wear heals. He’s got these stupid tattoos on his knuckles, but somehow I find them endearing.” She went on, and Ian admired the look of love glowing from his best friend. He used to dream about something like that for himself, before he learned that no one would really care about a lunatic. He thought he’s had it with Jacob, but a year into their relationships, and Ian’s meds went haywire, and he was committed for a week. He returned to an empty apartment.

           “I think I’ll ask his sister Mandy to be my Maid of Honor. She’s a kickin girl. Maybe you can be a bridesmaid! We’ll deck you out in a pink frilly dress.” Ian rolled his eyes, because no matter how gay he was, he wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress. “We’ll make you look so good, Mickey might even take his eyes off me and find you so attractive he leaves me at the altar.”

           Ian waved his hands in refusal. “I don’t want your straight fiancés affection.” There were enough guys that wanted to fuck him not dressed as a girl. He didn’t need to dress in drag to attract men’s attention – oddly enough, gay guys still seemed to dig that.

           “Whatever. You don’t know what you’re missing. He’s got a great cock. He’d tear your ass apart.”

           “Oh come on, I don’t need to hear about your sex life. Now I’ll be staring at his dick when I meet him.” They both knew that Ian was a top, not gold star, he’d fucked around more than he wanted to admit sometimes, but straight cock in his ass was repulsive. For all the guys Felicia never told him about, Ian told her in gory detail about the guys he’d fucked – she was the only person he ran to when he bottomed for the first time without getting paid for it. She always drowned him out with alcohol.

           “Who ways you’re meetin him? You ain’t even invited to the wedding Ian Gallagher.” Felicia waved to the bartender for a refill on both of their drinks, even though he wasn’t quite halfway through his soda. “Fine!” She cried as if Ian had been begging her for the last second of silence. “You can meet him. But no acting all high and mighty just cause you can attract classier guys than me.” This fiancé of hers was Southside, one of the few things he managed to catch while absently watching her lips move. Ian had been born and raised in the Southside of Chicago, but ran and didn’t look back much after he joined the military at 18 – even if that hadn’t worked out for him.

           “Oh come on. That’s a low blow. Just because I hate my family doesn’t mean everyone from the neighborhood is like them.” Ian was 23, not some baby that didn’t understand how the world worked. He had his qualms with his family, but kept it between them. Felicia knew as little as he could get away with telling her about the other five Gallagher kids, and the only thing she knew about the deadbeat parents, was that Monica was dead. “I’m sure he’s a great guy.” He better have been good to Felicia, because she never deserved an asshole for a husband.

           “I’ll set something up when he ain’t working. He works construction; it’s fucking shitty, but as least he makes money.” Ian understood; before he’d gotten the job as a bouncer, he’d sifted through some pathetic jobs that paid the bills, and allowed him to live as far away from his siblings as he could. He hadn’t wanted to chance running into them after he’d left for good when he was 19, upon his diagnosis of bipolar disorder. They looked at him the way they looked at their mom – he was fucking insane.

           “Mickey will hate you. He thinks straight edge guys like you are pussies. Guess he’s not exactly wrong, with you at least.” Felicia knew better than that. Ian had a lot of demons that followed him, but mostly his mental illness; it made him weak in too many ways. It stopped him from partying along with his best friend, and left him home most nights. “We’ll have to get you to help with the wedding, god knows I don’t know shit.”

           “And I do?”

           “Duh, you’re gay.” Ian had never been a stereotypical gay man, but that didn’t make him any less of a fag. He’d never fucking paint his nails, or where make up. Ian would rather spend a day bulking up at the gym; all this after hiding his sexuality for a good chunk of his life. In the Southside, with all the uneducated bigots, racists, and homophobes, it was a death sentence for a gay man to even walk down the street.

           “Hey, shut your face. You’re on your own with the wedding. I’m just showing up to make sure you don’t trip on your dress. Wouldn’t want to make a fool of yourself on your wedding day, in front of your husband to be.” Ian finally managed to finish off his coke and put down money for both of their drinks. “Good talk. Can’t wait to meet the guy that puts that smile on your face.” He hugged her tightly as a formal goodbye, and headed out into the burning Chicago cold, and his beat up red Ford that barely ran anymore.

~

~

~

           Felicia and Ian hid together in a dimly lit corner booth, both drinking a beer, albeit Ian was a lot more cautious with his beverage. The brit had insisted they go to a steakhouse, and fill up on a twenty-five ounce steak, and one of each of the deserts for the three of them to split. The best friends saved eating out for special occasions, so that when they did, their bill was well over one hundred dollars, accompanied with a twenty dollar tip. It was just like when he was a kid, and Fiona would run into a bit of extra cash – usually they stuck with buffets. The restaurant was far from fancy, but it was their go-to place, and a couple waitresses recognized them – they only went about four times a year, but they’d been doing so for three years now, and the staff seemed pretty consistent. The booth they sat in was busting apart at the seams, and Ian pressed himself to the wall to avoid sitting on the slash across the middle of his side.

           “So, is Mickey just imaginary?” Ian pointed to the empty spot beside Felicia, and the third, unmoved menu. They’d waited an hour, and his best friend insisted they wait to order, because he promised he’d come, and Felicia still had faith in him. So Ian filled up on the bread the waitress kept bringing buy, and finally ordered himself something other than water. He’d done his best at attempting to not point out Mickey’s obvious tardiness, how bad of an impression Ian was getting of the guy.

           “He’s jus’ runnin’ late. He’ll come!” She was adamant about it, and Ian had no choice but to shut up and sit back with his nearly wasted friend. Felicia was moping, but refused to lose hope on her fiancé, and ordered herself another drink every time the waitress came back. There was a full glass of beer at the seat beside her that she’d ordered along with her first drink, but she left it, because he was fucking coming. Felicia pulled out her phone as her mope broke out into a fattening grin. “He’s jus’ parked. I told ya ‘e was comin’.” He was glad to be wrong.

           Ian hadn’t even seen a picture of the guy, so he hadn’t realized it was Mickey headed their way, until he slid in beside Felicia. His arm fell over her shoulder, and Ian recognized the knuckle tattoos, the only physical attribute she’d given him – this hand read fuck. Their lips slotted together in a brief greeting, and Felicia followed it with a hard punch to the shoulder. “That’s for bein’ late dickhead.”

           “Fucking bitch.” There was a small amount of scruff on Mickey’s chin, and his mop of hair was black, with a hint of something lighter there, and those eyes were a stunning shade of blue – Felicia’s dreamy talk hadn’t done them justice. “I’m sorry,” he spoke softly and ran his thumb over her cheek. He spared a glance across the table to Ian, directing his apology to the both of them. Mickey kept his right arm securely around Felicia’s shoulders, but reached his left out for Ian to shake. U-Up was scrawled across the four fingers in the same unsteady spray of unprofessional ink. “You must be Ian. This one talks about you a lot.”

           The handshake was strong, but not threatening, like he’d gotten from other guys when he’d befriended their girlfriends – if Ian was straight, he wouldn’t have a hard time stealing someone’s girl, the amount of times he’d gotten punched assure that. “You’re Mickey,” the redhead pointed out. “Can’t say I knew much about you before, but she’s talked non-stop these last few weeks.”

           “I wasn’t sure she’d ever let me meet you. So, what is it? You don’t seem like someone she should be hiding.” Mickey didn’t say a word when he picked up the lukewarm beer, and finished it in a few long gulps, slamming it harshly back to the table and motioning his finger at someone walking by for another. Pothole duty must have really done a number on him. “I thought my family was crazy, but this girl’s just as batshit insane.”

           They put their orders in five minutes later, and another round of bread was brought around to their table. Ian laid off this time, but Mickey was quick to slather butter on a slice and shoved it down. “This bitch packed me an apple for lunch, can you believe that. How is that supposed to stop my stomach rumbling while I pour concrete into holes? I’d get it if she was a health nut, but an apple is like two fucking calories and no protein.”

           “If you wanted a cook, you shouldn’t be marrying her.” Felicia had tried to make Ian a can of soup one time when he was low – she hadn’t realized that it was a lot different than the flu at the time. She got him moving pretty quickly when his microwave exploded, and she’d tried to heat it up, can and all. “She’s also a slob. Glad it’s you she’d marrying and not me.”

           “Doesn’t sound like you swing that way anyways.” Felicia had always mouthed off about how much a fag Ian was, which usually led to her attempting to set Ian up on dates. He wondered if Mickey had almost been the culprit of the setup, before she realized he was straight and falling head over heels for her. “Must’ve been hard. Southside ain’t the breeding ground for pride parades.” Ian wondered what had been done right for someone that was so obviously dragged deeply into the drugs and violence of that neighborhood, to turn into a guy that could casually sit across from Ian. He still didn’t feel safe walking in his own neighborhood without a knife in his pocket – everyone knew that the redheaded Gallagher was batshit crazy and gay, because the drunks liked to talk.

           “Did you get out?” Ian wasn’t doing much better than his siblings, but he could at least say he managed to move a few blocks away, and officially out of the Southside, even if his roots were still bred in his bones. He avoided that old rickety house on North Wallace, and the memories that dragged with it. The last time he’d gone home was when their mom died, otherwise he made everyone come to him.

           “Kind of. Spend a lot of time back there. My sister’s still there, with our older brother, but I don’t really live there.” Ian recognized the pain their upbringing instilled on everyone, and they could easily swap war stories. They could decide whose parents were worse – he knew Frank and Monica were tame compared to others, even with both of them fucking off all the time, the drugs, and the bruises Frank occasionally gave Ian. “Of course, this girl had her life set with a rich daddy in London.”

           “My father’s money doesn’t say shit about me,” Felicia quipped – she’d never gotten a penny. Each person at the booth was equally broke, despite her background. Felicia had ran off at sixteen, and had only seen her father a handful of times since. “In fact, thing we might have to dine and dash.” They’d done it once, but Ian had felt so guilty, that he’d gone back and left a hundred dollar bill on the hosts’ podium, because he’d had the money to pay. It was a lot different from when he was ten, and Frank and Monica took the five kids they had at the time to some fancy restaurant. Their mom had just come back, after she’d left five years ago, and the group of them obviously didn’t belong – should’ve been kicked out right away for their appearance, because they were definitely too poor to afford it. Frank had ushered him, Lip, and their five year old brother Carl through a window in the men’s restroom.

           “Need I remind you, the cops hate me enough,” Mickey announced, easily dismissing Felicia’s possibly serious idea. “Southside, man. The Milkovich name is akin for trouble.” The last named sparked familiarity in Ian, not that he remember any of them, except maybe the father.

           “Any relation to, uh…Jerry?”

           “Terry,” Mickey nodded. “Afraid to say I’m his blood. I’m his son.” Ian didn’t remember much about the guy, but Ian had seen him hanging around the Alibi, and Frank slurred about plenty of their fights, Monica might have fucked him too. Kev told horror stories about the different shenanigans the Milkovich patrons had gotten into, none of them the innocent childish type.

           “Seem like a handful,” Ian nodded in sympathy, but didn’t spill into the dramatics about their asshole fathers. Frank was a pathetic drunk that left his oldest daughter to raise five kids, and Ian would never forgive him. Even if Ian had found out that his biological father was one of Frank’s brothers, rich and everything, the real dream for anyone that grew up like them. Ian had learned of this when he was fifteen, and much to Lip’s dismay, he refused to confront his father, because he already had his family. Ian Gallagher was never one to take the easy way out. “So, you were unlucky enough to fall for Felicia,” Ian commented with a breathy chuckle. “Are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?”

           “Couldn’t ask for a better girl to spend my life with.” Mickey’s right arm had still been comfortably around Felicia’s shoulders, and he squeezed her close as he gushed about her. “I’ve lived with a girl like this one all my life. Guess it was just a test run, so I was ready for the real thing.” Mickey seemed genuinely happy, and it shown in the way his smile sparkled in those ocean blue eyes, and his face split as he let out gentle laughs. Everything told Ian that that was the kind of relationship he’d been dreaming of since he’d understood what it meant to be in love. He was glad Felicia was getting her fairytale ending.

           The arrival of the food halted conversation, as the couple seemed starved. Ian had made the mistake of filling up on the complimentary bread, and instead pushed his food around while participating in the conversation between bites. He laughed along with the jokes, and hung off Mickey’s childhood stories, sharing some stupid comments of his own. Nothing was really serious at the table. Ian knew as soon as Mickey stepped in, the dynamic between them would be changed, and they’d now be a trio. It wasn’t something he was ready to give up.

Ok, if you made it through that, please shoot me a message, or reply to this post. I’m just looking for either reassurance that it’s good, or ways to improve.

[anneedmonds]

Life Update: What Have I Done?

I’ve had a slightly longer break from work than anticipated; but don’t worry, there’s nothing sinister afoot. I’m not ill, the dog didn’t die, I’ve not had a drastic facelift that meant I needed to hide behind bandages for a month. I was just absolutely shattered before Christmas and then the school holidays (aka “the great relentless abyss of no childcare”) completely finished me off.

I won’t harp on about Christmas not being a holiday – you can read this post from the same time last year and just update the kids’ ages – but it’s safe to say that having a four and two year old is as much work (possibly more) than having a three and a one year old. At least toddlers (generally) haven’t discovered eye-rolling and chat-back. At least toddlers are vaguely amused by wrapping paper, empty boxes and the jangly bell from a Lindt bunny tied to the end of a piece of ribbon. Fast-forward a year and the children now want painting games on the iPad and festive biscuit-decorating sessions.

Anyway, to cut a long and fairly pedestrian story short, I decided to take a few casual days off when school started back last week so that I actually had more than twenty seconds to myself. It was great. On the first of the two child-free days (there were four school days in total but Ted only goes to nursery part time) I stayed in bed looking for second hand velvet sofas on eBay and browsing for vintage rugs on Vinterior. On the second child-free day, which – alas – wasn’t consecutive – I went to Bath in the morning with Mr AMR, had some lunch and then sorted out the shoes and boots in the utility room. Bliss.

So that covers the two days last week when I actually had some proper time off: what of the rest of the “holiday”? What an earth have I been up to, seeing as though I’ve been on a self-imposed social media ban which theoretically should free up about nine hours a day? Here’s a run-down: brace positions, people, it’s a wild ride.

I learnt how to use the scanner thing at Sainsbury’s. Have you used these supermarket handheld beepy scanner things? I’m not talking about the self checkout tills, which are so useless and stress-inducing they make me want to chew off my own feet, I’m referring to the handsets that you pick up at the start of your shop and take around with you, zapping barcodes as you go, so that at the end of your shop you can just pay and go.

No unloading the trolley at the till only to pack it up again and then unload it into the boot of your car.  (Sounds such a ridiculous waste of time when you write it down.) No watching helplessly as your bottle of Malbec slowly rolls along the conveyor belt, straight off the end and then smashes on the floor. No performance anxiety as you try to pack your bags in front of the people waiting in the queue behind you – the pressure as you feel them judging your packing speed and dexterity! The shame as you fumble to retrieve your bag-for-life from the floor! The panic as a loose lime you’ve reached for rolls away, escaping your grasp. You can feel your audience’s eyes trained upon you – they wince as you pack heavy potatoes on top of squishy cherry tomatoes, they breathe an audible sigh of relief when you realise that the milk is leaking and ask if someone could possibly get you another.

“JANET! JANET! Six litres of full fat on checkout nine! The woman’s got a leaky one!”

None of that when you use the handheld scanner. Utter genius, it is. Although I have to say, don’t let your kids mess about with it. I almost paid for eight giant boxes of dishwasher tablets and a “Pressure King” pressure cooker.

I saved over £290 on curtain tie-backs. Yes, you heard me – £290! The one from Samuel & Sons that matched my tasselled curtain (photo above) would have been £300 inc VAT and I managed to get an (admittedly much plainer) version without the tassel but with all the same tying-back abilities in the Laura Ashley sale. Eight quid! The fact that it took me around ninety-five man hours to research alternative tie-backs is by the by. I’m pretty sure my labour costs were more than the original tie-back…

I made Yorkshire Puddings properly for the first time and they were immense. Quite literally. I put a bit too much batter into each tin and they rose to just about fill the top oven. I think one of them was almost ten inches tall. Who cares, though – more is more when it comes to Yorkshire Puddings, surely? It’s the only part of a roast dinner I’m actually bothered about. Next year at Christmas I might just make myself a giant Yorkshire and fill it with gravy. Bit of al dente broccoli. Scrap of turkey and a dollop of cranberry and I’m done.

I took the stair gate off and now Mr Bear the cat is an omnipresent menace. Honestly, life was easier when he was confined to the ground floor. Now that he has free run of the house he sneaks up on you when you’re in the shower, jumps onto your back when you’re sitting on the loo and pounces on the kids’ feet in bed. He’s having an absolute whale of a time. Although I caught him pointing his claws in the direction of my velvet upholstered Soho Home bed the other day and so the gate might have to be resurrected. It’s been so nice without it though – just walking down the stairs, freely, without having to wrestle with the lock and then risk breaking my neck tripping over the frame. We could have taken it down about a year ago if it wasn’t for the cat and his penchant for creeping about the place and using furniture to sharpen his nails…

I did a self-imposed social media ban. Which I’ve already mentioned, but it’s worth saying again: I didn’t look at any social media from the 21st of December until the other day. Amazingly, my screen time didn’t go down, but that’s because I used all of the social media time trawling the internet for furniture bargains. I reckon if you squished all of the time together, I spent a full day and night searching for stuff on Vinterior – the scrolling started to make me feel seasick! (By the way, if you want to get £50 off your first order with them use RUTH CRILLY in the code box. This isn’t a special affiliate setup – anyone who orders with them can get a code.)

Why the social media ban? I just wanted a quiet and relaxing Christmas (HA!) and to properly stop thinking about work for a couple of weeks. The thing is that I have a perpetual internal monologue as I go about my day – I almost narrate my own existence – and because of this I’m always tempted to write down every thought that I’ve had, or record every action. Quite often little things I’ve done can form the basis for a post here on A Model Recommends, or I’ll jot down a thought that will then become a bigger idea which then requires a longer sit-down with pen and paper to elaborate, and unless I absolutely switch off, one hundred percent, the temptation is always there to quickly write a caption or draft a blog post.

So I moved all of my social media apps to a different page of the iPhone menu so that they weren’t staring me in the face when I opened my phone and then I just sort of forgot about them. I can highly recommend it, at least every once in a while. I actually think I have an OK relationship with social media – I’m definitely not addicted and can easily detach myself – but still. A digital cleanse felt pretty good!

Now I’m finding it quite hard to get back to work, however – I’m dragging myself very slowly into 2020, like a giant, jumper-wearing slug. I have been setting myself absurdly basic tasks so that my brain doesn’t go into shock;

email the sofa-fixing man about fixing the sofa, ask him to fix the sofa and how much it would be to fix the sofa. Can he even fix the sofa?

How are you finding the New Year? Did you set any resolutions or do you have a masterplan for 2020? Mine is to try and be more organised with work so that I don’t feel so stressed – plan my content and commitments in advance so that I know what I need to get done, rather than just fitting in tasks at the last minute or late at night. 2020 is the year of the new, streamlined me!

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