#not gonna be a regular thing. i usually just save these as drafts but sometimes you've got to shout in to the ether rather

[beeseverywhen]

Feeling weird about it being Easter and yet me having no plans to do anything

My family aren't religious at all but they did always have a very working class English approach to Christian holidays as in 'this is the only day we're all getting off work so you bet we're going to celebrate it'

It took me a long time to even realise things like Christmas and Good Friday/ Easter even were religious cause they already were a whole thing in my head 'it's a day you make food and see all your family' I never even made the link between that and the whole Jesus thing for many many years. For a long time all the big (by big, I mean you get them off work. This is my only frame of reference. If its a bank holiday, it's a holiday. If you aren't it isn't.) holidays were spent with my family, cooking, if not visiting them and eating their cooking.

Since my great grandparents died, there's no one place for our family to gather in. My great grandma was the matriarch of our family, if you made a decision about your life, it was understood that you'd go tell her about it. Everything went through her, she'd give her opinion and you probably wouldn't follow it but you had to get it all the same. My great grandfather was her backbone, her voice of reason. The two of them together made this unit, around which the rest of our family rested on. I never had to worry about keeping in touch with my cousins or aunties or uncles or anyone as by regularly visiting my great grandparents I was in touch.

Usually I'd spend at least some of good Friday, sat in their lounge catching up with everyone else that dropped in while I was there. It was the only bank holiday I didn't work, apart from Xmas and boxing day. It feels so wrong not to be doing anything but what could I be doing? Of course I could have arranged to see the rest of my family, those that are still in England anyway but is there any reason to. Its harder to arrange those sorts of things now because before we were all doing it for the same reason, for them and now they're gone that common reason isn't there. Not to mention there's no one place to gather. It's not that they had a big house, it's that their house was a place of safety and everyone was welcome. Other family members have an open door policy but its not the same when you don't feel safe there. Their lounge was barely big enough to fit five people at once but we crowded in because it was home, to four and a half generations of us. What's sitting on the floor when you've spent twenty years sitting on the same floor.

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

Hey there Miyabi! How do you get such high-res, beautiful, and professional scan quality? What's your process?

Thank you! I certainly don't think I do anything that professional, so glad you have been decieved into thinking that about them! LOL I started doing this scan of the day stuff just to bring better quality to a lot of the older contributions of mine floating around the web. Looking at them on here, the Megaman wikia and other places, they just felt small and dirty. Especially as basic technology had gotten better over the decade or so since I first scanned them. I have 2 different scanners, one of which is a fancier Epson that I bought specifically to scan film slides a year or so ago. Still use it for basic scans from time to time. But honestly, for the settei, I'm still just using my general home HP Envy printer/scanner combo. I always scan at 600 DPI. After that part is done and the bitmap image is scanned to my computer, it's really just doing some heavy touchup. As I have alluded to in some recent posts, some of these sheets will take me an hour to an hour and a half just to clean up, because they have so many artifacts and dotty garbage on them. Settei at auction are mostly just scanned copies themselves after all, so there's a bit of residue to clean up. Ever wonder why sometimes I don't post these at a regular time of day? That's why, I'm still working on touchup before I post (and probably off from work, so I'm not prepping the night before, like when I post at a scheduled time).

Let's use this recent Gauss sheet as an example.

The original scan was pretty messy. Probably can't see it as well in tumblr resize scale, so here's the original scan. But it is dotted all over the place, there's like a smudge line which goes through the whole bottom of the sheet, where the "Final Draft" stamp, character/episode number marking is, and through some of Gauss' headshots as well. You can also probably see some black on the edges, where the sheet comes to an end within my scanner.

The first bit of touchup I usually do is within my image viewer. I use FastStone Image Viewer to help organize and view everything. In there, I will adjust the brightness, contrast, and sometimes the gamma, to get the sheet background a bit lighter and the lines darker.

I just like the number 14. Is it always 14? No. But that's usually my baseline starting point. After that's saved, into the photo editing program of choice we go. I match my brush color to the background white and just paint over all those ugly dots and wipe those black edges away.

Zoom in at 100% to try not to miss those artifacts you don't notice zoomed out. Look at Gauss' speckled fingers. Ugh, cleaning that stuff up is hell. But I do it, so you all can see clean-ish looking art. Do I get everything? No. But I try to at least get the major issues out of the way.

Some things I take liberties on. The shading on his jacket goes outside the lineart. Should I leave it as is for authenticity? Probably. But if I'm cleaning it, I'm gonna clean it all. So you'll see in the finished version I posted, those shading lines are all inside the lineart only.

Some people are jerks and could easily resell these settei just by printing scans and claiming them as original. Another way I try to have a way to differentiate my edits without slapping a watermark on is my editing of the text boxes. See the top left and bottom right of it above Netto? There's almost always some overhang on the originals. I have usually taken the liberty of editing that overlap line off, so that the text box is a clean rectangle where the line stops at each corner, as close as I can take it. It's a dumb, but simple way for me to tell if it's my edit.

Otherwise, that's really it. Just a lot of added effort in touchup, honestly.

Cel scans are a little different, because most of them are too big for either scanner. Especially cels with backgrounds. So many of those involve 2-4 scans and then stitching them all together. Much less touchup that I do to them, but otherwise it's mostly the same. 600 DPI, and some brightness/contrast or slight color saturation adjustments to them, if needed.

And now you know!

[ranvwoop]

TALK ABOUT AMERICAN HEALTHCARE I HAVE AN IDEA OF WHY IT'S THERE BUT I WANNA HEAR THE EXPLANATION ALSO THE ONLY HOUSE THAT"S NOT ON FIRE (YET) FOR THE SAME REASON I JUST WANNA SEE THE ANALYSIS:TM: IF U WANT I WANNA SEE IF I GOT IT RIGHT :D

Hi :DDD. Thank u for asking,,,, I have many thoughts. I am sorry in advance. This is one of those things I will put under a readmore because I am into rambling. IT GOT A LOT LONGER THAN ANTICIPATED IM SORRY. Like. a lot. It was 4 pages in google docs because i dont trust tumblr to save my drafts

Okay a lot of my Ranboo thoughts are about the syndicate / boreal trio / peerpressure duo. But you’re probably aware I am a Them enthusiast first and both a dsmp enjoyer and person second. Because. I really like the syndicate. I also don’t have too too many thoughts on the more recent lore past the experiments. Once the in character monologues stopped, so did my brain. I communicate through monologue to monologue communication.

American Healthcare is actually gonna be the main reason why this is so long bc it works Very Much for like three different reasons. One sorta niche and abstracter reason is a stream that was basically never elaborated on back in March, either the day after or very close to the peerpressure Egg confrontation stream. The egg called him a coward (for some reason my brain can Only come up with the “stop saying i look like chicken little. he’s dumb, and a coward, and i am NOT a coward” vine), and he is not a coward, so he decided to make an action plan to bring the server together by acting as a mediator for all parties and try to make sure that everyone is happy, because he’s the only one that can see all sides, or something. This was where he said the big happy family™ line but other than Ranboo Become Dream?? analysis nothing else really happened and everything went along as normal.

(I also always held a little bit of suspicion on this stream actually and thought it might be the influence of the egg, because it says it can give one whatever they want, and ranboo wants to make everyone happy and this was a totally foolproof way of doing that. Sort of in a similar way that BBH is convinced that his plan will totally make Skeppy happy. But also Ranboo is just like that, but this felt a little more on the nose than usual and he did fall into the egg and made his decisions after being egged on by it, buT WE’LL NEVER KNOW, WILL WE?

… also I really wanted to see more egg conflict at the time. Peerpressure rlly got involved in the egg plot for cameos at the banquet and nothing else. I do not blame anyone and respect the ccs for all of their attempts to weave plots together but also. also…. we.. we coulda had so much…)

That was a little off topic from the point, but… he really just thinks he can save the sick… he can see that everyone on the server is unwell and is wrong but, y’know, look inwardly, the unwell is coming from inside the house. And an inherent problem of the way that the server runs. And if this is still lowkey in effect or not (idk man a) ranboo has monologued a lot I simply chose a one off from march to grow emotionally attached to and b) i think that my brain has shut off once ranboo stopped solo lore streams), it would probably go the way that most choosing to change the system from the inside goes. Which is the point of the song and stuff! He will inevitably decide what’s too far, whether he will either admit it’s a choice or just feel that it’s what he has to do. The, uh, dealing with the devil, to be polite.

in conclusion (but we are not close to done here i’m holding you for a bit longer), i think a lot about that stream and i think that shows what he wants to be, at the very least, and continuing down that path would definitely go into being far more trouble than just a noble goal of wanting to help people, from negotiating with corruption (The lobbyists, the Congressmen and lies bit) and that the server can’t really be brought together and saved like that (When things are more and more this way / Sometimes it's like they'd rather die)

THE LESS. vwoop why have you written an unnecessarily long post about one stream in your playlist character analysis reason is both more literal and piece by piece and also Syndicate, My Beloved, you know the drill. We are going line by line because I have a lot of feelings about American Healthcare, apparently.

This also comes back to that everyone on the server is doing Really Badly, all of the time, but mostly his time in L’Manburg. For one, he is pretty complacent in everything and doesn’t really accomplish much in terms of actual change, so like Well people die every day / I wouldn't have it any other way / I just think they should feel good while they are alive. An example of this is Exiled Tommy — who I’d also metaphorically put as the dead man just for funsies, since Tommy’s whole exile thing was one of the first things Ranboo experienced on the server—as he did try to be friends with Tommy and keep him company with his letters, but he still has no power over the actual issue at hand. Just trying to make it a bit more bearable. Similarly is Techno, while Ranboo still participated in the butcher army that was trying to kill him, he helped in the meantime until he “died”.

And then it’s the Realization that participating in the system doesn’t really help much, and the subsequent Everything. It could be getting mad at the whole government system and that he didn’t mean to contribute to the harm, or how he fought with Fundy using hs ideology but not in the way that Ranboo thought. It could also be standing up to his hallucination Dream, in that he doesn’t try this hard to be a good person just to be accused of helping with all of the things that he may or may not have helped with. (That is… a discussion for not right now, I don’t know.) And I think this sort of area is also where it’s like they’d rather die is also relevant, cause Doomsday. Nobody could just set aside their governments and just get along, though Ranboo had his own solution to fighting and things.

And then he joins the Syndicate! And the lyrics of the song are directly Government Bad, because government bad. Canon anarchist, has done things that he’s not proud of as a part of the government. The lines it was the government / … It got louder over the years / Until all that I could hear was flies and all.

But honestly I think in the Syndicate he’s still trying to “save the sick”! Because the Syndicate don’t All fit eye to eye either. He’s the token pacifist, and a vote against violence whenever it comes down to it. Not all anarchists are violent but Techno and Phil will probably react strongly when provoked, due to All the past events, and I live in a world where their trauma and issues get talked about as much as everyone else’s. Since everything is decided by vote it’d probably be split between them and Ranboo + Niki, who is in her healing/no longer resorting to murder arc. He’ll help them negotiate and then everything will Be Okay, ideally.

(Also I just like the idea of Ranboo believing that he is helping the people he’s living with because canonically cc!Ranboo has said he just really cares about his family and the syndicate are included in his family shut up but they also just believe they’re helping him and yes it’s self indulgent. I care them. Particularly Endduo, actually, or whatever they're called, I am not bold enough to think Ranboo looks at Techno and thinks I Can Fix Him, but. Philza Minecraft will one day talk about his feelings. One day.)

There’s also radioduo and beeduo as of recent— really I’m just saying I think that Ranboo constantly has a Need To Help People, believes he can do it, and it will come back to hurt him in the end (except for the Syndicate because I’m in denial. The Syndicate can’t fall out if they never stream together :) ).

THIS CONCLUDES THE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE PORTION OF OUR SHOW.

The Only House That’s Not on Fire Yet !! I like this one. This is also blatantly there cause Syndicate. They are the only faction that is not actively falling apart, and this could absolutely be because they never stream together. But I do not care. However we are also going to go through this one piece by piece because we’re nearing 1500 words here and I might as well embarrass myself more. I am writing an incredibly informal essay about Ranboo My _Beloved (i assume his middle name is My, and he’s just one of those people who write his full full name) and this is the third page. If you’re still reading this, I’m sorry. Here we go.

There are lines that just seem like an unwell but recovering person, and I like to sort of think that way about Ranboo in the arctic during the down time. “I feel knotted up today / But in a most exquisite way” and “I feel strangely regular / But honestly I prefer it to / The usual bizarre” are just! He’s just hanging out. He’s doing good. There is the acknowledgement that he’s usually not doing well, and all of the episodes that he’s had in the past, and it’s probably strange to be doing well in the midst of everything, and there’s probably something impending, but now? He’s doing good!

The verses directly after both of those ones are about uncertainty and trust and such, and I feel like that’s not necessarily about just One relationship but all of them. Will cause problems as long as he has an accomplice. He is not confident but he trusts and loves people.

“This suit doesn’t fit me / I made it conterfeitly” I just like to think about Ranboo in his fancy suit, but it’s just a little wrong because he actually has no idea what he’s doing. I also like to think about Ranboo in a cape to fit in with boreal trio and later the syndicate, and emerald duo had matchy blue outfits from the Antarctic Empire… and trying to fit in with them…. or maybe They make him something.. You know. Much to think about.

“Killing me with déjà vu” I think is like. A little less fun, because despite how well things are going, the enderwalk is still not resolved and he had even less answers when I started thinking “this is a ranboo song”. Just as it relates to having a strange sense of reality and stuff, which goes into specifics of enderwalk headcanons, which would make this far longer. Even though I’ve framed it as a negative, there is also the more positive note of “Oh! I just thought of how to change all the hate / Into love with the old switcheroo / Dancing in my déjà vu / You'll be dancing too” which I’d rather explain broken up but I feel like as it’s a full verse it should be together. The first part is connected to my general thoughts of him explained earlier tbh, he’s trying Very Hard to make everyone happy and fix things. And adding the second part to it is just like! He is trying to make sense of everything, and it’s not so scary as time goes by. Since the experiments where he’s been (questionably) trying to be more comfortable and get more answers.

This was very long. I am sorry. I am ending it here and probably not going to do much formatting to make it readable because it is very late o’clock and also this is four pages and 2000 words I am so sorry. But if you read this far then. Uhhh thank. ^v^.

[kayrogers]

to all the girls i've loved before ][ p.  parker

a tatbilb au

Paring(s): LJ!tom holland x PK!reader

Inspo: TATBILB cause Peter is a total soft boi and also I'm a slut for rom-coms

Word Count: 1700+

Warning(s): cursing and awkward kissing

Part: prologue | part ??

A/N: this has literally been a draft in my notes for like over a year, but college has been creatively hitting me in the stomach with a baseball bat so I only wanted to start it when I got a semi-break. Obvs updates will not be regular just like everything else I write because I am the worst, but I mean thanks in advance if ya read it!

‘ Dear [Y/n] [Y/l/n],

First of all, I refuse to call you [Y/l/n]. You think you’re so cool, going by your last name all the sudden. Just so you know, that only makes you one of the guys. That’s it.

Did you know that I didn’t stop thinking about our kiss every time I saw you in school for at least the rest of seventh grade? Sometimes I think you do. Because you always seem to know everything. And you always smile when you see me blushing like you know you’re the reason why. That’s what I hate about you. Because you do just know, or at least you act like it. You’re too cool to be bothered by anything, or be wrong EVER.

Well here are some things you don’t know that I think:

You swear all the time and say the grossest things. I’ve heard every dirty joke Flash has ever made, and you beat him without trying! And you just assume everyone will think it’s cute cause you’re a pretty girl and you curse. And if they don’t, who cares, right? Wrong! You care. You care a lot about what people think of you.

You always show us bugs you think are cool and it’s gross. That’s terrifying and I hate when you stick them in my face cause I’m grossed out. It’s rude.

You’re so good at everything. Too good. I have to try harder around the guys to be half as cool as you.

You kissed me for no reason! You knew Flash wanted to kiss you. Everyone knew that Flash wanted to kiss you. He made all of us spit-shake on not kissing you if we ended up in the closet for 7 minutes in heaven because he liked you. But you still did it. Why? I wanted my first kiss to be special, and with my future girlfriend. All romantic, you know? That’s what it was supposed to be. And it wasn’t any of that. Thanks to you it was the most un-special kiss it could be AND I got my ass kicked by Flash!

The stupidest part is, that kiss made me like you. I never did before. Didn’t think of you as anything but one of the guys. Flash has always said you’re the prettiest girl we know. And yeah, that’s true. But I still didn’t LIKE you. Missed the hook that every other guy was on in middle school. A lot of people are beautiful. Doesn’t make them interesting or intriguing or cool.

Is that why you kissed me? Cause I was the only one who wasn’t wrapped around your finger? Well it worked! Ever since then, I saw you. I mean really looked at you. Behind every scratch, bump, and bruise from whatever sport you were playing, I saw you. How you weren’t just beautiful, that word isn’t good enough. You just exist effortlessly.

And yes, I did go through the thesaurus for that adjective. You’re hard to describe, [Y/n].

After you kissed me, I liked you for the rest of seventh grade and almost all of eighth. It’s not easy watching you with Flash. It’s also not easy when he shoves it in my face all the time cause he doesn’t like me anymore. So thanks for that! But I get it, if I had you I wouldn’t be able to shut up about you either. You make him feel special. Because that’s what you do, right? You’re good at making people feel special.

But not me anymore. I haven’t really seen you over the past year. And any time I do, you’re with Flash. Your spell has worn off [Y/n] [Y/l/n]. I am proud to say that I am once again the only boy in school to not be hooked into you. All because I got too much of you at once and now I don’t think I’ll want to be under that spell ever again.

What a relief!

Peter Benjamin Parker ’

You felt your brows furrow, cheeks equally red from a shyness you hadn’t felt in years and slight anger. Clearly he wrote this years ago, but why send it now? Right after Flash cheated on you?!

Did he like you? Did he hate you? Why did you care? It was just Peter-fucking-Parker.

You purse your lip, placing the letter back on the desk. Your blood boiled, heart skipping a beat. Every single reaction in your body was opposing and you hated how much it affected you.

So what would be the best course of action? To act like it didn’t effect you at all. At least, that’s what you saw as the right decision. It’d be easy, just let Parker down and tell him you didn’t feel the same. Because maybe that’s what this was? Maybe Peter did fall back “under your spell” and now that you were finally single he had to tell you? That was the only idea which came to your mind anyways.

You looked over at your closet, eyes focusing on your favorite shirt. It was a white crew neck sweater decorated in the entomology of beetles, and you decided you would be wearing that to turn him down.

“Don’t like my bugs? Yeah okay, Dickhead.” You muttered and pulled the item out before forming the rest of the outfit which consisted of running shorts and sneakers. Classy, right?

You took a picture of the letter before folding it back up and placing it into the envelope. Why? Well not that you’d admit it, but you were never complimented like that before. And that part of the letter made you feel kinda nice actually. He paid attention to you back then, which could have been sweet once upon a time. Now? Now you didn’t know how to feel about it and that bothered you immensely. 

Later, in school, You mulled over how you would confront the boy. It was weird, really weird. You and Peter hadn’t really talked since middle school and the most the two of you interacted in high school was you apologizing for Flash being a dick to him about 24/7. And now he was apparently infatuated with you once and you had to tell him that you didn’t feel the same. But as the clock ticked on, you knew you had at least one class with him and that was gym.

 You anxiously gripped the letter in your hand, jogging along the track and looking for a familiar set of brown curls. It didn’t take long for you to catch up with him, spotting Peter and Ned half-walking the whole thing while the gym teacher wasn’t looking.

“Yo Parker! Wait up a second.” You called and his head whipped around, his eyes instantly going to your sweater.

‘Do bugs really bother him that much?’ You thought and held back a frown before shrugging it off. There were more important matters.

“Nice shirt! Is it accurate?” Ned instantly chirped up and you let yourself smirk, he always had such an excited demeanor in a way that could light up a room if anyone bothered to notice him.

“You think you’d catch me wearing pseudoscience? What the hell do you take me for?” That smirk grew into a smile as you spoke to Ned, not noticing the pale color staining Peter’s face. Because while you were focused on Ned, Peter was focused on you. 

Specifically, the letter in your hand.

“You’re right, I apologize. What brings you over here anyways? You usually lap us twice by now.” You looked over to Peter while Ned talked, watching how he was unable to even look up from your hand.

“I wanted to talk to Peter, actually…  alone?” You scratched the back of your neck while Ned let out a big ‘ohh’ and quickly made himself scarce.

The boy looked more nervous than you had ever seen him, running his hands through his hair so much that every knot could have been plucked out by now. 

“What um- what’s up, [Y/n]?”

 “Listen, I’m gonna make this quick to save both of us the awkwardness. I think it’s really nice that you think I’m one of the prettiest girls in our grade and stuff… but me and Flash just broke up and I really don’t see you that way-”

The only thing you heard from him was an exasperated ‘what?’ before practically watching the boy fall in slow motion. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and you gasped out loud when his head hit the ground.

“Oh my god, Peter!” Dropping to the ground after him, you immediately move his hair from his eyes and wave your hand in front of his face.

“Are you okay? Parker? Do you know your name? What day is it?” You gave a choppy version of the concussion questions your coaches asked after a particularly bad hit to the head, panic evident in your eyes.

‘Did I just concuss this kid?!’ you thought wildly.

Slowly, he sat up, taking a couple breaths while you kept your hand on his shoulder. “You weren’t supposed to see that,” he said exasperated and you watched his eyes grow twice their size as he glanced to his left.

Storming towards the two of you was a recognizable scowl, an envelope in her hand. Michelle Jones. She was MJ to you, once upon a time, but you couldn’t think of the last time the two of you said a word to each other.

“Oh god!” Peter rolled his eyes, grabbing your attention yet again.

In a blink, the boy had managed to grab your waist and pin you underneath him, one hand was gently caressing your head while the other wrapped underneath you. You couldn’t even take a breath before his lips were on yours, surprise flooding your system. His lips were soft and you hadn’t even realized how your body instantly reacted to him as if you had done this a thousand times before, kissing him in a quick but simple rhythm. But once your brain did register it? You grabbed his face, separating the two of you.

“Parker, the fuck?!-”

“Bye!” He blurted out before letting go of you and running off at a speed you didn’t even think was possible for him.

So this left you, alone, confused, and strangely breathless on the ground.

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taglist(s):

tatgilb -

permanent - 

@ultrunning​ @jesseswartzwelder​

[thegeminisage]

question to Miss Experienced Professional Fic Author Liz—do you have your betas read your fic from the beginning, as soon as you start writing it? like i know you mentioned cathy and emily (?) have access to the doc. is that standard procedure? i'm curious because I've never written fic myself but I was drafting something today and my friend's gonna beta once i'm done but I was wondering if I should have her beta thorughout the whole process.

HI sorry i saved your ask for last bc i didn’t want it to get buried <3 and then it got so late that i didn’t know if you’d see it if i answered <3 this was extremely professional behavior <3 so i’m...................scheduling it to go up when people are awake. sorry again lol

anyway ok so the SHORT answer to this is: if you don’t know that your friend is willing to look over your fic multiple times, get your thing as polished and close to done as possible before letting anyone else beta it. that way, your second pair of eyes is able to do the maximum amount of good! if it’s a longer fic, you may be able to do this in sections - you can finish chapter 1 and then have your friend look at chapter 1, then chapter 2, etc, since nobody can beta a multichapter fic in one sitting. it depends v much on what you and your friend feel like! 

the looooong answer is: my “betas” are also just my friends! same hat! so more often than not they just want to see what i’m doing. so if i mention what i’m working on they’re like “oh can i see” and i’m like “yeah” and then they come in and look. like, as far as standard procedure goes, it’s all very casual. if it’s too rough for proofreading i’ll usually wind up giving a heads up that it may change a lot later in case they don’t want to read it multiple times, but usually they do anyway (so in my case it winds up being a mix of both “edit now” and “edit at the end”). i’m really very lucky to have so many extremely smart and cool people willing to do that kind of thing for me <3

that said, imo there are different ways to edit and things to edit for - it’s not as complex and awful as it sounds, for me different people wind up helping me with different things. it really depends on what stage your writing is at/what your friend is helping you edit for. i categorize them as follows:

cheerleading - this is what i was talking about above...this is just someone reading as you write (sometimes checking in daily, sometimes literally WHILE YOU TYPE IT, my friends have done this lol) and encouraging you. i’m not particularly shy about letting my buddies just kinda hang out in there, it’s like my little house 🙏 it’s also fun to have people read as i go (it helps keep me excited). doesn’t exactly count as editing/betaing imo (so you don’t necessarily need a writing-savvy friend to do it), but it’s still a level of support <3

plot soundboarding - this is stuff like... “how do i get dean and cas to talk about x thing,” “where should i end this chapter,” “if i change this thing in chapter 1 that leaves a huge plothole in chapter 3, how do i fix it?” this is for the plot, not the prose itself, so you can do this when the fic is very rough, maybe even before it’s written, when it’s still in the planning stages

“regular betaing” - this is what most people think of when they say beta - this is a general readthru where they’ll point out inconsistencies or anything that sticks out to them (good or bad). “this sentence is worded awkwardly,” “you said mary had a cup of coffee here but earlier in the scene she had tea,” “you used the same word four times in one paragraph.” you want to have the fic written by this point (though again if it’s a long one, it doesn’t necessarily have to be complete - more on this in a sec)

final typo check - you want to save the LAST typo check for after everything else is perfect and not going to be changed at all. my friend coralie is checking my fic for typos and i asked her not to read unedited scenes yet - because of course if edit them, and my edits have typos, and she’s already read those parts, i’d have typos in the checked bits, which would defeat the entire purpose

so it really depends on what you want your friend to most help with - if you want plot help, obviously you’d come in early, but if it’s just typo help, come in late. and of course how much help she’s up for giving you - reading what you write daily might be more time-intensive than just checking it one time and sending it back. 

as for whether or not it’s better to have “regular beta” stuff done on your writing as you write it or after it’s all finished, there’s pros and cons to both situations

reasons to edit as you go: a long fic divided into sections can seem more manageable, your pal gets to know your your project as it’s being written, you get someone to be excited with, you get immediate feedback on potential mistakes that might save you from having to do more editing later, editing as you go will DEFINITELY save you from a huge slog later, sometimes when you’re not up to writing it’s nice to have something to edit so at least you get to do a little work on it

reasons to edit after it’s finished: less time-intensive, when you can see the whole fic at once you’re less prone to forgetting what happened in the beginning, when you see it all at once you can also see the way things come together (or fail to come together), you're less likely to have to look over the same section multiple times, you get to polish it up before anyone else sees it (good if you’re shy), sometimes it’s nice to let things sit awhile before coming back to edit because breaks can help you see more clearly

and like i said, i usually wind up doing a mix of this. the important thing though is there’s really no wrong way to do it as long you and the person helping you are on the same page. just like everybody has a different writing process, everybody has a different editing process, yk? just try it whatever way seems most appealing and sensible to you, and eventually you’ll hit your groove. i hope that helps, sorry if it was a way longer answer than you were bargaining for lol

[lindendragonart]

AHIT Headcannons?

Hmmm, kinda vague question but I'll see what I can do. Oh actually, looking at my drafts I do have some space kids personality headcanons so I'm just gonna copy paste it here and add to it.

Some Hat and Bow personality headcanons, particularly for my au (which I'm probably gonna stockpile until I'm done)

While both Hat and Bow are both playful, as kids usually are, Hat is more outgoing, while Bow is more on the shy side, though she loves adventuring and making friends just as much as Hat does.

While both are generally kind people, Hat can be smug and mischevous sometimes, Bow can too, but milder and way less often, and she knows when to stop.

Hat means well, but sometimes she cannot properly read the situation or people's emotions which, along with her slight lack of social skills, can sometimes make her say things that are not completely appropriate for the situation at hand. Sometimes, what she says may even come off as a little brash. Bow is more emotionally intelligent out of the two of them, so she is better at properly handling certain social or emotional situations.

Their backstory I've basically taken from Lemonadesoda's fic "Hide and seek" except Bow is there too. In short, their parents died when they were little so they were left in the care of the parents' colleagues but they see the kids as an incovinience and don't pay much attention to them, one day an evacuation takes place on the colony and the kids accidentally get left behind. They put a ship together out of scrap and go to fly back home but get stuck on earth when they lose their Time pieces.

Bow is slightly taller than Hat

Oh! Just remembered, alien species headcanons! Got them saved on my phone

Alien society

Time pieces are generally used as spaceship fuel, to produce energy, and as a regular citizen you may have the right to reverse a recent, minor incident. Anything more mayor done by an unexperienced or hasty mind could have grave consequences (like Mustache Girl's unstable time rift which would have eventually collapsed and killed the whole planet)

All citizens are under a moral code where they are sworn to protect the proper flow of time. Only authorities authorized by the CEO of time may use the Time pieces for bigger scale endeavors such as reversing major catastrophies, but it's a slow process and by the time they fix one, a hundred more happen in just one sector alone, so don't get your hopes up about having your tragedy reversed.

The aliens actually did visit Earth centuries before, but they have a policy not to interfere with outside communities too much if their society hasn't technologically advanced enough yet, so as to not sully their natural progress or ruin their culture due to colonization or similar. They are allowed to essentially "hang out" should the native community be willing to continue benevolent contact, so they do end up sharing information about each others culture and technology, which is why Earth has an affinity for hats with special abilities like the alien society does.

The aliens also found out about cats while on Earth and they liked them so much they took some home, so now they are a semi-popular pet there. (look I just really needed to explain why Bow's default outfit is cat-themed)

The alien society has developed a vaccine that can permanently grant your immune system the ability to succesfully fend off most foreign diseases. These are also given to any outsiders joining their society to prevent them from immediatelly dying from their diseases. On the topic of that. All space travellers must go through a decontamination process before setting off, so as not to infect foreign worlds.

Alien biology

Aliens don't really keep track of their age unless it's for legal reasons due to all the time shenanigans that happen while traveling screwing with their passage of time, but generally speaking, aliens grow up at a similar speed to humans until they mostly stop growing at around 10-11 in Earth years, then they stay mostly the same until hitting a growth spurt at 15-16 that will continue until they hit 18-19.

Their blood is a kind of reddish+magenta, would definitelly look off to a human.

They come in all the skin tones humans can come in, with the addition of more pinkish skin tones

Most of them have saturated, brightly colored eyes like blue, red, yellow and purple. Brownish/ dull colored eyes are kinda rare, which is how you may be able to tell apart a human from an alien at first glance.

Their species has through the centuries of space-traveling adapted to being able to eat many things which may be poisonous to the average non-space faring creature, to ensure survival on a new world.

As we see in canon, they are incredibly strong compared to humans too.

Random headcanon about the horizon

The Horizon is a plane where all "magic" comes from. The aliens learned to harvest it and weave it into hat yarn long ago, while on Earth, the horizon leaks through in more impure forms, once the magic finds itself in a creature or object, it can form different characteristics depending on the person, forming the types of magic people like Vanessa and Snatcher wield. Having magic on Earth is kinda like having a symbiotic spirit that has no consciousness of its own. Earthlings do not understand most of it, and simply call it magic.

Also here are some Subcon headcanons but they will be short cause they are either widely known about or I talked about it before

Vanessa's mother was abusive and would lock her in the cellar (without chains) when she misbehaved. Vanessa had no control over her life which later made her possesive and controling towards the prince.

The Prince knows about Vanessa's mother being horrible to Vanessa but not the full extent of it.

Vanessa frequently guilt tripped the Prince with her own insecurities and how her mother treated her, and the Prince always either gave in because he didn't want to upset her further or got backed into a corner with it when he actually tried to defend himself, dismissing his own concerns as trivial.

Snatcher steals souls because Vanessa's powers are still running rampant and might even freeze the whole world if Snatcher doesn't use soul power to melt the ice. Kind of a "forced to become a monster to protect himself from one" situation.

Okay I hope that answered everything! Thank you for the ask

[tanoraqui]

⭐star!⭐

director’s cut includes deleted scenes, right? Here’s a scene that didn’t make it into Chapter 4 of Three Can Keep a Secret. (Note: I’ve been saving this in my drafts until the asker finally caught up with the show, and thus could read my spoiler-ful fic, and lo!) 

How to carry a spiritual dog, for hours at a time if necessary. 

As usual, it started as Jin Chan’s fault.

“That’s so stupid,” he sneered, as Jin Ling practiced directing Little Fairy towards corpses to fight—that is, training dummies sprinkled with grave dirt to have the right scent of death. “How are you going to take a dog on a real night hunt? Real cultivators fly, not run with the hounds.”

“Little Fairy will fly with me!” Jin Ling said hotly. “On my sword!”

“Dogs can’t stay on swords,” another cousin, Jin Ping, scoffed.

“I’ll carry her! Look—Little Fairy, come here!” Jin Ling waved his arm and Little Fairy left off nibbling at the “fierce corpse”’s sleeve to race back with an excited bark.

“Come here,” Jin Ling repeated, kneeling. Little Fairy leaned up to lick his face, and he gathered her up in his arms and stood again, carefully supporting her hindquarters. He staggered a little—dogs grew a lot faster than human boys, and she wasn’t a little ball of fluff anymore. Her head already went all the way over his shoulder. But he managed to step into the first stance of Firelight sword form anyway, 

“See?” he demanded, as Little Fairy nosed at the back of his neck. “She can come anywhere I do.”

Jin Chan just kept sneering. “And what use would she be? Go up to the fierce corpses and lick them?” He pointed at the training dummy across the yard, which Little Fairy had been nosing at politely rather than mauling. 

Jin Ling stifled a satisfied smile. That dummy, he hadn’t just put grave dirt on, he’d also sprinkled heavily with lotus-scented perfume (borrowed from Qin Su’s dressing table when she wasn’t looking) and used a purple ribbon to tie a piece of jerky where a hand would be, so Little Fairy would know it was a friend. She had done exactly like she was supposed to.

“She’s still a puppy,” he retorted, putting his nose in the air at Jin Chan and his cronies and hoisting his dog a little higher against his shoulder. “I bet she could still kill more things than you.”

this scene gave us three important elements of Jin Ling’s childhood:

the cousins who didn’t stop being shitty bullies

the difficulty of integrating Fairy’s protective instincts as a spiritual dog with Jiang Yanli being a fierce corpse

the mental image of Jin Ling carrying a husky half as big as he is while riding a sword. like, this

Jin Ling’s very Jiang willingness to go above and beyond in both stubborn perseverance and dramatic in-your-face-ness, especially for the benefit of his loved ones

I ended up making the Fairy vs. JYL conflict more aggressive, giving Jiang Yanli a badass-in-a-slightly-worryingly-uncontrolled-way moment there rather than on a night hunt, mostly because of, like...pacing? This chapter was a montage with few points in time clear, but I still wanted it to be a roughly chronological progression through the years. And I wanted to establish JYL’s fighting chops early, but I knew they wouldn’t actually take Jin Ling on anything like a night hunt until he was like 12. So, accidental confrontation it had to be! 

As you can see, I ended up sticking the bullying cousins in with Jin Ling being a talisman nerd and JGY being a lowkey menacing mentor in Scene 4, and let Jiang Cheng carry the dog in Scene 5. A little less funny - he’s distinctly bigger than Fairy, rather than, like, just barely outweighs her - but also more touching bc does Jiang Cheng want to be carrying a dog while he flies halfway across China, looking ridiculous the whole time? No. Is he gonna do it for his nephew? With only mild complaining, yes.

I think Jin Ling’s nature comes through pretty well throughout the story.

EVEN MORE DELETED SCENE, specifically from Scene 2, with the lotus soup and abovementioned Fairy fiasco: Jiang Cheng was originally there, too! 

“Why is it so hard for these people to pay their night hunt fees on time?” Jiang Cheng sat at the table behind them, grousing over some letters while Jin Ling had his cooking lesson. “The harvest was good. They pay their taxes on time; I know it because otherwise the imperials would make it everyone’s problem.”

“Make a show of hunting there next week, clear the area thoroughly and then ask if there’s any other problems you can help with, that might be causing the delay,” Jaing Yanli suggested. “They will be shamed by your kindness.”

“And intimidated by our swords,” Jiang Cheng muttered, though not without relish.

“That’s how Mother did it,” Jiang Yanli said. She turned back to the stove. 

[...]

Little Fairy and Jiang Cheng both yelped when Littlw Fairy hit the table.

[...]

At the same time, Jiang Cheng was standing and putting his hands on his sister’s shoulders, carefully positioned so she could see past him to Jin Ling.

“Shijie, you have to calm down,” he said firmly. “Nobody’s in danger—it’s just that dog Jin Guangyao gave him.” He cast a sharp look over his shoulder at Jin Ling. “I thought you left that dog in your room.”

“I did!” Jin Ling protested. “She must have woken up and come looking for me!”

I eventually decided he didn’t add that much to the scene and Jin Ling deserved alone time with his mom, particularly as he got older and Jiang Cheng relaxed his need to helicopter every moment Jiang Yanli might potentially be seen by living people and thus in danger. I do regret leaving out him calmly talking her down from murder mode like it’s a regular thing (it is a bit, when they hunt together), and especially regret leaving out her giving him political advice, which is definitely a regular thing. Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli have an entire messy sibling relationship going on for 14ish years that Jin Ling is mostly not privy to, because, shockingly, they both sometimes prefer to discuss things without a child there. I look forward to exploring that a bit when I’m forced at gunpoint by plotbunnies to rewrite several dozen thousand words of canon for this au. 

[bisluthq]

Not surprised that people are speculating about who you really are. There are a few of us who are wary (as well we should be). The way you speak in a very definitive way in terms of Tay & Joe, and dismissive of speculation is 👀 You say that you take in all sides, but if we’re being honest it’s not true... your tone when answering asks that you don’t believe is generally condescending and final, without room for discussion. Realistically you know as much as we do, which is not an entire picture. We’ve also had multiple asks ignored/edited by you which adds to the question of why you are pushing the narrative that u are. Before you push the “Kay’s are crazy” on us, a few of us are not actually Kay’s but Gaylors in general

I don’t ignore and I can’t edit asks I don’t have the skillz lol like I don’t know if that’s possible even and if it is my ass isn’t the one who’s able to. Sometimes I miss asks - because I mostly answer from notifications feed on my phone - or sometimes it’ll take too long to answer so I save in drafts and forget coz I get a lot more and sometimes I go to drafts and publish old ones. Sometimes they mention other blogs by name in a way that I feel is uncool or shady so I skip them. Sometimes they’re rude (to me or to Taylor and like I’m not Taylor’s keeper but I’m a stan and I don’t want to answer ones about how shitty she is). If there’s a particular time you had a question and I never answered it and you can’t understand why please feel free to resend. There’s no conspiracy I promise I’m just not super organized because it’s... a fun blog that I run for fun.

I don’t speak in a definitive way about Taylor and Joe. I’ve said idk maybe they’re just besties. I’ve had asks from people saying “how could you say they’re just friends or he’s just a beard” and people who’re like “how can you have such a definitive stance on this” like your ask. I don’t see the point of speculating on Joe and have asked not to really discuss him as much as we do over and over and over so I think if I’m dismissive it’s because I have 0 interest in this topic. He is a big part of her life. He is important to her. Those two things are undeniable and yeah I’m not gonna speculate on them because everyone should know this by now like it’s not a fucking mystery. They spend time with one another without cameras. She cares about him. He cares about her. She has forever tied him to one of her biggest and most exciting and special eras. Idk what the point of debating their sex life is?

Are they fucking? Idk. Is she using him as a cover for someone else? Unlikely IMO just because she’d have to be SO NINJA to both have regular organic quasi sightings with Joe and repeatedly interact with his family and friends and so forth and simultaneously have a super duper secret girlfriend. But maybe, like maybe the girlfriend is in that friend group, idk I’m not them and who knows. Friends who speak to me privately will know I got WILDLY EXCITED when the Beth G x Tay theory got floated like that was completely my jam and even tho I found out she’s married pretty quickly I am happy to entertain Beth x Tay x Joe x Beth’s writer husband creative genius polylcule. I’m not dismissive of stuff if it’s fun. I’m dismissive of stuff when (to me) it’s not.

Like I don’t care if they’re fucking or if they’re besties. He’s not going anywhere either way so idk why you do like... there’s no way to “find out” if they’re fucking or not and what would we do with that info? It’s an irrelevant conversation about a man who frankly doesn’t interest me beyond his association with her. So yeah I shut those down. If you wanna have a blog that just backs and forth on whether Swiftwyn fuck you should find one or start it because it’s just not my jam but if there’s a need for that lane it should obvi exist.

I try end off every ask I don’t believe by saying that if you want to believe this, know that there are counterarguments, but go ahead. I’ve spent literal hours researching this shit this year. I’ve made my own opinions up. And yeah, I’m an opinionated noisy bitch. I will therefore, obviously, explain my opinions and usually if not always show the “working out” that lead me to believe what I believe. Do you have to agree with me? Nope. Does it bother me that people disagree with me? Not at all. Again, I’m publicly friends with people on here who disagree with me about some pretty major stuff and it’s not a big deal.

Anyway, yeah I’m legitimately sorry if you’ve felt ignored or ever condescended to (the latter could have been my attempt at humor and I’m sorry if it didn’t work, that’s on me because I shouldn’t be making people feel that way through an attempt at evoking a laugh). I fucking wish one of these assholes was paying me or I was part of a conspiracy. But genuinely I’m just someone who had/has a lot of time, who enjoys writing and research and does both professionally, who has worked in the media side of the entertainment industry since 2015, and who has strong opinions when I’ve done research on it.

[neshabeingchildish]

In the Cards

Henry pretty much had mapped out everything that would possibly be needed for the wedding, and even though Charlotte believed that waiting an additional year was a lot of time, he knew that it was actually good to give it some time to acquire everything. This way, they could save up for some of the expenses and also, probably actually plan a honeymoon of some sort. He also liked the idea of not having to be forcing a lot of details at the end of his college career, too. That additional year meant that he could focus more on his senior year things and less inb the wedding planning… though he was looking into some details about possibly opening at least an office in Junk N’ Stuff where he could do wedding type things. “One more floor needs to be added and Junk N Stuff needs to be up there, and the wedding boutique down here,” He was saying to Nate the Contractor. “Piper made some plans in drafting class.” 

Ray didn’t care what Henry did with the store, as long as he didn’t have to pay for any of it. He most certainly WOULD be paying for it, but Henry knew that he’d be able to make it back up with the actual revenue that he’d get for the business. He was a little bit nervous to try to begin this project after Adanna’s reading. She had pulled a couple of cards that weren’t really that great and explained them to him, trying to sound kind, but serious. One of them was the Devil, which he chuckled about and made a joke, “I know that Dude,” and she informed him that this card meant that he had some type of toxic attachment and was possibly very comfortable in it and a little reckless about it. “Oh, it’s you and Ray,” Charlotte said and laughed. Henry furrowed his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. They weren’t toxic, just misunderstood and didn’t necessarily bring out the very best in each other. But, they were in tune and had been for a long time and would be for a long time, so Bite It, Devil.  

The next card was the Death card, which… the name and photo alarmed everyone BUT her. She explained that it didn’t necessarily mean that anybody was dying, but more than likely some type of life altering change (a bad one, probably). She pulled it in the present position, so it was either already in motion or at the start, at least (if he were to take stock in those cards), and it would be something that he couldn’t stop or control.

When she pulled the last card, her whole countenance fell and Henry felt his heart sink. “Is somebody gonna die, now?” He asked, jokingly, but nervously. 

The woman looked at him with soft eyes and said, “Hopefully not. It’s just such a spread of strife that I feel deep empathy for you and your journey. This is the Ten of Wands. It means that you’re suffering, or about to suffer.” He looked at the guy on the card, carrying this bundle of sticks. Looked heavy… He was carrying a heavy load. “This card isn’t generally okay, in any spread, but along with the Devil, and Death, well, I worry that you’ve got a long, hard journey in your near future and I worry that maybe you’ve had one for some time.” 

His eyes were damp. He certainly couldn’t tell her about Kid Danger, but he knew that was probably what she was seeing in these cards… IF he was going to believe that there was any merit to this little trick… “Yeah, well… I work hard for a difficult man, but I can handle it,” he said and forced a smile. She nodded, but got up to gather some things for him. She hadn’t gathered things for the others, after their readings, so he was kinda worried, but he’d take whatever it was that she had. 

“This is a mugwort and lavender smudge stick,” she said, gathering a few of them and putting them in a see through bag with a little instruction card. “These are ritual baths…” She grabbed a box and set a few jars into it. She set it down and was going through cabinets and searching for things that she certainly knew where they were, but Henry got the feeling that she felt like he needed a lot of work… She pulled out a little doll and he smiled awkwardly. “This… you can take the things that trouble you and attach to it, then burn it.” She handed it to him as his eyes went wide.

“This… is getting to be a lot.”

“You have a lot in your past and a lot ahead of you,” she said and grabbed another poppet, for good measure and put it into his box. “Anything beyond these little helps, I’ll have to actually come to you and guide you through. I don’t want to overload you with rituals and practices.” She placed the bags and things into his box, added a few other items - tea, soaps, oils, and crystals, all with information cards attached or tied to them and she handed it to him. 

“That’s like hundreds of dollars worth of stuff!” Charlotte observed.

“What?” Henry asked and tried to give it back.

“I’m not charging you,” Adanna said, avoiding the box. “It’s a gift. For a friend of Jack Leigh’s son. You’ll need them more than I need the money for them.” 

.

And, so far, things hadn’t been terrible or anything, as far as he noticed, but he had been worried about things since then. Charlotte was, too, at first. She would ask him questions almost everyday about how everything was going and how he was feeling. She’d made the time to text him everyday and ask about him. He worried a little more because of this and told her as much. So, she stopped, but would ask Jasper, “Did you talk to Henry today? Is he alright?” Then, she wouldn’t even be satisfied when Jasper told her yes, because she presumed that he was probably assuming that Henry was alright and maybe that Henry was lying about it. Jasper had taken to just telling her all of the stuff that Henry did say when they spoke. 

“You talk to Henry? Is he okay?”

“He said that he thinks he finally found a botanical garden that we might be able to rent out for the wedding. He and your mom are gonna go check it out this weekend.”

Or

“You talk to Henry? Is he okay?”

“You’ll never believe what he said that Piper managed to convince Ray to do...Put a JUICE AND SMOOTHIE BAR inside of Junk N’ Stuff. Between her and Henry, that place is really gonna be somewhere that you can get all of the junk and all of the stuff.”

She stopped asking and Henry and Jasper sincerely  hoped that she’d stopped worrying. They both did, after she left the subject alone. She was getting much too busy anyway. Technically, this was the senior year for her first double degree. She was working in a lab, had a full load of classes, and was still “involved” in her extracurriculars on campus. She was neck and neck for the top of the class spot, after having averaged 3rd or 4th for a couple of years, and well… the other candidate was a little bit more involved with things outside of academia. Which, technically shouldn’t count, but really did chap her hide.

So, whenever some things took place with Henry, he didn’t want anyone to panic or anything and just tried to keep things to himself and not worry too much about it all. Piper was at the Man Cave pretty much every moment that she wasn’t at school and he felt a way about it, but didn’t question it much. She helped him to move into his “apartment,” which was one of the clear Man Caves, in the living segment and he was shocked at how helpful she was being, but welcomed the help, because they hardly really hung out outside of work, and she didn’t even work there, she had simply declared herself a part of the team and kept showing up. But, whenever she showed up on his elevator and came in with a few bags, he finally thought about the fact that she had not really been home very much lately and he was curious as to why, now.

“Mom officially left,” she said, trying not to cry. “Dad is useless. Her new partner is not great with kids, not even his own and I just… Can I stay here for a little while? I can probably arrange something else, soon.”

“Shut up and come in,” he said. 

They sat down at the couch and she dropped her things to the floor. “I didn’t bring move in stuff. Just stuff for a few days. Hopefully that’s long enough for him to stop crying. He’s just like… wailing. All night and all day. I don’t even think that he’s gone to work, or know if he still has a job. I want to insult him and lash out at him and tell him this is one of the reasons that she left him… but… that would just be mean and wouldn’t account for the fact that she left me too.” Her voice was small. “Anyway, I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep the last few days. Weeks, if I’m being more honest. I could tell that something was going on. She was disappearing a lot, even more than usual. He was trying to bond a lot more than usual. The whole atmosphere of the house was just off and I tried to avoid being there, but no matter when I came in, one of them was there being weird, or nobody was there and it just felt empty. What’s it gonna be like when I go back in a few days?” She wondered.

Henry sighed and shook his head, “You don’t have to go back to that. Get some sleep and when you’re feeling better, I’ll help you go get the rest of your stuff. You can stay here for however long you want.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about what was happening. You[‘ve just seemed like you had a lot on your mind. You’re in college. You’re Kid Danger. You have no friends. I just didn’t wanna be a burden anymore. I know that I was for a long time. You practically raised me. I didn’t know who else to turn to. I have all these friends, but none of them understand it like I think you do.”

Henry furrowed his eyebrows. “You’ve never been a burden. I mean, yeah, I hated having to watch you so much when I was a kid, but I was a kid. And… You’re still a kid. ONE of them should be looking after you.”

“They’ve never really been good at that.”

“Well, hopefully I can do, in a pinch.”

“You can do, on the regular. I was such a bratty and shitty kid… I sometimes wonder how much worse would I have been if you hadn’t been here for me…”

“Okay, now I know you’re tired. I’ll bring your stuff into a bedroom. You need anything else?”

“No. I’m just gonna text Charlotte and let her know that everything’s okay. She called earlier to check in and heard Dad in the background.”

Henry gasped and said, “Hey! Maybe this is it! The toxic relationship could just as easily have been our parents, not necessarily RAY. This is a life altering change, for the Death card! And… maybe this burden will be helping pick up the pieces… only, that’s not a burden for me, but I could see how it could be read that way. YES! Whew. I can stop worrying.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” she said. He just smiled, nodded and gave her a hug. “Okay. I know that I came to you, but this is more than I need,” she said, but wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tightly, then started crying. She dropped her phone on the floor and sobbed. Henry looked at it. It didn’t break or anything, but the fact that Piper was so upset that she hadn’t even rushed to it said that helping her get over this might be harder than he initially thought. That didn’t matter though. This was his sister. He loved her. He’d be here for whatever she needed while this stuff was going on.

.

Charlotte was searching frantically for her jewelry set. She had JUST seen it like five minutes ago! Piper walked into the room and wondered, “What are you looking for?”

“My jasper jewelry set that Adanna made me for graduation!” she said, in a panic. 

Piper picked up a small red box and wondered, “Is it this?”

Charlotte looked up, sighed and smiled, “Thanks. I’m nervous. You’d think that I never graduated before, but I almost forgot how much I hate to have to give a speech in front of people. Thank you for helping me get ready.”

“All I’ve done is helped you find a box and eat off of your fancy ice cream.”

Charlotte winced, “Awww, Man… That was Jasper’s fancy ice cream. Now, I’m gonna have to buy him some more.”

“I’m sure he’ll live.”

“You’ve never lived with him while he’s having a craving. He’s a HUGE baby!” Charlotte said. 

“He doesn’t even live here…” Piper said, but looked around the room and definitely could see all the Jasper-ness in the place.

“He’s here more than me,” Charlotte offered. Then mumbled as she put on her jewelry set, “But, still won’t move in or officially look for another apartment with me.”

“You guys oughtta get a house, anyway. You work for Ridgemont Diagnostics. That’s like working for Lexcorp.”

“No! Evil Corporation is like working for Lexcorp. This is more like working for… Stark Industries… sort of. I mean… There’s not a good comic book equivalent. We help the world.”

“I meant fiscally. You have to be able to afford a house, right?”

“I probably could, but I think that Jasper wants to buy our first house,” She checked her jewelry in the mirror. The set was an assortment of jaspers in rose gold - earrings, a necklace, a bracelet and a ring. She loved it. Jasper had some things to do before her graduation, so Piper was going to drive her there (Piper was coming into town to be at the graduation anyway and Charlotte hated driving, much more when she was nervous), and nervous, she was. But Piper broke into her nervous thoughts.

“And, just because he wants to, you’re gonna wait on him to be able to, even though you already can? That seems… not like you.”

“I mean… I’ve changed a lot. I make compromises. Jasper makes compromises. There’s things far more important to me than buying a house.” Charlotte packed her bag and grabbed her steamed and pressed graduation gown, then searched for her hat. Piper grabbed it and held it out to her, with a questioning face, although she was sure that was precisely what Charlotte was looking for. It was. She took it and laughed, “Let’s go.”

“Seriously… It’s a good idea to go ahead and just have your own things, anyway. You can have a house on the side. If you just have to have Jasper buy your first house, I recommend still getting one for yourself, or at least some property. You never know. Sometimes, people drift apart. Sometimes, people just give up on each other. While I can’t imagine Jasper ever doing that… I can’t imagine you not realizing one day that you married Jasper Freakin’ Dunlop.” She laughed, but it was fake. Charlotte stared at her, but didn’t argue. She saw that this wasn’t about her and Jasper at all and Piper usually didn’t want to talk about what happened with her parents a few months prior. 

“I’ll make sure that I take care of myself,” Charlotte promised, then paused and wondered, “Are you taking care of yourself, Piper?”

Piper forced a smile, “Things don’t really bother me like they used to. I’m okay.” A lie, but Charlotte didn’t feel like she had the right to push. For one thing - she couldn’t even IMAGINE her parents suddenly breaking up, especially while she was still living there. For another, she unfortunately hadn’t been as present in Piper’s life as she probably should’ve to someone that she saw essentially as a little sister. Someone, who she’d gone to whenever she needed another girl to gab with. She’d… not been a good enough friend to try to press her now for something this serious. 

“Well, in the event that you aren’t, I’m here for you. OR in the event that you are. I let us drift apart whenever I came here and I’m sorry for that. But, I promise, that even if I’m busy, you can always come to me.”

Piper wanted to say some things. She really, REALLY wanted to open up to Charlotte and tell her all of the things that she couldn’t even tell Henry about how badly she was feeling, but Charlotte was about to graduate and receive not one, but TWO degrees, at once and her makeup was done and she was already flustered and losing everything not attached to her body. It would’ve been unfair to bother her with this stuff. She felt bad enough distracting Kid Danger with it all. “Thanks, but I’m fine.”

.

Charlotte told herself not to look towards the crowd. She didn’t want to be aware of how many people were there… or how many people weren’t. Jasper had texted her several times to update her on where he was and whenever she was arriving at the center, he was saying that he was on his way to her. She sighed. She was early, so it was okay. She was in Piper’s car, catching her breath and stuff when she heard Jasper’s truck pulling in. She got really excited and really relaxed somehow, at the same time and jumped out of the car to meet him. He’d decorated his truck with congratulations, a banner of her smiling face and her title, degrees, and the date, and balloons floating, tied to the mirrors and long tinsels tied to the back. She gasped, “Jasper! What did you do?” She asked. 

“It’s to celebrate you!” He said, smiling, and reading her face to see if she was pleased with it or not. She smiled and gave him a kiss. She was pleased. Piper pulled out a metal little box and took a purple rolled cigarette out of it while Jasper said, “I pretty much lied about where I was all day, because I was trying to finish this and…” He opened the door of his truck… “This.” He handed her a bouquet which was graduation teddy bears and flowers, with one Black Barbie doll with an afro in the middle, in her graduation outfit. “Had to sew her clothes myself because I couldn’t find a doll with the color of your cap and gown! Sorry, I procrastinated…” She was crying and he gave her a hug and handed it to her. She hugged the bouquet to herself and then noticed that Piper was smoking on the other side of her car.

“Piper… You… You’re smoking a cigarette?”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s not one of those death sticks you get from the store. It’s one of the smoke blends you can get from Jasper’s mom,” She said.

“My mom hates smoking,” Jasper said.

“Not your mom, mom. The good one. The Black one,” she said. Adanna. “It's basically just herbs and leaves. Rose, spearmint… something called hyssop and stuff. I don’t know. I like them, though. This relaxes me.”

Jasper whispered, “Is it okay for a 16 year old to smoke herbs?”

“I don’t know, but I feel like I should protest, but don’t have the right…”

“Piper, I don’t think that a 16 year old should be smoking herbs,” Jasper said.

“Noted,” she told him and kept smoking. She’d gotten these from Henry. Adanna sent them to him whenever he called her to tell her about the situation and how he thought it might be his event from her card reading, and she’d asked for his address and began sending him gift baskets of some of her product every couple of weeks. She told him that something about him made her feel like he was often helping others, but had very little support. He definitely used some of it. He loved the burning things, whether it was one of those weird dolls or some fragrant plants, he always felt better afterwards. He set the smoke blend rolls aside and noticed when they went missing, but Piper had already claimed them and began using them by the time he asked her about them. He didn’t raise a big deal. There were kids her age smoking cigarettes and weed. This was… at least… not exactly illegal? And, it seemed to help her out. “But, you better wait until you’re 18 to try weed!” He said.

“What makes you think that I wanna try weed?” She wondered.

“I’m just telling you, IF you do…”

“I tried weed years ago. It has some kind of stupid adverse affect on me where it makes me feel anxiety. I’m not trying it again,” she said and walked off. She dismissed a lot of their conversations by just walking off. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to pretend to be a parent, because he technically wasn’t. Both of their parents were alive and they had asked her who she wanted to live with when they went into different homes. “I live with Henry, now.”

But, they were bothered by this, because, as far as they knew, Henry lived in the junk shop. There was a little office in the back with a cot and a dresser and there was no way that they could both fit there. Like they had known where she was sleeping every night all of the nights that they rushed off and left her to be taken care of by a 13-19 year old boy, a 20-22 year old man who was barely at the house that he “lived in.” 

Now, she was always taking them as soon as one of the baskets came to Junk N Stuff, even though Henry reminded her several times that it was illegal to open his mail. 

He was heading into town for Charlotte’s graduation. His was the next day in Swellview, so after the ceremony and probably dinner, they were all going back that way so that they could make it to his and would be having a party in the Man Cave, afterwards. Charlotte’s parents were going to throw her a little something, but she insisted that she needed to spend this time with her friends and reminded them that she was getting married in another year and they could throw her something then.

“You’d better at least come have breakfast or lunch or something with us. Nobody’s playing with you, Little Girl,” her mom said. She read that loud and clear.

“Jasper and I will be there after we wake up and get dressed,” she promised.

Henry, Schwoz and Ray had come in the van and Charlotte realized that it was the first time in 4 years that either of them had visited there (Ray and Schwoz), so they wound up grabbing to go food and getting a little tour of the town, Jasper’s frat house, which there was a HUGE graduation party happening at, Char’s apartment, where she kept having to keep Ray from stealing her dogs, and their current workplaces. 

Ray was very impressed with Jasper’s life. He was a star athlete! Girls loved him! He had guys who followed his commands! He was internet famous and a local hero, of sorts? “Gee, Henry, maybe I should have had JASPER be my sidekick. He’s clearly more successful,” Ray said.

“Ummm… It’s not a competition,” Henry said, “And I also am successful, it’s just different. I graduate tomorrow. I’m in the process of remodeling our entire store and making it a functional business with projected profits.”

“So… You’re not successful… YET,” Ray pointed out. 

Piper glared at him and reminded him, “You’re not exactly successful yourself. The store is fake and your only skill is being indestructible, which was not only an accident, but says nothing about your merit. It’s the only thing that you ever bring to the team. Meanwhile, Henry does the majority of the work, with absolutely no superpowers.” Everyone was silent for a moment while Ray just scoffed, unable to find a retort. “Belay my last,” she said and rolled her eyes, reaching for her cigarette holder. “So, has anybody been watching ROTC: In the Chiz? I could have sworn that one of the girls on there was Bianca, but they call everybody by last names, and I never learned hers…” She lit the thing and everyone awkwardly said that they didn’t know or hadn’t seen the show…

.

“Man… Piper’s really kind of a buzzkill, right?” Ray asked Jasper and Charlotte while Henry and Piper were at her car, talking, before the drive back to Swellview. 

Charlotte said, “She’s been through a lot.”

“She’s been through what half of us have been through. You think that my mom was WITH my dad through this irresponsible scientist stuff? Jasper didn’t meet his dad until last year or something! She’s old enough to chill out.”

“Or, she’s much older than either of you were when your parents broke up, so it’s affecting her harder,” Charlotte said. 

Jasper nodded his head and said, “She’s doing her best, Ray. She feels like her mom left her when she left their dad. She probably is wondering if it’s her fault or maybe she’s depressed or something and there’s no adult to enroll her into therapy. She just needs our support and you can be a little negative sometimes.”

He scoffed again and said, “I’m the most positive person that either of you have ever met!”

“Such a lie,” Charlotte said and Jasper had said, “That’s incorrect, Man.”

“Well, I didn’t deserve to have her ruin the entire gathering at my expense, did I?”

“I mean.. She was harsh, but not necessarily wrong and you kinda were going a little rough on Henry there, Friend,” Charlotte said.

“Hey, Guys, Piper’s ready to drive back to Swellview, so I’m gonna ride with her,” Henry called out, getting into the passenger’s seat of Piper’s SUV.”

“What? No! We said that we were gonna circle back to the frat party as soon as the child of the group was gone!” Ray pouted. 

“Dude..” Henry said.

“He’s right,” Piper told him. “You did make those plans.” 

“I did, but you just said that you’re super tired and didn’t feel up to driving,” Henry reminded her.

“Yeah, and you’re in the passenger’s seat, so you might as well stay and party with your friends. You’re a total loser. How many parties are you gonna get to go to, Bruh?” She laughed lightly and said, “If I have to kick you out of my car for you to have a good time, I will.”

“Ugh. Well, drive safely you get tired, pull over at a rest stop or get a room or something and call me AS SOON AS you make it home.”

“Jesus Haysues Christ. I know the routine, dude. We’ve been living together like a year. Go actually pretend that you know how to enjoy life or something,” she said.

“I love you, Bye!”

“Have fun, Nerd,” she said and pulled away.

“Guess I’m comin’ to the party!” Henry said, running back to his friends.

.

Henry was exhausted by the time they got back into the van. He checked his phone and it was 3 am. Piper hadn’t called or texted. He called her and she didn’t answer. “Wow. Seriously. You’re gonna leave a voicemail? I can assure you, I’m never checking it and I’m probably not gonna return your call. Text me like a normal person,” her voicemail greeting said.

“Yeah, you were supposed to call me whenever you got home. You left before Midnight, so that should’ve been 30 minutes ago, unless you got a room or stopped at a rest stop. Either way, a text would’ve been nice, Dude. Now, I gotta wonder if you’re okay until you call me back or don’t and I have to wait until I’m home. I’m kinda pissed, Piper. Call me. Shit.”

An hour into the drive home, he fell to sleep. Schwoz was driving and he and Ray were talking. Henry was asleep for about an hour longer, whenever his phone rang and it was Piper’s ringtone. He jumped awake and answered it, “Piper! Goddamn it! You were supposed to call me whenever you got home!” He said. 

“Hello, this is actually the police. We noticed that your number was the last and most frequent number in a phone that we located. Who does the phone I’m holding belong to?” The man on the other end of the phone asked. Henry’s heart sank to his stomach and he felt a tear rolling down his face. Wherever this conversation was going, he knew that it couldn’t be good.

“It’s my little sister’s phone. She drove out to see a family friend graduate and was heading back to Swellview when I last saw her at 11:30…”

“What are you talking about back there?” Ray wondered.

The policeman said, “Well, we found this phone at the site of an accident. One of the girls has been rushed to the hospital. The other will need someone to identify her, in Bordertown, where the wreck occurred.” 

Henry felt more tears falling now and he whispered, “I told her not to drive if she wasn’t… Was… Was the… dead girl the one who was driving a charcoal SUV?” 

“Sir, you should come to the Bordertown coroner and take a look…”

“No. NO. Look in the phone and call Siren of Jake Hart. Or Horrible Mom or Idiot Father… They… Let them be the ones to do this,” he said.

“Okay. Thank you for your help. Try to enjoy the rest of your night.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I will!” He hung up and covered his face.

“You okay kid?”

“Piper got into a wreck and I think she might be dead,” Henry said.

“WHAT???” Schwoz and Ray both said. 

Henry waved a hand and shook his head, “Just drive. No, pull over…” He got out of the van and Jasper’s truck pulled over behind them. Charlotte was asleep, but Jasper got out of the truck and Henry told him as the other guys got out. “And he wouldn’t just say that it wasn’t the girl in the charcoal SUV that died. So, it’s probably her, right? I mean… and if they found her phone at the site, what does that mean? Was it in the car? Was it on the scene because her body was tossed out? I never should have let her go by herself! She was tired. She was depressed. She was sleepy… I shouldn’t have let her go…” Jasper collected him into a hug and calmed him down. By that time, Charlotte woke up and noticed that they were stopped and also that everybody else was outside of the vehicles. She got out and walked up, nervous about whatever she was seeing. Jasper repeated what happened to her and she sighed and put her hands on Henry’s shoulders, “Hey… we’ll find out, first… then, we’ll do whatever we need to do to take care of you, okay?” 

She went back to the truck to get her laptop, and she and Schwoz worked a little bit of magic to get into the hospital information in Bordertown. She took a deep breath and said, “Hen…” He turned to look at her, apprehensively. “It’s not Piper. I’m sorry for that other family’s loss, but Piper is the one that they brought to the hospital.” 

“Is she gonna be okay?” He wondered.

“She’s still in surgery, but we can all just head there now. You ride with us.” She took his hand and led him back to Jasper’s truck. “Sit with him,” she whispered to Jasper and kissed him on the cheek and got into the driver’s seat. Schwoz and Ray got back into the van and they drove away again. Everybody felt a way about this. I should have done more… They all kept thinking.

[silenthillmutual]

pride month - day 12 - fairytale 

He hates writing assignments like this. “Re-write a fairytale” - what is the point, exactly? Didn’t that fall under some sort of plagiarism? 

“You’re thinking about it t...too hard,” Toko tells him. She’s been leaning over his shoulder, frowning at the page. “You don’t even need t-to write an outline, really.”

That’s easy for her to say. She’s tested out of every basic literature and writing class, including the one that was supposed to be mandatory for all freshmen. “I’m not good at creative writing,” he says.

He could be wrong, but he thinks she’s smirking. “That’s obvious.”

“You don’t need to be rude.” He can’t seem to keep the snap out of his voice when he’s embarrassed by things, and he practically lays across the table to keep her from looking at his papers. It doesn’t deter her; she rolls her eyes and grabs his rubric,readjusting her glasses. 

He guesses he’s getting help, whether he asks for it or not. “This could...could be anything,” she says, chewing on her thumb. “All you really need t...to do is change one aspect of a fairytale you- you already know.”

He taps his eraser against the table, agitated. This is ridiculous. He shouldn’t need help, he’s a writing tutor.

“I was thinking about changing Sleeping Beauty.” 

“Into what?” 

He makes little circles on the table with the eraser. “Giving her narcolepsy?”

Toko’s eyes look up at the ceiling, teeth still on her nail. “That’s a good start.” 

--

It doesn’t feel like a good start anymore. He hadn’t really taken into account how much this one small factor would change the entire plotline, and now he has to give a character agency who’s never had it before. At least I can take out that horrible incest subplot, he thinks to himself.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been working on it, but he guesses too long from the way Mondo is staring at him. He hasn’t been speaking to me, has he? 

“I’m sorry,” he starts, “Were you -?”

“No!” his voice is so loud. Is he shouting? Why is he shouting? Mondo looks away too quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. He looks pink, but it could just be the lighting. “Just, yanno, we been here like an hour. Don’t ya think you should take a break and eat or somethin’?” 

...right. They’re in the dining hall. That is what he should be doing. And he can think about it while he eats. Brainstorming. Maybe that’s why he can’t put words onto paper - he hasn’t brainstormed it properly yet! So -

Fingers snap right in front of his face and he panics, smacking the hand away. 

It’s Mondo. Again. And he looks...upset. Not angry. More...sad. “Kyoudai,” he says. “You’re doin’ it again.”

--

One thirty in the morning is not the best time to be writing out a short story by hand, but Makoto’s still up and he needs to get this finished. Until he gets it done, even as a rough draft, he can’t sleep. Although if you told him in high school that he’d be pulling all-nighters in college, he would have been offended. But then, there are a lot of things he’s done in college he wouldn’t have thought he’d be doing when he was in high school. And this short story he’s writing might be getting a little too personal. 

Sleeping Beauty’s now a boy. Or trying to be a become a boy. And his father won’t let him cut his hair or bind his chest. What he really wants to be is a knight who can defend himself. And the Prince that’s supposed to save Sleeping Beauty has a problem where he occasionally turns into a dragon and has no control over it. 

He might have referred to the Prince as Mondo more than once. 

He sighs, too tired for it to have the backing of his frustration behind it, and rests his head on his desk. 

“Taka? Taka!” it’s Makoto, shaking his shoulder slightly. “Dude. Go to bed.”

“But I need -” 

“This is a really good start!” Some of Makoto’s pep is drained from the research he’s spent all afternoon-evening-early morning doing. “At least, take a nap. Or rest your eyes?” Well, his vision has gotten a little blurry. “I can look over this for spelling mistakes, or suggestions.”

“But don’t you -”

“I need a break.” He says it flatly, but it still comes out like he’s begging for Taka to help him out. If it’s just a manipulation so Taka will go to sleep... Well, it’s awfully sneaky, and he’s too tired to tell him no. And he passes out on his desk, anyway. 

--

Somewhere along the line, Kiyotaka should learn how to greet other people like a regular person, instead of starting off his sentences with things like, “How do you turn in work that you know is subpar?”

He can’t really blame Mondo for looking at him with some kind of unspecified negative emotion (longing, he thinks, but he doesn’t have the background information necessary to make that claim) to fury. “You ain’t had a real conversation with me in four days an’ the first thing you say to me is to criticize my work ethic?” 

Four days. What was four days ago? Sunday? The day they went to international house for that party and they - 

Oh. Oh, given that context, yes. He can understand why Mondo looks upset with him. And why he seems so frustrated. And why he’s always trying to get his attention and upset that he’s not looking at him. I’m so terrible at this.

“Terrible at what?” Oh, gods, did he really say that out loud? “Are - are you cryin’?” He wouldn’t normally let himself be manhandled like this but he thinks, one, that Mondo is not being rough on purpose, and two, that he maybe kind of deserves to be treated roughly. 

He cuts Mondo off from whatever he was going to say by blurting out the lesser of his two current issues, which is, “I didn’t mean it how it came out. I’m sure your usual work is exemplary. But I hear you and Leon saying that homework you turn in for your language classes is ‘not the best’. I just want to know how you deal with that.” And he should have gone to Leon, probably, just avoided seeing Mondo altogether until he could have figured out You kissed him and then didn’t talk to him for three days after so of course he hates you now, you idiot on his own.

Although, to be honest the latter part probably would never have happened. “Sometimes, you just gotta accept you can’t be good at everythin’. And teachers don’t expect you to be, right? You’re gonna be bad at some shit, that’s why they got a job.” Well, he does have a point there. “Didn’t you ever turn in shit in high school and thought, ‘This prolly wasn’t the best I could do, but I can’t think of how to make it better’?” 

He’s trying to think about it, but it comes back blank. “No.” He’s too nervous to actually look at Mondo, but there’s probably something like disbelief or irritation. “I didn’t have any friends in high school, so I didn’t do anything but study. There was never any reason for me to turn in less than my best.” 

“No offense, man, but that’s total bullshit.” Mondo squats down so he doesn’t have an excuse not to look at him anymore, no matter how terribly he feels about it. “Even if it ain’t, or you think it ain’t, college is different. You need to let yourself suck at things, so you can get better at ‘em.” 

“Like relationships?” At least he hears himself say it that time. It’s not fair to Mondo to make him feel embarrassed about it too, since it’s hardly his fault. 

And Mondo does look moderately uncomfortable with him saying it like that, scratching the back of his head and standing up and staring at his bed so he doesn’t have to look at Taka. Kiyotaka starts to breathe so he can apologize for doing whatever the heck it is he has or hasn’t been doing over the past couple of days, but Mondo starts talking first. “I just wanna know where I stand with you. If yer not interested, that’s fine, but I can’t figure out what it is ya want from me.” 

He turns back around but doesn’t quite look at Taka, arms crossed over his chest but eyes on the floor, off to the side, like he’s trying to get the best of both worlds by both having this conversation and not having it at the same time. 

“I want to be best friends,” Taka says. 

“Oh,” Mondo says, not doing a very good job of hiding his disappointment.

“And I want to be more than that,” he continues. 

He doesn’t do a very good job of hiding his feelings about that, either. 

[wishthefish916]

What Is Anti?

Holy fucking shit, I’ve literally had this saved as a draft on this site for MONTHS and just haven’t posted it out of spite, but if ever there was a call to action this is is. I published this theory a while ago, but I wasn’t completely happy with how I’d written it at the time so I took it down a few minutes later. I’d originally planned on never revisiting this again, but while developing a different theory which will probably be coming out soon, I was forced to revisit this work, so here we are. The science of Antisepticeye. What he is, where he came from and how to stop him. It’s a long one lads, so buckle the fuckle up.

If we’re ever gonna stop Anti, which is kinda the point of all this theorizing anyways, we have to know what exactly he is. To figure that out, we need to look into what effect he has on the world around him. Looking back at the ever expanding collection of Anti moments ((thank the heavens for his wiki and a whole lotta spare time)), the only thing that tied them all together is that the person in the webcam felt a sense of danger, be it from a jump scare or high suspense or even from hearing Anti’s name, the brain of the person who was recording sensed danger, which triggered a hormonal fight-or-flight response in their body in the moment Anti presents himself to us, and it’s usually preceded with a long gap in symptoms surfacing. What else do we know of that lies dormant for a long period of time before something triggers it to wake up which usually leads to chaos for whatever system it’s in? Jack A virus!

So what kind of virus is he? Well, in bigger videos like Say Goodbye and Kill JSE the person on the screen communicated that they felt physical effects of his presence, like nausea, aches, delirium and twitching and in some cases bleeding from the eyes. This tells me that if Anti is a virus he’s a biological one.

However I cannot ignore the biggest telltale sign of Anti showing up which is the game or webcam ((and sometimes the person)) glitching, audio disturbances, and corrupted html text((Zalgo)), which would tell me that he is a computer virus.

So lads, correct me if I’m wrong in saying that if Anti is indeed a virus, he wouldn’t be exclusively biological or the technological, but rather a biomechanical virus((I totally didn’t make up the term shush)).

Being made up of both biological and technological components mean infection could have happened just about anywhere. For the sake of clarity I’ll be breaking it up into biological and technological components as I’m fairly certain the two are symbiotically dependent on each other, considering the physical effects coincide almost completely with the technological ones.

If infection was controlled by the biological aspects, that would mean he was infected by contact with the virus. Either he touched it, breathed it in, ate or drank it, kissed it, or bled on it. For all the other egos who’ve been infected, this makes perfect sense. JJ cutting his finger right before the glitching shows up, Henrik almost never wearing his surgical mask when handling his infected patients, Chase heavily drinking in the moments leading up to Dark Silence, but Jack is a different story. The first time we saw Anti was in FNAF Sister Location, and that video had none of the above in it. That tells me he was infected well before he first showed himself, which makes sense logically. People don’t show flu symptoms as soon as they come into contact with the flu virus. It has to fester for a little bit before showing any symptoms, so why should Anti be any different?

So where did Jack get infected? If he did physically come into contact with the virus, it would have been in a live action video. From a storytelling perspective, it wouldn’t make sense to not showcase an important plot point clearly, and live action is the best medium to do such. That brought me to the 2015 pumpkin carving video, but nothing too suspicious happened. There was no bleeding, he didn’t eat anything, while he did kiss the pumpkin no bodily fluids were exchanged, and breathing it in or touching it seems implausible, because it would mean the virus already existed in his house, which means he would have been infected long before that video.

The only other live action videos he’s done, and correct me if I’m wrong, were the 700,000 subscriber ghost pepper challenge, the ALS Ice bucket challenge, and his regular vlogs. Sean is incredible at blurring the line between normal video and ego video, but these videos all had an underlying sincerity to them, where he was trying to communicate to us his appreciation or with the ALS video trying to get us to donate to charity, and I find it highly improbable for him to try and undermine the meaning behind them with an ego clue.

That leads me to believe that it were the technological aspects of the virus that infected him, and that’s where things get kinda tricky. Now, computer viruses are actually relatively easy to come into contact with, the problem definitely isn’t there. Maybe Jack was sent it in an email, maybe he went to a sketchy website, maybe he downloaded a game that had a little something extra up it’s sleeve. No biggie, it happens. The logic leap is when the computer virus starts affecting his real life person, even when he’s not using the computer, a la Say Goodbye.

I believe immersion is the answer. Immersion in game play is something a large portion of game developers strive for, making the player feel like they were actually inside their game. This is one of the hardest and most important things a story driven game developer can do, and also one of Jack’s key defining features in games he tends to really enjoy.

I think, in the story that Sean has created for us with the egos, when Jack is doing a lets play and he gets really immersed in the game, he actually does exist inside that game. That feeling of total immersion, those moments when his brain is unable to separate the game from reality, they happen because of him actually being inside the game on his computer. If Jack were to download a game that had Anti’s virus on it, and then became immersed in the game play experience long enough to come into contact with said virus, it’s entirely possible that the virus stayed with him when he left the game/no longer was immersed.

Well, if we’re going to find out how to cure the thing, we’ve first got to find the location of patient zero, i.e. the video that started it all. If we know where it came from, we’ll know how it works and that’ll make it immensely easier to stop it. Are there any games out there that Jack played that 1) truly immersed him as a player into it’s world, 2) share a strong resemblance to what we already see in Anti, and 3) was uploaded some time before the release of Sister Location. There are two bigguns that spring to mind.

Undertale is probably the most well known and well liked series on Jack’s entire channel. While he was playing he became heavily invested in each of the characters, even the baddies, and so did we. We grew to care for them all as if they were our closest friends. When they were hurt, we screamed in protest. When they were comforted, we felt all warm and fuzzy. When we reached the true ending, we all cried. I would most certainly consider that immersion, wouldn’t you?

Not only did Undertale immerse the player and viewer, it messed with your actual computer files. If you do a genocide route even once, uninstalling and reinstalling the game won’t wipe it’s memory of the route. You have to dig through your computer to find and delete the file that tells steam what route you chose if you want to play the game brand new again. Not to mention the game frequently closing itself unprompted, which has a well known history for corrupting recording footage. Potential for corruption? Check.

New paragraph for new point because oh my god, there’s a lot. Several people have already pointed out the similarities between Flowey and Anti, but just in case you haven’t seen it yet or wanted a nice recap, here we go.The voice acting Jack chose for Flowey sounds just like a higher pitched Anti voice. This was the first time he ever layered audio files to achieve a more sinister voice effect. The thumbnails following his fight with Flowey all hold trademark characteristics of Anti video thumbnails. Our first ever interaction with him ends with him attempting to murder Jack. Their laughs are one in the same. At certain points in the game, you can find Flowey following you, keeping an eye on things, if you will. His boss fight, oh my g o d. He kills the dude in charge, everything cuts to black, and next thing we know there’s a glitchy face laughing at us through a screen, telling us about how he’s the one in charge and how this is his world and how everything he’s done was all our faults, after which his eyes turn red and green and he starts puppeteering controlling six different souls, using their different skills to his own personal advantage so he can fulfill some unspoken objective. Gee, sound familiar? 

However, despite all of this, Undertale was not patient zero. Why I still listed all the game’s similarities despite this, I promise was not to waste your time, I’m getting to that. There was a game that came just before this one, the first of it’s kind, the actual patient zero. That game, is The Visitor.

Many of you may not remember this game, but The Visitor (and The Visitor Returns) was a little flash game that was posted way back on March 1st, 2015, and you played as an alien creature that came to Earth on a meteorite who’s only objective was to kill any creature it came into contact with to gain it’s powers. It was a video that kind of took the channel by storm, landing it’s place as the fifth most watched video on Jack’s channel even though nobody really knew how. This was patient zero. 

As for the checklist? It was posted March 1st, 2015, a full year and seven months before Sister Location. Jack is certainly immersed in the gameplay, so much so he forgets about the menu screen and accidentally restarts the game in an attempt to do more stuff. Does it show a similarity to what we already see in Anti? More than you’d see at first glance. Yes, his mouse is kind of glitching through the entire video. Yes, his webcam goes dark for a single frame towards the five minute mark. Yes, there’s multiple severe neck wounds throughout the game. But that’s not what sold me on this. It’s the premise of the game itself. 

I was struggling for months trying to figure out which game was patient zero. I jumped between Undertale, Fran Bow, Vee is Calling, and even the other Five Nights At Freddy’s videos more times than I could count, because all of them seemed like plausible answers. Fran Bow was the first series ever to adopt Anti’s traditional thumbnails, with lens flares and glowing eyes and blood everywhere(seriously, I took a good ten minutes and scrolled through every single video on his channel and Fran Bow was where it all started), not to mention a dark shadow creature who feeds on suffering being the main antagonist. Vee is Calling had an actual virus as a main character who actually glitches out and actually takes control of the main character’s in game computer. One of the glitches in SIster Location #1 showed a frame from the first ever FNAF game, and many of the sounds were pulled from the series at different points. I’ve already written paragraphs about Undertale. All of these things show a direct tie to Anti. 

Then remember what The Visitor is all about. It’s an alien who kills things around him to gain it’s powers. It takes aspects from each creature it comes into contact with and uses them for his own personal gain. That seems to be exactly what Anti has done ever since we’ve known him as a physical entity on the channel rather than an idea with a name. 

I mean, look back at May 2k18. Every single skit, either ego themed or not, was pulled directly from whatever the game he played was about. Hell, just look at the egos! I’ve talked about this before, but in every single ego video, there is always a theme of character decay, where the person they were at the start of the video erodes away leaving nothing but a shell of who they were by the end, and this is especially apparent in their debut. JBM, the courageous hero giving into cowardice. Marvin the Magician, throwing away his career. Henrik the wise doctor, killing his patients and forgetting a comedic amount about human nature. Chase the bubbly dad, pulling a gun on himself. JJ the mute actor, cutting his finger and immediately getting possessed. I’d tied them back to Anti before, but I never really knew why. In hindsight, this was clearly Anti’s attempt at stealing their strengths. Each and every one of them had some advantage that Anti wanted, and their slow decay was evidence of Anti trying to take control so he could have it. That’s why each new video showed him getting stronger, going from making them kind of afraid to full on suicide and possession. He was stronger because he’d taken more attributes and was able to use them more effectively with each passing video. For each game that Sean got immersed in that fit his agenda, Anti adopted different aspects for himself. There is no one video where Anti came from because he came from every video.

Okay. Alien biomechanical virus. How do we treat it? Well, that is heavily reliant on it’s sources. Anti adopted both some benefits and some defects from every game he pulled from. He gained both strengths and weaknesses, so if you want to “beat” him, the answer would lie in those games. The Visitor had no happy ending. Fran Bow won by giving up on reality and living with tree people, a demon, and an oversized axolotl. Undertale got a good ending by befriending everyone including the bad guys and hopefully not dying too much in the process. FNAF was finished by getting fired or burning everything to the ground and praying you’re not sent to purgatory. Vee is Calling was saved by focusing on your love life more than your computer files. Maybe it’s one of those answers. Maybe it’s all of them. Maybe it’s none of them. It seems not even Sean knows the answer to that question, but now we have a great place to start looking.

I wasn’t able to attend PAX, which means I didn’t know about the Anti “hint” until just now. When I heard it I wanted to scream, I think I actually might have, because I’ve been sitting on this work for literal months and just not gotten around to posting it. “We still haven’t figured out what Anti is yet.”

So, @therealjacksepticeye, are my answers to your satisfaction? 

[kimminstudying]

Note: I’m pretty sure I made this list last summer and since school finally over I figured I would reflect on these and see how well I did and how I could improve. Linked below is the original post that has all of the goals I will be talking about, but since I write them down here I’m sure you don’t need to read it to understand what I am talking about, but I put it there just in case. This is just a review of my goals from last year, I will create a separate post for my new goals for this summer and next year. 

The Original Post

⊳ Money

Goal #1: Work towards saving more of your paychecks ✓

I did a good job of saving money, but I went back and forth as time went on. During the summer I would spend money at work during my breaks but I was making way more than I am currently during the school year. I would still spend money like I was when I was making more, but when I learned that I got better at budgeting my cash. 

Now that I have a car and have a monthly bill for it as well as gas, I am getting better at saving the money I need for the said bill. 

I plan on moving out within the year so I need to save up as much as I possibly can. I am moving out with two of my best friends, if all goes as planned, we will be splitting rent and bills between the three of us. 

Goal #2: Put half of checking into a savings account on payday ✖ I did this for a while, but then I saw that it wasn’t really helping me as much as I thought it would. I would end up having like $6 in my checking account before payday comes so I didn’t see a point in just transferring $3 when I was going to get more of it, so what I did was estimate how much money I would need for the week and then put the rest in savings. If I knew I was going out or had bills to pay during that week, I would leave that money in the account. This proved to work way better for me than what I had originally planned to do. 

What I ended up doing was creating a separate savings account for my new house/apartment so I had an emergency account and a moving out account. I would only use my emergency account for things like bills, unpredicted expenses, or big purchases such as a new laptop for school and blogging. But I keep it at $500, just in case I needed it. Right now it’s at like $450 since I needed to pay my car bill and I didn’t work much this week, but what I do is I rebuild it as fast as possible and hopefully, I do not need to take more money out of it.

When I am rebuilding my emergency fund, not as much or no money goes into my “moving out” account, so I am more motivated to save money so I can get both accounts back in order. I am going back to my old job this summer, since it is seasonal work, and I know I am going to be working close to 40 hours a week since I will be 18 they would work me as much as possible, which I like since it’s a job I love with wonderful coworkers. Not to mention we get so many gift cards it’s not even funny. We all love free money. 

*Update: My family has encouraged me to stay home while I am studying at a college that I am commuting to. My father said he won’t charge me rent as long as he can afford to keep me at home and even if he does it won’t be more than $100 a month which he and I agreed on for a price. That account is now for saving up for a new car. 

Goal #3: Have a spending limit when going out ✓

This goes along with what I was saying before about leaving money in my checking account if I have plans to spend it. I like planning my week out and so I tell my friends if they want to make plans they need to do it a few days in advance so I can see if I don’t have work or scheduled time to study, since I am the “nerd” if my group, all of my friends respect how I plan things. 

They also respect when I tell them I don’t have money to go out. Sometimes I’d rather save my money than use it on movie tickets, of course with the occasional splurge here and there on a new pair of shoes or a delicious dinner. When times get like that, we all agree to do something else that is either really cheap or free, such as having a sleepover or going to the park. 

Goal #4: Establish an “okay amount” to spend daily on coffee, breakfast, etc. ✖

I also did this for a little while, putting away $15 every check to get coffee in the morning before school. Since saving money is a learning experience, I’m messing up now rather than ten or twenty years from now. Doing this put be at risk for developing bad spending habits, $3-$4 a day adds up way faster than you think, the next thing you know you’re spending over $50 in a month for morning coffee runs. Now I’m not saying I never go to buy food and coffee before or after school, sometimes it’s great to treat yourself by doing so. Typically, I buy creamers and coffee grounds to make at home and sometimes I’ll buy a bundle of bananas to last me the week. I saw that not only did it save me money, it also saved me about a half hour in the morning. Meaning a half hour more of sleep. 

While my coffee brews I walk my dog for a few minutes so she can go to the bathroom before everyone else in the house wakes up, and I start my car so it can run a bit before I leave. This is especially good since where I live the weather is unpredictable and it can frost over my windows at any time. If I catch this early enough I can defrost my windows before I go to school.

For about a month I would do something called “Fuck it Friday” where I bought coffee, snacks, whatever I wanted since I get paid every Friday. I saw that when I did this, I would just end up spending the amount I typically would in a whole week in one day, so I quickly stopped doing that and I plan on going back to making coffee at home. Goal #5: Add spare change to change dispenser in car ✖

I don’t use cash that often, which means I don’t really get change, but when I do have some lying around, it normally goes right into a bank I have in my room. When I have change in my car, I do tend to put it into the dispenser but then I’ll sometimes use it to give to the people asking for spare change or to buy a piece of candy at the store.

⊳ Languages

Goal #1: Take review notes of language material learned over the summer ✓

I did a really good job over the summer with posting a lot here, at least in my opinion, but when the school year started I posted a little less. In my first semester, I had a bit more time to post multiple times a week for multiple blogs, but when the second semester hit I began to prioritize my schooling over languages and blogs. I started to post at least once a week, but I noticed my language learning for Korean and Italian has gone down a lot because of it.

I take French in school so I practice it every day, and there are so many French posts I have drafted I’m in love. During the summer I worked more on Italian and Korean since my French was already way way way better, and I knew I would be taking it as a class during the school year.  Goal #2: Listen to podcasts in the halls instead of music ✖

I really was going to do this, but right as summer ended I lost my apple headphones and I was not going to spend thirty dollars or so to get new ones, so I just didn’t have podcasts. I have my old phone, which is a Samsung, for music so I just used that with regular headphones.

Even when I got apple headphones from my dad’s fiancee, I still didn’t really listen to podcasts. I think it’s because I don’t want to start a new one or a new audio lesson if I am just walking three minutes to my next class. When I go back to my old job, however, that’ll change. It’s part of a program with my school for getting students into the workforce, so there is a bus that provides us with transport. I have a 45-minute ride there and an over 2-hour long ride back. No excuses to not listen to a podcast or two!

Goal #3: Mondly/Duolingo and Lingodeer during breakfast/as a part of your morning routine ✖

I used to be really good at doing these daily, but then I lost motivation. Even before I would never have a long streak, but I would just try to do it as often as possible to make up for it. There was a time where I didn’t even look at these apps for over a month, but I didn’t notice much of a change in my language comprehension. But I want to get back into it since I don’t have a lot of time now to sit down and do a couple of grammar lessons.  Goal #4: Post weekly to studyblr/langblr for Italian and Korean review notes of what you studied over the summer. ✓

Again, I feel like I did a better job with this during the summer and my first semester of this year. I have several vocab lists saved just in case I don’t feel like studying but I need to do my weekly post. There are some times when I’ll be really motivated for no reason and just make like twelve vocab lists and I draft them for future use.

⊳ Health/Lifestyle

Goal # 1: Wake up at 6am ✓

Waking up early does not equal productivity, I learned that the hard way. I wake up that early for school, but during the weekends or on breaks I wake up normally at 8-9am if I don’t have to work that morning, which I rarely do since I work the night shift (typically around 1-12am I work). 

Goal # 2: Go to bed at 10pm - 11pm ✖

If I am not working I go to bed at around 11pm at the latest, but there are some nights I get home at around 11:30 so I don’t sleep until 1-2am. This is usually weekends so I don’t have an issue since in my state it’s illegal to work minors after 10pm on a school night and 11pm on a weekend. 

But now that I’m 18 and it’s summer, I can anticipate a lot of overnight shifts or longer hours! I’m not complaining, I’d rather work at night than in the daytime anyway. 

Goal # 3: 5-minute workouts or 10-minute abs in the morning and evening or after school  ✖ Hahaha, I never did this. I’m never gonna do this.   Goal # 4: Floss more ✖ Not happening either, that’s too much man. It’s not that big in my life to floss, even if my dentist tells me to do it more. I have no cavities, no gum issues, so I’m good. Goal # 5: Take your medicines daily ✓ This I’ll admit, I need to do more. Sometimes I’ll go a few days without my meds, but it’s not important that I take them daily, since they are “as needed” medicines. I should take them at least every other day, but I am getting better at that.  Goal # 6: Morning and Nightly Skin Care Routine ✓ I started off slow by only doing my routine in the morning and then occasionally going a nightly routine. My skin is really sensitive so this worked for me, putting on too much product would either make my skin too dry or too oily. If the weather is affecting my skin, I’ll add on an extra moisturizer if need be. 

Basically, I only do a night time routine when I get home from work or school late and my face feels really gross. Since I shower at night I wash my face with a gentle cleanser in the shower. That’s usually it. 

Goal # 7: Face mask while you study ✓   Doing facemasks too often also negatively affects my skin as well. I normally do one when I’m with my friends or when my skin really needs it. 

Goal # 8: Drink more water ✖

Again, I need to do this way more often than I do. I think this is mainly because the water fountains at my school are utterly disgusting. I don’t know if it’s because our school is under construction, but it’s always been gross if I remember correctly. 

⊳ School

Goal #1: SAT Fee Waiver ✓ 

THIS SAVES LIVES. At my school, if you have free or reduced lunch, you get fee waivers for all sorts of things. AP Exams, Applications, even SAT Exams. You only get two for the SAT so you need to use them wisely. Most students don’t even know that their school offers fee waivers that either cover costs completely or reduce the fee. Make sure you ask, it doesn’t do any harm!

Goal #2: October SAT  ✓

I took the October SAT and got a 1050, which is way over than what the school I wish to go to is asking for. Then I retook the exam in June since I had one more waiver left, and I got a 1080. Now the college I want to go to has a 960 SAT Average and I needed at least a 500 on the Math and English portions to be exempt from the entrance exams.

Goal #3: Research application deadlines ✓ My school was a big help with this, especially since I’m starting at community college for my first two years. I’m accepted as a student and have already selected my classes, but there were some issues with my FASFA that I still need to resolve.  Goal #4: Check scholarship board ✓ My school was also a big help with this as well, they print out all the available scholarships for that month, the criteria, AND the due dates! All I had to do was complete the applications, no fishing for free money. 

Goal #5: Study at least 15 minutes a day ✓

I was strong with this with my first semester classes, since I enjoyed the work and had daily tasks I needed to do for one of the classes. When the second semester came, things changed. Most of my classes are easy, no homework and very little classwork that I got done early. All but AP Calc. 

The way my teacher is, he doesn’t grade the problem sets he assigns. He’ll give us class participation points if we are working in class, but the problems are mainly for our own benefit. I don’t let myself not do the problems just because I won’t get a grade I’m struggling in that class now and I do all that I can to bring my grade up, but it’s not really doing much. If this is the only class I fail, then I’m glad it's AP Calculus AB and not English or something. I don’t need calc to graduate or to still obtain scholarships, it was an extra class I regret taking. 

⊳ Misc.

Goal #1: Watch more Netflix when stressed ✓ I found that I’m not much of a TV or Show person unless it’s a really good show that I get hooked on. I’d much rather destress by having time to myself and browsing social media for hours.  Goal #2: Take your time with everything ✓ This allowed me to get better with time management, taking things slow, thinking carefully, and making myself okay with the idea of rescheduling plans. Goal #3: Think before you speak/act ✓ Doing this made me do things I was glad I did and knew I would never do if I hadn’t thought it out. I became the friend who would do and say the things everyone else was afraid of.  Goal #4: Try listening to others about their day ✓ This kind of went along with the goals #2 and #3 but this also worked out for me and I feel it made me somewhat of a better person??? Yea, just listen to people when they talk to you and ask them questions. Let them know you care about them, you don’t know how much it could raise their spirits.  Goal #5: Attend Coalition meeting (every third Friday) ✖ As much as I wanted to, I could not attend meetings. I didn’t have an adult representative from my school to escort me and possibly other students, therefore I could not attend meetings. 

~brianna

[worlds-within-words]

Chapter Five: Starting the Journey

I grabbed my bags and halberd and called for Sora. We figured she’d be useful for hunting and whatnot.

Hak and I set the pace, stumbling around, sore from the match yesterday. We hobbled along, and I risked a glance back at the house. The only thing I’d ever known except for my old village. It was home, I had grown up there, learned, and been loved there. But all birds have to leave the nest at some point.

Iksu stood on the doorstep, simply watching as we continued down the path. As I turned away, I could’ve sworn a stubborn tear ran down an otherwise smiling face.

We soon arrived at a village, and I helped Hak stuff Yona into a bag, although not unscathed. Who would’ve thought such a sweet little princess could be so vicious? I thought. We passed by an old farmer pulling a cart behind him. My face became damp from sweat as we drew near. Yoon stopped by to have a little chat, and I felt something poke my rib cage.

“Stop hiding your face in your cloak, it’s suspicious!” Hak hissed. I’ve been doing that? Hm. Must be a nervous habit.

“Says the man with a big hat to hide his face and a body-shaped bag over his shoulder!” I snapped back.

“Touché.”

“Stop bickering like an old married couple you two! Let’s go!” They all exchanged some words while I kept quiet.

Yoon led the way and we soon arrived at a forest. I helped Yona out of the bag and she immediately stomped off.

“Priiiiiiiiincess. Priiiiiiiincess.” Hak called in a monotone voice. “What are you mad about? Is it because I packed you in a bag and carried you over my shoulders? Is it because I said there were clothes in the bag and I treated you roughly? Or is it because I felt up the good stuff in the bag?”

Yona clenched her fist and growled, ”Everything.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Yona practically chase Hak up a tree and shrugged. I’m gonna have to get used to them eventually. Which reminds me, I still have to clear things up with Hak and his little ‘test’.

Yoon mumbled,”The bag that was supposed to have clothes in it started squirming around…...and I was really nervous that the old man had found us out.” He paused and eyed them. “Are you two alright?” I glanced at them in amusement. They were still at it.

He pointed at us consecutively. “Red-haired princess!” He pointed at Hak. “Ex-general beast Raijuu!” And lastly, me. “Stunningly terrify-I mean-beautiful sister! You guys stick out like a sore thumb! Especially you two, quiet it down, you’ll attract too much attention!”

They both nodded meekly. “Yes.” Ah, they’re already becoming obedient!

“Now then,” Yoon pulled out a map and continued,”The village of the Dragon Warrior should be right about...here.” He pointed at a set of mountain ranges. Finding a Dragon Warrior? What’s he talking about?

“Um, sorry, but what are you guys talking about?” I looked at them in confusion.

“Oh yeah, you weren’t there when Iksu explained.” Hak replied. “He spouted this weird prophecy which claimed that I would die if we didn’t find one of these warriors. I don’t buy it, but Yona seems pretty hard set on it.”

“You’re telling me the Dragon Warriors are real? I thought they were just made up.”

Yona gasped,”But your father is a priest, how could you not believe in them?”

“Er, I guess it doesn’t really make sense to me?” I fidgeted with the hem of my cloak.”I mean, this god person comes down and turns regular people into half-gods? It just doesn’t really seem possible to me.” Nobody spoke after that, but Yoon saved me when he said,

“Well anyways, one of them lives in these mountains right here.” He pointed on the map again.”It’s near the capital and the Fire Tribe though, so we should be careful.”

“It’s near the border too, huh?” Hak smirked,”Near Kaitei and the capital….” I half heartedly stroked Sora’s fur as I contemplated our problem. If we got too close to Kaitei, the capital, or the Fire Tribe, we’ll be in serious trouble. We need to find a safe route that isn't too hard to travel on. Yona could have some trouble getting up a steep path, not to mention Hak and I. I vaguely heard Yoon yelling at Hak for something, and snatched the map out of Yoon’s bag as he ran by.

I unrolled it and pointed a section of the map that showed a small valley. It was a little too close to the capital than I would’ve liked, but if we were careful it might work. “Hak! Stop messing around with my brother!” I jabbed him in the gut.”You know the area around Kuuto pretty well, right? Is this place safe to go through?” I pointed to the valley.

“It should be. Heh, unless they built a castle while I was resting.” He joked.”But yeah, it’s safe. Good eye Ōkami!” For a guy that will attack you in the woods as a ‘test’, he’s actually quite likable… But I still have to keep my guard up around him. Something about him just doesn’t sit right with me.

“Thanks….we have to head Northwest right?”

“Yeah. While we still have daylight, let’s get moving.”

We started to head down the trail when the footsteps behind me suddenly ceased.

“Will the soldiers attack us again?” Yona had a slight quiver in her voice, and was covering part of her face with her cloak. This poor girl. What exactly did they do to her? I wasn’t really listening when they explained, although I wish I had.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” He said it with a smile, but I could tell he was worried about her.

Yoon quipped,”While you’re at it, protect me too, I’m weak.”

“I need to learn swordsmanship. You can teach me on the road Hak.” Coming from that small weak girl, it would’ve been ridiculous, if not for her circumstances. Hak’s eyes went from wide in surprise to narrow slits.

“Could you kill a person?” Hak’s voice was low and cold.”Even if you repel them, you can’t give enemies the chance to flee. You need to hurt them to the point where they’re beyond recovery and kill them. Could you do that?” Yona stood as still as a tree on a windless day.

I attempted to lighten the mood.

“Heh, no need for that Yona. You saw me fight Raiju right? Us together provide more than enough protection.” But they ignored me.

“At that time, even though you had a sword you didn’t use it at all.”

Yona’s face was scrunched up with unease as she replied,”Even if I can’t match up against them, or kill them, I want to at least create an opening for you and I to get away.”

Hak rubbed his chin.”Swordsmanship for self defense… Surely you’ll need that.”

Yona’s face brightened as she asked,”Does that mean you’ll teach me?”

“You’re upper body strength isn’t the greatest and I don’t want you to be on the front lines, so here.” He chucked the bow and quiver from his back to Yona. It landed in her arms with a dull thud and her arms struggled to hold it. A bow, huh? I suppose it would be easier for her to carry.

“Princess, I’m going against your father's wishes. King Il hated weapons. Think about why his majesty hated weapons.” Yona clutched the bow tightly.”But you might as well practice while we’re heading to the village.”

We walked along for a bit before Yoon asked,”I wonder if you can kill birds and rabbits with that. Sure, Sora can hunt a lot of things, but she would never be able to catch a bird. Would you be able to?” Yoon paused for a moment and continued.”I-if you don’t mind, of course.”

“If you don’t wanna, then I could go hunt with Sora. But I really think that it would give you great practice though.” I said. We walked for about an hour, Yona trying to shoot a bird the whole way. It was getting kind of annoying; the fwoosh and whack of the arrows creating an unsteady beat that drove me insane.

Hak, must’ve felt the same way, he grabbed the bow and arrow from her hands and shot an arrow straight at a bird. In three seconds it fell to the ground, the arrow directly piercing the heart. Show off. But it was pretty cool.

“How did you do that?!” Yona exclaimed. “I can’t even hit one!”

“I aimed.”

“I don’t get it Hak.”

“You’re a terrible teacher Hak! I can barely shoot an arrow fifteen feet, but I bet I could teach her better than you!” I was exasperated. How did the soldiers he trained ever learn anything?!

“I can! Look, I’ll show you!”He turned to face Yona.”Ok, so basically you don’t have enough strength. Your arms shake when you aim, and that’s why you’re missing. Draw the bow with full strength and aim on instinct. Some of the best archers close their eyes when they shoot, so they aren’t fooled by their eyes. For now though, focus on shooting the arrow straight.” Yona nodded.

“Alright, you might be able to teach her. But when you’re finished, I want lessons too.” I admitted begrudgingly.

He smirked at me and said,”I doubt I’d be able to teach you much, you’re as clumsy as a toad!” He chuckled, and as I lunged to tackle him, I tripped over my own feet, and his laugh turned into full on guffawing.

Night soon fell, and I let the sound of crickets lure me into sleep as I snuggled against Yoon to keep him warm. Well, maybe I was the one that needed the warmth. We usually slept like that at home too, the walls of the house sometimes let in a draft.

I was asleep for maybe four hours when I was roused by a noise. Fwap. Fwap. Fwap. What is that irksome noise?! It almost sounds like….arrows? Shit, are we under attack!? I threw the blanket off of me, much to the discomfort of Yoon, who curled in on himself as I prodded him to get him to wake up.

“Ugh, what-what is it Ōkami? It’s like three in the morning, sis!”

“Yoon, I think we’re under attack!”

“Hungh? Whaddya say?”

I lightly slapped him on the face.”Wake up Yoon! I think we’re under attack!” It took him a second to process my words, but his eyes soon widened in fear.

“Stay here while I check it out, okay?” I crept out of our makeshift bed and ruffled his hair in reassurance as I tiptoed around him. I rummaged through our stuff and took out my halberd. Every rustle if fabric as I unwrapped it grated against my ears.

I felt a disturbance behind me and whipped around with my weapon in hand, ready to fight. Hak held up his hands and my shoulders relaxed.

“Do you know what that noise is? It sounds like arrows, are we being attacked?!” My hands were shaking as I faced him.

“Hey, hey, calm down. It’s just Yona practicing her bow and arrows. Why are you so panicked? Did you see something?”

“It’s nothing…it just reminds me of something that happened in the past.”

He regarded me with a somewhat worried look, but went on,”Well, since you’re already up I need you watch over Yona for a bit. I need to go pee.”

“Um, okay. But I gotta go tell Yoon that everything’s ok.” Why did he even tell me that? I could understand if he said it if I asked. What a weird guy.

“Don’t worry about that, when I passed by him he was panicking like a little bird, and he told me that you thought we were being attacked, so I told him that it was just Yona.”

I looked at him.”You better not be lying. When I come back Yoon better be calm. The stress isn’t good for him.”

“Don’t worry, he’s fine. She’s over there by the way.” He pointed to a patch of undergrowth. “Keep her safe.”

I walked over to where Hak told me she was, and settled down in the bushes to watch. There was definitely some improvement from where she was the previous afternoon. Her arrows flew straighter, and she hit the tree about seven times out of ten, which was pretty amazing progress compared to her not even being able to shoot without her arms shaking. She must really love this country if she’s willing to take up the bow like this. She could’ve just given up and stayed in Fuuga, or let Hak protect her. I judged her wrong when we first met. I always thought that she was a lazy princess. But look at her. She’s becoming stronger, and I feel a strange sense of pride and an urge to protect her whenever I look at her.

I was so enthralled with her that I failed to notice the footsteps behind me. I only realized my mistake as I felt the cold edge of a blade against my throat.

I was wondering where chapter five was, but it turned out that I hadn’t even posted it yet, so here! I’m sorry it took such a long time! Chapter six is in progress I’m not so mean as to leave you on a cliffhanger for too long. No promises of when I’ll finish the next chapter though.......

[robininthelabyrinth]

Fic: Shooting Star (Ao3 link) - Chapter 3: Doomworld

Fandom: Flash, Legends of Tomorrow Pairing: Mick Rory/Leonard Snart

For Coldwave Week: Doomworld - @coldwaveevents

Summary: “So, Mr. Rory,” Sara Lance, leader of the Legends, asks, leaning across the desk. “Tell me. Why do you want to join the Legends and be a hero?”

Mick really hopes he doesn’t screw up this interview - it could be his last chance of becoming a real superhero.

(You see, he has this little complication involving this one supervillain…)

———————————————————————————————–

"So," Ray says. "Uh. What now?"

Everyone turns to look at Mick.

"I have no idea," he says crossly. "Leave me alone."

"You usually have the most insight into what Len's up to," Zari points out.

"I'm also still a hero," Mick says, more than a little testily. "So no. I have no idea what he's up to. Or what he was thinking. Or how every single hero group on the planet still managed to absolutely fail at stopping the Legion of Doom from getting their hands on the Spear of Destiny and re-writing reality into a dystopic Doomworld where they're in charge of everything. And absolutely none of that lack of knowledge is going to keep me from strangling him about it when I find him!"

"Probably why he hasn't shown his face since the change," Sara says wisely. "Waiting for you to cool down."

"It's not exactly like him, though," Amaya demurs. "Len's usually a really down-to-earth sort of villain, flair for the dramatic aside. This is really out of character."

"I know it's not like him," Mick says through gritted teeth. "That's why I'm gonna strangle him."

"Domestic violence is wrong, Mick," Sara says.

"In this instance?!"

"Hmm. Point. I will totally let you get in a few punches as long as I get one too," she offers.

Mick grumbles but agrees. Len doesn't actually take being beaten up by heroes when he deserves it personally, after all. "I really don't know what he's thinking this time," he adds gloomily. "He hates world-conquering plans, he thinks all-powerful magical trinkets are cheat codes for losers, and he's normally the first guy to tip off the good guys that something like this is going down."

"Maybe he didn't know about it?" Ray suggests.

Mick snorts. "His membership in the Henchmen and Minion League hasn't been revoked, as far as I'm aware. No way anyone got this far without him knowing."

"Then why..?"

"I don't know! He won't answer any of the usual numbers, and it's been over twelve hours of Alternate World and he hasn't so much as shown his face yet!"

Zari nudges Mick's shoulder gently with her own. "Hey," she says, immediately getting the real problem he's been having, which is not exactly the same problem everyone else has been having. "Don't worry about him, okay?"

"I'm not worried," Mick grumbles.

That's a lie.

He's worried.

Normally, anytime any big battle goes down that the Legends are even remotely involved in, Len can be guaranteed to show up within six hours, usually less, to check on his favorite team.

"He's fine," Zari insists. "He's Leonard Snart, Mick. One of the five co-rulers of Doomworld. He literally helped create this world."

"Yeah, sure. All the more reasons for one of his co-rulers to want to knock him off so they can be the only ones in charge..."

"Go back to being angry," Amaya suggests. "We haven't seen any indication that anything has happened to him, and you know the other villains wouldn't be able to keep from boasting about it if they did do something."

"Hm. Point.

"That means he's fine. And that, in turn, means that he'll have to show his face sometime."

"Does he?" Mick asks glumly. "He owns a fifth of the world now; I'm sure that'll keep him busy."

"Too busy for you, Mick?" Sara says skeptically. "Not really likely."

"More like 'never'," Ray agrees.

Mick shrugs. He admits it's unlikely, given Len's track record, but then again, so is Doomworld itself.

He doesn't like it when Len goes out of character.

Certainly not without some justification like mind-control or new-villain pheromones, and there's been no indication of anything like that.

"Personally, I'm just really happy we're immune to all the Doomworld changes," Nate says.

"Nate," Amaya says gently. "We're not immune."

"Wait. We're not?"

"Nope," Zari says. "Len just let us keep our memories of the original timeline. Possibly without telling any of his co-rulers about it."

"He did? Huh. One point in the 'he has a secret plan' column."

Ray obediently adds a point to the chart they have going on the whiteboard Gideon created for them when they first realized that the Waverider was grounded until repairs could be made. The time drive is totally dead, without any hope of recovery, so at this point they just want to have the air support. Not to mention wanting to avoid notice from the other people in Doomworld any more than they already have...

The other columns in the chart (titled "Why Would Leonard Snart Do?") are "he's gone crazy", "he was tricked into it", and "he's going to literally give the world to Mick on a platter because he couldn't think of a good enough gift to pay him back for that Diana thing".

(Mick objected strenuously to the inclusion of that last one, but got overruled.)

"Wait, if we're not immune," Nate says, "what are we?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, what do we do? Is there an evil Wikipedia saying what our jobs are in this universe?"

"Good question," Sara says. "Zari, could you -"

"Already checked," Zari says. "We're officially part of the Enforcers of the New Regime, actually."

"We are?!"

"Officially. Unofficially, we're Len's pet superhero team."

"That doesn't actually seem all that different from how it normally is," Ray says thoughtfully. "In our regular universe, I mean. Without the whole 'Enforcer' bit, but still."

"It's - actually not, sad to say, except for the part where we're all part of the ruling class of a dystopia and have absolute control over about 99% of the population, which has to fulfill our every request."

Silence for a few long minutes.

"Which we will not be exploiting," Sara says, sounding very tempted. "Because we're heroes and that would be bad."

"So much free coffee," Ray says, his eyes dreamy. "So much."

"...not what I was thinking, but you know what, sure, we can demand free coffee."

"Sara!"

"We have to exploit the system somehow or they might get suspicious of us," Sara sniffs.

"They'll be suspicious anyway," Amaya mutters.

"Hey, if we're Enforcers, why don't we get the sexy leather get-ups the rest of them have?" Nate wants to know.

"Because unlike the rest of them, we haven't been brainwashed," Sara points out. "Which I for one approve of."

"We should still get cool outfits."

"I'll have Gideon make you a leather outfit, okay? We'll probably need it to infiltrate somewhere eventually anyway."

"Good," Nate says, pleased. "I volunteer for that mission."

"Of course you do."

"Wait," Ray says, "are all of the other superhero teams incapacitated?"

"Uh, yeah, as far as I can tell," Zari says. "The only ones still at large are deliberately weakened so that they can be hunted down at the leisure of their respective villains. Why?"

"So what you're telling me is that the Legends are the only hero team left available to fight a world-destroying event? Like, this is our big chance," Ray says, rocking up and down in excitement. "This is our save-the-day, enter-the-big-hero-leagues moment!"

"Huh, yeah," Sara says, already looking vaguely haunted by the responsibility. "Hadn't thought of it that way, but I guess you're right."

"That bastard!" Mick suddenly roars.

They all look at him.

Mick, scowling, grabs the pen from Ray and puts a check in the "world to Mick on a platter" column.

Then he crosses out the word "world" and adds in "opportunity to be a real hero" instead.

Silence for a few long moments.

"You have got to be kidding me," Sara says flatly.

"It is the one thing he's always wanted to be able to give Mick," Amaya muses.

"I'm going to find him," Mick says. "And when I find him..."

"Never mind that," Ray says. "Let's go save the world!"

When reality is returned to normal, Len is given a very long talk about not using reality-altering devices to create what is essentially an Escape Room-style puzzle for the pleasure and glory of his significant other and his friends (from Mick and the other Legends), not playing with his fellow villains' dreams of world-conquering like that (from Lex), and about the fact that this whole gift-escalating thing really needs to stop (Sara called Diana in for that one).

Len responds by proposing marriage to Mick, being as that's the only way he can think of to permanently one-up him.

(He claims that once they're a single unit and Mick is permanently locked down, Mick's amazing gift-giving ability won't make him so frantic to pay him back.)

Mick says yes, but claims loudly that he's only doing it in order to write a pre-emptive restriction of crazy plans clause into their marriage vows.

(No one believes him.)

Their marriage is the biggest social event of the year for heroes and villains both. It goes remarkably well, or at least it does after they all end up teaming up to take down the locust-aliens horde from Earth-ABC.

After all, if there's one thing heroes and villains can agree on, it's that it's one thing to crash a wedding and a totally different thing to try to eat all the food.

Len swears he didn't set it up deliberately so that everyone would have a nice, entertaining fight to get out their hostility before the reception, the food for which was stashed in a totally different place.

Mick, having seen the early drafts of the program for the wedding, doesn't even pretend to believe him.

(Neither does anyone else.)

[thelionshoarde]

the magnificent @sabraeal got me, :3 :3

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

It’s from an unfinished short story I wrote back in 2014: It was awful business working in the Lion’s Hoarde Inn. I think I just enjoyed the sound of it, (:

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/favorites, follows/subscriptions, visitor hits, kudos)

Some Nights, my first Teen Wolf fic. People really love pack mom!Stiles, apparently lol.

3. What is your FFnNet/AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

O PUREST ONE. It’s from a fanart I’m still chipping away at. Because: it made @superhappybubbleslove go WAAAAHHHHHH MY HEAAARRRRTT and I enjoy making wonderful people suffer! :D

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

Things are about to get real lengthy, so...

@sabraeal, of course, is a dream come true, and is currently back at it with her long reviews, and BE STILL MY HEART. @superhappybubbleslove kicks ass every Saturday with her amazingness (and often is the only, or one of the only ones, to comment on a very particular thing that i really loved about a story or art, and i always fist pump whenever she does that hahaha)  @claudeng80 has given me some of my favorite comments, EVER, and I often have to take a day or more to process my emotions before I can actually respond coherently haha, I GET VERY EXCITED, OKAY. @hidetheremote is one of my most faithful and kind and generous commenters, I am always thrilled to receive them and she’s been showering me with encouragement since the beginning, so she has a VERY special place in my heart! I have a few commenters on my ot3 things that are incredibly kind, or people who have bookmarked/kudo’d almost all of them, and while I do not believe I know their tumblr handles, but I would sell my first born for you. :| special shout out to @vfordii and @stuffaeamade and @raediation who are always SO supportive of my obizenyuki feels hahaha! @youseimanami is a one woman cheer squad and AMAZING, so kind and so so sweet, and her comments always feel SO genuine, they just make my heart get all swelled up and fuzzy and warm, I love her! I know I’m forgetting people, but I LOVE YOU ALL, YOU ARE ALL MY FAVORITES D;

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

I cycle through over time. There are a lot of older, long fics in other fandoms that I occasionally go back to when I need a pick-me up lol. Currently, there is I KID YOU NOT a south park kenny/kyle fic that I’m in love with and have read 2-3 times in the last couple months since I first read it and I WILL PROBABLY INDULGE AGAIN, SOON. (gold digger, IT IS AMAZING, OKAY)

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

I actually never figured out how to subscribe! 8D I have 86 bookmarks, but it should be more. I went through a year long period I think where I never signed into ao3 lol.

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

MAGIC. In some form or another lol.

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

163 user subscriptions, and 2604 bookmarks. (some nights has 1912 bookmarks all on its own, okay, teen wolf is a v v large ocean of a fandom haha)

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

N O P E, i have no shame filter 8D .....ok, wait, the a/b/o one because it’s omega!obi and i’ve been a tad leery of the response i may receive for how very, uh, not your usual obiyuki dynamic in bed i want to make it. >_>

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

Hn, yes and yes and yes and yes. My big thing is: I want to learn how to finish lengthier things. I got into fandom to try and do that, and it’s my goal for this year, especially.

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

Rarepairs, I think! Even when I write popular ships I usually write them in the less popular fashion haha. But mostly, I just write whatever I want, which is often a myriad of different pairings!

12. How many stories have you posted on FFNet/AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

13 stories on ffnet, and a few of those were also on my livejournal. I don’t have an exact number for livejournal, but it’s over 100. I’ve started moving some of those fics from my livejournal to ao3, now, so I’m up to 40. Only 23 of my ao3 stories aren’t also on livejournal  at this moment lol. And there are a couple of things on tumblr I haven’t moved onto ao3 yet.

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

I am unwilling to go down that dark and dangerous path. :|

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

I try and write down whatever jumps in my head, because I WILL forget things, otherwise. But I’ll spend days mulling over an idea, sometimes, before I am able to sit down and write it.

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

Back in eljay days I wrote stories with other people on occasion. Sometimes it was just writing comment fic back and forth at each other. Or writing different scenes in the same universe that went together. Nothing big.

16. How did you discover FFNet/AO3?

I know I stumbled on ffnet myself, but I don’t remember for ao3. O: Pretty certain someone told me about it, but when I had livejournal I didn’t really use anything else.

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on FFNet/AO3?

Hm, I’ve never been a widely popular anything, though I was lucky enough to have some excellent fans on eljay, who would jump fandoms with me just because they wanted to read my stuff. And folk who were incredibly kind and generous with their praise no matter how many random things I churned out haha. I’ve always been thrilled if there’s just ONE person who enjoyed a story I put out! I’m pretty easy to please!

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

My darlings!

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

Anyone who writes is an inspiration to me. I see people putting up fic and publishing novels, and I go I WANT TO DO THAT, UGH. Because I’ve always been a writer, ever since I was teeny, and have never stopped wanting to do it. I’ve always been in love with words, and stories. (As I’m sure many others can relate: I used to get in trouble in elementary school because I would read as I walked, and it was EARLY elementary school, where you had to walk in lines with your class because they were afraid they were gonna lose you, and I could read while I walked because I would just follow whoever was in front of me to wherever we were going haha)

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

It’s 100% okay if you write something, and you’re really proud of it, and you go back later -- a week, a day, a month, two years, whatever -- and think: THIS IS THE WORST. That doesn’t ever really go away, because as creators we are constantly evolving and looking to improve, and often times something that is actually quite solid and gives many readers joy will be a thing that you facepalm over, later. Use that to keep writing, and try to remember that you are most definitely your own worst critic. At the end of the day, keep doing this thing because you love it. Your work IS worthy, even when you think it should be set on fire and scattered across the deepest ocean never to be seen again!

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

A combo! Sometimes, especially for shorter things, I just get an idea, and sometimes I just think about it for a little while, and then I open a doc and I just go to town until it’s finished. Other times I start off by writing out the thoughts and building off of that, and sometimes I slip into actually writing it and then back to outlining. USUALLY I start writing a thing because I have a tiny spark of an idea, or a situation/concept I find interesting, and I have no idea where it’s going, and I just write to see what happens, and THEN I start plotting things out as I go, which can be one of the MOST frustrating ways to write a story. Anything big I’ve ever written (and I’ve written several drafts of several novels) starts out like this, where I have a random idea and I sit down and I write out whatever scenes crop up in my head, and then I start filling in the blanks, later. A lot of my longer fandom things also are like this. heading for a small disaster was me just sort of sitting around and thinking about an entirely different story, and then I had like, a half-formed idea for a single scene in my head, so I sat down and started writing chapter 1 to GET to that scene, coming up with stuff as I needed it, and by the time I hit the end of ch1 I was no where near my original idea, and had a bunch of other ideas, and THEN I started plotting things out.

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

I’m sure I have! Though I haven’t posted fandom anything for a long time, so I don’t really remember. One comment I do recall was not a BAD comment, it was a comment about a bad thing I had done in neglecting to tag something, and then I got all defensive because I was younger and even more stupid than I am now, and I was an asshole, which I regret. ):

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

Action! Also, stationary scenes with multiple people that DOESN’T have action! Okay, ANY scene that has more than one person is tricky, though two people at least helps in pacing because it’s easier to intersperse dialogue, but you add one more person into a scene and I’m laying my head on my desk and CRYING. Transition scenes are also my bane, I have the hardest time figuring out how to move from point a to b. Basically: EVERYTHING IS DIFFICULT. That’s half the fun of writing something, though.

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

Too many, but I’m trying to focus on finishing up some longer things this year. Of course, despite that having been my resolution before the year even began, I have somehow found myself with two new longer fics than WHEN THE YEAR STARTED, ugh. disaster, magic!cowboy au, lyrias center, unicorn au, soulmate tattoo au, a second part to we can make our own way, the full version of back alley complete with smut and EMOTIONS, fight club au, ot3 modern day neighbors au, and all the christmas prompts I haven’t done yet, and I have like, two more chapters of picture perfect planned out that I just haven’t written yet, I AM HAVING A DIFFICULT TIME THINNING THE HERD, I 100% come up with more ideas than ever get written, as I’m sure most writers do haha.

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

HAHAHA

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

Nah, I almost never succeed at stuff like that, and I get pissy if I fail, so I’ve learned not to put myself into that position if I can, because it just hurts my writing. I just write when I want, or when I have time even if I don’t want.

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

Hopefully! Though posting old stuff to ao3 has made me aware that my vocabulary has actually suffered over time, and I’m hoping to fix that!

28. What is your favorite story(s) that you’ve written?

I don’t entirely love anything that I’ve written. There are aspects of many things that I love dearly, though none of it really wins out against another. I’ll say: three of my orig novels are probably closest to being no 1.

29. What is your least favorite story(s) that you’ve written?

There was this one HP fic I wrote when I was like, 14?? I don’t know, but apparently I was VERY ANGRY, and wrote some really messed up stuff, and I wouldn’t mind being able to bury that shit haha. But truthfully -- I probably grew a lot from it, as embarrassing as it is to me, now. ...okay, there was a LOT of HP fic wherein I was in my DARK AND ANGSTY years, that, whew! I’m glad I’m not that person anymore haha.

30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

Still writing, hopefully. :3

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

CRYING. Crying is very easy, and so is laying my head on my desk and despairing that I will ever figure out how to make things work.

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

WORKING THROUGH THE TEARS. It is very easy to give up, and mope, much more difficult to grit your teeth and wrangle a story into submission.

33. Why do you write?

Because I love the power of words. It’s magic. A written story is essentially an illusion spell. You put the right words on the page in the correct order, and behold! An entire world, with living characters, is born within the mind of a reader. And a single, minute change to any one of those words may shift the whole thing. It’s a constantly evolving formula, and full of surprises, and if you are particularly lucky and diligent you might even be able to spin an entire tale that grips people, shakes them up and makes them believe in something impossible, something that YOU created, from nearly nothing. That kind of power is pretty damned addictive.

[waldos-writing]

The Sometimes Thief - Chapter 2: Tuesday’s Child is Full of Grace

“It’s a little complicated,” said Albert, moving around the kitchen and spying the ice cream churning away. “How long until that’s done.”

No! Simon waved his arms emphatically and came over to shove Albert away from the ice cream maker. You can’t have any. We have to save it until tomorrow so Bethany O—. Simon stopped signing and just shoved Albert back more. No, he signed again.  

“Don’t push me,” said Albert, his brows crinkled. “Look, you’ll teach her bad manners and I’m not letting that happen.”

Me? I’m the one who’s going to teach her bad manners? Simon spun to look at the girl standing still in the center of the kitchen, her hands draped carelessly at her side as she watched the two men push each other back and forth. Albert reached over to get a taste of some of the chocolate still sitting in the double burner—the heat thankfully turned off so it wouldn’t cook to a rock—before Simon slapped his hand away. Who is she?

“I’m not doing this,” said Albert, throwing his hands up in the air. “I’m not doing this.”

You can’t just walk—

“I’m not doing this tonight, okay? It’s late. And I’m tired. I’m tired!” Albert looked back at the girl and waved his hands at her. “How about you, sweetheart, you tired? I bet. Been basically halfway ‘cross the world. C’mon.”

There was no way this was going to end like this. Not tonight. Not on such an impossibility as Albert Halloway singing his way back when his song should be closed. With a girl he claimed as his daughter. Simon slapped the table to get his brother’s attention and jabbed a finger up towards Albert’s huge hooked nose.

How? Simon sighed, mouthing it as wide as he could manage. But Albert only scoffed and rolled his eyes. We both know your song is for midnight. So.

Simon motioned around the room, at the two bodies standing in their kitchen, and at the clock on the wall very clearly marked at 11:11. Simon couldn’t help but remind himself to make a wish when he saw the time, but he scowled afterwards, turning his ire back over on his brother.

“I’m not doing this,” Albert said more insistently. He tapped his fingers against his chin before he spun on his thin black sneakers and reached for the refrigerator. Simon made a move to block his path, but Albert was taller, bigger, and always stronger. He got into the fridge easily, retrieving a package of deli meat. “Hey now, turkey. You like turkey?” he asked the girl beside the kitchen island. She didn’t nod, didn’t shake her head either. She barely blinked. “Yeah. Turkey sounds good. We got any bread now, Simon, or we just gonna have to eat this like animals?”

Simon huffed, crossing his arms as he glared at his simple brother. He stood stock still near the ice cream maker, to deter any further attempts at sampling from it, as Albert shrugged and took the deli meat over to the counter, popping open the red plastic lid. He fingered out a sliver of meat and tucked it away in his cheek, humming around the turkey with a smile. He fished out another and was about to eat it when he glanced down at the girl again. Albert held out a piece to her, waiting for a reaction. She did not budge.

“It’s good,” he said, dangling it off his index finger with a singsong promise in his voice. “Might make ya feel better.”

She did not even blink.

“Alright,” he said and shrugged, popping the turkey slice into his mouth. He took three more, chewed them noisily, and replaced the lid on the container. “Right. Well. I’m bushed. She’s bushed. We’re all going to bed, aren’t we? Also, where’s Cairn? Hey Big Boy, why aren’t you here for Daddy? C’mon out now, it’s me, sweetheart. He’s in, isn’t he?”

Simon didn’t answer. He’d take a cue from the disturbing young child and leave him with nothing. There were too many questions to ask and he knew it would be a long time asking them. Simon closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and turned over towards the sink. He grabbed the packet of matchsticks there next to his pruned mint and struck it against the flint, scooping the tiny flame up to another cigarette.

“Oh, hey,” said Albert, his head back in the fridge. “Don’t smoke in front of her, okay? Bad habits, man.”

Simon puffed a few times, shoulders sagging as the nicotine and smoke curled around his throat. He would have scoffed, but he was trying his damndest to leave Albert with nothing. He took a long drag and blew the smoke out across his plants, despite the fact that they hadn’t done anything wrong and didn’t deserve it. Well, he didn’t deserve a lot of things either. Simon clicked his tongue against his teeth and went straight for his bedroom. It didn’t matter. He could hear Albert cooing after Cairn by the time he was at his door, Simon’s presence soon forgotten.

-

One song for noon. One song for midnight. One song for summer. One song for winter. One song for taking. One song for giving. One song for noon. One song for midnight.

There are, of course, rules to the halloways, despite what some amateurs may believe. The gift itself is inherited amongst the line that created it—found it, being more accurate. It is a gift that is fickle, bestowed upon the family line at random and with no regard of who might or might not wish to use it. The songs themselves came a long time ago, by a Mrs. Evelyn Halloway of Westmanchestireville in what is now a southern providence of the UK, rezoned and obliterated of its history. Mr. Richard Halloway gave the poem to his children as a guideline, a wrote to the writ of how their songs worked and how they should be expected to behave when they used them. One for noon. One for midnight. The poem was simplistic, but it’s execution less so. There were few Halloways that actually had a song for noon and midnight. Their father’s song, Mr. Richard Halloway’s song, was for 2:57 am. It didn’t matter where he was in the world, as long as it was 2:57 am, then he could sing open a halloway plain as you like, and be on his way. Their grandfather, William Halloway, had a song for 7:17 pm. Somehow, Simon and Albert were gifted the actual stream of noon and midnight, in that order. And weren’t they lucky for it? There was something deliriously magical about noon and midnight. Something so stern and neat. So long as they followed the rules. So long as they sang their song.

And yet, despite every instance to prove otherwise, Mr. Richard Halloway believed he could find the song that would open every passage at any hour of the day and give him complete control of the ethereal web we know as Time. Perhaps that is why he did what he did to Simon all those years ago. Perhaps that is why Albert slips away for weeks at a time, hunting down the one thing that might knit them back into a cohesive unit he dreams is called a family. But that is getting beyond things, and neglects the fact that there are, of course, rules. Of course.

Exceptions to the rules are want to happen.

Of course.

And they have.

Of course.

-

Cairn wasn’t there to wake him up that morning. He’d call the lanky gray cat a traitor, but it was unfair to ask allegiance of an animal who knew Albert as the man who rescued him, fed him for many occasions, and loved him a touch more than Simon did. This was life. This was how cats were. This was something that didn’t bother him except that it did, and the fact that it did bothered him, so he buried that down too and swallowed it all up with a dry gulp. There were other things to be upset about.

Simon stirred unpleasantly, sheets coiled around his ankles, blanket swallowing an arm by his side like a vice grip in the inky remainder of a dream. Something about a face? Or a girl? Something about red thread and pain? Except it didn’t matter. Once he was conscience, he knew exactly what it was he was supposed to be furious with. Memories and wandering psyche aside, it was his brother in the other room there that should have his attention. Simon threw away his blankets with a shove and leapt out of the bed, ignoring a twinge in his back and a dull ache at the bottom of his feet.

Damn for getting old, he thought with a miserable snarl before he marched out of his bedroom. The mirrors laced the hallway, back and forth, back and forth, and he was greeted with the bronze bust of Albert’s stupid face. Just as he was every morning. Just as he was in his nightmares and in the afterlife and echoing on in any reincarnation that might find him, he figured. That stupid. Bronze. Bust.

At least this morning Simon had sense to wear his pajamas and an old gray shirt with the UoB Cobras painted on it in flaky white. His feet were bare, per usual, and there was a cool draft snaking around the floorboards, prickling his toes. Not that he minded. No time to mind when he was out to hunt down his brother and get some answers or at the very least strangle the life out of him.

Albert and the girl were in the kitchen, as though waiting for Simon to come out and join them. They were each sitting at the small dining table set, a breakfast nook at best. It was a circular table with two chairs and a simple cozy sitting out in the center. The lace cozy was weighed down with napkins, a stack of crocheted coasters in various colors, a covered dish of sugar, and a few spoons. Albert had a bowl of cereal in front of him. The Frosted Mini Wheats kept in the upper corner of their pantry for when Albert was actually home. He scooped a few of the soggy treats up into his mouth, chewing efficiently, his mouth thankfully closed. Chewing like a cow was not one of the habits that Albert had inherited from Mr. Richard Halloway. But even as he chewed, he kept a firm lock on the girl sitting across from him. He hunched over his bowl, one arm wrapped around it in a haphazard, passing thought at security over his food, his feet planted firmly on the ground. He was in a surprisingly simple outfit that morning. Plain white V-neck, dark jeans, no socks, and black loafers. He looked like a regular fellow then. Anybody, really, except for the Halloway nose and the untamed blonde hair.

The girl was still in her outfit from last night. And she was not taking any bites from the bowl of cereal in front of her.

“I don’t know what she eats,” Albert said without looking up. He must have heard Simon enter the hallway, despite the fact that he hadn’t made a move to signal his entrance. “Can’t tell if she’s hungry or stubborn.” Simon signed over to him, but Albert didn’t even glance back. “She’s taking after her Uncle Simon right now, aren’t ya? Can’t get her to say a word to me. Is that odd? Should I be concerned?”

That got a long, resigned sigh from Simon. Enough of one that Albert finally looked up from his bowl and gave his brother his full attention. The two regarded each other quietly, with less furrowed brows and pouting lips than before.

“I don’t know,” Albert finally said. “I don’t know, man, I’ve tried.”

Simon came over to the table and stood at the end. They’d only ever needed two chairs between them, and having them both occupied at the moment put Simon in an awkward position. He shooed Albert out of his seat, handing over the bowl of mostly-eaten Frosted Mini Wheats before he sat across from the girl.

Name? he signed. Albert leaned in like he had misheard, and Simon pointed over at the girl. Her name? Does she have a name?

“Oh. Her. Uh, well, I’ve just been calling her Evelyn, because I’m pretty certain if I had a daughter, that’s what I’d have named her. Y’know, cause…? The one who got the songs and such? God, remember how Dad used to go on and on and on about Evelyn? Anyways, yeah. That’s what I’d name my daughter. And she is my daughter.” Albert scooped up another mouthful of Mini Wheats before he added his last amendment he’d provided last night. “I think.”

What do you mean you think? You don’t know?

Albert nodded and tapped his head. There should have been an empty dull knock against his skull. He shrugged. He chewed. He just stood there like an idiot, offering nothing in return as far as answers or even apology were concerned, which Simon felt he was due anyhow. Instead, he turned back to the girl and waved.

Evelyn was a slight girl, shorter than Simon’s hip with short blonde hair and big eyes. She looked bruised under her chin, her arms, and around the neck, faint yellow and green markings from some altercation a long time off. She breathed evenly, not offering a smile, a nudge, a twitch of the lips or nose. She just…stared. Her eyes were on Albert, drawn to him, unwavering.

Hello, Simon signed to her and waved again. Do you know how you got here?

Evelyn blinked and turned her gaze fully on Simon at last. It was as cold and unfeeling as he imagined the Cyba patrols looked in 2121, the ones that Albert had nicked a motherboard from and brought back to his usual set of collectors.

Evelyn snaked a finger up from under the table. When she began to move, Simon and Albert leaned back, flinching away for different reasons—fear and alarm for part of it, disgust and distrust for the other. A mingling palate of emotions. When she brought her hand up, she placed it on the table, palm down, and tapped her fingers against the hard wood. She drummed it a few times, stopped, drummed it again, and stopped. This went on and on until she stopped suddenly, putting her hand flat on the table again.

“Oh.” Albert stepped up, taking another spoonful of cereal and munching it thoughtfully with his mouth closed. “Oh. Well. Sure.”

Sure? Simon signed. She didn’t say anything.

“I saw her do this the first time too,” said Albert, muffled a little by his cereal. He leaned down so he could rest his elbows on the table and put out his own hand, tapping his index firmly in a rhythmic staccato. Evelyn just watched him, not smiling, but her shoulders seemed to relax a little as Albert drummed the table. “This means something,” he offered over his shoulder.

What does it mean? Simon signed, but Albert wouldn’t look at him and he was doubly certain that Albert wouldn’t answer him even if he was reading Simon’s hands.

Evelyn waited for Albert to finish his little taps before she started up with hers again. Simon was almost certain this had to be Morse Code if it was anything, but he didn’t know Morse Code. Furthermore, he knew Albert didn’t know Morse Code, and had to be tapping nonsense at his supposed daughter. Certainly he could have picked up some new tricks during his journeys, but Simon doubted Albert had interest in old naval codes or the necessity of a language he didn’t need to use every day.

Simon pushed himself away from the table, leaving the two to tap away at each other. As soon as he left the chair, Albert was after him, scooping up his cereal bowl in one hand.

“Hey,” said Albert, following Simon back into the kitchen. “We were getting somewhere. Where’re you going?”

Simon didn’t deign to respond. He went straight for his room. The bed was still a mess and he went to tidy it, pulling sheets down at all corners, straightening out the blanket on top, and even going so far as to fluff his own pillow. He collected clothes for the day—slacks, white dress-shirt, gray tie, gray belt, black loafers, socks, underwear, undershirt. He laid them out neatly on the bed before he began to change into them, taking his time with each item, folding himself up in the comforts of clean lines, strict dress code, and comfortable under garments, which he understood to be a luxury of his sex. Poor Evelyn, when she grew up and had to learn how to withstand an underwire bra.

Once he was dressed, Simon exited his room to see Albert standing in the hall. Albert, jeans and shirt, in his black loafers, with his hair a frazzled mess atop his head. Albert, with his stupid face. Albert, who just had an empty bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other, like some lost wandering child wondering where their next meal would come and please, sir, could they have some more. Simon huffed, and tensed his shoulders, expecting a physical altercation.

“Where are you going?” Albert asked in a lower voice, as though he was afraid Evelyn might hear them and go blabbing to the neighbors. “Are you going in? Right now? C’mon, man, please. Please, just work from home.”

Simon huffed again. He was instantly aware that he had not had a cigarette that morning, and the fact made his head start to throb a little at the temples. He rolled his eyes and went around Albert without having to push him or force his way through. Lucky him. Albert had weight and height to his advantage and could lay Simon out flat if he really needed to.

“Simon,” Albert said more insistently, following his brother down the hall to the bathroom. Simon went inside and closed the door, but Albert was right there, insisting to speak through the closed door anyways. “Simon. C’mon. I just got home, like, could you do this for me? Please? I don’t ask a lot.”

Simon actually snorted when he put a bead of toothpaste on his toothbrush. The nerve? Of that man? And, anyways, there wasn’t anything that he could really do, since he didn’t know how to speak or interpret Morse Code. Simon began to brush his teeth, hoping to drown out Albert behind him.

“It’s how I found her, okay? It’s so weird, but, if anybody can figure it out, Simon, man, it’s gotta be you, right? Right?”

That still wasn’t an answer. That was an excuse. And trying to butter him up. Simon brushed harder, digging the bristles into his soft pink gum line.

 “I don’t know how she did it,” said Albert, quieter this time. Not like he was walking away, exactly, but just that it was more reserved, closer to the chest, something he wasn’t sure Albert was even capable of.

Simon finished brushing his teeth, spit the slush of toothpaste, saliva, water, and a touch of blood out into the basin, and rinsed his mouth. Combed his hair. Straightened his clothing. He checked his reflection, ignoring the circles budding under his eyes or the start of a very faint moustache and beard. Pathetic wisps of hair that could wait another day before he shaved, though going into the office looking like this did not give him any confidence. He shrugged off the desire to shave like he shrugged off his desire to smoke, in that he shoved it around to another part of his brain to fester until the urge overtook him. That was for Future Simon.

Once everything was done, Simon pushed open the door, moving past Albert to collect his items he needed to take the train in to work. The Citywide Business Class Train Ticket, good for 100 rides, the computer bag with his BrinTech computer and BrinTech security badge, his wallet, and his keys hanging from a rusty key-shaped hook by the front door. He started gathering all of these items when he passed by Evelyn again, still tapping away at the table. Simon watched her just as she watched him, both of them unblinking in their studies.

I’m sorry, he signed, circling his fist over his chest. Evelyn stopped tapping out her code on the table and turned to him, returning the gesture. And that is what made Simon pause.

Very carefully, Simon set down his computer bag next to the loveseat sofa—big enough for two—and placed his laminated Citywide Business Class Train Ticket card on the side table beside him. He kept his eyes locked on Evelyn, in case she decided to “say” more beyond her apparent Morse Code tapping.

Can you understand me? he asked, nodding towards her. She blinked, but did not offer him anything else. Was that a yes? One blink for yes, two for no? Was it nothing more than wetting her lenses? Was it something completely different?

Simon went back to the chair at the kitchen table, pulling out and sitting down as smoothly as he could manage. He tented his fingers in front of him on the placemat, rubbing his long thumb across his opposite hand’s knuckles as he watched the girl. He would give her time to think, to process. He could only imagine that, if she actually knew any sign language, where she was from might affect her own version of it. Would their vernacular and accents clash? Simon only bit his lip, nibbling on the corner as he waited.

“Oh, good, staring contest again,” said Albert as he came out of the hallway. “Well, keeps you here, I guess. Listen, can I please just have some of that ice cream you made in there? It smelled really really good.”

Simon snapped his fingers and pointed at Albert, glaring from under their dining corner light fixture—to call it a room was to give it too big of a purpose.

“Tell me I can’t have any,” said Albert, his hip in the refrigerator doorway. If he wasn’t constantly running from one century to the next, he would have surely grown to fill the size of the apartment. He leered over at Simon and Evelyn, reaching to unlatch the freezer door next to his head. “C’mon. Tell me I can’t.”

Simon pushed himself away from the table, shoving the chair back with the weight of his body as he slammed two hands down in front of him. He pointed, and his fist struck the table a second time. He didn’t even think that it might frighten the girl, who didn’t so much as flinch.

“I can’t hear you, Si,” Albert sang as a taunt, and curled his fingers under the latch. “C’mon.”

Don’t make me do this, Simon signed frantically, marching towards the kitchen. Albert mimed the sign back at him, not actually saying anything as he stuck out his tongue. You’re terrible.

“Just say it, Si,” said Albert and he undid the latch to the freezer. It made a soft click, an almost inaudible whisper of cold air slipping free and a tiny crackle as some of the ice inside popped and groaned from being introduced to a warmer temperature. It was a symphony of sounds, almost always ignored by those who would demand to speak above it, as Albert often did.

Don’t you dare, Simon signed, even though Albert was completely beyond reasoning. So, instead, he slammed his fist on the counter again, the closest he had to a primal yell.

However, just as Albert put his greasy hand on the ice cream maker, tugging it playfully from the dark cold confines of their freezer, a different song started to play. They perked at it instantly, turning towards the source as it dinged and screamed and called to them.

“Who the hell is calling now?” asked Albert, checking the wall clock even as he closed the freezer door tight behind him and went to their office to answer the phone.

Not that it was anywhere near his business, but Simon followed him towards the joint office, spelling out the name of the woman who had called yesterday. Albert wasn’t paying attention in the slightest, so Simon reached over for a pad of paper and a pen and scribbled it down before he flashed it in front of Albert’s face. Albert reached around him, going for the phone, when his eyes narrowed in on the name on the paper.

“Jessica…Pu—”

Albert picked up the phone and promptly put it back on its cradle. He didn’t say a word, just stood there stone stiff as his hand rested on the phone itself, as if to mute it’s incoming cries. The phone was dead for a second, two, and then it started ringing again.

“No,” he whispered, eyes darting around the room before they stuck to Simon’s face. “Did you talk to her?”

And, of course he had. Of course he had, if he had a damn name for her. Simon nodded only to have Albert curse to himself, a long, elaborate string of words coming in and out as he pushed the phone away from him, throwing open one of the desk drawers. There was a black case inside, mottled with black eggshell paint, and a small blue sack with white drawstrings.

What’s going on? Simon signed, twice because Albert wouldn’t barely pause to give him a passing glance, let alone read what he was trying to say. Simon huffed at his deliberate avoidance and wrote his questions down on the paper again.

“What?” Albert cried, taking the pad of paper and skimming over the words. “You wanna know?” Simon nodded. “I’ll tell you.” Simon waited. “But you gotta grab Cairn for me and put him in his carrier and we gotta go.” Simon…shook his head. “No arguments. No time. Just do this, and get Dad’s little poetry thing too. The map. That should help."

Simon started to ask more questions, moving his hands frantically, reaching out to Albert when he tried to duck away. Albert nodded at the hands, the fingers dancing, but he started to splutter and groan. “Well…I-I…yeah.” He tried to push Simon’s hands down, but they were the only way for Simon to get his questions out, and he had to. He thought he might explode if he didn’t. Who is that woman and what have you done? Where are we going? How are we supposed to get there? Why do you want the map if we can’t even read it? I don’t know where Cairn’s carrier is, why don’t you grab it? What happens if—? Etcetera etcetera, but Albert, who nodded and hummed, fluttered his own fingers daintily beneath his chin. His eyes widened, his eyebrows furrowed, looking absolutely lost. “I can’t…I can’t…” he said to every question asked. “I can’t. Do. This! Right now!” Albert waved his hands dramatically in front of his face and shoved at Simon, hitting him in the chest and pushing him back enough that he staggered into his desk. The chair spun lazily, squeaking just a little from a pivot that needed a good greasing. “Not right now, Si, okay? Okay? For your sake and mine?”

But Simon was breathing heavily, a hand on his breast as though he’d been stabbed. The other hand rested on the desk, supporting his weight as he stared, scandalized at his brother, his own flesh and blood.

“Christ, calm down,” said Albert and left the office just as the phone started to ring again. “Don’t answer that!” And then, further away. “And get Cairn!”

I’ll get Cairn, said Simon, sneering at the empty doorway to the office. Oh, I’ll get Cairn indeed. He reached over to Albert’s untidy desk and picked up the phone. There was the woman’s voice again, starting her greeting, before he put the receiver back down on the cradle and hung up. Somehow, it did not feel as good as he was hoping.

-

“Don’t hold him like that.”

Albert reached over and took the cat carrier with Cairn mewling inside unhappily. The sounds were almost drowned out as one of the train trolleys trundled by, leaving them lost in a wind tunnel and screeching metal.

“And don’t let her go.”

Albert snatched up Evelyn’s hand as she began to pull away, half her face obscured in an oversized winter jacket, her hair covered by a wooly hat. Albert himself was bundled up in his striped scarf, pea-green colored overcoat, and matching hat. Simon only sighed, letting the black flap of his coat smack him once in the cheek before he tucked it back under his chin.

“You can’t run off, sweetheart, okay? We have to wait for the train.”

Evelyn glanced up at Albert, her big wet eyes shining just a touch brighter now that they were surrounded by the dark winter colors. She looked washed out in the low gray gloom of the city, soot already covering the bottom half of her strange pants and the gridlines of the girders of an unfinished building leaving latticework shadows across her face. Across all their faces, surely. Simon looked between her and the building and the noisy city circling around them. He took her hand, both of theirs snugly warm in gray mittens. At least he could do that right.

“Sonuvabitch but it’s cold,” said Albert, sniffing and snorting behind his scarf. Apparently cursing wasn’t a bad habit to be taught. “They say it’s gonna snow tonight or what?”

Simon gave him a sidelong glance before he turned his attention back to the tracks. Another train would be coming by in ten minutes or so, but they wanted the 11:15 out of Chatterley. Simon yanked his hand free of his pocket and mashed up his sleeve to check the time on his watch. They had almost half an hour to wait out on the lonely platform and the sky above them was doing its best to get darker and darker. Maybe it would open up and drown them in snow before the train arrived.

Someone took to the platform, standing about three yards off, wrapped up in their own protective bundle of warm clothes, coffee steam, and general societal standards of personal space. He did not so much as glance at Albert, Simon, and Evelyn, but Simon watched him anyways. He wasn’t even sure why he did. Perhaps it was the red thread going through that black cashmere coat, an odd touch of flare that drew the viewer’s eye in naturally. Maybe it was his unkind eyes and rounded shoulders. Maybe it was because Simon didn’t want to have to look at his brother or the bleak empty tracks, and that was the only other focal point he was drawn to. But he looked. He looked anyway.

“Well?” said Albert. He was still holding the cat carrier in both hands and he nudged Simon with his knee. “Check the forecast.”

Simon rolled his eyes back to his brother. Now with a hand free, he managed to get into one of his pockets and fetch his phone, but the mitten was preventing him from unlocking the screen. He swiped a few times, turning his mouth down in a scowl before he had to put the phone back, bite the fingers of his mitten, let it dangle from his mouth like he was a dog playing fetch, grab the phone, and open the damnable weather app. He sneezed with annoyance and turned the screen for Albert to see. Albert eyed the phone around his nose, nodding at the numbers.

“Can’t see with your thumb in the way, Si,” he said, and twitched his head as though he would telepathically shift Simon’s thumb. “I wanna know if it’ll snow, not the temp right now. What’s it say?”

So, Simon had to take the phone back, scroll, and show it off again. His stomach was starting to boil and his head ached in a tight little pinprick of pain between his eyebrows. Albert inspected the app again and nodded.

“Yeah, still can’t see if it’s gonna snow. Oh well, Si,” he said, and clicked his tongue. “Maybe they just don’t know everything.”

Simon brought the phone back up to his face and read the forecast as easily as reading anything else. He tapped the screen, but now Albert was just feigning disinterest, looking instead into the cat carrier and cooing away at Cairn in hopes of keeping him less agitated. Well, Simon was agitated. Who was going to coo at him then, huh? He rolled his eyes back along the tracks and unfinished building and the girders and the short translucent cover ahead to shelter them and the empty platform beside them.

Empty platform beside them.

Empty?

Simon blinked on the spot where the man with his black coat and red thread had been standing not a moment ago. He straightened and when he did, involuntarily tightened his grip on Evelyn’s fingers. The man was just…gone. Simon scanned the platform, the wall behind them, the staircase that led up to it. They were all alone up there, the trio and their cat. No sign that a man in a black coat with red thread had even been there in the first place. There was no snow sticking to the ground to see any tracks. Simon’s pinprick of pain began to bubble more and he whipped his head from left to right, searching him out to prove he hadn’t either imagined it or witnessed an apparition.

There was a tug on his hand and Simon was brought back as he looked down at the little manacle holding him. Evelyn was looking up. She tugged again, like she was pulling on a rope to make an old fancy doorbell ring. Her face was blank, but there was something urgent in her movement and Simon leaned down to her. He had a brief thought that she might try to bite a chunk of his nose or reach up to gouge out one of his eyes, but he got closer to her face all the same. He raised an eyebrow, a silent, “Yes?” asked. She put her hand up to her mouth ever so carefully and whispered to him.