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gumnut-logic · 3 years

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Having his ‘bird out in the sunshine gave Virgil the opportunity to air out her life support systems and do some general cleaning. He even got one of the bots to hose her down and climbed out and polished up her windows and external lights. For an hour or two he lost himself in the job, his mind wandering over yesterday’s events and processing as his hands worked on familiar surfaces.

Gordon wandered out onto the tarmac at one point to check on him. His fish brother may claim to be carefree, but if one of them wasn’t acting normally, he was known to chase them up or alternatively poke and prod if they weren’t responding in a Gordon-acceptable manner.

“Hey, Virg, whatcha doin’?”

It was yelled up as Virgil was hanging almost upside down above Two’s port wing polishing his third number two for the day.

“Cleaning.”

And yes, that was an arched eyebrow from his little brother. He couldn’t see it, but he could hear it. “You gonna wax and polish your entire ‘bird?”

“Just the important bits.”

“You do know we have bots for that.”

“Yes, Gordon.”

“Then wh-“ A wet splat interrupted his brother. “A-aaaargh!”

Virgil spun so fast, his safety line shifted and he found himself falling forward and off the edge of the wing.

Hanging in mid-air only gave him a better view.

Gordon stood on the tarmac, face absolutely disgusted, somewhat distraught and covered in white bird shit.

Virgil immediately looked to the sky, but from this angle half of it was obscured by the cliff face and the rest of it was blue, empty and glaringly full of sun.

“What the hell?!” Gordon stood like a frightened scarecrow, white uric acid in his hair, on his shirt and hands. His fingers flicked white all over the asphalt.

Virgil kept a wide berth as he rappelled down the side of his ‘bird.

“You okay?”

“Do I look okay?!”

Virgil bit his lip. “Well, you’ve looked better.” And if his phone camera was suddenly in his hand, it wasn’t like the fish wouldn’t do the same if he had the chance.

The expression of disgust on Gordon’s face was one for the record books. An accusatory glare at the phone, he spun on the spot, careful not to touch any part of his body with his filthy hands, darted between the ferns and clambered down the cliffside.

Virgil unclipped himself and ran after his brother, only catching sight of him as a pair of sand shoes flew up the cliff and landed on the asphalt. Gordon took a leaping dive into the lagoon.

Well, that was one way to get rid of it.

Virgil watched him purely for safety’s sake as his fish brother skimmed below the surface towards the deeper blue at the centre of the caldera. As always, Virgil marvelled at how fast Gordon could move underwater. Goofy above, powerful below.

And now madly trying to scrub the mess out of his hair. Words which Grandma would not approve bounced around the bay.

A figure in blue appeared at the edge of the villa cliff staring out at the splashing in the middle of the lagoon. That was an explanation waiting to happen. He was surprised there hadn’t been a squawk from comms already.

A glance at the empty sky and he returned to the question of what the hell would be capable of doing this.

Virgil was no orthinologist, but he did have a camera and an interest in the wildlife around him. They were in a rather privileged position just north of one of the world’s largest wildlife sanctuaries, and if his photos were of use to the scientific team on Raoul Island a few hundred kilometres south of them, well, it didn’t hurt to help where he could.

Mel, the leader of the team had him grabbing rough counts of the Kermadec petrels on Mateo every now and again, plus the sea eagles in the cliffs. With the tui in the forest and a number of other species, Virgil was pretty sure he had encountered just about every type of bird on the Island.

And none of them were big enough to make that mess.

Gordon was heading back and no doubt, the words were not going to be pleasant.

He was spitting chips before he even climbed out of the water.

“What the hell was that?!”

His soaking wet brother climbed the verge, hair sticking out in all directions, bare feet nimble despite the sharp rocks.

Virgil opened his mouth, but another voice interrupted. “What happened?”

Blue eyes, dark frown, Scott had already walked half the length of Two’s runway. “What’s going on?”

“Relax, Scott. Gordon just had an encounter with some bird poop.”

His big brother stopped walking. “You’re kidding. All that,” and he waved his hand towards the lagoon, “was for a little sky candy?”

“Candy?” Outrage was one word. Bedraggled was another. Gordon was shoving damp feet into his sand shoes and having a doozy of a time with it. “A bird shit on me, Scott. A pterodactyl sized bird. Possibly an elephant with wings.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “If it was an elephant with wings, you’d need a shovel.” Though at this point, he was willing to entertain the pterodactyl theory.

Another wary glance at the sky.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to get Two undercover.

-o-o-o-

Read Sky Candy on Ao3

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Gordon Tracy #Virgil Tracy #Kermadec AU #nuttyfic reblog

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little-miss-dumpsterfire · 3 years

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I think I made you up in my head - chapter two

Ah, yes, here it is. Part two of the total drama horror anthology no-one asked for. This chapter has already been posted on Wattpad (as have two others) but fuck it, I like it here.

Fair warning, it does get pretty deep pretty quickly. So, let’s get into it.

Chapter Two - I stared at my mirror; the mirror stared back

Trigger warning - eating disorders, self-harm (mentioned briefly) and blood/gore.

If you're not comfortable, please skip. 💛

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Axel's complexion lightened as his eyes bulged from his head. His head was spinning, and the confined basement he was in was not making the situation any better.

"Someone... someone else's turn? What are you going to do to me? Fuck, I didn't tell anyone I was coming out here. Oh god, oh god. No-one's gonna find me..." Axel panted, his body aflame with anxiety as he felt his heart pounding in his head. The slight weight of a dainty hand on his shoulder broke his haze and brought him back into reality. He shook her hand off, backing away from Izzy slowly with his hands held up in surrender.

"Don't touch me! Please... wha- what do you mean? What do you want from me?!" he pleaded, his earlier arrogant façade cracking to reveal a vulnerable, scared young man.

Izzy looked at him, the flicker of the flame reflected brightly in her dull green eyes. She sighed before backing up to the brick wall, sliding down before falling in a lump on the cold floor. Her thin index finger traced over the scars on her wrist she had hidden behind her jacket and whimpered.

Izzy spoke softly, barely audible to her frightened guest. "They never stop screaming. I try to close all the doors in my brain to silence them but they still haunt me. Slowly creeping... like a dense cloud blocking out the sun. Nothing will stop them, at least nothing I do will stop them."

She raised her head again, eyes obscured by dishevelled strands of copper hair. Axel stared at her quizzically as if he had wandered into the psych ward accidentally. Clearly, he was standing in the basement of a schizophrenic hoarder who couldn't let the past die, and he wasn't going to stand for it.

"Listen, lady," he started, regaining his air of arrogance, "I've about had it up to here. I make a podcast about cursed movies and conspiracies to earn money, not to end up in a knock-off Warren's Occult Museum."

"You don't understand. You don't feel the darkness we felt," Izzy replied, staring over at the shelves. "The paranoia, the pain, the conviction that we lived in a sick man's simulation. But everything in here was bathed in the depravity of Total Drama, and like a cancerous tumour it infected us all."

Their eyes met - soulless against suspicious - and Axel took a step towards Izzy, crushing a fragment of broken glass in his wake. Kneeling to her level, he roughly took her chin in his hands and raised her face to look at him.

"You killed them," he accused Izzy, malice dripping from his voice.

Weakly, she responded, her voice getting caught in her throat. "N-no. I didn't. But I know what did."

She lifted her slim arm and gestured towards the shelves. "Those relics are tombstones. Go and pick your poison, if you really want to know what happened."

Axel stood up, wiping the glass fragments from his knees and cautiously wandered over to the winding labyrinth of shelves. His fingertips barely grazed the aged wood of the shelves, tracing the grooves and divots with his index finger. In the corner of his eye, a dark shadow passed him by, and he quickly whipped his head around to investigate. Turning to the shelf in front of him is when he saw the imposing dark figure: himself. Situated in his eye line was a sparkly pink hand mirror intricately embellished with golden sculpted roses. He leant in closer to the mirror; his reflection was a shell of himself, with black pits for eyes and a pitiful smile.

"You ought to be careful with that one, kid," Izzy warned him, rising to her feet and dusting the grime from her pants. "If you look too long, the darkness grows eyes. This I know all too well now."

Izzy walked up to Axel, slightly caressing the edge of the mirror. She sighed deeply.

"We all knew she was the prettiest from the moment she stepped onto that dock... But in a world of lions, you didn't want to be fresh meat."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was no secret to anyone that Chris didn't cast Lindsay for her personality. The shark had smelt blood when he saw her audition tape. Looking back on it now, her fate was sealed in those fleeting seconds.

Lindsay sat atop her bed cross-legged, her dog perched in her lap. Her hair had been brushed to be its silkiest, and the photos on her dresser cemented the point she was making.

"I have bikinis for every season, even the ones not listed on the calendar," she chirped, reflecting her archetype of the dumb blonde.

She was the dream girl for any man: honey blonde and curvy. Her 'assets' warranted attention from creeps shrouded in anonymity behind their computer screens and TV executives alike. Unsolicited strokes and caresses were handed to her regularly, and she lavished in the attention that her looks had bestowed onto her. The early bloomer with the IQ of a thumbtack was a thirst trap for the reality TV crowd, yet the elephant in the room was never addressed.

No one seemed to care that she was sixteen.

For those of us in her different teams, we witnessed these infidelities and stood idly by, our mouths wired shut by clauses, contracts and never-ending fine print. Lindsay may not have been the brightest bulb in the bunch, but the correlation between her body and the positive attention she was receiving was crystal clear to her. She felt the pressure of public scrutiny if she gained weight, had a pimple or even covered up her chest. It was during Action that the red flags appeared... I'd give anything to go back and change it all.

Half-empty bottles of lip gloss were scattered on the bunk bed as Lindsay struggled to find a colour that brought out the highlights in her hair. In her left hand, firmly grasped, was an antique hand mirror that she had repainted herself to match her personality. She applied a liberal layer of rosy-pink gloss onto her lips and puckered them together, staring at the shine in the mirror. A sharp gasp escaped from her lips as her blue eyes widened like saucers. Her gaze was transfixed on her mirror as she moved it around, attempting to shake what she saw away.

"Um, guys..." Lindsay started, a slight panic present in her voice. "There's someone in my mirror."

A bald girl scoffed and rolled her eyes, resettling her focus onto her nails. "No shit, Sherlock. It's supposed to be there. That's a reflection."

A faint, obnoxious voice could be heard from out the open window of the trailer.

"Actually, the presence of a reflection is due to photons coming off of an object to strike the smooth surface of the mirror, which subsequently causes them to bounce back at the same angle, ergo creating a person's reflection." Harold corrected from afar.

"Shut it, dweeb!" Heather called out, throwing a hairbrush at the boy.

"That hurt, GOSH!"

Lindsay became visibly more and more terrified by what she was seeing. Small tears began to pool in the outer corner of her eyes as her lips trembled fiercely. The mirror slipped between her fingers and landed with a muted thud on the orange carpeted floor as the blonde held onto her face protectively. A hairline fracture snaked its way across the glass, briefly eclipsing a dark smudge that quickly disappeared.

None of us girls took Lindsay's claims to heart. She always said that someone was looking at her through her mirror; hardly a surprise from the girl who couldn't remember her boyfriend's name. Something in Lindsay changed that day, and all of us were in the dark. She still fell victim to the paedophilic adoration of Chris McLean and his lackeys - submitting to every squeeze and fondle - but something in her eyes showed that her comfort in her own skin had dwindled.

The water tap squeaked as a thin stream of water dripped out, moistening her toothbrush. She brushed violently, minty foam spilling from her mouth as she desperately washed the taste away. It had consumed her waking thoughts; her mind constantly flashing back to what she had seen. Fear enveloped her in its heavy blackness, picking at her deepest insecurities. Her throat burned from the acid and the bitterness of the bile seemed to stain her tongue.

She stared at her mirror and shook her head, lightly tracing the crack on its surface.

"I can't become fat like Hannah. I'll never win my trip to Paris that way."

In the mirror, her reflection began to warp and distort, but Lindsay placed it back on the counter face down. Her hand wavered over the handle for what seemed like hours, and when she tentatively picked it up again, etched in what looked like blood spelt out an ominous message: EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

In the weeks following Action's conclusion, images of Lindsay in her Wonder Woman costume were plastered on every tabloid site, every fan page and in every pervert's special photo folder. Her next two seasons played out very much the same, with sideways glances from the production crew eye-raping her on every occasion and her appearance being flaunted for more ratings. Gone was the girl with the backbone of steel who had stood up against Heather in a passionate act of defiance. In her place was an airhead overcome with fear and self resentment.

The click-clacking of her boots against the pavement was all Lindsay could focus on as the world went by around her. Wolf-whistles and cat-calls plagued her at every corner she walked past. She would usually stare into every shop window she passed by, gazing dreamily at purses on sale or new makeup products, but nowadays she scarcely looked twice. Not because she wasn't still obsessed with fashion, as she would always be. She never looked at her reflection because 'it' would be there. Every mirror, every window stared back at her.

She sat anxiously in the waiting room, fiddling with the hem of her skirt as she avoided the stares from the man next to her who was blatantly looking down her top. Her chest, whilst still well endowed, had shrunk, as had the rest of her body and it was starting to become obvious to those closest to her.

"Lindsay Marriott?"

Lindsay rose from her chair silently and followed, being lead down a short hallway into a room. Posters of the food pyramid and anatomical models were plastered on the walls as the strong scent of sanitiser attacked her nostrils. She sat down lightly, blonde hair cascading over her shoulders and forehead. The usual small talk took place before the woman placed the cold diaphragm of the stethoscope onto Lindsay's back. Her vertebrae were prominent through her skin, sticking up tall like mountain peaks. The doctor breathed out a small sigh before sitting down across from her.

"Lindsay, would you mind standing on the scale for me?"

She timidly nodded her head, rising and walking towards the scale. Lindsay removed her shoes and stepped onto the scales, the doctor over her shoulder writing down the number. Settling back into their seats, the doctor stared into the eyes of her patient and how their bright blue hue was a stark contrast to her fatigued, gaunt face.

"Honey, you've lost five kilograms since your last visit. You're bordering on becoming dangerously underweight. I think it's time we seek psychological intervention. When was the last time you ate a proper meal without purging?" the doctor asked, an air of concern apparent in her voice.

Tears began to drip down Lindsay's cheeks as she spoke between sobs. "Months... I can't eat... it won't let me eat."

"Who won't let you eat?" the doctor looked quizzically at the young girl who was averting her eyes now.

"The person in my mirror," Lindsay answered matter-of-factly before lifting her head. Behind the doctor's head was a wall-mounted mirror, where she could visibly see herself and the back of the physician. A slow ripping sound filled Lindsay's head as the back of the doctor's shirt split into letters written by an unknown force.

"Lindsay, are you okay? You've gone quite pale. I'll take your blood pressure."

As the doctor turned around, red, pointed letters were emblazoned on the doctor's back.

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

Lindsay jumped from her chair with a yelp and ran for the exit, bypassing the crowd of people in the waiting area.

That was the last anyone saw of Lindsay in public before... well... it's hard to put a word to what happened. Text messages to her phone went unread as she slowly slipped into her own self-imposed isolation. Her sister Paula would visit weekly and give us updates, but they were never anything to ignite our hopes or positive outlooks. On her last visit, she recalled that the stench of vomit would follow you around as plates of fly-blown, half-eaten meals were stacked up on the benches. Any mirrors in the apartment had been covered with blankets or covered with masking tape and the windows were blacked out with newspapers. Something had gotten its claws into Lindsay's head, and it was not going to let go.

The porcelain was cold against Lindsay's exposed thighs as she sat on the edge of her bathtub. Her pink mirror sat just within reach on the edge of the counter. The abyss. She had been holding in her hands the view into the abyss. Slowly, her skeletal fingers reached for the mirror, clumsily grabbing it before raising it to her face. Time seemingly stopped as she stared into the mirror, analysing her face; the sunken eyes and teeth slowly yellowing and corroding from the years she had spent purging. Before her eyes, the mirror once again warped until it showed what years ago her peers thought she had falsely identified as her own reflection.

Staring back at her was a decrepit woman with a face as bloated and waxy as a waterlogged corpse. Brown matted hair was plastered onto its face, slightly obscuring its eyes. Two large white orbs with pinpoint black pupils bore into Lindsay's soul as a grotesque smile crept upon its face, stretching its width from ear to ear. A silent scream left Lindsay's lips as black liquid began to seep from its eyes, nose and mouth, pooling at the base of its chin. In front of her was the shadow that had haunted her since she was sixteen, staring at her endlessly in every reflection, punctuating how ugly she perceived herself to be. Edging closer and closer towards the mirror, Lindsay couldn't tear her eyes away, paralysed in terror as faint whines wafted from under her bathroom door.

Paula found her three days later. The poor thing, I don't think the sight has ever left her, and in God's graces, I don't think it ever will. There's not enough therapy on this fucking planet that can erase that from the human psyche.

Paula walked into the apartment, distracted by a low buzzing sound. As she walked towards her sister's bedroom, calling out her name, the sound began to crescendo and a singular fly flew past her head. A distinct smell of rot and decomposition filled the air as she advanced slowly to the closed door of the bathroom. Her perfectly manicured hand gripped the knob strongly as she turned it, opening the door slightly. A swarm of flies buzzed through the open door, obscuring Paula's vision in a haze of black. As her eyes settled, they landed on what the flies had been inhabiting: Lindsay's corpse. Paula tried and failed to suppress gags as she saw her sister's dead body, eyes gouged out by her own hand in an attempt to stop what she had seen. A tacky layer of old blood surrounded Lindsay's head as hundreds of squirming bugs wriggled around in her empty eye sockets. Laying ornamentally atop the pink hand mirror were two eyeballs; their blue sparkle dulled and glazed over.

Scrawled in lipstick all over the walls of the room was one simple phrase.

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"In my head, Lindsay didn't fall victim to herself," Izzy concluded, staring at her appalled guest, "she fell victim to the industry. The sharks in suits who groomed her and fed her insecurities until the societal norms of beauty ate her from the inside."

Axel stepped wearily away from the shelf, in way over his head now. What had started as a cash-grab to use as a clickbait-eqsue podcast had now escalated to a trip to hell... and once you're in hell, only the devil can help you out.

#total drama #td lindsay #sorry it got a bit deep

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wandas-sunshine · 4 years

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A Soldier’s Spring - Chapter 1

Summary: She was one of Hydra’s secret weapons; a female winter soldier. And Bucky can’t let her go through what he did alone. everything is coming back to her, and he’s the only one that can help her become human again.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Death, light angst

Word Count: 3071

A/N: First official chapter! Tag list is still open. Flashbacks are in italics

Previously on A Soldier’s Spring | Series Masterlist

A beautiful woman was sitting at a picnic table in the park, a bright smile lighting up her face. Her little girl was on the swings with an equally bright grin. She’d gotten the day off of work and decided it was the perfect opportunity for some quality time with (Y/N).

“Mommy, mommy, look!” The girl cheered, her legs swinging to pump her swing higher and higher into the air. Her mom smiled proudly, pushing a loose lock of hair behind her ear and glancing at her cell phone for a moment.

“Be careful, sweetheart. You already hurt yourself once today, we don’t want you doing it again.” She warned. The child disregarded the statement all together. She was on cloud nine. Her mother was there with her, and she was flying.

It was an accident. She hadn’t meant to swing so high, and she hadn’t meant to slip off the seat, but she had tempted fate, and she’d lost her grip on the rope holding the swing. She fell backwards and hit the ground with a wail. Her back had collided first, and her head had bounced hard enough to make her see stars. Her side ached, she couldn’t breathe.

“(Y/N)!” Her mother called, rushing to kneel at the girl’s side. Her warm hand swept across the child’s face, pushing her hair out of the way. Her hand came back wet with blood. “Stay with me, (Y/N), okay?” She cooed, doing her best to stay calm. But the child was struggling to keep her eyes open, slowly falling unconscious in her mom’s arms. Her mother whipped out her phone.

“This is agent (Y/L/N). I need medics at my location. Pronto.”

“Park…vosem’…sgoret’…semnadtsat’…slomana…gavan’…otkrytiye… otkaz…volk…razdelit’” The Hydra agent listed out several words in Russian. It was followed by a long, tense silence from all of the other agents and scientists in the room. At the middle of the room sat a chair, big and metal and with contraptions attached to it. A young girl, no older than 21, sat in it, entirely motionless. It nearly looked as if she’d fallen asleep.

“Dobroye utro, soldat.” The man spoke once again. He was tall with close cropped dark hair and even darker eyes. Truth be told, he would’ve been handsome were it not for the cold, cruel twinkle in his eyes.

The woman lifted her head slowly. There was no emotion behind her glazed over eyes. She didn’t look at anyone or anything, just stared into space as she answered.

“Ya gotov otvechat.” The words came out robotically, like she had no idea she was speaking at all.

“We have a mission for you.” The man dropped a file into her lap. She picked it up, flicking through it and finally seeming to come to life. She remained cold, but it was clear she had been waiting for activation. Now her muscles were tensed like she’d pounce any moment. It covered two people, a married couple. The man was an engineer who had turned down offers from Shield twice. The woman was a biochemist who had made several advancements in her field.

“Kill the targets. Leave no witnesses.” The Hydra agent paced back and forth in front of her until she finished with the file and passed it back. She gave a barely noticeable nod in response. Then she was guided out of the room by a team of handlers, guns pointed at her from every angle like she was a wild animal too dangerous to leave on her own. Then again, maybe she was.

She didn’t know just how long had passed, but she had been loaded into a plane with a handful of Hydra agents. She sat quietly and obediently in her seat, just looking out the window. She didn’t pay any mind to how long had passed. She wasn’t expected to. Soon enough they had landed. Her motorcycle was unloaded and she was weighed down with weapons. Rifles, knives, pistols, even grenades. She was given her orders once more.

Track down and terminate the targets. Leave no witnesses. Return to that very spot. She had 7 hours.

She set off, riding dangerously through the crowded streets, weaving through and disregarding the safety of anyone else. Most everyone stayed out of her way. Anyone with any sense would know to stay out of the way of a crazed woman on a motorcycle with an assault rifle strapped to her back. She rode to the edge of town. She could see the beach in the distance as she stopped to wait for the cover of night.

She was right out in the open, but nobody dared to bother her. She was cloaked in all black with a heavy mask obscuring the majority of her face. What wasn’t hidden by the mask was hidden behind loose hair. She had her rifle strapped to her back,one pistol in a holster on her belt, two more in her thigh holster and several throwing knives strapped to the other. She didn’t care an inch about blending in.

Once the sun was setting, the soldier started up her bike again, driving down a winding road. It was a nice, upper class neighborhood. Sprawling, artificial green lawns dotted with pristine, towering houses. She came to a stop at the end of the street. A house much more modest than the others sat at the end of a long driveway.

She took her time in examining her surroundings. The house was only three stories as opposed to the four and five level mansions she had passed on her way in. There was no pool or expensive garden. It looked less like a show of wealth and more like a real home. Its grounds were big enough that she was tucked well out of sight of the other houses in the area. She spotted five cameras from the front of the property. She slipped off her bike, pulling one of the pistols from her holster. Five flawless shots, and the cameras were out of order.

The lights in the house were already off aside from one room on the third floor. Targets located. It was almost too easy. She confidently walked towards the security system box, lifting her gun and shooting it twice. That should suffice. Her hands tugged at one of the windows and she felt the lock snap easily under her strength. She didn’t waste any time climbing through the window. Her heavy black boots landed on the hardwood floor with deadly silence.

She scanned the room silently before heading for the stairs. The first flight was passed without so much as a creak. She’d nearly made it all the way to the third floor when she stopped in her tracks. (Y/E/C) eyes slowly lowered to where her foot was half hovering over the next step. Under the sole of her shoe was a powder-pink stuffed elephant. She couldn’t place what had urged her to do it, but the assassin bent to pick up the toy. It was strange for her, holding something so soft and fragile knowing that within moments those hands will have killed once again. So she carefully propped it up against the step and continued on.

At the very top of the stairs, she marched towards the room where the light was seeping from. She readied her gun, but was stopped once more by the sound of a giggle. One much too small, much too innocent. Then came voices.

“Another story, daddy!” A tiny voice pleaded. Then came another.

“Just one more. Then we’ll go to sleep! We promise!” The second voice sounded older, but hardly old enough. The woman’s stomach twisted and she faltered, lowering her weapon.

“(Y/N), don’t do this.” A voice cut through her head. She whipped around, her gun lifted and ready to shoot down whoever had managed to sneak up on her. But the voice was most certainly coming from inside her head. Panic was settling in her chest now, a feeling she wasn’t used to. “You can’t finish this mission, (Y/N). They’re just babies…”

She squeezed her eyes shut. This was her mission. She had to finish this, she never failed a mission before. She had to take out her targets.

“No witnesses.” The voice of the Hydra agent broke through her thoughts. Her entire body felt weak as she stepped towards the doorway. Her targets, a couple barely in their early 30s, were nestled on a too-small bed. They had two young girls tucked against them. The oldest was maybe 9 in a blue nightgown, the other about 6 wore a pair of paw print pajamas. And worst of all, cradled in the father’s arms was an infant.

The winter soldier scrambled back, pressing her body to the wall and desperately trying to even her breathing. What was happening? There was no record of children in the files. Did they expect her to slaughter helpless kids? Or was she supposed to leave them without parents to take care of them? Every one of her senses had been dialed up all the way to 12. The lights were blinding her, the sound of blood rushing through her forced her to clutch her head.

It was late at night. The young girl had been sound asleep in the back of the car. The radio was playing the classic rock station that her mother loved so much, and her father was quiet behind the steering wheel. It was a warm summer night, just after 11pm. The sky was a bluish shade of black with stars twinkling as clear as day. She’d fallen asleep trying to match the constellations to the ones in her book.

They had been on vacation. A nice little beach house out of the way of the crowds. Her room had looked out over the water. Her mom had taught her how to use the camera, her dad had been trying to teach her how to surf. They were meant to stay the whole week, but it was cut short when her parents were urgently called into work. But the girl didn’t mind. That was normal really. Every vacation she’d ever been on ended that way. This time they’d managed to stay a whole four days. That was enough to make her happy, really.

It was the sound of glass shattering and a scream that drew her out of her sleep. Then came another loud sound, a gunshot. Her father cried out her mother’s name and the car screeched to a halt. Now she was paying attention. Her eyes were wide and startled, and her heart pounded in her chest.

“(Y/N), get out of here.” Her dad twisted and pressed a cell phone into her hand with a panicked look on his face that made her feel like she was going to be sick. “Run. Run as fast as you can and don’t stop until you find someplace to hide. Fury will come and find you.” He wasn’t ordering her, just begging her to trust in him. Then there was another shot and he slumped as far as he could with his seatbelt still holding him. There was a bullet wound in his head.

She screamed, scrambling to get out of the car, to get away from everything she’d just seen. She clutched the phone like the lifeline it was and ran full tilt. She needed out. Her legs trembled underneath her, barely holding herself up and giving out at times, but she kept going. She wasn’t sure how many times she’d fallen, but her hands were scraped up and bleeding. Her lungs were burning. Finally, she collapsed to her knees, clenching her hands into fists so she could focus on something. She couldn’t help herself, she peeked over her shoulder. The car was barely visible now, but she watched as it went up in flames with her parents inside.

Bucky was falling in love with Wakanda. At first, he’d been terrified. Terrified to be so alone in a foreign place, terrified that they wouldn’t be able to fix his brain, terrified that he’d ruin such a beautiful paradise. But T’Challa had insisted that he was in the best hands, and the young princess was positive that she’d have him fixed in no time.

“If anyone can figure out how to help you, it is me and my people.” She had said. Bucky wasn’t so sure.

Now, things seemed to be looking up. Shuri had kept her word. They’d managed to clear the trigger words from his brain. That meant there shouldn’t be any way he’d sink back into Hydra’s robotic weapon again. The murderer he once was had been destroyed. He still felt like a threat, but the people of Wakanda trusted fully in their royals. As long as T’Challa and Shuri trusted him, the people would too. He still did what he could to avoid them. He preferred staying in his new home by himself. He’d read or cook or write. Shuri had recommended he start a journal to help with the trauma. He thought the idea was pointless, but it gave him something to do.

His nights were often long, filled with restlessness or nightmares. This one was no different. He woke up drenched in sweat. He couldn’t recall exactly what had happened in his dream, but the familiar weight of guilt in his chest was enough to tell him he’d been stuck reliving one of his crimes.

He climbed out of his bed and dressed himself. They’d provided him with plenty of options, letting him choose whether he’d prefer to dress in his usual style or blend in more with the Wakandans who had so kindly taken him in. He tended to choose the latter.

It was early morning, not quite 6am yet. The sun was still down, but he ventured out into the cool morning air anyways. Some people were already out, tending to gardens or animals. For the most part, they paid him no mind, as did he to them. He had so much on his mind that needed working out. He could usually talk it out with Steve, but they hadn’t talked in a couple days. The last he’d heard, Steve and Sam were tracking a lead on some of the last known Hydra bases.

It was no real surprise to anyone when Bucky made his way to Shuri’s lab. She had become a sort of comfort in hard times for him. He didn’t really expect her to be working at that god-forsaken hour of the morning. If anything he’d expected to try and get more sleep until she came along. But when the doors opened, he found her hunched over her latest project. Considering how tired she looked, Bucky wasn’t sure she had gotten any more sleep than he had.

“Bucky,” She greeted with a smile. She’d only just taken to calling him by his first name. “You look tired. Sit, talk.” She nodded towards the chair that she always left open for his visits. She reminded him so much of his little sister the way she bossed him and worried about him even if she refused to admit it. But he didn’t argue, just sat down and watched for a moment while she continued her work.

“I keep having these nightmares. They were getting better for a while. But now it’s like they send me back there, doing it all over again but I can’t figure out how to control myself, I can’t stop it.” He confessed with a groan. His hand rubbed over his face and pushed to card through his hair. The princess gave him a soft smile. She knew he was angry with himself for everything he’d done.

“It was not your fault.” She said after a long, heavy moment of silence between them. “You were not in control of yourself.” He simply nodded. He’d heard it a million times before, but it still wasn’t setting in.

“I remember it all. Every single mission they sent me on. It’s all stuck in my head.” He confessed. She hesitated, and he wondered if she was trying to think up a way to erase the memories. She’d expected that he’d remember, warned him that it would probably be crystal clear, but she hadn’t thought too much about how it would weigh on him. “I’m a monster. You don’t know the half of what I’ve done, kid.” He looked down at his hand in his lap. He hated thinking about all of the pain he’d caused. He’d always intended to be the good guy. That’s the entire reason he’d enlisted. People needed protecting, and instead he’d slaughtered innocent people.

“You are not that soldier anymore, Sergeant Barnes,” Shuri rested her hand on his bicep. “You are a good man who was forced to do very bad things.”

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t tear these innocent children’s worlds apart. She couldn’t kill them. They were just babies. Her hands were trembling so hard she had to put her gun away just to keep from dropping it. They hadn’t even noticed her yet, there was still time to back out.

She had to run.

The thought made her sick to her stomach. She was a soldier, an assassin. This was what she was created to do. Her handlers would be so angry when they caught her. And they would definitely catch her eventually. They had eyes and ears everywhere. There was nobody she could trust. She clutched her head and dragged her hands through her hair. What was she doing? She was given a mission, she was useless if she couldn’t even follow orders. She’d be punished for her insubordination.

She had to run.

She turned on her heel and raced silently down the stairs. She spared the stuffed elephant half a glance on her way out. At the window, she climbed back out, nudging it shut as if that would fix the fact that she’d broken in in the first place. She had to steady herself for a moment before getting on her bike and riding back the way she’d come.

She had no idea where she was. She had no idea where she was going. The only thing she knew for sure was that there was no turning back now.

Next Episode

#bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #avengers #avengers imagine #imagine #fanfic #reader insert #marvel imagine #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #a soldiers spring

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nothingeverlost · 3 years

Text

On the Wings of an Owl (2/?)

In which Sirius finds his way home and Remus starts a new journey.

Prologue

Chapter One - A Journey Begins with a Single Step

The sun was shining when Sirius left the Department of Ministry. It was the first time he’d seen the sun in twelve days and it seemed a sacrilege that it was bright and not hidden behind clouds. The whole world should be weeping for Lily and James.

“Oh thank Merlin.” Monty was waiting for him in the ally, in a set of robes of dark gray. His hair seemed whiter than it had been a few months ago, no signs left of the strawberry blond it had been once. His skin was fragile like those dusty old tomes Remus liked to read.

He couldn’t think about Remus, not right now. His head was already throbbing with too many thoughts.

“You didn’t need to come,” he told the man who had been a father to him for almost a decade. He should have known one of the Potters would be waiting for him, but it seemed too much to ask of them.

“I wasn’t sure you’d feel up to apparating just yet, my boy, so I hired a car to take us home.” Monty’s step faltered a little as he turned. Sirius automatically grabbed his elbow, steadying him. Monty looked at him for a moment before taking another step. When he spoke it was in a voice that was soft, and more to himself. “That’s just right, lad. We’ll prop each other up.”

It took a little less than an hour to reach the house, the last five minutes down a private lane that the driver wouldn’t be able to find later even if he had a reason to drive out to Weybridge again to look. The house had changed little since Sirius first saw it at the age of twelve, the summer before Second year when he stayed for a week. It looked like James should come running out the door at any moment to greet him, like he had a thousand times before.

James would never greet him again.

The sprawling manor house had been in Monty’s family for generations, probably as long as Grimmauld Place had belonged to his own family line. Where Grimmauld was weighed down with the past, however, the Potter home was alive, treasured antiques from the Potter’s English roots entwined with the warm colors and scents of Euphemia’s Indian heritage. A suit of armor in the hall had a dent on one arm where he’d knocked it against a wall after James had used it to scare him once. Opposite the armor was a bronze elephant decorated in jewels, the trunk raised in a show of prosperity. Harry was using the elephant to pull himself up, focusing on standing until the door opened and he noticed the new arrival.

“Pa-foo,” he said clearly, looking up at Sirius with eyes the same vivid green as Lily’s, his hair sticking up at odd angles just like James. For the first time in a week Sirius broke down in tears, collapsing onto the floor. Harry lost interest in the elephant and fell backward, landing on his well-padded butt and rolling over to crawl over to the object of his attention. His small fingers found the holes in the jeans Sirius wore and he used them to pull himself up until he was almost in his godfather’s lap. Sirius pulled himself together enough to support the lad, holding him close to his chest. The warmth he felt against his skin was alien after weeks of only feeling cold, or more often feeling nothing at all. Harry reached out one chubby hand to touch Sirius’ cheek. “Pad-foo wet.”

“He’s been waiting for you. I told him you were coming today.” Euphemia stood in the hall, ignoring the single tear falling down her cheek. She was dressed in robes of pure white without adornment, her feet bare despite the chilly November day. The white was for mourning he knew. She had told him once that bare feet made her feel more connected to her home and her magic. “Welcome home, Sirius.”

Sirius could only look at her for a moment before bowing his head.

The weeks after the war were a strange time. First came the celebrations, of course, the great silence of the last years ending in cheers and fireworks. The pubs were crowded as friends and strangers alike toasted to the downfall of He Who Must Not Be Named and his followers. Infants who had been born into war woke up for the first time in peace, and children who had been afraid to play were finally able to run in the streets in bright colors and with raised voices. Wizards were no different than any other human and needed their victory, but after the first few days reality set in.

For the first time, they had the leisure to mourn the dead after years of having to push away grief to focus on the next mission, the next battle. For months memorial services happened on a weekly basis, some for a single person, sometimes for an entire family. Two months after the war ended Christmas came, a celebration that highlighted the many empty chairs at Christmas dinner.

In Diagon Alley a memorial was built, a single arm raised with a wand outstretched, behind it a field of stars, Every minute the name hovering above the wand changed, each of the fallen listed in turn.

Marlene McKinnon Dorcas Meadows Fabian Prewitt Gideon Prewitt Edgar Bones Benjy Fenwick

It took more than an hour to see every name. After Lily Potter’s name faded away the series began again. There were names that were missing. One day Regulus Black would be added, when his deeds were learned, but that wouldn’t be for years. It would take another month before the death of Arabella Figg was discovered, as she had little communication with wizards and it took time before anyone checked on her. Frank and Alice Longbottom, stuck between life and death, weren’t on the list.

Peter Pettigrew’s name was quietly removed from the list the day after it was discovered that he was still alive.

It was a rare family that wasn’t touched in some way by death. Remus Lupin, half an orphan before the war started, was completely alone after. His father had started fading the moment his mother died; he had chosen recklessness as his way to join her. There had been whispers of werewolves going after muggle families. It was a member of Greywolf’s pack that killed him, though Remus fortunately never knew that fact. He only knew that his father died and he was alone.

In the weeks after the war Remus fled to Wales. For the first time in his adult life he didn’t have anything to do. No mission from Dumbledore, no job, and certainly no friends to meet at the pub. He mourned in his own way, drawing his grief tight around himself. Grief for the friends lost and the relationships that had fallen apart. He tried to look back at everything and figure out when Peter had become a betrayer and where he’d missed the signs. He did not want to think about Sirius, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the much more obvious signs of how badly that friendship had gone wrong. Losing James and Lily was like an amputation, a part of himself that was there one moment and gone the next, leaving phantom pains. Losing Sirius was a festering wound that would probably never heal. He mourned the losses of his friends, all of them.

The Daily Profit announced on the front page when Sirius Black was released, and it was a dull sort of comfort knowing that at least he was free and innocent, or at least as innocent as any of them could be after fighting a war. The picture they used was an old one, from Jame and Lily’s wedding, and it hurt to see it. Though it was only Sirius in the frame, mugging for the camera, Rumus knew that his own younger self had been cropped away. They had all been so happy that day. Sirius had even dragged him out to the dance floor after a few drinks, and it was just a lark for him but Remus could still remember how it had felt to dance with his friend and secret love. He tossed the paper in the bin.

Transforming on his own was always harder, leaving him exhausted. He needed another day of rest, he decided, but then it was time for a change. There was no reason to stay in England. Sentiments against werewolves were even worse after the war; some had been responsible for vicious attacks, and the best that could be said was that some had chosen to remain neutral. He had his parents’ house, but without an income there would be no way to feed himself. There was only one thing he could do that would be of use to anyone; he was going to find Peter. Tomorrow he would start tracking down a rat.

Sirius could not sleep. The bed was too soft and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in a real bed. The last month was a blur of cells and leaning in doorways and curling up in alleys as a dog. After living in the city and fighting a war the sounds of the country were too quiet and strange. Mostly, though, he couldn’t sleep because it felt as if James being dead had changed the whole equilibrium of the world and he couldn’t find his footing.

His bedroom faced the back garden, his view partially obscured by a tree that had been a handy way of coming and going when he was a boy. Many a time he and James had climbed down the tree to go for a midnight swim or smuggle in things to drink. More than once he’d climbed in on his own, the window never locked as if the house itself knew that he sometimes needed a place to run to when his own house was too much. The summer before Fifth year he’d shown up at one in the morning on an August day, climbed inside and collapsed in the bed, sleeping until James had pounced on him and demanded to know why he hadn’t woken him up. Sixth year, when he’d left his family or good, he’d used the front door.

Sometime in the last couple of years Euphemia and Monty had changed their bedroom to the downstairs suite. It meant that of the five upstairs bedrooms the only other one occupied was the one to his left, a guest suite that now held a crib. To his right was James’s room, separated from his own by a bath they had shared. The door to the room that now belonged to Harry was open, and Sirius found himself standing in the doorway more than he tried lying on his bed. The window shade was up and the almost full moon illuminated the crib enough to see the bandage on Harry’s forehead. Magic wounds were hard to heal, and no one knew how long a curse from such a powerful wizard would take before it stopped bleeding.

“James should be the one standing here,” he whispered to the boy as he stood at the edge of the crib. His friend had been so excited about being a father. So proud. So worried about his ability to protect his son and wife. Sirius had sworn that nothing would happen to any of them. He had lied.

“Mmm.” Harry shifted in his sleep, as restless as James had always been. He was such a small thing; Sirius had panicked the first time Lily had handed the baby to him, certain that he would drop the kid and nine months of work would be ruined. James could forgive him just about anything, but probably not a dent in his kid.

“I’ll fuck this up, Prongs, but I swear I will do my best.” The first time James had asked him to be godfather it had seemed a joke. It was a good laugh, him responsible for anyone’s child. Merlin, there were days when he shouldn’t be responsible for himself, let alone another human. As the war had progressed the promise was one that James had reminded him of on occasion. Every time he had panicked and told James that he and Lily were the ones most likely to survive. Even after the prophecy they had a plan. James would be safe. Godfather would be an honorary title that just meant he got to spoil the kid with the things his parents wouldn’t buy for him. And then he’d made the stupidest argument in his life and had convinced James that Peter would be a better secret keeper. James and Lily paid for his mistake with their lives. Harry would pay for the rest of his life, his parents stolen from him.

Thank Merlin for Euphemia and Monty. He couldn’t raise Harry on his own. Without them he wouldn’t know what to do. Without them he’d probably be in a cell in Azkaban.

It was another hour before he slept. He only settled because Harry woke up and needed rocking; they both fell asleep in the chair that had been Lily’s, Harry on his chest, the rocking charm he’d put on the chair long since worn off. Euphemia found them in the early hours of the morning and covered them carefully with a blanket.

#wolfstar fic #wolfstar #remus lupin #remus lupin x sirius black #sirius x lupin #remus x sirius #sirius black #siriius black x remus lupin #harry potter #my fic #harry potter fic #MPPW

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wazzupmrstark · 5 years

Text

We’re Only Kidding Ourselves- Part Sixteen || Tom Holland x Reader

A/N: okay there is NOT smut in this part I lied but not on purpose that will be next week sljdlkjasjd it got too late for me to include it but that’s a problem for next week me

Prompt: Enemies to lovers au (from @marvelellie‘s 1k writing challenge!!)

Summary: You work as a production assistant for the Spider-Man: Far From Home crew, or rather as Tom Holland’s handler. The two of you don’t get along very well to say the least, but you won’t quit and he can’t fire you so you’re stuck with each other.

Warnings: swearing, mentions of body image issues

What I listened to while writing: the ocean b i t c h

Word Count: 3.7k

You weren’t a huge fan of beer, but Tom was buying the rounds and that’s what he kept bringing over to the table, and what were you supposed to do? Not drink it? It’d be rude, and turning down free alcohol wasn’t really your style.

After a short, unremarkable dinner at an overpriced tourist spot, the four of you had wound up at a bar, against your better judgement. It was odd to be spending time together as...friends. It was different from the Czech Republic, because now the animosity between you and Tom had been dialed back to almost nothing (aside from the elephant in the room he still didn’t know about), and you were still adjusting to it. The friendly nudges on the shoulder, the laughs sent in your direction, the jokes made at your expense- without any hint of malice. They were all things you’d experienced with Harrison before, but never Tom, and it was disorienting you more than the beer was.

This bar was different from the one the mandatory event had been at two nights ago. No one was in favor of going back there, even if you were the tiniest bit curious about whether DJ would remember you. But after getting shitfaced there last time, everyone thought it was for the best if the group of you went somewhere else, which brought you to this hole in the wall. You had stumbled across it on accident on the way to another bar. The walking GPS had taken the four of you down a narrow alleyway when you passed what you had thought was a garage with loud music pouring out of it. It was another, much lower rated, bar, but they had a live band and that was what sold it.

The band wasn’t half bad and the drummer was kind of cute, but you had to yell across the table to hear each other and it was beyond crowded. The band’s sound reminded you of a small garage band from your hometown that had gotten kind of popular when you were in high school. You couldn’t remember their name, but they played a bunch of gigs at bars and you’d always try to sneak into them with your friends. You’d actually slept with the drummer from that band one winter break in college, so maybe that was why you were so partial to drummers.

At some point in the conversation Harrison excused himself to the bathroom and Tom made another trip to the bar leaving you alone with Harry. Your conversation earlier had been so awkward, that you couldn’t think of anything to say now.

“That picture you took of me sucked,” Harry practically shouted at you, breaking the tension.

You hadn’t been expecting him to say anything and it made you choke in your drink with laughter.

“I thought maybe it could be artsy,” you said defensively, referring to how the different colored lights blended together in the background, obscuring him as the subject.

“No, it was just blurry.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you knew everything about photography,”

“More than you.”

“Fuck off,”

Harry flipped you off from across the table and you whipped out your phone to snap a picture of him before he could put his finger down.

“How’s this one look?” you asked, turning the screen towards him.

“Still awful.”

“Give me break,” you huffed in irritation, earning a chuckle of pity from Harry.

“I’ll teach you, don’t worry.”

You were only halfway through your second Peroni when Tom brought over four more beers, since everyone else had already finished theirs, and slid one of them over to you.You narrowed your eyes in suspicion.

“What are you up to, Holland?” you asked.

He raised his eyebrows at the nickname. “Definitely not trying to get you to spill all of your secrets, that’s for sure,” he laughed.

“I’m an open book,” you said, lying right to his face.

He scrunched his nose and shook his head. “That’s not true. I don’t know anything about you.”

You rolled your eyes and took a sip from the glass you were still working on. “Are you kidding me? We’ve worked together for months now we know each other.”

“You know all about me, literally everything about me, it’s your job. But I don’t know anything about you.”

“Everyone at this table knows I don’t know everything about you,” you said, trying to defer. “Don’t make me look like a fool twice.”

Tom leaned back and took a swig from his new drink. It wasn’t a threat, but it wasn’t an empty statement either, and by looking into his eyes you knew he understood.

“I wasn’t-“

“Hey guys there’s a pool table in the back,” Harrison interrupted, returning from the bathroom. He paused, looking back and forth between you and Tom, unaware of what he had just walked into. Tom cleared his throat awkwardly. “Do you all, uh, want to play?”

“Sure,” you agreed immediately, not wanting to dive any further into the gray area you'd gotten yourself into with Tom. You downed the rest of your beer and hopped down from the stool, leaving the full one on the table behind you.

You followed Harrison to the back of the bar, weaving through the mass of people holding on to the hood of his sweatshirt so you wouldn’t lose him. Harry and Tom weren’t far behind. If you’d learned anything about the Hollands it was that they were extremely competitive and weren’t ones to turn down a challenge so this game was about to be interesting.

The lighting was dimmer in the back, and the music and conversation sounded distant now, but it was nice. Whoever had been last to play had left in the middle of their game, leaving the billiard balls scattered all around the table.

Harrison and Tom started setting up the game while you grabbed a couple of cue sticks from the wall.

“Me and Harrison versus you and Harry,” Tom said, and clapped hands with Haz who was already on Tom’s side of the table.

“My own blood,” Harry scoffed, feigning offense at not being chosen as Tom’s partner.

“Sorry, mate trying to win,” Harrison shot back with a wicked grin.

Part of you wondered how often Tom favored Haz over Harry and if anyone was keeping count. The other part of you was a little offended that you were so clearly the teammate to get stuck with. Another thing to bring you back to high school, when you’d get picked last in gym class because of your reputation for your athleticism, or lack thereof.

You fought the urge to roll your eyes in annoyance. “I’m standing right here.”

“Please tell me your pool skills are better than your photography skills,” Harry pleaded and you shot him a look.

“Guess you’ll have to hope for the best, since you’re stuck with me.”

All the boys knew your coordination skills weren’t...the best. Your reputation of clumsiness had certainly followed you everywhere, but they didn’t know you used to sneak into bars when you were in high school, and that there was a pool table inside of every single one.

“Ladies first,” Tom said, and removed the triangle mold from the table.

You didn’t respond, only brushed past him to get to the head of the table.

You placed the white ball on the felt and aimed your cue stick at it. With a swift hit, it rolled into the middle and knocked the colored balls on the table in all directions. Luckily, an orange ball rolled into the far left pocket, making you and Harry the solid team.

You went for another, but missed. Harry clapped you on the back anyway, clearly impressed you had scored any points at all.

“Nice, y/n,” Harrison complimented once your turn was over, but you ignored him.

“Mate, whose team are you on?” Tom asked with a nudge to Harrison. He shrugged defensively and pushed Tom back, signaling to him that it was his turn.

Tom rolled his head and shoulders dramatically as he approached the corner where the white ball sat. He angled himself loosely, but purposefully in front of it and wasted no time sending it colliding into a ball with a green stripe. Everyone held their breath as it rolled toward the same pocket yours had gone into and you exhaled in defeat when it tipped over the edge and into the woven net.

The whole game was like that, one shot after another, a point and then a miss, making it a close game the whole time. You could hold your own, but the boys had been in plenty more bars than you had and you were all varying levels of drunk, with you on the tipsier side. Everyone was joking and talking shit about each other and somewhere in the middle of the game you actually started to have fun again. You got to show off a trick move your dad had taught you when you were first learning that had them losing their shit, begging you to do it again with their phones out and pointed at you.

Somehow you and Harry pulled it off with you scoring double points towards the very end and him finishing it off with the eight ball on his next turn.

“Don’t say I never did anything for you,” you said, pointing at Harry after he’d had taken a victory lap around the table.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” he apologized with admittance.

“You should be I just kicked all of your asses and I can do it again,” you declared, not hearing how your words were starting to slur.

“You did not we were tied for most of it,” Tom argued. “And I’m drunk.”

“We’re all drunk,” you corrected him. “You’re just a sore loser.”

“Accept your loss with dignity, mate,” Harry smirked and tipped his glass back, draining the remainder of beer from it.

“I’m impressed with your skills, y/n,” Harrison said, holding out his hand for a shake. “Good game.”

You just looked at his hand out in front of you. “I’m also good at skeeball.”

The next few days in Italy passed without much incident. There was still chatter on set about your mistake with the headset, which you always double checked was off now, which you probably should have been doing before. You didn’t even talk over headset that often and after yesterday you wanted to use it as little as possible. You were worried that as soon as it cut off whoever was on the other side of the line would just start talking about you, but it wasn’t like there was anything you could do about it.

You never heard about it from anyone above you, though. None of your bosses on set or back at HQ ever contacted you about anything out of the ordinary, so at least you still had a job. It was probably too awkward for anyone to bring up, which was equally as horrifying as it was relieving.

Every time Tom came up to you you were sure he was going to say something to you about the dream, but everyone was being surprisingly tight-lipped about the whole ordeal, which was unusual for the film industry.

Most of the cast apart from Tom and Jake Gyllenhaal left two days before the crew, getting a few days off before they were due in New York. As much as you missed all the horrible fast food there you weren’t as excited to go back to the States as you thought you’d be, even though it meant you were one step closer to this job being over.

You spent the morning of the last day in Venice packing most of your things so you wouldn’t have to do it ridiculously early tomorrow. Tom’s stuff was still absolutely everywhere, he had yet to pack any of it, and you wondered how this boy managed to get anywhere without losing half of his stuff. You were tempted to start doing the packing for him, but knew he’d only be pissed if you did. He was one of those people who believed that every thing had its place and you knew you’d get it wrong if you tried. Plus, things had been going well between the two of you the past few days and you didn’t want to ruin that by letting your handler side get the better of you.

You were almost out the door to meet everyone downstairs for the day when you got a message from Tom, asking you to approve an Instagram post for his feed. You smiled to yourself when you saw it was the picture you’d taken of him that night before dinner. It had only barely been touched by a filter, making the whole picture a little brighter. You liked the way it made his eyes look, and you liked the fact that he had been looking at you.

He’d tagged Harry in the picture and the caption, since he couldn’t tag you of course (he didn’t even follow you) which you thought was a little overkill, but you sent him an approval message anyway since you were running late and everything else looked fine.

When Watts called wrap at the end of the day it felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. You couldn’t wait to get back to the room and just read for the rest of the night. Maybe order room service.

Everyone clapped like they did when it was a full wrap day since production was moving to a new location and you usually didn’t like to glorify the actors more than they already were, but you joined in, clapping for yourself since you had made it so far, and through so much.

As soon as you were curled up on your side of the bed with your book Tom came crashing into the room from where ever he had just been bursting with energy. He rambled to you about dinner with Watts and Jake and how he and the boys were going to go up to the pool on the roof to go night swimming and about the flight the next day and everything in between.You were only able to follow about half of it, nodding where you thought was appropriate and working in ‘uh huhs’ when you had the energy..

It wasn’t Tom’s fault that his presence commanded so much attention, but you wished that at least once he could walk into a room without captivating everything and everyone in it.

“You should come to the pool with us,” Tom said, popping his head out of the bathroom where he’d been talking to you from.

“Isn’t it cold?”

“It’s a heated pool.”

You shook your head with uncertainty. “My swimsuit is at the bottom of my suitcase,” you protested.

“Come on, it’s our last night in Italy. Don’t you want to make some memories? It’ll be fun, I promise.”

You scrunched up your face, and Tom smirked because he knew you couldn’t say no to him, boss or not. “Fine.” His face lit up with victory. “I’ll meet you up there.”

You stood from the bed with a sigh one the door had shut behind Tom. Digging through your suitcase was even more difficult than you thought it’d be, and clothes were all over the floor once you found your bikini.

Putting it on was a chore as well because as much as you liked the print and color of it, it had taken you a long time to feel comfortable in a swimsuit, and sometimes it was still difficult to shrug off the insecurities that prickled in the back of your mind.

You took one of the clean towels from the bathroom and wrapped it around your body, hoping you wouldn’t run into any other guests in the hall on your way upstairs. Since the pool was only one floor up, you took the stairs, bracing yourself for the crowd of people sure to be out there. It was empty, aside from the boys who were already in the pool, batting around some sort of sports ball.

What you hadn’t been prepared for, though, was the view, and the chill. You wrapped your towel tighter around you, not sure if it would do any good, and took a step closer to the railing. The boys had yet to notice you and you took the opportunity to admire your surroundings. As much as you were relieved to be leaving the city tomorrow, you couldn’t deny that Venice was beautiful, especially at night. Small clusters of stars twinkled around the sky, and the moon hung low, partially hidden behind some distant buildings.

It was mostly dark, but a few windows were lit from within. You imagined parents tucking their children into bed who had stayed up past their bedtime, friends pouring themselves another glass of wine, and lovers putting on an old record and swaying to the rhythm until the needle reached the center.

“Y/n, you made it!” Harrison’s familiar voice called from behind you, and you turned, ripping yourself away from the city and all it’s untold stories.

“I did,” you said awkwardly and cleared your throat. The boys were clearly waiting for you to join them, but you were still standing off to the side with a towel wrapped around your body.

As quickly as humanly possible you unwrapped the towel from yourself unceremoniously and dropped it onto an adjacent pool chair. You felt pairs of eyes taking over your body, but you weren’t sure who they belonged to.

Not bothering to prolong what was already a painful process, you stepped down into the water until you were level with the rest of them, meeting eyes with Tom, waiting for him to take the lead.

He hesitated. You realized that for once the positions of power had been switched and instead of you being the one to tell him what to do, he was going to be telling you. You hoped the power wouldn’t go to his head.

“What about Marco Polo?” he suggested and everyone kind of rolled their eyes. “Anyone got any better ideas?”

No one did, so Marco Polo it was. Tom was it first since he had suggested it and everyone spread out as far as they could across the length of the pool. It wasn’t very big, which made the game pretty easy.

Tom’s arms weren’t very long, but he was fast and before you knew it his fingers were brushing your bare side signaling that it was your turn.

You weren’t as talented as Tom was. Your round took considerably longer than his had, and you spent a lot of time splashing around aimlessly, trying to ignore Harry’s laughter in the background. You wanted to get Tom back for tagging you, but ended up all but tackling Harrison into the water on accident. Either way, your turn was over.

You opened your eyes to find yourself clinging to Harrison’s back like a koala. Sheepishly, you detached yourself from his body and pushed back the hair that had gotten into your face.

“All you had to do was tag me, y/n,” he said, grinning and you shrugged apologetically.

“Just wanted to make sure I got you.”

The game went on for longer than you thought it would, and as it went on you got progressively more competitive. You pushed and shoved your way through the other boys to avoid being it again, and you had a pretty good streak going until Harrison got you back by accidentally backhanding you lightly across the face during his turn.

He opened his eyes with horror. “I’m so sorry I thought I was going for Tom’s shoulder!”

You touched your face gently where it still stung from the impact. “Right,” you joked, but stopped mid-sentence when you realized how bad he really felt about it. “Hey it’s fine, it was an accident.”

“I hit you.”

“We were playing around, I tackled you earlier it’s okay, really.”

Harrison reluctantly agreed, but you all moved on to a different game after that. Harry brought out a football for the four of you to toss around and that’s what you did until Haz decided to call it. He gave some excuse about getting up early for the flight tomorrow and hopped out of the water without further explanation. You knew he still felt shitty about what had happened during Marco Polo, but you didn’t know what to do to make him feel better.

Harry went with him since they were sharing a room, leaving you and Tom alone in the pool tossing the football back and forth. You figured you’d just go back to the room whenever Tom was ready since you wouldn’t be able to sleep until he was back anyway.

“What's your middle name?” Tom asked, breaking the silence that had hung in the air since the other two had left.

You struggled not to laugh. “What? Why?”

“I told you the other night, I don’t know anything about you. This is me trying to learn.”

“Well it sounds like you’re trying to steal my identity.”

He shrugged. “Added bonus.”

“It’s y/m/n, but I’m pretty sure Tom Holland doesn’t need a social security number from someone like me.”

“Maybe not, but I hear American passports are very valuable.” He tossed the football back to you. “Don’t you want to know my middle name?”

“Isn’t it Stanley?” you asked and he frowned. “I sign so many papers with your legal name on it, you shouldn’t be surprised.”

“You’re right.”

“When am I not?” You quirked an eyebrow and Tom retaliated by throwing the football further than you could reach on purpose, sending it rolling onto the deck underneath the lounge chairs.

The ball was neglected to be found as Tom continued to pester you with more questions. You humored him and answered them all, telling him about your parents, hometown, college, and how your record for shotgunnning a beer was four seconds.

He listened to everything quietly, only stopping you to boast about his two and a half second shotgun record.

You never thought you’d be having this conversation with Tom Holland of all people, yet here you were, trading stories about near alcohol poisoning under the night sky on the roof of a hotel.

“Guess no one else wants to swim tonight,” you commented offhandedly, glancing around the pool area that had been empty all night.

“Oh, the pool’s been closed since eleven.”

“What?”

this probably has hella typos but i’m so tired. smut next week!! sorry again for all the confustion. lmk what you think I always appreciate feedback!!

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#tom holland x reader #tom holland #tom #tommy #woko #were only kidding ourselves #tom holland x y/n #x reader #tom holland fic #tom holland fanfic

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chickenghost1 · 4 years

Text

LSS Ads Graded

Okay so I’m gonna list as many ads as I can think of and grade them based on the stripping content within. Going from S tier down to F. S tier obviously being an all-time great and F tier being ads which are complete missed oppourtunities, where it’s teased but never happens or maybe happens completely off-screen. D tier will be ads that actually have LSS content but execute them really poorly.

I definitely didn’t list all the ads I could remember so I might do a Part 2 soon. If you have any ads you’d like to see me grade please send them in!

---

adidas: B - "The parking inspector gets stripped by a supersonic tennis ball" is probably a sentence that hasn't been typed before, so points to this ad for uniqueness. I like that one of her bra straps has broken in the process, that's some nice attention to detail that you just don't see in a lot of these.

BI Norwegian Business School: B - The one scene worth noting is the hot blonde losing her business suit in a job interview. Quite a restrained embarrasment, it's fun.

Best & Less: C - Fun, but underwhelming. I like her surprised and dare I say excited reaction, but it doesn't go anywhere from there.

Citroen Happy Days: C - Good but I can't find a high quality version anywhere which doesn't help. Probably B tier if there was.

DIM: A - Both these ads are utter classics, but my favorite of the two is the one with the cat. Yes it doesn't show anywhere as much skin but the woman is an utter bombshell.

Doritos Dinamata: B - I love the build-up to the stripping. Really builds the tension. Bonus points to the shot of her scrubs coming apart at the seams, really ties it together.

Doritos Power of the Crunch: A - CLASSIC bit of LSS. Hot woman wears dress, dress flies off, hot woman gets embarrassed.

Dunlop: A - The runners version is above the tennis ones simply because there's more to it. (First they lose their tracksuits, then their uniforms). All three versions of this ad are classic though.

EU Personal Data: B - The fact that she's stripped naked is superb, but it's a damn shame we A: don't get to see actual nudity beyond some generous side boob and B: she doesn't react at all, really keeps this from the upper echelons. So close.

Elephant Auto: B - This feels like a classic LSS ad. All the flying junk gets in the way of her which doesn't help it but besides that it's great.

Gilt: B - Another ad that benefits from a build-up. It works for the payoff and it delivers. Not spectacular, and there's a version of this ad with another woman who gets stripped off-screen which is a bit of a tease but it's fun.

Juiced: S - It hits all the right notes. Losing clothes bit by bit, great evolving reaction, utterly hot woman, breasts!

Kit Kat Ice Cream: C - Nearly a B but it just falls short, love the unravelling dress but there's hardly any reaction to it. It just doesn't really reach the peaks it could.

L'Etoile: C - Really creative way of doing it, just wish it was longer.

Magnet: A - Classic ad. Enough said really.

Marks and Spencer: C - Again nearly a B but the scene where she loses her clothes is VERY brief, and is somewhat obscured by camera angles and such.

Mastika Peshtera: A - SO GOOD, I just wish we had it in better than potato quality. It also came with these nice print ads which are stills from mid-strip.

Media Markt: B - The classic vacuum sucks off dress gag, done pretty well, the girl is a babe, do wish we got to see more of her reaction but it's still fun

MetroPCS: S - Two different LSS's take place here, the highlight of course is the Bridesmaids losing their dresses simultaneously, all with different reactions. It was already pretty much S Tier off that alone but the other woman who loses her dress right after too is just sugar on top. Great shit.

NOVY TV: B - The women are hot and their reactions are great. Good solid B Tier ad.

O'Charleys Bread: C - Barely any skin is seen after the rip but her reaction is cute and the shot of the dress ripping from her shoulders is nice. Just inches into C Tier.

Odol - D: It’s creative, I’ll give it that much, but you barely see anything and it’s over so quickly.

PACT Office of Eden: A - FANTASTIC Scene where the woman's clothes rip off in slow motion as her hair falls out of it's ponytail. HOLY SHIT it's good, and it's her real lack of reaction that keeps it from being S Tier. Really great ad though, highly recommended.

Que Chosir réseaux sociaux: B - Smartly dressed woman losing her clothes piece by piece, it's good but it's still lacking somewhat. Maybe becuse its pixilated, maybe she reacts too quickly. Love it in throry but just falls short a little bit.

Sekonda: B - Lingerie? Yes. Reaction? Embarrassed. Hotel? Trivago. ...man if only Trivago had an LSS ad to their name.

Sela: S - Not only is it a fantastic LSS ad, it's a fantastic ad in general. Parkour, a love story, great visuals and titties! Also the censored version features the girl holding on to her bra in a very cute way so extra credit there.

Sex Education Show: B - A woman loses her pyjamas while falling through the sky. I love this but it's held back by the shots of her losing her clothes either being obscured or really close-up, no inbetween. Great ad though, comes close to being an all time great for me. The opening titles also have her losing her clothes too though how is happens is not as obvious, bonus points anyway.

Sheetz: B - The brunette who loses her clothes to 'the force' is a fun yet it's an oh so brief scene.

Target Color: C - The woman who gets her winter clothes blown off down to summery swimwear is fun but it's brief and there's not much reaction.

Target Jeans: B - Great reaction to her teleporting jeans but why DID she react like that? There's no one in the changing booth with her.

The Sims Katy Perry: D - I loved this when it first came out because it was a Katy Perry LSS. Like come on, Katy Perry's dress magically flying off, of course I loved it. But it really isn't that good. She doesn't react to it at all and what she's wearing underneath barely shows more skin than what she had.

Triumph V-Shape: D - I LOVE the shots of the dress turning to ribbons but in the shot where she reacts she's so far away! What is this, an LSS for ants?!?

Under the Skin: C - It's fun but brief. Simple as that.

Vestel: S - Hot blonde woman loses her clothes one by one to a magic washing machine. Fantastic. Only thing that could've made it better was actual nudity but there is generous sideboob.

Vittel: F - THIS FUCKING AD. Right, so there are two ads in this series. One male and one female. The male version has the guys clothes rip apart in very high detail for like 15 seconds and then he runs off to the bathroom in his boxers. The fact that there is a woman version of this should put it in S Tier automatically, right? Wrong. It starts with said lady lounging poolside when she goes to drink the bottle of Vittel and her clothes start to tear. Great start. But instead of reducing her to a bikini or her underwear, it just replaces what she's wearing with almost exactly the same thing, then she goes to dance on the grass. Utter fail, why did they not follow the pattern set by the other ad?!? She's by a pool for fuck's sake it writes itself!! So much potential wasted here.

Vivelle Dop: B - This is great, I just wish there was a bit more to it. Also wish there were HD versions of it but that's neither here nor there.

Westfield Online: C - Damn this had potential! The idea of a hot, smartly dressed woman getting her clothes blown off one by one is fantastic. I like what we got but what we see is HEAVILY obscured and all too brief. Doesn't help that the only copy I ever found was not quite HD. She seems to be naked at the end of it all so bonus points but this could've been so much better. If anybody ever finds a better copy of this please send it my way, it might be enough to bump it up to B.

#commercials #ads #graded #euf

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eliasbouchardisarobloxthot · 4 years

Text

chapter 1 of an au i am writing

this is jokingly titled “power of friendship au” in my doc, but that’s essentially it - tim, sasha, and jon (for now) team up while they’re all still interns to befriend all of the creatures they meet! the timeline is obviously a bit different from tma canon, but it will still be mostly non-spoiler. this chapter in particular has only mid-early season one spoilers, so you all should be fine! as usual, under the cut...

"We are not supposed to be doing this," Tim hissed, but he made no move to run.

Jon wasn’t listening. The box of cigarettes in his hand was nearly crushed, but he stood his ground as they made their way to Old Fishmarket Close.

"Do you really think we're gonna—" Sasha's voice wavered. "I mean, the file in Gertrude's office said it’s not—it isn’t always there, right?”

“We’re going to find it,” he said resolutely. The hills were high, higher than any of them had expected, but they managed to make their way up to the alleyway that was listed on the map.

It was dark out. Jon convinced them all earlier that day to come with him and help after they left for the night, and Tim was doing a very bad job of hiding the fact that it made him incredibly nervous to be out this late. The streets were nearly empty—at nine o’clock on a Tuesday evening, no one was going to be out and about.

A quiet voice echoed from in the alleyway—”Can I have a cigarette?”

Sasha screamed. In her haste to wrap herself around Tim for safety, she nearly hit him in the face. Somehow, though, Jon stood his ground.

“You can have a cigarette if you come out of the alleyway. We know what you are. We just want to talk.” He set the pack of cigarettes down just a bit out of reach, then sat down in front of the alley with his legs crossed. “We can wait here all night.”

“Wait, what? Maybe you can, but some of us have work tomorrow. Or have you forgotten about our literal job? The one we met at? Earth to Jon, but we do still have to work. In the twenty minutes it took us to get here, capitalism as an institution has not yet been overthrown.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to concentrate.” Jon sat there staring at the alleyway. “Come out of the alley now, please.”

His stare was incredibly intense, seeming to cut through the darkness obscuring the figure and illuminate the alley. As they sat there in the alley, a voice that was most certainly not the one from before—and was also certainly not human—echoed out from the alley.

“Fine.”

“Come out where I can see you,” Jon said.

The vaguely human silhouette in the alley warped and twisted, changing from human to inhuman in barely a second. It skulked out of the alley, sitting down across from Jonathan.

He could see how from certain angles it could maybe look sort of human. If it tried. It reminded him of one of those optical illusion sculptures in museums—from one angle, it looked like a giraffe, from the other two elephants. Except from one angle, this thing was human, and from the other… well, most definitely not.

“Do you have a name?” Jon asked. Somewhere, quiet static hummed.

“No,” it said. “You call me the Anglerfish, though.”

“Do you want a name?”

“Maybe. If you pick a good one.”

“Louis,” Tim said.

“Felix,” Sasha said at the same time.

“No,” the Anglerfish said, decisively.

“You’re a fish, right? What if we just call you Ariel?” Sasha tilted her head to one side, thinking hard. “You look like an Ariel.”

“Ariel as in The Tempest?” Jon asked, looking confused. “I mean, sure, the water reference is there—”

“Ariel as in The Little Mermaid, you fucking idiot,” Tim said with a sigh that could have shaken the city down.

“Never seen it.”

“What’s a mermaid?” the Anglerfish asked, testing the word out in its human voice.

“Oh my god. Firstly, your name is Ariel now.” Tim pointed at the Anglerfish. “Secondly, you get a pass for not knowing because you’re a spooky monster thing. Thirdly, Jon, how have you not seen The Little Mermaid? Did you just straight-up not have a childhood?”

Jon didn’t reply.

“So we’re going to my apartment and renting it off Netflix and—I can’t believe I’m having a slumber party! I’m not a kid anymore… but it’s necessary. Objectively speaking.” Sasha looped her arm through Jon’s, pulling him to his feet.

“Are we sure this is necessary?”

“Yes,” Sasha said, glaring at Tim. “I think I actually have some microwave popcorn we can make, do a full movie night.”

Jon sighed, following Sasha as best he could.

“What’s a movie?” Ariel asked quickly. “What are those?”

“You have a lot to learn,” Sasha said, with a wide grin. “But if you like it here and want to talk about it more, then… well, you can just chill with us!”

—

“What did you say your name was again?”

“Patel? Amy Patel?”

“Alright, Amy, and do you think you can tell me some more about how this all happened? I know you gave your statement to Gertrude already, but—”

“Oh, no, it’s no trouble,” Amy said, gesturing into her flat. “I moved, but I still have my address down if you want me to give it to you. And, er, the flat that used to be Graham’s, I can get you that address too if you need it.”

Sasha shook her head. “You don’t have to give us all that. Just by letting us in you’re doing enough already.”

Amy smiled in that bemused sort of way that older adults tended to smile at younger ones, with a look in her eyes that said something like “who are these little children and why are they trying to be professional around me?”

“We should—I should have introduced myself.” Jon gestured to Tim and Sasha. “That’s Tim Stoker, this is Sasha James, and I’m Jonathan Sims—we work with the Magnus Institute, under the head archivist. We’re only interns, though.”

“I’d noticed,” she said. “Come on, sit down. I’ll put on some tea if you’d like?”

“Tea would be lovely,” Sasha said before the others could interject. “Now, can you tell us a bit more about your experience with Graham?”

“Oh, well, where to begin,” Amy said, pouring milk into a saucepan on the stove. “I mean, I’ve told you basically everything in my statement already. You contacted me saying there was an update a while back, but honestly I’d almost forgotten about it. The whole thing. It was a few years ago now, so… yeah.”

“Alright. Um. Do you—can you tell us anything about what you do now? Like, the sorts of jobs you’ve been doing, or—”

“Yeah, uh… yeah. Like I said in my statement, I do statistical analysis mostly. Been taking a few more classes sort of in the field of criminal studies—” she waved her hand— “all that sort of stuff. I actually did take a liking to it, might try working with that sort of stuff in the near future. I’m already looking for applications."

"That's very interesting, Amy," Jon said, fidgeting with the packet of cigarettes in his pocket.

"It really is," she said as she strained the chai, setting four mugs on the table and sitting down next to them.

Jonathan had taken the box of cigarettes out, and was now shaking them absentmindedly a few centimeters away from his face as he thought.

"Oh, can you not smoke in here?" Amy asked quickly. "It's just—my landlord hates when people smoke inside, we have an area over outside for it—"

"I don't smoke," Jon said, looking somewhat confused. Sasha took the cigarettes from,him and put them in her pocket.

"They're for our friend Ariel, Jon just carries them for it."

"It?" Amy looked more confused than ever.

"She eats them," Tim explained. "And she told us to call her 'she' in front of other people, Sasha."

By this point, Amy had taken a long drink of chai.

"You kids work with monsters. Right? All those things in the statements. Other people have to have given statements, there's got to be some others that are true."

Jon nodded solemnly. "We've been looking into other cases with provable aspects—yours does, by the way, we know yours is at least partially true."

"How comforting," Amy said with a wry smile.

“And… well, this is going to sound very bad, but I would prefer it if Tim stopped sleeping with people to get information.”

“Hey! That was one time!”

Amy laughed. “So you’re asking me to help you get information. Right?”

Jon nodded, having started to fidget with the cuffs of his shirt once Sasha had taken away the cigarette box.

“I mean, I do have access to quite a few databases. If you wanted my help, though, you’ll have to promise something.” It sounded like she was talking to some unruly teenagers.

“Certainly.” He tried to look as professional as possible.

“Please just take care of yourselves,” Amy said with a sigh. “You guys are just kids and you’re running yourselves into the ground, and you’re putting so much work into this—I’m scared you’re going to either get hurt by one of these things or hurt yourselves trying to befriend them.”

“I—” Jon tugged at the button on his sleeve for a moment. “I understand where you’re coming from here, I really do, but there’s, there’s just so many and I want to give them a chance. Because we still have to—if there’s any chance they’re a good person, deep down, I want to help them.”

Amy sighed, leaning back in her chair. “If you’re serious about this—”

“We are,” Sasha said quickly.

“Then I’ll help you.” She picked up a pad of paper sitting on the table and scribbled something on it in smooth, curling handwriting. “That’s my phone number for my work phone, just call it if you need anything. I usually have it on me.”

She thought for a moment. “Give me a sec. You’ll want this.”

Leaving Jon, Tim, and Martin alone at the table, she walked into her bedroom and returned carrying what appeared to be a very old, very worn-out three-ring notebook. There were dividers of various colors separating things, a bookmark that was just a piece of ribbon stapled into the spine, and a label on the front that read “MONSTERS”.

Jon flipped through it quickly, looking through the sections. The dividers were labeled with different numbers, and at the front was a table of contents with each number labeled with a small explanation of each different number.

“This is incredible, Amy,” he said, turning the pages reverently. “There’s so much detail here—this could be more than we have at the Institute, really.”

“Well, I have had a bit of help,” she said amusedly. Opening up the cover, she moved her hand over something inside and set it down on the table. As she did, the inside cover was revealed.

“Is that skin?” Tim asked, looking disgusted. “Ew.”

“What, am I too gross for you?” a voice suddenly said. Sitting on Amy’s sofa was a man who looked to be about Tim’s age, with his hair long and poorly dyed black. All of his joints were tattooed with tiny open eyes, and he wore dark eye makeup in circles around his eyes that trailed down his face. The clothes he wore were ripped and tattered, but it was obvious that they had at one point been a t-shirt for a band, a leather jacket, and a pair of dark jeans.

He was also hovering several feet in the air.

“Nice to meet you, everyone,” he said with a grin. “I’m Gerard Keay, and I used to work for your boss.”

Jon stood there open-mouthed for a few moments. “Sorry, what?”

“I used to work for Gertrude. That’s your boss, right? She still there?”

“Yeah, she’s still there. Uh, just—you’re a ghost, aren’t you.”

“Yep,” he said, leaning back to hover above the couch with his hands behind his head. “They taking the book with them, Amy?”

“I think so. Because, well, they’re—I think they’re more able to investigate these things than I am.”

“Shame,” Gerard said with a sigh, pushing off the wall and sighing. “You were cool. Plus you didn’t mind if I listened to music on your phone while you worked.”

“You can still see me sometimes,” Amy said with a laugh. “Not like I’m dead. And besides, that wouldn’t really be too much of a problem, would it?”

Gerard rolled his eyes. He very pointedly turned away from Amy and looked at the interns, hovering in a cross-legged position in the air. “Well. My life is in your hands now. I mean, not really life exactly, I’m still dead, but my existence is in your hands. Don’t fuck it up.”

“We won’t,” Tim said.

“Well. This has certainly been informative.” Amy moved closer to the door. “Thank you for giving me Graham’s old notebook, and for a very interesting discussion. I assume I’ll be hearing from you shortly?”

“Yes. I think we’ll start at the beginning? What’s the oldest entry you have in this book?”

“That’d be… the one right at the start of section three for distorted reality. He likes to hang out in graveyards, you’ll probably be able to find him pretty quickly. Blond hair that’s all long and frazzled-looking, tall, kind of thin—if you see him in a reflection or through glass he looks tall, unnaturally tall, and his hands look all gross and creepy.” She shuddered, moving to open the door. “You still have my number?”

“Yep.” Sasha held up the page.

“It’s really been lovely,” Jon said. “Thank you.”

“No problem at all,” Amy said. “I’ll see you all soon.”

thats all folks! thank you so much for reading it. i may upload chapter 2 soon, but that is it for now!!

#text #fanfiction #original work

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lykegenia · 5 years

Text

The Things We Hide Ch. 27

Chapter 1 on AO3 This chapter on AO3 Masterpost here

With the six of them, Appa’s saddle was crowded. True, the avatar sat on the beast’s head to guide him, but the rest had to be squashed among their supplies, which after the first day had been stacked up at the front of the saddle to offer them some protection from the wind. It was closer quarters than Zuko would have liked. He was all but buried between Sokka and Toph, whose nausea had yet to settle. Katara sat at the corner of his eye with her hair loose and blown back by the wind, with the chain of sea-wolf teeth braided into it like a coronet. She hugged her knees for most of the trip, and aside from the odd petty exchange with her brother, during the day with very little to do, she mostly kept her thoughts to herself.

At first, he thought it a facade employed so she wouldn’t have to talk to him, but after a few days of watching her easy cheeriness in camp, he detected a forced note in her manners towards the others, as if she were humouring them – and none of them seemed to notice. Or perhaps, he decided as they swooped low over the countryside, they were so used to seeing this version of Katara that they didn’t realise it was an act. In the fire nation she had been clever, and cultured, and determined, and even though she had turned those talents against him – his blood still boiled to think about it – seeing her hide those parts of herself away left something unsettled in him, like seeing a delicate silk painting left out in the rain.

Not that it mattered. She had avoided him ever since he had joined the group by the campfire. Her behaviour was fine with him, really, when there were so many other things to think about, such as his impending reunion with the Fire Lord, or how the combined weight of their group and their provisions meant the sky bison was flying slower than he should be on the winding, circuitous route they were taking towards the coast.

The avatar, at least, seemed to agree with him.

“Guys, I don’t think Appa can take another day of flying like this,” he announced when they landed that night. “Not if we want to make it across the ocean.”

“And we’re all so looking forward to that,” Toph grumbled as she carefully felt her way down the beast’s leg. “And eugh, we’re on sand. Of-sodding-course. Excuse me while I go and throw up.”

The others climbed down from the saddle with varying degrees of stiffness after the long, cramped hours of flying. They had stopped on a crescent beach of greyish sand, surrounded on all sides by steep cliffs obscured at the top by vegetation. The dying light shone through the waves that curled onto the shore, and birds called to each other as they settled down to roost.

Sokka rubbed feeling back into his legs. “If we dump most of the gear can we make up the time? We’re already three days behind schedule.”

“Appa’s an animal, not a ship,” Aang replied. “You can’t just unload him and make him go faster. He gets tired.”

“So do the rest of us, but if we don’t defeat the Fire Lord –”

“Better to get to the Fire Nation late than not at all,” Suki interrupted. “And we might as well leave the camping stuff here anyway. There aren’t many places in the middle of the ocean to pitch a tent.”

Sokka flashed her a goofy grin. “Good point. You’re so smart.”

“I know,” she replied, brushing her fingers over the carved necklace at her throat.

“I might go and join Toph in throwing up,” Katara muttered.

“I’ll remember you said that when you start fawning over some brawny jerkbender,” her brother teased. “And then I’d have to knock him out, since you’re my sister and everything.”

“You couldn’t knock out your back,” she snapped, cheeks darkening. She did not look at Zuko. “I’m going to catch us some dinner. If someone else could unload Appa and get a fire started that would be lovely.”

A stunned silence fell as she marched away.

“Hey Sokka, I think you said something,” Aang joked, when still nobody spoke.

Sokka huffed. “Waterbenders. It’s probably something to do with the moon – ow! What was that for?”

“Being a sexist pig-chicken,” Suki retorted, as she batted him on the arm. “‘I’ll have to knock him out’ – honestly. And that was before you started bringing moon cycles into it.”

“Hey, it’s a big brother’s duty to defend a little sister’s honour. Prince Hothead!” he called, looking for support. “You’ve got a sister, right? Tell the mean lady it’s our job to be protective.”

Zuko, who had already climbed back into Appa’s saddle and started untying the guide ropes, kept his voice carefully neutral as he answered. “If I ever tried to ‘protect’ Azula like that, she’d probably set me on fire. You should count yourself lucky.”

“Yeesh. Your family has problems, buddy.”

With a frown, Zuko turned back to his task. The light was nearly gone now, and though he could probably use his bending to see, the knots would be awkward to undo with only one hand. He paused to try and work out if he could approach them from another angle, but when he glanced up to shake his hair out of his eyes, all thought of knots and ropes went out of his head at the sight of Katara.

She stood almost hip-deep in the sea, poised in a starting stance while the waves broke around her. As he watched, she lifted her hands and raised a column of water, then in a graceful turn drew a stream out from the mass that contained a sinuous, glittering mass – a young elephant koi, he realised. The creature struggled, twisting on itself to get back to the safety of the sea floor, but her power held it absolutely, and as she turned and brought it back to shore, the water flowed away from her legs like the falling petals of a flower.

Someone shifted beside him; he hadn’t even heard Suki approach.

“You were staring,” she said, offering a bland smile.

He swallowed, and hoped the failing light hid the burn in his cheeks. “The first time I saw her bend, she sank three of my father’s warships by herself.” He glanced at the warrior as she let out an appreciative whistle. “I’ve never seen someone with that much control over their element, not even Azula. I was taught that firebending is superior to other kinds of bending, which was why we deserved to win the war, why we were winning. But it’s not true.”

Until the words were spoken, he hadn’t recognised them. His frown deepened, thinking back to the past weeks at the temple, and the training sessions with his uncle in the early morning where nobody could see. The old man had chided him for forgetting his root, his breath, and had sighed at the predictability of his form.

It is good to take wisdom from many different places, he had said. If we take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. It is not the use of the four elements that makes the avatar so powerful, but his understanding of them.

“I’ve found people from the Water Tribe tend to have that effect,” Suki replied, with a fond look over her shoulder. “Help me with this.” She set her hands to the knots, and Zuko, catching the idea, ignited a small flame in his palm to help her see. For a moment they worked in silence, until the main ropes holding their supplies went slack. Beneath them, Appa had started snoring.

“When Sokka’s fleet first arrived in my village, we were neutral in the war. Avatar Kyoshi separated us from the mainland so we wouldn’t have to suffer outside conflict, and we tried our best to follow her example.” She smiled. “And then this young, hotheaded warrior limped his ship into my harbour, and I realised that by isolating ourselves, we were only waiting for the war to come to us, and the longer we waited, the worse it would be. Kyoshi would have kept the peace, and we dishonoured her memory by not trying to help, so we decided to leave the island and join the avatar.”

“Our people think of honour differently,” he replied, scowling.

“How so?”

For an instant, he considered telling her everything, about his banishment and his cut hair and the sting of betrayal, but it would be an admission too far, a tenuous lie while the idea still churned in his mind that by bringing the avatar to the Fire Nation, his father’s approval was in his grasp.

“We should have Toph bury what we don’t need,” he said instead. “The Fire Nation sends patrols out in airships and they’d spot it otherwise.”

He was quiet for most of the next morning as they set out across the ocean. They had left everything on the beach but their weapons and just enough bundles of dried food to sustain them for the two days it would take to cross to the tail-tip of the Fire Nation archipelago, and with Appa fed on alfalfa mixed with high energy seeds, they were making good time. By early afternoon they saw the first Fire Navy ships low on the horizon, outliers for the main blockade.

“We should’ve called in some of ours for a diversion,” Sokka grumbled as they passed overhead. “Do you think they saw us?”

“Better to assume they have and expect the worst,” Zuko answered.

Toph sighed from her place clinging to the edge of the saddle. “Excellent advice from the ray of sunshine. Can someone tell me what’s going on?”

“We’re at the blockade,” Katara supplied. “And we have a plan. Take us down.”

“Down?”

But Aang only nodded. “Way ahead of you, Katara – Appa, yip-yip!”

Groaning, the sky bison dipped towards the sea as the blockade appeared as a line of specks on the horizon. He gained momentum with broad sweeps of his tail until the wind streamed in their eyes. Behind them, a rocket screeched into the sky, exploding in a shower of sparks. The Fire Nation had seen them after all.

“Uh, Katara...”

“I’ve got this.”

As Appa levelled out, pulling up just in time for his toes to skim the waves, Katara rose to her feet in a bending stance, twisting her feet so they rooted to the saddle, encased to the calf in ice. She reached out behind her, scooping mist from the surface of the water and fanning it so it billowed out before them, until only the lap of the water beneath Appa gave them any orientation at all.

Zuko turned to Sokka, his expression grim. “The navy knows waterbenders use fog to hide their approach. They’ll know we’re coming.”

As if on cue, a fireball exploded over their heads, lighting the fog with a flare of orange. Appa roared and swerved to dodge the missile, and scuffed up spray as his forequarter collided with a wave.

“They would’ve seen us coming anyway,” Sokka replied, clinging to the saddle. Another fireball detonated, closer this time. “But this way, they won’t see where we’re going.”

“Look out!”

Suki’s shout came almost too late. The fog parted for a ball of flame headed straight for them. Katara twisted and threw an arm up with a spike of ice to catch it and the fireball smashed into it. The force of the impact broke her stance and sent her to her knees with a snarl.

“Katara –”

Shouts echoed through the fog, a whip-crack orders accompanied by the turning of gears and the soft whoosh of pitch igniting. Appa bellowed again and an instant later, he was drowned out by the telltale crunch of trebuchets being launched.

“Katara, we have to dive!” Sokka yelled.

“We can’t,” she shot back. “We won’t have enough air, and we can’t afford to surface too close in case they spot us.”

“That won’t matter if we’re dead!”

“Too late!”

She braced herself as the fireballs tore through the air. Aang struggled to steer Appa with one hand, while his staff waited in the other like a bat ready to swing. Even with two of them, they could never hope to repel every one. Zuko saw this in slow motion, just like he saw the fog dissipating as Katara’s focus shifted to defence, sweat on her brow, and he saw the water swirling beneath them, and Toph’s blind eyes wide with fear knowing there was a threat and no way to react to it. He wasn’t aware of moving, of sliding into a stance, of summoning fire – not until it burst from his fists and shattered the oncoming projectiles like confetti.

Katara stared at him.

“Focus on keeping our cover,” he barked. “I’ll shoot any that come too close while the av– Aang steers us through the worst of it.”

“I...” She blinked. “Right.”

He turned away, scanning the air above them as she rooted herself once more, and then the mist drew in, enclosing them utterly. Aang wove a serpentine path just above the water, non-direct like his element, and without a clear target the Fire Nation ships floundered, spitting fireballs into the air at random more with the hope of hitting something than anything else. Only a few veered close enough to do damage, but Zuko shot them down. The foreign shouts grew louder.

Something reared on their left side, a hulking shadow behind a wall of white, close enough that Appa had to roll sideways to avoid it. The movement was too steep, however, and he crashed into the water with an impact that rattled everyone aboard to their teeth.

“Did we get something?” a nervous voice called from above.

“I heard a splash!”

Katara let go of the fog. “Now, Aang!”

The avatar nodded and stood, matching her movements. Together, they swept arcs of water overhead, weaving it like a cocoon. Appa panicked as they sank, struggling at the unfamiliar suck on his limbs, and for an instant it seemed the bubble would burst.

“Keep him calm,” Katara ground out, holding the weight of the water on one arm.

“Easy, buddy. Everything’s going to be alright.”

They went under. The world around them dimmed to murky shadows pressing close, distorted and silent through the screen of water as they passed under the blockade. Above them, the churn of rotor blades throbbed like a heartbeat until Katara, with a grim, satisfied smile, reached up and froze them solid.

“Congratulations, Sweetness,” Toph groaned. “You’ve managed to make flying worse.”

They kept on for what seemed like ages. Both Katara and Aang used their bending to help Appa power through the water, though they struggled to keep his natural buoyancy in check. The light filtering through from above painted shafts of crystalline blue onto the void around them, and into the occasional flash of scales as shoals of fish darted past. To look down was to be filled with an ominous sense of vertigo, but not in the same way as flying through the air. Then, at least, the eye had reference points and perspective to make sense of what it saw, but here there was nothing but a void of ever increasing darkness that loomed up to swallow anyone who stared at it for too long. Zuko pulled his eyes away, lightheaded, itching under the weight of it.

“Katara...” he breathed.

“Not now.”

He shook his head. “Your nose is bleeding.”

“I can handle it,” she snapped.

But the others were drawing in too, their concern far more welcome than his alarm.

Sokka placed a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “We should be far enough away now. As long as we don’t take off, we shouldn’t be seen.”

“Appa’s fur is pretty waterlogged by now, I’m not sure he could take off,” Aang offered.

“Who cares if we can fly?” Toph interrupted. “Has anyone else noticed we’re running out of air?”

Faced with agreement from all sides, Katara nodded and changed her movements. At first there was little change, but gradually the water around them brightened, with rippled shadows taking definition as light became sky and the ocean fell away. Then, about ten feet from the surface, Appa realised what was happening and threw off Aang’s steady hand on the reins. He bellowed and surged upward with a stroke of his tail. The sudden movement was too much for Katara’s shaking legs. She collapsed to her knees, losing her hold on the bubble of air, and the weight of the water met the smack of force as they surfaced – it swept them away like leaves before a storm – and then the ringing in their ears bled into the disorienting screech of seabirds and a rough breeze that stung their faces like sandpaper.

“Is everyone alright?” Sokka asked.

There were murmurs of assent from various corners of the saddle, and a groan from Appa, shaking his head to clear the water from his eyes.

“No sign of the Fire Nation,” Suki supplied. “We did it.”

“Not until we reach land, we haven’t,” Toph reminded her. “Is Katara alright?”

Sokka turned to find his sister sprawled with her legs stretched out in front of her, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers, with the clotted blood from her nosebleed still lingering on her upper lip.

“I’m fine,” she said.

Aang settled next to her. “That was almost avatar-level bending. I’m sorry I couldn’t help more.”

“You were busy with Appa,” she replied. “We all saw how well it went when he panicked.”

“He’s sorry too. Hey – you know what you need? One of the cinnamon buns Sifu Hotman packed for us! They should be –” He trailed off to find Zuko already handing him the waxed packet containing the sweet treats, and with a grin he turned back to Katara.

“Thanks, Aang, but I’m feeling a little dizzy right now.”

“That’s why you need to eat.” He rocked back on his heels and contorted his face into a scholarly, old-man expression complete with a stroke of an imaginary beard. “A master knows to master themselves before they can master the mastery of their element,” he told her in a wheezy but recognisable impression of Iroh. “And the most masterful way to master the self is to master your hunger, master Katara!”

“If I didn’t know you better I’d swear you practiced that,” she managed, relenting as he waved the basket under her nose. The buns did smell delicious. “Fine. But you have to tell Appa to keep swimming.”

“Deal!”

“Thank you.” She glanced aside as she said this, but Zuko was facing away from her, towards the horizon ahead, and didn’t appear to notice her regard.

#zutara #zuko #katara #zuko x katara #katara x zuko #avatar: the last airbender #a:tla #avatar fanfiction

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freersounds · 5 years

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Freer Sounds Radio February 2019

A month into 2019 and I’m already drowning in new music. As usual February’s show features the cream of new stuff alongside older gems. We kick off in a smooth and sonorous ambient way, before moving into slightly more experimental territory with a Vangelis produced Irene Papas tune purloined from a 1E bin in Leiden. Later there’s Swedish folk and post-punk, a cover of Dr Dre and an obscure Frankie Goes To Hollywood track with an elephant. We have a potential world exclusive with Antonio Ocasio’s fantastic revision of Aurelio Martinez’s Dugu and a couple of tech-angled stormers from Mandar and Ellen Allien. Toada and Barry Biggs then calm things down towards the end. Enjoy!

Jonny Nash – Shell – Music From Memory

Andrew Wasylyk - Through The Field Beyond The Trees Lies The Ocean – Athens Of The North

Monta At Odds - Sometimes Almost Never Happens – 8D Industries

Saba Alizadeh – Dream - Karlrecords

Irene Papas – Racines – Polydor

Lewis Fautzi – Conspiracy – Faut Section

Laurie Spiegel – Patchwork – Unseen Worlds

Thomas Wiehe – Vargen – Silence

OK:KO – Piik – We Jazz

Sly5thAve - Still D.R.E. – Tru Thoughts

J Dilla - Won't Do (Instrumental) – BBE

Gesaffelstein feat. The Weeknd - Lost In The Fire (Instrumental) - Unknown

Instinct - Swamp Out – ZTT

Woolfy - The Warehouse (Project Sandro Remix) - Rong

Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Disneyland – ZTT

Sporten Är Död - Der Weltcup - Fördämning Arkiv

Aurelio Martinez - Dugu (Antonio Ocasio Remix) – No Label

Mandar - String Theory – Oscillat Music/Mandar

Ellen Allien – UFO - UFO Inc.

Toada – Airosa - Plūma Records

Barry Biggs - Love Come Down – Afrik

Still House Plants – Afterward – No Label

#freer sounds #magnum #radio show #eclectic

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claramcguireartistry-blog · 5 years

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Top 5 Wedding Blogs to Follow in case You're Planning Your Wedding

The late spring wedding season has formally arrived—and you'll be seeing exposed cakes, Edison knob outside lighting, and blooms in abundance through October. Prospective love birds have likely officially wrapped up their late spring occasions, yet for those of you simply beginning to consider your wedding next summer, presently is the ideal time to get a little motivation.

1. This marvelous Southern CA blog is an absolute necessity check whether you're getting hitched locally

Getting hitched in California? There are various web journals committed to the brilliant express that offer insider tips for the best merchants, bloom ranchers, settings, and the sky is the limit from there. Southern California Bride remains our go-to suggestion for those in SoCal who are hoping to wow their visitors.

Noteworthy notice: Though they give tips, traps, and information for everywhere throughout the US, Ruffled Blog is situated in California—and they realize how to enable you to design an incredible gathering. Locate the best tips for your territory by perusing by area.

2. Non-conventional couples will love our next decision

Not every person likes to shading inside the lines—and in the event that you need to swear off a first move, avoid the bundle tossing, or discard the detailed cake, there's still a lot of #weddinginspo out there. Draw up Rock n' Roll Bride for some extraordinary, out of control thoughts to kick you off.

Good notice: How does a geek tastic wedding or a vault committed to pizza conveyance forever stable? Find magnificent thoughts like these and more at the Offbeat Bride.

3. Remain on-pattern with this flourishing asset

With a huge number of social adherents, Style Me Pretty needed to make our rundown. It's a standout amongst the most well known wedding web journals to ever exist, in light of current circumstances. Perusers love their recommendation, design tips, and shocking photograph sets—and we do as well!

Respectable notice: Get the charm and glitz of a customary wedding, regardless of your objectives, spending plan, or course of events, with a little assistance from Green Wedding Shoes. You'll cherish the plenty of thoughts and DIY venture plans they have accessible.

4. Keep it natural with some master direction

Easygoing, straightforward, and downplayed tastefulness have been excessively stylish as of late—and the natural look is detonating in prevalence. In case you're seeking after something outdoorsy and extraordinary, make certain to bookmark Rustic Wedding Chic.

Noteworthy notice: The rural stylish is one of the most straightforward to accomplish with a little diligent work. Helpful couples should peruse DIY Bride for ravishing, simple to-do ventures.

5. Financial plan cordial assets and tips

Hoping to spare a couple of dollars so you can spend too much on your special night? Can't legitimize burning through the majority of your reserve funds on one day? You can at present have an awesome wedding with a lower spending plan! The Budget Savvy Bride has huge amounts of tips and suggestions to enable you to set aside extra cash without settling on quality.

Respectable notice: Kiss My Tulle started as a spending wedding blog and has extended to incorporate everything the straightforward millennial lady of the hour could seek after. We're talking DIY thoughts, spending agendas, and everything in the middle of to enable you to handle your wedding arranging (without going insane all the while!).

Reward: we have the deets on gathering arranging and how to ensure your wedding music is on point

Exquisite Event Entertainment has been helping couples have astonishing weddings and gatherings for quite a long time—and our accomplished Los Angeles wedding DJs and MCs can work with you and your organizer to ensure your unique day goes off easily. Get in touch with us to study our extraordinary lighting bundles, DJ administrations, and photobooths!

Best Wedding Cake Scenes in Movies

Each wedding has something that makes it a mark occasion. For one lady of the hour it could be about the dress. For the following, the most imperative angle could be the music. And after that there are the weddings that spin around the sustenance. From tidbits to appetizers, some pre-marriage ceremony put a lot of significance on what is around to eat. While you may have an incomparable steak or brilliant finger sustenances on your enormous day, there is no wedding nourishment more essential than the wedding cake.

Snap here to see 10 Best Wedding Cake Movie Scenes

Wedding cakes nowadays can cost upward of $1,000. They can be robed in fondant or decorated with genuine blossoms. Maybe they are a transcending heap of cupcakes or smaller than expected cakes. Regardless of how you cut it, the wedding cake is one thing individuals remember — and it isn't a direct result of the taste. The wedding cake is something beyond a dessert shop masterpiece, it is an ordeal the whole wedding gathering recollects, regardless of whether the lady of the hour and man of the hour softly feed each other chomps or crush it in their cherished's face. That individual association with the sweet is the reason we recall any film scene that includes a wedding cake.

In films, wedding cakes will in general take the spotlight. They can sing, much like the lovable cake from Muppets Take Manhattan, or be flung over the room in a rambunctious sustenance battle. The cake might be too wonderful to even think about ignoring, much like the fabulous elephant cake in Rachel Getting Married. The thing is, a wedding cake is something to recollect, be it, in actuality, or in the motion pictures. Look at these exemplary true to life cake scenes that you unquestionably always remembered.

Tips for Handling 5 Wedding-Day Disasters

Nobody needs to hear the words wedding and calamity in a similar sentence—particularly when it's your own wedding that is being discussed. While genuine catastrophes are fortunately uncommon, littler disasters are not bad, but at the same time not enough to blow anyone's mind even with the best arranged weddings.

As a portion of LA's busiest wedding DJ's, we've seen a lot of bloopers, and we would say, the strongest couples not just have an extraordinary disposition toward the unforeseen, yet in addition are furnished with strategies to guarantee any disasters don't escape hand. To enable you to ride out harsh spots in your big day, we've assembled a rundown of tips for how to deal with wedding accidents.

Imagine a scenario where: It's falling down in buckets on my open air wedding.

While a stormy wedding day isn't excessively likely in LA, each savvy couple has a Plan B, even in radiant California. It's a smart thought to lease a tent for an outside wedding—at any rate, it'll give your visitors an obscure spot to chill. You may even need mutiple; for example, in the event that you have live performers, they may require a secured territory to play.

Another thought? In the event that the conjecture isn't looking extraordinary, incorporate a reasonable umbrella on every visitor's seat as a cute gift. On the off chance that it downpours, everybody has an individual haven, and your picture taker will get some truly cool Mary Poppins-esque shots.

Most importantly, it is key for you as the lady of the hour and man of the hour to stay cheery about a blustery function, and your visitor will stick to this same pattern. Since there's literally nothing you can do to change the climate, simply unwind, have a decent giggle about it, and appreciate the magnificence of the compelling force of nature—that is the thing that the couples highlighted in this NY Times article did, and the wet climate wound up being an affectionate memory for them. (Clue: read the entire article for progressively extraordinary thoughts for what to do in the event that it downpours at your wedding).

Consider the possibility that: I have a closet breakdown on the move floor.

Stains, tears, runs, broken heels, popped ties, and even feathered creature crap on a lapel are reasonable worries for any lady of the hour or lucky man. With regards to fixing closet breakdowns, there's not a viable alternative for being readied. Prior to your big day, collect a "medical aid unit" with things, for example,

Additionally, toss in some bandages, moleskin, and moment ice packs, just on the off chance that you or an individual from your wedding party experiences a cut, rankle, or a face-plant into the move floor.

Any move floor disasters can likewise be moderated by an ace wedding DJ, who will realize exactly what to state—and play by occupy the group—in most any circumstance.

So in the event that you or a visitor does to be sure have a humiliating minute, basically grin, snicker, and proceed onward. Almost certainly, everybody will understand, and the less dramatization you make out of it, the more rapidly individuals will proceed onward to the following thing, similar to a line dance or eating cake!

Imagine a scenario in which: I stumble on my dress when I stroll down the passageway.

For the most part, the most ideal approach to approach any incident is with cleverness—and that is never more valid than with regards to a slip or outing. Dismiss it and continue. For somewhat viewpoint, look at this story: one couple's picture taker truly fell through the ice, and he continued shooting the entire time. It's a quite sure thing that any lurches you take will be inconsequential in correlation.

Consider the possibility that: I wake up with seasonal influenza on my big day.

Becoming ill on your big day is the most exceedingly terrible! While you can't absolutely kill the opportunity that you'll contract the muck, you can take measures to forestall ailment and guarantee your insusceptible framework is working in best structure for your wedding and special first night.

Paving the way to the day, take insusceptible boosting nutrients and enhancements, drink a lot of water, and get your 8 hours of rest each night. On the off chance that conceivable, abstain from spending too much time in swarmed open spots, and if your sister asks you to keep an eye on wheezing baby, this is one time when it's legitimate to state no. In the event that you do wake up on your big day feeling off, ensure you have some OTC cures in your purse—ibuprofen, Pepto, decongestant, and so forth.— to give some help after all other options have been exhausted should you need it.

Imagine a scenario where: my playlist goes haywire and the chicken move stalls out on rehash.

On the off chance that one thing can cut down the vibe of a wedding gathering, it's terrible music, or an absence of music totally. Luckily, this accident is practically 100% avoidable. Skirt the DIY playlist and contract an accomplished, proficient DJ to deal with your music. Additionally, ensure the DJ you pick has their own demonstrated reinforcement framework if there should arise an occurrence of crisis for one less thing to stress over.

Last useful tidbits

In the event that you do wind up getting fatigued in spite of doing your best to be a trooper, don't be excessively hard on yourself. It's

#candid #candid wedding photography #best candid wedding photography

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