#trying so hard not to list all of them I gotta be nice to myself...

[factual-fantasy]

24 Asks! Thank you! 🦷

Alrighty, here we go-🙌🙌

Episode 5 was pretty meh to me in some ways and my tier list hasn't really changed. Kinger still shines at the top of my favorites list. Even more so when he brought Pomni under the dark desk so he could think more clearly and help her with the adventure.

I miiight move Caine down from S tier to A, he's starting to get sus and his anger towards Zooble criticizing his adventures was not a good look.😔 I might move Pomni up a tier and mayyybe move Zooble up.. But Jax is still in the "no" tier.

I know, I know. everyone loves Jax after this episode. And I can admit that his sob story that hinted at an abstracted friend was nice and all, but it doesn't matter to me what trauma he has or what his coping mechanism is. It doesn't justify how badly he treats others, and he should not be getting away with it.

Lastly, something that really bothered me throughout the whole episode is Pomni saying "Do you guys know about his (Kingers) wife?" and NOBODY addresses it.💀

As soon as she said that I paused it to geek out, I was SO EXCITED to see what the others would possibly say! Only to have.. not even an actual distraction to anyone other then Zooble and Jax happen- and NO ONE mentions it. Why didn't Gangle or Ragatha say anything? They wouldn't have been distracted by the corn like Jax or Zooble, and they ABSOLUTELY heard Pomni. I was so disappointed that such a cool question was asked by Pomni, only for LITERALLY NOTHING to come from it. 💔

All in all, episode 3 still ranks as my absolute favorite👍

(Link in post)

I actually thought about going back and trying to draw it again after this post was so enthusiastically received. But looking back? The more I thought about it and broke it down.... ehhh, I really didn't like it. Which is why I haven't wanted to attempt to write the story out or post the rough sketches..

The comic itself was lacking, but the most important thing was the writing. Looking at it more critically, Gloria made a lot of decisions she would not have made which eventually led to mega Grimace. If I were to try and tackle that idea again, it would take a looooot of re-writing and thinking.😔💔

My symptoms are acting up today, which is making it hard to focus and draw. But other than that I am ok :) I hope you two are well!

@badlyblurry (Sent after this post)

I WISH I could have seen that- those both sound hilarious XDD

Also fat squirrels look like Chinchillas 🤣🤣🤣

So I've heard 😅🙄

@idk-wot-to-do-here

SCREAMSS THANYIIUUU!!! :DDDD There's a good chance you'll (kind'a) see him again soon! :DD

I never watched it, it just felt like it was a heartless sequel that was trying to expand on a complete trilogy just for money. At least that's how people described it-💔

I'm sure they'd love it! :DD I remember liking it when I read it! :)

It entirely depends on the character, but I can at least draw my factual fam from memory! :DD ..Just not color them from memory-- <XDD

@ardent-38

AAA THANKYOU SO MUCH!!! :DDD 💞💞💞

@spelling-is-a-curse

Thank you so much!! :DD And thank you for the media suggestion! I'll have to do some googling about it! :0000

@mossieeeeee

Thank you! But sorry pal, drawing requests aren't free! You gotta order one over on my Ko-fi.

And I can see the group mostly going to Sylvester for comfort. Considering his "ribbons" emit a soothing aura 🧘‍♂️

The main reason for me not having a cape as well, is Bibi, Jangles, Cici and Gerald all exist as dolls in real life. All of which have tiny quilts made for them.

To fit the theme, if I were to have a quilt cape I'd want to make one for myself in real life. And I just haven't really done that- 😓😓 I don't have the money for those materials anymore and never really had the motivation to sit down and make a full sized quilt..

Plus, I like that my sona is very simple and easy to draw. If I were to add a quilt to my design it would make drawing my sona take a lot longer.. 😮‍💨😮‍💨

(Referencing this post)

It reminded me of her too! XDD

@starrystratagemnova

Thank you so much! :DDD Also, you can find the answer to that in the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) in my pinned post! :)

@burningmusicfunnygiant (Link in ask)

If I remember correctly..

Bonnie was.. kind'a in shock I think.? He didn't really emotionally process it at all. He had been playing Freddy's high processing role as "main star" with a slow processer for so long.. he just hardly had the strength to grapple with emotions anymore on top of all that data he needed to process everyday.

I think what I wrote.. was when Bonnie saw them he kind'a just... didn't look them in the eyes. He didn't say anything and kind'a just.... walked away. Whenever they tried to talk to him, he would just look away and stare off into nothingness. If they tried to approach he would likely just gently turn and wander out of the room.

It took quite a few days, but Freddy was persistent and finally got though to him. He realized that Bonnie was manning the main stage all these years, which he is NOT programmed to handle. He must be so overwhelmed every single day... Equipped with that knowledge, Freddy was able to approach him and eventually got him to talk. Bonnie was struggling to express his emotions.. but he was able to say "I'm very glad to see you again... I missed you both very much.." before he went mute again.💔

Foxy was just beside himself. He had been trying so hard to keep everyone together and not let the grief break him. Now that he saw them again, now that he knows they're alive.. he just broke down. For all the time lost, for all the worry, all the recharge-less nights.. only to see them now. It was such a relief but it was also so crushing. They were here the whole time. And Foxy hardly even looked for them.

Monty was just like Foxy, he was beside himself. But he was more composed then Foxy. He was able to speak clearly and express how much they all loved Freddy and Chica and how dearly they were missed. Though he didn't have the composure to say much else.

Roxy originally didn't have the bolts to face them. Much like Monty in my AU- or at least in the rewriting of it--- she was so ashamed of what she'd become, and didn't want them to look at her. She felt responsible for the Glamrock era which was what sealed Freddy's fate, so she couldn't look him in the eye.

Anytime Freddy tried to talk to her she'd usually flee. But one he time approached her while she was alone, kind of cornering her. She was upset and kept looking away. Which made Freddy slink away in shame and apologies for his appearance. That's when she broke down in tears and approached Freddy.

She was NOT afraid of him or disgusted by his appearance, she just felt so ashamed for everything that's happened and couldn't face Freddy after wronging him so badly. Even if it was an accident. And she couldn't bare to see the saddened expression Chica would surly have when she sees what a jerk Roxy has become.

Freddy forgave her for everything even though she didn't need to be sorry. He gave her a hug and pat her on the back, telling her it was gonna be ok. She became a kinder and gentler Roxy after that.

Holy cow!! That's a lot of views! Congratulations! :DDD 🎉🎉🎉

@virtualworldfp5

AAAAA CONGRTULATIONS!! :DDDD 🎉🎉🎉 I HOPE YOU CONTINUE TO GROW AND THRIVE! :)))) 🙏🙏🎉🎉🎉

@beryl-shade

I fear that they could persuade me into giving them whatever they want 😔

Its the eyes isn't it? XDD

@endlesssuffering4ever

Candy diver cookie! :DD I should really go back to cookie run sometime- 😅😅

[lynzishell]

Prev // Next

Transcript below the cut:

Dawn: How’s it going? Have you decided the grass isn’t greener yet? Realized you belong in San My after all? [Atlas: No, we uh, just put an offer in on a house.] Dawn: Already?

Atlas: We had to, Dawn, it’s perfect. It has everything we want, it’s in our price range, in a great neighborhood. It’s like it was built for us. [Dawn: So, this is really happening?] Atlas: Afraid so.

Atlas: How are things in Chestnut Ridge? [Dawn: Oh my god, you’ll never guess what I did yesterday.] Atlas: What? [Dawn: I rode a horse!] Atlas: Oh yeah? How was that?

Dawn: It was… exhilarating! I mean, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I miss that feeling, y’know. [Atlas: What feeling?]

Dawn: Just the excitement and the adrenaline. I haven’t done anything that’s made me feel that way in a long time. It’s like, since having Aspen, my whole identity has been reduced to being a mom. Not that I don’t love being a mom, I do. It’s just that I used to be so much more, and yesterday felt like reconnecting with a part of myself.

Atlas: So, what, you want to get a horse now? Not sure how that will work in the city. [Dawn: [laughs] No, of course not. But I do want more. I want my career back. I want to start climbing again. I want to see new places and try new things.] Atlas: And you should. As long as San Sequoia is at the top of your list of new places to see.

[Dawn: Of course it is.] Atlas: Good. Listen, let’s talk more about this when we’re back in the city. I gotta run. We haven’t eaten all day, and I think Ash is ready to leave without me.

Dawn: Okay, I’ll see you soon. [Atlas: Bye.]

Dawn: How are you doing? Phoenix: I don’t know. Am I a terrible person for being angry at a ten-year-old? Dawn: Depends on why you’re angry.

Phoenix: It’s hard not to resent the fact that he gets these moments with him. He gets the childhood I always wished I had. The one I should’ve had. Dawn: You’re allowed to be angry, but maybe it’s not fair to be angry at him. I mean, he has to grow up without his mom, and you had that. So, maybe call it even. Phoenix: Right. See, I am a terrible person. Dawn: You’re not. We both know Danny’s not the one you’re angry at.

Dawn: I know this is hard. Your dad made a lot of mistakes. He missed your whole life. You’ll never get those years back, and that sucks. But he’s here now, and so are you. And no one knows how many years we have left. So, how do you want to spend them? Why did we come here?

Phoenix: I don’t want to be angry anymore. Dawn: Then, what are you waiting for? Get over there.

Joseph: You ready? Phoenix: I don’t know. Joseph: C’mon.

Phoenix: Are you sure this is a good idea? Joseph: You’ll be fine. Just put your foot in the stirrup and pull yourself up, nice and easy. Phoenix: …

Joseph: Phoenix. Phoenix: What? Joseph: Trust me.

Phoenix: … okay.

Joseph: There ya go! Not so hard, was it? Phoenix: No. Joseph: Now, let’s walk. Phoenix: Do what now?

Joseph: You alright? Phoenix: Yep. I’m good.

Joseph: We’re just going across the lot, you can relax. Phoenix: I am relaxed. Joseph: [laughs] Okay.

[fanfics4all]

Accidentally Yours

Request: Yes / No Hi!! I just saw that you respond to my question so here it goes! Firs of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH, i've been obssesed with sweetpea and almost nobody do imagines about him anymore Where sweet pea has a crush on the prettiest popular girl in school and tries to win her over and ask her out but Fangs puts the idea in his head that he must do something big to ask her out and not something simple. Sweetpea gets nervous and in one of his attempts to ask her out, while she was getting ready for the school photo the next day, Sweetpea ruins YN's hair (gives her a horrible cut or burns it), and when he goes to apologize to her, he accidentally breaks her nose causing it to be very swollen and bitten ruining her school photo. When SP goes to see her in the infirmary he explains everything and it is YN who asks him out because she liked how sweet he was even though he ruined her hair, nose and school photo. @crrgsfp

Don’t be shy, request things! <3 Have a nice day/night

Sweet Pea x Fem!Reader 

Word count: 675

Warnings: A getting a broken nose, and also getting your hair cut!

Y/N: Your Name 

Y/L/N: Your Last Name

PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY WORK, I WORK HARD ON MY FICS AND IT’S NOT COOL TO STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK! 

If you want to be on the tag list for anything (My series fics, specific character fics, or just all of them) All you have to do is send me an ask and I will add you! 

Masterlist 

If you enjoy my work, you could also show support by buying me a coffee! 

(Not my photo, credit to whoever made it!)

*Sweet Pea’s POV*

I had a huge problem. That problem had the prettiest smile I’d ever seen, the kind that made my heart feel like it was doing backflips in my chest. Y/N Y/L/N. Popular, gorgeous, smart. That kind of girl who walked down the halls of Riverdale High like she owned the place. The kind of girl who definitely didn’t belong with a Southsider like him. But that didn’t stop me from falling for her. And I really wanted to ask her out. 

“She’s way out of your league.” Fangs said, lounging beside me in the student lounge. 

“You can’t just ask her out like normally, man. You gotta do something big.” I frowned. 

“Like what?” Fangs smirked. 

“Something grand. Big gestures impress girls like her.” 

And that's how I got the idea in my head that a simple ‘Hey, wanna go out?’ wouldn’t cut it. No, I had to do something impressive. Which is exactly why the next day I found myself in the school’s cosmetology room, standing behind Y/N while she was getting her hair done for the big yearbook photos. I had no idea what I was doing. 

The plan was simple, help her with her hair somehow, get her attention, and then smoothly ask her out. But then I knocked over a curling iron… And it landed directly on Y/N’s hair… 

She gasped, the horrible sizzle filling the room as I panicked, grabbing her hair to try and fix it. Instead, I yanked too hard and snip! A large chunk of her gorgeous locks now sat lifelessly in my palm. Y/N blinked at me in the mirror, horror-stricken. 

“What. Did. You. Do?” I gulped. 

“Uh…” 

“I-I can fix it!” But as I stepped forward in a desperate attempt to make things less disastrous, my foot caught on the chair leg and I tripped. Right into her face. 

The impact was brutal. Y/N yelped as pain exploded through her nose, and I stumbled back, eyes wide with terror. 

“Oh shit…” She cupped her nose, groaning in pain. Blood dripped onto her hands. Her friends rushed over and dragged her to the nurse’s office while I followed behind, my heart slamming against my ribs. 

By the time I got there, Y/N was sitting on the cot, an ice pack pressed against her swollen, bruised nose. Her once-perfect hair was an absolute mess. She looked like she’d been in a fight… And lost. 

I took a deep breath and stepped forward. 

“Y/N, I-I am so sorry…” She looked up at me, deadpan. 

“You think?” I winced. 

“Look, I-I was trying to ask you out.” 

Silence. 

She blinked. 

“This was you asking me out?” I rubbed the back of my neck. 

“Not exactly like this… Fangs said I needed to do something big, so I-” I groaned. 

“I panicked, and now you look like you got into a brawl before your big school picture, and I ruined your hair, and your nose, and your face…” Y/N stared at me, expression unreadable. Then, to my absolute shock, she laughed. And not just a little giggle, full on laughter. I gawked. 

“Why are you laughing?” She wiped a tear from my eye, shaking her head. 

“Because… you’re so sweet!” I blinked. 

“I broke your nose.” She grinned. 

“And you feel so bad about it. It's kinda adorable.” My heart stuttered. Before I could even process what was happening, Y/N tilted her head, still smiling. 

“So, since you technically haven’t asked me out yet, wanna go on a date?” My jaw dropped. 

“Wait…what?” She shrugged. 

“I think I like you, even if you’re a total disaster.” I opened my mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. 

“You sure? I mean, I just destroyed your-” She cut me off with a smirk. 

“Are you saying no?” I snapped my mouth shut. 

“Hell no.” Y/N grinned. “Good.” And just like that, my horrible attempt at asking her out somehow worked. Fangs was never gonna believe this.

Tag list: @les-bio-lie @tashy-bear @ashwarren32 @hollie-blogs-blog1 @lover-of-books-and-tea @nerdygaloresposts @teenwolfbitches28 @kmc1989 @drw0301bieber @lady-of-lies @ravenmoore14 @ravenempress101 @cillianchamp @rowanthomasknapp @rachelxwayne @ready-4-fanfiction @madammarvellous-blog1 @emo-godess-loves-you @hiya-imthatgirl @mindsetjupiter @averysinclaire @mittelerde1999 @sweetest-peas @rousewriter @camiconfessions-blog @thecaptainsgingersnap @cenyddtheunicorn @jacksxsouthsideserpents @lover2448 @mamacobie13 @staygoldsquatchling02 @wanderlust-and-poetry @hiighdeex3 @ayeitsjaz @skeletalwolfcat @scarrasco1325 @reblogserpent @darkestbeforethedawn16 @fandom-princess-forevermore @will-noble-owns-my-ass @t-a-i-l-o-r-m-a-d-e @madebyleftovermuses @liz-owl

[fallenprophets]

pure bliss forever

arthur morgan x reader

PART 1 🌀 PART 2

summary : a quiet evening in a hut in the Grizzlies.

gn reader, no use of y/n, not explicitly romantic unless you want it to be, 3.4 K words

warnings : swearing, very brief mention of suicide

a/n : if you know the song the title is based on, i'll send you a tenner and a kiss on the forehead

༅☾»⟣⋱

I’m knee deep in the snow, gloved fingers fumbling awkwardly with my bow and arrow. The gloves are Arthur’s- about fifteen sizes too big, hard to hunt with, but warm, which is the least you can really ask for in this part of the Grizzlies. I’ve had get new gloves scrawled on my list of things to do for the past four weeks- since Arthur first took my hunting in the mountains, and I realised that I might have misremembered how goddamn cold it was. 

I’ve been tracking this grizzly bear for half an hour now. At first, I wanted to kill it, skin it, bring the meat back to Arthur, make the pelt into a coat (or some gloves, I think miserably). But the more I’ve been watching it; the more I’ve been following it, the less I want to raise the bow, notch the arrow, let it fly and land in the bear’s soft neck. At this point, even though I’m still holding the bow and arrow, I’ve made the decision not to kill the sweet animal. She’s too pretty, sniffin’ around in the snow. 

Arthur is also out hunting; further down the mountain than me. He tried it out; waitin’ for animals, in the snow. Said it as nicely as possible, that he wasn’t patient enough for that shit. So he leaves the tracking and waiting to me, and goes to where the snow is thinner, hunts deer and such. 

For the first time, he said he’ll stay the night with me, in a small hut we’ve found. It’s not like my daddy’s old hut; smaller, lower ceiling, nowhere outside to hitch the horses. We’ve had to try and plant sticks in the ground, hope the horses don’t tug and try to run away. Thought it was so funny that I fell in the snow; had to change into a pair of Arthur’s spare trousers ‘nd shirt, another twelve sizes too big. 

I follow the bear a little longer, ‘till it’s nearly nightfall. Then, I turn back, trudge through the snow in my boots (they’re the only thing I’m wearing that are actually the right size). My socks are starting to get wet; these are Rhodes boots, not Grizzlies boots. I don’t mind, though. The freezing cold air, despite being sharp and almost painful at first, smells like home. 

It’s night time when I get back to the hut. It looks like Arthur beat me- the lantern inside is lit, golden light beaming out through the cracked windows. It’s so cold in the hut that we had to sleep in our coats, last night; I made a passing joke about sleeping on top of each other, like I used to with my daddy when it got real cold, and we both laughed it off.

“Fuckin’ freezing in here,” I say as I kick the door open. I don’t take off my coat; but I do kick off my boots, so I don’t track snow onto the newly cleaned floor of the hut. 

Arthur chuckles, his low-down laugh warm. I smile, all teeth. 

“Didn’t catch anything?” He asks. I haven’t caught anything on my trips hunting. I think he knows I get sentimental about these animals. Last time, I sheepishly brought back a can of tinned beans after failing to catch a deer. Thought Arthur was gonna collapse, the way he was laughin’. 

“Nah,” I answer, even though my empty arms are answer enough. “Didn’t find nothin’.” I think of the bear, probably sniffin’ around for food for her cubs. “Cold probably drove ‘em all home.” 

“I’m sure.” He’s caught two rabbits. “Wanna light a fire?” 

It’s the least I can do. “I gotta put my boots back on?” I complain, jokingly. “Got sticks?” 

“In the corner there.” Points, with two ungloved fingers. I go to the sticks, lift them up. Slip on my boots. Take them to the hole we’ve made in the snow, for campfires. “It’s cold,” I mutter to myself as I drop them down into the hole, make sure they’re arranged right. I go back inside; Arthur is still there, skinning the second rabbit.  

“Got a match?” I ask, dusting my hands off on my to-big trousers. “Somethin’ I can light this with?” I know he does, ‘cause he always does, it’s tradition, though, to ask him. 

“Over here.” Wipes his hand, takes the box from his pocket, pushes it open; I grab two matches, ‘cause I always fuck the first one up, put them between my teeth, then take the box from his hand. Strike one- fucked up. I drop it onto the unlit campfire, then strike the second one. It flares up. I smiled the tiny flame with my hand, kneel down, hold the burning match to the sticks and wait for them to catch fire. 

“Done,” I call back into the hut, pulling my coat closer around myself. I hum to myself as I hold my hands out, let the growing flames warm them. 

Arthur comes out with the rabbits, edible bits impaled on knives. He hands me one, then crouches down in the snow, holding it above the fire to cook it. 

“So,” I say, once the silence has stretched too long. 

“So,” he answers, in the same tone, voice going up at the end. 

“Cold,” I say, because I want to say something but there’s nothing really to say. 

He snorts, and we lapse back into comfortable silence. 

“Thank you,” I say. My rabbit has cooked- I bite into it. Tastes like the food I ate three times a day with my daddy, when I was a kid. “For- for takin’ me here, and stayin’. All that. I really- I appreciate it.” 

“I know.” He doesn’t say it unkindly. I’ve thanked him before, a lot, but I feel like I gotta. He’s done so much for me. 

“And, y’know, thanks for staying the night.” It was supposed to be one night; last night, just to test the waters, see if maybe I did want to stay here longer, by myself. But I think Arthur sensed, when we woke up this morning, that I didn’t want to go just yet- maybe saw it in the way I held my shoulders, the tic in my jaw returning as I ground my teeth together. He suggested that we stay, just one more night, and I jumped on the opportunity, my jaw unclenching, my shoulders relaxing once again. My father always told me I was readable; didn’t realise it was that bad until Arthur sensed every thought before it even completed itself in my head, made suggestions that just worked for me. He doesn’t make it feel like I’m, I don’t know, burdening him, with my loud feelings and tightening shoulders. He just takes it in his stride; like he takes everything else in his stride. It’s what I like about him. 

Once we’re done eating, we go back inside. Leave our boots at the door (so domestic, I think to myself, as the toe of my left boot stays resting against the toe of his right one). Keep our coats on, sit down on our separate sleeping bags. 

“You goin’ straight to sleep?” I ask him, readjusting my coat. Another routine. 

“You want to go straight to sleep?” Like he always does. I snort (like I always do, because we have a routine, one we’ve established the last few times we’ve come here). “Alright,” I say. I shuffle in, pull my blanket tight around myself. It hardly keeps the cold out, but it’s comfortable. I’m shivering a little less. 

Arthur isn’t wearing any gloves because I’m wearing his gloves. He’s got his hands tucked under his legs where he sits, but he must be cold. I don’t want him to be cold, so I shuffle ‘round, look at him fully. 

“You can have your gloves back,” I say, already wriggling out of them. “S’alright,” he answers, like I knew he would. “Really,” he adds, when he sees that I’ve got a glove off already. “Take one, then,” I say, a compromise. I throw it at him, and he catches it. “One glove each. So we can be… half warm each.” 

His turn to laugh, half through his nose, half through his mouth. Slips the glove on, wiggles his fingers at me to make a point. I smile, with some teeth. 

“So,” I say, tucking my ungloved hand between my knees. “You like it here?” 

Arthur breathes out, looks out the window for a long moment before looking at me again. “Yeah, I like it plenty.” He pauses, looks at me more, his gaze locked on my face. 

It’s cold, but something in my chest stirs, something warm and small and soft, like a squirrel, or a small rabbit. I fold my arm under my head, prop myself up like that. 

“There’s a part of the mountains,” I say, after a few minutes of warm silence. “A little- I think north of here, there’s a dip, towards the top of the mountain. It’s like- the top dips, a little, so there’s a cave. You can see the stars from there, better than anywhere else in the mountains.” I smile at the thought; it’s coldest up there, the stone bare of snow most of the time. I remember going up with my daddy; just once, though. All the other times I went alone, to clear my head. 

The memory turns sour when I remember the first time I stayed overnight, huddled by a campfire in my coat. When I got home, my daddy was gone, bullet in his temple, blood sprayed on the walls. 

“Sounds real nice,” Arthur answers. He’s right, it is. 

“Wish the gang could see it.” I smile, wipe my nose with my ungloved hand. “Jack would love it.” Arthur chuckles, lowly, softly. It makes the bunny in my chest twitch happily. 

“I’m sure he would.” He lies down, pulls the blanket over himself. “How far is it, from Rhodes?” 

“Opposite direction.” I sink a little, into the floor. I think I know what he’s thinking. “Too far to go tomorrow, on our way back to Rhodes. Maybe another time.” 

“We can take Jack, if Abigail lets us.” 

“We can take Abigail, too.” I feel my smile come back, just at the thought. “John, if he’s around. Charles might like it- lots of hidden wildlife. Stuff to watch, even if you’re not huntin’ it.” 

“That what you been doing?” He doesn’t say it unkindly. When I first came back empty handed after almost a full day of what was meant to be hunting, I’d expected him to bristle, to sigh, maybe to pinch the bridge of his nose and tell me that this wasn’t enough, I gotta pull my weight (although whenever I pictured it, it was Pearson’s voice, or Dutch’s that said it; never Arthur’s). We’re here to hunt, God’s sake, not for me to dawdle and watch the animals from a distance. 

“Yeah,” I say, almost sheepishly, shifting my arm, pulling at a finger of my glove- his glove. There’s a silence; not an uncomfortable one. “I don’t know why. Up here, I just…” I can’t bring myself to kill them, I want to say, but that’s ridiculous, because they’re animals, right? 

But the look in that doe’s eyes, back in Rhodes, right when I shot her; the way the bear walked softly, earlier today, hunting for scraps. The way the rabbits bounce along, terrified when they see me; the way the birds fly so high above. I saw a dead wolf on the way up here, decomposing on the side of the road with an arrow through its throat- stifled an almost sob, told Arthur I was just happy to be back. 

“I get it,” he says. Does he? He doesn’t seem to struggle with killing animals, hunting to keep us alive. Maybe that’s why- they gotta survive, but so do we. Does that apply to all the men he’s shot dead, for the sake of himself and the gang? A gang that I’m a part of, of course. I’ve killed for them too, finger tight on the 

trigger, ribs tighter around my lungs. 

“I draw ‘em, sometimes.” He adds, in a quieter voice. Like it’s a secret. 

This takes me aback slightly. i know he keeps a journal of sorts, tucked away in that satchel of his. I’ve seen him around camp, or on our journeys when we stop to rest the horses, scrawling away. I know he writes- Mary Beth mentioned it in passing, once. I always thought he was just doin’ that- writing. Not drawing. 

I squint at him, vision narrowing to zero in on his face. 

“I didn’t know you drew,” I say. 

He shrugs. Shifts on his sleeping bag, so the blanket shifts with him, pulling up, letting the cold air in. 

“Can I…” I hesitate, draw my hands in close to my chest. “I mean, I get if it’s private, and all. But I- can I see?” A hesitation, a beat of silence where the cold air rattles against the windowpanes and wolves howl in the distance. 

“Sure.” 

I know where the journal is. It’s in its usual place, on the table, next to his satchel. My sleeping bag is placed so that if I wiggle around, reach my arm out far enough, my fingertips graze the leather cover. I do just that; am able to leverage it closer, finally tipping it over the edge and into my other hand, this one gloved. 

It feels wrong, to hold this in my hands in this way. To turn it over, run my bare fingertips over the cover, the lines in the spine where it has been cracked countless times. I used to have a journal, when I was a kid, scrawled in pencil in a notebook my daddy got me from town. 

Reverently, like what I’m holding is holy, I fold it open. 

The first page is a log of something, initials of gang members written in surprisingly legible pencil, alongside numbers. I turn the page, find a crude map of Blackwater. A shiver runs down my back. I know he’s watching me as I turn the page once more, find a drawing of a riverbed, trees, a bridge. I want to touch it; want to run my fingers along the strokes of the pencil. The place he’s drawn is both recognisable and not; a cross between a dream and a distant memory. Next comes a church of some sort, surrounded by field and trees. I wonder when he finds the time to do all this- to sit and draw. Wish I could, I think wistfully. 

The third page is writing. I feel his eyes on me as I skip that, go to the next drawing. These are his thoughts; his feelings. They’re none of my concern. I’m here for the drawings. 

I flip through, ignoring the writing, tracing the drawings with my eyes. I don’t want to touch it in case it smudges. Instead, I try to picture all the places he’s drawn, try to remember them, pull them from that place in my dreams. It’s like a dip into a normal, different world; normal people in the streets of Blackwater, mingling, talking. 

“They’re pretty,” I murmur, more to the journal itself than to Arthur, whose gaze is still firm on my face, flicking occasionally to the page I’m on. 

There’s one word, however, that I stop on. Davey, a cross drawn next to the name. Nothin’ else on the page. I touch this one, run my fingers along the loops and curves of the name. Does he do this for all our dad? Dedicate a page, a cross, a whispered prayer as we pass on? Will he do it for me, if I ever by some misfortune find myself with a bullet in my temple? 

I shake the thought away and keep going. Drawings of our camp in the Grizzlies; drawings of the train we robbed, owned by that Leviticus Cornwall. Horseshoe Overlook, drawings of the gang around the fire. I think I spot myself in the background of one of those drawings, a dead rabbit over my shoulder, my hair shorter than it is now. The church in Valentine; a grizzly bear. Then, a familiar face, only in pencil, catches my attention. I stop, narrow my eyes slightly. I don’t get much of a chance to look at myself; can hardly remember my own face most days, if I’m honest. But this- the lines of the face, the swamp scrawled in the background. A drawing of me, the day he sat with me and smoked and talked about home. 

I feel my throat tighten. It’s strange, seeing that someone thinks about me in that way; wants to have my face in his journal, drawn with soft grey lines. 

“You’ve made me look soft,” I say, turning to him once more. “Drawn me the way you draw rabbits.” Ain’t a bad thing; in fact, it makes the rabbit in my chest happy, makes the warmth come back twice as strong. 

He chuckles. Knows me well enough to know it’s not a criticism. 

“’S real pretty, all of this,” I tell him, tracing the drawing with my fingertips. The lines smudge, make me look slightly blurry. I pull my hand away, find the pads of my fingers slightly silver. “Sorry,” I say, because I’ve ruined it. 

“S’okay,” he answers, with a smile. “Do what you want with it. ’S a drawin’ of you; may as well.” 

I laugh, shut the journal and slide it over to him. Turn fully, so I’m angled towards him. I fold my arm under my head again, the cold forgotten slightly as the blanket falls away. 

“Thank you,” I say, trying to push as much of the warmth that I’m feeling into my voice. “For lettin’ me see your journal. And, y’know, other things.”

He chuckles, shifts. It’s dark; the candles have burned to the bottom, hardly illuminating the hut. I’d be more scared, but I have him, his warm everything. 

“Maybe I’ll draw you,” I say, and that earns me another laugh, because we all know I can’t draw for shit. I was put in charge of drawing a map once, for the gang; looked more like a self portrait than anything else, pencil smudged where my tears had fallen. 

“When we leave camp,” I tell him, because I know we will leave Rhodes, and Saint Denis, and the swamps and alligators, behind. The thought doesn’t fill me with distress. Maybe we’ll go somewhere colder. But as long as I have him, it’s okay. “We might go far- too far to come back here for day trips.” Already thinking of the end; of how I’ll live with the memory of this, and the knowledge that I won’t be able to return. 

“We can make it work,” he answers, firmly, but softly. “We’ll just stay, one or two nights.” 

“You can teach me to draw.” 

There it is again; his laugh. I love it, and I love him, for what he’s doing for me. 

“I’ll buy you a journal,” he says, and I don’t think he’s joking. I curl up, knees closer to my chest, then stretch out again. Somehow, he’s closer than before. A simple extension of my arm, and I could touch his hand (the one with the glove on, but his hand, nevertheless). Hell, if I stretched my leg out, I could cross my ankle over his, although I’d have one hell of a cold leg. 

Our conversation has ended, I realise, and we’re watching each other fall asleep. He’s the first to go, eyes dropping shut. We discussed taking turns on the lookout, then decided we were safe enough, hidden by pine trees and miles and miles of snow and mountain. 

When his breathing slows, really slows, I reach out, touch my bare fingertips to his gloved palm. I rest my hand there, hoping he doesn’t notice. I consider touching his wrist, feeling his pulse, but my hand is cold, and I don’t want to wake him. 

I drop off; but not before I feel gloved fingers slightly tightening around my wrist. 

I wake up in that position, hands molded together. His ankle crossed over mine, despite the freezing cold. Somehow closer to each other than before. 

I smile, close my eyes again. 

[bleue-flora]

yeah I think even though c!Tommy had a lot of visitors in exile, its all undermined because he still felt lonely and c!Dream had told him that people were only visiting him to see the place and encouraged c!Tommy to see the gifts as pity gifts but its a nice comparison you made regardless I think comparing the physical torment both faced it would be interesting, c!tommys was more spaced out and emotional based + the hits he took from cdreams weapons, c!dreams was daily and more extreme

[context]

{wrote this answer awhile ago, and was going to add to it a comparison of Exile and prison emotional and physical abuse data but due to recent events I’m finding it hard to watch exile streams so that analysis has been put on hold, but figured I could still post this answer.}

Look I'm not saying Dream isn't a good manipulator, because he certainly is, but from Day 1 even before Dream shows up to visit, Tommy is already moping and calling people's gifts pity gifts and stuff (like in that post the clip of Bad happens before Dream shows up for the first time). In fact, the more I rewatch Exile the more I wonder what would have happened if it had been someone else in Tommy's shoes? Would the situation seem as screwed up if the person was more resistant to the abuse and not falling apart on their own. Is that why there are people who see Dream as deserving of prison, and Exile as more emotionally damaging? I don't know, it's just a thought, is it Dream’s nonchalance that cuts into people's pity and empathy?...

It's actually something I've thought about a lot in the last year, because there is almost always something going wrong in my life and so I've kinda adapted this "is what it is" "this is fine" "I tried what more can I do" attitude of letting things roll off and just dealing with it and turning it into a funny story (sometimes you gotta laugh to keep from crying). It was actually highlighted a few weeks ago when my coworker was trying to stress to me how awful and cold it would be if my heat were to go out this winter. And I was like - "I am beyond aware, I lost my heat, hot water, and internet during a snow storm last year so I know exactly how miserable it is." and her face was just like 'oh... right' as if my anxiety and the words I'd been saying all week finally dawned on her. As if the lighthearted nature and attitude in which I shared those facts before undid the gravity of them.

It’s actually something I really noticed this summer when my sister-in-law was in a car accident and got a concussion. My parents were reasonably worried and like offering to come up and if they need to bring my brother and her food and stuff, and it caught me by surprise in a weird way. Not because I don't think she (and my brother) didn't deserve or need the help and sympathy, but because less than a year and a half ago, after spending a week with covid in an apartment with broken air conditioning during heat advisory, I end up fainting while coming out of the shower as I was getting ready to finally go back to work... The crazy person I am, I was bleeding and still the thought in my mind was - 'I'll just stick a bandaid on it’ (I ended up with 7 stitches lol)... Anyways, long story short despite my concussion I pushed on through my second to last semester of engineering courses and hell even made Dean's List despite my struggling short memory, which might be one of my proudest achievements to be honest. And in hindsight as I observed people's care and concern for my sister-in-law and them asking if she needs to leave the room for the quiet and how long is she taking off work... etc, I realized just how kinda screwed up it was that I had to handle everything by myself. That no one was there to tell me to not use a screen right after getting a concussion and how I definitely should not have been tutoring or doing school the week after. I did it all by myself and pushed through, and I realized that I think because I didn't make it a big deal, it became not a big deal for them. Because I laughed about it and tell the story in a comical way, people don’t seem to understand just how hard it was. As if a concussion in itself isn’t terrible, period.

In the same way, Torture is terrible, period. Dream shouldn’t have to be pathetic for that fact to be true. He shouldn’t have to be broken, or say “yes sir,” we shouldn’t need any evidence but that fact alone. (Now obviously within the dsmp Minecraft medium it’s a little different but hopefully you get the point). The torture isn’t any less horrible if the character reacts by becoming submissive or fighting back. Torture isn’t any less horrible because of who it is on (something Dream tries to highlight to Sam in Daedalus). Torture is bad. It doesn’t matter if the reason was good or not, it doesn’t matter if the victim shows how hurt they are or not. And yet, those facts change our perception of it. It is different to know someone was tortured than it is to see them having a panic attack afterwards or their scars.

So then, would characters and we the audience still think Exile is as bad as it was if the person who was exiled didn’t react the same. If their clothes weren’t falling apart. If they weren’t moping around and complaining. If the facts were the exact same, but the attitude of the character was different, how would it change how we saw Exile? Would we still see Exile as even comparable on any scale to Prison? If we saw all 82 of Quackity’s visits how would it change our perception? If Dream was too scared to hold an axe during jailbreak or if he cried in Punz’s arms right after, if he didn’t show such apathy when telling Sapnap or Foolish or Tommy about the torture, would it change how those characters felt about it? If Dream’s skin had clothes that we saw slowly deteriorating everytime we saw him in prison how would that change how we saw it? Or if Tommy’s clothes hadn’t changed, how would that change how we saw Exile?… yes Exile was horrible, and yes it was abuse and screwed up. But also, is part of why we see it as this big horrible thing because of Tommy’s reaction to it. That’s not to say it wasn’t horrible or I’m trying to minimize the abuse, but also lots of horrible things happen on the dsmp. I mean Fundy committed suicide and I don’t see people getting as upset at Wilbur as they do Dream for Tommy’s almost suicide.

I don’t know, it’s just something I’ve been thinking about. If Dream’s attitude to being tortured changed how characters and we saw it, and if in the same way, Tommy’s attitude changed how we saw Exile. If the roles were reversed or someone else was in Tommy’s place, (whether or not they are actually comparable), would anyone think they are even comparable in any aspect?

Sapnap: “What do you mean he was torturing you? Like literally torturing you?”

[nekrosmos]

Hello there :3

First time actually popping into your asks, but I've been stalking your art (nicely) for a while and holy moly your nikprice sdhbfjgnk i obsess. Wanted to pop in to see if your feeling any better :3 Give you some things to maybe distract yourself in these hard times, cause ik how that is and it sucks but you gotta lotta ppl to help and care <3

Firstly, you've prob answered before but fav ship?? Not just CoD but anything at all, and why?? I love listening to ppl ramble abt their fav things man.

And HOW ARE YOU SO GOOD AT ART I aspire to be like you, I adore your style so much I wanna be able to draw somewhat like you its unreal teach me your ways.

Hope your doing alright, may doodle some nikprice in the near future to make u feel better, just for you :3

Flowers to help you feel better :3

Hi there !! Thank you for your lovely message <3 Been feeling a lot better today yes !! I'm working on a piece rn and I'm taking my time with it this time, and ngl it feels good. Might have burned myself out a little trying to post something almost every day.

Fav ship honestly gotta go to both GhostSoap and NikPrice, It's honestly pretty rare that I end up shipping two canon characters together, I'm usually more of an OC x canon character or straight up OC x OC, but CoD has been a nice change from that !! Obviously I'm in my NikPrice era rn but GhostSoap still is very special to me <3 Also love Alone x Soap :3c

As for how I am this good at art, I don't think I am but thank you ?? 😭​😭​ I'm completely self-taught, never took an art class in my life, and art has always been a struggle. I'm originally more of a creature artist so drawing humans is always a pain in the ass but all I wanna draw these days are fanarts so hey.

I use a ton of references, can't draw without them, and there are a bunch of tools out there to help you out also (I recommend this big list of softwares, websites, tutos etc, it has a bit of everything ! ). Also don't be afraid of tracing pictures, don't care what people say, tracing is fine as long as you're not tracing someone else's art. Add some regular studies and you're golden ! Also don't hesitate to study other artists' artstyle. Like say you like how someone draws hair, how someone else draws mouths, just spend some time looking at their art and try to understand what they do that you like !

Hope this helps out a bit, thank you again !! <3

[foodandfolklore]

Tools and Ingredients to keep on hand; Kitchen Witchcraft Elevated Pt. 3

A few more items I'd like to recommend to my kitchen witches. This is going to start getting a little more specific to my own style of cooking and practicing. So if there's anything on this list that makes you go "That's dumb, why would I need that?" then it probably is not for you. Don't go out and get it! But if you think "Huh, that's a good idea" maybe try it out. You can also check out Part 1 and Part 2.

Terracotta Disk Okay let's be real; anyone who's opened brown sugar before knows the struggle of hard sugar. Brown sugar dries out and becomes rock hard. Now, there are lots of solutions that have been presented, but each of them have a new issue. Adding a piece of bread for example. Well now I gotta worry about crumbs, mold and gluten contamination (I'm very mindful of allergies, despite not having any myself). I've also heard of adding a marshmallow to your sugar. I've tried this, but I'm not sure if it's the environment I live in, but it just doesn't work well for me. Plus both feels kind of wasteful. Then I saw a Terracotta disk at the dollarama for about 2 bucks. You soak it in water then drop it in your jar. Boom. Soft brown sugar in a few hours.

Rice Vinegar I know I already suggested vinegar in general, but rice vinegar tends to be more mellow than white vinegar or balsamic vinegar. I like to make a lot of quick pickle stuff like pickled Daikon, Pickled Carrot, or pickled onion. It's also a common ingredient for many Asian sauces and dishes. So if looking up a recipe, it'll often call for Rice Vinegar in some form or fashion. It's also nice to add to plain white rice.

Tortillas Anytime I can find these for cheap in the store, I stock up and throw them in the freezer. Yeah, I can make my own for cheaper, but I've never been 100% happy with how they turn out. They can be too thick, or get a hole, or are not the right size; I dunno. Sometimes I'll make them when in the mood, but mostly I prefer to have them premade. Tortillas, whether made from wheat or corn, have strong solar energies. They also have good protection properties. When you wrap your food in a tortilla, imagine it to be like a protective blanket. It's great for tacos, burritos, fajitas, or just lunch/breakfast wraps in general. But you can also use them non conventionally. When a pizza craving hits, I'll throw some sauce and toppings on a tortilla and bake. Or I may cut the tortilla up into triangles and bake if I need something to go with a hot dip. Monosodium Glutamate Better known as MSG. There has been a lot of misinformation and hate regarding MSG. Starting when Chinese food became popular in North America, but people worried about the quality and cleanliness of food cooked by a foreigner. After all, other countries had different rules about what was considered acceptable when it came to food. So when people were experiencing headaches or stomach aches after eating Chinese take out, they were appalled to find out it was cooked with MSG. MSG was reported to be the cause of these health problems and demonized it. Except.....it was all dog whistling.

I want to be clear: There is NO causation link to MSG having a side effect of pain or stomach problems. What's more likely to have happened is people had an adverse reaction to deep fried food, combined with mass hysteria. MSG is like Salt, Sugar, or Citric Acid. It occurs naturally, and we humans found ways create the product in it's purest form. MSG can be found in all kinds of food like tomatoes, mushrooms, soy, cheese, fish, grapes, and a ton more. Now that doesn't mean you can just eat as much MSG as you want. Like Salt and Sugar, too much over a long period of time can have negative health impacts. But a pinch or two in a dish while cooking is great to help enhance the Umami or savory flavor. MSG also has way less sodium than regular salt. While I don't think it'll replace salt, it can be good to try adding first for flavor if you're trying to reduce your sodium intake.

Cane Sugar There's a lot of different kinds of sugar. Granulated sugar, brown sugar, yellow sugar, icing sugar; most people keep some kind of sugar on hand for baking or sweetening drinks. But I like to keep Cane Sugar on hand as it has a more complex flavor profile. Magically, I find while Cane Sugar sweetens demeanors just like any other sugar, Cane Sugar is able to have people be more...understanding. Instead of finding a new reason to like you or tolerate you, Cane Sugar makes it more likely people sees things your perspective. It makes people more attune to their empathy when engaging with you. If that makes any sense. Oh, and it's my go to for fermented drinks. I actually ran out experimenting with things like ginger beer. Whoops. Scrub Mommy Listen, I hate cleaning. Especially dishes. I chuck as much as I can into the dishwasher, but some things need to be done by hand. So I'm always looking for way to clean them as quickly and easily as possible. But I also don't want to use harsh chemicals or keep buying steel wool that I'll throw away. I saw the Scrub Mommy be used in a lot of videos, so I gave it a try, and holy crap. I bought one for 6 dollars a year ago. I still have it. It doesn't shrink, it doesn't mold; I can toss it in the dishwasher if it needs a clean. And it gets the food off SO easily. I still need to give stuff a soak every once in a while. But most stuff comes right off. Even jars when I'm getting labels off and I got that sticky residue, scrub mommy it with some dish soap. It's gone in like 30 seconds. I still hate doing dishes. But at lest now I can do them without putting every fiber of my being into them.

[meangan-thee-lesbian]

So apparently being against voluntary euthanasia is cool now and I gotta say it just seems a bit of a privileged pov. Like I get that doctors might push euthanasia for disabled patients rather than treating them, I get that the poor might see it as the only option. I get it, because I'm both disabled and poor.

I'm of the specific kind of disabled that doctors love to cark it (epilepsy) because when someone with a neurological condition dies that usually leaves behind a whole body worth of pristine organs. That's why I took myself off the organ donor list, because it's a noted thing that doctors don't try too hard to resuscitate epileptics. I'm also homeless, I can't even afford a roof over my head, let alone treatment for anything that isn't %100 free (surprisingly not a lot even under Australia's oh so affordable healthcare system).

I would love if doctors gave a shit about their patients and I would love if poor people could afford the medical treatment they need. But being against voluntary euthanasia to me is like how some kid living in Sudan would love clean drinking water and all they got is dirty water, so the 'solution' is no water at all until we get them clean water? That must be a nice ideological position to have from the comfort of your own home that has clean drinking water on tap, but dirty water is still infinitely better than no water. Likewise, a quick painless death is better than a slow agonising existence.

I guarantee none of these people against euthanasia have ever had to think about being in a situation when you're poor. I have and I can tell you if I ever got some metastatic bone cancer or something and couldn't afford the chemo, I would probably kill myself sooner rather than later, before I lost the capacity to. At least with voluntary euthanasia I could have a bit more time, until I felt it was too much, and then I could die peacefully with family.

Yes I should be able to just have billions of dollars of treatment for free. I too yearn for this utopic world where money and disability mean nothing. But here in reality poor people don't get that and never will. The hypocratic oath is "do no harm" and sometimes pain is more harmful than death. But hey maybe that's just not be apparent to people who have never had to confront either.

[boygiwrites]

Harley D. Dixon 23

An amazing edit inspired by this story! (Cred to Cora_Line99) Harley D. Dixon's Pinterest Board! Harley D. Dixon's Playlist!

📖Chapter List.

Author's Note.

Warning for strong themes of suicide in this chapter because of Beth, and well, everything else.

Herschel left the farm all by himself while we was out.

As the sun sets behind the porch railing, Lori explains to Rick and Glenn that Beth's in shock — the thing I was in this morning. She tries to mutter it under her beath, but I hear just fine that she tried to kill herself by slicing her wrists up. Different to how Momma did it, but I know just about every way there is, and that's one of 'em. If I were Beth, I would'a just jumped out the window. Prolly would'a worked, but maybe she didn't want it to. Lori and Patricia found her just in time to save her. She's laid up in bed now, apparently still staring at the wall.

Rick keeps glancing at me throughout the whole conversation. I don't know why he's doin' it, but I wish he'd cut it out.

Herschel told us today he'd learnt what grit was, but I guess he ain't learned enough to deal with his daughter wantin' to die, 'cause he hopped in his truck and took a trip to town to get away from it all. Maggie begs the two of 'em to go bring him back, and they agree.

"You got any guesses where he might'a gone?" Rick asks, putting his hat back on. Always savin' people. "Parks, stores, houses?"

"Hatlin's." She answers unhappily. "Bar on main street. He practically lived there in his drinking days. If he's gone anywhere, it's there."

I can't imagine Herschel in a bar. My Daddy and Uncle Merle used to rot away in bars when they was angry or sad, but that was them.

Rick must be thinking the same thing. "I didn't take Herschel for a drinker."

"He gave it up the day I was born." She half-smiles. "Didn't even allow liquor in the house... But not anymore, I guess."

"I've seen the place." Glenn assures her, holding her shoulder and turning to Rick. "I can drive us there."

"Okay." Before they turn to leave, he murmurs to Lori, "Does Daryl know 'bout Beth yet?"

She shakes her head and glances at me, too.

He warns her, "Well, you're gonna want to. Harley's been havin' a tough go of it and I ain't sure how this is... gonna affect her."

She gives a look of understanding. "I'll go talk to him now."

When he comes down the steps, he crouches in front of me. He's got his Dad-face on, the one that's all nice and reassuring.

"Hey, you did good today." He tells me. "How 'boutchu go find Carl and read some comic books together or something for a while?"

"Alright." I lilt, watching him gently clap me on my shoulder before following Glenn down the path toward the cars.

But as soon as they're gone, I don't go find Carl. I take myself around the side of the house and slouch between two old barrels in the grass, hiding from everyone. I've gotten real good at swallowing down the need to cry, so that's what I do. At some point, the darn ringing returns.

I wish some little animal would cross paths with me, so I could take my knife out and stab it dead. That'd make me feel better.

Merle would smack me if he saw me like this. Don't cry, Harley. Don't cry. Been a long, long day, but you don't gotta cry.

The sun soon disappears under the earth.

"Sh, sh, sh. Baby, it's okay." The night is quiet, but our little tent is filled with my pent-up sobs. "It's okay."

I wish I could go to sleep like everyone else, but I can't. The day's finally caught up with me. Rick and Glenn still haven't returned, but the farm's been a mess without 'em all the same. Dad's been watching me like a hawk since Lori spoke with him, and dinner was spent in silence, and I been trying not to cry for hours. He keeps crooning the same thing to me over and over. It's okay. I hear that stupid lie every time things aren't okay. It don't get any more okay-er no matter how hard I bawl or scream into his shoulder, or wish with all my heart and all my body, right down to my toes, that I weren't such a little wuss. I wish Sophia was alive. I wish Shane made it to Fort Benning.

Seems I'm always hurting. If anyone asked me what I did best, I'd say this. Sometimes feels like all I was made for.

I did good faking my way through the day, but as soon as I laid my head down to go to sleep and realized that I couldn't no more 'cause of my ear, I finally broke. Can't shoot, can't hear, can't sleep. Everything, even the way I curl up at night, been stripped from me.

"It's not okay," I moan, hating that when I close my eyes, I can still see the things I don't wanna. "S'all wrong. It hurts."

"I know it does, chicken. But I'm 'ere. I'm always here." He murmurs into my hair, holding me even tighter to his chest. "Just get it all out."

I wanna tell him I can't, it don't work that way. If you could cry yer sadness out, I would'a lost all mine by now. But he already knows. Just like me, he's made up of sadness. Most people say we're alike 'cause our matching scowls, our little moles. But more than anythin', it's that.

I don't think I've ever been this type of angry before. There's just nowhere to put it. There's no-one to blame. It's just inside me. And I think it'll be there forever, like my bones are. There's no use being sour at Rick or Dad for killin' Shane. You can't get mad at people when there's no right or wrong to it, when they was just doin' what needed to be done. Shane was crazy, we've always said it. He done so many things he shouldn't have. No, I ain't mad at them for that. Or at Glenn, or T, or Andrea for helping 'em. Not at the bullet that shot my ear off, not at the Greenes' God for takin' all my friends away. I'm just angry at being alive.

"He said it was gonna be d-different this time." He said a whole bunch'a things, but that one I remember. "Daddy, I want it t'be different."

"It will be, baby. It will. I'mma keep you safe with everythin' I got, okay?" At least that one's not a lie. "You know that."

"But I'on care about me." I pull back, my fingers twisted in his tank top. "It's everyone else that's dead. It's Shane and Sophia a-and Momma and Merle and Morales and prolly Meemaw and Kyle and my cousins. I'm sick of it! Ain't no point in movin' on if people gonna keep dyin'!"

"Don't talk like that, Harley Dixon." He gently scolds, brows twitching into a frown. "Don'tchu ever. There is a point."

Well, I don't get it no more. "I ca-an't even sleep properly, Dad."

"Well, let's just try again. You can lay on yer other side." He offers. "Dad'll read you another story, huh? Or you want me to sing again?"

"No." I croak miserably. I don't want a story. I don't even want a song. "Even if I go to sleep, t-that's ruined, too. I get nightmares. And when I wake up, it's the same thing all over again. Eatin' scraps and cryin' and takin' ringing meds just for somethin' else bad to happen."

"That's the way life is, Harley." He tells me, a little stricter this time. "I can't change it any more than you can. People die—"

"People mourn," I quote him with a roll of my wet eyes, "Life moves on. I heard."

"Stop it." He don't like that I mocked him, not one bit. Not when it comes to this. "It's true. We move on. We keep livin'."

"Well, maybe I don't wanna. Maybe I'm done."

Herschel says I got a thing called grit. Dad says I'm his brave girl. Carl thinks I'm some sorta badass, but really I'm just a nasty, broken little thing called Harley Dixon. I don't wanna keep living if living's full of death. Maybe it's better the other way. Beth thinks so. Momma sure did, too. I never got to ask her if it worked out like she wanted and got all her sadness taken away, but I like to think it did. I like to think there's no bad things where she is, only good and happy things. She ain't watched Shane die. She ain't stood at Sophia's grave. She ain't hurtin'.

"Little girl," Dad's voice is thin and shaky like a whisper, but also very, very, very angry. "I know you ain't just said that."

I stare right back at him through my tears without a word, 'cause I did say that. Not to hurt him, but because it's the truth.

He slowly starts shaking his head. "Nah, I ain't raised you this way. I ain't raised a girl that gives up."

My wobbly frown deepens. "So that's what Momma was, then? She was weak?"

"Yes. Weak an' stupid." He says unapologetically. "And I won't have you talkin' like her. Over my dead body, girl, I won't have it."

"And how's that?" I challenge him. "You gonna make Sophia come back? You gonna fix my ear? You gonna make Shane—?"

"Weren't me that did that, Harley. Weren't Rick, weren't nobody but himse—"

"—Come back? You gonna kiss it all better and sing a song?" I taunt, shouting in his face, "They're all dead!"

"I know they are." He argues, taking a moment to suck in a breath. "I'm sorry I ain't find Sophia. I'm sorry 'boutcher ear. I'm sorry you're hurtin' and I can't do nothin' about it, but this type'a talk ain't what's gonna help you, Harley. It's bein' strong. You gotta be stronger."

"But I ain't," I tell him, and the tears are back now, streaming down my face, 'cause I'm right. I ain't strong. "I'm just nothin'."

"You're my little girl, is whatchu are." He says sternly, voice cracking. "I love you more'un anythin'. How you think hearin' that makes me feel?"

Probably makes him see the little traces of Momma on my face. Makes him feel like he's failing the same woman twice.

But I'm just so tired, and I just don't care. "I'on care how it makes you feel, Daddy. I'on care 'bout nothin' anymore."

Being empty must be worse than being full of somethin' like anger, 'cause this is the thing that really gets to him. Under his pair of twisted brows, his sharp eyes start to well up, his mouth curls into a sneer. The crickets outside chirp happily either way, dutifully filling the silence that comes. For the first time, I think my Dad is wrong about something. There is no point in moving on. Bein' strong, that's a waste. Shane said we deserve for things to go differently, go better in some way that ain't so cruel, but it didn't. It won't.

"You're fuckin' scarin' me, Harley." He utters thinly. "You ain't never talked like this."

I know. I ain't never stayed down after a hit, but I been strong for so long, I think it's just ran out.

I don't answer him. Instead I confess quietly, "I think I wanna go sleep in somebody else's tent tonight, Dad."

I need out this stuffy tent. If I could sleep alone in a hole somewhere, I would. I'm done arguing. And he's done, too. He wordlessly slides me off his lap and helps me gather my bedding, trying his best not to tear up more than he already is, muttering to himself, swiping at his eyes. He leads me back to main camp, where all the lamps are shut off and the fire pits are smoking. The night air cools my hot, red cheeks. 

He taps his knuckles onto a crate just outside the Grimes' tent, and before he even steps back, there's shuffling inside.

The zipper peels back, revealing Lori's sleepy, moon-lit face. She takes us in with a confused look. "Daryl? What are you doing over here?"

"Listen, I'm sorry for wakin' ya." He murmurs, putting on a level voice. "Came to ask you if... Harley can bunk with you guys tonight."

"Uh, sure." She agrees kindly, encouraging me to step inside by my shoulder, taking my sleeping bag from Dad. "Everything alright?"

"No." He answers gruffly. No point in lying. He don't give up anything else, and she don't pry. He places a kiss to my hair. "Night, chicken."

"Night, Dad." I force myself to say back, 'cause I'm grateful he ain't just kept me stuck in our tent, and that he really listened.

As he gives me one last glance and then leaves, Lori zips the tent up and lays my bedding down next to hers and Rick's. Carl snoozes away in the corner, an open comic book splayed out over his chest. I bet Lori knows what's the matter with me. Rick saw that thousand-yard stare I had after they killed Shane, knows how I been hating myself. He no doubt told her everything. But she's too nice to say anything.

"Here, sweetie." She takes my lumpy pillow and sets it down. I wiggle into the sleeping bag. "Comfy?"

I give a nod, even though laying on my back feels real strange and I don't got Matilda anymore.

She smiles blearily and crawls back under the covers. "Wake me up if you need anything."

And that's that. I stare up at the sky through the Grimes' tent, counting the stars through the black mesh until I fall asleep.

Sometime during the night, I bolt awake, sweating, crying, confused. Shane, I couldn't save him. I watched him die. Again. A gunshot, blood, shouting, dying, searing pain and a dog tag dangling from a broken mirror. Darkness, and then two little hands on my shoulders, shaking me. A boyish, worried voice telling me, hey, it's just a nightmare. I cling to them. Carl. He's here. I don't think before I let him hug me. I sniffle into his neck as he pets the soft spot between my shoulder blades like his Momma and Daddy do when he's upset.

"It was him again," I shudder. "Shane. I miss him. I miss all of 'em."

Life moves on, Daddy said. But how's it that mine ain't? When's that moving part happen?

"Me, too." His arms tighten around me as much as a boy's can. "You're allowed."

After that, I remember the sound of blankets shuffling, a flashlight clicking on, a comic book being quietly read to me. I remember my eyes closing, heart slowing, and I remember thinking he's gonna be the best big brother one day. In a way, he already is.

The next morning, my eyes flutter open to the sight of a quiet, empty tent. By some miracle, I must've slept in a little. I hear the fire crackling away outside, the clinking of spoons on bowls, muffled conversation. After taking a minute to yawn and stretch, I crawl out the tent.

"Ah, there she is." As I round the camping chairs, Dale sends me a warm smile. I take the seat next to him. "Just in time for breakfast."

I glance up at the second storey of the farmhouse, imagining Beth behind one of those pretty windows. I wonder how she feels about waking up this morning. I know I'm exhausted, and all I've done is open my eyes. Another day of eating scraps, crying, and taking pills. Ironically enough, Lori interrupts my spacing out by holding out two little white capsules and a water bottle to me. She's speaking, but I'm not hearing her. I throw both pills back and wash 'em down so I don't gotta look at 'em any longer. I hate that my body can't work on its own anymore.

"Harley." Lori's voice comes quick and sharp this time, startling me. "Are you listening?"

I glare up at her. She's standing so close to me that I don't know how I couldn't hear what she said the first time. "Huh?"

She looks at me like I've done something strange. "I said, 'You can't take those on an empty stomach'. Are you hungry?"

"Oh. Yeah." Now everyone's lookin' at me like that. I reach under my hair and nervously tug on my ear as she turns and fills a bowl with the creamy soup cooking over the fire. I've never not been able to catch what someone's saying like that. She hands the food to me. "Thanks."

As conversation picks up again, I struggle to pin certain words being said, especially when they're from Andrea, who's sitting the furthest from me, and Lori, on my left. S'like half the world's gone silent, and the other half's just a high-pitch squeal. God, it's makin' me mad. I claw at my ear again, as if there's somethin' stuck in there, like a wad of earwax or a cork, but there ain't nothin' in there but the ringing.

A scary thought crosses my mind. If you can't hear for no good reason, that means you're deaf. I can't be deaf.

When Andrea looks directly at me and says something that I think's meant to be a joke, I snap back, "I can't fuckin' hear you, Andrea."

Her smile drops pretty fast, but I don't feel bad. I feel frightened. To my surprise, I don't get told by anyone to mind my language.

Lori just looks at me all pitiful-like and hesitates to guess, "Is it the ringing?" 

I'm tired of hearing about the ringing almost as much as I'm tired of hearing the ringing itself. "It ain't the damn— I just can't hear proper."

She glances side-long at Dale. "Herschel did say..."

He sighs, looking a little stressed, before scooting his chair closer to mine and clicking his fingers on my right ear. "What about that?"

It sounds like a far-away thud, thud, thud, where it should actually sound like a snap, snap, snap.

"S'dull." I mutter unconfidently. 

He moves to my left ear. This time, there isn't even any thud, thud, thud at all. It's just silence.

When I say nothing, he leans back. "I'm no doctor, but... It seems very obvious to me."

I'm not a doctor neither, and neither is Lori or T or Andrea or Carl, but it's all rather obvious to us, too. I can tell, 'cause they're all lookin' pretty uncomfortable, like this discovery has already ruined the rest of my life as I'm just sitting here. I'm losing hearing in my left ear. That's what it is. As soon as Dad mentioned my hearing to Herschel, and when it got worse at shooting practice, I was scared this would happen.

Ain't nobody shocked. I was never gonna walk away from a gunshot to the side of the head with all my hearing intact.

I guess whenever somebody talks, I'll just have to try reading their lips.

"I had a teacher who was deaf." Carl offers this up like it means anything. "She was really nice and smart. Everyone liked her."

I almost feel like scoffing at him, Wow, thanks so much, Carl. You've cured me.

"It's really nothing." Lori's quick to reassure me, covering for his shitty attempt. "Hundreds of people live like this and they still thrive."

"Hell, I think I'm going deaf sometimes, too." Dale jokes. "And I'd say I'm doing alright, wouldn't you?"

"Sure, Dale." I try to chuckle, staring down at my cold soup.

Nobody mentions the fact that having sharp senses is what keeps you alive nowadays. If a walker sneaks up on me, I won't hear it.

It's then that Dad walks into camp, looking nearly as tired as I feel. He mutters a good morning to everyone, and Lori reluctantly stands to go collect my bedding for him. I waste no time hopping out my seat and going over to hug him, locking my arms around his neck as he kneels to hold me close. I said a whole lotta things last night, and so did he, but I don't think either of us is angry at the other over it. We can read each other well enough to know. He kisses my cheek before pulling back and taking my things from Lori.

Clearing his throat like he does when he might cry, he asks me, "You sleep well, chicken?"

Instead of answering, I just hug his waist and Lori changes the subject. "Daryl, just a heads up. That thing Herschel spoke about..."

"Damn it." He sighs when what she's implying clicks. He reaches down to soothingly pet my hair. "And they still ain't back, are they?"

"No. But we both know Harley and Beth are... in some type of way. We need him."

"And y'all want me to go and fetch him, huh?" He guesses, taking a long moment to consider. Then, "Y'all be grateful you been good to me."

"Thank you, Daryl." She exclaims. "Thank you. We've always been able rely on you."

He scoffs. "Maybe not always."

"Well, enough." She smiles. "They said they were headed to a bar in town called Hatlin's. I think you'll wanna head there first."

"There even gonna be anythin' he can do?" He mumbles so I can barely make it out. "I mean, the guy ain't David Copperfield."

"Well, in the old world, I might've suggested trying out a hearing aid, but now... I'm not so sure."

He grunts. "Them things need batteries, don't they?"

"I think so, but not any standard ones we'd have. You're thinking of finding one, aren't you?"

"I'd turn the whole fuckin' country upside down to get her one, if it's what she needs." He says. "Maybe some old dead guy's wonderin' around with his. Maybe I find one in a doctor's office. Either way, ain't no bill attached to 'em these days and if there's one out there, I'll find it."

She admires the determination in his eyes, lips twitching into a smile. "Rick will help you. I know he will."

"Best I go find officer goody-two-shoes and company, then." He agrees. "Look after my girl for me."

She nods. "That goes without saying."

"I love you, baby." He tells me, which is how I know I done messed up. Takes a lot for him to randomly tell me he loves me, and I guess all that talk last night about giving up was enough. He even places another kiss to my cheek, pinching it after. "I'll see you later."

"I'm sorry, Dad." I mutter.

"I know." He understands I can't help what's happening to me, or how I feel. "I'm gonna get whatchu you need. It's gonna be alright."

I'm not quite sure what I need, but at least the adults seem to know. At least some part of me can be saved.

After he leaves to put my bedding back in our camp, I climb back into my seat and watch the blue truck bumble down the drive and eventually, through the trees. Dale encourages me to finish off my soup in that annoying way my Dad always does, but I only eat a spoonful or two before my stomach shrivels distastefully and he tells me I've tried enough for this morning, so I take to curling up and staring at the fire.

I know if Shane was alive to see what he did to me, he'd be that word Lori likes to say, appalled. He never wanted to hurt me.

A hearing aid. It's one of them things I've never had to think about until now. If I had to go back a couple months and tell seven-year-old Harley, with her long, straight hair and chubby cheeks and bright, green eyes, that I look like a boy, got half an ear, and need a hearing aid, I think she'd hit me upside the head for being a liar. But I know now that you gotta be ready for anythin', like dead people in barns and a last-minute gunshot, and now, I guess, the need for a hearing aid. I have to try squash that feeling of shame. It ain't good for me, but it's always there.

I almost make myself chuckle imagining Carl tryna make being half-deaf badass. He's so relentlessly supportive. They all are.

It's too bad, then, that I still feel this way. This numb and hollowed out, alive but-also-dead way.

The way Carol must feel, and maybe the way Dad felt after Momma died.

"Thank you." Maggie tells Lori and Jacqui in the kitchen, as I stand in front of the fireplace in the next room over. "This is nice of y'all."

I see what Glenn was talkin' about now, about Maggie's great grandfather lookin' like a bald Georgie Washington. He's sitting all proper and important-like inside a photo frame on the mantle, like all people from forever ago do. But there's also newer photos, ones with color, like Maggie and Beth as little girls, posing with horse riding trophies and smiling together at old Thanksgivings and Christmases. I feel happy just looking at them. Baby photos, kind-looking people, school photos. We never knew the Greenes before, but I feel like now I might.

"We just thought you could use some help." Lori replies. "It's been a difficult time for all of us, especially Harley and Beth."

"I appreciate it. Sharin' your supplies, that means a lot these days. You wouldn't mind helpin' me toss it all together will you?"

"Not at all." Jacqui pokes her head around the arch and calls out, "Harley, you wanna come help Maggie finish cooking?"

With a little flinch, I turn to face the three women, remembering why we came here in the first place. We had some tinned vegetables and whatever else left over from breakfast, and Lori thought we'd offer them to Maggie, who's in the middle of cooking a meal for Beth.

"I guess." I hum as I head into the kitchen. It ain't like I got anything better to do. "What're you makin'?"

"Potato soup." Maggie pulls a few bowls from the worn cabinets with a smile. "Well, veggie soup, now."

"Hopefully Beth will feel a little better after a warm breakfast." Lori muses. "It always helped me."

All their words are muffled, as if I'm underwater and they aren't, but I can still just about make out what they're saying.

When Maggie places the bowls on the counter and sees me peering over the ledge, she chuckles. "Let me grab you a stool, huh?"

She grabs a mini wooden step-ladder leaning against the pantry, pulls it open, and sets it down for me. I step onto the lowest rung. She fills a bowl with water from the faucet and slides it in front of me, instructing me to how to rinse off the fat, muddy potatoes and lay them on the dry rag afterwards. It's an easy, mindless task. I get to work while they start slicing up the vegetables and opening the tins. 

As Maggie scrapes carrot into the pot, she jokes, "I been makin' so much soup recently I think I forgot how to make anything else."

"Good thing we've taken a liking, then." Jacqui smiles. "I've never tasted a tater soup good as y'all Greenes'. You know your stuff."

Feels like I'm back at the quarry again, helping prepare our next meal from whatever scraps we had, listening to the women gossip.

"Pssh. I'm tellin' you, as kids, Beth and I loathed the day Wednesday came around and Momma'd make her famous potato soup." She scoffs, grinning at old memories. "She always put too much salt in, said it was good for us. But all it was good for was makin' us barf."

Lori makes a sassy face. "I'm taking it the recipe's been tweaked a little since then."

Maggie smirks. "Wouldn't be eatin' it if it hadn't."

"Must've been nice, growing up with food on the table that's straight from your garden."

"Yeah, it was. Fresh peaches and apples to take to school, home-made bread and the like. We've always lived this way."

"Pretty perfect, if you ask me." Jacqui agrees. "Me and my fiancé were always eatin' take away all the time. God, I miss it sometimes."

"A nice greasy burger sounds so good right now." Lori moans, like she can almost taste it. "Oh, and some curly fries on the side."

They all laugh. It's a little funny. I remember her back in the beginning, braggin' about how her family never ate fast food. Now look at her.

As the conversation drifts to more boring things, I find myself thinking about Beth again. We sure grew up different, but we got broken the same way, at the same time. We clearly been thinking about the same things. She was just brave enough to actually pick up a knife and do something about it. I wonder if she knows now her Momma and step-brother been dead a long time, that they weren't sick at all, and were just bodies needed mourning. The Greenes were a little late to that, but it's like Meemaw used to say, better late than never.

I wonder if Beth regrets what she did. She could be dead right now, in a mound of dirt right next to her Momma.

When I was littler, I used to think Dad could read my mind when I was thinkin' unsavoury things like this, and that he'd give me in trouble right away. I thought that's how it worked with adults and kids, but it ain't. I can think whatever I want and it's safe inside my head.

The potatoes get peeled and diced and thrown into the soup like everything else, and then my new job is to help wash dishes.

When we're down to the last few, Maggie says I should take the bowl of soup up to Beth, 'cause they've got this handled.

"Sure." I agree before hopping down, wondering why my heart's beating so fast all of a sudden.

The door to Beth's bedroom creaks open.

I don't bother waiting for her to give me permission to come in. I just creep in all on my own, because from what I've heard, she hasn't talked all day. Her room is exactly like I would'a guessed. Like something out a trendy teenager's magazine, with a nice white desk covered in perfume bottles and hair clips and crumpled paper and books, blonde pop star posters stuck to the walls, a fluffy, cutesy rug, a teddy bear thrown on the lounge chair sitting by the window. Even the Mp3 player Maggie was telling me about, laying forgotten on the floor.

I carefully set the hot bowl on her nightstand, but something keeps me curious, and I don't turn to leave just yet.

Beth's staring at the wall like they said. Not out the window or anything. Just at the wall. I can't imagine her humming sweetly and letting me borrow one of her shirts, giggling at something I said from the other side of the bathroom door. She looks like a totally different girl.

"I went into shock too, yesterday." I randomly muse. "Or at least that's what Rick said. He's the one with the cowboy hat."

I think I might still be in shock. I'm talking and walking around, but inside, I feel like whatever statue Beth's turned into.

"I ain't sure if anyone's told you about it, but you prolly heard the screamin'. The man my Daddy stabbed, Shane, he took me away. We got pretty far. Sometimes I think about what would'a happened if we got even further, but... he was meant to die. Some people just are."

At that, she breaks her gaze away from that spot on the wall and looks me right in the eye. "Do you think I'm one of those people?"

"I... I ain't smart enough to know." I say honestly, before an awkward pause takes over. "'Cause I was only in grade two, y'know."

Carl seemed to find that funny when I first told him, but Beth just looks uninterested.

"And you?" She hides her bandaged wrists under the covers when she catches me looking. "What're you meant for? Dyin', or somethin' else?"

"I think, um... All I'm meant for is suckin' up hurt." I confess. "Like, there's all this bad in the world, and when there's nobody left for it to go to, it goes to me. Maybe I'm just unlucky. Maybe I done somethin' wrong. That's how life is, my Daddy says. So if that's the 'something else', I think I'd rather just be the type meant for dyin'. That's what my Momma did. She was in pain, and then one day... She wasn't."

"She killed herself," Beth says as fact.

"Yeah." I mutter, feeling the weight of the locket crush down on my chest as I take a seat on the edge of the bed. "She did."

"Was she the sort meant for dyin'?"

"No. She weren't." That much, I'm sure of. "She was just meant to be my Momma."

Beth's pretty eyes gloss over as she says very dully, "Our Mom's dead, too. Right before I thought I was about to die, I imagined what she'd think of me when we'd meet in heaven. She'd be ashamed, I know. Somehow, that was so much worse than the thought of going to Hell."

"Well, maybe your God made sure you didn't die." I guess, hoping it's comforting. "Maybe he wants you to live for everybody else."

A tear beads up on her waterline before sliding down her pale cheek. "I just don't know what to do. I think I'm ashamed, too."

"My Dad says you just gotta be stronger, but I don't know how." I wish I did. "I'm sorry. I'd tell you if I did."

"It's okay." With a sniff, she sends me a tiny smile. "You know, you're kind. I can just tell."

That makes me smile back. Something about my rugged hair, my mean face, my missing ear must still be soft like it was before.

Author's Note.

Sorry for the longer than usual wait between chapters! I've been dealing with intense writer's block recently so it just took me a while to get this out, but I'm pushing through!

I hope you're ready for a familiar face to return next chapter! ;)

PS. I wanted to thank you all for the touching dms and messages I've received recently, both on here and on ao3. It's still so mind blowing to me that there are so many people out there who hold a special place in their heart for this story just like I do. I'm so grateful for you all :) 💙

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #552

It is Monday. This means it is next week.

...I didn't make those calls to reschedule physical therapy yet. Maybe tomorrow.

…

It's ridiculously hot outside today. And humid, too. Like... “dangerous for my asthmatic ass to go outside” type of hot and humid. Nonetheless, I went to work. Though, I asked J to bring me so that I could transition immediately from the car through the front door. Being outside in this, even during the morning, and for only a few minutes at that, was almost enough to make my lungs close up like the whiny little bitches that they are.

...Sigh. ...That kind of self-deprecation isn't helpful. My lungs did not chose to be born to a genetically defective body, prematurely (they were missing surfactant when I popped out), and to a house full of heavy smokers (who did not care enough to heed the doctors when they said the tissues were still sensitive and shouldn't be exposed to tobacco or other pollutants). They're doing the best they can; I'm just really frustrated at all the limitations that my flesh-vessel comes with.

...I probably wouldn't even survive a week on your planet. I'm sure the dangerous wildlife pretty much weeds out anyone who can't swing a sword around, and... given all my defects, that's not something I can do. Not anymore, anyway. So I'd probably get eaten by something ridiculous, like a Hedgehog Pie. Or else abducted by a Tonberry or some shit.

Well. Let me try again. Being outside this morning, even for a few minutes, was almost enough to make my lungs close up. It was very annoying, and I really dislike that my body struggles with things that other people don't struggle with. But... what can we do other than accept and heed our limits? When we push ourselves beyond what's feasible, we suffer, and the people who love us suffer, and even innocent bystanders sometimes suffer.

...You learned that the hard way in pretty much the most horrifying way possible. I hope you won't make a mistake like that again anytime soon. You gotta take care of your body, all right...? Please. Don't push yourself until you break. Not just because you get really weird when that happens, but... just because it hurts to see you suffering. So don't do it, okay? Promise me.

...Anyhoot. Lots to do at work today. But I had a couple seconds to take a nice picture of all the yummies I boxed up:

Ra is still out. She will be out until the 6th of next month. So we're a little short-staffed. I'm getting pretty good at getting the bake list done quickly, but... there's still only so much I can do in 4 hours. I had fun, though; Ka and Tr are delightful to be around. Though our respective tasks left us unable to talk to each other very much. I kept the existential dread out of my mind by singing to myself.

...I wonder which songs you sing. At this point, do any of them come from anything I've shown you...?

M picked me up directly from the front doors after my shift ended, which was good because it was even hotter and more humid then than it was this morning. Utterly ridiculous. We went to have lunch at that one place that has cheeseburger eggrolls and buffalo chicken eggrolls, though! Here, I got some pictures:

Despite the heat and humidity, I got a couple of pictures of the plants, because I thought you might like them. That said, I couldn't get too terribly good pictures of them; my lungs were closing up, and so I had to hurry:

...They were so cute, though...

I... was pretty tired when I got home. Too tired to do much other than derp around on the internet and message a couple people. There was so much I wanted to do, like dishes and laundry and vacuuming, but... I kinda just deflated as soon as I got in. It was kinda lame.

I wasn't too deflated to breathe a couple wishes to life for you, though:

...Slowly making my way to 1000...

…

...Still kinda deflated. Guess recovering from the pool took a bit more out of me than I thought. Still, I feel a little better today than I thought I would. J points out, accurately, that that's encouraging; before, it would take days and days for me to recover.

...Just in time for me to mess myself up again tomorrow, though, haha! Atr is visiting tomorrow, and we will go to the pool and make chicken tikka masala. It'll challenge the limits of my body, but... I should be okay as long as I don't push it too hard.

...Wish me luck, okay...?

…

At the moment... I'm trying to decide between working more on the tune I wanna break down, and... playing some Salt and Sanctuary. Given that the rest of this week is gonna be busy with either visitors, appointments, or work, part of me thinks that I should sink into something familiar in order to recharge, but... this song is stuck in my head, pressing insistently against the inside of my skull.

...I wonder if you might know what that's like.

Well. If I do end up going with Salt and Sanctuary (fat chance; I'll probably succumb to decision paralysis or do the dishes instead or some shit), you'll find me in the usual spot:

...I guess I'll stop writing for now. I feel like if I keep going, I'm just gonna prattle.

I love you. I hope you see it. I hope you know it. Make good decisions in light of it, okay? Kind and gentle ones, towards yourself and towards others.

I'll write again soon. Stay safe in the meantime.

Your friend, Lumine

[indigowallbreaker]

Are you still taking Black Eagles related prompts? If you are would you do Linhardt/Raphael with "What's the rush? Just lay back down."

(I started shipping this as a joke and played myself hard. I forgor that joking about something is the first step towards being so so genuine about it.)

Oh dude, you were lost as soon as the journey started. BUT WHAT A SHIP TO BE GENUINE ABOUT! Very happy to give this a try!

[prompt rules]

[more Beagles stories]

"What's the rush? Just lay back down."

--

Though autumn swept a generous breeze through the trees and around their little inn, beads of sweat still dropped from Raphael's forehead. He wicked away more with a shake of his head and hoisted his axe over his shoulder. Just a few more logs to go. Then he could move on with his to-do list.

"Looks like more than enough to me."

Raphael looked over at Linhardt. "I thought you were sleepin'!" Linhardt was laying on a hammock lashed between two trees just behind where Raphael was working. He hadn't moved much less spoken since setting up there earlier that afternoon.

Linhardt snorted. "You expect me to sleep with all this noise?" He indicated Raphael's axe, the stump he had been chopping logs on, and, apparently, all of Raphael himself.

Far from sorry, Raphael laughed. "You could go inside, you know. We don't got any customers until sundown. You'd have the whole place to yourself!"

"Maybe but I'd much rather have you to myself." Linhardt laced his fingers behind his head, kicking his leg to make the hammock sway. "Come nap with me."

"No can do," Raphael said as he crossed the clearing to grab another log. "I gotta finish this pile, then there's--"

"We have more than enough firewood," Linhardt repeated. "Come nap with me while the afternoon is still warm."

It did look nice, sleeping in the sun. Linhardt made every spot look like the best spot to nap. Right now his hair moved gently in the wind, looking even more vibrant set against the reds and yellows of the trees around them. His cheeks were full-- no longer hollowed by war but lush with the good food Raphael supplied them both-- and his eyes half lidded as if already almost to dream land.

Raphael blushed when he realized he was just standing there staring at his boyfriend. He blushed more when Linhardt chuckled. "What's the rush?" Linhardt said as he reached out a hand. "Just come lay down."

Never had Raphael's axe felt so heavy. Lifting it to return to work was surely impossible. So he propped it against the tree-- not caring that it fell over immediately-- and took Linhardt's hand.

Grinning, Linhardt heaved himself out of the hammock. "Get in."

"You sure it'll hold me?"

Linhardt gave him a flat look. "Do you remember what you were always saying to me in school?"

"Uh, the thing about how you're so smart or the thing about how pretty you look when you're thinking?"

"The first one," Linhardt said, though his face turned pink at the second one. "I'm smart. I wouldn't offer to sleep on this hammock with you unless I was sure it would hold us both."

Raphael grinned and sank into the hammock without further objection. Once he was settled, he opened his arms to Linhardt, who climbed into them and lay against Raphael's stomach with a content sigh. His head fit perfectly under Raphael's chin.

All thoughts of wood chopping vanished as Raphael stroked Linhardt's hair, letting his eyes slip shut.

[mystichearrt]

🐞 Chapter 2 - Possessors of the Miraculous

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“That was so not cool,” Nino said sympathetically as he rubbed Marinette’s back.

“It’s a little more than ‘not cool’, Nino. Its vindictive, cruel, and— ooo I have some things to say about the brat.”

“Well how about words for Marinette first,” Nino said, pulling the crying girl into her his chest for comfort, the hood of his zip up and her own— now wet— hair still covering her eyes.

“You know whatever she said wasn’t true right? She was talking all that stuff just to keep you away from her, Adrikins.”

“You don’t even know what she said,” Marinette mumbled into Nino. He held her tighter.

”Doesn’t matter,” Alyá said shifting her weight on the floor so she could cross her arms. “We know how she is, and if this is anything like last year I have plenty of guesses of what she did say. She’s not exactly original.”

They sat in silence for a while. A long while. Marinette didn’t want to talk about last year ever again. 

“Do you want to just cry it out?” Nino asked, gently.

”Or say the word and I’ll match up to Chloé tomorrow and-“

”Alyá,” Nino warned. Not harshly but with a strong look nonetheless.

”I just…” Marinette could feel her voice waiver a bit. “Can you guys just keep talking?”

The other two looked at each other, each with furrowed brows, a bit reluctant to let this conversation go and their friend to keep hurting near them. They started conversation anyway. Talking about the new teachers they had, the electives they changed, the electives they kept, superheroes, the news, their parents, the city, some complaints about Chloé then the new kid, then about food and what they were planning on trying out of Marinette’s parents’ bakery, at which Marinette eventually joined in talking about the family’s new recipes and how well the bakery has been doing despite being reopened only recently. 

Then before they knew it, the sun had set.

“You guys should go, the buses will stop soon.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Nino and Alyá said in sync with yawns to match, to which all three friends laughed about before wishing their farewells.

Marinette sighed, thankful for her friends and glad the day was officially over.

It seemed she always cried on the first day of school, and this year was no different. It’s like she was bound with tears specifically for this day. And now she was dehydrated, on top of starving from her mess up earlier. Her poor lunch.

Just one thing at a time, she thought.

After taking a shower and tying up her hair into a loose bun, she headed downstairs to the family’s kitchen, to grab something.

“Mama?”

“Oh, my little ladybug! I just finished saying goodbye to Nino and Alyá.”

“Just now? They left my room twenty minutes ago.”

“I made them some plates.”

Marinette narrowed her gaze at Sabine.“Mama.”

“I’m not sending your friends home hungry, Marinette,” she said, already moving to make her daughter a plate, “and I haven’t seen them in a while.”

Marinette rolled her eyes, knowing that it was probably best they got a plate as a thank you for staying late and dealing with her. “I wish I had known, I could’ve given Nino back his hoodie,” she commented as she sat down at the kitchen island, where her mother placed the bowl.

“That boy is nice. Very sweet.”

“And a friend, mama.”

“I know,” she drew out, “just saying. It was nice for him to give you his coat, was it not?”

Marinette hummed suspiciously but let it slide as she eyed her phone.

“I’m tired myself. Gotta wake up tomorrow for orders. You can grab a couple things though. Anything that needs to be donated tomorrow.”

“Alright, mama.”

_____

Adrien’s nap after school was well deserved. His father’s lectures about how he should focus more on his individual lifestyle than others were draining as usual. Luckily, Natalie— his father’s far more understanding assistant— understood how hard the first day of school had been for him and allowed him a day off from his usual Chinese and self defense lessons. Not she was in charge of them now that his original teachers disappeared anyway.

Honestly, if he had to go with his usual at home lesson on the level of energy he had after school, he would’ve fallen into some sort of half asleep daze and would’ve retained very little anyway. 

He quickly fixed his bed and stretched  before throwing himself straight into his desk chair to turn on the monitor. The picture of his mom causing him to smile before he moved to open up his browser. The girl from earlier, Alyá, mentioned her blog, but now that he recalled what had happened after school, he wondered if he should look into it at all…

He’ll do it anyway out of curiosity. 

Lady Blog. Ran by Alya Césaire. Discussions from Paris to you and quickly on the way to becoming your top reporter. <3 

Adrien found himself reading almost everything. Alyá did a good job keeping things casual yet informative, and when she did go on emotion driven tangents, she did well tying it all up in the end to consider the fewer. Even though some pops of colour were questionable and some tips had popped into mind about colour picking and organizing the website, it was otherwise appealing. She was open, and honest about what she liked, superheroes. She admitted to that when they had spoken earlier, but it seemed far more evident now.

He hoped he hadn’t ruined anything between them. 

He sighed and leaned back, swiveling his chair in circles a couple times before refacing his bed. There he noticed, first, his bed was messed up again— possibly worse than he’s seen in a while considering he wasn’t that wild of a sleeper— and second, a small black box sitting in the middle of it.

He stood and picked it up. 

Did Natalie come in here? Why would she ruin his bed? How did he not notice? This couldn’t have been her.

He inspected the box. It was certainly decorative. Red Chinese carvings on a black box. Words meaning misfortune and cat were on the front within the carving but on the back were words in English.

On the top: To destroy beyond repair. 

On the bottom: Chat Noir. 

Adrien smiled, he liked the edge and was excited for whatever sort of edgy jewelry Natalie was willing to get him. He quickly opened it. Saying he was disappointed was an understatement. It was nothing but a boring silver ring, something that matched his father’s hereditarily stale style easily.

He sighed, not really knowing what he was expecting from his father’s own secretary, but at least the box was cool.

He took out the ring and inspected it, looking inside the ring itself for anymore carvings— a habit he learned when he discovered his parents’ vows in each of their respective rings— just one word in English:

Destruction.

He put on the ring without hesitation, officially convinced that this was the coolest thing he owned.

And right when he looked to see how well it fit, he was blinded by a flash of bright green light. He fell back into his chair and covered his eyes attempting to gain back his vision, as a new voice entered the space.

“Ahh, finally! That search went on for too long. Well not that I would know, Tikki did most of the searching. But now a new holder and- HAH!” The voice got closer, “you get flashed kid?”

Adrien finally blinked and looked towards the voice. A small, yet big headed, black cat-like thing floated in front of him, and the blonde couldn’t help but look in awe at the creature.

“Still too shocked to speak? I know, I have that effect on people,” The creature said before flying past him. “But hurry up and speak. What’s today’s date? Ugh, we really missed some fun years didn’t we. What’s new? What technology is available? More wars? Less wars? Mass panic maybe even? I sure hope so. Oh, I didn’t mean to say that out loud. Don’t take it to heart, kid. Humans are just fun all freaking out.”

Adrien watched the creature fly all around the room and into things, mouth agape, confusion and shock Adrien’s only emotion. The creature rambled a bit as it flew into things, causing a mess.

“Kinda like that! I prefer more stammering and loud confusion, but that’ll work.”

Adrien stood up and the creature circled him, “What…are you?”

“A genie!”

The other paused, “Really?”

The creature laughed, “No. You humans fall for that so easily!”

Adrien’s face reddened a bit out of embarrassment, and he crossed his arms, “What are you really then?”

“A kwami.”

“A…what?”

“Woah! I’m gonna need something to eat before I go dealing my hand, buddy. All these personal questions,” the kwami said dramatically as if the boy had asked something ridiculous.

“You asked all your questions,” Adrien rebuttal.

“And yet they’re still unanswered.”

…Fair. 

Adrien thought for a moment about what the creature asked, “It’s September. There are new phones and high tech computers and stuff, a lot of upgrades to things that already exist. And eh, yes to both I guess?”

The creature thought for a moment and nodded, “Tells me nothing. Get me food, kid.”

Adrien mentally rolled his eyes and picked up his desk phone to dial the kitchen. It was about time for them to be wrapping up but he could try to get something last minute, “What do you want?”

“Cheese.”

“…What.”

_____

Marinette’s eyes widened as she realized she had run out of things to throw at the strange floaty creature floating towards her.

Out of pure desperation she holds out her foot threateningly, willing to lose it if need be.

“Please would you just listen?” The creature pleaded, only to fall on deaf ears as Marinette tried to work out how she could make it out her skylight in one swift moment without letting the creature free. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m a gift! The box was meant for you.”

Marinette continued to ignore the creature as she moved to a low squat on her bed, taking her chances as the flying rat stayed stationary in the air once again.

“The earrings you wear are the miraculous of creation and you’ve been given a great power, Marinette.”

Marinette froze upon hearing her name, unable to fathom what was real anymore, “How do you know my name?”

“You were especially chosen to protect Paris and the world from great forces. It is no mistake you found my box.”

“Protect Paris?” Marinette laughed, moving her hands above her head to fiddle with the lock as she spoke, “you clearly have the wrong Marinette. A responsibility like that should go to anyone else. Maybe the police, or at least an adult?”

“I wish that were my choice, but we don’t decide when evil resurfaces, or who’s fated to receive such powers.”

“Evil? Paris is fine. Better than fine in fact. But I can give you a dozen thousand places that need some great power.” 

Unlocked.

The creature shook their head, “And sadly I cannot help those places, my purpose is to help you here. There is a powerful force planning on taking advantage of the absence of heroes.”

“Uh huh,” Marinette was unconvinced, “and you know this how?”

The thing awkwardly chuckles and gestures to itself, “I think it’s pretty established the magic at hand.”

“Oh right of course!” The girl faked enthusiasm as she quickly leaped through her unlocked skylight and onto her roof patio, slamming the skylight behind her before the creature could make it through.

The creature bumped against the glass and frowned, “Marinette, please I have done nothing to try and hurt you, can you at least hear me out!”

Marinette shook her head. Why would she give it the opportunity to even try to hurt her? She reached for her phone, dialing her father.

“Oh please don’t do that!” The bug begged, muffled behind glass. But just as the phone had picked up, her phone whipped out of her hand.

The phone now floated midair, call disconnected, held by the creature that was once trapped inside. Marinette yelped, pressing herself against the back wall of the otherwise open space.

“Please, all I ask is that you let me try to explain. You owe me nothing but understanding that the fate of many lives are at hand here.”

Marinette hesitated, she was clearly cornered and didn’t know what else this high pitched monstrosity was capable of.

“Please,” it pleaded again, antennae falling down the ears of a normal animal.

“Fine,” the girl agreed reluctantly, “but we stay out here, and we keep this same distance.”

“Not an issue.”

“Good.”

There was a moment of silence as the creature relaxed and set down the phone and itself on the bare stone part of the patio.

“I’m Tikki. Kwami of Creation. I’m the holder of good luck and fortune and this gift has befallen you, Marinette.“

“The gift being you?”

“Yes, and the powers I posses.”

“Right...”

“With my borrowed power you will be able to take on a super secret identity and defeat evildoers to protect the greater good.”

Super secret identity? Like a superhero? Yeah, sooo not me, Marinette thought as she began considering if this was all a dream about Alyá’s conversation at lunch. But then again, when would she have fallen asleep?

She pinched herself, regretting it as the pain shot up her arm.

“You aren’t dreaming. The power of creation and luck is a responsibility that shall remain yours and yours alone should you choose this option.”

“Why should I?”

The creature’s large eyes blinked, “The greater good? All of humanity?”

Marinette rolled her eyes and relaxed from the wall, standing up straight once again, “I mean, what makes me the one? Why should I have to be the one to get this ‘great power’ over anyone else?”

“That is…complicated,” Tikki laughed awkwardly, “You were always fated to have this responsibility. It was just a matter of when.”

Marinette recalls the end of her school day and connects it to many other superhero origin stories where a teen was at their lowest before being given various powers and problems along with the power to save the world. It all seemed possible right now, whether that made her more inclined to believe or disbelieve was up for discussion.

The girl sighs rubbing her temples with her hands, “Can this wait until the morning? I mean, this ‘evil’ isn’t present yet, right?”

Tikki thought for a moment flying further and looking out towards the Eiffel Tower, she sighs and floats back down, “I guess there’s no harm at the moment. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

Good.

Marinette hesitantly moved down toward her sky light, “You’re sleeping out here by the way.”

—

“So I’m going to be a hero starting tomorrow,” Adrien exclaimed as he gestured wildly, unable to contain his excitement as he continued pacing in front of his bedroom’s couch. Sleeping didn’t seem possible with the amount of energy he had at the moment.

There was something so unreal about all of this but it made sense. New environment, interesting backstory, mysterious source of power, a new found freedom. He could almost feel the wind rushing through his hair.

“Can we transform right now? Should I start thinking of a hero name? I can finally get out of this house-“

“Woah, kid,” Plagg, the Kwami of Destruction, burped from atop the now empty tray where cheese had once laid, “Chaos and Misfortune remember? You can’t be going out on your first day without your partner.”

“Partner?”

“The holder of the ladybug miraculous of good luck and fortune.”

Adrien furrowed his eyebrows. It made sense that his partner would be his opposite but he wasn’t thrilled hearing it. What if they were too opposite and didn’t get along? Then superheroing would just be another chore.

Adrien crossed his arms in thought, “I’m surprised you’d even care about this other holder, wouldn’t you wanna see how things would end up unsupervised?” He said, laying bait.

The kwami’s ears perked and eyes dilated at the word ‘unsupervised’ clearly imagining the trouble that would be caused just from a night of fooling around. The creature looked the most cat-like he has so far tonight, but quickly it shook the urges away, “We can’t. Tikki would kill me.”

“Tikki?” Adrien asked, retaking his seat on the couch seat beside the creature. 

“The ladybug miraculous’ kwami.  My second half, my one and only, my-” he gulps, “-living nightmare.”

Adrien gulps too when seeing the tiny cat's expression regarding this other kwami. Plagg shakes that look off and smiles. Flying up close to Adrien, he continues, “Only when she’s angry. Breaking promises makes her angry, and I promised her I wouldn’t convince you to transform.”

“But you’re not the one convincing me. You said nothing. She can’t get mad.”

Plagg’s eyes dilated again. “Ohoho. You’re gonna get me in trouble kid.”

“What about tomorrow? I’ll have time after lessons before sundown. Puts a limit on things. Sectioned chaos.”

“Sectioned chaos,” Plagg was clearly convinced but crossed his tiny arms to pretend otherwise, “Sounds interesting.” He floats silently then after a moment speaks again, “Unrelated, we should go to sleep.”

Adrien smiled and agreed, a new sparkle shimmering behind his eyes.

—

“Are you usually late for school?” The bug-like creature asked from her large coin purse shaped pouch attached to her messenger bag, the best she could do to carry the creature in short notice.

“Yes- well, no. School just started okay?” Marinette explained desperately between shallow breaths.

“How unlucky.”

Marinette once again sprinted through the halls and stumbled into homeroom just as the late bell finished ringing, a breath of relief released as she closed the door behind her, once again making it by a hair.

She joined Alyá in the second row behind Nino, greeting the both of them before realizing the tensions.

“Hey- woah, what’s up?”

“Model boy and the brat are late,” Alyá said with crossed arms.

Wouldn’t that be a good thing? “So?”

Nino chuckled, “Alyá still wants to give them a piece of her mind.”

“You make it sound like I still wanna chew them out. Kids like them are probably going to make a big deal of them coming into class and I just want something slightly unfortunate to happen to their faces. Like an unforgiving pimple or something.”

Marinette and Nino laughed, agreeing that for a model and typical mean girl, something like a pimple would be an appropriate punishment.

“It’s still disappointing, he seemed cool when we were talking,” Nino said, almost remorseful.

“I knew he’d be trouble,” Alyá lightly stomped her feet under the table. Chloé’s only after people who are either like her or benefit her.”

“What about him being a ‘poor soul of her fantasy?’” Marinette asked sheepishly as she dug through her bag, avoiding eye contact.

Alyá simply hummed, but gave no answer before the teacher called for the class's attention, “We can get started everyone. I hope everyone has the materials they need because we have a good chunk of notes today.”

Papers. History. Class discussion. The first 25 minutes went off without much of a hitch. Then-

BAM! 

The door swings open and in stomps Chloé with a Sabrina at her heels. 

“Sabrina, you’re sitting with me,” she says aloud as she slid into the front bench, expecting Sabrina to walk around. Adrien was a few paces behind them, clearly unamused as he closed the door behind himself. 

He walked to teacher handing her a note, seeming apologetic. She nodded before pointing to the empty seat beside Nino. The blond seemed unsure but took the seat.

The teacher proceeded with the lesson, clearly unbothered with the display and Chloé mumblings. Not the first time, won’t be the last. Hardly something to make a big deal about at the moment.

Nino leaned over to Adrien, nodding over to Chloé as if asking ‘What’s up with you two?’ Adrien looked over at her before completely turning his face and covering it to speak to Nino more privately. Alyá crossed her arms at the sight and Marinette raised an eyebrow.

After a moment Nino looked at the girls seated behind them and nodded in agreement to the boy. He then clapped a hand on Adrien’s back to shake the nerves off of him, “You’re alright man,” the boy promised. 

Alyá pulled out her phone, typing away. Marinette just left it alone, turning back to the lesson.

~

The bell rings, and before Marinette can even fully get up, Alyá is at Nino’s seat and yanking him close to whisper in his ear. She’s clearly upset but manages to keep her voice just under the volume of people transitioning to their next class.

Marinette grabbed her own bag and stepped out of her seat only to immediately bump into someone. 

Again, Adrien.

She immediately felt uneasy as she looked around for any sign of Chloé lingering.

“Marinette, I’m…” he looked nervous, almost as unsure as Marinette did, “I’m sorry about how yesterday ended. I didn’t meant to seem so unempathetic to you and your friends.” He fidgeted with the ring on his finger for a moment, adjusting it, before shifting, “I’m not absolutely sure what Chloé said, but judging by how you reacted and how she explained it to me I could tell she said something cruel.”

Marinette watched the boy fix his sleeves, adjust his Agreste sponsored crew neck and run his hand through his perfectly combed blond hair as he spoke. He was just…naturally so pretty, yet here he was apologizing to her like any of what happened yesterday mattered.

I mean of course it mattered but not that much. Chloé was just being Chloé. Who cares. I’m okay. She’s a brat. Adrien shouldn’t have to do this.

“Is there any way I can make it up to you?”

Marinette opened her mouth, ready to just forgive everything and promise that she was more than fine— maybe she would’ve lied and said she was feeling sensitive about a completely separate thing, just to make him feel better— but before she could even trick herself into any of that, Alyá threw an arm over the girl’s shoulder putting herself in between Adrien and Marinette.

“Yeah, you actually can do something–“ Both Marinette and Adrien rose an eyebrow, “--get better friends and drop that brat.”

Adrien stepped back slightly, “Drop her? Like…”

“Like stop spending all your time with her. I don’t know your relationship, but as one Parisian to another, if you stay friend friends with Chloe, you can say goodbye to getting close to anyone else.”

“Alyá!” Marinette whispered loudly. To say as one Parisian to another was such a large scale of sentiment. It was also probably true but it wasn’t pretty to hear either way.

“What? I'm just saying some advice, if he doesn’t want it, then whatever. Now come on, we’re gonna be late.” Alyá pulled the girl along by the hand out the door. Marinette looked back at the saddened face of the cute boy that stood inside the classroom. 

She mouthed, ”I'm sorry.”

He mouthed, ”Don’t be.”

She felt her face heat up.

~

“You guys feel like hitting up the park? My classes are already working my last nerve,” Nino asked, taking a cookie from Marinette’s snack baggie.

“Can’t. I have work,” Marinette reminded.

“We don’t mind hanging there with you.”

Alyá nodded, “Yeah the food there is…” she paused, distracted, “…What the...”

“What’s up?” The other two asked lean into her a bit.

Alyá paused again, scrolling on her phone some more before shaking her head, “Nothing. Just some fight or something, I don’t even know. But I was saying the sweets at Marinette’s place are outmatched.”

“Isnt your mom a chef?”

“I said sweets, dummy,” Alyá said playfully as she pulled the boy’s beanie over his thick rimmed glasses.

“Just checking. Your mom’s food is bomb.” 

Marinette agreed. She always thought of herself as only having a sweet tooth, but Creole food was a whole different story. She needed to try it again even if the last time almost killed her with how spicy some of the dishes were.

“But no yeah, let’s hit up Marinette’s place again. That way- oh. There goes Chloé and her lapdogs.”

Marinette and Nino turn. Marinette mentally cursing herself for still  bothering to look. Seeing Chloé, Sabrina, and Adrien walk out to the courtyard together only reminded her of where his loyalties lie. He didn’t owe her anything, but the mayor’s daughter was a different type of hurt.

Marinette turns back and lightly smacks Alyá’s arm, who just looks at her confused, “What?”

“Be nice. He doesn’t know any better,” she says, not knowing if that’s true in the slightest.

Alyá lets out a bewildered noise between a scream and a laugh, “No way you believed that crap apology.”

“He was sincere,” Marinette protested.

Alyá looks at Nino for some backup, but he shrugs unhelpfully. Alyá scoffs, giving up, “It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t his apology to give and we have bigger things to worry about anyway.

Nino grabbed another cookie. Still plenty left but at this rate Marinette might have to start bringing more, “Like, my math class is already ruining my life. I think they’re making up things again.”

Alyá and Mari deadpanned at him. Here we go.

_____

“Psst. Kid.”

Adrien looked around, searching for whoever was calling out and to whom.

“Kid.”

Adrien scanned for a second more before feeling some rustling in his sweater. Confused, and luckily not ticklish, the boy pulled his collar to peek inside, “Plagg?” He whispered.

“Hope you didn’t forget about me already,” the kwami winked.

“You’re supposed to be in my bag.”

“I was getting squashed by books in there, man. I didn’t expect a kid like you to own so many.”

Adrien paused, “What what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Adrien?” Another voice spoke, causing the boys head to shoot up and quickly smooth out his sweater to subtly move Plagg to the back of his sweater to not draw attention. 

Chloé looked him up and down with a raised eyebrow, “What’s wrong with you?”

“I had to sneeze,” he says simply, sitting on one of empty tableless benches beside the courtyard’s steps.

“Oh,” Chloé says, clearly disgusted, “Bless…you. I guess. Anyway, as I was saying-“ she sat a little too closely beside him, and Sabrina beside her, “-I forgive you, Adrikins. I know you don’t know any better about some of the students here.”

“Chloé, I don’t think-“ boom.

What was that?

Chloé opened her mouth to speak, but Adrien raised a finger and turned away before she could get a word out, too focused on listening for the sound again.

______

Nino and Marinette stopped mid bite of their respective meals to turn to Alyá, “What?” Nino asked, standing up to peek over and look at the girl's phone, bumping foreheads with her.

“I think there’s something weird happening on the other side of school-”

boom.

“-like some stunt with a moving statue but it’s like…breaking stuff-“

Boom .

“-but look-“

And before the girl could turn her phone to show the others, a loud BOOM sounded as the tore away causing brick and glass to fly. A towering stone giant had smashed through the wall and now stood in to new path. A few student held themselves with injury from the beast.

Without a second thought, abandoning their lunches, Marinette and Alyá grabbed their bags and ran off and away from the monster. Nino— abandoning his bag but not the cookies— followed close behind.

Other students began to run too. Their screams filling the ears of the running trio as they made their way ahead of the crowd to the other end of the rectangular courtyard to the south hall doors. 

Alyá was first to reach the doors and held it open. Marinette and Nino passed through before skirting to a stop. They realized Alyá had stopped following.

“What are you doing?” Nino yelled, further than the other two, despite once being the last.

“It’s easier for people to escape if the door is already open.”

“This isnt one of your documentaries, this isn’t going to get you powers!”

“It’s going to save lives!”

“And what about the monster?”

Before Alyá could answer, students began pouring in, immediately making their way to an exit, pushing Marinette and Nino out the way. Other students doing the same.

Marinette was knocked into countless times but managed stay on her feet within the chaos. 

They both were right.

Someone had to do something, but the monster would get here before a lot of people could make it down the stairs and leave. Marinette watched the monster, time seemingly slowing down as she considered her options. Whether to escape or help.

The monster was slow, but too big and powerful to overtake. 

People behind the monster were already hurt, but had a chance for help. Maybe to get out the front entrance. As long as the monster wasn’t here.  

But the monster couldn’t leave until the kids in her current hallway were gone. 

Someone had to distract it.

She had to get closer.

“Nino!” Marinette called out to the boy looking frantic as his friends refused to run away with him to safety. He looked at Marinette with worry that tugged at her heart, but she was determined, “Make it to the principal’s office!”

“What?” He exclaimed, “That’s down the hall! Why would I do that?”

“Tell everyone to leave out the North entrance! The South exit isn’t safe!”

“But-“

“Please!”

“Argh!” He groaned before running off, “You two better know what you’re doing!” He said, barely audible at a distance.

Students still fumbled their way down the stairs. The crowd thinned as seconds went on. Marinette ran up to Alyá who was broadcasting the monster, Marinette knew a large part of Alyá’s audience was based in Paris so it made sense for people to know what was happening. Not something she would’ve thought to do though.

“Alyá, stay here”

“Yeah, duh. Wait, what are you-“ and before Alyá could grab her, Marinette had run out in the open. Quickly reaching in her messenger bag to throw anything she could. 

“Hey!” She began to yell, “Over here!!” 

She threw and she threw. When  she had nothing else to throw she tossed her bag only for it to fall just a couple feet in front of her. It’s emptiness not giving it the strength to go very far.

She looked around for anything to grab. Quickly grabbing metal lunch boxes on the ground. She climbed on a table and began to smash them together. 

She smashed. She jumped. She yelled as loud and as hard as she could until the monster finally began to turn.

“Yeah! Idiot! Over here! Got those rock out of your ears? Talk about hard headed! Loser!”

Her taunts were mediocre and elementary but they got the job done as the rock monster— which had been, fittingly, pretty stone-faced up until now— furrowed it’s brow, clearly angered at the commentary.

Marinette stopped jumping, now hesitant why she thought she could be brave towards a 12 foot monster stomping through her school like brick and mortar was some sort of inconvenience at most. “Haha, yeah! Over here…” She heavily overestimated her bravery.

The monster began stepping towards her and Marinette quickly climbed down, grabbing her bag and stuffing the lunchboxes in there to free up her hands for now. “Wow, you’re soooo scary,” she mocked despite undoubtedly realizing the monster was moving quicker. She tried to quicken her pace, adrenaline and fear shooting up her spine and almost freezing her in place as the rock began reaching for one of the bolted metal tables.

Screws and bolts flew through the air as the table came up over the monster's head.

Marinette ran for one of the buildings’ stone pillars but quickly learned she was not quick enough as the table began to fly through the air, quickly gaining on her. And just as the table was about to make contact, she ducked, covering her head and embracing for contact. 

Contact that never came. She looked behind her and saw a man rising to his feet. He was in all black and had…cat ears, and a tail?

He was facing away from her so it was difficult to tell who it was. Not that she thinks she’d even recognize him.

“Hey!” The man called out to the monster, “Have you seen my partner anywhere? Something about creation and all that? Did they create you?”

Marinette furrowed her brows in confusion before gasping. She covered her mouth as she realized how loud she was, causing the man to look back.

Green eyes and sclera looked back at her. His irises thin as slits before widening at the sight of her. “Hey,” he said in almost a whisper, “you should maybe run to safety. Mr. Igneous here is pretty hot headed.”

Marinette laughed lightly, ‘Hot rock. Igneous. Very funny.’

Marinette opened her mouth, but slammed it shut as the monster let out a ground shaking roar scaring off the girl towards the North exit without a second thought. 

On the way, she gave a quick look around and realized that people had gotten away safely. She had almost done the same but then she remembered what the man had said. He was looking for his partner. Was that meant to be her?

Oh no no no.

She ducked into a bathroom and into one of the stalls reaching for her phone and the little circle pouch containing the creature.

She hesitated.

What would it mean if she committed to this right now?

BOOM.

She groaned. Sending a message to Alyá to get to safety. 

She has to worry about that later.

—

Adrien was not holding up as well as he thought. Every punch he threw, the beast threw harder. Every kick he heaved, simply knocked him off balance. One after another. He swung, and hit, and pushed, to no avail. It was a slow moving battle, and he was making no progress.

The boulder seemed to be getting sick of it too because just as Adrien was getting sloppy, it managed to catch the boy's leg with a hand and whipped him up into the air, tossing him.

Adrien braced, feeling shards of glass cut and mark skin before the air knocked out of him as he knocked into a wall.

His head spun, unable to focus as he sat up and held his head.This sucked, he thought, with a frown. The adrenaline wasn’t flowing as much any more and the pain was beginning to reach him. Just the fingertips of pain, luckily, but it reminded him of how human he was despite his new powers and quickness to jump into action.

But before the doubt of his power reached him, he realized someone was watching him.

A girl. He recognized her from a couple of his classes but didn’t have the chance to speak to her. 

Colourful short braids hung above her shoulders and she wore a jean jacket of pins and held a darker leather one of similar style over one of her arms as the other shielded her face.

Adrien stumbled to his feet to get a better look at her, “It’s not safe here, you should-“

“Are you gonna hurt him?” The girl exclaimed, tears suddenly flowing.

The hero stammered, unsure of how to answer. It was his job to defeat the creature, and the only way he could do that is by destroying him, right?

“Do you… know it?” He asked.

“Him,” she corrected. “That’s Ivan. We were just singing- er- uh… more like talking and he got upset and turned into that ,” she paused, trying to keep her voice from breaking, “nothing like this has happened before.”

Adrien looked back at the monster. He hadn’t considered it had been a human before, let alone someone his age. That made things…difficult.

The girl grabbed his hand, surprising him despite his heightened senses. It irked him that she managed to do that. “Please,” she began to plead, “Don’t hurt him. I don’t think he’s meaning to do this. He’s just…upset.”

Adrien opened his mouth before being interrupted by a roar. A fist entering his vision.

He attempted to push the girl away but only crashed into her as the fist made contact with them, launching them further down the hall. 

Adrien groaned. The mental and physical battle he was facing was overwhelming him.

How was he meant to save the person trapped inside this thing?

Another fist came crashing and this time Adrien was able to act. Quickly pulling the girl along to run along side him as they ran through the halls. The halls looped around in a square around the courtyard so eventually they’d reach where they had started but he just needed to buy some time. He had no clue where his partner was, or if they were even coming, and the more he considered his options, the more they dwindled.

He searched his mind for any words that might activate his powers. Then his hand emptied.

He spun around. The girl was on her hands and knees, heavy breathing, and judging by how far Adrien had made it despite just losing her hand, he had realized that speed was obviously another asset of his. “Sorry. But come on we have to-“

And before finishing his sentence he was once again interrupted by and incoming fist. One that, instead of reaching for the cat-like superhero, reached for the girl. She screamed and Adrian attempted to hit it but failed to do anything substantial as the boulder pulled it’s hand it out of the building.

It turned away. Girl in hand as it squatted. The cat stood, staring. Honestly curious on whether or not this attempt would be successful or not.

Then, it did it. The heavy thick headed monstrosity leapt about two and a half stories in the air over the buildings just barely clearing the school and making it outside. And Adrien continued to stare, astonished by the sight he just saw. He even considered that it could’ve been his imagination and this whole thing was a dream…

Someone groaned, breaking his trance. “Oh great.” A flash of red and black swung past his vision and after the rock. 

…Was that his partner?

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[kuwdora]

heyyyy let me try another blogging entry type of thing. Pretty much each week my brain turns to ooze by Friday from all this jobdyssy and networking and all the burnout still dragging me down. I refuse to let the world and my brain gaslight me and I'm pushing myself so hard and taking rests and being deliberate with my time and effort for getting some contract work and other things - but this job market fucking sucks so much and I'm so frustrated by some of my circumstances and things outside of my control. It's obnoxious. the bullshit people have to go through right now for interviews and shit..it's awful.

It would help if my insomnia wasn't so bad. I'm fairly bedraggled more often than not which makes everything hard. I dream of sleeping more than 5 or 6 hours a night. well I don't actually dream since I don't think I'm getting enough sleep to get to the dream stage but regardless. It would be great to sleep a full night. I miss being able to nap, too but my body just doesn't let me do that anymore either. In other news, I've been rewatching witcher season 3 and Suits season 9 for background noise while I work on some collage and painting projects. I have a list of like 45 other shows that I could watch for the first time but I'm still needing to be in that rewatch zone.

the witcher fixation remains strong...just buried under all of my other wips and things going on in my brain right now. I'm soo looking forward to season 4 for whatever nice things I'll get from it and whatever disappointments I gotta brace myself for when the new season's here. I got a bunch of new comments last weekend on all my yennskier fic which was so lovely and just reminding me of how many more yennskier wips I have. and now i want to work on those. Except I'm neck-deep in other new projects. so I'll see if I can actually finish what I'm working on right now.

I'm going through the motions of working on new things I'm enjoying working on but. But. Also having that fear that no one going to like it even though I've shown a few things to a few people here and there and had received positive feedback on it. It's been awhile since I've been doing this kind of collaging before and it's something I can manage to do really slowly while my brain is melted from my days. It feels great to come full circle to a style and technique I had been doing ages ago but come back to it with my accumulated creative experience behind me. I'm having so much fun. Even though I'm so fucking tiredddddd. But also at some point I want to share. but not yet. oooh, also! wanted to say thank you everyone who signal boosted my ko-fi shop! the sales and tips def helpin' me out. I might add a few more paintings and a terracotta pot if I can track them down. I just have so many random pieces that are just getting lost in the clutter of my apartment.

I have a few more witcher painty-collage ideas I've placed in a pile to work on when I get done with my current things. but as always, too many wips, bwah.

[lilbugprincess]

Lately, I've realized how much I consider fashion design when I'm doing character designs. It only struck me when I was doodling those Pokemon redesigns, how I care about the outfits characters wear and how it coordinates and the details and what it SAYS about the character wearing it!

...got too detailed, gotta add a cut

Hideyoshi's fit is about him being sloppy, careless, but still a legitimate professor (somehow). He's got the labcoat but it's slipping off his shoulder, slacks but a tropical shirt (collar unbuttoned, half untucked). His hair is pulled back but not properly; he's got a bit of stubble! His slacks are baggy on him... A size too big? Or an old-fashioned style? His shoes are worn converse--not an athletic shoe, but he gets up and moves, he's a bit active! Despite it all, there's still touches to point towards legitimacy, though. A clean coat, pen in the shirt pocket, a proper belt... He's making an attempt, just not succeeding! I think when it's time to draw the actual professor, I'll mirror a lot of it... Make it clear what he's aiming for.

Mayumi, on the other hand, is aiming for "office worker who doesn't want to stay at her desk." Her look is fundamentally a nice pantsuit... Well tailored and coordinated in business appropriate colors, with some fashionable touches that wouldn't be out of place in the office. She's not wearing a blazer but her vest and shirt are both classy and tailored, and she's coordinated her tie with the rest of her outfit (I drew small but I imagine the pin on her tie to be a symbol of the Pokemon League). And for all that, she's still active! Wide legged pants highlight movement, a chunky heeled boot is easier to move in than high heels, and she's rolled up her sleeves! I wanted to convey a woman who looks ready to throw down but still clearly fits an office setting.

I worked out Kaori's outfit yesterday, trying to keep elements from her original look (kimono styled neckline and sleeves, bandana and hair pin) while adding some feminine touches... I'm going with a skort-like pair of overalls, long socks and Mary Janes for a very girly look that I want to evoke Pokemon protagonist outfits. I'm giving her some kind of pokegear and a Pokemon Protagonist bag, too. I want to keep her vibes, but I also want her to feel like a proper trainer...

Wakana and Defiant are next on my list, and here I find myself stumped a bit. I could draw THEM, but I'm trying to figure out what they WEAR.

Wakana's tricky in two ways: first, her initial design is maybe one of the best I've ever designed and second, she's got a certain detachment from her clothing! She cares for textures and how some clothing fits, and she wants to have elements of traditional Japanese clothing, but otherwise I conceive of her as someone who typically wears what other people buy for her. There's a reason her DA3 outfit is primarily her uniform and her initial FFD look was supposed to be "just clothing she owns". It's harder thinking about what she would want to wear in this setting... And I think I also have to decide where she is in her life and how she relates to her family. I've got some ideas, but nothing solid yet.

Defiant is also a bit hard bc... She's a game character. Most of her outfits are based directly off clothing in game, so I'm picking from limited options rather than choosing my own. And when I do draw her in other clothes, I've done a lot of VERY cutesie or sexy looks, neither of which feels right for what I'm hoping to do. It's such a different setting from FFXIV, too, so there's a lot to revise and reimagine.

I know most of this is... Like. It's only me who is thinking this deeply! But it means a LOT to me to put the thought in, and I want to have it just right. My little hill to die on.

[golbrocklovely]

i saw marianas trench the other day (sept. 30) and here is how all of that went down lol

so i stayed in the city at a hotel for the night bc it was just easier to do that than to drive all the way back home after the concert.

i had to get to the venue early bc i got the vip package so that i could meet the band. honestly, i didn't even really want to meet them, i just wanted to get as close to the stage as possible and that was honestly the only way.

and fun fact, i basically got barricade so it worked out well for me lol

i had to be there at 3, but that was also when i was supposed to check into the hotel. luckily i was able to check in early, and then the venue was only a five minute drive down the road. i get to the venue at 3ish. i went alone to this concert, bc in the past i would go with my ex best friend… but since clearly we aren't on good terms anymore, i was by myself. i was thinking "oh my god, am i gonna be alone the whole time and speak to no one??" bc i am an awkward person and don't know how to make friends. but luckily, standing in line for so long, i ended up making friends with the girls behind me. one of them was even giving out friendship bracelets which was cool and i got two of them :)

we all hung out pretty much the entire time, even well into the concert. it ended up being like ten of us in the end, all women minus two guys lol i had a lot of fun with the group i became friends with and now i follow a couple of them on insta which is nice.

so we did the q&a first, which was cool. i'll be honest i kinda forget everything that was asked. here's what i do remember:

what are josh's inspirations for their music?

he said he's not really into pop music anymore (or it doesn't inspire him like it once did) and he listed hans zimmer as an inspiration. he also stated that he's always trying to outdo himself and the band from the previous record.

2. was it intentional to make MPT, EA, and Astoria almost like a trilogy?

no, but he did purposefully choose to make things connect later down the line bc he never heard that in pop records and he wanted that to be the case with their music. also an ex of his gave him the idea to use the line from say anything in MPT 3.

3. if they were a type of egg what would they be?

one of them answered for all of them. josh - scrambled, matt - over easy, ian - rotten??, mike - also rotten, or hard boiled lol

4. if they could all switch jobs in the band, what would they be?

no one wanted to do josh's job lol matt said mike bc playing bass is easy. mike said matt bc he could be a shitty guitarist and still get paid (obviously a joke). ian said mike, and josh said ian.

5. what do you guys do when you have a day off?

nothing really. explore the city if they can. josh stays away from everyone and doesn't talk and just watches netflix or plays video games.

there were other questions but i'm blanking on them now tbh.

then afterwards it was time for the meet and greet. and boy… was that awkward lol

see, i kinda knew it was gonna be a bit weird only bc we weren't allowed to hug or touch the guys at all. which hey, i get it. the first five shows got cancelled and rescheduled bc josh got sick and couldn't sing. and even if that wasn't the case, we gotta respect boundaries and if that's what they wanted, so be it. my only problem is that…. why have a meet and greet in the first place if you are so scared to get sick?? just do the q&a and maybe give us more merch or something. or charge less. idk. not only that, but josh literally runs into the crowd every night and DANCES WITH THE AUDIENCE so i don't get the whole needing to keep their distance from fans. it just felt really weird walking up and saying hi and having to keep a distance.

i love mtrench and have been a fan of them literally since the beginning. like i was supporting them on myspace, that's how long ago i've been a fan (since roughly 2006/7 when i was 10/11). but i've always felt like they are a band that never wanted to be famous, they just wanted to make music and perform. like, they don't feel like the type to want a fanbase, if that makes sense. or at least what we would say fanbases act like nowadays. absolutely no parasocial relationships whatsoever. i'm not bashing them for that, don't get it twisted. it's just… you can tell they keep their distance in more ways than one, which is why i think meet and greets are just something they shouldn't do.

so when i went up to finally meet them, i told them that i had been a fan of them since 2006, when i was 10/11 years old, so i've been here for forever. they all kinda nodded their heads, matt said "wow you've been here a long time" or something like that. i think mike said "thank you", and then i said i really love fix me, which is their first album, and then i said "please play something from it soon" and josh gave me this look of 😬 so………… let's just say i felt the vibe shift sksks then we took the pic and i waved goodbye.

remember kids, don't meet your idols.

(i'll be honest, it wasn't a bad meet and greet. but it was just very awkward. and i think weirdly i would have rather it been bad than awkward. or maybe i'm just judging both myself and mtrench too harshly bc i was so in my head about it. especially since i asked about fix me and that album is very heavy and when josh was going thru the worst shit so again…. i think i'm just too in my head about it)

afterwards, my group and i bought some merch (which btw i had to pay $5 extra for bc it was plus size… thanks so much) and then we were all lined up outside with everyone else in vip. then we waited out there for like an hour or two. ordered some food from a place near by, all sat around and just talked about mtrench. we made friends with the ppl in front of us which was a couple and a friend of the fiancé. and then a girl behind us as well.

everybody in our group was super fun, truly. but i will say something i noticed that i thought was kinda funny was the engaged couple, imma give them the names jack and sally (not even remotely their names): it became very apparent that girly pop was not too keen on us girls talking to her soon to be husband. very much giving territorial. at one point we were all exchanging instas to keep in touch and she said "why don't you guys follow me and i'll get him to follow you" which…. babe, he's right there. i'm just gonna ask for his insta. please don't make this weird.

(i'll be honest, it felt like she didn't like me in particular, but not bc i said anything but bc i was the only name he remembered just bc it was unique compared to the other girls. and at one point when i left, he said "oh everyone, angelica's back!" which was sweet of him to do but please know he was not being flirty at all whatsoever)

like this man could not have made it more abundantly clear he loved her. i'm talking he introduced her as his fiancé. he talked about how he proposed. he was holding her and kissing her the whole night. like, it was adorable. but she was very much giving the cold shoulder at times and was making eyes at all of us (which was extremely funny given half the group was either lesbians or taken or both). but in the end we all had fun and even "sally" loosened up a bit.

the concert itself was a lot of funny. the openers were fantastic. some of the best singing/songs i've heard from an opener in a while. and somehow, right before mtrench came on, i somehow got right behind the barricade. or rather, right behind the person that was standing at the barricade lol

mtrench was so fucking good, but that's expected. they are always somehow better live than on the album which is an insane thing to do, especially with vocals like that. i will say, at times you could kinda see josh struggle a bit (since he's still getting over being sick) and instead would do these runs instead of the usual vocals. nothing's wrong with that, and it still sounded great, just something i noticed.

also, i've seen mtrench 3 times before this concert, and it had been a reoccurring joke between me and my ex best friend that they won't play my favorite song from whatever album they are touring. like on almost all occasions they played the entire album except my favorite song, so we would joke they were taking it out on me personally. but this time around, they played BOTH of my favorite songs from the album. so i'll be honest with you, i don't think it was a me curse. it was a her curse. thank god that's broken now lmao

i made the dumb decision to try and break in new shoes and literally by the end of the concert i was limping and couldn't feel my toes. but other than that i had a good night. got back to the hotel, chilled out, ate some food, and passed out until the morning.

overall i had a really good time. i enjoyed myself a lot and i'm so happy that i made friends while there bc i genuinely thought i wasn't gonna.

[bropunzeling]

writing meme - i was tagged by @postoperation!

Rules: Go to your published works on AO3 and list the first fic you ever published there, the last fic you published, any fic that you wrote for a fandom/ship only once, your favorite fic you wrote in the fandom/ship that has the most works, the fic you wish more people read, the fic you agonized over the most, the fic that sprang fully formed from your mind without any effort, and a work you are proud of—for whatever reason.

first fic: it is a very short platonic fic for elementary - render death and forever with each breathing - a lil pretentious and not great, but you know, we all gotta start somewhere!

the last fic you published: that would be refraction! because all these omega matthew pov flips are a lot easier to keep track of when not in the mire of my blog

any fic you wrote for a fandom/ship only once: hmmmm i think i'll bump my katniss/peeta post-canon fic, the motion and the act! i really like how sparse and terse the prose was and how fucked up of a first time it was for them while still having a sense of tenderness.

your favorite fic you wrote in the fandom/ship that has the most works: apparently men's hockey rpf has the most works, but it's very hard to pick a favorite. one i do really love a lot and am still quite proud of is don't ever be a stranger - i really enjoyed coming up with the right sense of atmosphere and mood, and doing a real future fic for the first time was super fun! jamie and trevor working out their issues in the california sunshine can't be beat :) plus it was nicely condensed (for me lmaoooo)

the fic you wish more people read: gotta put in a plug for meet me halfway. girl!leon is my baby 🥺. obvi cisswap isn't for everyone but i really am proud of her and still think about her like, daily, and would love to have more people talk to me about her!

the fic you agonized over the most: i agonize over everything except for the things i write in 12 hours, but i gotta say linger was pretty stressful at points! trying to get the world building right, trying to get the right blend of neuroses, trying to make sure you understand both sides of the relationship without giving anything away too fast - it got frustrating haha. plus i find writing angst very excruciating and did not make things easy for myself lmao

the fic that sprang fully formed: pretty sure maddy made the tweet that inspired close quarters and like, four hours later i had a draft, so. that.

a work you are proud of: a country mile is one of my very favorite yuletide fills i've ever done - a whole mystery!!! with accompanying research!!! it's so plot driven!!!! i still kinda can't believe i pulled it off!!

tagging @hopetorun, @msmargaretmurry, @moregraceful, and anyone else who wants to!