#this goes for anything i made its all yours

[im-so-normal-iswear]

Can i request headcanons please? Of ford with a single mother reader with a Child that is friends with dipper and mabel(they probably meet bc of the kids), they are in the town bc reader's ex is an abusive prick that couldn't handle the divorce so they go to gravity falls to start again.

I just really like the thought of ford helping reader to deal with the burnouts and erasing her doubts of being a good mother, also i like to imagine that ford can get very protective over reader and her kid when her ex is around.

Im having a total brainrot😅

Of course!!

Ford x mother reader

When you first moved in its you probably needed something to occupy your kid while searching for a school that summer, so after a lot of hearing around, you decided to take them to the mystery shack for the day.

They instantly made friends with Mabel and Dipper, and as they started hanging out more and more, they started going to the shack almost everyday.

They spend a lot of time at the Mystery Shack, and Ford notices your presence and at first might even be a but suspicious, (still has some bad habits from bill)

At first, he’s distant, as he tends to be either working or with dipper and mabel, not quite paying you much mind, but as he sees the way Dipper and Mabel always hang out with your kid, his curiosity about you grows.

You start having small conversations when you come by, mostly about your kids. Ford appreciates how much you care about your child, even though you often look exhausted.

Ford is incredibly observant, so he quickly picks up on the fact that you’re dealing with more than just normal parenting stress. You’re trying to rebuild your life after a difficult divorce, and he notices how drained you seem at times.

One day, he finds you sitting on the porch of the Shack, rubbing your temples after a particularly rough day. Ford, ever the intellectual, starts off by offering practical advice—time management tips or relaxation techniques he’s read about.

But when he realizes that what you really need is emotional support, which is of course, not his strong suit, but he trusted his best.

He listens to you vent, reassures you that you’re doing an incredible job, and tells you how much your child admires and loves you.

Again, Ford is not always the best with feelings, but he goes out of his way to remind you that parenting is a difficult task, especially as a single mother, and even with all that, your still doing a good job.

He helps ease your self-doubt, telling you how much progress you’ve already made by giving your child a safer, happier life in Gravity Falls.

When your ex comes into town, either trying to contact you or causing trouble, Ford becomes intensely protective. He doesn’t tolerate threats, emotional or physical, especially when it comes to you or your child.

Ford’s protective instincts kick into overdrive. He stands taller, eyes narrowing as he keeps a close watch over you and your ex’s interactions, making sure your ex knows he isn’t welcome.

If your ex tries to approach the house or causes any distress, Ford won’t hesitate to step in. He’s not afraid to use threats, (do you remember when Ford was full on ready to shoot a man because he wouldn't let Mabel keep her pig??)

He’ll give heartfelt compliments, like telling you how your child has grown happier and more confident since coming to Gravity Falls, which he credits to your strength as a mother.

Ford has a knack for finding ways to reassure you with solid, rational observations, making it impossible for you to deny your own success.

He often reminds you that surviving an abusive relationship and creating a better life for your child already makes you a phenomenal mother.

Over time, Ford’s admiration for you grows. He’s impressed by your resilience and your ability to care for your child despite everything you’ve been through. He feels alot of respect and affection for you, which he’s not always sure how to express.

He’ll offer to help you with anything, from fixing things around the house to watching your child when you need a break. You became an important part of his life, so he’s always there for you.

Ford begins to take on a more involved role in your child’s life, becoming almost like a second father figure.

Your child feels safe with Ford, and they even confide in him when they feel worried about their father. Ford reassures them that they don’t have to fear anything anymore, he’ll always be around to protect them.

Mabel definitely sees all this and immediately goes to match make you, Stan alongside. Dates, alone time, whatever, do not mess with Mabel when she sees a potential couple

Hope you liked these ^^

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

In The Gloomy Depths [Chapter 1: Amethyst]

Series summary: Five years ago, jewel mining tycoon Daemon Targaryen made a promise in order to win your hand in marriage. Now he has broken it and forced you into a voyage across the Atlantic, betraying you in increasingly horrifying ways and using your son as leverage to ensure your cooperation. You have no friends and no allies, except a destitute viola player you can't seem to get away from...

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), parenthood, dolphins, death and peril, violence (including domestic violence), drinking, smoking, freezing temperatures, murder, if you don't like Titanic you won't like this fic!!! 😉

Word count: 5.2k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @arcielee @nightvyre @camsdaae @mrs-starkgaryen @gemini-mama

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

A note goes sharp, and you swim up through colorless currents—indistinct conversation, an iron-grey draft each time the front door opens, cigar smoke like fog over the ocean—and turn to the viola player. His eyes have caught on the place where your left hand rests on the table by a glass of pear cider, still cold from the icebox, misty with condensation. Rain pours outside. Logs fracture and hiss in the fireplace. Your gown is thick velvet, indigo like the night sky, and the ruffles of your sleeve have slipped back to reveal the evidence roped around your wrist: shadows of trapped blood, rubies that sicken and turn to sapphires and amethysts.

You hurriedly adjust your sleeve. Now the viola player’s eyes are on yours, an overcast blue and improperly direct, and something flies between you: his shock, your shame. You look away and pretend to ignore him. His horsehair bow finds its rhythm again, a tempo like a racing pulse. The quartet is playing The Wild Rover.

Daemon hasn’t noticed. He has ensnared the reporter entirely, here in O’Connell’s Bar in the heart of Galway, just across the street from Eyre Square and only a few blocks west of the Docks and the North Atlantic Ocean. The young man writes for The Irish Times and has traveled from Dublin to interview your husband, once a celebrated newcomer but soon departing and taking you with him. Five years ago a storm blew him in; now the gleam of distant treasure catches his eye and beckons him like the moon calls the tides. He has been this way all his life. You were mad to believe he’d change.

“Lord Targaryen,” the reporter says with his felt-tip pen hovering over his notebook, gazing at Daemon worshipfully, firelight dancing on both of their faces. You glance at the viola player again. He’s still watching you, and this is bad. “You’ve been described as a cowboy by numerous publications and business associates. Do you consider that a compliment?”

Daemon chuckles, smirking and imperious. He puffs on his pipe, elbows propped on the table. His eyes are a deep-set reptilian green, emeralds glinting from the mouth of a mine. Strands of dark blonde hair fall roguishly down over his forehead. “Oh, it’s a massive compliment, isn’t it? A cowboy eschews the safe and the predictable. A cowboy makes his own way in the world. My father was a duke, and now my brother is a duke, and one day my nephew will be a duke, God help us all. And so I always knew that if I wanted anything for myself, I’d have to go out and find it.”

The reporter is smiling, enraptured. He asks, already knowing the answer: “And what was it you found?”

“In the Wah Wah Mountains of Utah, we discovered red beryl.” Daemon talks with his hands, magnetic fields, incantations, spells that once worked on you. “It’s exceptionally rare and a gorgeous stone, high color saturation, not as hard as a diamond but durable enough for jewelry, essentially a blood-colored emerald. I was twenty-five years old and had just put together my first small mining expedition, and here we were sitting on the only known supply of red beryl on the planet. And it was then that I realized that there are these sorts of…natural monopolies that exist scattered across the globe, gemstones that can be found in only one location, and thus if you are the man who owns the mine…every single stone must pass through your hands before it ends up in retail establishments in London or Paris or Milan or wherever.”

“And so you took the lesson you learned from red beryl and applied it to other minerals,” the reporter says as he scribbles in his notebook.

Daemon grins, puffing on his pipe, exhaling smoke like a dragon. And how remarkable he is to have agreed to meet here in this pub like a common man, so unpretentious, so unafraid of the world’s dirt, effortless and yet untouchable, and this is why his miners love Daemon, why they will break their spines and poison their lungs for him. “We kept the Utah mine, of course, and bought up rights to thousands of acres of land surrounding it. I hired more workers. And then I investigated reports of mysterious, unnamed, brand new stones that had been stumbled upon in far-flung places, untamed by civilized men, the earth just waiting to be slit open and butchered like a fat hog. In Madagascar, we found Grandidierite, a bewitching blue-green, the Indian Ocean in miniature, crystalized form. In Tanzania, we discovered Tanzanite, halfway between an amethyst and a sapphire.”

The reporter nods to you as he says: “I believe Lady Targaryen is wearing some this evening, is she not?”

“Indeed,” Daemon replies without much interest. You touch your fingertips to your teardrop-shaped earrings and give the reporter a polite smile. You steal a glimpse of the viola player; he isn’t staring at you anymore—a blessing, a relief—but he frowns distractedly as his bow glides over the strings. “In Australia there was black opal, and in the Dominican Republic we were the first mining operation to encounter Larimar, and then…well, then I heard of Connemara marble.”

“Native to Ireland,” the reporter says proudly. “The lone quarry that’s still producing is right here in Galway.”

“So of course that intrigued me.” Daemon taps on the tabletop with his right hand, and now he is watching you, curling lips, taunting eyes. “And when I crossed the Atlantic to acquaint myself with this quarry and inquire into purchasing it, I was intrigued by the quarry owner’s daughter as well.”

His pen scratching against parchment; black rivers of ink filling up the page. “How would you describe the courtship?”

“Brief,” Daemon says, then laughs. He points to you with his smoldering pipe. “How about you, dear? How would you describe it?”

“Flattering,” you answer honestly, and the reporter makes his notes. “Daemon already had a reputation by then. A captain of industry, a staggering success story, a man who refused to rest idly on his family’s titles, which he could have easily done.” And a man who also refused to marry, rejecting Rockefellers and Morgans and Astors, duchesses and countesses, but asked your father for your hand in marriage after only a few weeks of tours of the quarry and dinners set alight with charismatic retellings of his travels. You knew the Connemara marble was part of the allure, but you took this as a common interest rather than the only thing Daemon wanted from you. Well…one of two things.

“You’ve resided in Galway ever since,” the reporter is saying to Daemon. “Barring a few trips for business. But that is about to change.”

Daemon sucks on his pipe. “I’ve received a very generous offer from Tiffany & Co. in Manhattan. They’ve been around for almost a century, did you know they supplied the Union Army with swords and surgical tools during the Civil War? Real patriots. Not afraid to get bloody. They want to expand into the sale of colored gemstones, not just diamonds and pearls and gold, the same unimaginative pieces peddled by their competitors. And after some long and arduous negotiations, Tiffany has agreed to pay a fair price for the exclusive rights to specimens originating from my mines, and I have agreed relocate to New York City for the foreseeable future to consult with them as a gemstone expert.”

“It’s my understanding that you have family in New York too, Lord Targaryen. Perhaps a reunion is part of the appeal of a move across the pond.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t assume that,” Daemon says impishly. “I haven’t seen Alicent Hightower or her children in years and years. I wouldn’t even know them if I passed them on the street.”

“Is that right?” The reporter’s pen hovers uncertainly over his notebook; he doesn’t think this is the sort of familial disharmony that should be printed in a newspaper.

“But my wife and I will have some company for the voyage,” Daemon continues. “My niece Rhaenyra and her charming husband Laenor will be joining us on Titanic. They’ve been on holiday in the Mediterranean and have several social engagements on the East Coast before they return to summer in England with my brother.”

“Viserys Targaryen, the 9th Duke of Beaufort.”

Daemon grins, not kindly at all. “One man earns a title, eight others wear it.”

The reporter shifts awkwardly in his chair. It’s not the sort of joke he’s allowed to laugh at. Changing the topic, he looks to the string quartet, which is now playing Danny Boy. The viola player’s eyes flick to you; you drink you pear cider and pretend you are unaware. “You’ll be sorely missed in Galway. But what a proper Irish sendoff you’re receiving here at O’Connell’s tonight!”

“Yes,” Daemon muses, the bit of the pipe in his mouth. “A week from now, tugboats will be hauling us out of Cork Harbor and into the Atlantic Ocean, perhaps never to return.”

You shudder as a man enters the pub and a cold draft blows through you. You are terrified of ships, tiny metal buckets at the mercy of bottomless blue, unnatural incursions into inhuman spaces. You have sailed twice before with your parents—once to Le Havre to visit Paris and again on a cruise of the Aegean—and both times you were consumed by visions of water rising up over your feet, bodies thrashing in the waves, bones turning to silt. You don’t want to cross the Atlantic. You don’t want to leave home.

“You look a bit familiar, boy,” Daemon says, and you realize he’s talking to the viola player. You startle, then are relieved to see that your husband has only a dim curiosity in the musician. The reporter has bored him, and Daemon’s eyes are wandering. He is a man of short and restless attention. You have learned this the hard way. “Have we met before?”

The viola player—early twenties, around your age, sandy blond hair and a beard trimmed close to the skin—pauses his fiddling as his three companions carry on. His accent is English, not Irish. “Well I’ve played all over Ireland, sir. All over Europe, in fact.”

“Were you by chance at the McPherson wedding back in February?”

You don’t believe he was, you think you’d remember him; but the viola player nods eagerly. “Yes sir, that was me.”

“Ah! That was a fine night. Excellent duck. Wasn’t the duck good, dear?” But Daemon only half-listens for your response. He has turned back to the reporter and is recounting how he and his expedition hacked through the jungles of Tanzania to reach the location of suspected gemstone deposits, how they endured attacks from crocodiles and chimpanzees and burned up from fevers.

“Please excuse me for a moment,” you say as you rise from the table. The reporter scrambles to his feet to stand as decorum demands.

“Yes yes,” Daemon replies abruptly, not looking at you, then continues his stories.

You escape from the pub through the front door and stand beneath the awning just out of the rain, watching the reflections of streetlights glow in puddles like stars. Across the street in Eyre Square, a public park established in 1710, shadows of ash trees rock in the wind. With trembling fingers, you fumble a Kerry Blue and your cigarette holder out of your black handbag, then realize you don’t have a lighter. Someone else always does that part for you. You sigh and stare out into the rain, taking deep breaths of Irish night, early April, cold and wet and green, the only air you know how to take painlessly into your lungs, blood, bones, the dark damp earth that built you. You cannot imagine living amongst metal skyscrapers and rumbling automobiles instead of verdant rolling hills dotted with sheep.

You hear the pub door open, and you assume it is one of the waiters or perhaps Rush—Edward Rushton, Daemon’s valet and bodyguard, ever-watchful and unwaveringly stern—bringing you the black mink coat you left inside. But to your horror, it is the viola player, carrying his instrument by its neck. You gape at him as rain continues to fall.

“Hi,” he says.

You are clutching your handbag, a cigarette and holder still tucked between your fingers. “What are you doing?”

“I just…I was…uh…” He spots the cigarette. “Oh, do you need a lighter? I have one, hold on…” He begins rooting around in the pockets of his olive green tweed jacket.

“No, I don’t need a lighter,” you snap, glancing anxiously at the door. “I need you to go back inside.”

“Wait a minute, I wanted to—”

“Why are you speaking to me?” Your eyes are wide and petrified, your voice is a sharp whisper. No musician has ever addressed you beyond pleasantries: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, thank you ma’am, my pleasure ma’am. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Look, I came out here because…I just wanted to ask…” He struggles to find the words. His eyes fall to your left wrist, now fully obscured by the ruffles of your sleeve, then return to your face. “Are you okay?”

“What?”

“Do you…you know…do you need some kind of help or something?”

It’s improper, it’s unthinkable, it’s dangerous. “You’re deranged,” you say as you breeze past him towards the door. “You’ve clearly escaped from an asylum somewhere. I wish you all the best in your recovery.”

He does not grab you—that would be absurd—but he does get between you and the front door of the pub. “Wait, please, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be rude or to overstep or anything, I’m trying to see if there’s anything I can do—”

“You will make it worse for me,” you hiss, and only then does the viola player go quiet and let you pass. You shove by him into O’Connell’s Bar.

Back at the table, Daemon and the reporter are engrossed in conversation. When you rejoin them, neither of the men take any notice of you beyond the reporter’s momentary rise to his feet. After a minute or two, the viola player returns to the quartet and slips seamlessly into the song they’re playing, Star of the County Down. You gaze into your pear cider, determined not to glance at him even once.

Daemon is saying as the reporter jots franticly: “I am reminded of something I read once in a French fashion critic’s guide from the 1870s. In the gloomy depths of the mineral world, stars are concealed that rival in their beauty those of the firmament. The fresh splendors of dawn, the sun’s incandescent rays, the magnificent sunsets, the brilliant colors of the rainbow, all are found enclosed in a morsel of pure carbon or in the center of a stone. Not everyone can see the potential, not everyone has the skill or the willpower to move the earth and free the treasures trapped beneath. But I found stars no one else knew existed. And my work isn’t finished yet.”

~~~~~~~~~~

At home in Lough Cutra Castle, your family’s estate since 1817, your parents are asleep and Fern is waiting up for you and Daemon, yawning into the back of her hand to try to hide it. She is your maid but she was hired by Daemon, and she scurries around the property like a mouse, eternally picking up toys and articles of clothing and papers that have slid off of tables, head bowed, footsteps so light you often don’t realize she’s walked into a room until she’s spoken.

“Care for some tea, my lady?” Fern asks as she takes your mink coat. Daemon goes directly to his study; you watch him leave with some feeling you couldn’t name, loss, relief, loneliness, resignation.

“No, thank you, Fern. I’m exhausted. Is Draco upstairs?”

“He is,” she says, but with hesitation, as if she is sending you into the lion’s den. You know what that means. You climb the staircase and find him in his bedroom sound asleep, four years old, surrounded by an army of teddy bears. Bears are his favorite animal; he likes the way they roar and brandish their teeth. He is named after the crest of Daemon’s family; Draco is the Latin word for dragon. His hair is white-blonde, a Targaryen trait. As they age it fades to an ordinary sand-like color, and by the time they are middle-aged—Daemon is forty, nearly two decades older than you are—their hair is a blonde so dark it’s almost brunette.

You stand in the doorway watching Draco for a long time. When you think of him, this is the image that comes to mind: your son across a room, or a lawn, or a garden, and you lurking on the periphery, longing to be a part of his existence, feeling so palpably unneeded. Already, he is becoming a stranger. He thinks it’s funny when Daemon insults people and breaks things. He stomps his little feet when he doesn’t get his way and rips flowers from the garden, tosses rocks through the windows of the greenhouse, hurls sticks at hissing geese.

“He’s asleep,” Dagmar says as if she’s scolding you. You whirl to see her behind you in the hall, glowering with those icy Nordic eyes, her hair grey and twisted into a tight bun, her face angular and cold-blooded. Legend has it that Saint Patrick expelled all the snakes from Ireland; you think he must have missed one.

“Yes, I can see that.”

“You’ll wake him.”

“I certainly won’t.”

“A boy that age needs his rest.” And this is how Dagmar has been since Draco was born: You can’t hold a baby like that, you can’t feed a baby like that, you can’t play with a baby like that, never showing you how to do things but only alienating you further and further until you looped around on some hopelessly remote orbit like Neptune circles the sun.

“Yes. Like I said, I won’t disturb him.”

But she does not leave; she only scowls at you with her bony arms crossed over her chest. She is ancient; she was Viserys and Daemon’s governess when they were boys, and your husband wrote to her immediately after Draco was born. She idolizes Daemon. The three of them are a family unto themselves, sardonic and spiteful and fiercely loyal, an oath you can’t figure out how to break. She wins this battle, as she’s won them all. It is not a war but an insurgency, a perpetual struggle for independence, sabotages and hunger strikes that amount to nothing. You retreat from Draco’s doorway and go to find Daemon in his study, bent low over his desk and sketching designs for jewelry men will buy for their wives, sisters, mothers, daughters, mistresses.

He glances over at you impatiently. “What is it?”

“You promised I’d never have to leave Ireland.”

Daemon shrugs, smiling wryly. “And yet…”

“Draco and I could stay here,” you say, as if this has not already occurred to him.

“And people would say my house is not in order. How am I to command the respect of American businessmen when my own wife does not obey me?”

You are desperate. “Half the year,” you plead. “I’ll spend winters in Manhattan and summers here.”

“Absolutely not.”

“What if I won’t go?”

“I don’t see how you’d accomplish that,” Daemon says, as if he’s already bored of this conversation. “You could throw yourself over the ship’s railing and into the Atlantic Ocean, I suppose. But that’s the only way you’re not ending up in New York.”

“You don’t even really want me there,” you reply, your voice quivering. “You don’t care where I am or what I do. Lots of men live separately from their wives, you can as well.” And even now—horribly, humiliatingly—you want him to contradict you, to swear that he does care, that he wants you, that he loves you in the sick brutal way he knows how.

Daemon picks up the dagger he keeps on his desk and uses it as a letter opener to unseal a piece of correspondence from one of his many mines, left in the care of managers just as your father’s Connemara marble quarry soon will be. The hilt is made of gold and has seven small gemstones imbedded in it, one on top of the other: amethyst, tiger’s eye, black opal, emerald, ruby, bloodstone, sapphire. “You know,” Daemon says offhandedly as he skims the letter. “Draco is getting old enough for boarding school.”

“What?” You are shellshocked; it takes a moment for you to sputter a reply. “He’s…he’s four, Daemon. He can’t read more than a handful of words. He just learned how to write his own name.”

“I was only five when my father sent me away.”

“And you turned out to be so normal.”

“No,” Daemon says, a blade-sharp warning, his eyes burning into yours, ruthless green fire. He aims the point of his dagger at you. “I turned out to be extraordinary.”

Draco. Draco sent away. If I lose him now, I’ll lose him forever. He’ll never know me. He’ll never love me. “Please let me have a few more years with him.”

“Sure. In New York.”

“I’ll go,” you surrender. “Fine, fine, I understand. I’ll go. No more complaints.”

“Good.” He sets down his dagger and the letter and resumes his sketching. You’ve been dismissed, but you can’t look away from him: cunning hands that won’t touch you, blood that runs hot enough to scald.

What is this feeling, this hunger, this hatred, all gnarled up together, dark earth glimmering with flecks of jewel-tone light, constellations of subterranean stars? He has hurt you, but he has given you pleasure too, this man who is so impossible to know, to predict, the only man who has ever been inside you. It’s not that you want him, not exactly; you want what he can give you, and the cold truth is that if it’s not him it’s not anyone, never again for as long as he lives. You’ve never craved another body, another soul. If you ever took a lover, you believe Daemon would kill you.

He grins, mocking and cruel. And you are transported back to your wedding night, still euphoric and flushed and panting on the bed as Daemon sighed and got up to go to the washroom, the satisfaction and the shame, the inescapable sense that you have disappointed him. “Did you only come here to be vexing and disobedient, or did you have something else in mind?”

“No,” you say softly, turning away, leaving him with his drawings of rocks stolen from distant corners of the world.

At breakfast the next morning—Fern cracking Draco’s soft-boiled egg and feeding him careful spoonfuls, Dagmar reading aloud to him from The Three Billy Goats Gruff, giving him smiles radiant with warmth you’ve never received from her—you sip tea and spread butter over your soda bread, gazing listlessly at the mist that hangs cool and heavy beyond the windows. Daemon is at the quarry already. You are suddenly acutely aware of the absence of music.

“Hey, lassie?” your father says as your mother tries to coax him into eating his full Irish breakfast: fried eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, white pudding.

You look to him, clearing the fog from your skull. “Yes, Daddy.”

“I saw the luggage. Where are you going?”

You keep telling him, but he doesn’t remember; he was becoming forgetful five years ago but now he can’t work at all, can barely even carry conversations. You had a brother who died in infancy and a sister who was taken at eight years old by convulsions. You are the only child left, and there are no other evident heirs to the quarry. This must have been something that occurred to Daemon when he met you, seventeen and overwhelmed by the black magic of him. He had seemed like the right choice: dashing, capable, from an illustrious family, a man who could take charge of the quarry as your father’s health continued to fail.

“Daddy, I told you. We’re going to Manhattan.”

He is stunned, grief-stricken. “What? That far?”

“Yes, on Titanic. It’s the largest ship ever built.”

“Who the hell cares about the ship?” your father says. “When will you be back?”

Never. You and your mother exchange a heartsick glance. She tries to be strong for him; she tries not to show you that her world is ending as you and Draco are taken across the ocean like gemstones mined and smuggled away for cutting. “Soon, Daddy,” you lie. He won’t remember anyway. “We’ll be back really soon.”

And then again ten minutes later, and then again after a half hour, and then again at lunchtime:

Where are you going?

When will you be back?

~~~~~~~~~~

Titanic is not a ship but a wonder of the world, unbreakable like the pyramids, towering like the Colossus of Rhodes, beckoning seafaring travelers like the Lighthouse of Alexandria. It is too large to dock in Cork Harbor, and so two tenders—named, quite appropriately, Ireland and America—are used to shuttle the passengers to the anchored goliath waiting to carry you across the ocean. Aboard, a five-piece string ensemble greets the first-class passengers with The Sunny South, and beaming stewards distribute flutes of champagne, liquid gold freckled with bubbles of trapped air. The men are chucking and shaking Captain Smith’s hand and the women are sighing with soft, feminine awe at the soaring funnels and the sprawling Promenade Deck, steel overlaid with yellow pine and teak, and you stare vacuously back at the shadow of the shore, speaking to no one, noticed by no one, alone in a wonderstruck crowd on a cloud-covered, warm afternoon, April 11th, 1912.

Rush is giving bellboys instructions for the luggage to be taken to your rooms. Daemon disappears with Rhaenyra to inspect the accommodations, their steps swift and careless, laughing like children, Rhaenyra’s blonde hair—yellow jasper, yellow jade—streaming out behind her, her gown a shallow-water bluish-green like the Grandidierite Daemon found in Madagascar. Fern skitters after them to unpack the bags when they arrive in the staterooms and offer to make tea. Laenor, wearing a deep and dignified shade of blue, immediately makes the acquaintance of several Parisian passengers and sets about to stroll the deck with them, smoking their pipes and remarking on the ingenuity of the ship’s design, planning to enjoy the Turkish Baths together this evening. Draco is getting tired and ill-tempered; Dagmar merrily whisks him off to see the Grand Staircase and distract him until the rooms are ready.

Meandering, rudderless, you walk to the deck railing and look down into the water as the ship weighs anchor, unmooring itself from Ireland, stealing you away forever. Trying to distract yourself from weeping—tears burn in your eyes like a stoked furnace—you pretend to adjust your earrings. You wear amethysts to match your gown, dark mauve, a color not long ago only owned by royalty. One of the musicians has appeared to soothe your maladies, desperate terror and melancholy he perhaps mistakes for seasickness. But no, it’s not one of the men from the ensemble that welcomed you aboard; he is not wearing a pristine black suit but a pale green tweed waistcoat and unceremonious plaid trousers. He isn’t a crewmember of Titanic at all. He’s the viola player from Galway.

You jolt away from him, spinning around to ensure no one from Daemon’s party has reappeared to witness this. Then you whisper furiously: “What are you doing here?!”

The viola player stops fiddling and holds his instrument by its neck. His answer is amiable and innocent. “Playing viola.”

“No, why are you on this ship?!”

He shrugs, smiling, his hair blowing in the wind as the tugboats pull Titanic out to sea. “Heard it was the biggest one ever built, unsinkable, extravagant beyond compare. Seemed like something I’d like to experience given the opportunity.”

“You followed me,” you say flatly.

He winks, resting an elbow on the railing. His teeth are small and white; there are lines from the sun around his eyes.

“You overheard our arrangements at O’Connell’s Bar and bought a ticket for yourself? Crossed Ireland, travelled south to Cork, all to stalk me like some lunatic? A nautical Jack the Ripper?”

“Well…I wouldn’t say I bought a ticket.” He is playful, teasing you. “I found one.”

“How did you manage to by pure happenstance find a ticket for Titanic’s maiden voyage?”

“I ran into an aspiring passenger at a pub in Cork,” the viola player explains. “A very nice man, his name was Fergal. Unfortunately for poor Fergal, when the time came to board the tenders, he was…indisposed, and I found myself in possession of his third-class ticket. A strange coincidence!”

“Indisposed?” you say, squinting suspiciously.

“Perhaps he had a few too many pints in celebration and passed out somewhere. Perhaps he got lost on his way to the harbor. Or perhaps he was locked in the pub’s storage room and therefore unable to make it to the tenders in time to sail blissfully away on his trans-Atlantic journey. Who could say for sure?”

“So you stole a ticket.”

“I think that’s a cynical way to put it.”

You are incredulous. “How would you put it?”

“Fortune brought me a ticket. The stars aligned, the saints were looking out for me.”

“If you hold a third-class ticket, you are on the wrong deck of the ship.”

“Shh!” He holds a finger to his lips. “No one knows that, I just wander around playing songs for the rich people and they assume I’m supposed to be here.”

“You have to stay away from me,” you plead, staring out over the ocean. “Daemon can’t see us talking, he can’t know you followed me from Galway, he can’t find out that you saw…” The bruise, the evidence, the betrayal of you not keeping his secrets.

“Relax, I’m not here for you,” the viola player says, and of course he is lying. “I have family in New York City. I left home and haven’t been back in years, and I think now’s a good time for a visit.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah. Okay.”

He grins, slow and mischievous, and you are alarmed to realize some part of you wants to smile too. “You know what?”

“What,” you offer resentfully.

“I think you want me to be here for you.”

You turn away from the railing to make your escape. “I want you to leave me alone.”

“I’ll think about it,” the viola player quips. And when you glance back at him from the end of the Promenade Deck, ocean wind tearing your hair out of its pins and salt stinging on your skin, he’s still watching you.

[captn-duck-gremlin]

Well shit, since people like the thing i guess I'll continue.

Shit it needs a name, uh, eh, phasmo.. uh..

Phasmo hearts?

Phasmo Hearts~

Yeah, sure.

Anyway.

Getting on with it, so you have 4 demons or ghosts haunting you. I could stick to them all being demons or assign them a ghost type.

Ghost is a wraith (what a surprise). Gaz is a poltergeist. Soap... He can stay a demon. And Price is a revenant. (This idea came from when i was playing Phasmophobia with a friend).

Now in the daytime, they can't do anything. Can't bother you at all. Not within the first few weeks of being with you at least. They don't have infinite power, doing spooky hauntings takes a lot of energy. So during the day nothing is strange, but as time goes on theres very subtle things that do happen on the rare occasion. A normal picture you have hanging up, whether it be a family photo, poster or what-have-you. Every now and then changes to something you saw in one of the strange dreams. But the second you look away and look back, its back to whatever it was originally.

It's things like that.

Or you're mindlessly standing in your kitchen, trying to come to a decision on what to have for breakfast. And then the choice is made for you by either a random thump at a particular cabinet or by a cereal box "mysteriously" falling out of place.

And that feeling of constantly being watched slowly gets stronger and harder to ignore over time, you've learned to cope.

But remember your friends who were not as nice while exploring? Oh they're not having a good time where they are. No, they're getting the actual haunting experience. You just have undead roommates who seemingly like you more than they should. Now at the start of this all, you try to figure out what's going on, you try to do research, you talk to friends, you try avoiding sleep. Which they hate with a passion, don't avoid sleep, because they can turn your dreams into nightmares. But anyway, you spend too much time trying to figure out what's happening until the small signs become clearer. You're haunted. Do you try to get rid of them? No, you don't. Because you actually take the time to think it over. One hand, the obviously paranormal problem. On the other hand, they've.. haven't done anything too horrible. Yes, the nightmares sucked but that was your own fault and you talked it out with them (in dream). So with sigh you accept your fate. At night, you dream a weird life with the beings haunting you. At day, they don't bother you all that much. Of course the late hours of the day they have a bit of a chance to do things, messing with whatever like the tv, radio, maybe move something by a couple inches, make a thump somewhere around. You'll get used to it.

[leprosycock]

what’s really cool and awesome and normal is how in spite of artists’ best efforts to offer art to the general public, to people who don’t have art education and aren’t immersed in a particular sect of any given genre or culture, putting their work in low-cost or free galleries or airports or the sides of buildings or in parks or in malls or in outdoor shopping squares or in any public area where their projects can be viewed, people still reject the notion of art as a whole because they consider it entirely secondary to everything valuable in a person’s life. you can’t tell someone you’re an art major without seeing that inherent condescension or repulsion or confusion crossing someone’s face if they haven’t bothered to engage with art on a personal level before. it’s always considered an afterthought and never anything vital to the world we all live in and how art exists in genuinely and literally every single fucking facet of our lives. if you tell someone you understand art and can engage with it on a professional level, you’re considered pretentious and self-aggrandizing/obsessed and stuck-up and snotty and impossible to talk to. if you look down on extremely milquetoast and uninteresting and surface-level pieces of art, like very bad generic music with poor and uninspired poetry or extremely literal portraiture or ai art, you’re a gatekeeper and, again, pretentious and snotty. you are not permitted to engage with your passions outside of fellow artists because the “my kid/little sibling/niece/nephew/a five year old could do that” mindset is so pervasive and unless something is extremely easy to swallow and exceedingly literal, people will not accept it as Real Art because they refuse to understand its history, context, the artist’s technical skill and education, and WHY it exists. this also definitely pivots to subject matter and how only certain kinds are permitted and allowed by many, many others. sure, you as a self-obsessed millennial woman can engage with a coffee table book full of Powerful Feminist Quotes about how your ex-boyfriend wouldn’t go see “it ends with us” with you in theaters and your grandpa made a joke about periods once, but if you’re forced to engage with abstraction or an artist who happens to say a slur or the amount of precision and planning and dedication and adoration that goes into performing 4d design that discusses subject matter that YOU don’t like, you’ll shrivel like a fucking leaf and retreat back to what makes you comfortable. i hate it i hate anti-art and i hate being stuck in anti-art worlds

[pocketrocketyuki]

If you do not like a driver, thats okay. Spreading hate however, is not. How low do you have to sink to spread hate about someone online you DO NOT EVEN KNOW?

To anyone having a shit day because their fave didnt do something they hoped they would: they are still one of the 20 drivers in F1, they will always be good drivers. Someone elses opinion doesnt change that. Enjoy them, and if the media is to much? disengage. Rage doesnt solve anything❤️

If you detest a driver, thats fine. Its an opinion. Don't like him all you want, he doesnt care, neither does any other driver because guess what? They dont know we excist personally.

Everyone has an opinion about everyone, but the fact that people cannot be happy and decide to therefor shit on some other driver for it? Do something better with your time then going on twitter and calling someone a fraud.

Lando won today, brilliant drive. He made mistakes, okay, still nearly won by 30 seconds and just chilled out by the end because he could. Red Bull couldnt sacrifice their drivers to get fastest lap, so they had someone from the sister team do it.

I am truly sad about Daniel. I didn't see his prime and havent always been a big fan of his. But you cannot deny that inside he IS a good driver.

I HOPE Daniel gets a spot somewhere, ANYWHERE where he is appreciated for his driving, not for "ruining" someones chances. Daniel deserves to be good because he IS good. He CAN be. Where he goes ill certainly be watching.

Max did brilliant. Drive cleanly and theres nothing more he could have done.

Life is a lot more refreshing when you dont hate any driver. Your day gets a whole lot better if you dont spend a part of it going online and hating on a person who doesnt know you exvcist.

Props to all the drivers for doing that race, it was hard and mentally challanging in the heat. They are top athletes as we saw today.

[lizardsfromspace]

Okay, Matrix plagiarism case postscript

One thing I didn't answer is how she got the Wachowski's timeline wrong. I still don't know, but it appears she essentially shifted their lives back a decade

She says less than a decade ago they were running a construction business, but actually, working at a construction company is what they were doing in 1986. In 1976 Lana and Lilly were eleven and nine years old respectively. I can't explain why she messed this up, beyond having to age them up a decade for the story to work

But this screencap also brings up another thing she mentions repeatedly that I didn't mention - the smoking gun in her claim is that...the Matrix ripped off her words verbatim for its opening crawl. The opening crawl...to The Matrix.

Huh?

So her story is - and unsurprisingly the timeline here is jumbled, for instance, citing production interviews from 1997 when the film wouldn't enter production until 1998 - the original version of The Matrix contained a Star Wars-style opening crawl, and this was the most directly plagiarized part of the film.

She claims this opening crawl was, in fact, in the theatrical release of The Matrix and only removed when it came to home media, because she. Because she called the FBI on the Wachowskis for stealing the idea of opening crawls from her

The theatrical cut does differ from later versions slightly - most infamously the Wachowskis made the green color filter much more green in the second DVD release, to make it consistent with the style of the sequels - but if there was a opening crawl mandated by the studio, nobody but her has mentioned it, and I find it hard to believe critics wouldn't mention it.

Because this is Dark City. She's clearly confused The Matrix with stories about the studio's meddling with the 1998 film Dark City.

Dark City was the dystopian sci-fi film that had a opening narration explaining the whole plot foisted on it by the studio, and critics mentioned it. Basically every review mentioned it (some even suggest covering your ears or muting the film the first time you see it, at least until the Director's Cut removed it). Meanwhile, reviews of The Matrix praised its opening from the very beginning: how it drops you right into things and lets you find out about its world as Neo does. It's just not possible that the theatrical release has a opening crawl no one mentioned when I can pull up full comparisons of theatrical vs first DVD vs second DVD vs Bluray. Whatever story she read either was about Dark City, or was a Wachowski saying in passing "yeah the studio wanted us to add one but we didn't".

Another thing I didn't touch on is just how much it hypes her up as a untouchable genius of cinema. For instance, she claims to have come up with the effects of The Matrix in 1983 too

(one funny part is how little she brings up The Terminator at all? She just threw it in as a bonus I guess)

I looked up how they did the bullet time effect in particular and...it would have been impossible in 1983. It's not just high speed photography; it's entire banks of cameras, placed in the right place by computer previsualization, their sequence programmed, and with all the elements composited together by CGI. Even stylistically - the true creator of the effects cited Akira as a influence, and Akira the movie didn't exist in 1983. Neither did the type of Hong Kong action film that heavily influenced it. I guess it would be possible to write down "someone goes really fast and we depict it like they slowed down time", concepts of a plan etc

But like.

She's destined to be one of the most profound master writers of the 21st century. This is a book proving she's never written anything. It has a pitch for The Third Eye, it has a second film treatment tacked on at the end, and it has copyright registrations for her sequels to Terminator and The Matrix. M. Night Shyamalan's character in Lady in the Water was destined to be a great writer too, but he actually wrote a book. He didn't put out a book with a decades-old synposis that was never finished & reams of legal documents and a bio saying, I'm one of the greatest authors of all time. Because who needs writing when you have destiny, God, and the ancient superrace living in the Pyramids on your side?

This is my for real last post on this since I ended up just depressed about it in the end. I think the worst part is, she knows she lost. But she still goes to the press telling a story she knows isn't true, and people believe her. Some of it is transphobic - "stop saying it's a trans allegory when they stole it"; some of it runs with the Christian oppression narrative (full disclosure, I was inspired to look for her book again bc while looking up another crank, I saw an interview with her in the sidebar of a religious website); but a lot of it is just people who innocently want it to be true.

One of the few pieces debunking her story is on a website called Black Excellence - it doesn't even have a byline - said this:

"There are many people, especially Black people, who wanted the story to be true. It symbolized a Black person, especially a Black woman, finally winning against the system. When Sophia Stewart spoke about how mainstream media would not give her the time of day because almost all of them were owned by Warner Brothers, some Black media embraced her. Blogs spread her story, especially the initial story on Globe that contained errors about the case.

"But the story is not true. Sophia Stewart did not become the richest Black person in the country. But that did not deter her from going on several shows and publications to tell her story."

She took advantage of people's urge to root for the underdog against a corporation - and seized on a lack of mainstream coverage to claim her story was being suppressed. But it just isn't true. Also yeah she ridiculously claims that Warner Bros owns every news website and newspaper and that's kind of funny I guess. Well, that's it. I'm never doing this again

[lync-lay]

my cute barista

ੈ✩‧₊˚ - barista jake! x coffee hater reader!

ੈ✩‧₊˚ - word count: 2.1k

ੈ✩‧₊˚ - not proofread

ੈ✩‧₊˚ - genre: fluff

ੈ✩‧₊˚ - synopsis: your best friend, jay, drags you out to the local coffee shop on campus for a study session. the catch is, you hate coffee and no barista has ever successfully made you something you actually enjoyed. until, one does. as each day passes, you return to the shop, not only for the drink, but the cute barista who makes it.

summer has just recently ended, marking the official start of comfy sweaters and ugg boots on campus. the leaves are starting to change colors and the weather is much colder. this is the time of year that calms you down and keeps you in bed all day. and i love it.

its morning, and as i'm laying in bed casually watching a movie, i feel my phone begin to ring next to me. rolling over to grab it off the charger, i see that my best friend, jay, is calling. jay and i have been best friends since elementary. we are inseperable and were lucky enough to be accepted into the same university.

"hello?" i say into my phone.

"goooooood morningggggg y/nnnnnnnn!" jay says, on the other line, accentuating his words. ever since we were kids, he has always been a morning person. me on the other hand, is not.

"omg jay why are you so loud its like 8 am right now." i expressed.

"its a great morning. im honestly surpised you're even up at this time."

"yeah same but i woke up like an hour ago and couldn't fall back asleep. so im just watching a movie and admiring this very calming weather."

"well im glad you're up because i was wondering if you would want to go to the cafe on campus with me and study?...please?" he asked.

i hate coffee. the taste is bitter and unpleasant and occasionally, the smell gives me a headache. jay knows this so to say that i am surprised he even asked is an understatment.

"jay i-"

"look y/n i know you despise coffee but please. you don't have to get that, theres so many other options. and i also need my study buddy with me...please?" he pleads.

jay isnt aware of how many times ive been to a coffee shop, ordered something other than coffee, and hated it. so i doubt i will be ordering anything but he's my best friend so, i agree to go.

"fine, i'll go with you but i can't guarrantee ill have a good time." i say with a sigh.

"be so for real y/n...it's a study session, you won't have a good time. but ill be there, so you will have a good time." he explains.

silence hangs over the call for a few seconds.

"jay...im gonna hold your hand when i say this...that made no sense" i confess.

"mhm i know. ill be at your dorm in 15" he hangs up.

jay arrives when he says he will, 15 minutes. and next thing i know were off to the campus coffee shop. i'm kind of dreading going because i don't know what i'm gonna get. probably just an ice water. at least i can try and get some work done.

on our walk, jay tells me about a girl he's trying to impress and i give him advice per usual. he then goes on to explain how he really needs to study some form of math formula. im too busy admiring the autumn weather to respond. suddenly, we arrive at the coffee shop.

walking in, the aroma of coffee hits me immediately. the sound of cups shaking, ice, and brewing machines reminds me why i stopped coming to coffee shops.

"what are you gonna get" i ask jay.

"im gonna get an iced americano" he responds.

"what is that..."

"it's like cold black coffee poured over ice water"

"that actually sounds terrible. how do you enjoy that?" i ask, my facial expressions scrunching.

"it wakes me up niceeeee and gooooood." he taunts me.

"next" the barista yells.

oh my gosh. the barista is hands down, the finest man i have ever seen in my entire life. as jay and i walk up, i have suddenly lost the ability to speak. my legs feel like jelly and my heart is beating out of my chest.

"what can i get for you guys" the barista asks. my eyes suddenly make a b-line from his face to the name tag on his apron. jake, his name is jake. while jay places his order, my eyes are glued to jake. the way his hair is slicked back with a strand hanging by his forehead, the way his veiny hands type in the order, the way he flashes that perfect smile. i'm so entranced, i didn't even realize that he asked me a question.

"im sorry what did you say?" i apologize.

"i asked what i can get for you" jake asks me, flashing that deadly smile of his.

"um, i actually really dislike coffee. so i don't really know what i want."

he shakes his head slowly and places a finger over his mouth, obviously thinking of an alternative to my problem. wow, he is beautiful.

"this is gonna be a little risky but i'm gonna recommend that you try a matcha latte. it's kind of a hard drink to describe but i really enjoy it and its nothing like coffee." he explains.

"okay, i'll try that." i respond with a smile, my cheeks heating up from our small interation.

"alright perfect, so just an iced americano and an iced matcha latte. and because its your first matcha, it's on the house. so the total is $4.50" he states.

"omg really? thanks bro. this girl has hated coffee for so long so hopefully she'll like this." jay says with gratitude.

"no problem! i hope she likes it too." he flashes me a warm smile.

"whats the name for the order?" jake asks.

"jay".

"alright, that'll be done here shortly".

we walk over to find an empty table and take out our school stuff to start studying. all i can think of his jake and his charm. i turn over to see him taking orders and working on drinks. the way he moves around to different stations is so attractive.

"y/n will you please stop making googly eyes at the barista?" jay says, snapping me back to reality.

"i can't help it. he is actually so cute jay." i expressed with a sigh.

only a couple minutes pass when jake suddenly calls for jay, notifiying that his order is ready. jay grabs the order and the entire time im looking at jake. jay grabs the drink from him and jakes eyes pan over to be, giving me that smile once again. he's so attractive.

"here, he says he made it extra special in hopes that you would like it". jay hands me my drink and sits back down.

i'm a little nervous to try it. the green color is very offputting and i almost don't want it. but nonetheless, i gain some courage and take a sip. jay eyes me very seriously as i do so. i can understand why jake said it was a hard one to describe. i contemplate about the flavor, going back in for another sip.

"do you...like it? he asks me.

"suprisingly, yeah i do. a lot actually" a smile forms on my face as i continue to drink it.

"thank god you actually like something. now lets get to work".

unbeknownst to me, jake was behind the counter watching me. his heart began to be beat and smile creept on his face once he noticed that my drink was almost half way gone.

the sun rose slowly the next morning and the thought of going to class is killing me. all day yesterday, i couldn't stop thinking of that insanely cute barista, jake. his smile lingers in my head and that drink he made me was so delicious.

as im laying in bed, im suddenly hit with the craving of that drink and the cute barista who made it. i throw on my clothes for the day, grab my bag, and head to the coffee shop before my first class of the day. i have no idea if jake is working but i sure hope so.

as i walk in, i immediately see him. my heart begins to beat and my face is turning red. i realize that this time i dont have jay to hide behind and i contemplate if i should turn back. but it's too late because his eyes find mine, and he gives me the same sweet smile from yesterday.

the lines moves quickly and im suddenly at the counter, face to face with jake.

"hey, there." he smiles.

"hello." i smile back.

"no boyfriend today?" i give him a confused look. boyfriend? what boyfriend? oh, he must be thinking of jay.

"oh jay hahaha, he's not my boyfriend. he just my best friend who followed me to college." i laugh.

"oh okay i wasn't sure. it's not often a pretty girl like you walks in by herself." he tilts his head and winks.

oh. my. god. my cheeks begin to heat up and i can't help my smile from coming out. y/n get yourself together.

"well what can i get for you" he leans down on the counter, now being eye level to me.

"well i still hate coffee but i loved what you made me yesterday so that's what i would like." i say with a smile

"haha the iced matcha latte, you got it pretty girl. whats the name for order." he asks, eyes never leaving mine.

"y/n. and how much?" i ask.

"don't worry, i got this one."

"what? no, you got it yesterday jake. let me pay for it." i pleade.

"nope, like i said, i got it. it'll be done soon" he explains.

"thank you." i walk over to an empty table and immediately text jay. i explain to him how jake thought we we're together, then how he called me pretty twice, and gave me my drink for free. minutues pass and me and jay geek over mine and jakes interaction when i feel a soft hand being placed on my back.

"here ya go y/n," jake says with an endearing tone.

"oh thank you. i wasnt expecting you to bring it to me." i explain to him.

"well it's not busy so i thought i would come see you before you left." this man's charm is insane. his smile is something i could look at forever, and the way his aussie accent rolls off his tongue is so attractive.

"well thank you for the drink, im off to class now."

"will i be seeing you here again?" he ask, his brown eyes sparkling with hope.

"yes, i'll be back jake." i say with a laugh.

and i kept my word. everyday for the next two weeks, i went back to the cafe. i love my morning matcha (that he never let me pay for) but i also love seeing jake. his charm keeps me coming back for more.

this particular morning, i wake in the cafe to see jake already waiting for me with the matcha in his hand. the place wasn't busy so the boy walked straight up to me, and embraced me. his touch is warm and he smells of warm coffee and autumn spices.

"well isn't this a pleasant surprise" i say with a laugh as i reciprocate his embrace.

"we havent been busy and i was missing you so i made your matcha so you wouldn't have to wait." he confesses, cheeks turning slightly pink.

"aw well that's very sweet jake, i am actually in a rush so this is perfect" i smiled at him.

"well i wanted to ask you something, but you're in a rush so i wont keep you" he states, looking a litte disappointed.

"wait tell me, i can make some time for you." i expressed.

his eyes lock with mine and i can see a little bit of worry and nervousness in his expression.

"well, i know we havent known each other long but i really enjoy having you around. i come to this job everyday in hopes of seeing you every morning. i love making your matcha for you. and i want to get to know you more. what im trying to say is, would you want to go on a date with me?" he confessed, his entire face in worry.

"awww jake i absolutely would go on a date with you. i hate coffee but why do you think i come here everyday? to see your cute face" i explain.

he pulls me in for another hug. "oh my god, im so happy". he pulls away to look at me.

"it wouldve been really embarrassing if you said no cause i um, already wrote my number on your cup."

who wouldvr guessed that my hatred for coffee would turn into me falling for a barista who smells just like it.

ੈ✩‧₊˚ - a/n: hellooooo. hopefully you guys somewhat enjoyed this. this is my first fic after not writing since um...2020...so its definitely not perfect but i wanted to get something out there. nothing too long but i still hope you enjoyed.

[miracul0us-multishipper]

Could I Write a Fic based off of the Marillion AU?

I really like it.

sure go nuts!!!

[ratatatastic]

"Battle of Alberta, right? It was my first game: Calgary, Edmonton. We would play them in the preseason, and you know—trying to make the team I'd always be asking him to fight in preseason, always. I'd be runnin' my mouth—like, tryna fight the biggest, baddest guys, tryna make an impression.

And he would never fight me. He'd always tell me, like If you make the team, I'll fight ya. You don't have to worry about that, but I'm not fightin' ya preseason. And I totally respect it, I'm not gonna chase him down. It is what it is. He's established—I'm looking for my chance.

So I get called up, we're playing Edmonton in Edmonton: Battle of Alberta. [He's] over there on the other side, and it's like the coolest thing ever... you know, the buildup was crazy 'cuz I knew if the opportunity presented itself—if the game went the way I hoped it would, I would get an opportunity to fight him.

I remembered in warmups tryna skate by the redline initially just kind-of gettin' a feel for it—to see if I have to say something or whatever... He's got no bucket on, his big, bald head is glarin' around, he skates by the redline with the biggest smile on his face, and just gives me the biggest wink...

At that moment I knew Okay, he remembers. It's gonna happen at some point.

We were up 1, I think it was 2-1 going into intermission or whatever—Oh, no, I think it was 1-1 and we had just scored so the position I'm like Yeah, I don't know if I can fight him now because we have the momentum and we're winning the game. I don't want to lose a fight, then we lose a game and now I'm, like, never getting a chance again.

You kind-of gotta play the game within the game like [...] there's an opportunity to fight, and there's an opportunities where you shouldn't fight. Things weren't looking good, then they score and now we need a spark. I'm like Fucking perfect.

I just skate by their bench and I'm like It's time, big boy! He jumps out, we line up, and he goes We squarin' up or we goin' right away?

I'm like I'm not fuckin' squarin' up with you right now! We're goin' right away!

Drop em, we go right away, grab each other. I know he's a lefty so he's gonna let go—let's go of my right arm before he throws one. I threw one. Big boy went down, he jumped back up pretty quick. I don't know, I tell people all the time, I'm like I would've been in the league fuckin' 2 years earlier if there was good footage of this fuckin' fight!

For some reason—For some reason, the cameras cut out. I don't know if [he] had his cousins working the cameras or something that night, or if they're in the video room or what happened.

That was my first NHL game.

It's funny 'cuz Chucky was there—Chucky's there and he knows, he saw, he always laugh when I say that I would've been in the league earlier 'cuz he knows how things like that go. You get a little bit of energy and buzz around ya, and then kind-of momentum takes you a little bit further but unfortunate[ly], I missed that opportunity but I don't regret a thing.

[...]

The opportunity was there, I just—unfortunately, for whatever reason, the Hockey Gods said not yet." (Ryan Lomberg reminiscing over his first NHL game/fight) (x)(x) (please go watch the second link to see lombos giant smile as he tells this story jfc)

and other genuinely bonkers things to say about a hockey player in your first fight... like why did this need to be said like that...what

[mewtwo24]

You know idk if it's just me being oblivious af but mxtx sure does enjoy putting her protags through the trolley problem when it comes to her works huh /j

[aziraphales-lawyer]

Literally no other way I could describe it right now.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i want nothing more than for Ezra & Thrawn to be not enemies, not friends, but a secret third thing - roommates

[skunkes]

Im having feelings over my stupid vampire oc

[thenamessparkplug]

shoutout to my old 4th grade teacher for being more supportive of me one time 6 months ago than my own mother's ever been< 3333

[toytulini]

i know doctor who has never been Perfect, and i love capaldi, i love twelve, but christ alive its a hard watch sometimes

[handgiven]

it's genuinely something that aids my mental health so much to imagine a being that's seen the beginning and the end of the world, a being that's seen the best and the worst of what humanity can offer, a being that's had all the time in the universre to ponder about a purpose, and about the meaning of existence, and whose very simple response is just. be kind. in the long run, none of the other things matter. what matters is to allow your soul to blossom into something as beautiful as it can be, through little acts of kindness, whenever you are able. that's enough.