#random post with thoughts and connections because my brain is all over the place and my brains is about to explode gsdfasjg

[torgawl]

instead of just cross eyes and star eyes distinguishing dynasties in khaenri'ah, why do some khaenri'ahns cover one eye specifically? there’s many things that seem interconnected regarding the lore:

crimson moon turning around to look like an eye; irmin the one-eyed king; the unknown god’s cubes containing eyes in their design (same ones present in the cataclysm as well as the crimson moon), her glitching looking like arlecchino’s, and the four pointed star pattern that appeared when she showed up to the twins; forbidden knowledge and nibelung’s influence; fischl's auge der verurteilung aka eye of condemnation (crimson eye) and her skin's description "o holiest of sovereigns, high princess of immernachtreich (kingdom of evernight)!".

kaeya's note about the alberich saying "i saved this one memento from the fire 'father' made while he wasn’t paying attention. this was in violation of our principles. our clan's affairs should never be recorded" and "though we could not restore khaenri'ah to life, we of the alberich clan should lead lives as those who blaze like fire, rather than those who wallow in the embers [small piece of burning or glowing coal or wood in a dying fire]", father being in quotation marks and references to fire and ashes; the orphanage in khaenri'ah that wanted to house children from destroyed worlds and non-threats that leaked into the kingdom, in hopes of finding beings from beyond the sky who could transcend the gods; perinheri's first memory being transversing something like a chimney, filled with ash and being asked if he wasn't dead just for him to see the eye (crimson moon) and being told he was reborn; dust and the blood of of dragons (or dragon-like beings like durin and elynas) being connected to rhinedottir and the art of khemia; fire as rebirth and life but also, the balemoon blood specifically being connected to loss of memories and loss of memory being equivalent to death (not physical);  despite the orphanage never being able to find that transcendal person, it had many unusual individuals who became knights of the kingdom.

irmin as the first divine halberd (that once pierced the axis mundi [cosmic/world axis, world pillar, center of the world, world tree, etc.] and connected the nine worlds), the prinzessin der verurteilungas (fischl) as the last one; fischl and kaeya comparing themselves to one another and their parallels to irmin and odin; der ring des nibelungen, in which the dwarf (or nibelung) alberich creates a ring capable of controlling the world, using gold he stole from the rhinemaidens (or rheintöchter "rhine-daughters"). the conflict that arises over the ownership of this ring eventually leads to the destruction of the gods and their home, valhalla.

irminsul (irmin + sul) meaning great pillar and being a reference to the yggdrasil, the tree that supports the universe; the description of the item silver twig – collected in the center of the world - talking about a sage that hanged himself upside down in the irminsul tree to gain knowledge of the runes and the cosmos, then going into a secret kingdom down its roots [also a reference to hanged man in tarot that symbolizes wisdom, divination, sacrifice, prophecy, etc.]; odin who hung himself upside down from the sacred world tree, yggdrasil, for nine days and nights sacrificing his eye and throwing himself on his spear (gungir) as a ritual sacrifice in order to obtain secret wisdom; memories, fire and crimson moon hand in hand with the irminsul, king irmin and the concept of fate; the fake sky, the stars and being able to see fate but also fate being a means of the heavenly principles to control the world (neuvillette calling it puppet strings); khaenri'ah, a supposed godless nation but the crimson moon dynasty revering the moon (and hilichurls worshiping istaroth); the crimson moon having an eye on humanity and always being present associated with punishment and destruction (fall of gurabad, remuria and the catclysm).

crimson moon's semblance (arlecchino’s weapon) implying the crimson moon sought vengeance (“few survived the utter destruction of their kind, hiding in the shadows where the sun did not shine, longing for the crimson moon to decree their desire for vengeance be repaid”); the design of the weapon and arlecchino’s boss attacks resembling the double helix present in deathly statuette material dropped by abyss heralds, abyss lectors and shadowy husks, which has a single red eye. it apparently whispers "see, my child. all that lies under the throne of heaven shall be destroyed by upheaval. the eternal peace of the pitch-dark void shall embrace us all.” as you gaze at it.

the abyss order being founded by chlothar alberich and pierro being the first harbinger; the "sinner" – the crystal in chains from the chasm, protected by an abyss herald - not being a god but still worshipped by the abyss order. the voice stating to chlothar and the traveler’s twin that he "[knows their] fate well" and urged them to become a "transcendent one" saying he would "shed a tear at the end of time... as i gaze back upon your life". he also imbued chlothar with the power of the abyss, which alleviated his worsening conditions. the “sinner” refered to chlothar as “dear creature”; dainsleif, pierro and kaeya being examples of khaenriahns who hide their right eye; dainsleif being called “bough keeper”, bough is a branch of a tree, but also his constellation being a snake ring like ouroboros – representing the eternal renewal cycle of life, death and rebirth; the loom of fate being an operation of the abyss order first encountered during "a herald without adherents" quest.

“the threads of your fate lie in my hands” a quote by fischl connecting to the weaves of fate; fischl stating that if she does not obtain the divine halberd “...this world and everything in it is going to burn in hellfire” (legend of the shattered halberd vol. ii). some other excerpts of the book also include: “but unbeknownst to him, this was the greatest cursed sword of all, that had once burned the entire world to cinders: laevatain [in norse mythology, a weapon crafted by loki and the only capable of defeating the cockerel viðofnir, inhabiting the top of yggdrasil], the sword had extinguished after the world was burned, but... it burned bright once more. ‘the whole world... destroyed again...’ weiyang [fischl] fell unconscious as she spoke” (vol. iv), and, "the world is beyond repair. it shall be born anew from the ashes of the last” (vol. vi); dainsleif saying “none will escape the flames. see for yourself” but also neuvillette’s character story including “the puppet strings glossed as "divine rules" would one day be burned away by the fires of judgment” when talking about constellations; burning away the old world, project stuzha by the fatui and the image of dottore burning the irminsul; nahida saying fontaine's prophecy was engraved in the irminsul, implying the tree also contains the history of the future; sibylla, a prophetess who guarded the irminsul in an ancient city located in what later became the high seas (referred to as abyssal depths). she sacrificed her life for the sake of creating phobos, remus' grand symphony, but her lack of a will ultimately caused the project to fail, as her vague desire to "grant happiness to all in the world who are called humans" caused phobos to attempt to satisfy everyone's desires — including destructive and selfish ones — and set remuria towards the course of its self-destruction (possibly tying concepts of will and fate together); thinking of dottore's plan, it would make sense to burn the tree that holds memories with a fire able to erase them (arlecchino's balemoon powers) so that the world can be born anew breaking away from the shackles of fate.

there’s also the improvisation kaeya does during the play in his hangouts. "do you believe in fate? if fate decreed your life was to end in tragedy, what would you do?". he then throws a prop and we interact, choosing if we would face our fate bravely or challenge it and rise above it. kaeya then goes on saying "then so must it be! yes, so must it be! i shall discard this intaglio and rid myself of the shackles of fate", "fate means to send the machinations of war to every corner of the land to fan the flames of conflict till they ungulf the entire world… fate would see my sword tainted with the blood of innocents, that the bright banner of my homeland might fly in every nation known to mankind. but i shall not bow to the will of fate i am no pawn in heaven’s plan. i, qubad, will spend the rest of my days in a foreign land, 'till i breathe my last in a place far from home" and finishes the play with "but i must walk this path, or freedom dies by my hand. goodbye, my tribe and kin. farewell, sweet land of my birth". the prop we get from kaeya, the intaglio, symbolizes the noble origins of prince qubad in the play and the blood-red jewel (blood, red... funny, uh?) is said to be a crystallization of the question kaeya asked us about destiny. furthermore, an intaglio can be a type of engraved gem or metal signet ring.

[saveahorserideaneddie]

It’s currently 1:00 am for me and my brain can’t stop thinking about random stuff but like- I can’t get over the set dressing of it all….

like eddie’s el paso house is old, run down, falling apart- it’s a manifestation of his connection to texas as a whole, dilapidated and rotting, actively falling apart, but he’s holding it together bc of his son. its also a representation of his childhood/relationship with his parents- broken and run down no matter how hard he’s tried to repair it (“it’s a fixer-upper”) but upon moving in he discovered that it’s beyond repair.

his furniture stands out and doesn’t fit- he doesn’t own one single style of furniture, as a single dad he had to have mixed and matched pieces that he found cheap at theift stores, possibly updating things in LA over the years, but after so long in the LA house, the furniture that he probably mostly bought before leaving Texas now doesn’t fit in at all (a representation of how he has adapted to life in LA and he doesn’t fit in- this will come into play again later) it stands out against the dilapidated backdrop of his house, which symbolizes his post-LA self not belonging in Texas w his parents.

It’s a symbol that he doesn’t belong, and he never will- that he still belongs in LA where he’s made a home (where the furniture settled in the LA house and became a staple of that home)

SIMILARLY

buck never really *fit* in the loft. the loft was never *him*

the closest he ever came to having a place that fit him was when he lived in abby’s apartment after she left, but when he realized she was never coming back, he had to make the choice to leave- moving into an apartment that was chosen by his on-the-go girlfriend who’s style and personality fit a loft like that. all of his relationships since then have been tied to the loft; nice, but not for buck (w the exception of you know who, who was not nice, but i digress)

so now, buck has given up the loft- he’s moved out, and instead, he moved into the only plave that ever has been a real Home to him- eddie’s house. only everything about that home has been taken away (the furniture- eddie- is gone). buck moved his own furniture in, but it doesn’t fit. just like with abby’s apartment, he doesn’t fit there with the remnants of his past (his furniture from the loft) filling the space- everything looks off. none of it fits. he brought it his own things to make the house his own, but it’s not working.

but that’s because we’ve already established that eddie’s furniture belongs in that house. that’s what fits. that’s what belongs there.

eddie belongs there.

so when the furniture (eddie) return the house to its status as a Home, buck will finally have what he needs, and will be able to get rid if the final remnants of the loft (his furniture that doesn’t fit him) so that he can completely be at Home with eddie.

i hope this all makes sense- this was a caffeine induced ramble about a random thought i had after seeing a gifset from 8x13 that just made me realize how out of place eddie’s furniture looks in the texas house and how out of place buck’s furniture looks in the LA house and i hope my thoughts are thought-ing enough and i don’t sound clinically insane (which is a possibility)

[lilgarbitch]

Running In Circles - Seven

Pairing: Noah Sebastian x Reader

CW: angst, drinking, Y/N being a little dumbass, I’M SORRY DON’T HATE ME

Word Count: 10.5k

Author’s Note: as quoted from an earlier post: i fear my desire to make men miserable is playing a large role in my work and i do apologize for that.

Part Six

Noah

“YOU WHAT?” Ruffilo shouted from across the room at me as he stood up in disbelief. I sat on the couch with my head in my hands, pulling at my roots.

“I don’t know why I did it.. I just. I had to do something to make myself feel better about the situation,” I said, shaking my head, my voice strained with stress.

“When I said to find your own way to get back at her, I didn’t fucking mean that, you dumbass!” He was now pacing, like he was the one who fucked up. Maybe I shouldn’t have come to him about this.

“I know. I just..,” I let out a deep sigh, falling back on the couch, “Maybe I did it to hurt her, or maybe I did it to hurt myself. I don’t know. I just couldn’t take this shit anymore.”

“Dude! You spent YEARS talking about this girl. You’ve written fucking songs about her. You get into one fight, and do this?” He finally stopped and stared at me, waiting for me to come up with a better explanation, but I couldn’t. Because I didn’t have one.

Footsteps creep into the living room, so I look up and see Jolly looking at us, confused.

“What’s all the yelling about?” he asked, looking between the two of us. I just anxiously chewed on my lip, so Ruffilo answered for me.

“This jackass decided to hook up with someone at his fucking birthday party.” He put a hand on his hip like a disappointed parent, waiting for Jolly to give any reaction. I turn to Jolly and he’s giving me a look, a mix of shock and confusion. I let out a groan, getting up and walking to my room. I don’t need this. I had hoped Ruffilo could give me any advice for this fuck-up I made, but I should’ve known I would just get scolded.

I fall onto my bed and shove my face into my pillow, letting out a groan. I don’t fucking know why I did it. I was pissed off at how close she’s gotten with Matt. And when random friend of one of the guys was chatting with me and I looked over and saw that fucking Ghost Face grinding against Davis, I just lost it. I don’t know why sleeping with a random girl was my decision, especially when it won’t even affect Y/N if she never finds out, it was just the only thing my irrational brain could think of. Maybe I did it hoping it would help me get over her, but it just made me feel so much worse. I know we’ve been ignoring each other, but she’s acting like she doesn’t even fucking care about me anymore. So, I thought that maybe I shouldn’t care either, but obviously, everyone thought that was the stupidest thing I could do.

I hear the rest of the guys get back from the store, hearing cheers as they probably showed everyone the food and alcohol they got, and all I could do was groan. This break was supposed to be fun. The party was supposed to be fun. I was hoping to take Y/N on a date or two, showing her my favorite places in the city. But no. She showed up for the party, ignored me the whole time, and was nowhere to be found when I came back..after making that terrible decision. Fuck. Why the fuck did it have to work out this way? Why’d I yell at her at the bar? If we could just sit down and talk, maybe we could at least be friends. I can’t stand finally having her in my life yet she just fucking ignores me. Fuck, I need a fucking distraction.

I stood up from my bed and headed downstairs, trying my best to sneak by so no one would notice me. I reach the kitchen and grab a random bottle we had on top of the fridge, before sneaking back to my room. Locking the door behind me, I go to sit on my bed and grab my phone, connecting it to my speakers before opening Spotify and clicking a random playlist.

Turning the volume up full blast, I twist off the cap of what I now see is a bottle of fucking vodka. Grimacing, I lift it to my lips and take a large swig before setting it down on my nightstand, making a disgusted face at the taste and burn.

My thoughts were brought back to the first night of tour, drinking with the group and watching her from across the bus. She took a shot of vodka and made the same face before catching me watching her and giving me the most beautiful smile.

A growl erupts in my throat. I need to get her out of my fucking head. How am I even going to look at her when tour starts again if I can’t even handle thinking of her?

I grab the bottle again and take an even larger drink, leaning against the wall behind my bed as I felt the liquid fire fill my gut. Distraction. I need another fucking distraction. Because this isn’t hitting me fast enough and the music isn’t overpowering my thoughts.

I open my phone and pull up Instagram, hoping to find absolutely fucking anything that pulls me from these thoughts. I scroll and scroll, every meme trying to be funny, and every picture of someone looking happy just pissing me off.

I keep scrolling before my eyes land on tattoos. Her’s. I pause and see that State of the Scene had posted a photo of her in a sound booth. My eyes trail down to the caption. “Lorna Shore’s Will Ramos posts Praising Deities’ Y/N Y/L/N, calling her the ‘next deathcore vocalist’ and that he ‘can’t wait for y’all to hear what she can do.’ Let’s hope she releases something new soon, as fans have been enjoying her covers of ‘To the Hellfire’ and ‘Sun//Eater,’ sung on her current tour with the band Bad Omens.”

All it took was one comment. A single fucking comment to push me over the edge.

“Are those hickeys on her neck?”

Before I could even think, a yell came spewing out as I threw my phone across the room, creating a loud band and a small crack as it shattered against the wall.

Tears came pouring down my face, now being unable to hold back every emotion that I’ve felt the past few weeks. I took one last swig of the vodka before setting it on my nightstand and lying down, pulling my covers over me. ‘Love Me to Death’ by Suicide Silence blasted through my speakers, proving that my phone wasn’t completely destroyed, but now I couldn’t fucking change it.

She has every fucking right to move on. I fucking did, too. But to get that confirmation that after barely a month of finally having her in my life, she’s fucking gone. I can’t take it anymore. My chest ached and burned. All I wanted to do was scream until the pain was gone. I wanted her. I needed her. How did my life turn into such a fucking train-wreck so fast?

Suddenly, someone knocks on my door. They try to say something, but between my sobs and the music, I don’t know what.

“FUCK OFF,” was all I said before shoving my head under my pillow, ignoring the rest of the world as I prayed for the alcohol to hit more and clear my mind.

Y/N

The other guys left after listening to my isolated screams, commenting on a few, and giving me a few ‘good lucks’ before going about their day. I made sure to thank Dave for letting me use his studio, and he said that it was here for me anytime. I doubt I’ll ever take him up on that offer, as I was still extremely intimidated by him, but I really appreciated it.

Will and I were now just messing around in the studio. We already spent a good hour or so working on how I could get certain screams and growls to sound better and how I could enunciate words differently if that’s what I enjoyed. Now, we were just playing music and singing along as we occasionally went back and forth in the sound booth, wanting to see if we could hit notes right. Every recording we took was just full of giggles, so thankfully we were already planning to delete them right after listening.

He even taught me a few controls, mainly how to set songs up for him, make them only play for the person in the booth, and which button let me talk to him. We learned more about each other’s music tastes and where it came from, even who we took inspiration from for our own music. I learned more about his love for Sleep Token, which went a lot deeper than I thought. He went on a few rambles just talking about his appreciation for how they write the music and even played songs, pointing out specific things Vessel did in his vocals.

He kept playing ‘Chokehold’ over and over, to the point that I practically learned the whole song. After what felt like the tenth full run-through, not counting the amount of times he went back and repeatedly played specific parts because he just couldn’t get over the sound, I stood up and walked to the sound booth.

I was getting more used to being in here now and definitely more used to singing in front of Will. We’d been in this studio for hours at this point, just singing to each other, so all my nerves were gone.

He watched me as I walked and immediately sat up and leaned over the controls, a little confused.

“Play it again, I wanna try,” I told him through the mic as I put the headphones on.

“Chokehold? You wanna sing Chokehold? You literally just fucking heard it,” He said, laughing.

“I heard it like 30 times and you even gave me a rundown of every single quirk in his vocals, now run it,” I teased. He playfully lifted his hands in defense before getting everything set up.

The intro started playing so I held the headphones close to my ears and counted the beats in my head, not wanting to miss the cues.

When we were made

I did my best to make it airy and hold the same enunciation as Vessel did.

It was no accident

It was honestly so entertaining to practice Sleep Token songs. Vessel put so much character into every single note and to reenact it was so fun. Especially switching between chest voice and head voice or adding the little ‘t’ at the end of a line.

We were tangled up like branches in a flood

Over-exaggerating certain parts was new to me unless I was singing along to a more pop punk song, where everyone had a specific accent they used.

I come as a blade

I did my best to flow into a high note, and I did surprisingly well, so I turned to Will with a proud look on my face before continuing.

A sacred guardian

Will was watching me in awe, and I so badly wanted to laugh at the face he made, but I had to keep my composure to continue.

So you keep me sharp and test my worth in blood

It looked like Will was slowly falling into deep thought, but I knew it was still recording, so I just ignored him and continued.

You’ve got me in a chokehold

I did my best to remember how Vessel did the audible breaths and tried to recreate them.

You’ve got me in a chokehold

You’ve got me in a-

I look back over to see if Will was doing his famous dance to this part like he had every other replay of this song, but instead, he stood up and paused the music, and started messing around with more controls.

“Will? Did I do something wrong?” I asked, and he just shook his head as he did whatever the hell he was trying to do.

Finally, he stopped touching buttons, and the music started again, and he was rushing into the sound booth with me. He hurriedly came over and grabbed the other set of headphones lying in here, putting them on and turning to me with a child-like smile.

“Roll with it,” He said, so I nodded and began to sing.

When we were made

Woah, he finally turned on the control so we could hear ourselves and each other.

It was no accident

We were tangled up like branches in a flood

Then, Will joined in with me.

I come as a blade

I looked at him, shocked. We sounded so fucking good. He went lower as I took the high note at the end, nailing it once again.

A sacred guardian

So you keep me sharp and test my worth in blood

He looked at me and put a hand on my shoulder, and I took that as a signal for me to let him sing the following lines.

You’ve got me in a chokehold

You’ve got me in a chokehold

He patted my shoulder, and I assumed that as him saying to join him.

You’ve got me in a-

He started headbanging to the music and I looked at him like we just did the craziest thing, because, to me, we fucking did. I had to hold back my giggles as he jammed out next to me. The next lines were about to come up, so he composed himself and put a hand on my shoulder, this now being our signal for him to sing.

Beneath the stormy seas

Above the mountain peaks

It’s all the same to me

It makes no difference

He patted my shoulder, so I joined in.

I’ve seen my days unfold

Done the impossible

I’d turn my walls to gold

To bring you home again

He stepped back from the mic, so it was just me singing the next few lines.

So show me that which I cannot see

Even if it hurts me

Even if I can’t sleep

Oh, and though we

Act out of our holy

Duty to be constantly awake

I did my best to hit the last notes, and then felt a tap on my shoulder.

You’ve got me in a chokehold

He started doing a fry scream and it sounded so good.

You’ve got me in a chokehold

He patted my shoulder once again, and I had to quickly think of the best route of action to make our vocals sound good together, but just landed on continuing to do clean, alto vocals.

You’ve got me in a chokehold

You’ve got me in a chokehold

He switched back to his clean vocals for the ending.

Even if it hurts me

Even if I can’t sleep

Show me the way

We held out the last note together, him not trying to create harmony, just matching our vocals so they meshed together.

We looked at each other in shock as the song ended before rushing out of the sound booth and over to the control board. We listened back to our isolated vocals in disbelief. The fact that we just threw this together last second was unbelievable.

We listened to it a few times, talking about what could be fixed or edited, both of us individually running to the sound booth multiple times to sing our parts so we could edit them together. We even did some lines differently, seeing if more harmony or if me doing harsh vocals would sound better.

After recording probably too many pieces, he switched over all the vocals to his personal laptop, and we started working them together. Finally, we added the instrumental over top, spending a few minutes lining everything up perfectly, giving it one last listen, and then just staring at each other, shocked.

“We just fucking made that!” I said, pointing to his laptop. He nodded with a wide smile.

“Yes, the fuck we did,” he said, holding his hand up. I gave him a high-five, laughing at the insanity that was the piece of art we just made.

“What now? Show the boys?” I asked, hooking a finger over my shoulder at the door behind me.

“Dude, we have to fucking show everyone. Are you kidding me?”

“Now? You’re gonna post it now?” I asked, both shocked and amused.

“Y/N. We just spent over two hours editing this together. Plus, it’s just a cover. Yes, now.” He laughed out. I looked over at the clock and realized that we had indeed been doing this for a while.

“Okay, okay. Ahh, I’m scared. No. I’m excited,” I rushed out, kicking my feet. He just laughed at me before turning to his laptop. I watched as he downloaded the file before uploading it on his personal Spotify with my name featured on it. I just stared at the screen in shock. I just did a cover song. It was now up for everyone to see. And I did it with Will Ramos. Oh my fucking god.

I quickly pull my phone out, ignoring every notification, and open Spotify. I copy the link to the song and head over to Instagram. I screen-recorded the story Will made earlier, and cropped it as I made a post of the video, and added the link to the song played over the post.

“Chokehold- Sleep Token. A cover by Will Ramos and Y/N Y/L/N 🖤🤘🏻,” I wrote in the caption. I tagged Will and hit post.

I looked over at Will and grinned. He looked back at me, smiling twice as big. I was so full of excitement and energy, and I didn’t know what to do, so I just flung myself on him, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Will, you’ve made these last two days more fun than I’ve had this past month. Thank you so much.” He held me closer, laughing with me.

“Anything for you, my little petal.” I giggled at my nickname again before pulling away.

“I’m serious, though. These last few weeks- Hell! These last few years had been fucking crazy for me, and I feel like by simply meeting you, shit’s finally starting to fall into place. I’m doing new things. More people are listening to me. I just learned controls, for fucks sake,” I laughed, making him chuckle down at me, “So thank you. I’m so unbelievably fucking happy to have finally met you.”

He looks at me with a warm smile, my words soaking in. I was still hugging him, so we were still super close, and I don’t know what came over me, but I pulled him down and brought his lips to mine.

He tensed for a moment but instantly kissed me back. I brought my hand up to the back of his head, sliding my fingers into his pink locs as I held him close. His hands slid up to my sides, pulling my body towards him more. The kiss was about to deepen, when I got pulled back to reality by my phone ringing. I immediately pulled away and looked at him, shocked, before fumbling to grab my phone. I answered it without even looking at who was calling.

“Hello?” I greeted, having to clear my throat as it cracked a bit out of shock.

“YOU RELEASED A SONG WITHOUT TELLING YOUR OWN BAND? YOUR OWN BROTHERS?” Finn shouted into the phone, making me chuckle and pull my phone from my ear.

“Shit. Yeah, sorry about that. Will and I were messing around in the studio,” I had to clear my throat again after saying ‘messing around’ before continuing, “ and we were listening to Sleep Token and decided to try out doing a cover, and it came out surprisingly well.”

“When the fuck did you meet Will? I thought he was in New Jersey," he asked.

“Funny story, actually. Him and the band are staying here with a friend, and we ran into each other at the club,” I sheepishly replied. There was silence on the other side of the phone for a few moments, and I almost thought we lost connection before he finally replied.

“Oh, we’re having a long chat the next time I see you, missy. Which better be soon, might I add. I’ve seen you once in the last four days,” he finally said, with a tone mixed with suspicion and deviousness.

“Yes, Sir. Now, did you only call to yell at me?” I teased.

“Well, I did want to tell you that you two sounded fucking fantastic and that maybe you could invite Will over to the boys’ house, but I can sense you’re having more fun there,” He teased back.

“Shut it. I appreciate the compliment and will pass it on, but I’m ignoring everything you said after that for multiple reasons.”

“Oh… shit, you’re right. That might be a bad idea…Anyway, have fun with your little date. Love you!” He said, making me roll my eyes.

“Love you, too.” And then I hung up. I chewed on my lip nervously before finally turning around to look at Will. He was staring at me with a humorous expression.

“I hope you know that I could hear that entire conversation,” He chuckled out, making me facepalm, “And tell him that I said thank you for the compliment. Now…what was that?”

I groaned and walked past him, sitting down and throwing my head down in my hands.

“Will. I’m so sorry,” was all I could get out. I hear his footsteps come towards me, and I looked up to see him crouching down in front of me.

“For what? I mean, we’ve done more than that, so don’t think I’m bothered.”

“No. I mean, I am sorry for kissing you. I said we were gonna leave it all behind and pretend like nothing happened, and I still want to. But I’m mainly sorry that I may be pulling you into a very awkward situation.” He gave me a confused look. I let out a deep sigh. Should I even explain or just leave him out of this?

“So… Something may or may not have happened with…someone …I’m touring with…and shit has been weird. Fuck. It’s a long ass story,” I finished with a groan. He chuckled softly and rested his hands on my knees before sitting down in front of me with his legs crossed.

“I have time, my petal. Tell me what’s bothering you.” I let out another deep sigh. I might as well tell someone else the bullshit that’s been happening since everyone else seems to know.

And so I did. I told him everything. From the festival to the song lyrics. The ‘talk.’ The night at the bar. The Halloween/ birthday party. The depression. Me getting back into smoking. How reckless I was being last night because I wasn’t in the right mind. Everything. And he sat there, staring at me and listening intently, occasionally giving my knees a squeeze if I got a little too emotional. He let me tell him everything. Once I finally finished, he stood up, pulling me up with him and giving me a big hug.

“Everything will work out, my little petal. You two will eventually make up because you have to, or else tour will be really weird. I’m perfectly fine being that rebound that kind of gets in the way because I know you didn’t do it to hurt anyone. And because I really enjoy spending time with you and being your friend,” He pulled away and looked me deep in my eyes, “And just your friend. We can leave everything in the past. We randomly ran into each other at a club, went home separately, and the next day, I gave you vocal lessons and we recorded a song together. That’s all that happened. Okay?”

Tears were now welling up in my eyes as I nodded before pulling him back into a hug.

“Thank you.” I managed to get out. He rubbed my back as he held me close.

“Anything for a friend.”

After a minute or two of just taking in the comfort and reassurance, I finally pulled away and sat back down, him following and sitting back in his chair. He turned back to his laptop, typing away at something for a few minutes as I sat in my thoughts.

“Will?” I asked after a few moments. He turned to me with a ‘hm?’

“What’s with the ‘my little petal’?” I finally asked. He chucked and sat back in his chair with a small shy grin.

“Uh..well, first off, you’re pretty like a flower. You’re soft, delicate, and, you know, are able to either attract or repel others with your looks…I guess? Plus, you can be a little sharp, but only if you have to…And I like flowers. I don’t know. It was something that came to mind last night and I guess it just stuck,” He answers, a little embarrassed, making me giggle.

“God, you’re such a sap. If I didn’t have a goddamn soul tie to someone, that would work on me,” I teased, making him laugh loudly.

“Good to know,” he teased back with a smirk, “But, on a different note, I do have an idea for you.”

I look at him suspiciously, waiting for him to continue. He returned to doing something on the laptop before moving him and the computer to the control board. I watched him curiously as he started messing with things again. He couldn’t possibly want to change anything about the cover we did. It was already posted.

After messing around with a few things, he turned to me.

“Two questions. One- How badly do you want to at least try and make things better between you two? Like, I know it’s still super rocky, and it’s gonna take time, but do you want to at least reach out?” He asked. I was confused, but still thought about it for a moment, weighing my decisions.

“Badly. I know we’re gonna have to start over completely. We’ve both done some weird shit in the past few weeks, but I need us to reach a point where we can at least look at and speak to each other again.” I finally answered. He nodded before continuing.

“Second question, are you okay with being recorded today?” I looked at him, extra confused, and saw that he was pointing towards a camera that has apparently been in the sound booth this whole time. What did this man have planned?

I pulled out my phone and opened the camera, looking over my appearance. My makeup was mostly intact after redoing it in the morning, even after tearing up a little, and I didn’t do anything with my hair today, but I ran my fingers through it so it was semi-presentable. Then my eyes landed on my neck, and I made a slight hiss at the marks.

“Let me borrow a hoodie, and I’ll be fine,” I answered, and he immediately started taking off the one he threw on earlier and handed it to me before getting up and walking to the sound booth to start messing with the camera in there.

“Will, what am I about to do? Why am I being recorded?” I asked, more confused than ever. He just shot me a smirk as he finished messing with the camera and came back out.

“Just get in there.” He said, pointing at the sound booth.

“You have to tell me what song I’m covering. Do I even know it?” I said as I threw on his hoodie and walked into the sound booth. I pulled the hood up so it was shielding my neck from the camera and then tried my best to pretend a camera wasn’t flashing, indicating that it was already recording me.

“Y/N, I promise you that if you don’t know this song, it’s not meant to be.” He spoke into my headphones. I continued staring at him, confused as ever. And then I watched as he hit a few buttons, setting the track back and hitting record, before finally hitting play. I got myself ready to sing whatever song I apparently should know.

And then ‘Just Pretend’ started playing.

Will and I worked on putting the video together. He made me do multiple takes, the first one showing that I was a little spooked at the song choice. We edited the audio, taking out as many voice cracks as possible since singing this song over and over again did eventually make me emotional.

Now he was, in his words, “working his magic,” and, “putting the best video over the audio.” And I just sat back and let him work, fidgeting with the strings of his hoodies as I listened to him type away at his laptop.

Would this even work? He kept choosing audio clips that captured more emotion, even if I was literally crying as I sang. I told him that it was going to sound weird, but he kept shutting me up, saying that he knew what he was doing. I was so drained from everything we did today, and good god, I’ve listened to myself sing so much today, I think I’m going to lose my mind. I leaned my head back against the chair and let out a deep sigh. Today has been a lot. Not in a bad way, just…a lot.

He swiveled his chair around and turned to me, making me look up at him. He held the computer out to me, so I took it, eyeing him.

“My work here is done,” he said with a proud smile. He was a little too excited about this, even after watching me cry for over an hour to a song. My eyes flickered between him and the laptop, debating if I even wanted to see this, but I still hit play.

The music started, and my voice rang through the laptop speakers. It was a little too full of emotion for my standards, but I’m going to trust Will on this. Then, I realized he had chosen one of the last recordings, where I had already cried, so my eyes were a little red.

I continued watching, seeing that he still kept some of the audio clips where my voice cracked, but just in the right spots, like the parts where I held out notes.

Weigh down on me, stay til morning

Way down, would you say I’m worthy

A tear fell down my eye in the video. I don’t cry in front of people. And he wants me to post this?

Weigh down on me, stay til morning

Way down, would you say I’m worthy

I had glanced into the camera at that point. I didn’t even know I did that, but you could see the emotion in my red, puffy eyes. My makeup was even starting to run a little.

I can wait for you at the bottom

I can stay away if you want me to

I can wait for years if I gotta

Heaven knows I ain’t gettin over you

My voice cracked at almost every high note, but it didn’t sound bad. It was just…emotional.

We’ll try again

When we’re not so different

We will make amends

Til then, I’ll just pretend

I had stepped away from the mic at that point, unable to finish from the exhaustion of having to repeatedly sing a song that held every emotion I felt, but Will layered vocals from another clip over the video, just sounding a little more distant. I looked over at Will with a look of disbelief as the video faded out.

“Well?” He asked, still holding a proud, smug grin on his face.

“Wh- How- Will!” I stuttered, in complete shock, “I-what do I even do with this?”

“Well, I’m glad you asked. I reached out to Mr. Nicholas Ruffilo, asking for permission to even do this. He said to send him the video as soon as it’s finished, and then we could figure out where to go from there,” he answered. I looked between him and the laptop again before handing the computer back to him.

“I don’t know how this is gonna work out. It looks like I’m throwing a pity party,” I whine, pointing at that laptop.

“Okay, but were those emotions manipulative? Or were they real?” He asked with a pointed look.

“They were real, but I already fucked up so bad. Twice. I know me sleeping with you was just a reaction to seeing him leave the party with a girl, but that doesn’t mean it won’t kill him to find out. So the last thing I need is for him to think of me as a manipulative whore,” I practically cry out. Will shakes his head and scoots closer to me, resting a hand on my knee.

“I promise you, if he wants this to work out as much as you do, he will see the authenticity in this,” he replies, making me sigh.

“Since you did all the work, you get all the blame,” I say, leaning back in my chair with a sigh. I can either see this fucking things up more, or actually working out, but either way, fans are going to freak the fuck out if this gets posted online. God, am I really communicating with a man through music again?

Will types away at the computer, probably saving the file and sending it to Ruffilo, before looking at me.

“I’m starving. Wanna go get dinner?” He asked, as if nothing happened. I give him an exhausted yet humored side-eye before nodding and standing up with him.

Noah

I awoke to someone rummaging next to me. With a groan, I rolled over and looked to see Ruffilo screwing the lid back onto the bottle of vodka next to my bed, Nick turning my speakers off, and Jolly picking up my smashed phone and a picture that I guess had also fallen when I threw the phone.

“Get the fuck out of here,” I groaned, before bringing my arm over my eyes, the hangover instantly kicking in. I still felt tipsy, probably not having slept for a long time, but that didn’t change the fact that I hadn’t had a single sip of water today.

“Take this,” Ruffilo said. I peek out from under my arm and see him handing me a glass of water like he read my fucking mind, which I instantly took. I sat up and chugged the whole glass. It felt like I hadn’t had water in days. I set the cup beside me before dropping my head in my hands with a loud groan.

“Do we..?” I heard Jolly ask, not knowing what the hell he meant. I then heard someone, probably Ruffilo, crouch down beside my bed. I glance over and see him giving me a pitying look, making me roll my eyes.

“Whenever you’re ready, I have something to show you downstairs. I can make the other guys leave for a little if you don’t want to deal with company, but it’s something that you need to see,” he said in a hushed tone, like I was a dog he would scare away if he spoke too loud.

I let out a deep sigh and rubbed my eyes before swinging my feet over the bed. There’s nothing they could show me that would make me feel worse than I do now, so why the fuck not? They all backed up as I sat up from my bed, swaying a little as the alcohol hadn’t yet left my system. They all file out of my room, and I follow.

“Did you guys seriously pick my lock?” I grumbled out, remembering that I had locked the door before passing out. Nick glanced over at me, looking a little guilty, causing a huff of a laugh to escape my lips.

They led me to the living room, which was thankfully empty. Who knows where everyone else was. Jolly reached over and grabbed a laptop, sitting down on the couch and opening it. I plopped down next to him, sinking into the back of the couch, not really wanting to be here. After a few moments of him typing away at it, pulling something up, he sat the laptop on the table in front of me.

I glanced at the laptop and then at the rest of them, confused. What the fuck were they about to show me? Ruffilo motioned his head towards it, signaling to me that I had to press play, so I did.

Instantly, the beginning of ‘Just Pretend’ played through the speakers of the laptop, making me groan. What the fuck was this? But then, her face came up as the vocals started.

I just sat there, staring at her in shock as she sang. She had a hoodie pulled over her so only her face showed. I leaned in closer, noticing something. She was crying. Every time she opened her eyes, they were bloodshot, and her makeup had been running.

Her voice cracked with emotion every high note, like she had been holding back a sob. I never wanted to see her cry. Especially not like this…

The bridge hit, and my eyes widened as she looked at the camera. Her eyes were full of what I could only describe as despair. They were dull and glazed over, barely even processing where she was looking, just staring off as she let the emotion flow through her singing. Her voice was harsh, like she had either been using it a lot or smoking. But it was still beautiful.

She stepped away from the mic after the heart wrenching post-chorus, almost like her body was about to cave in on itself. But her voice still rang through. Her face scrunched up as she looked down, and you could almost see a sob shake her body. The sight of her at a breaking point as her beautiful voice still sang, just in the distance, was more heartbreaking than anything I’ve ever seen.

The video finally ended and I just stared at the black screen, catching my reflection in it and saw that I was crying as well. I don’t even know what to do now. Emotion poured through me and my head fell into my hands as broken sobs left my lips. What the fuck was that? What the fuck do I do now?

I made a terrible fucking mistake, and she had obviously went to Will to make her feel better, but then she makes this? What the fuck does any of this even mean? What the fuck do I do? I want to see her. To hold her. But that’s not my place. It never was. She learned that going to people like Matt or Finn or Will was much less heartbreaking than coming to me. But I just need to talk to her. To start over.

Why did I start ignoring her? Why did I get so upset at the bar? She had every single right to feel that way, I just became attached too quickly and couldn’t let her leave. But she still did. She left, and she probably already moved on to Will. I mean, that was the same sound booth that I saw in that picture earlier, so she’s obviously been spending the break with him. She was barely here at the party. God, that fucking party. The first time I got a chance to be close to her in two weeks and I spent it ruining everything. I got jealous at her being a friendly person and went and fucking slept with someone. She had every single right to fucking move on. I mean, I tried to as well.

But what the fuck was this then? Why did she cover my fucking song, looking ever so heartbroken? Where the fuck did this even come from? Why were the guys showing me this? I finally look up at the three boys in front of me, all of them staring down at me in pity.

“What the fuck is this?” I finally managed to get out between sobs.

“All I was told was that she wanted to make this and that Will wanted me to show it to you. You’re gonna have to talk to her to figure out the rest.” Ruffilo responded, not helping me at all.

“I just don’t understand! I see a post of her hanging out with Will, covered in hickeys, and then she fucking does this?” I ask, still overwhelmed with everything. Ruffilo sighs.

“Noah. You do realize that you’re doing the exact same thing, right? You slept with someone and then proceeded to break down in guilt. She’s just the one to throw in the towel first. She’s trying to make up.” I groan between sobs and fall back into the couch, bringing an arm up to cover my face.

“What do I do, then? It’s not like I can text her. My phones broken and it’s just gonna be awkward.”

“Just think about it. Plan out your best choice of action and work from there. This is something that can only be fixed by the two of you,” he answered. Fuck.

“Also, I’ll head out tomorrow to get you a new phone. It’s too late to go now,” Jolly chimed. After thinking about it for another minute, I let out a deep sigh and sat back up.

“Okay. I’ll figure this out.” The boys watched me for a second, trying to get a good sense of if I was being serious, before coming over and patting me on the back before heading into the house, probably to hang out with the rest of the guys, leaving me in my thoughts.

Y/N

I anxiously chew on my lip as Will and I walk down the streets of L.A. Neither of us heard anything back from Ruffilo or any of the guys, yet. Will said that he didn’t want the night to end just yet, since I wasn’t in the best headspace, and he did his best to keep me from my thoughts as we went on our little adventure, which I really appreciated. But, to be honest, neither of us know where the hell we were going.

After we ate, he thought it’d be a good idea to just explore the city since neither of us really knew anything about it, but nothing caught our eye as we walked. It was nice to stretch our legs after sitting in a studio for a good eight hours, though.

We walked through the city, pointing out random things we saw, occasionally bumping into each other, either on purpose or because we weren’t paying attention, and just chatting about whatever came to our minds.

“What are your thoughts on adding a rhythm guitarist to Praising Deities?” I asked. He chucked, but gave it some thought.

“I mean, I have a feeling you’re gonna want to change up your style a little, now that you’re more comfortable with broadening your vocal range, but it is a lot of work splitting the guitar into two parts,” he answered.

“Yeah. We’ve changed things up a few times, but adding harsher vocals like yours would be a huge step. I do some already, but nothing more than a simple growl. So, if we really want to take that step, a lot of work is gonna have to go into this.”

“Do you have someone in mind? Or do you just want to add the more concentrated sound of a melodic guitar?” I thought about it for a minute.

“No, and I highly doubt Finn would want to learn to switch to pure rhythm. Not that he’s bad at it, but he really enjoys what he plays now,” I look over at him with a smirk, “I mean, would you be mad if I stole Andrew? He might even like my vocals more than you.”

He let out a loud laugh and swung his arm over my shoulders and pulled me in to his side. I giggled and looked up at him as we paused on our walk. He looked down at me with a smirk.

“You wish,” was all he said before he let go and continued walking, picking up speed to make me catch up to him. But that’s when something caught our eye. A flash. Fuck.

We both pause and glance towards the direction it came from, seeing a man holding a camera in our direction.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I mumbled. He let out a sigh.

“Let’s just head back to Dave’s. There’s nothing out here for us to do anyway.” And with that, we turned around and retraced our steps, making our way back.

“You’re back again? Don’t you have a band to be spending time with?” Austin teased with a fale scowl as we walked into the house.

“Of course I do. It’s your band!” I joked back. He laughed and rolled his eyes.

“What? Will didn’t tell you guys? You’re getting a second, better vocalist!” I continued, putting my hands on my hips to look confident. Will softly pushed me while laughing, making me stumble and giggle as I walked over to the couch and sat down with everyone.

Will walked past us into the kitchen, and I started chatting with everyone there. I’ve gotten surprisingly comfortable with them after they helped me with my vocals earlier, so I wasn’t as nervous to be around them anymore.

Will came back out and handed me a drink. I didn’t know what it was, so I gave him a slightly suspicious look as I took a sip. I made a face, not expecting it to be a vodka cranberry, but it was still really good. He chuckled at my face before sitting down next to me.

“Oh so first she steals clothes, and now she’s taking our drinks?” Adam joked. Ever since this morning, they’ve been messing with me all day, but I loved it. It was like I was back with my own boys again.

I looked at him confused, before remembering that I was still wearing Will’s hoodie, so I set down my drink and took it off, handing it back to him.

“No, you didn’t have to. I’m fine,” he said, trying to push it back to me.

“Well, I don’t really need it anymore, and I don’t wanna accidentally wear it home,” I persisted, trying to give it back. He grabbed it and sat it between us.

“I’ll keep it here if you need it,” He spoke softly as he leaned back and turned his attention towards the guys.

I just shook my head with a small laugh before grabbing my drink, taking a sip, and doing the same.

The guys and I all chatted for a few hours, the alcohol making Will and I a little more loose-lipped as the night went on, him even making us more drinks. They asked me questions about my band and how the tour was going. I may have been a little too honest, but it didn’t affect them. I even asked them for advice on the best course of action on drastically changing the sound of our music, now that I was getting more comfortable with the thought of it. They gave really good advice, but a lot of it was that I had to talk to my own bandmates about it, which made sense.

After we were a few drinks in, Will leaned his head on my shoulder as we all talked. He was still awake, the alcohol seemingly making him want to get comfier, and if I learned anything the past two days, it was that Will was a cuddler. He loved physical touch, and the closer to you, the better, so I wasn’t shocked when he eventually sank into the couch, cuddling into my side as we all chatted. And I knew it was normal when the rest of the guys didn’t even blink an eye at it.

Though, after some time, he became dead weight against me, and when I looked over, I saw that he was out like a light. I did my best to keep the conversation going, but between the warmth of his body heat and the alcohol, I felt my eyes getting heavier.

The rest of the guys started to notice, so they eventually excused themselves to either head to bed or hang out somewhere else, saying they didn’t want to wake him.

With that, I leaned my head on Will’s and eventually slipped into a deep sleep.

I woke up to the feeling of someone looming over me, so with a scrunched face, I opened my eyes and saw Moke and Austin looking at Austin’s phone, giggling about something. I tried to raise an arm to rub my eyes, but realized they were stuck. Looking down, I saw that at some point in the night, Will and I had laid down, and now he was sprawled out on top of me, practically pinning me to the couch. He was still completely out, just pure dead weight on top of me.

A yawn escaped my lips, making the two goofballs aware that I was now awake, and they giggled down at me.

“What are you two idiots up to?” I softly asked, my voice coming out harsh and raspy, either from the alcohol or the fact that I don’t think I shut up for a single second yesterday.

Austin turned his phone around with a mischievous grin on his face, showing me that he had taken a picture of Will and me and posted it to his story, captioning it, “These two don’t know how to party.”

I finally managed to slide a hand out from between Will and I and reached for his phone, wanting a closer look. I couldn’t tell from my angle, but Will was completely intertwined with my body. Our legs looped around each other and I was using one of his arms as a pillow as his other arm draped across my chest. He was using one of my tits as a pillow, which made me giggle. We were both out cold, Will’s mouth slightly agape as if he was snoring. I gave the phone back to Austin after rolling my eyes.

“So, am I just stuck like this now?” I ask the two, making them chuckle.

“Yep. He can sleep for a whole day if he’s comfortable enough, so good luck!” Moke responded. I almost let out a groan, but didn’t because I would feel bad if I woke him.

“So I’m trapped under a dead body and you two are just taking pictures? What the fuck?” I teasingly whisper yelled. They both walked away with suppressed giggles, leaving me to wait for Will to wake up.

With my now free arm, I searched around me, trying to feel if there was anything for me to entertain myself with. My body was hanging ever so slightly off the edge of the couch, so I had a feeling my phone slipped out of my pocket at some point in the night. I couldn’t move my head, or any other of my body for that matter, but thankfully my hand finally touched the cold screen and I did my best to grab it with a contorted arm.

I turn it on after finally picking it up, and saw that it was already noon. The guys and I were up for a while last night, so I’m not too shocked that we slept this late, but it felt weird that I had spent more time with Will than anyone else this whole break. But at the same time, I didn’t care. I literally live with three of them and I’m going to be spending the next almost three months with the other five, and this will be the only time I’ll get to spend with Will for who knows how long.

Maybe I could see if my boys wanted to hang out with the Lorna Shore boys. I would invite everyone else, but with everything happening, I haven’t been too close with any of them lately. I’ll mention it to Will later.

I finally open my phone and click on the messages I saw that I had. There were a few from my boys, telling me that they missed me and they wished I was partying with them and everyone else. I wish I was too, but with the state that my life was in right now, I’d much rather spend my time with the person who was most unrelated to the tour and everyone in it. I couldn’t be more thankful to have run into Will. He was everything I needed at this time. Someone who brought excitement into my life, distracting me from everything else. Someone who, even though it was a terrible mistake, managed to heal a small part of me the other night. A healing intimate encounter, proving that not every man I got this close with in my 20s was going to hurt me in some way. Purely a quick rebound that we both agreed wouldn’t affect anything, followed by getting an insane amount of support in both my music and with the stress that this whole fiasco has caused. And a new friend. An amazing friend. He was so different from anyone else I had in my life at the moment that it just felt so good to be around him, especially because he came with a completely different friend circle, so I could have peace from everything while still being social.

I know what I did was terrible. While it wasn’t like I cheated on Noah, I already feel so much guilt everyday since our fight at the bar, so knowing I may possibly be making the tension across the bands even worse kills me. But the truth is, I just don’t think my brain and body knew how to handle having a friend like Will in my life at first. Sure, Finn is one of my biggest supporters, but since the day I met him, all those years ago, he’s been nothing but a brother to me. And my brain just couldn’t see Matt as any different. Yeah, we pretended to like each other, just to piss people off, but my mind instantly added him into the same category as my bandmates.

But meeting Will was completely different. Not as different as meeting Noah, that’s for sure, but he was the first guy I’ve met that I just instantly felt completely comfortable with. Apparently so comfortable, I let him see me naked within the first few hours of meeting. But I don’t see him as a future partner or even a regular fling or anything like that. We both just misunderstood our intimate connection at first. He has so much love in his heart that I can’t even blame myself for instantly searching for a way to feel it more. While I should’ve just earned it by being his friend, seeing as he treats everyone with this amount of love and support, I think I just really needed someone like him at this point in my life to show me an abundance of it for a night. Now that I’ve gotten it, I feel like something in me is slowly healing.

And even now, something in me slowly heals as I feel his breath against my chest as he sleeps. The overwhelming comfort of being this physically close to someone and being able to enjoy it platonically. I know fans are having a field day with this, and I know that if any of my band mates or any of the Bad Omens boys see the picture on Austin’s story or from the paparazzi last night, it’s most likely going to cause problems, but for once, I don’t want to have something be a problem. It will be rare to see Will after this week, so I’m going to soak in his comfort and support until I’m forced back to reality and have to deal with life by myself, including explaining myself to the others.

I did my best to text them back, having to type with one hand that was hovering unsupported over my face and still deep in thought over how insane my life has been recently. But the movement from the heavy weight on my body almost made me drop my phone on my face.

Will shifted in his sleep, turning slightly and pulling himself closer to me. He dug his face between my shoulder and neck, probably shielding his eyes from the light that shone through the living room windows. I close my phone and set it on my chest, not wanting to drop it and scare him. He let out a tired groan as he stretched and pulled closer to me, and I couldn’t help but giggle at the tickle of his face and breath on my neck.

He paused for a second once he heard it, finally realizing the position he was in, before giggling with me.

“Good morning,” his groggy voice spoke into my neck, tickling me even more, making me squirm and try to pull away at the feeling.

“Good morning, dead weight.” I exaggeratedly huffed out. He lifted his face and looked at me with half lidded, tired eyes and a cheeky grin before trying to push himself off of me without hurting me.

I took an exaggerated deep breath as I sat up, teasing him. He shook his head with a smile and yawned.

“By the way, I think Austin might be worse than paparazzi,” I said as I stretched, needing to loosen my cramped muscles from not being able to move them all night.

He gave me a confused look, so I told him to check Austin’s story. He took a minute to search for his phone. Finally finding it between the couch cushions, he typed in Austin’s username and checked, immediately laughing.

“Everyone’s gonna think we’re dating,” he chuckled, rubbing his face.

“I’ve never cared about fan speculation since they’ll grasp onto anything these days, but this is probably gonna cause some issues for my situation if I don’t clear the air.”

“Yeah..” he dragged out, “I mean, it’s no problem for me. If anything, this will definitely help keep the fan’s eyes off of you and Noah until you get everything situated.”

I thought about it for a moment, and he was right. Fans love digging into our personal lives, so if there wasn’t a distraction, I know rumors and stories would spread over how they see Noah and I interact. Hell, there's fans who think I’m with all of them, even my bandmates, so if they just focused on my so-called ‘relationship’ with Will, I won’t have to worry about them constantly talking about Noah and me.

“Honestly, this may help a lot of issues. As long as I inform mine and his band what’s actually happening, this will save us from a lot of heat on the internet.” I said after a few moments, “Oh! Speaking of, are you busy today?”

He thought for a moment, trying to get his tired brain to run its gears.

“Not that I know of, but I can also ask the guys,” he finally answered, suppressing a yawn.

“Would you be down to meet my boys? I just feel bad that I’m gonna be spending more of our break with you and not with them.” He let out a sleepy giggle after thinking about it for a second.

“Or, you can always just hang out with them? Without me?” he teased. I felt a blush creepy up to my cheeks, but not before playing it off and faking a gasp.

“You don’t want to hang out with me anymore?” I pulled an exaggerated pout. He instantly rolled his eyes with a tired smile.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” He said lazily, making me laugh.

“I’m kidding. I just figured that I’d hang out with you until you kicked me out since I probably won’t see you for a while after this, and the boys would love to meet you and possibly the rest of the band if they’re down.” A frown creeped up on his face as I spoke.

“Wait..You’re right. I won’t see you after this,” he whined, “Yeah, I’ll ask the guys if they wanna join, but I’m not letting you leave until you’re getting on that damn tour bus.”

“Does that mean you’re joining me when I go back to the hotel to change?” I asked, laughing.

“Yes.” he stated, bluntly, making me laugh more.

“Okay, let me text the boys, and then we can head over,” I chuckled out. He nodded and stood to go talk to his bandmates as I grabbed my phone and texted Finn.

Y/N- On a scale from 1 to 10, how excited would you and the boys be to hang out with Lorna Shore today?

Finnegan- ASKING THEM NOW OMGOMGOMG

I shook my head and laughed at his text. Finn wasn’t as big of a fan of them as I was, but when I played their music enough, you can’t not enjoy it a little. But then, I realized I may have to clarify something.

Y/N- I feel like this may be obvious, but this invitation is for you three only. I’m not in the mood for awkward conversations right now❤️

Finnegan- 🫡 Yes, maam

Y/N- …maybe Matt can come, too

Finnegan- He’s not at the house right now, so you should text him

Y/N- will do. I’ll let you know where we’re meeting up. Give me like 2 hours to head back to my hotel and change

Finnegan- 👀 so you spent the night?

Y/N- IN A HOUSE FULL OF 5 OTHER GUYS SO SHUT IT

I laughed as I closed out of our chat and opened Matt’s. I sent him a text, but he didn’t immediately respond, so I just closed my phone and got all my things together and waited for Will so we could head back to my hotel.

Part Eight

[pixie-felix]

I totally meant to send this in before any other asks but I think I read your little health update in the morning time that day then forgot about it / got distracted by cuteness aggression I.N by the time I was able to write in and didn’t send this.

But I love you and I’m wishing the best for you! Charging up all the sparkles! ✨❤️ I don’t have any advice (and boy do I wish I did) but sending big hugs. I’m glad that you’re doing a little bit better it seems!

Funny thing when I read your update in that post it prompted me to think about imagery/extended metaphor that describes how I think MY brain functions and balanced its problems because it seemed a little different from yours and I started to type that out but was like “wait there’s NO way to make this as concise as it needs to be to keep it from derailing the whole point of this”. Conciseness is not my strength. But there’s a slight, small possibility you haven’t noticed that since I’m able to attempt self editing my sentences to make them make sense when writing. Whereas when I’m talking irl, I feel the need to over explain every detail and it takes forever for me to actually finish a sentence / get to the point. Overexplaining, and the tangents giving the history of everything. Unless it’s a day where I only have the energy / mental capacity to give one words answers anytime someone talks to me. UGH. Leaving this paragraph in because maybe you’ll find it funny that I totally derailed while talking about NOT doing that.

Another funny thing I realized is that one of the little stories on my list of “smut offerings for pixie” is a technically two-parter that involves mandatory movie nights and ice cream. Two things I’ve already used before.

But you have that to look forward to! Among others. Thank you for taking all the time to read and respond to my messages, you’re the best. Love you, big hugs, treat yourself! 😘

- 🥝

KIWI YOU ANON YOU DARLING 😭 I don't know what I did to deserve all your nice words, but I'm very grateful that you're in my life. I'm usually pretty anxious about messaging people, anon or not, so I'm extra grateful that you reached out with your first ask and started sharing your thoughts with me and letting me add in to them.

I solemnly swear that have never read anything you've sent and thought "well, this could've been more concise" or "I wish kiwi anon would use less words", (I will never want you to use less words, I want all of your words, your brain is one of my favourite places to hang out) so your self editing is definitely working.

Please know that you don't have to self edit here, I love a good ramble. And a tangent.

I don't know if it's the same, but in real life I "over explain" a lot. Lore and connections are my thing. Seriously, "Story Time with Pixie" is a genuine thing with my friends. It's kind of a running joke: seeing how long we hang out before ✨something✨ happens that reminds me of ✨this other thing✨. And then I'll have a whooooole tale to tell.

I used to (and occasionally sometimes still) get very self concious about it, how my brain interconnects everything and I end up using 100 words when 10 would do...

I'm really glad you left your explanitory paragraph in! See, to me it didn't feel like you derailed at all- though I'm sure you self edited it. It might be an autism thing, but my brain likes as much information and backstory as possible, so to me there is no such thing as over explaining.

I know I used the term a couple of paragraphs up, but the more I think about it the more I realise that yeah, to me there's no such thing as over explaining. Tell me all of the things. Give me all the little connective bits and random thoughts and facts.

That's how conversation is supposed to work, isn't it? I guess to the people who don't think that way, I just don't interact with much (probably because I'll find them a little boring and feel like I need to the entertainment for them).

....I feel like I've gone off on SEVERAL tangents here, but every time I try to read this back my brain thinks up more things to say and it's getting very loud in my head 😅.

TL,DR: (lmao the irony here) I don't want conciseness! I want you and all your thoughts! Please don't feel like you need to edit yourself here, this is our cosy safe space for our thoughts and rambles. Just be comfortable and write what you want, because I'll always read it with a big silly smile on my face.

YOU HAVE A LIST OF SMUT OFFERINGS FOR ME!? 😭🫣 I feel very blessed. And also kind of deity like, the idea of having offerings. I'll make sure not to let it go to my head. I am but the vessel and the smut gods work through me 🙏.

I WANT TO HEAR MORE ABOUT THIS TWO PARTER WITH MANDATORY MOVE NIGHTS AND ICE CREAM (pretty please). Also the rest of them.

The next thing of yours I'll reply to is probably going to be the vampire post, because it is glorious and I think I'm starting to have enough brain power to give it the attention it deserves. (Also, linking back to this post: THE LORE DROP. YES. THANK YOU. 🙏🙏🙏)

I hope you are keeping well kiwi anon 🫶 thank you for still sending me things and not getting mad when it takes me a while to reply. My brain might not love me hugely but it loves you! As does the rest of me 🫶

...that doesn't sound creepy at all.

[waywardstation]

I'm a little sad to see this blog mostly shares polls nowadays... I miss the AU talk and random chatter about ideas or headcanons, your opinions on things and the wip wednesdays I'm still happy to see your art in between all those polls. (before forgetting: you might have already lost but to me Train of Thought IS and WILL BE my favorite submas AU. No contest. Nope. Never.) But yeah, missing the old days here. Dearly. Verrrry much. Don't get this wrong, you're either probably still recovering, you're insanely busy or maybe even moved on... either way wishing you have fun with wherever tracks take you! I was happy to be on this blog in it's prime.

Hey Anon! I will be honest with you on this cause I do want to explain what has happened with this blog lately, and where I plan to go with it. (It’s not going anywhere, don’t worry!!)

There are a few reasons for the inactivity. Part of it is just me recovering from university work. I pushed myself way harder than I should have for way longer than I should have, and now I’m kinda trying to just recalibrate my brain and mental health. It’s really foggy and I struggle with concentration and comprehension a lot currently. (And this is also why I haven’t really answered asks, when I tried to answer Papa Ingo AU asks while like this, it really only led to getting confused and correctional asks in response, because I kept getting things wrong, and that made things really overwhelming.)

AND SECOND! Most of my free time right now is not being spent on this blog, because most of it is going into writing and editing. Concentration and comprehension issues are making it take a lot longer than I’d like it to right now, but I have a lot of content on the way!

- four new chapters of HFBE

- three chapters of IWLYB

- a five chapter, 25k+ word fic titled Rain Check

- another fic titled Entropy Syndrome

None of these are out yet because Entropy Syndrome’s narrative covers a concept that spans across all of these other fics and chapters, and it’s adjusted a lot of content that’s making me rewrite things several times over to ensure it’s properly written in and connected ^^;

And lastly, sadly a lot of it is just irrational anxiety. I stopped posting for a while for university, and anxiety makes me irrationally scared to start again because it always makes it hard to start back at something once I’ve stopped ^^; (I’m hoping dumping all these fics will alleviate this when I’m done with them though! Fic posting is what diminished my anxiety enough to start this blog in the first place!!)

BELIEVE ME I miss how this blog used to be as well, but my mentality is still sort of recovering from what I did to it for four years straight, and I can’t really force it to keep going more right now. It’s certainly a process, but I’m recovering!

Lots of stuff is coming soon! I have a few minutes drabbles on hand, I will attempt to start posting those while I keep working on these fics.

Thank you for the ask anon!! It means a lot that you liked this blog so much. I still love it, and I’m taking care of myself as best I can so that I can get back to running this blog at full efficiency!!

Thank you again Anon!!! ^^

[rdiowx]

FRANKENSTEIN FRANK IERO

Now posted on my ao3: Cndlewax

Frankenstein frank iero x gn! Reader

Ik i said this would be longer but I’ve been working on this for days and i actually dont know what i was going to do with it lmk if i should go on with the series

Now i when was trying to figure out which Frank era would fit Frankenstein i was thinking revenge so thats what i went with and is described here. However now that i think about it, Leathermouth and danger days wouldve been viable options (WHY DIDNT I DO DANGER DAYS IM LITERALLY SOBBING)

Reader is technically Frankenstein and Frank is Frankensteins monster, its like 1930s id like to think because of the 1931 Frankenstein movie, Reader is a mad scientist, Reader is lowkey kinda insane im not gonna lie (because who thinks of this kinda thing), Mikey shows up i just feel like he’s Frankensteins assistant Material, kind of detailed mention of limbs being sewn and stapled together, i mean technically Frank is put in an electric chair…, usage of Y/n,(i do plan on making this a series however if i do id probably move it to ao3 and it would be random chapters of teaching frank random things).

The village ‘mad scientist’ also known as Y/n, You had been rumored to be working on something for years, and you have. Today it should finally be done. You were currently hunched over your project, a man covered in staples, stitches and all sorts of other things. You make sure each limb is sturdy, sewing or stapling multiple times if you have to. When he comes to life —and you will make sure he will— you wouldnt want him to fall over. You need to make sure he can hold his body weight up. you are pulled out of your focus when you hear the lab door open, “I’ve brought good news.” Mikey exclaimed, holding a larger than average beaker in his hands.

You broke out into an extremely unsettling smile, Mikey only smiles back, used to your behavior having been friends with you since you were kids. “Did you get it Mikey?” You asked, at the edge of your seat, He only nods in response. You laugh and spin in your chair towards him, you grab and kiss his face enthusiastically. He playfully gags and wipes his face, having set the beaker down at your work table.

“What would i ever do without you Michael?” You exclaimed, Taking the beaker and quickly making your way to your experiment. Using your lab table to set him at a 90 degree angle you took the top of his head off, you needed to connect his brain stems. You needed to detach multiple places in order to do it, luckily you thought ahead and thought not to stitch these places before hand. Mikey made sure you had enough light to complete this task, holding a simple flashlight above your work area.

After attaching everything correctly you stapled and sewed, it would be a shame if all your hard work went to waste due to some poor patch job. You had been working on this for years, and finally you could finish it. You had done this once before, not anything near as big as this project, but on a salamander when you and Mikey were 16. The day you revived that salamander was the day you earned the ‘mad scientist’ title. “We’ve waited years for this Mikey, i dont think i possibly couldve gotten this done without you.” You said, wheeling over the machine that was going to bring your experiment to life. Mikey smiles proudly as you looked his way, quickly moving to your side as you waved your hand for him to come to you.

“You’re fucking crazy.” Mikey teased, smiling your way before putting his metal goggles —which you made to fit his glasses perscription because he complained about not being able to see every time— on for protection and stepping away from the now powered up machine. You only smile in response, putting your metal welding headgear on before pulling the last lever. The light from the electricity filled the room, you were sure any nosy civilian would be curious if they were outside right now. Turning off the machine you lift your headgear off before checking your experiment. Seeing his fingers twitch filled you with hope, a quiet groan filled your ears looking over, Mikey had a smug look on his face. You looked back towards the now living thing, His hazel eyes looking straight forward. “I feel like he needs a name, what are you thinking?” Michael asked, tilting his head before taking his goggles all the way off and setting them aside.

“Frank.” You replied simply, taking in the mans appearance.

He had a slight green discoloration, covered from head to toe in stitches and staples. you could see the stitches make indents and stretch his skin as well as with the staples, you were lucky he didnt have pain receptors or this would be a lot harder to pull off. A simple screw on the side of his head it was a decently sized one but not huge, maybe as big or slightly bigger than your hand. It was a screw that required a Phillips screw driver even though it was turnable by hand, his eyes had bags and his hair was greasy. His hair was nothing you had seen before, the sides were a light blonde and he seemed to have a mohawk but it was slicked down by the sheer amount of grease that had built up over the years and the front of his hair sat in the middle of his face. He was wearing an old suit you found in your closet, you dont know who it belonged to but you didn’t exactly care all that much. He looked to have had piercings from were you stapled his face, But it kinda fit him after all you could always fix it later. After a while you realized you would have to teach him how to do things again, he’s not what he once was. “Alright (Y/n), i have to go. Gerard is waiting for me to get back home and its getting dark.” Michael informed, hanging his lab coat on his designated hook by the door. “Be safe Michael, wouldnt want to lose my favorite lab partner.” You laughed, Michael rolled his eyes on the way out but not before shouting “im your only lab partner!” You could swear you could hear him mumble a quiet “Im your only friend at that.” Making you roll your eyes, you couldn’t be mad if he was right.

Now you were sat in your lab with your own creation staring back at you. ‘Lets see what you can still do.’ You thought to yourself before walking around to the still seated man. You lifted his arm to see if he could hold it up, He turned his head to face you and surprisingly he could, these are great signs. you sat in your spin chair and rolled your way to your clipboard that was on your desk. You needed to write stuff for your experiment down, right now you were the happiest you had been in years. You couldn’t suppress the slight smile on your face as you tested the staple covered man. After finishing your tests you wanted to move on to his speech, since you were the one who put him together you knew he was capable of doing so.

The only problem was you didnt know how, sure you knew how to talk but you didnt really know how to hold a conversation, if it wasn’t for Mikey you dont think you would talk at all if it wasn’t to yourself. Being the village scientist meant you were always in the lab, you hadn’t talked to anyone but Mikey or sometimes his older brother Gerard in years. You dont even remeber the last time you even left the lab, it was your house and Mikey did all of your errands. You supposed you could start with the basics, ‘hello’ or your name maybe even his. If you started with hello you’d have to explain what a greeting is, if you started with your or his name you might have to explain what a name even is and how to use it. You hadn’t noticed the man move from his spot, you were so busy staring off into space you didnt notice the prominent frown on your face as you stared at the wall. When you finally snapped out of it you panicked as you watched the man touch stuff on your lab table, almost spilling a tube of something before catching it and looking at you with guilt ridden face.

You quickly made your way to him, taking the tube out of his hand and putting it in its correct place. “Um, okay don’t- don’t touch anything on this table..got it?” You spoke, gently steering the man by his hand to sit at your desk chair. You pushed him into said chair maybe a bit rougher than you meant to, however he didnt seem to mind. “Okay.. your name is- can you talk?” You asked, you couldve maybe put in a little more effort but this was your first time doing anything like this. You only got a head tilt in response, it was like he could understand you but he couldn’t answer. You furrowed your eyebrows, Your reaction caused him to frown a little. “‘My name is Frank’ Can you say that?” You questioned, he could only get out ‘Frank’. It wasnt much but you could work with it after all you weren’t sure of what he was capable of, Sure he had human parts but he wasnt fully functional right now.

“Frank, frank is you.” You stated, pointing a finger towards him. “You?” He questioned, his index finger now pointing towards himself. You smiled before shaking your head, This caused Frank to smile as well however he looked sort of confused. You tried again pointing your finger towards him, “when i stick my finger out towards you it means ‘you’, when you stick your finger towards yourself it means ‘me’.” You stated, a look of realization crossed his face before he pointed to himself again. “Frank is me?” He asked, letting out a noise of what seemed to be happiness after you confirmed it. He was going to be trouble but you knew it was worth it, after all, you wanted this.

[jenslvt]

100 likes Masterlist

🌟 Welcome to My Little Corner of Chaos!

Hi there! I'm Jenslvt, and if you stumbled upon this blog, welcome to my multi-stan haven where fandoms, daydreams, and a sprinkle of brain rot collide!

Who Am I?

✨ A multi-stan forever juggling my love for various idols, characters, and universes.

✨ A creative soul with a penchant for "person/character x reader/OC" content—because who doesn’t love diving into their fantasy world?

✨ Sometimes a little too obsessed, so don’t be surprised if I drop random brain rot out of nowhere (sorry, not sorry).

What to Expect Here:

💌 "Person/Character x Reader/OC" Content: From fluffy daydreams to angsty scenarios, I post my favorite headcanons, drabbles, and images that inspire me.

🎭 Multi-Fandom Madness: K-pop idols? Anime characters? Fictional crushes? If I stan them, they’ll probably make an appearance here.

🌀 Brain Rot Zone: You know those random, hyper-specific thoughts about your faves at 3 AM? Yeah, I’ll be sharing those too.

📸 Visual Feels: Aesthetic edits, mood boards, or just plain chef’s kiss images to feed your imagination.

A Little About Me:

🌌 Forever lost in a daydream.

📚 Obsessed with slow-burn romance and intense emotional connections (my kryptonite).

🎶 My playlists are a chaotic mix of K-pop, OSTs, and whatever makes my heart feel something.

Let’s Be Friends!

Whether you’re here to scream over shared biases, lose yourself in an angsty scenario, or just vibe with random brain rot, you’re in the right place. Feel free to reblog, comment, or send an ask—I’d love to connect with fellow fans and dreamers!

Thanks for stopping by, and remember: this is a safe space for all the fangirl/boy/person energy your heart can handle. 💕

Stay dreamy,

Jenslvt.

[maleksrami]

A girl I lost contact with 7 years ago (and I met her in the 1D fandom) messaged me a few days ago and it really hit me that this was real. this really happened. I was paralysed when I found out - can't eat, can't think, can't focus - but I pushed it all to the back of my head bc I didn't want to deal with this. And her message just put a new blow to my denial. I don't know how to process this. The band and Liam have been such a deep part of my life, but I'm no longer in that timeframe. Life moved on, and I moved on. I feel sad and I do cry. And I can't talk to other people about this for fear of crying in front of them. I feel everything and nothing, and I still think I'm not properly grieving. Yet, I got so mad at a random person on Threads for a very stupid and insensitive post. There is so much going on in my personal life and I feel like I'm stretched in so many directions. I just want to take a week off somewhere secluded so I can deal with my brain properly.

i understand. this is a part of grieving even if it doesn’t feel like it. when we are in a state of shock it’s difficult to keep our thoughts and feelings in order, so we just try to avoid them altogether. like a coping mechanism.

when it relates to something/someone that was a major part of you for a specific timeframe that you later grew a bit more distant from (i relate to this too), it’s like being doused with ice water that you thought would always stay relatively warm because that thing/person represented that feeling to you when it mattered the most, however and whenever.

but i think our emotions being of all over the place and experiencing each stage of grief in different situations is a true sign of that love being real. even if it’s numb right now…like you said, we all have our own lives that continue to go on around us and there are other things we are going through. this is a really painful loop to have been thrown for.

i’ve been reconnecting with people too. what an amazing gift though, right? to have had something like this in our lives that connected us to people who still think about us and associate us with the thing we shared a passion for? no matter how much time passes or where we are in life now, with or without it? that’s rare. it’s really special and he gave that to us.

[crepes-suzette-373]

This is just a huge long winded post about how Germa reminds me of Japanese history and mythology, and some Wano things. Just so that it's all in one place and not scattered.

Very wild and goes all over the place, it's that conspiracy board with strings. I've been enabled by enablers.

WCI:

Related to the Nobunaga post (you probably need to read that one first).

Deep, deep reach here, and I feel like it's just bonkers connecting WCI to something as historically significant in Japan as The Honnouji Incident, and it doesn't even seem relevant at all. But. It was well known that Nobunaga was killed on the verge of reaching a big success.

He was on his way to oversee reinforcements being led to fight one of his biggest rivals, and anticipating that this will finally bring them down. Then one of his commanders betrayed him and he died with his heir. On the night before his death, he was having a glamorous tea party with the court nobles, not suspecting that anything was wrong.

Germa thought they were going to secure a big profit by allying with Big Mum, but are betrayed and they all almost died in a tea party where many VIPs from all over the world were present.

There's a lot of rain during WCI. I think it's just meant to relate to Sanji's mental state, because rain = sadness is a very common trope.

Still, very famous conspiracy related to the above historical incident was that the commander who did the betrayal was said to have written a poem that has the line translated something along the lines of "Now, the rain falls, on the fifth month" before committing the deed. This poem supposedly contains a hidden message that reveals his intention to betray.

Like I said the connection is very flimsy, that's why I doubt there's relevance.

Also in terms of more number 6 stuff, the above incident happened in history in the sixth lunar month (also in June, according to Western calendar).

Japanese crests:

More randomly throwing nonsense at the wall, but speaking of Japanese tradition, Ichiji's belt somewhat reminds me of some samurai house crest. I had been thinking about this a lot since I've been going through traditional Japanese designs in making the youkai AU:

And on the subject of Japanese designs, "lightning/thunder" is actually traditionally depicted as a "square spiral". In patterning (like clothes or paintings), it can sometimes be embellished into a shape that vaguely resembles a swastika.

I just thought the swirly pattern is interesting. It's square, while Sanji and the others are round spiral shapes, so it might not be relevant. I just thought of this because of the lightning bolt in the Germa skull.

Wano:

Also. Probably just design coincidence, but... somehow their silhouette is similar (same big fluffy hair, the coat's cut flares like a kimono):

I mean, not saying the Vinsmoke family is related to the Kozuki, just the Wano people in general. I mentioned once that I thought young Judge kind of looks like young Kin'emon.

Last thought. There is a conspiracy in Japan, where famous warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune didn't die like history said. He actually went to the mainland and became Genghis Khan.

This was part of what I was thinking, when I thought the Vinsmokes might have Wano origins. It's a story of "Japanese hero leaves Japan, becomes a ruler elsewhere".

Other random things that are probably even more not relevant, but doesn't help my conspiracy brain:

One of Nobunaga's sons who survived the chaos ended up in service of the conqueror who succeeded in unifying Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (apparently according to Japanese text it's not Tokugawa like people think). This Hideyoshi is famously nicknamed "Monkey" in Japan (regardless of whether this is true or not)

Said son is infamous in Japanese perception for being "stupid" and "useless" because he is just absolutely terrible in warfare (not sure if this is necessarily true either, but well, I'm no historian). He's apparently very good in the arts, though.

In the linked post I mentioned of there being another son whose name is literally number 3 and 7 (Sanshichi) that makes me just giggle because of Sanji being 3 and 2. That third son is not the one who survived, but this one and his older brother was born so closely in timing (from different mothers) that people have argued that the order of the birth was incorrectly recorded.

Those two brothers were sometimes said to have issues with each other because of this. I don't think this is relevant, but this knowledge just makes Niji and Sanji's interaction seem funny to me.

[undinegeist]

idk what this is, to be honest. I’ve had it written for a minute, got around to rereading and fixing today at random, thought it was decent enough to post. I suppose we can say it could be a series.

And now, a bit of background? This is (I guess) a made-up MCR tour in which Y/N is the guitarist for G Way’s (fictional) wife’s band.

- 1 - 2 -

a small but important disclaimer: I get why this storyline might suggest a connection to Lindsay but this is purely something that came out of my brain; I’m not here to comment on their relationship, and anything here that resonates with something in their real life is unintentional, even if this did start loosely based on Gerard Way’s life as it’s known publicly.

-xx- G -xx-

It starts with Lana and her band; I’m catching up to them in New Orleans.

They’re opening for us on the new tour; we left everything, our house, our kid, the relative sanity of staying in one place…I’m still not okay about it, but when she insisted we needed the money, I really couldn’t argue.

Lana wanted a new guitarist; after the mess with the last one, I’d hoped it’d be a girl. And it was.

They’d started the tour on their own; I’d had to stay home, looking for someone to babysit, eventually convincing my parents to come down and stay with Hayley, though Lana yelled at me for it, said it shouldn’t have been them, that we should have found someone else…I couldn’t tell her we couldn’t afford to.

The first time I saw Y/N was late one night when I slipped in to watch their show.

I’d been away so long, I hadn’t heard anything, hadn’t heard of the mess that had already been made, hadn’t realized anything was wrong.

She comes down from the stage sometime around the middle of the set, seething, hair all over her face, hiding her eyes, the only giveaway to her anger the way she flies off, down, almost tripping on the stairs.

I steady her, instinctively. “Are you okay?”

She’s still, for what feels like forever and no time at all, but then she’s gone without a sound, like she was never there, and I spend the rest of the set worrying about it.

-xx-

“Lan, what happened up there?” I know I shouldn’t ask her this the moment she’s coming off the stage, but I can’t stop thinking of that kid.

She sighs, rolls her eyes. “Nothing. Y/N’s just an annoying little bitch, can’t be normal to save her fucking life…”

“She’s just a kid. Don’t you remember what it was like?”

I’d wanted to run from the stage so many times; when I felt overwhelmed, when things went wrong, when the high took me down, made me feel like I was about to die, the lights so bright I could barely see, barely breathe…it was never easy.

“She’s not that deep, Gerard. She’s just trying to fuck with me because we had a fight last week. I should just fucking fire her…”

“Would you have liked me to fire you?” The words are out before I can think them through, sharper than I should be, inviting a fight; we’re still at the venue, why the fuck don’t I ever think?

Sometimes, I wish I’d fired her then; I try not to, hate that I still think that way, that everything is so hard even now, that I’m not better, even after all this time…that I’m probably never going to be better.

I do something I shouldn’t; turn and leave, realizing I don’t want to do this now, don’t have to do this now…knowing she can’t follow me, because she has to greet fans.

-xx-

I’ve already got my own room, separate from Lana’s, and that’s where I’m headed; blow off some steam before she gets back, to either torment me for the little scene back at the venue or drag me out to dinner…most likely, though? It’ll be both, and I’ll wish I hadn’t come…the rest of the guys are only joining us right before our first concert.

I see that girl then, still wearing the clothes from the show, lying on her back on a loveseat in the lobby, guitar on the floor, reading.

I know it’s a bad idea, but I turn and go her way, thinking I need to check on her, but also that I have no idea what happened tonight, and I should probably find out; Lana will never tell me now.

“Hey.”

She starts, sits up in a flash, dropping the book, but then recovers. “Hey.”

“Would you mind if I talked to you for a minute?”

She shakes her head, slides sideways to give me room; I pick up her book, look it over…a rockstar book.

I bite my lip on a smirk, thinking I get where her look comes from; I had that phase, where I wasn’t entirely sure what I was up to, so I borrowed and borrowed until it fit…to eventually become me.

“So…is this your favorite?”

She’s wary, but after a moment, she relaxes slightly. “One of. Why?”

“No reason, it’s just interesting. What else do you like?”

“Anything.”

“Really?”

“The more you know, the better.”

She straightens slightly, less on guard. “I’m sorry I didn’t…I’m sorry I ran away like that, earlier…I’m not all that good at being human.”

“I don’t think anyone really is. What happened, though?”

She sighs. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Last week somewhere, Lana did something and I went off, we had a fight, and then tonight, it just…I felt like I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t have left in the middle of the set either, but sometimes I just can’t control myself…”

I bite my tongue on the admission that Lana can’t do that, either. “It happens.”

She laughs, too bitter for someone so young. “Yeah, but so what? I’m not supposed to let my feelings get in the way.”

“Feelings are always in the way.”

This makes her look back at me, silent now, and I’m thinking I hope she doesn’t go, when all hell breaks lose…Lana, coming at the two of us, still dressed as she’d been at the venue, no discretion, despite my always telling her to not draw attention to herself between shows…about to do even more of that.

“What the fuck are you doing here?!”

“Lan, calm down.” I hold her back, though we’re too close already, people are staring, why doesn’t she ever think of what this looks like?

“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down! This little bitch ruined my set, yet still has the gall to sit here talking to you…”

“I was sitting here talking to her…Lana, please, don’t do this.”

The last thing we need is a scandal a week before the tour.

“Don’t get in my way, Gerard! This isn’t any of your fucking business…”

I’m so distracted, she slips off me when Y/N goes for the elevators.

“Aren’t you going to apologize to me?”

They’re in each others’ faces, I might as well be invisible.

“For not playing along with your bullshit?”

“You’re a stupid little slut…you’re nothing.”

“At least that makes me not you.”

Lana doesn’t follow; everyone’s staring, some people with their phones out, filming every second…then Lana’s moving back to me, and I know she wants me on her side, but I can’t, won’t…not again.

I’ve done that too often, to my detriment, to hers too, because I give her too much.

“I don’t want her here, Gee. We need to…”

“We don’t need to anything. You said this wasn’t my problem, so it isn’t…deal with it yourself.”

“Where are you going?!”

“Nowhere.”

-xx-

[just-a-carrot]

HELLO CARROT!

Given how apparently I’m immune to playing OW games without recording them now, you’ll audibly hear my thoughts within the next few weeks (I’m posting tomorrow because I’m an absolute maniac), BUT I WANNA SAY THINGS HERE BECAUSE APPRECIATION CAN’T WAIT THAT LONG!

Also Merry Christmas! It’s midnight when I’m writing this, so ‘tis the day of caroling and festivities and woah. Or happy holidays if you don’t celebrate!

Back to the Our Cinderella topic, I have only played Genzou’s route as of now (I’m sure that’s hardly surprising, he is my fav), but the others are next. Their time is coming. They cannot escape. SO SPOILERS FOR GENZOU’S ROUTE!

First off, I saw you included the little dancing in front of TV Iggy pose and the joy I felt seeing it was off the charts. I kept bringing it up, I was very happy. And seeing Iggy moving about was really cool in general, even without the novelty of seeing a suggestion I made exist in the game.

NEXT UP! Genzou drunk singing is an image I didn’t know I needed, thank you for the visual and the brain food. BUT ALSO I HAVE BEEN CONNECTING JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR SONGS TO OW FOR SO LONG AND HEARING THE MUSICAL BE MENTIONED BY GENZOU THREW ME FOR A LOOP. Great musical, very nice. Last Supper reminds me of Genzou and Orlam. Judas’s voice in general reminds me of Orlam. Musicals and OW can further connect in my brain hobby drawer.

The text interactions in general were really funny, actually. I liked the absolute chaos that was Iggy and Genzou’s text conversations, I was laughing while trying to read a lot of the time. I remember the aforementioned drunk singing conversation and the puddle one both got me pretty good while I was reading, and it was overall fun to see more lighthearted conversations from the characters, even if it’s in a different universe from the main canon.

To end things off, ‘cause again 1) I haven’t finished all the game’s routes yet, and 2) you’ll be able to hear my thoughts in the moment if you choose in future anyways, I wanna mention the version of Cinderella Bucks tells at the end? I can’t get it out of my head. When I was thinking about the game after having just played it, my mind kept flashing back to CinderJesus. It absolutely decimated my brain function, but in a very fun way. More slice-of-life Bucks, please, she’s peak comedy.

Very fun game, 10/10, very sad I couldn’t buy the Kirby in the first playthrough but it’s on my to-do list, aaaand yeah! Thank you for making this! I loved every minute of it, and I’m really excited to play the remaining routes once my irl festivities are over.

sob this is so sweet! 😭💕 i'm excited to watch your playthrough too -- things are a bit overwhelming in general for me right now as i'm still with my family and doing a bunch of things, but even if i'm unable to find time this week i will for sure watch once i'm back home next week. i'm really happy that you're enjoying it so much already tho ahhhh and that you're finding it so entertaining 🥺

i'm glad you liked the poses i had so much fun with them and also using some of the suggestions to add more! and LMAO JCS is a musical i grew up watching (my parents used to play the original album in the house lol) so i get the songs stuck in my head a lot, hence why it randomly worked its way into this (among many other random silly little references or inspirations from my own life hahaha). that is extremely funny to me 🤣

i'm glad you liked the convos they were the epitome of silly. and also bucks's part hahaha. i was half-worried it would end up being too ridiculous and random for people because it just got so weird in places hahaha

thank you so much for this lovely message and all of your thoughts and for playing the game! 🥺💕 i look forward to watching the playthrough so i can see all of your reactions in real-time lakjdfs

[paperlovesadness]

Hey, hi & welcome to my corner of Tumblr!

(I'm sorry. Nostalgia made me do it. A little kitsch never killed nobody).

Who am I? What will you find here? What do I post? [Find out below]

Who am I?

She/her • Queer • Capricorn • Somewhere within the EU • 28 yo • Cat person • A hopeless romantic on the inside - a very sarcastic person on the outside. But this is my place to unironically dip into that first one.

I love music with every fibre of my being and decided I want to delve more into talking about it too - which is the origins of this blog. But then - of course - hyperobsessions took over so maybe it's more themed than initially planned (but who cares! That's what this place is here for).

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What will you find here?

Lots of love for and obsessing over:

The Last Shadow Puppets (!)

The Arctic Monkeys

Miles Kane

Also just Alex Turner & all his projects (& his outfits. And his hands. And his love for Miles Kane)

The Beatles (Paul! John! Paul & John!) +

Possibly posts about other dead & retired bands & musicians

Just tons of crazy theories and searches for connections and parallels.

And in general probably quite long rants (I write A LOT & can never contain the amount)

But yeah. This is currently just... A lot of crying over TLSP & milex with a dash of Beatles.

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Some of my little on-going tag series:

TLSPxBeatles - where I collect all the little similarities & references & parallels between Miles & Alex and John & Paul

Al the Capricorn gal - as the name suggests - a collection of times where I find Alex to be very Capricorn (yes I love to track these because I'm one too & love to relate)

Just Twin Flame Things - a collection of posts I find that give off the twin flame vibe. Usually Miles & Alex. Might be John & Paul and other musicians too though sometimes.

Theories - generally being slightly unhinged & letting my conspiracy pattern loving brain roam wild.

Lyric parallels - just pointing out patterns I find between TLSP/MK/AM lyrics. Or reposting other people's observations

Blog stuff - just random bloggy posts (not often. But it happens).

Screaming and adding actual coherent functional tags later - this one is just the times I screamed about something current happening and then went back later to make it searchable for me. So go here if you want a good laugh about my panic fangirl screams. Or just thoughts on current fandom events.

My posts - just generally all the posts I make in one place.

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A few of my posts:

Miles & Alex are Twin Flames

Song theories / analyzing lyrics [series]

Thoughts about seeing AM live

[marypsue]

don’t let the sun go down on me continues to live in my head rent free so any DVD commentary of that you can spare would be much appreciated 🙏🏼

[from this meme]

Thank you very much!

don't let the sun go down on me

Before I start, I have to thank @trulyalpha / scoutshonour's we have the time, the inspiration, the blueprint, the OG Steve/Nancy/Jonathan vampire fic. Without it, this one wouldn't exist.

"Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" is an Elton John song, but the place I first encountered it (and what I was thinking of when I used it for this fic) was Roger Daltrey's cover for The Lost Boys. So. There's that.

The first chapter was written and posted in a feverish haze in June of 2021. It was meant to be a one-shot; I never had any plans to continue it. And then in 2022 Season 4 came out and while I'm generally not impressed with it, I got absolutely obsessed with the idea of vampire trueforms modelled off the Vecna design and things...escalated quickly.

Chapter One

One of the best pieces of advice that I ever received about writing was that the story starts so much later than you often think it does. Especially when I'm writing oneshots, I try to cut right to the the part where the story I actually want to tell starts. In this case, there's a whole leadup of Steve hearing or seeing something in the woods and going to investigate and discovering a monster and some kids seemingly being menaced by the monster and going to the rescue and a whole fight scene that I decided I didn't want to write, because the story was about Nancy and Jonathan being vampires and Steve falling in love with both of them. And honestly, I don't feel like the story is lacking for not having that monster fight in it. A few sprinklings of exposition in the narration and dialogue takes care of it quite nicely.

I love giving vampires eyeshine.

Sometimes, it takes Steve an eternity to understand how things fit together. And then, sometimes, his brain makes lightning-fast connections between random things without his even asking it to. 

Steve Harrington ADHD. I don't care what the show says. It just makes sense.

(On an unrelated note, OG Season 3 Robin Buckley also ADHD. I am getting off the soapbox now.)

“That’s my kid sister.”

There are two aspects of Jonathan Byers' character that felt indelibly important to me to preserve even in an AU: he is a big brother, and he is deeply protective of and materially supportive of Joyce. Turning her from his mom into his little sister kept both of those things intact even with the change in timelines. I felt particularly proud of this one.

...and wow, there is something about her saying his name with blood all over her face that Steve is going to just pack away in the back of his mind for later.

It was very important to me and to making this whole thing work that Steve is just wildly, unabashedly, maybe a little bit confusedly but totally wholeheartedly horny for the whole vampire deal. He's discovering so many new things about himself over the course of this fic, and a fetish for fangs is just part of the package deal.

He doesn’t want to be a vampire. There are probably a lot of very good reasons for that, and the fact that the only one coming to his stunned mind is that vampires probably don’t get basketball scholarships means nothing.

This just made me laugh when I thought of it.

“Oh shit, is it bad?” Steve turns to look at Jonathan. He sounds like he’s less likely to try to sugar-coat it. “It sounds like it’s bad. ..."

"Son of a bitch, Lucas, is it bad?!"

The whole idea of vampire thralls and Steve maybe becoming one was something that was on my mind throughout the rising action in we have the time, but never came up in that fic. I wanted to dig into the concept, and also, it seemed like a good excuse to force Nancy and Jonathan to have to pull Steve into their investigation of the events of Season 1.

Nancy and Jonathan basically forgetting Steve's there so they can rehash an old argument (and also drop some exposition because I'd never expected to continue this fic but I had backstory I wanted to sneak in) is so funny to me, one of the ways I wanted to show they were an established established (read: old married) couple, and also quite possibly the moment Steve fell helplessly head over heels for both of them.

His mom’s sleeping with Prince Valium tonight

Lifted this line from Beetlejuice because I think it's criminally underrated. Also because, as I mentioned in my other post, my go-to characterisation for Steve's mom is just Delia Deetz. Also, also, it unintentionally became good foreshadowing.

Just because he keeps deciding to do what he thinks will make the prettiest girl alive happy – Oh. Shit. She’s not alive, though. Is she.

When I first started writing this, I had Steve referring to Nancy as 'the prettiest girl in the world' before he knew her name. And then I realised I could do this if I made one little change.

Jesus. Steve hadn’t even asked if they kill people. 

Yeah, I don't think he ever actually does end up asking that.

Chapter Two

As mentioned above, in about September 2022 the bug bit me hard and I resurrected this fic from the dead, with 'vampires, but make it Vecna-inspired and explicitly Upside-Down-related' on my mind and a half-formed thought about a murder mystery. I thought this fic had maybe three chapters in it, total, counting the original oneshot. I thought it would be quick and easy to wrap up. Hahahahahaha.

I did actually start writing this chapter back when I wrote the original oneshot - the scene where Steve finds the obits at the library, specifically up to the part where he's looking at Nancy and Jonathan's yearbook photos, was written in 2021. I decided to cut off the fic the night of Nancy and Jonathan's visit because I didn't have a direction to go in to continue it, and it felt like a complete thought. Also, I was only adding onto it because I wanted the mental image of Nancy and Jonathan in fifties styles.

And then, in 2022, I stumbled upon a direction to go in to continue it.

"...Why am I out in the woods at night with a bobby soxer who wears a virgin pin?”

Shoutout to @marzipanandminutiae who was talking about fashion history and popular fashion myths, and brought to my attention both the fad of circle pins for girls in the fifties and the myth that wearing them on one or the other side of your cardigan meant that you had or hadn't had sex / whether you would have sex. Fearmongering about silly teenage accessory trends having to do with secret sex signals didn't start in my youth, apparently. (Anybody remember jelly bracelets? I was a full adult before I found out those were supposed to be a kind of playground handkerchief code.)

I looooove writing ominous horror scenes where Something Bad Is Lurking and the characters are starting to realise it too but they will not know until it's too late. New favourite thing. Love tension. Love when everybody's thinking the same thing but nobody dares to come right out and say it.

You heard Chief Keller.

Yes, I have been watching Riverdale in fascinated horror. It's just...it's so audaciously bonkers. And so fully committed - at least for the episode or two each of them lasts - to its bits. I have to respect that. And it makes me feel sooooooo good about my plotting and pacing capabilities.

(Also, Chad Michael Murray giving an actually pretty thoughtful and nuanced performance as a charismatic high-control group leader, only to throw it all out the window when he got told 'oh btw your character dies next episode' and start gnawing through backdrops like the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar while doing three costume changes in two scenes and then trying to Evel Knievel his way off a building in a homemade rocket only to get unceremoniously and undramatically shot dead offscreen, not even by a main character, is something I never knew I needed in my life. This show makes so many choices and all of them make me want to take the tops off the writers' heads and dissect their brains.

But I digress.)

Usually when he’s on the receiving end of that stare, Hopper’s digging for something to tie him to anything from the giant GO TIGERS spraypainted across the courthouse to the beer cans and partygoers hastily hidden all over the house behind him to the rotten eggs splattered all over the side of a police cruiser, and the best course of action is to look wide-eyed and innocent and only say ‘No, chief, I have no idea about that’.

Just given who they are and what their respective roles in the community have been up until this point, there is a deep, rich vein of hilarity in Hopper and Steve both ending up in the Upside Down crew (I'm still pushing for 'fellowship' to refer to everyone who Knows, it's thematically and textually appropriate!) that has yet to be mined.

Happened the same year they opened up that lab south of town.

I'll be honest, I avoided saying much about how the events of canon went down in this 'verse on purpose. Partly because it's Season 1 and our POV character is Steve, who never gets told anything until it's much, much too late, but also partly because I didn't finish Season 4 and don't care enough to seek out spoilers to know what happened. And I think that what Season 4 tries to establish as Lore could have some serious bearing on what would make sense for the backstory to the canon events in this story. So. Please fill in the gaps as appropriate.

Steve drums both hands against the desk, and the librarian gives him a flat, unimpressed look that’s almost the twin of the one Hopper gave him in the reading room. Apparently he just has this effect on adults.

Steve Harrington ADHD.

Jonathan’s so busy sawing at the last of the vines still wrapped around Nancy’s ankle that he doesn’t notice the thick central stalk of the plant…thing pushing back up through the crumbling ground behind him.

I wrote a post about this and now tumblr won't let me find in search on my blog, because it won't show me basically any original posts I made between about June of last year and now in search on my blog, for some fucking reason. But. The way I conceptualised it is that this thing Nancy and Jonathan fought is the most stripped-down, basic trueform of a vampire in this 'verse. The two of them got infected while they were fighting it. Basically it planted seeds or spores or whatever it uses to reproduce into their bodies, and then grew throughout those bodies, intertwining its central stalk with their spines and its vines with their nervous systems so it could animate the bodies even after its intrusion killed them. Jonathan and Nancy both still have intact (or mostly-intact) brains, intact senses of self and memories. But they've also got new biological needs and new, compelling instincts that can overtake their higher brain functions in the right circumstances. And if you stripped away all the meat and muscle, you'd find something that looks an awful lot like this evil plant that tried to eat them growing on a trellis made out of their bones.

Vampires in this 'verse are a kind of parasitic fungus. (Which is also why ingesting their blood can affect the behaviours and brain functions of other people, and even make others like them.) I think this is the coolest shit and I will not stop talking about it. That is all.

(Also. Steve's still hot and bothered about it. That's important too.)

Nancy’s not sure how long they sit there, together, clutching each other and just trying to breathe.

Neither Nancy or Jonathan can see much of what's going on around them at this point, so I'm pretty sure this is where Brad found them. And how Brad found them.

Nicole’s not bad-looking, and she’s a fun time at parties even if she is kind of a nerd. And they’re both single right now. Steve’s not sure why he suddenly wants to pull away.

It's because you're already hopelessly in love with two other people. Hope that helps.

I can kind of understand how and why the fandom sort of collectively forgets Fred existed. I wouldn't say he was the biggest standout of Season 4's crop of cannon fodder for me, either. But you show me a weedy little nerd of a character who's using a prickly sarcastic sense of humour to deflect from a truly monstrous baggage of survivor's guilt and blame around unintentionally hurting someone he cared about in a way that can't ever be ameliorated or forgiven, and then be like 'yeah everybody in-canon and in the fandom kinda forgot about him lmao', and. Well. Now I gotta do something meaningful with him. I gotta.

Also, he made a good red herring suspect.

He thinks about Nancy’s apologetic smile as she said she thought she’d enthralled him, about how Jonathan had said or you’d lose your mind, and wonders, for the first time, how they know.

I also got to this plot point by writing Nancy and Jonathan's turning, stopping, realising they would not know any other vampires, and wondering, myself, how they heck they'd know all that stuff about blood and thralls. The answer that presented itself was: firsthand.

When she tries to raise her arms, to pull away the covers that have somehow gotten wrapped over her face, she bumps into something flat and cold and solid barely a few inches above her.

I learned after writing this that apparently the fridges in a morgue are like one big open space with all the rolling trays sliding back into it, not like a narrow slot for each tray with top, bottom, and sides. Oh well.

Nancy pulls the letterman jacket she’d been wearing from the plastic bag full of her clothes that they’d found in the trash. Her expression is mournful, almost stricken, as she takes in the ragged slashes torn through the leather of the sleeves, the frankly astonishing size of the rusty red-brown stain surrounding a single puncture in the back. It makes the tiger applique look like its snarling mouth has just taken a bite out of some fresh prey.

Have I mentioned lately that I love heavy-handed visual symbolism?

...the dingy little trailer he calls home.

Okay, so in the fifties, as I found out after I'd finished writing this, the mobile home park was still more in the 'new and exciting' category than what it would have been in the eighties. Think less Trailer Park Boys and more tiny home. However. I did not do extensive research before writing this, because I was most interested in the vampire part. And it seems to me that the kinds of people buying or renting holiday trailers to live in year-round would still have been people who thought it made more financial sense than buying a permanent building. It's also possible that Jonathan and Joyce's family were in a better position at the time they moved in than the one they're in as of this fic.

It’s been made clear to Steve on multiple occasions that one of the few rules he actually has to follow in this house is don’t bother your father when he’s in his office. 

I talked a lot about what I think of Steve and his parents and their relationship and how a lot of it boils down to 'they're rich and self-centred and they're raising him the same way'. This is part of that - Steve's internalised that there are some rules that apply to him, and some that don't, and that that's just how things work, some rules apply to some people and not to others, some rules don't matter and some rules do, and it's all a matter of whether someone more powerful than you will punish you if you get caught breaking them. It seems consistent with his Season 1 characterisation, and also, it's some foreshadowing, in that it shows how the person who taught him this thinks.

Everybody knew old Gower drank like a fish.

Yeah, this name was lifted from It's A Wonderful Life. It's not actually relevant to the story, just a fun fact.

She can feel the tension in Jonathan’s arms, before she lets go. But he doesn’t raise them again. Trusting her completely.

...

Nancy doesn’t resist. She doesn’t protest. She just lets Jonathan pull her away from civilisation and deeper into the woods. Trusting him completely.

Parallel presented without comment.

“You didn’t tell me you dated my dad.”

...

“In Dracula. The vampire’s servant is named -”

...

"And from how you both apparently think humans are just here for you both to mess around with ..."

So, in case it's not clear (because Steve hasn't realised it yet, so it's deliberately oblique), this whole fight is actually about him feeling envious over Nancy and Jonathan's relationship, and between the two of them together and finding out about Fred and about Nancy dating his dad, feeling like he's not actually important to them in the way he'd kind of let himself think he was, but only one in a string of people they've used and abandoned. Steve's feeling like he cares way more about them than they do about him, and also maybe he's a little scared by how much he already cares about them. And also he doesn't have the emotional intelligence to identify correctly how he's feeling and why, so he takes it out on them both.

This is not a recommended course of action for dealing with monsters than can tear you open as soon as look at you, by the way.

“Steve,” Nancy says, like Steve’s a dog who’s just pissed on the rug.

He is really not feeling valued in this relationship, folks.

Also, like in canon, Jonathan will take anything mean anybody says about or to him. But the instant you drag his family into it, it's game over.

She only lives – her family’s house is ...

I made the same mistake Nancy does, went to correct it, and then went, 'ohhhHHHHHHHH'.

Chapter Three

I really, honestly did think this was going to be the final chapter of this fic when I started writing it.

I like Tommy and Carol because like. They're not evil, they're just high school evil. I like them best as people who genuinely like and care about each other (and Steve), who just have absolutely no idea how to express that in a positive way without the forces of high school social politics dictating how they interact with each other. Likewise, I think Tommy both looks up to Steve and resents the fact that he's second to Steve, and is always looking for little opportunities to both impress and one-up Steve. (Which is part of why he's second to Steve - because he's too obvious about how much he cares. High school, man.)

Except. He’d been so angry when he’d thought Jonathan was a murderer. Like Jonathan had personally betrayed him. Steve’s not sure what that means. If it means anything. He’s not sure he wants to think too much about it.

Some fics I write are about the slow development of feelings between characters. Not this one. Steve caught feelings before the story even started, and the rest is just him slowly realising that that's happened.

Trying to lay seeds of evidence for the solution to the murder plot while misdirecting readers away from where they're actually supposed to point is hard, but also so much fun. I tried to make each of my clues, independently, be something that could point in two or more directions. So, for example, Fred's notebook with his evidence that there was foul play in Nancy's death being missing after the crash points toward his accident being intentional, and the actual murderer trying to suppress the evidence, but it doesn't point to one specific suspect. Personally, I thought it suggested the lab most strongly. But when you put it all of the evidence together, you start to see that some of those alternate options cancel each other out, which leaves only the one, true murderer right in the crosshairs.

It's a technique I'm going to be carrying forward in my plotting in the future. After all, when you boil them down, most stories are, at heart, either a mystery or a romance. And romances are a kind of mystery, because you need to be leaving and developing clues about why these people like each other, and -

Anyway.

“Nance. It’s okay. It’s been thirty years. I’ve made my peace with it. I’m dead.”

I love Jonathan 'resigning myself to it so I don't have to hope for anything because hoping for something and (inevitably) not getting it would break me in half and somebody in this family(/relationship) has to be The Strong Reliable Okay One' Byers and love and consideration breaking down his shitty coping mechanisms so much. I also love undead characters being matter-of-fact about not being human when it clearly bothers them more than they want anyone to know. Two great tastes that taste great together.

And tried not to think too hard about the last time he’d had a girl who wasn’t Carol up here.

Steve: it's not weird that I'm thinking about sex while I'm inviting Jonathan and Nancy into my bedroom. Nancy's here and I'm in love with her. So it's not weird.

Steve straightened up and turned around with it in hand, only to catch both Nancy and Jonathan watching him intently. “What?”

They were both staring at his ass while he was bent over with his back to them, here.

(That's not a joke, that's actually what I was going for.)

"... You, obviously, and Brad, and Chief Keller, and anybody they might’ve told about it, I guess…”

Another thing about laying clues - it's good if they can have more than one logical interpretation, because then you can have your characters put the pieces together and move forward based on entirely the wrong logical interpretation, and then your characters don't look stupid or oblivious. (Unless, of course, that's what you want.) But, it's also good to keep bringing up the actual right answer to the mystery in conjunction with those clues. Not so much that it's obvious. Just enough so that the actual solution is kept in the reader's mind, so when the big reveal comes they're not going 'wait, who? What? Why? Where did he come from?', but 'OOOOOOHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh.'

Did I get this in this fic? That is for you to tell me. But that's what I was going for.

He was interrupted by a choked noise from Jonathan, and a disbelieving, “Chief Hopper? Chief Jim Hopper?” from Nancy.

I just think that characters having different perspectives on each other is a rich vein to be mined for characterisation and also for hilarity. And also the idea of these two being older teenagers when Hopper was in middle school just demanded to be brought up.

And since when does Steve care so much about what Jonathan thinks of him, anyway?

He is so stupid (affectionate).

“- said they lost the bodies, Joyce! Lost them! ..."

This fic was specifically about Steve and Nancy and Jonathan, and in Steve's POV, so I didn't really get to get into the other two parallel storylines. But I did want to give a sense that they were going on, and also a glimpse at what was going on in them. It's one of my favourite things about Season 1.

“This isn’t funny, kid. What, is Bill Hagan’s boy in the bushes with a video camera? ..."

Every interaction Hopper and Steve have ever had before today makes it absolutely reasonable for Hopper to come to the conclusion that Steve is playing a cruel practical joke! He's wrong, we as readers know he's wrong, but he doesn't have the luxury of our perspective on Steve and it makes sense for him to think it! I just love it when characters have impressions and perspectives of each other that are shaped by their experiences with each other, and are necessarily incomplete, biased, influenced by their own prior experiences, and not the same as the impression or perspective the reader has! It makes characters feel whole and distinct from each other and human, to me!

"... I mean, you are vampires. I still don’t even know what you eat.”

Oh, he did ask! I'd forgotten. Would've been in character for him to just conveniently forget, though.

... Steve’s sure would have had the neighbours calling in yet another noise complaint if they weren’t in Bermuda...

I love a good foreshadowing, don't you?

“You can’t be Mike,” she’s insisting, in the face of all the evidence. “Last time I saw Mike, he was just two years old.” “So was Will, Nancy,” Jonathan says, so gently. It’s sweet how hard he’s trying not to laugh. “No. It has not been ten years since the last time we were here. That can’t possibly be right.”

This, unfortunately, is just what being an adult is like.

He doesn’t even really understand what’s going on. Something about making a sensory deprivation tank, or maybe a battery? The kids had all kind of been talking over each other when they tried to explain. But apparently, this pool full of body temperature water and road salt is supposed to help them find Will Byers. Somehow.

Is it really even the season's big group DIY project if Steve Harrington doesn't not fully understand what's going on?

“The way I lost it on Steve, the other night,” Jonathan says, flatly. “That’s not – he’s a complete stranger, he shouldn’t have been able to get to me like that. I shouldn’t have let him get to me like that. And you, nearly turning him -”

Jonathan Byers: The only possible explanation for how crazy we've both been acting over Steve is interdimensional interference. The only possible explanation.

If these three could communicate with each other for five minutes and all get on the same page, there would have been no story.

Steve is so hot for everything inhuman about Nancy and Jonathan that it's almost embarrassing and I love that for him.

Were Nancy and Jonathan not sure about how to get into the lab because I wasn't sure how to get them into the lab? I'll never tell, and I'm sure you'll never guess.

Nancy and Steve calling each other 'Nicole' and 'Brad' in their fake fight was unreasonably funny to me. Actually, the whole fake fight was so much fun to write. I considered cutting it, because I'm not sure it adds anything to the story as a whole, but...well, this is fan fiction. Also, I wanted to give Steve a chance for his strengths to shine and to save the day in front of the two people he most wants to impress. He was angling hard to get himself and Nancy taken inside so he could 'call his dad'. And it almost worked, too.

That warm, wet something trickling down Steve’s forehead chooses that moment to drip into his eyelashes, sticking them together for a moment.

We all got that Steve realised he was bleeding and that Jonathan was injured and likely to attack him over it, and then went over to try to help Jonathan anyway, yes?

Something moves under Steve’s fingers, those black veins shifting in Jonathan’s throat like living things, and Steve has to swallow down bile. 

Parasitic fungus!

There’s no emotion Steve can discern in Jonathan’s voice at all as he says, “I’ll kill you.” Steve has maybe never thought so fast before in his life. “Like Nancy with the dog,” he says, and Jonathan lets out a shuddering exhale.

Jonathan's trying his hardest to scare Steve off for his own safety, make Steve think he's threatening him, but Steve stops and thinks about it first, unlike when he jumped to the conclusion that Jonathan was a murderer, and - correctly - identifies it as a statement of fact. That Jonathan won't be able to help himself, because he's injured badly and needs blood. I figured this whole interaction was the moment Jonathan finally mentally went aw, shit, I'm in love with this stupid stubborn asshole.

“You’re not really much of a killer, man.”

Specifically, this exact moment, when Steve completely backtracks on everything he'd said the previous night about Jonathan being a murderer and places his life entirely into Jonathan's hands.

It's not really all that much like what he’d imagined, the other night, with his hand down his boxers. But fuck if it isn’t still lighting up those crossed wires in Steve’s head like the Fourth of fucking July.

The older I get, the less I'm interested in vampire bites ~not really hurting at all~ and ~inducing euphoric bliss~ and the more I'm interested in the people on the receiving end of vampire bites just being huge fucking masochists.

And he knows he’s never seen her with that dead-eyed, monstrous face on before. Steve’s dick does its level best to give an interested twitch about it.

In The Lost Boys, the only vampire/half-vampire who we don't get to see with monstrous, freaky vampface on is the female love interest. I think this rather denotes a lack of courage.

Chapter Four

I wrote pretty much all of chapters four and five as one piece, and then waffled over whether to split them into two. I even polled he studio audience here on tumblr (though not actually with a poll because I was late to get polls). I'm pretty sure the result was 'one big-ass long chapter please'. And then I went ahead and split it into two anyway.

It’s an uncomfortable feeling, having somebody else, somebody he’s made a practical career out of lying to, invent him such a plausible alibi without any input from him.

The thing is, while the perception of Steve that Hopper has from seventeenish years of shenanigans is incomplete, it's also not wrong. It is a spooky feeling to know you've been perceived, and with more recognition and understanding than you'd realised, but the person doing the perceiving still doesn't like you.

They’re both making their arguments like they’re concerned for Steve. But Steve, slumped in the backseat, resting his aching head against the cool glass of the rattling window, knows them both well enough to know that what they’re really fighting about is his dad’s fucking around. He’s heard them make the exact same arguments, in almost the exact same words, about who’s going to stay home and take care of his dad’s tropical fish.

Tell me you had a kid when you should have gotten a dog (okay, well, maybe you also shouldn't have gotten a dog) without telling me...

"...The things we do for our ungrateful kids, huh?” Hopper’s eyes narrow, a little.

If you can't tell that Jim Hopper would cheerfully strangle this man in cold blood and broad daylight just to have a chance to get stuck staying home with his concussed kid, then I haven't done my job.

“You’re lucky to be alive, asshole,” Carol agrees. Steve can’t explain why his chest suddenly feels so hollow.

...

“And thanks for saving my life or whatever, I guess.”

...

It hurts more if Steve presses his fingers against the bandage just over where the bite mark’s trying to scab closed.

I spent a lot of time wallowing in the sense of missed opportunities and squandered chances that leads Steve to take some stupid, risky chances - like, for example, confronting somebody he thinks is a murderer to his face. He's clearly missing Nancy and Jonathan, and feeling like he's missed his one chance with the both of them even though he'd never put it into words like that at this point, but also - he's trapped in the house with people who genuinely don't care enough whether he lives or dies to worry about him for his own sake, and feeling like maybe he doesn't, either. He was ready and willing to die happy in the woods that night, and now he's been denied that, and he's staring down the barrel of up to eighty more years of just the same mundane tedium and catty, shallow relationships and bullshit.

I had to raise the temperature slowly to a boil, to get this boy ready to do something drastic, and it's one of my favourite parts of this fic.

The lady at the ticket window tells him that with the Greyhound drivers’ strike, she can’t guarantee he’ll get to wherever he’s going when he wants to be there.

I found out about the Greyhound strike in the 80s when I was doing a little googling to figure out how likely it'd be for them to have a route that'd take Steve out to Pennhurst, and absolutely had to toss it in. For historical flavour, and to hammer home the sense of isolation and futility. It just dovetailed so nicely.

She looks over Steve’s shoulder, at the woman who’d reached for him, and smiles warmly, though there’s still steel in her voice as she says, “And you’d do well to remember you’re a guest in his house. Evelyn, stop trying to mooch cigarettes off the visitors, you and I both know the doctor doesn’t want you to have them.”

'Spooky scary asylum inmates' is a shitty trope that sucks. Steve absolutely 100% would have no other schema for mental illness, though. I tried to thread that needle by having him react initially with horror to the weird, strange, freaky behaviour of the inmates, and then recontextualise that behaviour as like. yeah she just wants to bum a cigarette. what's your problem. Also to keep reminding Steve that hey, you were like three drops of blood away from being in that exact same position, and your future health and sanity is Not Guaranteed. Not sure how much any of that succeeded but. There was only so much lipstick I was gonna be able to put on that pig.

Why Steve can’t just leave it alone. His life is better, they chorus in the theatre of his imagination, if he just shuts up and keeps his head down and pretends not to notice or care like the coward he is.

There is a question that the show raises and that I think this fic is asking, which is, was Steve always the kind of guy who'd go running to the rescue with a bat when it came down to the wire and people's lives were on the line, no questions asked, or did he need Nancy's influence to let him become that? And the answer is yes. I do like how in canon it's Tommy's goading about how Steve always runs away that ends up getting him to go face his fuckups and his fears. How it's his old friends, being their shitty selves, who help move him toward becoming a better version of himself. I have several emotions and none of them are coherent.

“Hey, I’ve got to get going, I was really just passing by – but when Jonathan comes back, let him know I was looking for him? That I wanna talk to him? Or Nancy, if you see her.”

In my original draft, Steve came straight home from Pennhurst and went and confronted his dad. (Well, okay, he had dinner first.) And then I realised there was no reason for Nancy and Jonathan to break their 'we're going to stay away from Steve so maybe we don't accidentally murder him for real this time' streak, and they probably wouldn't be coming to the rescue. Which is why this scene's here. However. I like it a lot and I'm glad it's here. Steve very awkwardly trying to interact with anyone other than Nancy and Jonathan immediately post-Season 1 gives me life.

... or some kind of strategy to stop Logansport’s freakishly fast point guard from kicking all their asses.

I did Actual Research for this line (read: I looked on Google Maps and compared the positioning of Hawkins within Indiana on the Season 2-3 geological survey map to small-ish cities in the area who could believably be high school rivals to their sports teams, and also looked at the Wikipedia page for 'basketball'). I will have it appreciated.

Of life before it all turned upside down on him.

I will not stop making stupid jokes and that is a threat.

His mom jokes over dinner that maybe Steve should be concussed more often, it’s been so quiet and peaceful around the house. 

A+ Parenting

I talked at length about the confrontation between Steve and his dad, so I won't rehash it.

“You should know,” she says, taking a single step toward them, as slow and deliberate as her nod. “After all, you were the one who killed me.”

Nancy Absolutely Did Not know this until approximately ten minutes ago. She is doing a fantastic job of bluffing.

“I didn’t,” Jonathan says, low enough that at first Steve isn’t sure if he really heard it at all. “You believe me, right? I didn’t.” “What? Barbara? I know that, he has no idea what he’s talking about, can we just go?”

Jonathan still can't quite believe that Steve doesn't actually think he's a heartless, remorseless killer without anything human left in him. Mostly because that's sort of how Jonathan's been thinking about himself for the last thirty years. (Remorseless killers usually do not have this much angst about their lack of remorse, Jonathan. Protip.)

Chapter Five

After what he’s heard, tonight, he doesn’t want to give his dad the chance to say that Steve went after him, that the knife was self-defense. That a combination of the concussion and some local history project just deluded Steve into thinking his dad was a killer.

I got a lot of comments on chapter four about how Steve's dad wasn't thinking and how was he planning to get away with murder after he killed his own son in his own office in cold blood. I let myself go down the rabbit hole a little thinking about how, exactly, he would try to get away with it. And I think Steve knows his dad well enough by now to have a pretty good idea.

It turns out that limping into a police station covered in your own blood is a great way to get a lot of attention very quickly.

I'm just very proud of this line.

“Jesus, Harrington, they’re gonna have to start giving you frequent flyer miles.”

I promise I didn't set out writing this fic planning to nearly kill Steve three separate times. It just...happened.

... Hopper shoots an awkward, try-hard grin in Steve’s direction and drops into the chair beside his hospital bed. “Heyyyy, kid. How you feeling.”

I just think Hopper's absolutely abysmal bedside manner in Season 2 is the funniest thing. And. Well. Just made myself sad thinking about the possible reasons why he's so bad at being normal beside a hospital bed with a kid in it. Okay!

It seems to me to be a very popular trope for Steve to end up getting kind of pseudo-adopted by Hopper and Joyce. I see why it appeals, but it's never clicked for me. And yet. The logical progression of this fic led me here. Never say 'I'll never write...'.

At least Will sounds slightly less accusing than Mike Wheeler had when he says, “What’re you doing here?”

We collectively as a fandom do not honour Will Byers' sassmaster energy enough.

“Yeah, no shit I’m upset. What was that? Just drop me and run like an unwanted baby at a firehouse?”

Steve is...kind of a fascinating contradiction in terms, in some ways, to me. I see a lot of fanon where he's very much a sick cat about things that bother him, that he'll shut down and try to hide what he's feeling for the sake of other people, and I don't think that's wrong necessarily but I do think it's...incomplete. Like, maybe he would downplay the seriousness of his own hurts and how much they're affecting him if being honest about them would hurt other people...but that absolutely doesn't mean he's not going to bitch about them. Loudly.

“Witless protection program,” Jonathan says.

We also as a fandom collectively need to appreciate how funny Jonathan is more often.

This whole confrontation was a bit of a balancing act. I didn't want it to turn into an angstfest. There was a certain degree of 'avoiding you for your own good'/'denying my feelings for your sake' mutual pining going on in this story, and I really needed there to be a good reason why these characters didn't just communicate with each other (or, at least, for the characters themselves to feel like they had a good reason). I also didn't want to wallow in that misunderstanding, because quite frankly it drives me batty when characters who are mutually into each other end up in a situation where it's almost unavoidable that their true feelings must come out and they must communicate, but they squander it on doing everything in their power to deliberately interpret everything the character they're into does or says as rejection, and deliberately hiding all of their actual thoughts and feelings to try to drive off the character they're into. Like, at a certain point you step past obliviousness and into 'yeah maybe you guys shouldn't be together, actually, if this is how you're gonna be'. These guys aren't communicating well, but god dammit, they're communicating.

It’s so – direct. No hesitation. None of Jonathan’s usual holding back. Just confidence, certainty.

Jonathan Byers has never been hotter than that moment in the hallway in Season 1 where he's throwing that lighter and that's just facts. It's the purpose, clarity, and confidence.

Jonathan devours his mouth like – like he’s starving to death and Steve’s an open wound.

I was proud of this line, too.

... and turns on the smile that’s made half the female population of Hawkins High turn cherry-red and suddenly become very amused by the floor.

This is totally the face he gave Nancy when he was trying to convince her to play 'strip flashcards' in s1e1.

...Jonathan’s got an arm around her waist and his face pressed into the crook of her neck, pressing kisses to the pale skin exposed by the slip of her robe. She raises an arm to cradle his head...

And this is absolutely the Dirty Dancing pose. Minus the side-skimming hand gesture that tickled Jennifer Grey badly enough to bust out laughing.

“I don’t have any blood flow,” he says, sounding defensive. “It’s got to be within a couple hours after I’ve eaten if you want me to, uh.”

I went back and forth on whether to include this, and finally decided I was leaving it in because it made my friends laugh. And because I love speculative fantasy xenobiology in action. 'But Mary, drinking blood won't introduce it to the circulatory -' I already told you these vampires are a parasitic fungus animating dead flesh, right? The fungus uses fine tentacle-vine-root-things woven through the flesh to puppeteer it? And the fungus feeds on blood, which means it uses blood for energy to, for example, move its limbs? I can bullshit this one if I want to. (Which I do.)

He remembers thinking the snake was beautiful, even as he was nearly pissing his pants in terror that it’d bite him. And now that he’s thinking about it, that comparison feels a little on the nose.

I got halfway through writing that first sentence and realised it needed a lampshade, badly.

Carol even styles Steve’s hair how he likes it, when she’s done. And there’s no way she could’ve known how looking in the mirror and seeing the hair that earned him his nickname perched on top of the haunted, battered face of a boy Steve barely recognises would make him suddenly and unexpectedly feel like throwing up.

The metaphor here may be a little unsubtle. Carol and Tommy are actually trying to be good friends to Steve, in their own, selfish, high-school-politics-influenced way. And it's got to hurt when he rejects that. But they're trying to make him feel better by getting him back to his old self. And that's only making it worse.

... some four-eyed fairy who took Nicole out to the movies last weekend in this classic car he’d restored. For this cardinal sin, one of Tommy’s buddies tracked down the auto wrecker’s where the kid’s been keeping the car while he works on it, so tonight –

I stand by my theory that Chrissy Cunningham's name is a reference to Stephen King's Christine. And so is this.

... Steve’s dating two people at once. (He tried that, once before, with Laurie and Becky. It did not end well. With the benefit of hindsight, knowing what he knows now, maybe he should’ve just asked them both if they’d be cool with it. Although he thinks the answer probably still would’ve been no.)

It is very important to me that, even when he is Having Self-Affirming Realisations and Growing As A Person, Steve is still a teenage boy.

Nancy, it turns out, likes gritty courtroom dramas.

It took me a while to figure out what kind of movies I think Nancy would like. John Grisham adaptations and Twelve Angry Men seem up her alley, though.

Jonathan’s shoulders are starting to hunch forward, turtling in on himself. He still hasn’t even moved to touch the glass Steve put in front of him.

As far as I know it's never explicitly stated in canon that Lonnie Byers is an alcoholic, and he's not even Jonathan's dad in this fic anyway, but it just makes sense to me that Jonathan does not enjoy drinking or being drunk or being around drunk people and I'm going to carry that through in everything I write.

The guy who helps Steve find what he’s looking for really knows his stuff, even if he can’t seem to resist a cheesy pun.

I love Bob Newby and I'm going to shoehorn him in everywhere I possibly can. That is all.

The scene with the kids and the D&D game was pure self-indulgence. If I were a better writer or this were a more professional piece, I might have cut it. However, this is fanfiction, and driver picks the music.

I moved Steve out to California one part so that I could do this whole thematic bit about Nancy and Jonathan choosing him, choosing to stay with him, one part because I realised I really had burned his life in Hawkins down to the ground and the most hopeful thing would be for him to be able to start over, and one part because I just thought it would be fun.

“We’ve got nothing but time.”

This was a little bit a nod to we have the time.

There was no way this fic was ever going to be complete without Steve getting to at least meet Robin. They have a beautiful friendship ahead of them.

(I've got to be honest, I've never vibed with Argyle. He annoys me on a fundamental level. But there was something about including him in this scene and in the nascent relationship between these versions of Robin and Steve that just...worked. As with Murray and Owens, whether or not a character is unbearably irritating can be a matter of which other characters they get to bounce off of and what they bring out of each other as much as that character in a vacuum.)

And that's all she wrote! I still have a vague, half-formed idea in my mind about a sequel (Barbara Holland wasn't as dead - or perhaps quite the kind of dead - that everybody thought, and El opening the Gate got her brought back as a specimen for experimentation, and something something something the US government is trying to weaponise vampirism and something something) but it never congealed into an actual plot so it's unlikely to ever materialise.

(I will tell you, because I'm not planning to write it anymore, that I had an idea for a scene where Steve, in thrall to the military's vampiric supersoldier, is forced to lure Nancy and Jonathan into a trap, and then successfully rules-lawyers his instructions into letting him cut himself so that his blood can distract the less-experienced vamp and Nancy and Jonathan can tear the bitch apart. Which would have left Steve mentally fine but physically more durable and slower to age. Felt it was a rather clever way to thread that needle. No I didn't steal this wholesale from Stephenie Meyer's Eclipse shut up.)

[wiktorianala]

Ma yapping about a game I just finished if anyone would care (and probably at some point getting out of topic, so just starting to talk about other stuffs)\/

Ok, so I just finished dsaf3 "good ending" and... what the fuck. Just to make things straight I accually replayed it 2nd time now, because 1st time was few hours ago, in the morning with no sleep so my brain was almost turned off, so ending seemed, not really interesting, nor emotional, at least not as much as innternet maked it seem, so that's why I just replayed it from last save (I just woke up so brain working just finey) and OH MY GOD WHO LET THIS MAN COOK? Like I've gotta say, I thought that I was "crying" hard over "evil route" (because honestly it not really made me cry but rather left me sad as fuck and not knowing what to do with myself), but holy shit after this thing I genuelly was in front of screen crying like a little fuckin baby (and stil left not knowing what to do with myself). I don't really think any game ever made me cry this hard, nah I bet I could say any piece of media. Gosh even now I want to cry again. Anyway I honestly was suprised that part that mostly break me was not the after battle with henry on flipside, but rather, at the end just thos tumbstones and all. Maybe because it all just cumulated at the end, I dunno. Honestly it's surelly gotta be for me one of thos games, for which I wish I could erase my memory, just to expirience them once more for first time. Closest to this might be when I'll finally get out of phase for it, for a longer time, just to replay entire serie again. Gotta say that arter palying all mayor routes from all 3 games (+ quite a few smaller ones) this serie surelly jumps into "fave games" category, right under portal2 (which is hightest place a game for me can go, because srry, but I hold very nostalgic connection for portal, and even if I'll find a game that I'll like more, thare's just like, I dunno a part of me saying "nostalgia at first place" so I can do shit about it), and that means I really fckn enjoyed it, because for now my faves only had "tier one (AKA. portal2)", and "tier two" wich was rest of my fave games, and now it has tier one (still the same), tier two which now include dsaf and tier three which is rest of faves (and if someone's interested "how much games are then here rn in total", answear would be... lemme check, It's five games in total on my fave list or more like "tha ultimate fave ones", and it's not because I play not many games, but rather that I rarelly find games that strike me in the way that, I don't know how to put it into words. I guess I just rarelly find "that one" type of stuff). Wait... didn't I get off topic? Hard to say. Ok, so anyway I really enjoyed it despite all of the cryies that occured ( and by this I mean not only 3rd game but honestly entire franchise because on "good ending" in 2nd game I broke too, and on just as I said somewhere before on "evil route" in 3rd too (on first one not thought, but it doesn't make me like it less) ( but no matter what 3rd is surelly my fave out of all)). And when I'll put my mind together , I'll think about concept for fanart (just like with evil route, a fanart directly of an specific ending) and maybe in spare time will make some doodles ( I'll have to think about in which art style it'll be(or wich one will fit it the best)). I know- I know I tend to make quite a lot (at least for my standards) arts from dsaf, BUT IT'S MY CURRENT FIXATION SO, I'M SORRRRRY. I guess next game I'll be playing will be dialtown, but for that to happen i want it to get on sale (just, so I could buy base game with dlc in price of just base (I know it don't work that way but I don't care))Yeah so ummm, that's all? I guess yes. Just like last time I bet noones reading that(and I don't mind it, after all I'm the one who decides to don't add tags to any just txt type of post, just so it won't pop up at any random person page, god it would feel awkward, especially looking at the point that I'm just writing the way that I would talk to someone so "first thing that comes to mind get noted" so after some amount of time, stuffs that I write feel really stupid/cringey. Shit I'm off topic again) Anyway, Byee~*

[lyra-swan]

Hiiiii I know you're offline as I'm writing this but nevertheless I still felt like jumping into your inbox and word-vomiting for a second because I've been following Mechanical Angel for quite some time now and picked it up again recently and I just made it to part IV, god I'm having a blast. I can't wait to put all my full, extensive thoughts out there once I'm done but for now I need to stress that I'm just super impressed with both your writing style and the tone/ character development as a whole but the world-building in particular got to me gooood.

Am I right to assume that a lot of research went into this???? Because you can genuinely tell, to the point I literally felt transported to the places as you described them every time and the details are just so captivating to witness. It really feels like I'm reading a ww2 novel, I feel transported back into German literature class on occasion and it's just. Impressive???

Anyway thank you SO MUCH for putting this out there, I'm so happy Mechanical Angel (and all of your works) exist!! I've already noticed that there's another story focused on Natsume/Sora set in the same universe and I can't wait to finally jump into that one too once I'm done with MA. (Especially since Natsume is in my top 4# favorite characters but that's only a bonus)

Last but not least I am very mentally ill over Eimika now, congrats, I'm rotating them in my brain a very normal and totally not concerning amount, haha

May you have a wonderful day!!

Oh hi thank you so much!! I both loved and struggled with Part IV so much, but it was extremely fun to write, especially that dumb part in ch.38... I dunno if you've reached ch.45 but that was also very fun. I hope you continue to enjoy the rest!

I'm going to ramble like an old grandma again, adding a read more thingy so the post won't be a bother to scroll past for others.

In my opinion I don't think I've done enough research! But I'll always feel like that no matter how much I do so bleugh, nevermind. The scenery is typically based on my own surroundings but changed slightly to match an European feel... I think I wrote more in the last ask answer but it has a tiny bit of spoilers, I believe. The setting is a bit of amalgamation of my own country and europe because my own surroundings is what I'm familiar with, and of course although it's supposed to be inspiried by Germany everyone drives on the left side (I think I mentioned it in a chapter note) because I didn't want to accidentally trip over myself from a simple description of where a character turns their head. It's the Little Details that are important!

I say, as if I also didn't mess up a few details here and there because I started posting before finishing the first draft and so I couldn't edit the way I used to do for my previous longfics... But yes, it was very fun adding random bits from what I learned into the story because I used to love watching WW2 docs and laughing every time the nazis messed up and suffered a crippling defeat.

Like, I'd read about how they lied to their citizens that they were doing just dandy, and then have Wataru ask Eichi if he wanted more 'false reports of our so-called victories on the battlefield' to be published in the newspapers. Because that's the funniest shit ever to me...

Then one day I'd read about the nazis being among the first to connect smoking to bad health, and I'd add something like that in a conversation between Eichi and Tatsumi, they're not nazis obviously but because of the setting's inspirations that's where I got a lot of information (but you'll have a scene later on that's more Britain than Germany, so the fic truly is a amalgamation of different european settings during WW2). And of course, people are sceptical of new medical findings, that was mentioned. And the part where Eichi mentions 'common people are suspicious of IV drips' to Mika, that was a thing in the real world too.

I wonder if there is a single medical invention that wasn't regarded with suspicion by at least one person at first.

I kind of wish I had Eichi offering gold watches to anyone who quit smoking, it would've been funny, but eh.

And of course there are some things that don't make sense because this IS an alternate world so I DO have freedom. Like, even though this takes place generally in 1930s-1940s time, tranquiliser guns weren't invented until the 1950s (by a NEW ZEALANDER!!! Colin Murdoch. He's also the genius behind the modern day syringe, if I recall correctly), but you know, I added it in anyway because alternate world, alternate invention timeframes. I wrote that fog scene where Mika is shot by Midori while also sitting outside one dark foggy morning, and I liked the scene so much I kept it in.

Anyway I'm so happy you like the world-building! It was super fun to work on! I really like rural settings for world war stories... one of my favourite authors, Michael Morpurgo has that kind of vibe going on too, my bookshelf has a few of his books. So many dog and animal stories with themes of war lingering in the background if they don't directly deal with war and I love every one of them. They're all so full of emotion, they'd always make me cry. I love the stories that can make me cry and look back and think it was the most beautiful thing I've ever read and Morpurgo's works can do that A LOT. But also I'm very emotional...

And thank YOU for this! I'm always so happy hearing someone enjoyed what I wrote!

I still need to finish that natsusora fic. It was supposed to be a part of the main story itself but because it would've taken so many chapters, I was worried about 'forcing' readers through a side story that had no bearing on eimika. So I posted it as a separate fic! It takes place during that last chapter of Part IV so you can actually have a look whenever you've started Part V.

Natsume is very out of character, however. He's in his 30s and not really the cute feminine witchy boy that he truly is in canon (at least, that's how I see him), he's an engineer and really logical... but he hates Eichi with a passion, that's VERY necessary. Nevertheless, I try to write him as close to his canon self within the au that I've shoved him in and told him to survive in. Totally fine if you end up not liking it!

Excuse the rambling!! Thank you! You have good day!!

[daz4i]

Random question I know, only because I thought of this as I came across your angel/demon lore post, and probably not really connected. But my mind was just really wandering all over the place and something randomlly sparked it into wondering what would happen if someone who isn't well versed in like dark/black magic somehow came across like an actual piece of Cthulhu. Like I don't know what or how maybe one of the tentacles from his face somehow got ripped off(or maybe it was shed off? shrugs XD) maybe along time ago and was hidden for awhile. But do you think said piece of Cthulhu would radiate some madness or whatever dark energy the deity itself has? Like I feel maybe it'd be in the same sense if someone found a piece of Godzilla it'd still have some radiation leaking off of it…..sorry for the randomness of this. XD

ajsdhgg nothing to apologize for, this is a very interesting question!

i will not lie, i'm not very well versed in cthulu lore so i could definitely be wrong, but afaik it's less about like. and energy he's radiating that drives people to madness, but rather being forced to comprehend something our brains can't, right :? which is more like his visage or information he may present. i think

in which case, i think that means that it'd be chill! distressing, maybe, but overall if it's just some tentacle we'll probably be fine!

but again this is far from my expertise to if anyone knows otherwise, feel free to correct me 🫡