#the spiral will only be worse when it’s 10 years since I finished it because I completed it the first week of senior year of college

[gingerwerk]

Having a brief but intense mental breakdown because I just realized it’s been 10 YEARS since I published the first chapter of ‘alone together’

[lycorim]

Update

Hey y'all, I know I've been really inactive lately, especially with posting art. As of right now, it has been about half a year since I have posted a piece that I put more than like 10 minutes into, and that's because I've been in a pretty major art slump lately. Idea-wise and motivation-wise, I've fallen off since October, though I could see the signs of a slump even before that. I have a nasty habit of comparing my "success" (whatever that means) to others, and when a slump begins that only gets worse (cue a self-maintained downward spiral, etc etc). It happens. It's far from the first time for me, and far from the worst. I think I'm past the crest of it now, fortunately.

For those of you who sent me requests, you are not forgotten! Though extremely belated, I fully intend to finish all of my requests in the near future (and reminder that my ask-box is always open)!

I'm not going to be posting any more were-sigils stuff for the forseeable future. If you sent me an ask about it, I will respond privately, but that AU has really run its course and I'm ready to move past it. I don't own the AU, obviously, so if you feel so inclined to use the idea, go ahead! I'm very happy it resonated with so many people, but my time with it is closing.

[iana-stardust]

I need to brag about my energy drink consumption last year. I’m fully aware it’s not a good thing but I was proud of it at the time and I want to stand by that just for a bit.

Last year, I would have upwards of four cans of monster a day. I‘d buy two 24 packs a week and keep at least one pack stocked. Some days when I hadn’t slept, I‘d pop two cans of white monster, put them in one of those 1.5L bottles with a full tray of ice cubes and use them to make it through my lectures. At first it was white monster but the sweeteners and citric acid caused me serious stomach issues and I started getting tired of them, so I eventually switched to monster monarch. Still my favorite energy.

But also let’s face it. I was fucking addicted, to a dangerous extent. This originally came from me struggling with depressive thoughts and losing control of my day to day. On top of that, I developed anxiety over starting uni during lockdown. I started staying up late again to enjoy my late evenings when I could just game and chill and take walks with no obligations or anyone to see me and judge me. My sleep schedule shifted backwards. At first, I was going to bed at 10 every day. After two months, it shifted back towards 12. Soon after, 1 or 2 am. We were still in lockdown and I didn’t have a set time to get up as online lectures couldn’t take attendance and were often in the afternoon.

But I started getting up later and later, and my schoolwork started following me further into the evening. Soon I wasn’t staying up until three to unwind, I was staying up because I knew I was behind on my major and if I didn’t finish, it would get worse. My schedule shifted towards 4 to 5 am. I needed the energy drinks to make it through the day. But I was at home so my mum could keep tabs on my consumption, and it was largely a can a day.

After that, I moved back to Uni for my exam phase. I failed phenomenally, and was waiting for my expulsion letter. It never came. I reenrolled in my secondary major. No notice. I kept attending classes. Nobody said anything, but I was worried. Had there been a mistake? I should have been expelled. But I wasn’t? I wasn’t ready to give up, but the advisory office was closed still and I couldn’t get a clear answer. So I just kept up with classes. My anxiety got so much worse. But I was determined to do my best. I made it through the second online semester, and moved back to uni as classes moved back to in-person.

Going to uni for the first time wasn’t easy. I made some friends, but I was constantly a nervous wreck. The anxiety from my lack of expulsion loomed over me constantly. I trief hard to keep up with classes, but as the semester went on, my schedule started shifting again. I started pulling all-nighters because I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t recognize at the time, but I was having panic attacks almost every night. I was having heart issues and trouble breathing and I thought if I went to sleep I wasn’t going to wake up, so I didn’t sleep. I barely slept and regularly showed up to classes barely lucid. I needed the caffeine to make it to class. Several times I fell asleep on the tram back home and woke up in a different town. The caffeine stopped keeping me conscious and I increased my dose. As the semester approached its end I stopped attending classes altogether since I had sufficient attendance. But I still couldn’t sleep, I was still panicked. And my consumption of energy drinks only increased.

Now, I feel like mentioning here that my best friend has a nickname for caffeine: anxiety juice. And I‘m sure many of you know that feeling. I didn’t get that. I didn’t realize how much the caffeine was pumping into my anxiety. It was a spiral and I‘d taken the leap of faith down the center.

The next semester was the same thing but kicked into overdrive. I was drinking nothing but energy drinks stretched with water. I was gaining weight from the sugar in them so I cut back on my diet to lose weight, and went overboard. With my body constantly scratching by its very minimum energy I was craving the kick from the caffeine more than ever. But at this point I was so tolerant to it that I would drink a sixpack a day and still struggle to keep it together. The panic attacks stopped coming, they were here to stay now. And I didn’t even notice. I was a jumpy mess of self-loathing and anxiety. Finishing my mandatory classes should have been a relief but the approach of my bachelor‘s that I wasn’t going to be able to get drove me insane. I was thinking of doing unspeakable things to myself all the time that I don’t even want to remember. Being on a strict diet, I drank more energys than ever since there aren’t very many good non-caffeinated sugar free drinks and in lieu of the sugar I needed the kick of the caffeine.

And then the end of the semester came. And I looked at myself and I realized that this couldn’t go on. That if I kept having these thoughts, one day it would happen. That all the threats looming above me would only catch up to me. And even though I had once resolved that I wouldn’t, I decided to escape. I left uni and moved back home with my mother. I went to Taiwan and although my anxiety was still pretty bad, the month in Taiwan was a cold cutoff on my caffeine consumption. Besides a headache that droned on for a few days I was fine. But coming off the caffeine, I realized just how much it had affected and worsened my anxiety.

I really wish I could be a cool alt kid again, glued to my monster can, collecting tabs. Gaming late into the night and popping a can for that tryhard edge. But I‘ve barely had energys in almost half a year and I‘ve gotten way too sensitive to caffeine since. I only drink small low caffeine energys now, but my heart aches a little whenever I see a can if Monster Monarch in a shelf, knowing if I buy it I won’t sleep that night. I don’t know if or how badly I damaged my body, but I suppose I should be glad I didn’t inherit my father‘s heart issues.

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 10

Rating: Explicit.

‼️TW: Reader is EIGHTEEN! Recreational drug use, smoking and alcohol consumption, deeply internalised self-loathing, very questionable moral standards. Daddy kink taken half-seriously. BDSM themes in later chapters - explicit content will come with it's own TWs. FIRST PERSON POV. Mild smut in this chapter.

Summary: You're Peter's classmate, a child of rich and famous but uncaring parents. Getting paired up for a lengthy project with the boy was an interesting turn of events and you don't know whether to feel blessed or cursed when you develop, seemingly, a perfectly normal, harmless crush on Tony Stark. Fueled by feelings of inadequacy and boredom, your life spirals out of control - and you're lucky your newfound friends are there to pick up the pieces even if you cannot find it in yourself to believe these amazing human (and not so human) beings voluntarily give you more than a fleeting glance and an offhanded thought. And they brought cake!

A/N: Tony fluff, Tony snark, Tony sass and Tony smut (finally!). My & reader's brain be like: tony tony tony tony. A request for my readers: do I write a believeable tony? Is he in character, more or less?

My beta @miscmarvelwritings - she's not into Tony but even then, she was finally excited about them finally getting down & dirty. The patience of this woman...

"Tony, could I borrow, like, a hoodie or something?"

He eyed my attire critically for a moment, seemingly coming to the same conclusion I did minutes earlier, and made a beeline for the couch in the back of the lab. Picking up and examining a black mass of fabric, deeming it satisfactory, he tossed it to me. "It's clean enough, I guess."

The thin straps of my mesh top rubbed against a lot of tender skin, leaving pink lines in the wake of it. A sigh of relief escaped me involuntarily when I removed it -

"Woah, woah," Tony squeaked, covering his eyes with an exaggerated gesture. "Warn a man!"

I honestly didn't see what the big deal was. "Tony, chill. I'm pretty sure you've seen it all and then some." I snorted, stretching briefly, shrugging on the slightly oversized hoodie. It smelled like the lab - like Tony, too, but mostly like motor oil and iron. Beggars can't be choosers, however - I had already devised and executed the plan that will let me keep the hoodie.

"When you put it that way..." He smirked, briefly returning to his usual self and giving me a salacious eyebrow wiggle.

I laughed in response, wiggling my hips, feeling the hem of my skirt swish against my thighs. I considered removing the fishnet tights, too, but a brief look in the reflective wall divide between Tony's and Bruce's labs got me pulling out my phone to take two dozen selfies. I looked great with Tony's clothes on.

The engineer chuckled at my antics, coming up behind me as I sat on the floor with my knee raised, chin resting on it. The amber liquid sloshed over the top of his glass, dripping down his fingers. He sat behind me.

"Weller Full Bourbon?" I asked, bringing my nose closer to his fingers to get a good whiff. The distinctive vanilla notes in his whiskey were unmistakable. "Good choice," I made a serious face. "Fancy."

"I can afford it, darling," He snarked back, devoid of malice.

He was so close. And so warm. And I needed a new screensaver. Shuffling back, I reclined against Tony's chest, carefully wedging my head in the crook of his neck.

God help me.

I felt his breath hitch. The dark, magnetic pools of his eyes stared at me from our combined reflection. Tony's eyes were the most expressive, he could fake a smile, he could charm the press and countless investors, but his eyes only spoke the truth. Always. I loved working with Tony because his gaze would light up. It was akin to seeing a little kid on Christmas.

A muscular arm snaked around my waist, pressing my back to his chest. The metal of his arc reactor jabbed uncomfortably between my shoulder blades but there was nowhere else I'd rather be.

"You're filming, Princess," He interrupted my Moment.

"Sure," I answered, not caring. There could be another alien invasion happening and I wasn't able to give a damn.

I felt the vibrant chuckle more than heard; Tony snatched the phone out of my hand without permission. I noticed the furrowed brow when he opened my Instagram and saw the unmistakable evidence of my frequent partying, yet he didn't comment on it.

"Tony, the press is going to go nuts," I raised my eyebrows, seeing what he was planning to do.

"They've seen me doing worse things," He scoffed. And took a photo of us ‘just chilling’ in his lab, hugging. He picked out a filter and everything., and then posted it.

"First of all, I am pretty awesome to be 'doing', I've had only good feedback," I scoffed at his dismissive attitude, using my free hand to make quote marks. Then I turned my head to stare him square in the face. "Steve's going to be pissed and Ms. Potts is going to call to yell at you." I punctuated the statements with a raised eyebrow.

There was really no innocent way the press could represent the photo that he posted. I didn't care for it, my parents wouldn't give a damn (my father probably would encourage it, the free publicity and all). Tony himself didn't seem like the kind of man to care much about some gossip articles, if anything, he enjoyed provoking them into a frenzy. Or at least, he used to.

"I'll put them both on hold. I like to watch the line blink," Tony winked, smirking. "I've been told the press expects me to have a midlife crisis since my last breakup," Eyes darkening, the man swiftly finished off his drink.

Midlife crisis seemed such a bitter way of putting it. Considering my own preferences in romantic partners, I couldn't help but feel offended at the way people offhandedly dished out labels - "midlife crisis", "daddy issues" and so on and so forth. The briefest part of me traveled back to Mr. Davies' living room where - no, I am not going there.

"Huh," I said, coming to a conclusion. A sad one at that.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Princess, but you don't seem like the kind of girl who thinks about pesky things like reputation or consequences," Tony mused idly, coming to a conclusion of his own.

"Nope, I don't give a fuck," I agreed with his opinion wholeheartedly. "If I would have a publicist, they would quit on the second day."

"I pay mine, uh, twice the average amount and they still quit. We're doomed, baby," Tony's gleeful face was mere inches away from my own, whiskey-tipsy and glowing.

I snorted, sliding lower to further burrow into his arms. Tony's sudden touchy-feely mode wasn't lost on me. My own touch starvation overrode any common sense that I had left. The totally-PG (well, not quite) embrace, one armed hug brought me more satisfaction than any of my sexual partners had ever achieved to give me.

"Why are there so many messages from Banner? Are you staging a world domination plan and forgot to include me? I'm hurt!" Tony exclaimed suddenly, a whiny tone to his voice.

"Thor's space yeasts have corrupted our minds with their spores. Soon all will become... Mushroom!" I deepened my voice for the dramatic effect, flailing my arms on the last word for the extra flair.

The man wiped a fake tear from the corner of his eye; his eyes were sparkling, laughing even. "I'm evicting Thor and his supremely selfish yeast. How dare it ignore me."

"I vouched for you, I really did," I kept up the silly game. "But alas, the yeasts deemed you too... Boomer," The pride in my voice could barely hold back the laughter threatening to spill.

"Did you just..?" Tony gaped. "Did you just call me old?!"

I attempted to get away, shrieking when the tips of Tony's fingers squirmed along my midsection. "It was the yeast! IT WAS THE YEAST!" My resistance proved to be futile. The engineer had mass and strength on his side, years of piloting and maneuvering the Iron Man suits showing just how quick and nimble he could be when the situation demanded it.

"Take that from an old man!" He exclaimed triumphantly, using his arm to hold down both of my hands from grasping at him. One of his legs held down my own; we were a squirming, writhing mass of limbs in the heat of a tickle fight.

The cocaine in my blood, the mild buzz from being drunk on Tony - my body reacted to the close proximity of the man who occupied my fantasies. I was blushing, breathing heavily, and it wasn't just from the exertion. It should have affected me less, but I struggled to keep my eyes from Tony's face; his own flush, the moist part of his lips.

I wondered how a deer in the headlights felt. Was it hot, like it's body was suddenly alight, or was it cold, liquid nitrogen freezing in its veins?

"Fuck," I mumbled half-coherently.

"What was that?" He arched an eyebrow, clever eyes carefully watching my own.

"I'm in trouble," I chuckled weakly, looking away, pretending to struggle against his arms.

"You're trouble," He announced, grinning. His fingertips slowed, skimming gently along my sides now.

I retaliated with a tentative brush of my foot along the softness of his jean-covered inner thigh. It was euphoric, seeing Tony shudder, the thick eyelashes fluttering for the briefest part of a second.

"We should stop," He whispered suddenly, making a move to disentangle us both. Mixed signals, we've got em, ladies and gentlemen.

"Why?" I was tired of this dance. It was fun but painful. My firm decision of the past still stood: I won't be the lovesick fangirl, I won't be another notch in his bedpost. The resolve was crumbling but it was still there, to some point.

"You're not sober, this is wrong," He mumbled. "I'm more than twice your age, Princess."

That ship had sailed, Tony. If only you knew... "Do you seriously expect me, out of all people, to find common ground with someone my age? Someone like Peter? Jeez," I tried to be amused. If it came out more pleading, I pretended to not notice it. It was the moment of truth. It needed to be said. "I'm FUBAR, Tony. I'm lucky if anyone at all will want to put up with me, much less someone I can stand. I'm spoiled, I'm selfish, and annoying. I know that. I just thought we were friends and you'd be...kinder about it." My mumbling was met with a somewhat perplexed stare.

"I..." His eyebrows threatened to have a close encounter with his hairline. "What the fuck? Are you dead set on giving me a stroke today? I have a heart condition," He yanked me back towards his chest, unceremonious and indignant. "You can be so smart yet so stupid. Gosh, where is the world rolling, I'm quoting Pepper now." He seemed to be muttering to himself.

"Pot, kettle." I didn't resist the urge to snark.

"Right," Tony rolled his eyes. "You're beautiful and all that jazz. You deserve much more than this." Uncharacteristically sad, he pointed to himself, again. "I'm an old man with more issues than Playboy magazine."

"And I'm an angsty teenager with daddy issues, we're a match made in heaven."

"Hell," Tony was eyeing our combined reflection with a sort of petulance. It was hard keeping track of his microexpressions; his eyes and face held fleeting, half-finished thoughts, just like when he was creating, inventing something new.

"Works for me. Lucifer's hot," I answered with my brain on autopilot. He caught my eyes in the shiny glass, trapping me in his calculative gaze.

"The Netflix one or the Supernatural one?" Tony asked, equally absent from the conversation. Neither of us were able to break eye contact, breathing laboured and hearts thudding in our chests. I felt Tony's pulse fluttering under my palm where I'd rested it on his wrist.

The organ that dutifully pumped blood through my own veins and kept me alive threatened to escape my body, jump out of my chest, make its way out my mouth. Tony's unblinking stare penetrated my skin, seeped into the hollow behind my eyelids, ignited a flame within me and froze my thoughts.

"The one with the detective kink," I answered breathily. "I have an affinity for brown-eyed, narcissistic, sarcastic men with self-destructive tendencies," The last part of my sentence was swallowed by Tony's lips.

My brain shorted out, just like that. Bourbon on his breath and a new dose of snark on his tongue, he licked into my mouth with the grace and finesse of years of experience. It was sudden, it was rough, it was fantastic. His beard left marks on my face and I craved the burn of it.

"Fuck," I moaned when we were forced to surface for oxygen. My hips had moved, pressed against his own, prominent arousal digging into the small of my back. Tony had me moaning and grinding into it in mere seconds.

A hand rested on my face with surprising tenderness, turning my face to look at my own reflection. My hair was a mess, lips puffy - Tony wasn't looking any better, hunger and lust in plain view. It was a good look on him.

"Watch," His breath ghosted over the shell of my ear, lips traveling to the nape of my neck to attach themselves to the very sensitive flesh of that area.

I obeyed, gazing at the scene with lidded eyes. Keeping them open was a struggle. My body was flooded with sensation, riding the waves of pleasure like a rollercoaster. I wanted to please him, needed to obey him, to feel him.

My thighs quivered at Tony's touch. There was no warning, no preamble as he wedged a firm hand, separating them quickly to follow the heat. His biceps flexed deliciously. Under my skirt, through the fishnets and the tiny, lacy panties I wore.

"Fucking shit," The man moaned loudly, finding me, predictably, soaking wet. It was one hot, sticky mess between my legs.

The keen that left my mouth might've been embarrassing, yet it only spurred Tony on. Gently parting my lower lips, he gathered the moisture, suddenly withdrawing from me. My confusion met his amusement in the mirror as he stuck the two fingers in his mouth, moaning obscenely and loudly at the taste.

The corners of my mouth lifted, happy. "To-ony," I whined, my pussy aching for more. Now that I had felt the relief and pleasure of his touch, I didn't want it to end.

"Princess," He replied, seriously and sternly. I shuddered at the scratchiness of his voice. The hand that I was missing returned, stroking over the outside of my pussy with broad, soft motions. I arched, presented myself into the touch. "So eager," Tony mumbled into my shoulder, catching a bit of my skin between his teeth.

His fingers dipped deeper, delving in between the puffy, engorged flesh and stroking once, twice, before finding my clit. The pads of Tony's fingers were rough, hardened by manual work and hours spent in front of his inventions, making, tinkering, creating. The friction was perfect. I followed each stroke with a fluid motion of my hips.

"Tony, fuck," I slurred my approval, needing him to know how amazing he made me feel. Tony's form pressed closer, both of us melting, molding into each other.

"Baby girl, what do you need?" His raspy voice tickled my neck. I was sure there would be an array of marks decorating me come morning and absolutely loved the thought. I belonged to Tony Stark, in body and heart and mind and soul.

"I want to cum," I had no shame left. "I want to feel you."

He groaned, rutting into me. A squeak was all I managed to emit as two thick fingers plunged inside of me with a wet squelch. My pussy immediately took hold of the situation, squeezing and rippling around them. I was so close, my nerves pulled up taut like an overtaxed string. The effect this man had on me was positively unholy.

My clit throbbed under his thumb. Tony somehow managed to reach every single sweet spot on my body, effortlessly, easily, like he'd done it a thousand times.

"Ohmyfuckinggod, Tony," I came hard, shuddering, drenching the fingers inside of me. The moment I began sagging in his arms was the moment they tightened around me; I felt Tony grind helplessly against me, saw his own eyes slam shut and his brow furrow.

The hand that was in me withdrew rapidly as he hastily popped the button on his pants, freeing his cock and giving it several desperate tugs. I couldn't see it; I had to settle for the sensation of his hand, his hips rubbing against my clothed back.

He came quickly, with a loud shout. My curiosity got the best of me and I used the brief moment of his weakness to turn around, take a good look at him.

Tony was a fucking mess with a fucking gorgeous cock. Thick and veiny.

My face was level with it before he could have opened his eyes. I wanted, craved to know how he tasted. With gentle kitten licks, I collected the stray drops of cum running down his hand, careful of the rapidly softening, sensitive flesh.

His eyes popped open in surprise. I smiled at him, unseeing, collecting as much of him as I could.

"Fuck, Princess," He breathed. "I'm just a man, I'm pushing fifty," Gently pulling my head away but holding it mere inches from his cock. Indecisive.

I reached over for his hand with my own, popping finger after finger in my mouth, collecting every drop of cum like it was nectar. I could be good...I If properly motivated. The salty musk was all the motivation I needed at that moment. He pulled me in for a filthy, sloppy kiss once I was done, both of us humming, vocalising the shared pleasure.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub ​ @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit @littlegasps ​ @pilloclock ​ @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads ​ @hermione-grangers-wife ​ @individualistfem ​ @as-i-layhereinyourbed @sleep-i-ness @gigglyfox01 @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney

As always, feedback is welcome and this blog is keyboard smash & emoji friendly.

[the-darklings]

coa one year later & self-reflection

(*drags out a creaky metal chair and plops down on it heavily*)

Hi. It’s me, ya boi skinny--

Wait, wrong one. Do over.

Hi, it’s me, Kat, and I’m not dead. Clearly. Today being one year anniversary of COA has kinda put me in a reflective mood, so I guess I decided to sit down and just...talk about some things, thoughts and feelings I’ve been bottling inside for a hot sec. Especially given how radio silent I have gone on here and people deserve a bit of perspective. 

And before anyone starts worrying, it’s all good, and I’m still around and currently in good health for the most part. 

So, let’s take it back to the start. Regardless of how dramatic it may sound, we need to go back a year for that. 

By technicality alone, COA actually turned one year old on October 12th. That’s when the first part was posted. However, the reason I’m treating today as the aforementioned birthday is simple: I had no intention of this story ever being more than a short two-parter. I told this to the discord gang already but COA was only going to have two parts. V was going to die in Tokyo and the rest of the story follows glimpses of John throughout the movies and it’s her ghost that haunts him. Skipping ahead, it was going to have a bittersweet ending of John eventually dying, having completed his task, only to be greeted by V, Daisy and Helen in the afterlife. A peace of sorts. Then, I realised that, well, no. I have more to say on this world and intrigue about this placeholder character V kept growing. 

November 1st happened and I made a very last minute call to continue COA but with the added pressure of doing it during NaNoWriMo 2019. And boy did I. Most of the story was figured out during that very intense month. I posted Part 2 on this day a year ago because I was so eager to share it. Perhaps, in retrospect, a bit too eager. 

For those of you who may not know this, I work as a writer full time for my actual every day job. I’m the main writer for an original webcomic called In the Bleak Midwinter on Webtoon.com and have been for almost two years now. Getting what is essentially your dream job is amazing. I’m very lucky on that front but it also taught me stark realities of having your job and only hobby overlap. It’s a dangerous creative mix. Especially because I was not used to being constraint in what I create or the feeling like I have to please anyone else. Writing as a job is a whole other avenue of creative exhaustion. I love my job a lot and am very, very lucky to have it but it doesn’t change the fact that those initial stages made me fall back on COA a lot for creative freedom that I craved so desperately. To an unhealthy degree looking back on it now. 

But going back to November last year. NaNo time. I did it. Finished on the 24/25th I believe. A juicy final count of 52k+. All while maintaining a weekly update schedule for a fic that usually hit around 10k per update, if not more, even during those early days. Add writing an original story on top of that. Writing every day for hours on end (we are talking 10-12hr days) without any time for other hobbies or time for myself in general. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. Losing weight and sleep in the process. I think the thing that convinced me that I should continue doing so is the fact that the outpour of support for COA ended up surpassing anything I ever expected or even dared to hope for. I’m not a huge numbers person but the outpour of love and just sheer investment in the story and characters blew me away. John Wick fandom is on the smaller side and has been going through downtime when I posted COA so my expectations were...well, small tbh. I like keeping expectations low to avoid any disappointments in general. But I’ve also always had an issue of being a massive 0 or 100 kind of person. If I love something, it consumes me. In this case, it brought me as much joy and freedom as much as it was steadily pushing me towards the ultimate crash. 

That being said, I can’t thank you all enough for every comment, like, reblog and message and fanart. You’re the reason I got this far. With your support. It brightened some really dark days for me.

But. 

To be frank, it’s never been about you guys. I never wrote or pushed because I felt like I had to appease anyone. That creative mindset is pure poison and I long since learned to let go of it. I kept pushing and kept working myself to the bone because I liked it. I liked how reading peoples’ responses made me feel. I liked the addictive nature of reading all the comments and theories after an update. I loved the idea of brightening peoples’ days and giving them something to cheer them up after what might have been a shitty day. Even if that was at expense of my own time/well being. But for a long time, it wasn’t. I love writing a lot but facts remain facts. 

It was beyond unhealthy and burnout wasn’t a question of if but when and that when was approaching at neck-breaking speed. 

So we come to the end of November. Part 4 has just come out. People were invested and I was invested alongside them. I was just finishing up Part 5 which (back then) was the biggest single chapter I’ve ever written and god I still recall my sheer dread because that was the beginning of Santino being established as a LI. Looking back on that now, it’s downright hilarious how worried I was about the reception of him and V together after John.

So honestly, I hit burnout at around Part 8. Because that’s the first time I recall struggling with writing a chapter. Part 8 came out on December 28th. I had a brief break for holidays. But my mistake was not taking longer back then. Because I continued writing with a barely healed burnout. Followed by almost a year of struggling and continuously creating through that state. It wasn’t like I eased off the pressure, either. Oh, no. The chapters grew in size, the world and the characters with it. AUs amassed quickly and while I adore every single one - again, I didn’t know how to pace myself well enough.

I’m spiteful though. The more the chapters struggled the more I pushed against the burnout. By the time Chicago arrived, however, I knew I was in trouble. I ended up writing 43k+ in a span of 2 months, I believe. And while to some it may not seem like a lot given the time frame, it’s a lot when you’re burnout to a crisp & writing an original story for work + deadlines. Which I was burned out and then some. Chicago was something I was looking forward to writing for months. I have built it up since Part 4. It was a long time coming. So while I’m still proud of it, I would be lying if I said that some scenes were not sacrificed for the sake of keeping to my invisible schedule that no one but me actually cared about. You guys have always been patient. I never felt pushed into anything. It’s always only ever been me doing the harm. 

Chicago was the downwards spiral for me mentally. I felt like I was failing to live up to my own expectations. That people were drifting away from it. I was plagued by the thought that the story I poured so much into was falling apart and growing weaker. Which this has always been an issue with me: I am my own harshest critic. Always have been. In fact, I’m a downright mean little fucker when it comes to just tearing at myself. I know writing is for fun - and it is - but I still like the idea of being proud of my work which only made everything worse despite the love each update received. 

This takes us to the beginning of June. Specifically, June the 2nd. Or, as I like to call it: Kat Makes Another Impulsive Decision but This One Actually Works Out For the Better. On this day, I created the COA Discord server. And damn, I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting when I did ngl. I did it for fun and as an escape more so than anything. But somehow it ended up being the best decision I made in a long while. I know some of you are reading this. So love you lots, dorks. It’s such a privilege to be able to call so many of you my friends even outside of COA now. That little community has given me some of the best memories from this year and helped me to crawl out of my own metaphorical pit I was stuck in. Mentally, I’m doing much better than I did beginning of this summer. Which could be summed up as a constant self-hatred cycle and a feeling of inadequacy. 

That, however, does not mean my burnout magically disappeared. If anything Chapter 17 just put a nail in the coffin so to speak. 2020 has been a shitty year just across the board for obvious reasons I don’t need to go into here but that can only partially be attributed to my mental state. Chapter 17 was...exhaustive. To say the least. But I was determined to stick with my vision and not split it up. I was also starting to be a bit more forgiving towards myself in terms of how long I may take to write it thanks to guys on discord though the feeling of failure and worry never quite faded fully. I’m proud of Part 17. Truly. But that was also when I hit rock bottom creatively on COA. It drained me completely. 

I tried writing Part 18 for weeks after, day in and day out, not getting past the first scene and hating every word I wrote. So I took a deep breath and stopped. Figured I let it marinate and wait instead of trying to piece one of the most crucial chapters in this story like some Frankenstein monster two sentences at the time.

So my solution was simple: give myself some distance from it and write other things. Get my spark back. Of course that’s always a good idea. Having multiple creative escapes is the best thing you can do for yourself creatively. There was just one tiny little problem. 

I was still burned out. Still am. The problem went deeper than just being burned out over COA. I was burned out over writing itself. 

Which is an issue for a person who only has writing as a creative outlet.

I don’t have any other way to express myself. So I was stuck in a runt, trying to write because it’s the only thing that makes me genuinely happy even when I really shouldn’t have. And let me tell you. It’s a shitty fucking feeling. My burnout worsened. I had a thousand ideas but every time I tried to get them down it felt forced, fragmented, and weak. Repetitive and dry. Now, this is also in part because English isn’t my native language, so my vocab is limited as a result, but I hit that sweet rock bottom in that regard, too. 

So, I worked on V (but in her OC form Clara), Lucien and The Elites. All those characters have grown so much since you last read about them. I have multiple original projects planned down the line that will feature all of them existing in their own world, with their own stories and no longer constrained by JW canon.  

Which, finally, takes us to the end of October and beginning of November 2020. 

I was convinced that the best course of action was to do NaNo again but with an original story this time (involving V). Suffice to say, it took a grand total of maybe 5-6 days and hating every second of writing it while also feeling like this project I’m so passionate and excited to write (still am) is just...going down the toilet to be blunt, to realise I may have made the wrong call. 

Still, the stubborn ass that I am, I pushed through. Convinced I can get into it if I just keep going. The realizations that I am sharing with you right now won’t have been possible if it hadn’t been for a rather curious turn of events about a week and a half ago.

I recently bought a gaming laptop, all in preparation for Cyberpunk 2077 dropping ofc. But, in the meantime, I kept recommending a game to a friend on the COA server. That game? Far Cry 5. (It’s a blast to play btw, just a side note.) And playing it brought back all the feelings of nostalgia from the days when I used to write for that fandom. So I revisited some old work. Checked the stuff I never published and that has been sitting ducks in my docs for months and hoo boy. Let me tell you it was a vibe check of the worst kind. 

The stark difference in the prose and the ease with which it flowed was...startling. It made me remember why I love writing so much and how proud I used to be of what I wrote back in the day. Which is not to say I’m not proud now, but it was just such a sharp dip in quality it was impossible to ignore.  

So I didn’t.  

I paused NaNo, moving it to another month. I paused writing for everything but work, which with our season coming to an end I will also get a rest from soon, too. I kinda paused in general. For the first time in a while, I finally forced myself to switch off. Rest. 

The reason why I haven’t been on here is simple: guilt and not having energy to be on here. I like making my blog a safe space for everyone. Similar to escape it has become for me. I couldn’t pretend I was fine when I wasn’t. I felt obliged to perform and being here became exhausting. I haven’t been checking my inbox. Haven’t done much of anything except occasionally dropping by and reblogging a random post so people know I’m alive.

And that’s that, folks. That’s where I am currently. Resting. Completely exhausted mentally but resting. Getting my energy back. 

So where does that leave us, huh? If you read this far, dunno what to tell you. Thanks, I suppose. It’s still odd to think people actually care about my existence sometimes.

I know what you’re likely thinking, too. So does this mean COA is never gonna be finished? What is gonna happen to it? Are you abandoning it?

The answer: no. 17 out of 25 chapters and 250k+ in, I’m too far in not to give it a proper conclusion. Not because I owe it to anyone other than myself. I want this story to be a stepping stone for my future as a writer. I want to prove to myself that I can get this done and finish it. As of right now (as you can no doubt tell with how long it’s been since last update) it’s on a soft hiatus while I rest. This rest? Not sure how long it may last. Right now, my plan is till mid December at which point I will reevaluate. Ideally, I finish the year with an update. But my New Year’s resolution is to finish COA. That timeline has become a little more murky now but, again, ideally it’s within the first quarter of 2021. Will that happen? I don’t know. And I don’t want to make false promises, either. 

All I’m saying is that it will be done. I’m just no longer sure how long, exactly, it may take me to reach that Epilogue. I don’t expect many people to stick around for however long it may take me, but if you do, thank you. Truly. I really and deeply mean that. 

So what’s on the cards for this blog in the meantime? Well, CP77 is coming out in under a month (if it doesn’t get moved again lmao rip) and I expect that to be my soft return to posting my writing on here again. We will see where the muse takes me, if at all. Regardless though, I’m excited. 

One doctorate thesis later, here we are at the end of this really long rambling session. I hope that this has given you some perspective on things going on behind the scenes. I spared you some of the gorier details but I think this post has been long overdue. I suppose I, myself, was just too unwilling to face these things despite knowing about them deep down for a while now. I’m too self-critical not to notice but acting on correcting this behavior has been a whole other matter clearly. 

Thank you for reading this post, my writing in general, and supporting me. I’m not going anywhere. I’m still around. More is on the way in the future. I’ll be seeing you all real soon. And all my love to all of you. 

Love,

- Kat.   

[greatbigbellies]

Born Too Large

This was meant to be kinky, but spiraled out of proportion as I wrote, and the belly only comes in at the end. But I wanted a wholesome relationship so…

Ever since birth, she was an outcast, a freak, a giant. At 10 years old, she was already taller and stronger than all the men in the village, including her father, who bitterly blamed her for her mother’s death in childbirth. None of the other kids wanted to play with her; she was an unfair advantage in team games, and even when she proposed that they all take her on, no one was brave enough. So it was that she resigned herself to duty and chores, routinely doing the work of three men, which only made them more jealous and resentful, until one day a royal knight was passing through and beheld the young giantess, and impressed with her size and strength, offered to take her away from this humdrum backwater and put her gifts to use in the king’s army. With no lost love, she left her home behind and joined the knight’s entourage.

She became his squire, and in time she was taught the ways of war. Fully grown, she stood at eye level with a man on horseback. She needed custom made armor, and her sword was too heavy for anyone else to lift, let alone swing. It needed no edge; the sheer weight of it was enough to crush a man’s breastplate. Her strength became a thing of legend; impossible to miss on the battlefield, the mere sight of her set soldiers on the run, which she was fine with–she never much liked killing; it felt too much like bullying. And although her reputation grew, she still heard the hateful words behind her back, the subtle ridicule and quiet envy, of how she stole all the glory. At this point, her heart is hardened and the words don’t hurt her much anymore, but she’s still no happier, in spite of the accolades and glories she’s won in the king’s service. But it’s not all bad. Her closest friend among the knights is eternally grateful, after she saved his life on the battlefield by lifting the horse that had fallen on him, even when the doctors pronounced he would never walk again. And sometimes, she blushes when the maidens compliment her.

This continues until an enemy kingdom, fearful of her strength, sought to remove her from the picture. She’s lured into a trap in a remote corner of the kingdom, and as she passed over a bridge over a ravine, the bridge supports were destroyed, and she fell a great height, bouncing on the rocks and plunging into the river below. She should have died, but her armor protected her, and she drifted downriver, unconscious.

When she next awoke, she found herself in a cramped bed, dressed in bandages, aching all over. It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe. Then a small man (every man was small) appeared in the doorway, and nearly dropped the bowl of soup he was coming to give her. She was awake at last! He explained that he was a fisherman, and that found her washed ashore on the banks; and after getting some help, they carried her to safety, peeled away the armor, and addressed her wounds. It was up in the air whether she’d make it or not; after all, she’d been asleep for a week. She stresses that she must return to the king’s service, but she wasn’t in the shape to go anywhere. The fisherman gently pushes her back down, and for the first time she can remember, she’s not strong enough to resist. She needed to rest and heal, he insisted, or else all their hard work to try and save her would be for naught. A little guilty now, she lays back down, and accepts the spoonful of soup when he puts it against her lips.

Recovery is slow. Aside from her wounds, she needs to go through physical therapy to recover her strength. For so long, she’s been the strongest person in the room, yet now her legs wobble like a newborn colt’s, unable to support her own weight without leaning on the fisherman and his friends, who offer their support unconditionally. It becomes clear to her that they aren’t aware of her reputation; the village is more isolated than most. In her towns and villages, she was recognized (for better and worse). But here, she’s just… a person. A person in need, no less. There’s no judgment, no expectations. In spite of her bruised and broken ribs, she feels she can finally *breathe*.

She starts to adjust to life in the village, helping where she can as part of her rehabilitation, still not at her peak strength. She’s on a more even playing field with the other villagers, yet they value her all the same. In the morning, she often finds gifts at the door, and she treasures these more than any bounty she won in the king’s army. Her previous life seems so distant now, so unimportant. She feels loved; a strange and unfamiliar feeling. And overtime, she realizes her own feelings for the fisherman, who’s been at her side since the beginning. He’s nice and sweet and funny. While she was still on bedrest, he would tell her the most awful jokes, and she would laugh so hard it’d hurt her ribs. She had seen many attractive men in her time as a knight, beautiful and unblemished from a life of privilege or hard-cut and well-muscled from battle. Yet none of them compared to this little man with bushy eyebrows, a wiry beard, and a little gap between his front teeth. Yet his smile outdid the sun, and put a funny warmth in her chest. And eventually, she works up the courage to confess her feelings for him, afraid that he would reject her; she was just so big, and clumsy, and she ate so much, and she wasn’t particularly pretty from first a childhood of farmwork then years of battle. But none of that mattered, because he liked her too. And soon enough, they shared a bed for the night, then every night after. It is awkward at first, as she’s never shared a bed with anyone before or known such intimate touch, but she adjusts to this too.

But the peace does not last. For while she was recovering, the enemy kingdom had invaded, conquering town after town, and now they’ve come her. None of the villagers are warriors. But she is–even though she still aches and is out of practice. The fisherman tries to talk her out of it, they don’t have to fight, *she* doesn’t have to fight anymore, not for some distant king. She tells him, she isn’t doing this for the king, but herself and them. And when it becomes evident that he can’t dissuade her, he gets the boys together, and they work all night to equip her. Dressed in pots, pans, and similarly improvised armor, armed with a lumber axe, she meets the enemy forces at the village outskirts, and after a beat they recognize her: the she-giant wasn’t dead! Uncertainty spreads through the ranks. They had all heard the stories–of how she cleaved a man in two with but a single blow with her monstrous blade, or the time she lifted a castle portcullis with her bare hands, or when she held a bridge by herself against 50 men. They thought she was dead! But the captain bristles. He did not believe in ghosts, and if this wretched country could produce one freak, why not another–this could not be the same woman. So he challenged her to single combat, sure that she was just another country bumplin; his superior skill would prevail against her brute strength. She, in return, extracts a promise from him; that he and his men would leave the village alone if she bested him. The battle is quick and humiliating, but opposite of how the captain expected things to go. Though out of practice and still not at her physical peak (which she might never reach again), she trounces him. Again and again she insists that he stays down, but his pride won’t allow it, until she delivers a blow that turns out to be fatal. The enemy force is aghast; their fears were true. The second in command, now newly promoted, honors the bargain and hurriedly withdraws their forces. That night, she breaks down and sobs in the fisherman’s arms; she didn’t miss killing.

Later, the king manages to turn back the invading army, and following the rumors finds her again. He demands why she hadn’t returned to his service; her disappearance is what emboldened the enemy to finally invade. But he’s willing to forgive her transgression, in light of her outstanding service, provided she returned–but before he can finish, she pulls him from his horse like she’s scolding a child. She’s done with killing, she tells him, she’s done with people using her. She wants to be left in peace, and invokes her outstanding service to lay claim to the land that the village stands on. No taxes, no demanding kids march off to fight strangers’ battles. In exchange, on her promise as a knight, she would never raise a blade again, for him or against him. And soberly aware that she could crush his head between her hands like an overripe melon, he comes to the decision that her demands are totally reasonable, this village wasn’t *that* important anyway, and he actually fulfills his end of the bargain. The king leaves the village in peace and that’s the last of him that she ever sees.

Things settle down again, and there’s no more attacks, no more tax collectors, no more recruiters. For her, it’s a return to form, a distantly familiar life, except this time she is loved. She is accepted. And eventually, she and the fisherman, now her husband, decide to have kids. It’s scary for her. What if they end up like her? What if they’re too small? What if she accidentally hurts them? Forgetting that she’s handled babies before, and helped others through childbirth. But her husband assures her, it’ll be fine. They’ll be fine. She’s the kindest, strongest, gentlest soul he knows; and he’ll be there every step of the way. And a few months later, when the two of them decide to leave the village to go visit her old friend from the knights, her belly is the size of another woman’s at 3 weeks overdue, but for her it’s only the first trimester. Her old friend, seeing her next to her tiny husband, jokingly asks if he needed a ladder to do the deed, but it’s in good fun and they all laugh. She is happy, and eagerly awaits the birth of her children, however many there are, however big or small they turn out to be.

[artificialqueens]

Me and You Together, 4/10 (Taywhora) - Ortega

fic summary: The cardinal rule of having flatmates is that you Do Not Catch Feelings For Your Flatmates, because everything inevitably goes to shit and gets made horrifically awkward. A’whora and Tayce both know this, but being in first year of uni and making good decisions have never really gone hand in hand.

a/n: fam this response is crazy it really is…thank u all so much for the love, kudos and comments, i’m so sorry if i’ve not managed to reply to urs yet but know that i’ve read them all and cherish every one and i will get round to replying and yelling some love and thanks at u soon!!! pls enjoy this chapter in which A'whora does not possess the flat’s shared brain cell at any point. that being said, i wish all the readers of this fic a very pleasant italicised ‘oh’ xo

last chapter: January-Tayce and A’whora still had unfinished business from a night out and a hungover morning in December.

this chapter: October- The gang make plans for their first year together, Tia gives everyone plans for the evening, and A'whora has a realisation that will change the dynamic of her friendship with Tayce forever.

***

“Bimini, what is it you’re actually doing?”

A’whora’s intrigued by the way her flatmate’s sitting on the sofa: legs crossed, notepad in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and looking deep in thought. They’ve not long since stretched over the smoke detector with a sock, having long since established nobody in the flat minds them smoking indoors as long as the windows are open. Lawrence is beside them on the other end of the sofa having been to all the lectures that’re required of her already today and has got a bright pink, blue and purple-flecked ball of yarn hanging from two knitting needles, with which she seems to be knitting some sort of cosy accessory. It’s a wholesome picture that’s playing out in front of A’whora, one that’s miles away from the raucous, drunk nights they’ve all shared in the first month of uni so far.

“Okay, here’s what it is,” Bimini starts, clicking their long nails together. “I am making us a freshers bucket list, and I want your input.”

“Ooh!” Lawrence perks up beside them, and A’whora, interest piqued, picks up the bowl of pasta, butter and cheese she’s spent all of five minutes making and crosses the room to sit beside her flatmates.

She knows it’s only been a month so far, but she really loves everyone she’s living with. For a start, there are four of them that take classes at the art college (the ‘art hoes’, as Tayce calls them), so they all get to walk to lectures together and hang about between classes and workshops with each other depending on how their days are going. Bimini is almost always in the flat, with not a lot of contact hours making up their journalism degree, so they’re a comforting presence for A’whora to come home to at whatever hour of the day, always asking how she is and always offering to make her coffee. Tia is sweet and funny (if ever-so-slightly grating to her at first) and they’ve bonded over being the only two flatmates seemingly able to keep the place clean and tidy. Lawrence is endearing and big-hearted, if A’whora spends half her life hoping that her next prank isn’t involving her in some way (Ellie is usually the butt of them). Ellie herself is one of A’whora’s closest flatmates; they’ll often stay up half the night finishing prototypes or assignments together, all while watching a film which they have spookily similar taste in- they’ve agreed on 101 and 102 Dalmatians, Hocus Pocus, and The Wizard of Oz so far.

And then there’s Tayce, who A’whora thinks is both the absolute carbon copy of herself and yet also so different, the yin to her yang. Tayce has been her closest friend in the flat since day one when she booted the door to her room down and dragged her out of her emotional stupor, and that’s really what’s set the tone for the rest of their friendship; Tayce, upbeat and motivating, constantly and infectiously helping A’whora feel the same way even when she doesn’t want to go out, or doesn’t feel like dragging herself out of her room for a chill flat night with the others, or even when she just feels like a heap of shit. She’s such a fun and positive person to be around, relentlessly optimistic and goofy, and she brings out that side of A’whora too. As opposed to during sixth form and high school, where she’d put up a front to make sure nobody fucked with her, A’whora finds that at uni she can be the person she truly is and let her guard down a little.

This includes being open about her sexuality for the first time ever. She’s out to her family (for the better or worse), but nobody else back home knows (not even her friends) and she wants to keep it that way for now. But at uni things are different- nobody knows her here, nobody has these preconceived ideas of who she is and who she has to be, so she’d taken the plunge and been open about everything. None of the others had cared of course, in fact they’d all been too excited about the fact there’s not a single straight person in their flat comprised of four lesbians (Tayce, Lawrence, Tia and A’whora), one bi (Ellie) and one pan (Bimini).

“What’ve you got so far?” A’whora asks Bimini, sitting down on the sofa opposite her two flatmates.

Bimini reads off their notepad. “Casino night, bottomless brunch…get the train down to Newcastle, have a big night out, stay out all night an’ get the first train home-”

“Christ, that’ll be a challenge for me, you know I get sleepy around midnight,” Lawrence chuckles.

Bimini shrugs. “We’ll just get you an IV drip of Ellie’s Monster, you’ll be alright.”

“What else’ve you got?”

“That’s it so far.”

A’whora spears a pasta spiral, tilts her head in thought as she eats it. “Get drunk in a lecture.”

“Aw, good one!” Lawrence cries enthusiastically. Bimini, for their part, frowns with disapproval.

“Wait, no! Not a good one. Not a good one at all. It’s alright for you art school bitches, you’ve got some lectures together and you can coordinate, where does that leave me n’ Tia?”

“I guess that leaves you…downing a bottle of five pound chardonnay on the back bench of a lecture hall like a tramp with a drinking problem,” Lawrence shrugs, A’whora yelping out a laugh as Bimini shoves Lawrence with their foot.

Just then, there’s movement in the hall and as A’whora turns around she’s greeted by the sight of a tired-looking Tayce and Ellie walking into the kitchen. They shrug off their coats and take off their shoes and dump their bags on the kitchen table with a huff before they walk over to the others. Tayce spreads herself out over the sofa that A’whora’s sitting on, thudding her feet onto her lap without asking permission, to which A’whora instantly pushes them off her and gets a glare and a smirk in return.

“Lawrie, are you knitting?” Ellie laughs, sitting on the arm of the sofa beside her.

“Yeah? And?”

Ellie snorts in amusement. “Just didn’t realise we were living with a wee granny.”

“Well actually, bawbag! I was in the middle of making you a scarf because I can’t stand to listen to you talking shite about how you’re cold every time we leave the flat, but I can leave it if you want,” Lawrence explains. A’whora thinks it’s funny how Ellie backtracks immediately; she can’t tell if she’s blushing or just out of breath from scaling their block’s stairs. Bimini gains control of the conversation, tilting their head in intrigue.

“How were your lectures, huns?”

“Shit, thanks for asking,” Tayce groans, thudding her head down dramatically against the sofa cushions. “I don’t know, I just can’t concentrate when I’m getting talked at for an hour at a time. I need to be doing stuff, you know?”

“Feel that,” Ellie joins in, deflated. A’whora can sympathise- she loves the practical elements of her course, but not so much the lectures. She’s glad she shares a lot of them with Ellie, and the two of them can dick about and text each other and doodle designs in their notebooks while keeping one ear on whoever’s speaking.

“Well if you want to be doing something, you can help us with this,” Bimini suggests, explaining the bucket list they’ve been making.

The girls get settled and the ideas start to flow, Lawrence putting her speakers on for background noise as they all come up with new and increasingly more chaotic exploits. Ellie suggests trying every cocktail in Levels which gets scribbled down into Bimini’s notepad, and Tayce suggests going to Levels sober, which doesn’t get afforded the same appreciation. A’whora comes up with crashing the catered halls for breakfast one day, which they all agree is a good idea but the chances of it actually happening are low considering the earliest riser in the flat is Tayce and even she doesn’t waken up til half nine on a weekend.

“What’re some clubs we’ve not been to yet?” Bimini asks, shrugging. “Could put those down, try an’ visit every one in the city?”

Lawrence snorts derisively. “You go to Underground if you want your phone stolen, Velvet if you want to be bullied by fifteen year olds in the toilets, and Crystal if you want to subject yourself to painful misogyny and probably some light sexual assault.”

“So none of those, then,” Bimini murmurs.

“Those are all really het as well, though,” Ellie wrinkles her nose up in distaste. Then her face lights up as she gets an idea. “Oh! Put down Pride in July.”

“Nice one,” Bimini nods as they scribble down Ellie’s suggestion, the others making little hums of approval.

The conversation goes on for quite some time. Halfway through it Tayce seems to decide she’s bored of lying down and instead moves to sit on the floor between A’whora’s legs, asking her to play with her hair. They’ll do this sometimes- it’s a routine they fall into, A’whora being able to style Tayce’s endlessly long, straight hair and Tayce finding the whole thing therapeutic. They have a lot of little routines like this: they’ll sit close together on the sofa during a flat movie night and take turns leaning on each others’ shoulders, spontaneously give each other hugs at random points throughout the day, trace patterns into each others’ palms when the other seems stressed.

It’s nice. A’whora’s never really had a friendship like this, soft and caring and kind. In school her group was the kind that made catty jokes about each other then buffered them with a “love you!” afterwards and took kissy-face group selfies only to bitch about each other on a private group chat mere hours later. If it was a wolfpack then it was rabid and cannibalistic, and it had seemed like a full-time job ensuring she was never the runt of it. What she’s got with all her flatmates now- especially Tayce- makes her feel like she can finally breathe.

“What about the Centurion Challenge?” Lawrence suggests with a small gasp, breaking A’whora’s reverie as she expertly twirls Tayce’s hair into a loose and chunky French plait.

“Jesus Christ, Lawrence,” Ellie mutters in amusement.

“What’s the Centurion Challenge?” Bimini asks, pulling a face.

Lawrence gives a blythe shrug as she elaborates. “A hundred shots in a hundred minutes.”

A’whora ruins Tayce’s braid in shock, her hair untwisting itself from the braid as if it’s outraged too. The cry she gives joins in harmony with that of Tayce’s and Bimini’s. “A hundred shots? You’d fucking die!”

“Not of vodka! Obviously not of vodka! I know we all have one communal brain cell between us but Christ, can one of yous not use it?!” Lawrence protests. “It’s a hundred shots of beer. Don’t shit yourselves.”

“Aw, well that’s alright then,” Bimini pipes up sarcastically. “What’s actually wrong with Scottish people? Is your breastmilk spiked with whiskey? What d’you get instead of Cow and Gate formula, just cocaine?"

“Actually, a hundred shots of beer sounds more doable to me,” Tayce shrugs, and A’whora can feel her relax against her lap.

“I’d need to change it, I can’t stand beer,” A’whora considers. Ellie cocks her head in consideration.

“Well what alcohol do you like?”

“Fucking none of it,” A’whora laughs. “Cocktails. Vodka cokes. Anything where there’s juice to cover it up.”

Tayce twists her head to look up at her, a little twinkle of mischief in her eye. “I think the challenge ceases to be a challenge when it’s reduced to one hundred watered down shots of Woo Woo, Rory.”

As the others blurt out a laugh A’whora glares down at Tayce, but she can’t help but break out into a giggle too when Tayce grabs her knee and gives it a playful wobble, letting her know she was only joking without even having to say a thing.

A’whora’s not sure what time it is when she hears the front door swing shut and Tia emerges from the hallway, her long hair all messed up from the seemingly ever-present wind outside and almost obscuring the bright smile plastered on her face. “Hey, huns!”

“Oi oi,” Tayce greets her from her position on the floor. “What’s got you so smiley?”

“Nooothing,” Tia smirks, dragging the word out playfully. “Just got an invite to the night out of a very cute girl in my MT society…and she said you guys can all come too. Pres at her flat and then out to The Avenue. Evening plans sorted?”

“Oh, love that!” Bimini gives an enthusiastic clap. “Go on then, who’s the girl? Whose night are we crashing?”

“Her name’s Veronica,” Tia smiles bashfully. “She’s so lovely. Honestly, she wouldn’t mind you coming! She’s got one of the big flats over at Gourock Court so it’s not like it’ll be packed.”

“You don’t exactly want to go to a party that’s not going to be packed,” Ellie screws up her nose. She looks unimpressed and her tone is flat. “And even if it is, I don’t know if I’m in the mood for a flat party with a ton of new people, Tia.”

A’whora’s face drops and she locks eyes with Lawrence simultaneously, who’s got an equally incredulous look on her face. “Els, are you unwell? You never turn down a night out.”

Ellie shrugs quietly, not giving much away on her face. Tia, obviously keen to move to the girl she’s crushing on, carries on persuading her. “C’mon, Eleanor, don’t be such a fucking…square! It’s the musical theatre society, we’re just a walking Pride festival who all happen to be able to hold a tune. There’s loads of fit lesbians?”

“Well if I wasn’t convinced before, I sure am now,” Tayce purrs, a little smile appearing on her lips and a cheeky twinkle in her eyes. A’whora feels her laugh come out weakly. She doesn’t know why, but an odd, uncomfortable feeling lodges itself in her gut. She can’t quite put her finger on what exactly it is or why it’s put itself there.

“And there’s gonna be so many musicals on the playlist!” Tia continues to insist, despite being met with Ellie’s sour face. “I know you’ll love it! They’d probably even play stuff from Shrek if you got them drunk enough.”

A’whora can’t help but scrunch up her nose in distaste. “Hey, I’m only coming if they play fucking…normal people music as well. I’m not gonna be sat in a room with twenty white kids trying to rap to Hamilton or whatever the fuck it is.”

Tia rolls her eyes, plants her hands on her hips in exasperation. “Calm down, A’whora, you’ll still get all the top 40 dance-pop shit you love so much.”

“To be honest, it sounds class. And The Avenue’s always good,” Bimini cuts in calmly. A’whora does have to agree with that. They’ve not been there in a while- the bar across the road from the city’s most popular LGBT club- and its selection of early 00s pop princess tracks combined with its deal of two vodka mixers and a shot for a fiver makes it a guaranteed good night out.

“Well it seems like we’re all down, even if this stroppy cow isn’t,” Tia smiles happily, sticking her tongue out at Ellie for good measure. Ellie finally heaves a world-weary sigh, rolling her eyes dramatically as she relents.

“Ugh, fine! Fine, but this Verruca or whatever the hell she’s called better be the hottest bitch on the planet for you to drag us all out with your MT weirdos, Tia Maria,” she grumps. Tia ignores her bad mood and lets out a cheer which the others join in with, and A’whora resolves to interrogate Ellie about her Bitter Betty attitude later on. Preferably when they’re both drunk. That always makes things easier.

In the melee of excitement, Tayce twists round from her position on the carpet, folds her arms and rests them on top of A’whora’s thighs. “Right. You need to come help me choose an outfit if we’re going out. I need to look fit.”

A’whora smiles with pride. “Ooh, personal stylist duties? I’m honoured.”

“Well I’m hardly gonna ask Tia, am I?” Tayce giggles quietly, and A’whora joins in like it’s a little secret they’re sharing. “Or Ellie. She’d just send me out in one of her bodysuit/skirt combos. I swear to God that girl is like Marge bloody Simpson. Open up her wardrobe and she’ll have twenty sets of the same outfit. Serial killer behaviour, that.”

At this point A’whora is laughing so much that it draws the attention of the others, who eye them with suspicious stares. “What the hell’s so funny?”

A’whora gives Tayce a mischievous look. “Tayce just called Ellie a serial killer.”

Tayce yelps in outrage at having been called out, and as Ellie narrows her eyes Tayce leaps up from the floor and tugs A’whora off of the sofa with her. “That’s taking it out of context, you absolute hound! Come on, help me pick something.”

Tayce’s fingers stay curled around A’whora’s hand all the way down the corridor and into her bedroom. It’s a feeling that A’whora likes because it makes her feel close to her friend, and Tayce taking her hand is like an affirmation and a reassurance all in one; that she likes her, that their friendship has reached the level where hand-holding has become acceptable, that A’whora is worthy of being liked, of being someone’s friend- their real, proper friend. The validation sets her heart off like a flare. It’s nice to feel wanted.

A’whora perches on the edge of Tayce’s bed as she scrapes the coat hangers in her wardrobe and throws outfits onto the bed like a tornado, each more gorgeous than the last and all ones Tayce would look stunning in. That’s something that always strikes A’whora about Tayce; just how beautiful she is, how absolutely blessed with the God-given good genes. The way she looks serene and ethereal without makeup, walking to lectures in the morning with the sun hitting her face and giving her skin a glow. The way she paints for a night out and knows how to accentuate everything about her face that’s already perfect, a feat that would seem like an exaggeration if A’whora hadn’t seen it for herself to confirm it’s true. She frequently finds herself having to hold back from giving compliments to Tayce because if she started she’d never stop.

“Okay, first thoughts are…” Tayce announces unnecessarily loudly, and A’whora laughs at the way she’s talking as if she’s a stylist on a morning TV show. “…I’m thinking something black.”

“Of course you are,” A’whora interrupts with a laugh. “Tayce wearing black. How predictable.”

Tayce gives her a shove on the shoulder that’s too hard and makes her fall back against the mattress. “Shut up! I’ll wear something other than black when Lawrence wears something other than purple, how’s about that?”

The pair of them giggle at the joke as Tayce rifles through the clothes she’s shortlisted, holding up a black leather jacket and a black bralet with an intricate lace hem. The combination makes A’whora’s eyes fly wide open in appreciation.

“This?” Tayce raises an eyebrow at her inquisitively. The fact she’s obviously seen her reaction makes A’whora feel a little self-conscious and she doesn’t particularly know why. “Because I’m wanting to wear either my wet-look leggings or my black vinyl skirt with the zip up the front, and I don’t know if that’s too much leather effect stuff?”

“It’s too much,” A’whora nods, physically unable to help her honesty. “Also I think you should wear the skirt because you’ve got good legs and you should get them out any chance you get. But also the bralet won’t go with it because it’ll make your proportions all wrong.”

Tayce smiles appreciatively as she throws the bralet back into her wardrobe as if A’whora’s given her a command and not a suggestion. “See, this is another reason why you’re the queen of outfit advice. Bimini wouldn’t give me this level of honesty, they’re too nice.”

A’whora feels a warmth spread in her chest at the compliment, but she doesn’t show it. Instead she snorts, nods in agreement. “Yeah, because you could come out dressed in a pair of child’s pyjamas and they’d still say they love it. They’d say it’s very Y2K or something.”

Tayce lets out a cackle before holding up the skirt and leather jacket, humming in thought. “Okay, so you’re saying ditch the jacket but keep the skirt.”

“Yes.”

“And ditch the bralet.”

“Yes.”

“So you want me to go out in a skirt and a pair of heels and nothing else,” Tayce raises an eyebrow at her, and as A’whora bursts out laughing and protests she has to fight off a blush at the thought of her best friend topless in heels. Topless in heels and a vinyl skirt. Topless in heels and a vinyl skirt with a zip that could just be pulled down to leave her in-

The heat floods A’whora’s face like she’s been smacked and she shifts on the bed in an attempt at dissipating the feelings that’ve hit her like a tsunami. Inappropriate. Weird. Way too weird. Don’t do that again.

“What about the bright blue fur coat you’ve got? Because you could have an all black outfit with that as a bit of colour,” she suggests, shrugging lightly in an attempt to pretend that she hadn’t just been thinking about Tayce in the way she had.

Tayce’s face lights up and she points at A’whora with one hand and reaches into her wardrobe with the other. “Love that. Okay, top?”

“Are you addressing me? I’ve never topped for anyone,” A’whora attempts a joke. If Tayce can make jokes like that to her then she can do it right back.  

“That’s very clear, baby,” Tayce shoots in response without missing a beat. Before A’whora realises it, she’s flexing her toes. What the fuck is happening to her? She needs to steer this conversation back on track.

She thinks for a second. “You’re a size eight, right?”

“In theory. The amount of pot noodles I’ve been chucking down my neck since I moved in is very quickly rendering that a distant memory, I’ll tell ya,” Tayce says, as she leans against the door of her wardrobe and folds her arms.

“I’ve got a black lace bodysuit that would go with that. It’s a ten so it’ll fit. D’you want to try it?”

“Well despite the fact a skirt and a bodysuit was the very thing I just roasted Ellie for always wearing…that sounds lush. Thanks, Rory Roo,” Tayce agrees, the nickname-of-a-nickname setting off the click of a small pilot light in A’whora’s heart. She’s about to ask if she wants to come try it on just now when she hears both their names being yelled from the kitchen.

The pair of them head back through to find that Tia has changed the playlist on the speakers from the chilled-out, calm acoustic one that had been playing to her early 00’s tunes. Combined with Bimini half-singing, half-yelling along to Murder on the Dancefloor and the blast of the extractor fan as Ellie stirs something in a big metal pot at the hob, it’s a far cry from the calm, cosy scene that A’whora had witnessed in the kitchen some hours prior.

Ellie had been the one who had shouted on them, and she whips around from the cooker when she realises that Tayce and A’whora have come through. “I’m making dinner for me, Bims and Tia, you wanting some?”

“Depends what it is. Come on, talk it up, Ellie. Give us some options,” Tayce shrugs with feigned disinterest, and A’whora can’t help the bubble of laughter that bursts from her mouth as Ellie narrows her eyes at her.

“It’s spaghetti and meatballs, and your alternatives are fuck off or die,” she shoots back savagely, and the whoop of shock and laughter that goes up from the others soars above the music and the fan. Tayce laughs good-naturedly in spite of the barb.

“I’m joking, ‘course I’ll take some.”

A’whora wrinkles her nose. “You’re making meatballs for a meal that Bimini is gonna eat?”

“They’re not real ones, dipshit,” Bimini pipes up from over on the sofa. “It’s that Birdseye Green Cuisine shit, innit.”

“Birdseye Green Cuisine shit,” A’whora repeats disdainfully. “If you ever go on The Apprentice, Bim, Alan Sugar’s gonna shit himself at your selling abilities.”

Tayce snorts, tries and fails to cover it up. When her eyes rest on A’whora they share a little smile, and A’whora’s grows bigger when she thinks about the way they’re both so in sync all the time.

“They’re nice, I promise! Veronica’s talked them up loads, she told me she’s been trying to eat more veggie things,” Tia insists, with an entirely unnecessary namedrop of her crush. A’whora relents and says she’ll have a small bowl before jumping out of her skin as Ellie bangs the spoon against the pot somewhat aggressively with a face like thunder.

Before A’whora can ask Ellie about her bad mood, Tia speaks again as she scrolls her phone to change the song. “Honestly, Ellie, you’re a star for doing dinner. Thanks so much.”

“Aw, don’t be silly, doll! It’s nothing!” Ellie turns around from the hob and bats the compliment away, shooting Tia a dazzling smile in return. It’s funny the way her demeanour seems to instantly do a complete 180 at the praise, and it makes A’whora wonder what’s changed.

She’s distracted, though, by the way Lawrence enters in her dressing gown with her hair up in a towel, obviously having come straight from the shower. She pouts and whines in a very un-Lawrence way as she lingers at the doorframe between the hall and the kitchen.

“Guysss, does anyone have an ID they can give me for tonight?”

“What about your friend? Who was it…Rosé?” A’whora shrugs, and Lawrence fixes her with a wide-eyed stare of incredulity.

“Oh my God, A’whora! I never thought about asking the girl I’ve been borrowing ID from since the start of uni! Thanks for that!” she says sarcastically, Bimini giving a yelp of laughter and A’whora leaning off the countertops and swiping at Lawrence in retort. “She’s using it. She asked her girlfriend and her flatmates for me but they’ve all got plans. I felt like a fuckin’ daytime TV charity advert.”

“For just one pound a week, you could help an underaged child get blackout drunk on triple trebles,” A’whora puts on a dramatic, concerned voice, proud of the way it makes Tayce blurt out a laugh.

“It’s such fucking bullshit,” Lawrence huffs, leaning against the fridge and folding her arms. “I mean my eighteenth’s in five days and I’ve been drinking in parks since I was fourteen, how can I not just be let into a fuckin’ bar?”

“Grow up and order a fake one,” Ellie shakes her head with incredulity, smashing the wooden spoon against the pot again with a bang-bang-bang to get the excess pasta sauce off.

“Just you pipe down, hen, you shouldn’t even be at uni. In fact, have you even completed primary yet?”

The two girls stick their tongues out at each other, a mirror-image of petty bickering that makes A’whora laugh. Luckily Bimini steps in, shrugging as they open their purse.

“Here, babe. I’ve still got my course friend’s provisional from when she dropped it on Gordon Street when she was off her face. I ain’t given her it back yet an’ I’m sure she wouldn’t care if you borrowed it. She’s chill.”

Lawrence accepts enthusiastically, bouncing over to Bimini and thanking them gratefully. A’whora watches her face drop, though, when she takes a look at the photo.

“There’s no way this’ll work.”

Bimini tuts and shakes their head, the picture of casual composure. “It’s fine, babes, they never look properly anyway.”

Lawrence drops the hand that’s holding the license to her side and fixes her friend with an astounded glare. “Bimini. This girl is black.”

As the others screech with outrage and mirth, Bimini waves Lawrence’s concerns away blithely. “It’ll be dark! It’s fine! Asttina an’ you have both got similar…well…you’re both girls, an’ you’re about the same height. Give or take a few inches.”    

“Christ. I’m going to have to just forward roll past the bouncers, aren’t I? Then draw a fuckin’ club stamp on my arm in Sharpie.”

“Oh my God, stop moaning!” Ellie sighs from her position at the hob, bangs the spoon again for emphasis. “Look, I’ll ask Pippa from flat 2, alright? You both have brown hair, so…that’ll probably be enough.”

A’whora thinks it’s interesting the way Lawrence doesn’t shoot something back in her foghorn of a voice like she normally does. Instead she smiles warmly, dashes over to the kitchen where she hugs Ellie from behind, squeezing her tightly at the stomach and making her flinch in surprise.

“Thanks, Ellie-Bellie,” she sing-songs, swaying her aggressively from side to side until Ellie bats her away, flicking the spoon in a way that threatens to shower them both in marinara sauce.

“Right, that’s plenty. Don’t even do things I enjoy for that long.”

“When’s this gonna be ready, Els?” Bimini shouts through as Lawrence lets go. “ ‘Ave I got time to do my makeup before it?”

Ellie shrugs. “If you can do your makeup in ten minutes.”

A’whora kicks her leg out in Tayce’s direction and jerks her head towards the hall. “Do you want to try on that bodysuit before tea?”

Tayce nods enthusiastically in agreement, so they go back along the corridor with a shout to the others telling them they won’t be long. A’whora holds the door of her room open for Tayce and her heart sinks in embarrassment when she realises she forgot to make her bed this morning.

“Sorry about the mess,” she apologies, to which Tayce gives a cry of a laugh in response.

“A’whora, have you seen my room? You’re fine, kid, don’t worry.”

A’whora thinks that’s true- Tayce’s room is a state, but somehow it seems to suit her. Tayce’s room with the crowded bulletin board, desk covered in sweet wrappers and sketches, floor carpeted with clothes that need washed and outfits that didn’t make the cut. The cracked picture frame on her window-sill of the first selfie the six of them all got together on the first night of freshers and the huge cheese plant that sits next to her bedside table, Tayce’s pride and joy. They’re all little intricate shards that join up to form a perfect picture of her personality, and A’whora thinks it’s sort of perfect.

She looks out the bodysuit from its neatly Marie Kondo-d place in her wardrobe and hands it gently to Tayce. “Try it and see. It’s a small 10 anyway so it’ll probably be fine for you.”

Tayce accepts it gratefully and hooks a finger around both of the straps, letting the rest of the material fall out of its perfectly folded little parcel. She gives a little gasp of appreciation as she looks at it. “Oh yes, baby. I think this’ll do just fine.”

A’whora feels good- proud that she’s managed to find the perfect piece for Tayce’s outfit, to help her look as inevitably gorgeous as she knows she will. The smile on her face falters, though, when Tayce shoots her a wink and leans against the wall with her shoulder. “This is gonna get me someone I can pop off my acrylics for, I can tell. You’ve got the best taste, girl.”

“Are you actually going to try and get with someone tonight?” A’whora injects a laugh into her question that she’s banking on sounding genuine, otherwise it comes across as accusatory and that’s not what she means it to be. Or is it? She doesn’t know. “You know how messy nights at The Avenue always get. Last time we were there Lawrence got so drunk she told us she couldn’t see, remember?”

Tayce laughs her off with a shrug. “Well then I’ll just have to be careful with my drinks, won’t I?”

A’whora gives a false laugh, tries so hard to get it to meet her eyes. Why is she so pressed about this? She gets with girls on nights out too, she’s brought the occasional one night stand to the flat. Tayce is allowed to do the same.

So why does she feel ever so slightly gutted?

If her smile looks fake (which it is) then Tayce doesn’t notice, and she only shoots her a smile as she opens the bedroom door. “You’re an angel. I’ll pop this on then be back in five.”

A’whora takes the opportunity of Tayce having left to make her bed, and as she does so she feels lots of little thoughts dart around her mind like minnows, none of them staying in the same place for long enough to be able to be deciphered. She manages to catch a few before they flee away and she clings to them, turning them over in her head: why does she feel so bothered about the prospect of Tayce finding a girl at the party, talking to her and making a connection and laughing at her jokes? Why had it felt like a punch to the gut when Tayce was joking about doing so? Why does she have this part of her that feels like an idiot for setting Tayce up to look her best and knowing that it’s for the benefit of somebody else, somebody that doesn’t know her like she does?

And then her bedroom door opens and A’whora turns around and lays eyes on her best friend. Tayce in her high heels and bare legs and the skirt with the zip. Tayce with her baby blue fake fur coat and her straight, dark hair tumbling over its shoulders. Tayce in the bodysuit- A’whora’s bodysuit- with the lace and the mesh that clings to her chest like it was designed just for her. There’s something about the fact that she’s wearing something that belongs to A’whora that makes something inside her chest tingle, the fact it’s a little piece of her in Tayce’s jigsaw puzzle that seems to fit regardless of the difference.

“What d’you think?” Tayce smiles, all too aware of how drop-dead stunning she looks.

And then the realisation hits A’whora like a train.

Oh.

Fuck.

She’s screwed.

[opaljm]

eye of the tiger (m) | teaser – kth

➻ female reader x taehyung

➻ jagged spin-off + hybrid au + tiger!taehyung + giraffe/deer!reader + enemies to lovers + fake dating + minor inspiration from zootopia if you squint

➻ genres: angst, smut, romance

➻ length & status: 3k words; teaser

➻ rating & warnings: 18+; allusions to minor discrimination and prejudice; allusion to bullying

➻ summary: You had been bullied by Kim Taehyung in your youth and wanted to have nothing to do with him. But when your ex-boyfriend, a stag hybrid, kept dogging at your heels and Taehyung needed a girlfriend to stop the jaguar hybrid Jimin from growling every single time he got within 10 feet of his girlfriend, you find yourself agreeing to keep up the pretense that you and Taehyung were each other’s childhood crushes and had only recently reconnected and decided to date. 

➻ a/n: the Jagged sequel that exactly two people asked for.  enjoy this for now because i have no idea when i will be finishing this since i have to finish the fics i already gave post dates for :D

➻ disclaimer: all lions are inbred and they live in a pride. i don’t think this is necessarily something that i have to apologize for having in my story but i’ll still throw out the disclaimer that there is one tiny joke about lions being inbred.

⋆ jagged ⋆ teaser ii ⋆ my masterlist ⋆

When you were little, there were a group of predator hybrids who used to relish in causing you pain and anguish. They would ridicule you for just about everything, from your big doe eyes with its long sweeping lashes that would brush against your cheekbones when your eyes were closed to your longer than average neck that was narrow and would often elongate itself when you were absentmindedly trying to look far off into the distance. You had been bullied for your skinny frame and your long gangly limbs throughout all of elementary school where you had been a foot taller than the second tallest person in your class. You were constantly besmirched for having the smattering of pale freckles over your cheeks and nose, always being made to feel adequate for having visual indications of your deer and giraffe heritage.

From what you could tell, the only prey hybrids that were accepted in your small town in South Carolina, were the ones that had hybrid markers that were ambiguous and could have belonged to any number of species or the ones that didn’t have many visible hybrid markers at all. In contrast, the predator hybrids were allowed to delight in their own signs of hybridization. The worst of your bullies were a large group of big cat hybrids, containing both males and females’ hybrids of lions with the occasional leopard hybrid. From what you could tell, the lion hybrids of your small town enjoyed ruling over the place with their pride, and their children had learned from their toxic behavior, enjoying terrifying smaller predator hybrids by sneaking up on them and practicing their roars or by eating their lunches, from home, of entirely raw hunks of meat in front of prey hybrids causing them to throw up the contents of their own vegetarian meals.

All of this should have made you critical of predator hybrids and how they treated the prey hybrids of your town, but when you sat in the one room apartment that you shared with your mother, a lovely deer hybrid who had had you too young and was raising you by herself, you would do your arithmetic equations and stare at the poster of the University of Californian Hybrids, Los Angeles you had hanging up, and dream of escaping to a big city in a more progressive state where predators and prey could live in harmony with each other and might even sometimes be in relationships together. This was even worse than when two hybrids of the same class bred outside their species in your hometown. That’s what had happened with your mother and father. He was a D1 athlete who played on the basketball team of the university they had gone to and had broken your mother’s heart after she had found out that she was pregnant with you. It was one thing to date or sleep with someone who wasn’t the same species as you. It was an entirely different ordeal marrying them and having children with them.

You were desirous of a life where you could be with a predator hybrid because when you were six and had been pushed off of the top of the slides by a puma hybrid, who had waiting for her turn to slide after you, an adorable tiger hybrid who had been roughly the same age as you had squeaked out his attempt at a sonorous roar and scared off the girl and then had slid down to run to you, where you laid sprawled on the rubber floor of the playground clutching your sprained wrist. He had yelled for his grandmother to get you aid and had become your best friend up until the two of you had entered middle school and hit puberty. That was when Taehyung, who had been your fiercest defender against everyone who ridiculed your modelesque stature, and the way you had towered over everyone at your school, had fallen in love with a lion hybrid and started hanging out more and more with the crew of big cat hybrids after school. The final devastating blow that had severed your friendship with the male, forever? When the lion hybrid he had had a crush on, Miyeon, had made fun of your eyes, before you had to do a presentation for your world history class, and said they protruded and made you looked bug-eyed and then said that the only people who would ever find you attractive would be amphibian hybrids and Taehyung had joined her in her laughter. There was nothing wrong with toad or frog hybrids, but it hurt when the male you were in love with laughed and agreed that you were not attractive. That had made you spiral into a depression and made you determined that the following year, when you entered high school, you would do everything in your power to excel at school and to be extraordinary enough to not only get a ticket out of the prejudiced hellhole that was your hometown but to be able to afford to accept that ticket in the form of a full ride scholarship.

When you had finally moved to Los Angeles, your mother remaining behind because she said that the cost of living there was too expensive even though she would have loved to join you, you had reinvented yourself into someone who was self-assured and confident. Someone who had pride in all of the aspects that made her who she undeniably was. Also, when you entered university you were shocked at how many hybrids were taller than you, not only the giraffe ones. There were lion hybrids on campus that were taller than you, for the most part all of them were. That had made you squinty eyed and ask your mother how much inbreeding she thought the lion hybrids back home had partaken in since they were much smaller and much weaker than all the cat hybrids you had run into. And not to mention, undeniably ugly.

In fact, you were more aware that you were only half giraffe hybrid and not full, every time you walked around the campus where everyone was tall and beautiful. You had a full scholarship, a wide variety of friends from different majors, and had even dated a couple of guys. Your ex being without a doubt one of your worse decisions but at least it gave you experience right? But the point was, you had changed. You were no longer the scared skittish prey hybrid of the past that allowed big cat hybrids to walk all over her just because in the wild they were the “kings of the jungle.”

This is why it was particularly annoying that when Taehyung, yes that asshole went to the same school as you, had seen you across the room at a frat party and had lunged in your direction, you had been frozen like a deer in headlights and could not move. This had resulted in the jerk, whom you had not seen nor talked to since you stood next to him at your high school graduation ceremony, wrapping his warm large hand around your wrist and dragging you through the crowd of drunk hybrids up the stairs to the second floor to an unoccupied bathroom.

“Taehyung what the fuck,” you groused, no longer the soft-spoken girl that he was used to. You were annoyed at how good he looked. He was shorter than you in your heels, but he was probably within an inch of your height if you both stood nose to nose and barefoot. He was wearing an animal print shirt that had short sleeves and exposed his chest, which looked irritatingly firm and was a sun-kissed gold. There was a band of cloth wrapped around his head like a bandana that made him look rakishly seductive. And his wavy tousled dark hair and heavy-lidded amber eyes made a devastating combination that made your panties wet with a rush of arousal. He sniffed the air and you prayed that he only smelled the clean linen scented air fresheners that overpowering the bathroom and not the scent of your arousal underneath it.

“I need a favor,” he admitted without preamble. You blurted out your refusal after the word “need,” interrupting him. “Oh, come on Y/N, we were close once,” he tried.

“Yeah when we were six,” you grumbled, crossing your arms across your shirt that tightened even more around the generous swell of your breasts. You upturned your face, gazing up at the vents on the ceiling as though you were contemplating your escape before becoming self-conscious of the elongated state of your throat and moved to fix your gaze onto something that was more your eye level: the towel rack that had been added to the door.

Taehyung sighed, if you didn’t agree to help him, he would be in a pickle. Moments before he had seen you at the party, he had been talking to the pretty sand dune cat hybrid he had been lusting over all of last semester. Unfortunately for him, it appeared that she was still in love with that jaguar hybrid Jimin who hung around her like a dark cloud. Not even two minutes into her and Taehyung’s conversation, Jimin had appeared and draped a possessive arm around her while he glared venomously and unblinkingly at Taehyung.

With a laugh Taehyung had said, “Look man I’m not trying to steal your girl.” Even though he was totally trying to steal his girl, “I have my own and my tastes are quite the opposite, not that you aren’t beautiful ___,” he added, flashing her a wide smile and throwing in a wink for good measure. Jimin was awkward and standoffish, not to mention he was kind of small for a wild cat hybrid. ___ needed someone who was big and strong and could adequately protect her and their cubs.

Jimin had only raised one elegantly shaped dark eyebrow at the statement and looked skeptically at Taehyung, “And where is this girlfriend of yours? This is the first I’m hearing about her.”

Taehyung had smiled tensely and looked beyond where they stood to where the room was more crowded into a crush, his gaze flitting from female to female as he tried to find someone he could pass off as a girl he had been seeing for a while. His gaze had found you in the throng. You had stood out from everyone else with your thin form, towering over a majority of the girls while you danced with a red solo cup in one hand and gracefully throwing your head back. Your long hair had revealed the sexy stretch of skin from the column of your throat to your bare shoulders that were all golden from exposure to the sun yet still had the faint smattering of freckles. He couldn’t shift his eyes from your figure.

His gaze was trapped on the sensual picture you had formed on the dance floor, writhing with confidence, and awakening in Taehyung an inexplicable need to hunt you down, throw you over his shoulder and drag you back to his lair to command your body and pleasure it. To undeniably exercise his ownership over you. It had been confusing because for all that Taehyung was a tiger hybrid, he had rarely experienced such an overwhelming need to chase and to hunt, to show that he was an apex predator and the king of the jungle.

Jimin’s eyes had followed the path that Taehyung’s eyes had made, and uttered after a surprised sound of disbelief, “Wow she really is different from ___. Is she even a cat hybrid?”

Taehyung had answered him with annoyance, not daring to shift his eyes from you, fearing that you would disappear in the crowd of the party if he took his eyes off, “She’s a mixed baby. A giraffe and deer hybrid.”

___ had let out an amazed gasp of astonishment, “That sounds like such an interesting pairing. Can I meet her, Taehyung? I wonder what life is like growing up mixed. Even more so, since Jimin and my kittens will be—”

Taehyung barely paid attention to her, his gaze was too focused on the deer hybrid approaching you. “I have to go,” he muttered, setting down his empty bottle of beer on the counter.

“Sure, of course,” hummed ___, “But remember to ask her about a double date, okay!”

This brought the two of you to the present. Taehyung’s eyes narrowed at the memory of that stag who had been sniffing around you. “Do you have a boyfriend, Y/N?”

You started at the abrupt change in conversation. Why would Taehyung ask you such a thing? Had he seen you shift away from Jongin before you had been unceremoniously dragged upstairs by him? “Not that it’s any of your business since we aren’t friends,” you emphasized mercilessly, “But that was my ex Jongin. That’s the last time I’ll date a deer hybrid,” you admitted reluctantly. “The men are so overbearing and territorial. And he can’t accept that we’re broken up since I was the one to break things off and not him.” The last sentence had you huffing in indignation.

“Hmm,” hummed Taehyung thoughtfully, instantly making you suspicious and raising the hairs on your body. “Have you considered a tiger hybrid for your next boyfriend?”

You side-eyed him. What the fuck. “No, I have not Taehyung. Why would you even say something like that? It’s hardly as though you’re trying to get that position.”

Taehyung bared all his teeth threateningly. It hardly could be passed off as a smile. “But what if I were, Y/N?”

“No.” You refused to even think about it and tried to shove past his body to get to the door and out of this confining space.

Taehyung wouldn’t let you escape so easily. He crowded you against the door. Although you had the height, he was still much bigger than you with wide shoulders and a body that was wrapped by hard ropes of lean predator muscle. “I have a proposition. If you pretend to be my girlfriend for a month, I’ll get that meathead to stop bothering you,” He murmured, meeting your wary gaze with his smoldering one, his deep honey colored eyes boring into your chocolate brown ones.

Your eyebrows furrowed as you thought about just how the tiger hybrid would go about making the deer hybrid to back off. “You’re still getting thrills out of intimidating prey hybrids?” you scoffed, “That’s disgusting, Taehyung.”

Taehyung stilled, thrown off for a second, before he once again bared his teeth in the loose semblance of a smile and uttered, “I just meant he’s a Neanderthal. Once he sees how happy and satisfied you were with me, not to mention how I am able to take care of your every need, he’ll take the L and leave you alone.”

You still weren’t sold. “But why do you need a fake girlfriend,” you asked in suspicion. You trusted Taehyung about as far as you could throw him, which was probably only half a yard away.

Taehyung lied to you bald-facedly, the untruth flowing from his tongue so smoothly that you didn’t even catch it, “Same as you. There are too many people who are dying to have a piece of me and it’s honestly distracting. I’m trying to get into to finish a really intensive and time-consuming project for my major. I don’t have time to waste on booty calls.”

“And you would never be tempted to have sex with me?” You asked, your eyes burning a hole into the stretchy fabric of his black and white shirt.

“Never,” agreed Taehyung, lying once again. This time his heart thudded loudly against his chest and he felt a pang that he didn’t want to think about too deeply.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derivatives 4.0 International License

©OPALJM 2020

[shirtlesssammy]

1x18: Something Wicked

Then:

After this they toss the ball around like old times

Now:

Fitchburg, WI

When I first started watching this show, I found great delight in all the locations the Winchesters visited that I recognized. I also laughed at how much these locations didn’t look a thing like the real place. 

We begin this episode with a little girl saying her prayers. Her dad tucks her in, and she asks about her mom. She’ll be staying the night at the hospital with the little girl’s sister. 

Later that night, the little girl sits up listening to the wind beat tree branches against her window. One of the branches turns into a hand that opens her window. A shadowy figure creeps across the room ---and a Deatheater scares the girl into a comatose state. 

Sam and Dean are on the hunt since John is TOO LAME AND PETTY AND MEAN to go himself. Sam swears there’s nothing on their radar, but Dean insists they check it out. 

(This episode gets pretty dark when it comes to John and Dean so we’ll try to add lots of pretty pictures to help with the pain.)

For Side Profile Science:

The boys pull into the nice rural town of Fitchberg Fitchburg, WI, not the more urban suburb of the state’s capital. 

They ask around about anything weird in town ---just the freemasons being sneaky again. (Flashes of Hot Fuzz). Sam then notices that there are no kids at the school playground at 4 in the afternoon. 

Dean heads over to talk to Hannah a mother who tells him about kids falling sick in town, and parents getting anxious over it. 

Dean and Bikini Inspector/CDC doctor Sam head to the hospital. 

For Bikini Inspector Science:

They head to the pediatric ward. Dean notices an old woman who decorates her room with an upside down cross (way to play with our ingrained bias of ageism and sexism show!) 

Dr. Hydeker explains that 6 children are sick with pneumonia so far, and their bodies are just shutting down. They won’t respond to antibiotics or anything. 

This disease works its way through families, one child after another. None of the children are conscious. They interview the father of Mary and Bethany. He mentions that they think they caught this from an open window. 

Sam and Dean wonder what opened the window and go to the house to check it out. Initially, they find nothing, but then Sam notices one WACKY handprint. “What the hell leaves a handprint like that?” Sam wonders. 

*RAGE Flashback Alert*

John’s heading out on a hunt and he’s giving young Dean instructions. Then he scolds his 9 year old son to pay attention. 

Dean recites John’s fatherly advice: “Shoot first, ask questions later.” before John takes off. I love how he bullies Dean into being an adult here, and doesn’t even acknowledge Sam at all when he leaves. 

Present day, Dean tells Sam that he knows why they’re in Fitchburg. John’s faced this monster in the past, and he wants them to finish it.

When they pull into their motel for the night, Sam asks what a shtriga is. Dean thinks it’s a witch of some sort. John faced one over 15 years ago in Wisconsin, and now it appears to be back. 

Dean heads inside to get a room for them. He’s greeted with a surly 10 year old hotel proprietor. Well, the son of the real hotel manager. Dean can’t decide to be upset with the kid questioning his sexuality or soft for the kid who clearly has a great responsibility taking care of his younger brother. The mom helps Dean get a room. 

While Dean gets checked in, he has another flashback. 

*Scabetti-os Flashback Alert*

Dean’s feeding Sam his dinner. Sam’s sick of the same old food. He wants Lucky Charms, but there’s only one bowl left, and Dean needs to eat too. Sam throws on his baby-puppy dog look and Dean throws away the spaghetti-os and let’s Sam eat the cereal. It BREAKS me that this child has to think rationally and maturely to feed his younger brother, but he’s JUST A KID so he throws the pasta away in anger instead of eating it himself. 

For One Day Sam Won’t Touch Sugar Cereal Science:

Sam does his research and discovers more about shtriga. They feed off of spiritus vitae --or breath of life. Sam says they prefer children and they’re invulnerable to everything. Dean corrects him and says that they’re vulnerable when they feed. 

Sam continues that this monster takes the form of a human when it’s not feeding --generally an old woman. Dean remembers the woman from the hospital. 

They head to the hospital, ready to do their worst to the old lady. 

A nice jump scare that gets me every time reveals that she’s just an old woman. She demands they fix the crucifix that fell on her wall --so it wasn’t supposed to be upside down. WINCHESTER BAD. 

At the motel, Michael and his little brother sleep peacefully. A shadowy hand creeps across the window and opens it.

The next morning the Winchesters return to the motel. Dean notices Michael moping outside the office. It turns out that Asher is very sick and just got shipped to the hospital. The window was unlatched, and Michael blames himself for not protecting his younger brother. Dean “Guilt Spiral” Winchester tries to help him avoid lifelong trauma by telling him that it isn’t his fault. Excuse me while I WEEP A SINGLE TEAR!

Dean gives the mom a lift to the hospital while Michael stays behind. Sam heads to the library, where I am forced ONCE AGAIN to include a picture of a Winchester rocking a microfiche machine. 

For (This Joke Will Never Die) Library Science:

Sam fills Dean in on a string of child deaths tied to a mysterious pneumonia-like illness. The Fitchburg body count is just getting started. Sam finds a newspaper photo from the 1890’s featuring the very same doctor who is caring for the pediatric patients today. Dean, still at the hospital, puts on his murder face. Doctor Hydecker is IN THAT VERY ROOM looking over Asher. He asks Dean what the CDC has uncovered so far. Um. Nothing? Except a big ol’ liar and murderer. 

Back at the motel, Dean fills Sam in on the hospital encounter with Hydecker. He didn’t attack the doctor at the hospital because a shtriga is only vulnerable when feeding. Also - more importantly - he didn’t have his guns on him. Dean plans to catch the shtriga in action that very night...when it returns to feed on Michael.

Sam’s horrified by this plan, but Dean insists that the end justifies the means. After all, their dad sent Dean to Fitchburg to clean up the hunt he botched...WHEN HE WAS JUST A KID. 

Dean explains: years ago John Winchester left Sam and Dean alone in a motel room in Fort Douglas, Wisconsin. A few nights into John’s absence, Dean leaves the room (with Sam asleep) so he can play arcade games at a local tavern. When he returns, there’s a terrifying spectre hovering over Sam.

Dean calmly picks up the shotgun(!!!) his father left him, only for John to shout Dean out of the way. John blasts the heck out of the shtriga and then moves to cradle Sam (who is fine, don’t worry bbys). 

Dean explains that he just left for a little bit! (A few hours and not, like, THREE DAYS, AMIRITE?) John’s pissed at Dean for failing to parent Sam properly. After the failed attack, John dropped Sam and Dean off at Pastor Jim’s. “Dad never spoke about it again. I didn’t ask. But he, uh… He looked at me different. You know? Which was worse. Not that I blame him. He gave me an order and I didn’t listen.”

Sam tries to convince Dean that he was just a kid and not responsible, but Dean “Guilt is Ninety Percent of My Personality” Winchester refuses to listen. John sent them this hunt as a personal message to DEAN. (Pardon me while I step outside and kick the shit out of John Winchester.) ANYWHO, Dean’s going to kill the shtriga any way he can...so young Michael gets to be bait. They head over to talk to Michael.

Dean and Sam try to convince Michael to let them watch over him while he sleeps????? Lordy lord lord. Dean tries to convince Michael that monsters are real. Only, Michael doesn’t need much convincing. He saw the monster when it attacked his brother. (Side note: I give the person filming Jensen in this episode a Major Award.)

Michael decides to sign on for the hunt on the chance that it might save Asher. Big brother club FTW! The Winchesters set up a nanny cam, instruct Michael to hide under the bed when they burst into the room, and get ready for the shtriga’s arrival. Dean tells Michael that he doesn’t have to be bait and he “won’t be mad” if he wants out after all. (I stroke Dean’s cheek and whisper, “Still beautiful, still Dean Winchester.”) But Michael’s all in if it means helping his brother.

The shtriga arrives for its murder appointment and the window slides open. The shtriga leans down in classic dementor mode to feed on a completely wide awake Michael, when the Winchesters burst in and start firing. The shtriga goes down like a trick target at a carnival, but it isn’t dead yet! (Only mostly dead.) It attacks Dean and then, symbolically, attacks Sam. While it begins to feed on Sam, Dean fires off one perfect shot into the shtriga’s forehead, killing it. “You okay, little brother?” Dean asks, also SYMBOLICALLY. 

Tiny, life-force soul bits float out of the dying shtriga’s mouth, on their way to reinhabit all the sick children in town. 

The next day, the Winchesters prepare to leave town. All the kids are on the road to recovery, and Michael gets ready to head off to visit his brother. (YAY!) 

Sam takes a turn for the morose and mourns the fact that Michael knows monsters are real now. Dean “I’m Your Parent” Winchester tells Sam that he wishes he could have ensured that innocence for Sam as well. They drive off in a swirling cloud of Winchester angst. 

Live, from Fitchquote, Wisconsin:

I'm the oldest, which means I'm always right

I was sleeping with my peepers open

You were just a kid

Sometimes nightmares are real

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[lastxviolet]

In Neglected Fields, the Fern Grows - CH. 1

Fred Weasley x OC

3,495 k

Ch. 1 / 10

Warnings: None for this chapter. Eventual smut 

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13829826/1/In-Neglected-Fields-the-Fern-Grows

_______________________________

How someone in the wizarding world hadn't come up with a spell to mimic the brief high of a cigarette puff, Fern Longbottom had no clue. Being a witch would finally feel worth it if she could blast herself at least once every ten minutes to feel momentary relief instead of having to climb the god-awful moving staircase to smoke one cigarette in the Astronomy tower before she was missed by the other Prefect on rounds.

Not that they even needed her. Prefect duties had become much easier ever since Umbridge had taken over as the unofficial authority at Hogwarts. These days, nary a soul, besides the dead ones wandered the halls after hours, for fear of peeving off the menace in pink. She didn't much mind the strict witch's presence, but then again, she wasn't exactly in the line of fire, nor was anyone else in Ravenclaw. The only thing that did make her roll her eyes was that almost all of her duties and responsibilities had been bequeathed to undeserving Slytherins on the Inquisitional Squad. They were a pack of eager dogs, desperate to bring their master the best corpse. At least when she gave someone detention, it was rather painless and they actually deserved it.

Thankfully, she hadn't run into anyone who deserved it tonight. Not that she'd mind the company. Every hall she had passed on the way up the dizzying stairs, was empty. That was one thing she did miss from the time before Umbridge. Usually, there would be absolute chaos in every corner of the dark seventh-floor hallway but tonight, it was silent.

She skirted through the hall, ignoring the hairs on the back of her neck, reminding her of how dark and empty the hallway was. Without light pollution from civilizations nearby, nighttime at Hogwarts was deep and unrelenting until morning. Even in the castle, candles and fireplaces couldn't illuminate the stone rooms enough to fully ward off the hours of shadow. To make matters worse, she'd noticed in her tenure as Prefect that in the evenings, without company or companion, the cobble architecture swallowed sound. Footsteps, words, laughter, and voices dissipated upon utterance without a crowd to overpower the course sandstone abyss. She didn't normally like the quiet, in any capacity, but especially in the castle that could easily swallow her whole with various secret halls, doors, and chambers.

Even at home, quiet was no good. If Neville wasn't rambling on about Herbology or Gran wasn't lecturing her brother about speaking too fast or walking too slow, the air felt thick. It clung to her limbs, and filled her lungs, and brought her thoughts to a standstill. The emptiness that followed, before sound rushed back in, froze her. She'd read a quote once, walking out of St. Mungo's after a particularly somber visit to her parents that said, 'for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.' Whatever abyss Nietzsche was referring to, she doubted that he knew what real emptiness felt like.

You didn't look at it, and it didn't look at you. It was an extension of consciousness; unrelenting and irremovable. Emptiness was a hospital room with people who couldn't recognize you. Emptiness was seeing the same careless bravery that had gotten them there in her brother who seemed too eager for war. Emptiness was being powerless to change any of it. After a while, she'd didn't feel so empty anymore, realizing that she'd simply become the abyss.

Now, it took up a corner of her mind, whispering evil things and infuriating questions with no answer. Every action had an equal reaction, and she was powerless to control every single one, not for lack of trying, as it liked to remind her. Every glance in the mirror, conversation in her head, and silent moment was tainted by this ache with no relief, other than the few times a week she got to smoke a cigarette.

She briefly closed her eyes as she walked, quelling the downward mental spiral by focusing on the crisp scent of fall turning into winter as it drifted in from the tower at the end of the hall. She imagined herself amongst the trees somewhere warm and beautiful, like Italy. The heat from the lone fireplace to her right acted as the artificial seaside sun. The crackling log was a babbling brook and she couldn't hear her own footsteps because she was barefoot in the grass. Her lips pulled into a soft smile. She was content until she heard footsteps.

She jumped and opened her eyes frantically as a very familiar figure appeared ten feet in front of her.

"Nev?" She half shouted.

"Oh hi," he squeaked out, looking behind his right shoulder, around a corner she couldn't see.

She cocked an eyebrow, waiting for him to explain why he was out of his dorm so late but he just stood, staring at her with wide eyes.

"Hi… uh what are you doing up here?"

She watched as he jumped a little at her question, clearly uncomfortable with her suspicious tone. In recent years, her younger brother had become more akin to rule-breaking but sneaking around after dark wasn't usually his style.

He glanced over his shoulder again and took a few frantic footsteps towards her as if he was trying to herd her back down the hall.

"Erm…nothing," he worried. "I was in the uh tower."

His words slurred with the speed and she took sweeping steps to meet him before he got too far away from whatever it was that he seemed to be hiding.

"Nev," she said slowly. "In the tower…doing what?"

He didn't seem to register her question so she snapped her fingers in front of his face, bringing his consciousness back down to earth.

"What's wrong with you? Why do you keep looking around like that?"

"Um…I'm just uh waiting —"

"For…?"

As if on cue, more voices appeared, loud and bouncing, out of thin air.

"Who is that?"

He looked down at his shoes, content to have her discover his counterparts on her own. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to actually hand out a detention, she breezed past him and towards the sound.

She made it three steps before Fred and George Weasley stepped around the corner and looked down at her, in shock, as if she was the one who had appeared out of nowhere. The evening was already a headache, but it was well on its way to turning into a migraine.

Before they could speak, she pounced.

"What are you doing?" Her voice was cruel and seeping with blame, directed at two of her least favorite people.

From as far back as she could remember, nearly seven years now, the three of them hadn't gotten along. The twins were intolerable, annoying, and self-centered. There was no joke, prank, or quip that could ever really be enough to fuel their egos so they always went too far, too fast, making the entirety of the study body accomplices and victims to their antics. Although, it hadn't been until her brother's unfortunate friendship with the twins that she'd started to harbor a real hatred for them.

"Hey," Fred called down the hall behind her towards Neville, pointing wildly, avoiding her accusatory stare. "Look Longbottom, it's Longbottom!"

"A family reunion," George added, clapping his hands together. "How touching."

Fred's eyes twinkled at her sour look. "Out for an evening stroll?"

She rolled her eyes. "I asked you a question."

"Oh c'mon Longbottom, no need to be so hostile, I'm only making small talk," Fred cooed. "Y'know like, how's your evening? How was your day? Are you —"

"Enough, you fucking half-whit. Why are you up here?"

George smiled big at her instantaneous anger but it was Fred who stepped closer and spoke again with a more threatening tone.

"Not quite, but you've almost got the hang of it. You're supposed to answer someone's question before you ask one of your own, it's polite."

"So answer it," she retorted, closing the last few inches between them.

"You first," he said with a scowl, relishing in her contempt. "How is your evening?"

"Abysmal, thanks to you."

"It always seems to be that way when we're together, Longbottom. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you're the problem?"

"Funny," she hissed. "I would beg to differ"

"You? Beg? Now that would make for a lovely evening. Go on then," Fred taunted, looming over her with his usual pretentious sneer.

She glared at him, fuming, and ignored Neville's plea behind her to just leave it alone.

"Alright, we should really be off now," George yawned, stretching his arms over his head for dramatic effect. "Longbottom family, it's been lovely."

Fred bared his teeth as if to gloat and brushed her shoulder with force as he followed his brother towards the stairs. She glanced at Neville for backup but he gave her a miserable shrug. Discontent with the outcome, she spun around and grabbed Fred by the arm.

"For fucks sake, just tell me what you're doing up here or I'll give you a detention!"

He whipped around with a fire in his eyes and clamped a hand down on her wrist.

"Ask. Your. Brother," he hissed through clenched teeth, blazingly serious as he yanked her arm up close to her face.

Neville let out a little gasp at the outburst but she just hardened her glare.

She yanked her hand from his. "Charming."

Fred didn't let her finish the word before he stalked away in a huff, tapping Neville on the shoulder as if to say good luck. The less volatile twin shot her an apologetic look before disappearing down the stairs after his brother.

Despite having gotten used to Fred Weasley's short fuse and erratic temper, her heart nearly beat out of her chest. She'd been the reason for many an outburst, from detention slips to thwarted pranks over the years, none having been quite this tame. If they'd been alone, she liked to think that she might have accosted him back. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

Neville came up behind her, radiating with nerves.

"Really, Fern," he stuttered. "It's fine…I just had astronomy homework."

"Don't lie to me, Nev," she accused, probably louder than she needed to.

"Honest, we were just studying!"

"Oh give it a rest, those two have never studied a day in their lives! They're nothing but trouble. What are you thinking, letting them drag you into something sure to get you on Umbridge's bad side?"

"I'm already on her bad side," he mumbled. "So it doesn't really matter if —"

"Well then you can't really afford to make it any worse, can you? I mean hanging out with the Weasley twins after hours is one of the stupidest things I can think of. You're smarter than this!"

"They're my friends, it's nothing —"

"Some friends they are, Neville. Honestly, what could you possibly expect from hanging out with them, besides trouble? You're lucky that it was me that you ran into tonight, and not another Prefect, or worse. How could you be so —"

"You aren't my mum, Fern… I can look out for myself," he squeaked in a small, but stern voice.

She stopped talking immediately, struck by his sudden gumption. The twins had definitely gotten to him. Normally, he would've at least given her the benefit of the doubt and listened to her advice. She furrowed her brow when he glanced up, still looking nervously at the hallway behind her.

"You should get back to your common room," she sighed finally, unwilling to fight and elongate the portion of the evening without any nicotine in her system. "It's late."

"Alright," he said, nodding a little more energetically now that she'd stalled her lecture. "See you later?"

"Yeah….see you later."

He sped off down the hall, probably keen to catch up with his so-called friends. She cursed Fred to high heaven as she scaled the astronomy tower stairs, stopping briefly to retrieve a cigarette from the school stash, underneath a floorboard below the telescope. She tucked it between her teeth, used a non-verbal fire spell, and stepped over to the balcony.

The grounds were fuzzy and dark green beneath the muted moonlight. She stared confused for a moment at the darker than usual, blurred Hogwarts lawn, and then tipped her head upwards. A deep fog blurred the view, making the constellations completely invisible. The moon tried to blaze through the haze but it barely reached the earth's surface.

There was no way they got any astrology homework done, she thought, glancing around the room for clues.

Other than a few cigarette butts, there was nothing.

She took a drag and watched the smoke commingle with the haze. Nicotine rushed through her head providing momentary dizzying peace and oblivion. This buzz, although brief, was preferable to anything else. Drugs were unobtainable and inconsistent, alcohol lasted too long to be truly relaxing and she could never get the various potion options right. Tobacco gave her the two things that she craved, a tiny ounce of rebellion, and an unoccupied mind.

She flicked her finished cigarette onto the floor, one final testament to her moment of disobedience for the night, and flitted back down the stairs, eager to be finished with her rounds.

The hallway was still and dark again as she flew through it. The incident with her brother and his fellow Gryffindors had nearly been forgotten when other voices drifted from the hallway behind her.

Stunned by their apparition, she turned slowly, trying not to look terrified.

"Hey Fern," Padma Patil and Mandy Brocklehurst said in unison, arm in arm, coming around the corner where she'd been a few footsteps ago.

"Hey…guys," she responded, looking for an explanation.

"Prefect rounds?" Padma said, nodding to her house robes after hours.

"Yeah," she stammered.

"That sucks. Almost done though?"

She nodded and watched the girls try and contain their giggles about something she couldn't see. She glanced down the hall and found it devoid of doors or entrances despite the astronomy tower, where they most certainly were not.

"Astronomy homework?" She asked them, surrendering to her urges of suspicion. Where had they come from?

"Yep," Padma replied energetically.

"Lovely evening to see the stars," she goaded.

"They were brill," Mandy chimed in, turning to get her friend to nod in agreement. "Oh, by the way, I think a few people are going to be hanging out in the boy's dorm later tonight if you wanna come."

"Wicked," she responded, faking interest. "Corner and Boot's room?"

"Yep!"

"Ok, I'll try and swing by," she assured them. "You guys better get back though, I don't know who else has rounds tonight but if it's Abbott, you're screwed."

"Shit," Mandy said. "Is the Inquisitional Squad out tonight too?"

"Haven't seen them yet but I think they come round at 9."

"Thanks, Fern, you're a lifesaver!" Padma whispered, turning to run with her friend, hand in hand. "See you later!"

She watched them run back down towards the moving staircase and then turned to inspect the hall in a daze. She squeezed her eyes tight, imagining a door at the end of the hall but when she opened them, the stone wall remained the same; tall, grey, and empty.

There was no door anywhere.

Where were all these kids coming from?

The Weasley's having some secret entrance into the hallway made sense but her housemates and brother didn't. The mystery motivated her enough to make quick work of the walk back to her common room where she ignored a wave of 'hello's from her peers and rushed to her dorm room.

"Daisy!"

Her roommate jumped two inches off the bed and nearly toppled onto the floor as she rushed in and slammed the door. The tall strawberry blonde stared at her with wide, absent eyes for a moment before relaxing back onto the bed and setting her book on the nightstand.

"You might be content dying from a stress-induced heart attack at a young age, my love," she cooed, returning to her easy-going state. "But I, am not. Please exclude me from any further loud and anxious announcements in the —"

"Daisy," she repeated, ignoring her best friend's usual long-winded, abstract ramblings. "I think I may have stumbled upon a mystery."

Daisy gasped and threw a hand over her mouth, smiling wickedly as for one moment Fern thought that she was equally intrigued.

"I'm serious," Fern said flatly.

"I can't say I'm surprised," she said wistfully. "There is no way that we could know all the goings-on in a castle this old or this large. The mysteries it holds….the mysteries it has been witness to…well that must span centuries. Fern, what do you think was happening in this very room, a century ago?"

"Daisy, this room is not the one that I am concerned about. Will you please listen to me?"

"Yes, yes, yes," her roommate rambled, staring at the door as if she could actually see the ghosts of Ravenclaws past.

"On my Prefect rounds, I went up the astronomy tower—"

"So that you could look up at the night sky and not smoke a cigarette because you promised me that it was simply a fleeting phase of insubordination and not a serious habit?"

She squinted at the suddenly alert girl. "Yes."

"Lovely, please continue."

"Well on my way to the tower, Neville appeared out of nowhere with Fred and George Weasley in tow."

She paused for dramatic effect but continued quickly as Daisy didn't seem intrigued in the slightest.

"When I asked what they were doing, the twins wouldn't say, and Nev gave me some excuse about astronomy homework but when I went up to the tower, the fog made seeing the stars impossible!"

Daisy gave her an exasperated look. "So they were in the tower smoking pot?"

"Ah very clever, my love, but no. See, I would have smelled it either on them or in the tower if that had been the case but there was nothing."

"Okay…so what were they doing up there?"

"Now that is the mystery. I don't think they were up there at all."

Daisy stared at her silently, raising her brow in a combination of confusion and doubt.

"And here's why…when I came back down, Padma and Mandy appeared in the hall behind me, looking like they were leaving something, just like Nev and the twins had but they weren't up in the tower with me."

"Okay…"

"Daisy, are you hearing me? They said they were doing Astronomy homework, just like Nev. On a cloudy night! Don't you think that's a little suspicious that five people appeared out of thin air in a seventh-floor hallway this evening?"

"Well it's definitely odd but I don't know if I'd call it suspicious…actually maybe it's a little abnormal….no….bizarre perhaps?"

"Yes, yes, yes, all of the above," she said quickly. "What I'm trying to say is that I think they're up to something."

"Your brother, the twins, and two Ravenclaws?"

"Yes."

"Orgy?"

"Oh Daisy, for fucks sake, don't put that image in my head."

"Well, it's the obvious choice of usage for a secret room in a distant hallway with people who might otherwise consider each other acquaintances."

"They didn't look nearly flustered enough for that to be the case and besides, Padma and Mandy couldn't ever like any of them."

Daisy nodded like she was pondering.

"And you're sure they couldn't just be a study group?"

"Well I mean sure, they could be but what room were they using?"

"Fern, what time is it?"

"What?"

"The time," Daisy repeated.

"8:45, why?"

"So it's nighttime?"

"Yes…"

"Meaning that it was dark…up there."

"There are lanterns and fireplaces and moonlight, Daisy, I know what I saw. Dim light cannot hide an entire door. Or room!"

"No need to shout, I'm only trying to guide you to an air-tight hypothesis. Are you sure your mystery isn't just because of a lack of light or perhaps a result of your lack of sleep?"

She thought back to the hall and all the times she'd been there. It wasn't often, but it was enough to know what was there.

Nothing.

"No, I'm sure there is something else going on."

"Alright…I'll entertain it," Daisy said, propping her head upon her hand. "Do you think it's something sinister?"

"No," she mused, sorting through all the possibilities in her head. "Perhaps more of a nuisance in progress but I still don't like it."

"Fern, it's probably harmless."

"I can't shake the feeling that it's not. I don't want Neville involved with those fucking Weasley twins, no matter what they're doing."

"You're going to smother that poor boy. They're his friends, let him have his fun!"

Fern glared at her level-headed friend and then laid back onto her bed in a huff.

"We'll see."

[amanda-teaches]

Til Death Do Us Part? (1)

Series Summary: At a work party with your best friend, Dean, you panic when your new boss asks if you’re couple. Lying to protect your promotion, you wind up fake engaged before you can take it back. When Dean agrees to go along with your lie for a weekend retreat, you end up finding something neither of you had bargained for: love.

Pairing: AU Dean x Reader

Square filled: Fake Dating/Marriage for @spndeanbingo​, Fake Marriage for @spngenrebingo​, Mistaken for a couple for @spnfluffbingo​, “He’s always been there for me through all my terrible relationships and shit, and I can tell him anything” for @spnquotebingo​

Word Count: 2135

Warnings: A hint of future angst, some swearing, fluff

A/N: This is the first part of a little mini-series I’ve been working on. It will probably be around 3-4 parts, or more depending on how much fluffy cuteness I plop in the middle, but I’m pretty excited about it, so I wanted to share the first part with you all to see what you think. I hope you like it! Let me know! I haven’t finished writing yet, so you never know if your reactions may influence the series. ;)

Til Death Do Us Part? Masterlist

In the dead of the night, sitting on a deserted train station bench in the middle of the pouring rain, you finally felt safe enough to let yourself cry.

So, you sobbed. All alone, in the silky, golden evening gown that you’d felt so goddamn beautiful in, you sobbed, the tears running down your face and into your already-wet hair.

You pulled the note out of your pocket, watching as the words began to smear and run down the page.

To the Future Mrs. Winchester,

You look gorgeous tonight. Just like every night. Remember to save me a dance.

D

You closed your eyes and cried even harder, the sobs wracking your body. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It was all supposed to be fake, a means to an end, one friend helping another...

You weren’t supposed to fall in love. 

Damn that Dean Winchester.

One week and two days earlier…

You opened up the dating app on your phone, and scrolled through the dozens of “hey, sexy” and “what r u wearing?” messages before closing it again in disgust. “Oh my God, what’s the point of this stupid thing?”

Your best friend, Francesca, plopped down on the couch beside you, a bowl of popcorn in her hands, and looked over at your phone with a smirk. “The wonderful world of online dating?”

“How did you ever guess?” you answered sarcastically, amusement softening your tone. “Geez, it’s crazy! For every nice guy I find, there’s like 100 creeps.”

“Hey, what happened to that one guy? The therapist?”

You groaned. “He tried to psychoanalyze me all night. Wound up crying on my shoulder over his repressed daddy issues.”

“The architect?”

“Drew up the plans for our dream house within the first 10 minutes of the date.”

“The musician?”

“Texted his ex the whole night.”

She laughed and shook her head. “God, am I glad that I’m married.” Then, she turned to you, tucking a leg underneath her. “Hey, when are you going to give up on this whole online dating thing and just go out with Dean?”

Rolling your eyes, you shook your head. “I’ve told you a thousand times. Dean and I are just friends.”

“Oh, sure,” she laughed. “Just friends who text everyday, spend hours on Facetime with each other, and act as each other’s emotional support systems. Y/N, you’re practically married. The only thing missing is the sex.”

“Francesca!” you cried, an undercurrent of laughter running through your voice. “We are not practically married. Look, I love Dean, he’s always been there for me through all my terrible relationships and shit, and I can tell him anything, but that’s all it is. We’re just friends, I swear.”

She looked at you for another moment, skepticism filling her eyes. “Mhmm, keep telling yourself that. I’m just saying, you could do a lot worse than Dean Winchester. You don’t snap him up now, someone else will. And, ‘just friends’ or not, Y/N, I can guarantee, if that happens, you’re gonna regret not going for it.”

She sat back, focusing on her popcorn and queueing up the movie for the night, but you stayed staring straight ahead, her words lingering in your head. You wanted Dean to be happy, to find someone, just like you were trying to. You wouldn’t regret that if it happened...right?

Picking up your phone again, you stared at the picture of you and Dean that lived on your lockscreen, a smile playing at the corners of your mouth. You were going to see him tomorrow. He was your “date” to a party your new boss was throwing to get to know everyone, but you’d only asked him because you didn’t want to go alone. He was always your plus one to these kinds of things, and vice versa. You both knew it was strictly as friends, there wasn’t anything more than that. Besides, you were sure that the two of you could never really work. 

At least that’s what you kept telling yourself.

The sound of Dean’s Impala rumbling up to your house the next morning made your heartbeat a little faster than you were willing to admit. Closing your eyes, you took a deep breath to calm yourself and grabbed your purse and phone, heading towards the door. You were sitting in his passenger seat in no time at all, with him smiling at you from across the bench seat.

“Ready to impress the new boss?”

“Hell yeah,” you nodded. “Thanks for coming with me. I hate doing these things alone.”

“Course,” he replied, shifting the car into gear with an easy smile on your face. “You know how impressive I naturally am.”

“Mhmm,” you laughed, shaking your head slightly. He grinned and winked at you, pulling the car into the street on the way to the “garden party” as your boss was calling it.

You were expecting some sort of outdoor barbecue/picnic situation, but when Dean pulled up in front of the mini mansion the address led to, and you saw the valets parking the cars, you were glad you’d worn your nicest sun dress.

“Damn,” he whistled, under his breath, staring out the dashboard. “Who’s your new boss, Richie Rich?”

“Apparently,” you muttered, still in disbelief. “I was not expecting this when I woke up this morning.”

“But, good news,” Dean pointed out, stopping his car in the middle of the circular driveway. “I bet the free food’s gonna be out of this world.”

You laughed as Dean got out, rushing around to your side of the car to open the door for you. You smiled and thanked him, and, after watching him warn the valet to treat his baby better than his own mother, he escorted you inside, your arm intertwined with his. He whispered something that made you laugh again, and you leaned into him, whispering back, as if being this close was the most natural thing in the world. If only it was this easy with every other guy.

When you got to the backyard, Dean dropped your arm, making a beeline for the rows of white-linen tables stacked with food. You started to follow him, but, when you spotted your new boss out of the corner of your eye, you changed tactics, wanting to make a good impression on her before she was inundated with too many people.

“Clarissa, hi,” you stammered, a little awkwardly, once you reached her. “You have a beautiful home.”

“Thank you,” she said politely, turning to you. She studied you for a brief second before recognition registered, and her eyes lit up, a genuine smile replacing the formal one. “Oh! Y/N, right?”

“Uh, yes, yes!” You couldn’t believe she remembered your name already. Since you were one of four people vying for a coveted promotion at the company, this could be your big chance. “I’d really love to get a chance to talk with you about my thoughts on the Newman project.”

“Oh, of course, dear,” she humored you, dismissing the work talk by looking around. “Where did that nice young man that you came in with go?”

Your eyebrows furrowed. “Oh, Dean? He went to get us some food.”

“That’s so sweet of him. You’ve got yourself a good one there.”

“Oh no, we’re just…”

“You know,” she said, cutting you off. “There’s a couple’s retreat next weekend for some of the higher ups in the firm, a little bonding experience, so to say. There’s an open spot left. Maybe you and your young man could come?” She leaned in and gave you a conspiratorial wink. “We’d have plenty of time to talk more if you were there.”

“A couple’s retreat?” you repeated back, growing flustered. “But, Dean and I, we aren’t…”

She glanced at your ring finger. “Oh, dear, you two aren’t married yet. Such a shame. Unfortunately, the retreat is for married and engaged couples only.” She sighed, staring down at her mimosa. “Oh, I guess I’ll have to give Stuart your spot.”

Stuart? Oh, no way in hell. That guy had been gunning for your promotion for well over a year. You panicked, looking over at Dean, who’d piled two plates full of food over at the buffet. Watching him, you imagined your promotion flying away, and you blurted out the only hail mary you could think of. “Wait! Dean and I are engaged!”

Clarissa’s eyes widened with excitement. “Oh, really?! I didn’t see a ring, so I just assumed.”

“Oh, well,” you bluffed, struggling to think of a believable cover. “It’s all pretty recent, so the ring’s, uh, getting resized. But, yes, we’re engaged. Fully committed and engaged to be married.”

“That’s wonderful!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Then, you two can come to the retreat next weekend! It’s up at the Mountview, all inclusive.”

You whistled under your breath. Damn, the Mountview. It cost like 1,000 a night to stay there. Suddenly, you realized what you were doing, and you knew this innocent little lie was spiraling way out of control.

“Actually…”

She waved you off, looking over your shoulder. “This is so great! I’ve heard really great things about you, Y/N. I can’t wait for you and your fiance to knock the socks off our executives. Now, if you’ll excuse me for just a second.”

Before you could stop her, she was gone, having spotted someone across the room. You were left standing alone, and, looking up, you spotted Dean smiling at you from across the lawn, holding up his plates of food triumphantly.

Oh God, were you screwed.

“YOU SAID WHAT?!”

You looked around for a second, putting your hand on his chest to quiet him. “Shh, someone might hear.”

“So fuckin’ what if they hear, Y/N! You told your boss we were engaged!”

“I know, I know,” you whispered. You grabbed Dean’s hand and pulled him further into the hallway off the doors to the backyard, so your argument would be blocked from where the party was still going on, in full swing. “I’m an idiot, okay? I fully admit that.”

He looked down at you and exhaled heavily, running his hand through his hair. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I don’t know!” you sputtered, beginning to ramble. “She thought we were a couple, and I tried to explain we were just friends, but then she kept talking and talking, and the retreat was all BAM, Mountview! And, then, then, she wanted to invite Stuart, I mean Stuart, of all people, and I just panicked, and, I...”

“Okay, okay,” he chuckled, placing his hands firmly on your shoulders. “Chill before you pass out on me. Deep breaths.”

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, leaning into him. He immediately wrapped his arms around you, the argument instantly forgotten, and pulled you into a warm, safe hug. “I’m so sorry…” you mumbled against his chest. “I just wanted that promotion so bad, I think I went a little crazy. I’ll go out there right now and tell her the truth.”

He sighed, his breath ghosting against your hair. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Pulling back, you looked up at him, puzzled. “What?”

“Well, you already told her we were engaged, and if you backtrack now, she’s going to think you’re a crazy liar. Besides, it’s only one weekend, right?”

“Wait, are you saying we should actually go? And, pretend to be engaged?”

His face split into an eager smile. “Yeah. We’re best friends, so we already know everything about each other. How hard can fake marriage be? We pretend to be engaged for a weekend, you get your promotion, then we ‘break up’ and decide we’re better off as friends. No one’s any wiser.”

You stared at him for a second, the ramifications of his plan running through your head. Francesca’s words came screaming back at you. “Y/N, you’re practically married. The only thing missing is the sex.” Dean was right, you did know everything about each other. How hard could it be to fake a relationship for a weekend. “Are you sure?” you asked sincerely. “I mean, really, really sure.”

He nodded, taking your hands in his and dropping to his knee with a dramatic flourish. “Y/N Y/L/N, will you fake marry me?”

You laughed looking down at him, the sight of his goofy grin instantly bringing a smile to your face. You nodded, agreeing, but, no matter how much you tried to ignore the voice in the back of your head, Francesca’s other words lingered. “You don’t snap him up now, someone else will. And, ‘just friends’ or not, Y/N, I can guarantee, if that happens, you’re gonna regret not going for it.”

Shit, you really were in over your head this time.

Forevers- @atc74​ @babypieandwhiskey​ @be-amaziing​ @carryonmywaywardcaptain​ @deans-dirty-writer​ @deanwanddamons​ @deanwinchesterswitch​ @dolphincliffs​ @edgeofreality35​ @emoryhemsworth​ @focusonspn​ @hannahindie​ @heyitscam99​ @impala-dreamer​ @impandagrl​ @karikatz12481​ @katymacsupernatural​ @maddiepants​ @masksandtruths​ @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester​ @mysterious-398​ @ohmychuckitssamanddean​ @pinknerdpanda​ @roxyspearing​ @spnbaby-67​ @squirrel-moose-winchester​ @wi-deangirl77​ @wonderfulworldofwinchester​

Dean Tags - @adoptdontshoppets​ @akshi8278​ @alexwinchester23​  @dean-winchesters-bacon​ @squirrelnotsam​

[beanenigma]

Tips for people who like to write by hand

So you’re an old timey writer who enjoys the feeling of paper as you breathe life into a story? Or, like me, you can’t use your phone at school and just wants to get some writing done while math class bores the others? 

Well, me too and I’ve come to your aid! I’ve done some pretty stupid things that costed me hours and hours of searching for lost scenes and struggling to find ideas I knew I’d written down so you don’t have to! 

Find the right notebook for you

By experience, notebooks take a long time to be filled. In good nanowrimo times, I take from 6 to 8 months to finish one. So you’ll be stuck with this guy for a long time. Make sure to pick one that you like and is right for your needs. I, for example, prefer spiral notebooks. You can rip out pages if you need to (if you mess it up, if someone asks you for one, if you just need a page to write down a grocery list or something, etc) and you can put a pen on the spiral. I also like having a pocket to put pieces of ideas I have. 

Some spooky stories about having the wrong notebook: 

I got stuck with a brochure old planner for two years. My mom didn’t use it in the year it was meant for, so I thought oh, it’s free real estate. As it turns out, it had really small space between the lines, so the pages would take forever to fill, it had all those day and hour numbers and the paper was really thin. It was terrible and it made writing terrible. It would have been a thousand times better if I just spent a few bucks on a regular notebook. 

More recently, I started using just the kind of notebook I like, a spiral notebook with a pocket. But I bought it a couple of years ago at a fandom event I attended and the cover was a personalized Divergent cover. At the time, I thought if was pretty cool and everyone would know the reference. But now it has aged so very poorly. The cover has blood all over it and it says “Faction Before Blood”. So now I’m scared to pull it out to write at uni and people will think I’m in a gang or something. 

Number your pages

I know, it sounds like a lot of work. But you can get a notebook with pages already numbered, number it yourself or do it like I do and number it every 10 pages (just because it’s easier). If you don’t feel like doing all of this repetitive work,  date your writing. It’s cool to see how much you progressed, how long you have been writing this project, when you had this idea, etc. One thing doesn’t have to exclude the other, but both methods serve the same purpose. 

And this purpose is to help you get an idea of how much you write (and feel good about your progress) and to help you organize yourself on all you’ve been writing. Which takes us to the next tip. 

Make the first page an index

Not only it will take the pressure off the first page, it will also help you so you don’t keep losing the awesome stuff you’re writing and forgetting it exists. Everytime you start a new scene or change projects, go to the index and write down the page or the date you started this new section. Since I number every ten pages, I find the first page with a number on it and start counting forward or back to the new page. But you can do it in any way that suits you. 

Make a random idea page 

It doesn’t have to be the second page (it usually isn’t for me), but it’s good to have one. Sometimes, in the middle of writing, you have that great idea for something you need to change on what you’ve already got, or you got a completely new insight. It’s good to have your idea page somewhere close you can just flip to, write it down and get right back to writing. And don’t go easy on that page! Write it diagonally, vertically, draw on it, anything. It’s just there to take out those ideas so you can take a look at it another time and not mess the flow you’re in right now. 

Keep your enemies close. And your pen even closer!

You know your favorite bic friend? It has a secret weapon just for you to use. That little flap of the cap? Use it to keep your pen always close. I normally put it on the spiral of my notebook. But if you have a brochure, you can put it on the cover. Sometimes it damages it a bit, but it’s a good trade for having it always ready for action. If you use moleskine, I saw that they normally have designated pen places. If they don’t, I have a tip for it just under this one! 

Take your time to find which kind of pen is your weapon of choice. Personally, I think nothing beats a black ballpoint pen. I know some people like fineliners for writing, but they make the other side of the paper all gross looking and I like to keep it clean. Plus, I write really small and fineliners often bleed in my handwriting. I took my time searching for my favorite brand and I settled on Molin ballpoint pens. 

I would recommend buying your favorite pens in bulk. Nothing is worse than pen hunting around when you have an urgent idea. I bought 50 pens for super cheap and I stack them EVERYWHERE. In all my bags, in my sketchbooks, in my bullet journal, in my writing notebook, in my drawers, anywhere I think it will be easy to find one when I need it ( also giving some to my friends who keep stealing my pens).

Crafting the perfect notebook

You don’t have to be a crafter to modify your notebook to better suit you! Find a ribbon anywhere in the house. Cut it to be a little longer than the book. Tape that bad boy to the inside of the back cover and everytime you stop writing, put that ribbon on the page you stopped. This helps you not to get lost in your previous writing and get right back to business when you resume.

Also, if you really like that moleskine vibe but don’t have the cash, just get a regular clothing elastic, make cut it just the size of the notebook and glue both ends to the inner part of the back cover. There you go! Now you can close it (and keep it closed).  

If you like post-its, you can take half of the block (or however many sheets you cant put in there and still close the notebook comfortably) and glue it to the inside part of the cover of your notebook so it will always be conveniently available for you.

If your notebook doesn’t have a place to put your pen on and you really don’t want to mess up the cover, you  take a small elastic (smaller than the pen) and tape (or preferably glue it) it to the back part of the notebook with both ends inside. There! Ready for the trip! Speaking of which...

Always carry your notebook with you

You never know when inspiration is going to strike. In class. At the bank. In a mall. Whenever you have a little time, you can write something. Or just take a look at what you’ve done and feel good about it. 

Not in the mood for writing? Edit. Reread what you’ve done and start finding what you want to change once you type it in.  When doing this, don’t be scared to cross out entire sentences and rewriting them on top. If it starts getting too messy, go to a blank page and rewrite the scene and you think it should have been done the first time. It seems counter-intuitive in a copy+paste kind of age, but I assure you it is worth it.

Typing your work

This is one of the biggest reasons I love writing in pen and paper. When you type, your first round of editing is done! 

Don’t zone out when typing. As I said, typing is your first round of editing. It is important to keep aware of all of the things you might have done wrong when writing. Some people say writing it on paper and then typing it is a waste of time. I say it saves time and lives. 

Keep it loose!

Just because you are writing in an actual physical book, it doesn’t mean you are writing a actual physical book. This is still your notebook and these are still your notes. So don’t be afraid to get messy. Write things out of order (seriously, it’s okay to not go chronological. i know it’s hard). Outline. Sketch. Tip-ex the whole thing. Get post-its on it. Take notes. Make genealogical trees. Draw maps. 

If you’re feeling down or uninspired, try very basic writing exercises: write what you see, what you feel, something to try and make you laugh or something to make someone cry. It’s your place to express yourself. And once you got those creative juices flowing, happy writing :)

I hope you enjoyed my tips and please, feel free to reblog this with your own tips and tricks. I’d love to hear them! And follow me for some more writing content! 

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who Hiatusbreaker Update 2

Although the premiere of Doctor Who Series 13 is still a while off, let alone the announcement of a premiere date, there are a few things I’d like to talk about before that time comes. Let’s get right into it.

Filler series plans to talk about Series 1-10

Some time ago, I had plans to make a ten-part series talking about Series 1-10 in detail, but because I had a lot of stuff going on, those plans were reduced to something I call Doctor Who 10 for 10 - 10 Things for 10 Series, which was to state ten things about each series with at least 4 to 6 of these things being my opinions on each series. This was intended to be a filler series to bide the time before Series 13 comes out, but that may have to come at another time. I’m also continuing with Kisekae Insights if anyone wants to check it out.

The post-Series 13 forecast

Since Series 13 would be Jodie Whittaker’s third series as the Doctor, signs are pointing to this being her final series. There are also rumours stating that there will be two specials in 2022 that would serve as her final episodes. If this is the case, then it means that Jodie Whittaker would have been the Doctor for five years; a five-year-long ordeal of pain because series seem to be released pretty much every other year as a result of the almost-year-long gaps between them, not to mention the fact that less episodes are being produced as time goes on. Whether Chris Chibnall will be remaining on is still unknown at this time. Frankly, I’ll be glad when this is all over because I (and many other fans) have been kept hanging for so long. I just hope the Timeless Child payoff will be worth it.

At this point, the only reason why I’m still watching the series is mainly because I want to know how the Timeless Child arc plays out. The initial shocks have come and gone, but now this is where we wait and see if the aftershocks are as worse.

When I started my Thirteenth Doctor Reviews, I made a pact that I would cut off all ties with the series going forward if the Fourteenth Doctor was another female. Given the Timeless Child arc and the rumours that Olly Alexander would replace Jodie Whittaker (which would make him the first gay actor to play the Doctor) that came and went because his agent stated that he was focusing on music for the time being, I’ve honestly stopped giving a shit at this point. I’ll probably continue being a casual fan of Doctor Who, watching episodes as they come out, but regardless, all that this series will be to me is like what the Koei Warriors series has degraded itself to over the past decade. I’ll still be grateful for all the inspiration and opportunities it has provided me with over the years, but I’ll probably accept that the series has gone on a downward spiral with seemingly no way of coming back up. But hey, all will be revealed in due time, so the forecast isn’t that bleak for now.

The first look into Series 13 (added 26 July 2021)

So just today, two days after I originally published this post, the teaser trailer for Doctor Who Series 13 was released following the 2021 San Diego Comic Con@Home. Aside from the Doctor, Yaz and Dan, the only other character we see is Vinder, a recurring character throughout the series who will be played by Jacob Anderson. Recurring character, you say, and that’s because Series 13 will apparently be a single serialised story. This brings callbacks to The Trial of a Time Lord or more loosely, the multiple two-parters of Series 9. We still don’t get an exact premiere date, only that it will premiere “later this year”, but given that Series 11 and 12 took about 10 months to film, we can predict that filming of Series 13 will likely be wrapping up in the next month. Whether there will be a shorter run of five or six episodes (thereby reserving two of those episodes for the 2022 specials, assuming they won’t be filmed separately to Series 13) is unknown, but regardless, I’m looking forward to watching and reviewing the series for myself.

Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall leave Doctor Who (added 30 July 2021) 

In news that will surprise no one, Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall have announced that they will be leaving the series in 2022. Technically, the news isn’t much of a surprise in terms of Whittaker than it is for Chibnall, as Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat have been showrunner for two Doctors each. But hey, with this, it means that my Thirteenth Doctor Reviews will also be a review of Chibnall’s run as showrunner.

My initial thoughts on this, which may or may not change coming up to Whittaker’s final episode - it was an okay run while it lasted, but honestly, good riddance. How’s that five year plan of yours going, Chibnall? If your plan was to divide the fanbase and leave them hanging with gaps between series, then you’ve really done it.

On top of this, Series 13 will be six episodes long, with the remaining two episodes to be broadcast as specials in 2022. The first of them will be a New Year’s Special (surprise surprise) and the second will follow in Spring 2022 (Northern Hemisphere). The Thirteenth Doctor’s final episode will premiere in Autumn 2022 (Northern Hemisphere) as part of the BBC’s Centenary celebrations. Some tentative dates I’m predicting are 18 October 2022, the 100th anniversary of the BBC, 23 November 2022, the 59th anniversary of Doctor Who, or 1 January 2023, which would make it another New Year’s Special (I’m not discounting 25 December 2022, I just think it’s less likely given how this era has been).

With this, the Fourteenth Doctor is expected to debut in 2023, the 60th anniversary year of Doctor Who. I just hope the new production team doesn’t disappoint the fans with that.

In terms of statistics, Jodie Whittaker has played the Doctor for 31 episodes, making her run the second shortest behind Christopher Eccleston. Peter Capaldi played the Doctor for 40 episodes, Matt Smith for 44 episodes and David Tennant for 47.

My hopes for Whittaker and Chibnall’s final episodes haven’t changed; I want to see what happens with the Timeless Child arc (and also Ruth). Whether the Fourteenth Doctor will be male or female (or played by a non-binary or trans actor), I have a few basic preliminary hopes for the next run; make each series 13 episodes again with a Christmas Special each year and put the series back on Saturday nights, like it was before Whittaker and Chibnall. Also, can we go back to filming in the 16:9 ratio? I can never get over how weird it looks on my screen (at full screen, it doesn’t look so weird when I have it playing on half screen, which is what I usually do when I write my reviews).

Jay Exci - The Fall of Doctor Who

Yes, it has been a while and I know I could have told everyone about this earlier, but better late than never I suppose. A couple of months ago, Jay Exci did a 5-hour long critique of the Chibnall era in his video, The Fall of Doctor Who. For some reason, there are those who see it as controversial because they’re NPCs who don’t want to hear criticism of the Chibnall era or they’re spergs who aren’t mature enough to sit through a 5-hour video they can watch in chunks, but hey, it’s pretty good. This is more in-depth than the reviews that people like Bowlestrek or Nerdrotic make, which essentially put Jay on their level in the eyes of the NPCs despite denying that they are on their level and being a sperg about how they’re better than them. Welcome to the party, Jay, you can check out anytime but you can never leave. 

Anyway, you can check out the video below. Even if you don’t feel like watching the whole video, I highly suggest that you watch section 4.2 onwards (timestamped link here) as it does resonate with my feelings on the Timeless Child arc. I swear, this is just like Dynasty Warriors 9 all over again. I know the feeling.

Cancel culture comes for Noel Clarke and John Barrowman

The thing about cancel culture is that people can be petty about things other people have done or said years ago and they can justify it with the excuse that they’re doing it to hold those people accountable. Depending on the context, it can expose the fact that that person is a major piece of shit or it can be an overreaction to something, which in the minds of today’s society is normally the latter.

Around the time that Noel Clarke was nominated for a Bafta at the end of March, allegations emerged of abuse and sexual misconduct against him. 20 women came forward with their stories and as a result, the final episode of Viewpoint was pulled from broadcast (but still released on Blu-ray and DVD) and Bulletproof was cancelled before filming on the fourth series would begin.

In May, video emerged of Clarke at Chicago TARDIS in 2014 talking about how John Barrowman would expose his genitals and slap it on people and things. This led to allegations about Barrowman surfacing, resulting in him apologising for his actions even though he had already been reprimanded for them over a decade ago and apologised in November 2008. Despite this, his contribution to the immersive theatrical event Doctor Who: Time Fracture was pulled and Big Finish have decided to shelf the release of Torchwood: Absent Friends, which would have featured David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Now, I don’t care about Noel Clarke by any means, but this situation is honestly sad for John Barrowman because it shows that cancel culture spares no victims and leaves no fossil undiscovered. These PR stunts have clearly shown that the spineless people involved with those productions are so concerned with saving face that they are unable to just overlook these transgressions for the sake of fans who actually wanted to see him reprise his role as Captain Jack Harkness. But hey, what do I know? I don’t really care for anything other than the TV series, but it really shows how shameless corporations can be.

Once again, we don’t exactly know when Doctor Who Series 13 will premiere, but if you ask me, I predict that it will premiere in October or November. I’ll see you all again around that time.

[lampmeeting]

what are your headcanons for magnus's backstory? i really enjoy picking apart underdeveloped villains to see what makes them tick and building up backstory that Explains why they do the shit they do and... you seem to also have many thoughts about magnus

ohhh!! yes i have thoughts! :D i still haven’t delved super in-depth into his past but here’s some VERY LONG messy, rambly stuff that’s like partially ideas i’ve had already and partially things i’m pulling right out of my ass (seriously this is long i’m sorry haha)

first big thing is that his dad was a really loving, warm person. just a big tall friendly dude, kind of a free spirit, also a veteran (fought in korea maybe? i think that timing would work out if magnus was born in the early 60s). he died in a motorcycle accident when magnus was like 9 or 10. maybe magnus was on the bike with him but survived, not sure how sad i wanna go here. his mom, who had always struggled with depression, fell into a really dark period and magnus tried to be there for her but he was just a grieving little kid. :( 

he has an older half-sister from his dad’s first marriage, and she was about 17 when he died and then left the family because she couldn’t deal with it (i don’t think magnus really reconnects with her in any significant way until after dethklok kicks him out).

i’m lifting this straight from marc maron but he’s jewish since his mother was jewish. his mom wasn’t religious though (at least when he was younger). about a year or so after his dad’s passing, though, his mom meets a man through her job and ultimately marries him. magnus’ step-dad is just...awful. very strict catholic. very controlling of his mom. the guy has magnus baptized shortly after the marriage. magnus goes through a really intense satanism phase in his teens as a way to rebel (this is also when he gets into metal - it’s the mid-70s so alice cooper and black sabbath are his faves). even as an adult magnus has a weird, complicated relationship with religion. he’d call himself an atheist but he has periods when he’s more of a misotheist and then other periods where he’s, like, afraid of god. it’s all very complicated.

after high school he decides to enlist in the army just like his dad did. he has no fucking idea what to do with himself so he thinks if it worked for his dad, it’ll work for him. wrong haha, he hates it. he picked up smoking and drinking in his teens, but the army amps those vices up to 11 and he starts experimenting with drugs too, mostly acid. surprise surprise, he gets in trouble for buying shit off-base from an undercover cop, and he’s dishonorably discharged. :O

his step-dad doesn’t allow him to come live back home after that, and his mom just defers to him now, so magnus spends a while living out of his truck. it’s a bleak time. he’s in his early 20s. all he’s got is his car and his guitar and a few other possessions. starts busking. for him, it’s humiliating work. spends most of his money on cigarettes and alcohol. somehow he ends up gigging at a local dive bar and gets a job washing dishes in the back. over the next few years he’s in and out of various bands, but he never really saves enough money to get a place. it’s kind of his weird secret, that he’s still living in the truck. he has a few relationships with various people, some bandmates, some fans, one coworker. they only ever last a couple months or so until they get too close and magnus starts itching to be by himself again, even though he’s miserable alone. but that’s preferable to having someone in his space all the time, knowing his business.

it’s during this time, too, that he picks up his heroin habit from a bandmate (that’s why the band dissolved, they all got addicted) but he tells himself he’s got it under control (the mental gymnastics with this man...). eventually he decides he’s done with bands, he’s just gonna play solo since he’s obviously more talented than anyone he could possibly play with. makes a pretty good name for himself, plays some local events, has a few solo albums that do all right, but no mainstream attention or anything.

it’s pickles who reaches out to him when magnus is in his early 30s (it’s like 1994 or something). wants to know if he’s at all interested in going back to his metal roots because they just had to get rid of their previous lead guitarist due to heroin addiction. magnus admits he’s interested, comes to a practice session. the guys are all phenomenal, and magnus sees some serious dollar signs. dethklok starts getting huge pretty quickly after that. they ditch their older manager at magnus’ insistence that he’s holding them back, and pickles knows a guy and gets him on board (hello charlie!). they all buy into a huge apartment so they can live and practice in the same place. there’s talk of a recording contract. everything’s looking up, even if they’re all starting to bicker behind the scenes.

it’s around this time that magnus hears from his step-dad that his mother died. a month ago. it was a lovely funeral, but he didn’t want magnus there due to his history with drugs, didn’t want him to make a scene and “act crazy”. after that magnus begins to slip. his addiction and depression spiral. he’s blowing up at people left and right, feels out of control. the only thing he thinks he can control is the band, and his grip tightens hard. he butts heads with pickles quite a bit, who definitely suspects something bad is up with him. magnus fears there’s talk of getting rid of him, and his paranoia makes him try to assert even more control.

finally we reach That Night. we know what goes down. magnus finds himself kicked out with his gear, homeless again, face busted. he gets in his truck, shoots up, goes for a drive for a while, feels good. when he comes down, though, he’s furious and his face fucking hurts and he wants to fucking kill something. he drives back to the apartment, finding everyone either out or asleep. he makes a move for nathan’s bedroom door, intent on finishing the job, but he doesn’t. and then he just gets pissed off at himself, wrecks up the place, and drives away again. he keeps telling himself he should just drive off the road and end it, but he doesn’t, and when he crosses state lines into new mexico he realizes he’s been driving to his half-sister’s house this whole time. they’d talked occasionally over the years but not much, but the moment he knocks on her door she takes him in with no questions asked. he doesn’t want any doctors so she just tends to his face as best she can, and when he starts to detox she looks after him. his sister makes her living as a reiki healer and is super into crystals and meditation and stuff, so while he’s living with her she tries to help him get his energies all aligned and whatnot hahaha... she’s also a recovered addict so no alcohol or drugs in the house. it’s a really weird time for magnus, but it’s good too. he probably ends up living with her for a few years, just keeping a low profile, playing guitar, trying to heal from shit.

dethklok gets huge very, very quickly. he tries not to pay attention but soon enough he’s seeing billboards for their album and tour, interviews on TV, magazine covers. a documentary comes out on MTV about the history of the band, and there’s a whole section about magnus with photos of him and people talking about how angry and controlling he was. they interview the band, people he played with in the past, old flames. his sister says she was approached for it, but she declined to comment. magnus is distraught, and almost overnight every time he goes into town for anything someone recognizes him and gives him shit (or worse, recognizes him and wants him to tell them all about dethklok). he gets things thrown at him, gets his tires slashed, gets approached for sex but only because of his connection to the band. dethklok fans at this point are getting even more zealous.

he has a really bad night and considers just shaving his head and beard so he won’t be recognized, but he can’t bring himself to do it. he starts drinking again, hiding it from his sister, and eventually just leaves in the middle of the night without a word. calls her in the morning when he reaches a stopping place, apologizes, confesses he’s off the wagon. she wires him some money, a pretty significant amount, and tells him to get an apartment and take care of himself. magnus, surprisingly, does just that. he feels it’s the least he can do to repay her kindness.

he still drinks, but i don’t think he gets back into drugs until he starts doing the rock camp thing years later. being around those old washed-up musicians and being “ex-dethklok guitarist magnus hammersmith” makes him feel like shit, even if the money is good, and most of these dudes are still using. heroin’s not chic anymore, though, it’s all about pills.

the assassin knows exactly what he’s doing when he shows himself to magnus on the anniversary of his mother’s death. offers him a chance to take his life back, to help change the world, to make sure dethklok gets what’s coming to them once and for all. magnus had all but given up hope on ever escaping from their shadow, but this...the assassin makes some sense, so in the middle of the night he agrees, and in the morning he finds an address scrawled on the wall in blood. and the rest is history i suppose. :’)

[bl4cklabyrinth]

ROCKIN’ON JAPAN December 2018 Interview Translation: Hiro talks about S･S･S

Disclaimer: Please do not retranslate my work into other languages, as my translation may not be accurate. I am no Japanese or English native.

The biggest thank you to Anna for helping me get the magazine clippings!

Photo from here.

The band has overcome its limits, and has given life to the masterpiece “S･S･S”

A solo interview with Hiro, where he shares his thoughts on finally getting to where he is now!

The rock band MY FIRST STORY has finally reached its full potential and came out with a simply amazing album.

Hiro has been making declarations for quite some time now – his thoughts towards his family, the meaning of his life, and the meaning behind his songs. At times they’ve been fired as a clear declaration of war and at other times as words of encouragement, but the truth is, until their last album “ANTITHESE”, those declarations naturally became a melody, a lyric, a song, against which MFS has always struggled alone. 

However, this album is different. This album is solely dedicated to music. It’s just rock. It’s purely loud and piercingly melodious. 

High quality, open, and very poppy music is being sought after. This is, so to speak, practically the first album they’ve made in which Hiro’s talent as a musician bloomed upward beautifully. It’s been 7 years since their debut, and it’s incredible how they were able to make it this far to get a chance at performing for 2 days at Yokohama Arena. 

MFS and Hiro’s journey is finally approaching its quintessence from hereon. I talked at length with Hiro, who had made a breakthrough.

- How’s the band doing?

Hiro: It’s been pretty good. For better or for worse, we haven’t been aggressive since Budokan. I think we’ve been able to maintain our pace without spiralling out of control. 

- Would it be safe to assume that that vibe was reflected in this album?

Hiro: Actually, I think this is the album that came out the best. On the flipside, it felt like everyone was just completely following my lead for our last album “ANTITHESE” (laughs). While continuing the course of the previous album, it was through our egos then and our desire to “take it easy”, “ do things freely”, and “try out all sorts of things” that this album came about.

- “ANTITHESE” was made in such a way that it just drilled you down, drove you into a corner, and squeezed you dry. Was the process completely different this time?

Hiro: About 3 or 4 songs on this album have been around since we made “ANTITHESE”. The songs “M.A.D” and “REMEMBER” are two of those, and more came about when I discussed how I wanted to make more songs like them with the members. “ANTITHESE” came together nicely, and I thought it would be nice if we could develop it further with these two songs.

- So there was no talk of putting those two songs on “ANTITHESE”, huh.

Hiro: In my mind, those 14 songs are the full maximum, no more or less than that. I didn’t want to put anything extra. But I thought, “The songs are cool, I wanna release them. Maybe in the next album.”

- I see. Did you already have some sort of vision as to what you wanted the album to be like from that stage?

Hiro: I did. “ANTITHESE” is like a boy while this one’s like a young man, as if it got a bit more mature. There are a lot of minor details that went into it like chord progressions, riffs, melodies, and rhythms, but we made it wanting to convey a sense of indirectness or something like, “Ah, this is pretty cool” when listened to.

- That sounds great. It’s like an upgraded version of the band, like “MY FIRST STORY 2.0”.

Hiro: That’s right (laughs).

- I suppose you could make another album like “ANTITHESE”, but to return to that point in your life...?

Hiro: That’s pretty tough (laughs). Once you’ve spit it all out once, the things you want to say the second time around will definitely be different. I can’t make another album like that.

- I believe you struggled in order to put out the album “ANTITHESE”, but after doing so, did you feel something like, “I’ve wrung out everything I wanted to say, what do I do now?”

Hiro: I did, I did. Personality-wise, I can’t keep writing lyrics that only convey “hope”. There are a lot of other artists who can do just that and make it resonate with everyone, so when we realized that that wasn’t what we should be doing, we thought we had to write ourselves realistically the way we are now. It’s easier to get a bird’s eye view of the song’s world rather than the lyrics’, so I would say, “We made a song like this last time, let’s try to make it more stylish by adding a tension chord,” or have an idea in my head like, “We did this last time, maybe we should do this next time”. I honestly thought it’d be boring if we only put out songs like “ALONE” or “Fukagyaku”, and the songs themselves aren’t gonna die out anyway, so “ACCIDENT” was born. Sometimes it’s harder to figure out how to flesh things out from there (laughs). 

- In terms of lyrics, what kind of changes have taken place since the end of “ANTITHESE” up to this point in time?

Hiro: Probably up until around “ALONE” and “ANTITHESE”, the lyrics had only been about me. But as you would expect, there isn’t much more to say (laughs). I’m not all hate. The lyrics I envision or write are of my ideal person. So it doesn’t mean that I live my life that way every day – of course I’ve betrayed myself countless times, and I’ve lied to myself as well, but you can’t see that part of me from the outside. Those who receive it as a song lyric always think that that’s all there is to it. Humans aren’t that strong – there are days when your mind is on the edge, and there are days when you feel like you’re not your usual self. Rather, I think it’s during times like that when people can relate to the lyrics. When I started writing with that in mind, I was surprised at how much I could write. I was so adamant about needing to write in that tone of voice, but I was able to remove that part of me after doing Budokan which made things a lot easier.

- The more you listen to it, the more you realize that the lyrics are very personal. You also feel a sense of living that you’ve never felt before.

Hiro: Yes. It’s important to show different sides of myself, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to write more in the future. I also look forward to what kinds of reactions I’ll get when I put out such things. It’s like, I didn’t cook anything super elaborate, I just tried making something out of what I had in the fridge. But I’ve been doing this for 7 years now, so I think I can make a pretty decent meal with what’s stocked in the refrigerator (laughs). You can do a lot of things with the nuance “as long as the dish is good”. I think that’s how the album came to be, in a good way.

- I think that’s a great change. For the longest time you’ve been setting up some sort of hurdle that goes, “How many people truly understand what I’m feeling here?” but that was taken away and now it’s just like, “If you like music, give it a listen”.

Hiro: That’s true. In a sense, I’ve finished what I wanted to do, so I thought I’d take a more casual approach to MY FIRST STORY. I’m now able to challenge all sorts of things I wasn’t able to do in the past. Conversely, I think the 5 years after Budokan will be even more difficult.

- In the days leading up to Budokan, MFS as well as Hiro were looking for a way to end things, or even a way of life in which things would personally end in the most beautiful way possible.

Hiro: Right. It’s still the same now, it’s never ending, but I definitely don’t want to continue doing this on an emotional level. So far, we’ve made it clear that we’re aiming for Tokyo Dome. I think it’d be tough for the people watching over us to support us if they didn’t know what we want to do, what we’re trying to achieve or what our goal is. We can’t keep running in the dark with no goal in sight, but we have to keep running regardless. By putting what lies ahead of me into words, I feel like it solidifies the path I should be taking. When we started the band, our goal was Budokan, but after finishing that, it became Tokyo Dome. This time, I wonder what will happen next after Tokyo Dome is over. Only then will we know what the future holds, but right now, I think Tokyo Dome will be the end of the road for MFS 2.0.

- Then after that, you might find something new again, or you might think, “It’s over”. You never really know, huh.

Hiro: Yeah. It’s like a plot with a clear introduction, development, twist, and conclusion. We’re called MY FIRST STORY after all, so if we don’t convince ourselves that we’re in a story with a beginning and end, we won’t be able to continue running ahead. I’m the type of person who can’t pull through unless I set a goal to run for 1 hour or 10 km. Because we decide on a location to aim towards, in a sense, we become able to keep moving forward. 

- I see. That’s a good mode to be in.

Hiro: That’s right. It would be tough if I kept the same pace as I did moving towards Budokan (laughs). And even if I did go at the same pace, I don’t know if I’d be able to make it. If I thought about it all the way through until we got there, everyone else would be thinking about it too, so I thought it’d be better to stop fussing over it for a while. I’ve thought about it enough. So for now, at our own pace, we’re focusing on working with what we can sensibly come up with, what would be good for us to do, and what we’re capable of doing now. I believe it’s for the best.

- I really admire how Hiro, who was searching for his final destination, is now singing about wanting to continue on with MY FIRST STORY.

Hiro: Yeah. I as well as the members are excited for what lies ahead, not having to be bound to a certain rock band image or genre. Of course, the members and I definitely have our pride and things we want to maintain, but none of us have a “must do this” mentality. Because of this, I think there’ll be more opportunities to try things out in the future. With the addition of Kid’z, we’ve moved past Budokan, and I’m sure there’ll be even more in store from now on. The members have been getting along really well lately. We’ve been hanging out a lot, and when I taught them how to play poker, they all got hooked and played together until morning (laughs). 

- For real? (laughs)

Hiro: When you spend time together outside band activities, your perceived values become the same, and the things that come out of that will be more different than how they’ve always been in the past. I think the ideas we’ve been putting out and reconciling with each other up to now are becoming more and more whole. If you don’t experience or feel the same things on a regular basis, you won’t be able to create much. I think we blend together really well right now, so I’m looking forward to the future.

- The first thing I noticed this time was your voice. The way you sang and the variations in your singing voice were really well done. It’s like, “There’s this drawer, and this drawer, and if you’d like, there’s this ceiling”. It kind of felt like that way of singing was finally unleashed.

Hiro: Really? Thank you. For me, it didn’t feel that way this time at all, I felt it more so when I made “ANTITHESE”. But just like the “even if you overthink things, there’s nothing much you can do” thing I mentioned earlier, if you think too much about it and then try to sing, that’s when you surprisingly become unable to sing. So now, instead of trying to sing without letting the pressure get to my head, I focus more on casually internalizing what I would think if I were the listener. Mainly thinking, “If I add a little touch here, would it sound weird,” or “I wonder if it isn’t bad”, I would’ve sung it rather quickly so I wouldn’t think too much about it.

- So it would be like you were just singing along to the music?

Hiro: Yeah. As if that’s just the way I wanted it to be.

- I’m sure there were a lot of variations in terms of music, so inevitably I’d assume there were variations in the songs as well.

Hiro: Ahh, I really wanted to make an album that wasn’t straightforward. Of course there are straightforward songs as well, but I wanted to throw in a few curve balls there too. Curves, sliders, forks, knuckles, all sorts of things were thrown together to make it work, and specifically having that in mind made things easy to understand when we were putting the songs in. It’s like, “No matter how you look at it, it’s this kind of song. Well then, let’s sing it that way”. It was easy to grasp for me as a listener and as a singer.

- If you listen to this album objectively, what do you think about your vocals?

Hiro: I’d tell myself, “You had a lot in mind when you were recording, huh.” However, I can definitely sing without an issue this time around, so I feel totally fine listening to myself now. I’m really jealous of people who can shake it off and say, “This is who I am”, because I can’t. But I was thinking, if I could push myself hard enough to be able to sing like that one day, I’d feel much better, or perhaps something new will be born within me from there. This album allowed me to experience that. Rather than having me in the song, it’s something I created, something I can present as a part of myself. This album shows the breadth of my own evolution and what lies ahead. It goes the same way for MFS as a whole, too. That’s why I’m really glad we tried making an album like this.

- You’d want to say, “It’s a masterpiece!” but I feel like it’s more so “There’s gonna be more masterpieces from now on”.

Hiro: That’s right. It’s like the meat in a course meal. And then it’s gonna be like, “We’re serving pasta after this,” “Eh, seriously!?” (laughs)

- Even the band members are playing very freely, huh.

Hiro: Yes. This time, I wasn’t present for the members’ recording sessions at all. They’d call me and ask, “What do we do here?” and I’d answer, “Eh? Anything goes” (laughs). Of course I knew the dates, but I wouldn’t go even if I was free (laughs). There’s nothing for me to do there even if I went, and we all have our own things we want to pursue and things we want to do with the songs. I didn’t think it was right for me to say how things should be done. Even my parts aren’t perfect, and I wouldn’t know what to say to the member in question if I wasn’t sure whether the part they worked on was done correctly or not, and I feel like telling them what to do would take out all the fun. Realizing that it’s better for me to listen objectively to a piece of work created through everyone’s efforts was a huge help. On top of that, I’m able to do the things I want to do – it’s already an ideal situation (laughs). I don’t care what they do, as long as they don’t commit a crime (laughs).

- Amazing. I never thought the day would come that I’d hear those words from you (laughs).

Hiro: Hahahaha, it’s true. We didn’t start out as friends. We just considered each other as fellow members when we started the band, always keeping one another in check with a great deal of care and a little bit of stress. However, even if Budokan was for me and for everyone listening, it was the members who understood me the best. From that point on, we didn’t really mind each other’s businesses anymore, and it became like, “Why don’t we just say what we want to say to each other, we’ve come this far after all?” They know their parts, and they know themselves better than anyone else, so there isn’t a whole lot to complain about anymore. Even if one of us would make a mistake at a show, we wouldn’t say, “Play it right” or anything like that anymore. They know what they’re doing, and they know that there’s nothing else to respond to such a comment other than “I’m sorry”. If doing so would immediately change things then go for it, but if they continue on without changing then just tell them off. They’re not the kind of dudes who don’t do anything, and on the contrary, it is me who gets his ass kicked more often than not, so I don’t really have anything to say to that. That’s about as good as it’s gonna get.

- That’s great. You’ve finally come this far, huh.

Hiro: Yeah. I’ve been feeling like I’ve gone rather far lately (laughs).

- Is it because you made this album?

Hiro: I think it’s more because we were able to appreciate each other more, or realize, “It’s okay to do this now”. As for the album, it was a piece of work that made me feel like I could see the future in more ways than one.

- Up until now, the band’s primary identity had been what Hiro squeezes out and screams about. In that case, it’s not so much about how you want people to hear you play, but more so about how you can bring your cries and messages forward. 

Hiro: That’s a pretty hard task for the other members to do. But all of that is over. If that had been the case until now, I would have never said, “The members can do whatever they want” and this album would have never been released. Back then, I’d go, “Let’s do it like this here,” “The last chorus definitely goes after the bridge,” but it hasn’t been like that these days. Now we’d go ahead and say, “This is good,” “Interesting, interesting”. It’s like the kids who always had to ask permission from their mom have disappeared. 

- “Young man” is a great metaphor in that sense as well (laughs).

Hiro: Mhm. It’s just like disciplining a child – just because you did it before doesn’t mean you’ll grow up that way, and saying too much isn’t a good thing either. We are all different people after all, and whether we’re lovers or family, we can’t understand each other 100% of the time, so we have to accept and trust each other more. I don’t really like it when people grow apart because of work. I want to make a team like the one in “Wild Speed”. We all get along really well, getting together in a garden to have a barbecue and stuff like that. It’s partly because we have such a good sense of team spirit that we’re able to do things indie. I wouldn’t be able to continue on unless I had a team with the same ambitions and the same passion to move forward. Seeing a lot of adults being considerate of me makes me feel better about myself (laughs). The members are the ones who understand “Let’s take it easy” the most. This may seem natural, but it’s super hard to do. And now that I’m able to do so, it feels great.

- You’ve truly made an incredible rock album. And it’s good that your methods can effectively be used to make more in the future.

Hiro: In fact, it’s been going so smoothly that it has become the focal point of our work process, so I don’t think it was difficult for anyone. Scheduling was pretty tough though. In August, I was singing at shows and recordings for 15 days in a row or something like that. Some of the songs didn’t have melodies or lyrics yet, and I was thinking, “Seriously, what are we gonna do!” but we had the same situation when we were making “ANTITHESE”, so I was like, “If you have the time to say ‘Oh no’ or ‘We’ll never finish’, then use that time to continue working instead” (laughs). Because of this, I’ve learned to believe in myself. The members were on a super tight schedule as well, but they would respond to requests from me like, “I want to change the first verse” or “Sorry, take it down a half-step”, so I was confident that everything was going to be okay. We may be in a hurry, but I no longer get worried or anxious.

- There were a lot of songs that used the words “white” and “black” this time. However, rather than black and white symbolizing “win or lose”, it was more of “There’s a part of me that’s pure white, and a part of me that’s pitch black”, providing a perspective that allows us to see both sides of you in the same light.

Hiro: That’s true. “ANTITHESE” was always about me, but that was completely overturned this time, now having different main characters for each song. Then, I wrote the lyrics, sang the songs, so there are many different stories of me in this album. Sometimes they’re of a similar hue, but still slightly different in shade. Of course, I didn’t write about colors that I didn’t have at all, so I was able to recreate the colors in my mind, or rather, sublimate them in the form of music. 

- It’s like, “Sometimes it’s white, sometimes it’s black. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. But that’s just the way things are, right?”

Hiro: Yep. With this one album, we’re no longer limited to, “This is what I say in this song, so I have to keep saying this”. It’s like, “That isn’t always the case, you know. I’m only human” (laughs). Like, “Sometimes I feel that way, sometimes I don’t”. It doesn’t matter if they’re on the same album. I was able to reach that point in my life, so now I have a wide range to work with.

- That’s why Hiro’s melody-making skills are being opened up to the fullest.

Hiro: This time, I mostly worked upwards from the chorus. After breaking apart the original chorus, I’d go, “This one’s catchier”. I didn’t even stick to the general concept of the melody – I’d try to make one, but if I wasn’t 100% sold on it, I’d try to make 10 more, and then I’d go with what everyone said was good. The premise behind a melody is that it’s something you can hum along to when you suddenly hear it, so I didn’t want to change my approach of starting songs from there. Nowadays, people don’t say, “This song is good”. They say, “These lyrics are good”. Because of this, I want to create a catchy melody that’s easy to remember, one with a rebellious spirit, and at the moment, I think it’d be good if it were in Japanese. That being said, I want everyone to be able to say, “This melody is good”. 

- I think it’s a really well-made album. I thought that the Hiro who’s been shouting out what’s inside his heart has made it this far (laughs).

Hiro: On the contrary, it’s exactly how I imagined it to be from the moment we started the band up to this point in time. Our pace and work are progressing as well with a margin of error of about 0.5 mm. Thing is, we’re gonna start with a completely clean slate from here on out, so we’re in a bit of a hurry (laughs). We’re kind of in a standstill right now, but if you’re asking me how I feel about the members or the music, I’d say, “Well, it’ll be okay”. From this point forward, I think we’re just gonna have to put ourselves out there. To be honest, we aren’t really sure ourselves either (laughs), but from now on, it’s not gonna be a story that was created – it’s gonna be a story that we create while walking forward.

[adangerousbond]

Seeing’s as we are finally nearly at season 5, I thought I would do my top ten favourite Rapata scenes from seasons 1-4 (in order of episode). I actually got into Blindspot in season 2 from seeing gif’s on here of Jeller, but it was the Reade/Zapata dynamic that made me really love the show.

The gif’s are longer than I like to do, but was struggling to keep to the 10 limit! Sorry guys, this is a long ramble, I did try and shorten it down – all just my take on things..

2x08 – from the moment Tasha found Reade over the body, whether or not she completely believed him when he said he didn’t do it, she was on his side, helping make sure regardless, he wouldn’t be done for the murder, even if she went a bit too far with it. There was a number of scenes I could have easily added in, but felt this one is a nice lighter one.

2x09 – the way Reade tells her he loves her, regardless of what it means in that moment, is something else, these two at their core are best friends who will do anything for each other, and that’s why he feels he needs to confess his guilt over Jones and lying to her. Tasha waiting at his bedside after the surgery only narrowly missed this list, as did him at her side when she got shot.

2x18 –  Reade is about to watch something that very well could change his life and his future forever, it’s such a big moment in his life and the fact he reached out to Tasha and wanted her to be by his side as he did, made it even more powerful. He knew she had his back whatever his decision with the tape had been, for someone who is usually pretty take charge about things, she spent the whole scene working off what he wanted, she was grateful he was leaning on her to get through it.

3x16 – although painful to do, at this point Tasha couldn’t not say anything to him, it killed her to agree to his best man and the further it went on, I think even though she wanted him to be happy, she couldn’t watch him marry someone else without saying anything. She is also feeling isolated from the team and on her path towards her Blake op, so it’s kind of a now or never type thing, probably a large reason that she is now prepared to take the massive risk that she might loose him that she wasn’t previously, but his response of ‘why now, not 2 years ago’ throws her.

3x21 – it couldn’t be a list of Rapata without this scene, I wanted to include the morning after one too but ran out of room sadly. This is another big risk for Tasha, she knows that she’s about to hurt him and sleeping with him will just make it worse, she also isn’t supposed to do anything that could be seen as a goodbye, but she still goes and tries to not think about it, because as she says later, she wasn’t sure she would see him ever again, she knew that the chance of death or a CIA blacksite was high, and I think she wanted one less regret.

4x05 – it’s clear it hurts Tasha when he asks if it was real, at this stage she doesn’t know Claudia is MI6 and is terrified of too much being said in front of her, which Reade is trying to use to his advantage. But the way she pauses and swallows before she tries to switch to her harsher answer, trying to play it off as real option, shows how much she hates herself for what she’s doing to him. I think she thinks at this point she has ruined any chance with him, but she’s not about to let him get killed because of her.

4x10 – the whole interrogation was so good, for most of the season up to here we saw Tasha stoic and trying to keep her head above water in a crazy deadly situation, with no team and not even Keaton to talk to for a while at this point, she has not been able to let anything slip near any of Madeline’s people, all while trying not to get any of them killed. But she breaks down facing him, facing the pain she has caused and worried if he doesn’t believe her, if she doesn’t finish her mission, then she threw away the one thing she values the most in her life – him, for nothing, even worse she hurt him more for it. At this point, she’s accepted that she’s more than likely lost him for good, which is why she so easily believes and accepts it when he says he’s not letting her go, but sending her in under him.

4x18 – This may actually be my favourite scene, at this point, Tasha has been spiralling more and more, ever since Madeline killed the board in front of her and she was suddenly so much more in over her head. She’s exhausted, terrified, thinks she has pushed away the team and she see’s Claudia’s ending as her own future, and Reade see’s all this, realises just how much she’s hurting too and tries to reel her back in. There’s a shift between them after this scene, like they both can start to see a way back to at the very least friends.

4x22 – I included this one, not only because it acts as a reminder of what happened in season 2, but also because though us viewers have seen from the start that Rapata have had their own little side team, I think it’s something that the team sometimes forgets/doesn’t always realise just how deep that goes. Tasha’s one line snapped back at Reade stop’s their fight straight away, remembering they are not alone, but also makes the rest of the team do a double take on them. For the most part, they all seem to have some understanding that Rapata are/have been more than friends and this reminds them there is more secrets there they don’t know.

4x22 – I loved this scene as a whole, the team just being together, joking around all while agreeing to being a family and going on the run. I didn’t add subtitles, because I felt it was great enough without them, just the feel and the smiles is needed. But in amongst all the decisions, Rapata are constantly looking to the other to make sure they’re in, that they agree, and then the way that Reade follows Tasha and sits beside her; showing they are back as their team. Then the way she reaches for his hand, it’s like she’s has a spike of confidence to do it, although she’s not completely sure he’s forgiven her enough not to pull away, is just a great way to end with them, like they are on a shaky path back to each other.