#<- forgot those words existed until rn uh

[isthattetofrommesmerizer]

remembering my old monika ddlc in deadplate mod... yes... monika from ddlc... in deadplate... siiighhh... I made this a few months ago siiiiiggghhhh...

[hermannsthumb]

Idk if you doing requests or not rn buut, feriowind has been posting a bunch of vampire!Hermann and I needs some modern vampire Hermann and professor Newt...

uwu ily

SO I feel like I should open by saying a WIP fic with this concept by @coloredpencilroses exists and I Love it, so read High Stakes for something much better than this lol (and leave a nice comment). HAPPY OCTOBER!!!! warning for very mildly implied sexy stuff. EDIT: and of COURSE I forgot to tag @theloccent for my extremely belated fill for the “Vampire” square on my bingo card :/

-----------------------

Newt has always been an extremely persistent type. He considers it, naturally, one his greatest strengths—no theory goes untested, no question goes unanswered, no experiment goes…well, unexperimented. You don’t get more PhDs than you can count on one hand if you’re not persistent. You don’t get a date with the hot new engineering professor down the hall if you’re not persistent, either, but Newt is finding this venture is taking a little more effort than usual. That’s fine, though. He likes challenges.

Dr. Gottlieb was hired by the university at the start of the semester, after the head of the engineering department—who’s nearing her seventies—finally decided she’d had enough and announced her retirement somewhat last minute. He is, frankly, unlike anyone Newt’s ever seen before, a weird combination of cheekbones, wide lips, and a turn-of-the-century old-fashioned air that carries over into everything from his wardrobe to the stiff way he carries himself. He wouldn’t look out of place in a black and white photograph, Newt thinks. Or maybe even the illustrations of a Dickens novel. That’s not why Newt’s into him, though—well, not the only reason why.

In the entire month and a half Gottlieb’s been here, he hasn’t spoken a single word to anyone his contract doesn’t require him to; when he is forced into conversation, he scowls and snaps and mumbles his way through before making a polite excuse as to why he needs to leave the room right now, immediately. No one knows anything about him other than the bare minimum—that his name is Dr. Gottlieb, he lectures in engineering, and he exists. Shit, Newt doesn’t even know his first name. The little plaque outside his office just says Gottlieb.

The mystery just makes Gottlieb all the more alluring to Newt.

Anyway, his continued failures in winning Gottlieb over aren’t a result of a lack of trying. On Gottlieb’s first day, Newt stopped by his office to introduce himself. He didn’t bother knocking. Maybe that was his first mistake. “I’m Newt,” he said. “My office is a few doors down from you. You’re the new department head?”

Gottlieb looked stricken, but he nodded. “Yes,” he said. He didn’t say anything else.

“Cool,” Newt said. “Anyway, I’m technically in the bio department, but I teach a few interdisciplinary courses with engineering, so I requested they stick me over here to get a bigger office.” He cracked a grin. “I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

“Hm,” Gottlieb said.

Newt tried again the next day.

“Your office is so dark,” he said, conversationally, because it was—lights all off, books stacked up everywhere, maroon drapes drawn tightly in front of the single small window. Dark and stuffy. “Feel free to stop by my office whenever you want a break from it. I have a corner one, so I have two windows.”

“I requested this office,” Gottlieb said, not looking up the article he was marking up.

Newt became desperate by his third attempt and did something that’s left him burning with shame even now, weeks later, and that would probably warrant the immediate transfers of sleep-deprived engineering majors out of all his courses if word ever got out it was him: he deliberately broke the department coffee machine. “Man, I can’t believe that thing is busted again,” he declared to Gottlieb. “Good thing I have a Keurig in my office.” Newt had gone out and purchased a Keurig immediately before destroying the coffee pot. “Seriously, come by whenever you need caffeine.”

Gottlieb blinked at him, long and slow, and Newt had the strangest sense that he knew exactly what happened to the coffee pot. “I never drink… coffee,” Gottlieb finally said.

For all Newt’s troubles, the list of things he knows about Gottlieb has expanded by two pitiful points: that his accent is English and posh, and his voice is low and sexy. Helpful.

It’s a chilly day in late October when Newt finally decides to enlist the aid of his interdisciplinary undergrads. Some of them—he learned after poking around their registration records—have a seminar with Gottlieb, and they seem his best bet at learning anything. A spouse—a first name—Newt would take Gottlieb’s favorite color, even. “So,” he starts class, unwinding his scarf off his neck, “that Dr. Gottlieb sure is weird, huh?”

In Newt’s firsthand experience, undergrads love to gossip about their professors, and his certainly don’t disappoint. Gottlieb’s classes are all held in the basement of the engineering building. All run well into the evening, after the sun’s set—most not finished until nine—and Gottlieb hustles out of the lecture hall the moment he can. He walks with a cane and a slight limp. He always dresses like that. He’s never mentioned any sort of family, and wears no wedding ring. He’s scary good at math. No one knows his first name.

“You’ve been an invaluable help,” Newt tells them all seriously.

He mulls the new information over in his office later as he grades some tests. So Gottlieb is a bit of shy, reclusive, genius. No surprise there. Well, his apparent hatred of sunlight is kind of weird (if unsurprising, given how pale he is) but maybe he just has sensitive eyes or something. Who is Newt to judge? At least he knows how to improve his next plan of attack—he just has to ask the guy to come over and sit in a dark room in silence with him. That’s probably Gottlieb’s dream date, actually.

There’s a knock on Newt’s office door. Newt looks up and drops his pen: it’s Gottlieb.

“Uh. Hey, dude!” he squeaks, unsure of how to proceed in this entirely unfamiliar territory. Gottlieb, willingly interacting with him? Willingly leaving his office? “Is there…can I help you with something? Did you want that coffee after all?”

“Most definitely not,” Gottlieb says coolly. He’s standing far enough back from the door that not a single sliver of lamp light from Newt’s office hits him, instead shrouded by the shadows of the dark engineering department. Newt didn’t realize how late it had gotten. “My students informed me that you were interrogating them about me.”

It’s not a question. Newt is struck by a wave of nervousness that he doesn’t quite understand—maybe it’s the sour expression Gottlieb is giving him, something in those dark brown eyes that are piercing through Newt. He feels, foolishly and briefly, like cowering under his desk. He swallows. “Yes,” he says, and adds, stammering, “I mean—I wasn’t interrogating them. I was just asking a few questions.”

“Why?” Gottlieb says.

“Uh,” Newt says. “I guess I was…curious, about you?”

He works up the guts to look Gottlieb in the eyes; he sees Gottlieb’s eyebrows jump the tiniest fraction of an inch. “You’re attracted to me,” Gottlieb says, another non-question, though Newt hears a flicker of surprise.

“Yeah,” Newt admits.

“I see,” Gottlieb says. Then, to Newt’s surprise, he suddenly smiles. “I’d like if you invited me over for dinner, Dr. Geiszler.”

“Dinner,” Newt says. He feels strangely dizzy; but, shaking himself, he quickly gets over it. “I mean, dinner! Yes! Shit! When?”

“Tonight, I should think,” Hermann says.

Tonight is Friday, which means they don’t have work tomorrow. By the time they make it off campus it’ll be almost ten—way later than people eat dinner—and besides, Newt already had a sandwich at around seven. Is dinner a euphemism? Is Gottlieb propositioning him? God, why didn’t he wash his sheets with the laundry this week? “Tonight,” Newt says. He stands up abruptly and grabs his leather jacket with trembling fingers. Why is he trembling? Nerves, he guesses. He’s about to hook up with total hottie Dr. Gottlieb, he’s allowed to be nervous. “Fuck yes. Let’s go now.”

Gottlieb is not impressed with the messy state of Newt’s apartment, and even less impressed with the state of Newt’s refrigerator and freezer. “Dinosaur chicken nuggets and canned Lime-A-Ritas,” he says with a sniff. “Hm. You ought to be getting more vitamins, Dr. Geiszler. I’m certain you’re deficient in something.”

“You sound like my dad,” Newt snorts. He throws his car keys on the counter and shrugs off his jacket. “There’s some leftover Chinese on the second shelf if you want it—just some lo mein. Or I could put a frozen pizza in the oven. Or I guess we could order something too?”

Gottlieb shuts the fridge door delicately. “How kind of you to offer,” he says. He doesn’t sound like he means it. Newt is suddenly struck by how bizarre a sight he is in the midst of Newt’s chaotic kitchen: buttoned up to the throat with his stupid shirt and blazer, prodding at the fraying lime lizard-shaped rug by the sink with the end of his ornately-handled cane. Out of time and out of place. 

“It’s Newt,” Newt says. “Please don’t call me Dr. Geiszler, it makes me feel ancient.”

“Hm,” Gottlieb says.

“And what,” Newt says, deciding to test his luck a little, “uh—what should I call you?”

Gottlieb considers him. “Hermann,” he says.

The name rings a bell in the back of Newt’s head. He swears he’s heard it somewhere before—an article, maybe. A book. Has he stumbled across Dr. Gottlieb’s research before without even realizing it? He’s on the verge of asking what publications Gottlieb’s been featured in when Gottlieb suddenly snags hold of his hand; then, raising it to his mouth, he kisses it. His lips are as cold as his skin. “Would you like to show me to your quarters, Newton?” he murmurs.

Newt shivers; he nods.

“Hermann Gottlieb,” Newt says aloud later, while Hermann redresses himself. “Now I know where I’ve heard that name before.”

“Yes?” Hermann says. He’s lacing up one of his Oxfords.

“I worked with his research in one of my dissertations,” Newt says. “Another Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, I mean. He was a brilliant mathematician from—God, 1830-something. German. His work was groundbreaking for the time, or shit, for our time, too.” He remembers seeing a portrait of that Hermann Gottlieb in one of his sources; the whole of the similarities between him and Newt’s Hermann Gottlieb (the dark eyes, the mouth, the cheekbones) are a little too much to be entirely coincidental. “You must be related to him, right? Like, he’s your great-great-great—”

“Yes,” Hermann cuts him off quickly. He turns to Newt and smiles. “A distant ancestor, certainly. I believe you are the first in some time to have made that connection.”

“Always thought he was cool,” Newt yawns. “Man, I’m tired.” The romp with Hermann had been fun, if not unexpectedly exhausting, and a little…out of the ordinary. The dude apparently has some sort of weird biting kink that left Newt’s neck stinging a little bit, but it’s cool, Newt doesn’t mind. It was like boning a vampire or something. Kinda hot. “Do you need me to show you to the door, or can I just stay here? I’m serious about spending the night though. I really don’t mind.”

Hermann fiddles with the laces of his other shoe, then, slowly, draws the whole thing back off. “If it’s not an imposition,” he says, and smiles again, shyly. “Though, I warn you—I’m a bit of a late sleeper.”

“Good, so I am,” Newt says. “Could you toss me the sweatshirt hanging on that chair? You can grab one for yourself too, if you’re cold, I’ve got another hanging in the closet. No, not--yeah, that door.”

They dip under the covers and get cozy, Newt taking on the task of big spoon, because Hermann is a cold sonofabitch and could use a little insulation. The last thought on his mind before he drifts off to a comfortable sleep is how strange it is he can’t feel Hermann’s heartbeat—though, he realizes, it’s probably just muffled by their clothing.

[carbootsoul]

i was tagged by @katarahairloopies!!! thank u :mwah:

name: leo! @/zeitgeistofnow on ao3, @lazypigeon & @timetohope on here, altho i’m considering uh switching back to not having an art blog :/ i have to think abt it.

fandom(s): ace attorney is my main one rn bc i’m replaying the games with a friend of mine and it’s reminding me how invested i am in the characters!! a lot of my recent fic is atla stuff, altho i’ve been distancing myself from the fandom bc i’ve kinda exhausted my interest in it. finally i’ve been reading a lot of mp100 fic but i don’t think i’ll ever write for it. i just love how dumb all the characters r (with the dubious exception of ritsu)

where you post: ao3!! tbh i always get suprised when people say they write/read fic on any other platform like i haven’t messed around w wattpad or ff.net since middle school... catch up........

most popular oneshot: going just by “one chapter” as the definition of a oneshot, the firestarters, bc it’s fluffy and modern au :) i wouldn’t necessarily call it a oneshot tho bc to me a oneshot shows like, one scene? so like by my definition and your sweet sweet sun makes me crazy (i wanna lay you down and see how you amaze me is my most popular!! (also @ kit u thought UR fic titles were unnecessarily long??? i’ve hit the ao3 LIMIT for characters in titles. it’s about the aesthetic

most popular multichapter fic: sdkjflakjlkj it’s two crowned kings; and one that stood alone, which is a w359 fic i wrote back in late 2017. it’s literally the last fic i haven’t orphaned from when i actually wrote podcast fic (i have 4 other podcast fics but they were all borne out of nostalgia and written after i stopped participating in the fandom). i rewrote all but the last chapter? the last two? about a year ago and i fucked up halfway through so like chapter 6 and 7 are repeated and there’s something missing but i’m too lazy to fix it. no one’s going to read it now anyway :) it WAS the top minlace fic for a little while tho which i take great pride in.

favorite story you’ve written so far: oh that’s a hard question akfsldkfj i honestly like most of them!! and i write a LOT so there’s a lot to choose from. tonight, we are young is def one of my favorites- it was fun to write and i got to explore the ways zuko and yue r similar, which i LOVE to do outside of a zukka/yukka view. you can lean on my arm as you break my heart  is one that i’m really proud of? the whole “cooking as an expression of bato’s love” is definitely some of my favorites. a lot of my ace attorney fics would be categoried as my favorites if i hadn’t improved, too, if that makes sense. like they’re no long my favorites because i can see where my writing is shitty and it bothers me, but if i had written them a month ago they’d be my favorite.

fic you were nervous to post: figures 1-5: killing gods def!! it’s a lot more purple-prose-y than most of my fics and it was also written before i’d kinda like emersed myself in the atla fandom so i didn’t have as good a grasp on the general understanding of zuko’s character as i do now. tbh it’s one i’m rly happy w tho!! i have a few people leave really nice comments on it and rereading them makes me really happy. also it was the start of me hating the position of fire lord and being at least passively anti-it in my fics.

how you choose your titles: they’re almost all song lyrics!! only 14 of my 50 words AREN’T song lyrics and about half of those are from before i started writing ace attorney fic lol. sometimes i go into a fic with a song in mind for the vibes and then i usually go with lyrics from that (like in ‘cuz we’re the greatest /they’ll hang us in the louvre), but otherwise i usually pick an artist i’ve been listening to and go through their songs until i find a lyric that fits. sometimes the lyric doesn’t even really fit the fic and i just chose it at random or because i searching up the word “fly” in my spotify library or whatever. honestly i like coming up with titles? i know a lot of fic writers hate it but being able to just use song lyrics is v soothing for me and while i know that most people won’t search out a song just bc it’s a fic title like.. seeing that the title of a fic is a hozier lyric does affect how i read it and i kinda like that.

do you outline? i outline my long form/multichaptered fics with varying strictness. usually anything over ~8k will have some kind of outline. sometimes i go into it with every single scene planned out, sometimes it’s just notes on the side of the google doc that say “it's about MORE family. about how it's not betraying your existing family to find more” and “scenes i want to include: [...]” and “vampires... ngl kinda hot.” i’m trying to outline super strictly less bc i’ve found it’s less fun? but i do try to keep a plot arc in mind. since most of my fics are more character-driven than plot-driven, that usually just means keeping track of what character development i want to happen or what is motiviating the characters. 

complete: um everything posted on ao3 i guess. also the MULTITUDE of orphaned fics out there asksfjldkj i always click ‘leave my pseud on’ so if u look up my username you see all of my fics and then a. lot of other ones.

in progress: - a fic titled ‘dad phoenix’ that is actually just a no DL-6 au with defense attorney miles edgeworth and single dad bartender phoenix where neither of them want to date for A While but phoenix gets wrapped up in one of miles’s cases. it’s about family. it’s about writing teenagers. it’s about the background franmaya which is ALWAYS what i’m here for in wrightworth fics - a franmaya werewolf/vampire au because i’m ~gay~ and love rivals to lovers and also franziska and maya both being angry their older brothers r dating each other. - my secret santa fic!! which i can’t talk about much but it does feature toph and zuko and also piandao and jeong jeong???? idk where they came from but they are Part Of The Fic Now also i forgot iroh existed for half the fic and wrote piandao as zuko’s father figure and now i’m in too deep. - a 5+1 bakoda fic (maybe a bato/hakoda/kay fic??? i need to decide. that’s part of why this fic is still incomplete bc i can’t decide which relationship dynamic i prefer) that’s 5 times bato said he loves hakoda and one time hakoda said it back. possibly i have already written him saying i love u back and i need to change the title a little. - retail au klapollo where klavier works at an overpriced boutique and apollo comes in to buy earrings for nahyuta’s birthday. klavier gives him a punch card (one that the store doesn’t actually offer anymore as a bid to get apollo to come back) and all of apollo’s family come in to use the punch card and also give klavier variations on the shovel talk/find out if he’s actually into apollo. - a LOT of atla fics that i don’t think i’ll ever finish :(

coming soon/not yet started:  - i want to write some blackmadhi bc they’re.. cute..... and it’s a good excuse to also write athena and i love her - my stuff for yueki week!!! i have NOT prepped enough but hopefully i’ll remember in time! i wrote the prompts in a way that kinda set up stuff i’ve already wanted to write (don’t look at me lol) so hopefully i’ll get at least two or three fics finished in time. - i want to rewrite the wrightworth fic i have about them not getting married bc it was interesting and i like what i wrote about but i think i could have written it better and made it more interesting. rewriting fics is hard tho bc i’m never sure if it makes sense to just edit in the new work or to repost it? and then if u repost it do u delete the old one? conflicting so i might just not

do you accept prompts? totally!!! a disclaimer tho i’m not super into writing atla stuff anymore (most of the atla stuff i’m still writing is  something i made a commitment to finish) so if your prompt is an atla one i probably won’t do it :/ basically anything else is fair game tho!! podcasts/aa/sa/uh i don’t remember anything else but like if you search a fandom on my blog and come up with more than two posts about it chances r i’d be happy to write fic for it!

upcoming work that you’re most excited about: oh huh i mean probably the no dl-6 au!!! it’s the longest ace attorney fic i’ve written already and since it’s wrightworth it’ll get more attention than any franmaya fic i write. my standards r so high now tho after getting to much feedback from atla fans... love u all... obviously i have no choice but to pressure my atla mutuals into playing ace attorney. pls ask abt it bc i WIll Give You A Sales Pitch about why you’d like it in relation to atla

tagging: i’m not rly tagging anyone!!! @deadflora if you still consider urself a fic writer also consider urself tagged! also any of my other mutuals who write fic i just can’t think of anyone rn

[firebirdsdaughter]

We really ignoring Horobi murdering Izu who not trying to kill him and the fact while he didn’t started this cycle. He sure as hell doing himself no favors by murdering Izu who Artuo closet ally and act all surprised when Artuo hate him. Not acknowledging he the cause for this malice in Artuo. Should Artuo still try to get though to him even though he murder Izu who got no back up compare to Jin who died before and can very well be bought back again?

…

Uh.

Can I just ask… Why are you on my blog? It’s not like I’ve been subtle about my love for Horobi. And you must be on my blog bc I’m pretty sure I haven’t put any of those thoughts in the main tag, and have been carefully tagging them as complaining/negativity/opinions/salt.

1) I’m not saying Horobi was ‘right,’ I’m saying he isn’t in a sane place right now and this wasn’t a ‘cold blooded murder,’ esp bc I’m pretty sure he understands that he regrets it now. He’s been trained for more than ten years to respond to things w/ extremity and violence, as evidenced by the Ark having him repeatedly take out or try to take out things/people that were making him feel in any way—what happened w/ Midori, why he was driven to attack Jin in 41. From Horobi’s extremely damaged and fucked up perspective, he just wanted to make the pain and confusion go away. He didn’t try to hunt out Izu, she approached him, and knowingly endangered herself. Which is why I’m also calling the fact that we’ve seen Izu move faster than a car, she could have dodged the shot and didn’t, so it’s ineffective as drama bc it was easily preventable. I’m calling bs on the writing.

2) Horobi’s definitely not surprised that Aruto hates him? He might be surprised that Aruto went full Ark (I am, too, that feels out of character, I would’ve expected him to just go regular berserk on his own). I’m not saying it’s wrong for Aruto to be mad. Like I just said, I would have expected him to go berserk on his own, which might have ended up leading to Jin’s death anyway. Like… Where did you get that. Actually don’t answer that. Aruto getting angry and going after Horobi would have been one thing, though the way he went Ark is weird to me. What bugs me is the way it’s being treated/reacted to as a ‘black and white’ situation when it should be more grey. Horobi is mentally unwell, and there were multiple factors at work/responsible for the situation. This isn’t just ‘Horobi is a bad person it’s all his fault.’ This is also ‘contrived drama by the writers who are hoping we forgot Izu can break land-speed records.’

2.5) I’m not expecting Aruto to reach out to him at this point. Hell, I’m not even saying ‘forgive’ him, even though I think by this point Horobi has figured out he regrets it. What should really happen is someone else intervenes and keeps them away from each other until both are more stable. Really, someone should have stepped in to control that on both ends. Aruto shouldn’t have been left alone. Neither of them should have. I do think more effort should have gone into reaching out to him before it happened. If they hadn’t been alone in there/if someone w/ a little more ‘emotional/mental experience’ had been present, things might’ve gone differently.

3) Izu still not having a back up is ridiculous, literally everyone knows Aruto is Zero-One, this feels like just terrible planning/lack lustre writing imo, and on top of that, Horobi didn’t know she had no backup. Still doesn’t make his reaction ‘okay,’ bc violence is never the answer, but he’s shown before he believes in bringing AI back through backups, so it may not even have occurred to him that she wouldn’t have one. Additionally, we don’t know Jin has a back up. We can’t say he ‘can very well be brought back again’ bc we don’t actually know that. We don’t know if ZAIA kept that data, Williamson just said they ‘repaired’ him. And that’s also it, even if it exists, ZAIA has it. Not Horobi. Also… This is KR, they could figure out some MacGyver to bring Izu back, even if it’s not clear now, though that’s more of a meta thing. Actually, what I would love to happen is Horobi helps bring her back, maybe as part of therapy.

Look, disagreeing is fine. That’s why I’ve been trying to keep my negative reactions out of the main tag. I’m not trying to get into fights, I’m just venting. I’m analysing what I see and interpret. It’s not that Horobi was ‘right’ it’s that he’s mentally and emotionally unstable rn bc of what happened to him, he should not be expected to know how to react calmly to things, esp if under pressure and in an intense situation. I also literally just wrote a post about how I don’t think it’s fair to blame Izu entirely, either. I comment about blaming the humans (esp Yua and Fuwa (whom I love dearly), but they did escalate the situation and then leave Aruto alone there, wtf did they leave him alone???) bc if they’d listened to Izu at the start we’d likely not be in this mess, or if they’d actually tried to reach out to him before, things could have gone differently.

This is my point of view. If this is upsetting to you, which it seems to be from the tone of this Ask, I recommend blocking my blog, bc these are my feelings on this, and I’m not going to change. I’d block you so that you wouldn’t have to see my posts, but then you wouldn’t be able to see this answer, which I hope explains some of my position, so I’ll leave it for now. Besides, in the end, it’s just a tv show, and it doesn’t actually matter, for all I can get very emotional about things, esp bc Horobi as a character became very important to me.

I hope at least some of that was coherent. I have a hard time articulating my thoughts (part of why I repeat myself so much), and I have been extremely exhausted for the past few days bc my sleep schedule is messed up, so it’s even worse.

I’m not apologising for having an opinion and an interpretation of a piece of media, and I never will. That’s not something I should be required to apologise for. I’m not hurting anyone, bc, again, it’s just a tv show. I’m just in my corner, rambling. I don’t mean any of it as an attack against people who disagree, everyone interpret things differently. For instance, I have things in media that I dislike so much it makes me feel physically ill to think about them, but I just filter them out and it’s fine. I’m even on friendly terms (I hope?) w/ people who like some of those things that make me feel sick, but it’s fine, bc we just don’t discuss them. I know people I disagree about things w/, less viscerally, and have actually had discussions w/ them about that stuff.

Having differing opinions is one thing, but I don’t appreciate the aggressive tone here. I’m saying this partially bc I do understand getting very fired up about something, even if it’s fictional (*looks pointedly at my own blog*), so I’m assuming you just feel very strongly on the subject, but please be aware of how your words might come across—bc the another part of the reason I’m saying this is that I know if I had been in a slightly different mood when I saw this, it might have greatly upset me to unwell levels. I hope it was not your intention to attack me on anything, and that this is just something you feel passionate about, but as someone who often struggles w/ tone and knows it… Please consider it. It can be harmful.

[centralsaints]

writing tag game

tagged by @idolcandy​ to do this, honestly what a timing since i got back from a one year writing slumber recently 

AO3 name: centralsaints

Fandoms: according to my ao3 profile, i wrote for death note (1 published fic), hetalia (3 published fics) and my candy love (8 published fics). but all the fandoms i have written for that i have not posted there? oh boy. so there’s the arcana, voltron (wrote half of a fic back in 2017 and then never touched it again), wrote some kind of thing (?) while i read PJO for the first time, i have one black butler series that is uh. buried somewhere on ff.net (about the reaper’s death if i remember correctly. also was probably on crack in the summer of 2017 and wrote the plan of a modern au fic in whihc alois owned a tarantula). if we go back to high school i have written for naruto and also the rotbtd fandom. oh god i wrote A LOT for that crossover. still have some kind of fic planned (that i named the stay dead au) that i kinda want to write. i think that covers all of it? OH I FORGOT THE MOST ABSURD ONE: i have started writing a fic for Dramatical Murder recently. i got into that game in 2014, played it for the first time in 2017, then forgot it existed until a month ago

Tropes: FOUND FAMILY, friends to lovers, slice of life, unrequited love, bittersweet ending, character studies, working through mental health (?), i can’t think of other tropes i use? 

Number of fics: officially i have 6 finished one shots, one on going drabble collection, one abandonned fic (rip seen 2:18 am u will be missed), one semi-abandonned fic, and one finished fic on ao3. on the amour sucré forum i have an abandonned fic (rip again to seen), an on going fic called “12 things alexy hates” REALLY want to continue this one, one finished fic and a one shot collection. i dont know how many wips i have sitting in my google doc. 

Fic I spent the most time on: SEEN: 2:18 AM. i unfortunately have abandonned it by now, but on god i spent maybe from july 2017 to early 2018 entirely focused on planning that fic, and it still is the longest time i’ve spent having my attention on one project.

Fic I spent the least time on: this death note short (the only one on my ao3 lmao). i wrote it in under an hour at like 1 am because i couldn’t get the scene out of my head, the night before a deadline for one of my art history essay i was trying to finish 

Longest fic: for my published fic it’s the meme that is this group chat fic. but outside of that, it’s probably SEEN. the draft for it is 11 000 words and the doc is 33 pages long. maybe i’ll sort through it one day but my writing has changed a lot so its likely those 33 pages wont be published, rip again to this fic

Shortest fic:  fever dream, an armin/nathaniel fic i wrote while i was sick

Most hits/kudos/comment threads/bookmarks: it’s apparently the group chat fic  smh.

Total word count: 19 834 on AO3. absolutely no idea for all the wips sitting in my drive.

Favorite fic I wrote:  definitely the drabble series about the twins “the things that follows”. i wrote most of these while i was in therapy, and untangling some stuff about myself, in spring 2018. i was in a pretty good place i think at that time, and that’s why i still love this series a lot.

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: i’m contemplating continuing the group chat fic, and maybe one day if i find the energy to comb through and rewrite SEEN, i’d really like for that to happen. there’s also a short drabble about armin getting stuck in a time loop i posted on my tumblr that i want to expand onto a full fic (which the working title rn is “purgatorio”)

Share a bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning on: my current and most recent wips include; the dmmd fic series, a series of mcl OS inspired by the magnus archive universe and the slow building of a UL rewrite with my OC charlie the national fuck up. so here’s some of those;

Sei does not know for how long he has been cut off from his own mind and stuck in his body, unable to go away like he used to do so when the world was too harsh and too real for him, but also unable to completely shut off his mind, like he had wanted. An unknown amount of time passes; he feels himself trying to reach for the outside, for the bits of himself outside of his mind and it seems like there is nothing outside.

from the dmmd sei centric fic, because he deserves to l i v e. working title for this series is the long way home

I will say one thing before I begin this, and it’s the same thing I told the police and the lawyers: it was justified. It was necessary. It might have been a murder, but it sure was not a crime. You have to understand that have taken to hunting monsters for a living. And that man was in fact, a monster. 

from nathaniel’s statement, in the mcl x tma series.

They weren’t a couple, that was something very clear between them, and one of the first thing Charlie had said after the first time they’d slept together. Still, it felt oddly domestic for Nathaniel to see Charlie come out of his bathroom, bare faced with her hair still wet with only a t-shirt that was clearly too old and too big for her. 

from a scene in my UL rewrite/fic/AU.

thank you for the tag!! i tag @marycecilyy and anyone who wants to do this tbh, i don’t uh. really know a lot of writers.

[sugaabooga]

The Holiday Ghost

Pairing: Kim Jaehwan x Reader

Genre: fluff, little angst?, bullet scenario, ghost!Jaehwan

Word Count: 3.2k

Summary/Extra: MERRRRRRRYYY CHRISTMAAAAASSSSS!!! Part of the Christmas Packages:) thought i should start posting the writings ive finished even tho a lot of the kpop fandom has been through hard times last week! i’ve also extended this holiday thing until the end of my winter break, January 8th. ENJOY!

So you’ve never really been a fan of horror movies

But one day in the middle of December, winter break, your friends Jihoon and Woojin suggest the three of you watch the new horror movie that had recently came out

That was the worst decision you have ever made in your whole entire life

You couldn’t walk back home alone and made both the boys walk you

But either way it was scary

bc they wouldn’t stop scaring you!!!

“Y-Y/N….”

“STOPPPPP!!”

“THERE’S SOMETHING BEHIND YOU!”

And they would start sprinting down the sidewalk and leave you to stand alone in the flickering street light

You almost burst into tears

Jihoon and woojin felt really bad after you had a near panic attack

so Jihoon ends up walking in front of you and woojin walks behind you

b4 they leave they remind you that it’s not real and ghosts don’t exist

Blah blah blah

Their little assurance somewhat calms you

BUT YOU REALIZE YOUR PARENTS AREN’T HOME

IT’S LATE WHY AREN’T THEY HOMEEEEE

DID THEY DIE!? IF YOU GO IN THE BATHROOM WILL THEY BE LAYING THERE!?

you start running around the house and turn on every single light you have

you know you shouldn’t, but you really don’t wanna risk seeing a dark shadow in the mirror as you brush your teeth then be led to your death, so you don’t even step a meter near the bathroom

you change in the corner of your room so nothing would be able to stand behind you

You walk backwards into your bed then create a little house around your head with all your stuffed animals

you somehow fall asleep despite the feeling you had of someone watching you

But during the middle of the night you hear soft strumming of the guitar

At first you think that it must be your next door neighbor, Joshua playing his little morning warm-up

Then you see the time from your half opened eyes and holy shiz it’s only 2am

you start to hyperventilate and you can’t even close your eyes

Bc what if the killer ghost is hovering right above you when you choose to open them again

You can’t risk it

the strums come closer and closer to your window

and you feel yourself sweating more and your breathing becomes ragged

but then you hear humming of a soft, light tune

it makes you think back to third grade, first day of school

you remember a kid who always brought a ukulele to school

tbh you had a crush on that boy, but you couldn’t remember his name

he always sat with you whenever you mom was late to pick you up and he would play a short theme song like from a popular cartoon

his songs always assured you that your mom was coming to pick you up soon

and it helped you forget all the bullies and frights you had

the song that you were hearing rn was oddly familiar and it comforted you

The strums were nowhere near creepy, surprisingly and the hums lulled you back to sleep

When you wake up in the morning, you hear guitar strums again

your heart beats erratically but then you realize

The sun’s out

Which means

It’s bright and daytime

Which meanss

NO GHOSTS

Which meanssss

It was your cute neighbor joshua hong playing his guitar and singing with his heavenly voice

You just lay in your bed after opening your window a bit more so you can hear him sing

But then you realize….

It wasn’t joshua’s voice

Joshua had a softer, gentler voice

This voice was soft and gentle….

But there was strong emotion put into each word sung

way more emotion than a morning warm up

you slowly get up and peek out your window to see…

Nothing

You notice that the singing and guitar stopped as well

you slump back into your bed then think back to the horror movie from yesterday

It couldn’t be….

A GHOST!?!!?!?

You start screaming and crying at the same time when the scenes from the movie come rushing into your brain

You hear footsteps come up the stairs and you start screaming even louder

But stop when you see that it’s just your mom

“WHAT’S GOING ON!? IS EVERYTHING OKAY!?”

“MOOOOMMMMM!!! I THINK OUR HOUSE IS HAUNTEDDD!!”

cue your mom hitting your back and yelling at you

“I THOUGHT SOMETHING HAPPENED!”

“SOMETHING DID HAPPEN! I HEARD A GHOST SINGING!”

that just makes your mom even more mad

her slaps just drive you out of bed and you soon find yourself sitting out on your porch

You were currently rubbing your hands over your arms

bc it was FREAKIN cold

you couldn’t believe your mom had kicked you out of the house in the middle of December

you’re muttering to yourself how cold it is then you see a guy with a guitar slung over his shoulder walking down the sidewalk and across the street about to pass by your home

He seemed to be in a good mood

humming and all

but something just seemed off about him

he was rather….. pale

like transparent pale

you’re kinda worried bc what if this guy was rlly sick or something and he didn’t know about it bc he seemed to be in a good mood

“Hey!”

You yell from your chair and wave your arms

he turns to you and stares at you for a bit then keeps walking

you’re like “uh wut?”

you go down the steps and you honestly don’t even know what you’re doing

your feet were moving on their own

you felt like you had to help this person

“Excuse me?”

you call out, but the guy DOES NOT STOP WALKING

could he not hear?

you jog up behind him and reach your hand out to tap him

but

your hand goes through him

“AHHHH!”

the guy suddenly whips around in shock and looks at you with an equally bewildered look

you’re frozen on the spot

you can’t move no matter how creepy the situation is rn

“d-do you see me?” he almost whispers

“n-no”

He just starts laughing and it freaks the hell outta you

What kind of psychotic laugh was that!?

You felt shivers run up and down your spine as he tried to calm himself down

you slowly try to step away from him but Jaehwan does that creepy, nervous, cute looking smile

like do you know what smile im talking about

and he asks you “where are you going?”

your mind’s just going ‘GTFO GGTTFFOO”

you attempt to turn around and run, but you just fall flat on your face

How comedic would this look from your window?

“Are you okay?”

“STOP DON’T COME NEAR ME!”

tbh jaehwan is disheartened at your tone

He was ecstatic that someone could finally see him, but now they were getting scared bc of him

He just ignores those feelings and nervously chuckles

you don’t hear anything for a while and you start to stand up

then you hear music

Those guitar strums

that voice

Both those factors reminded you of that one boy who played to you

you frantically look around, but you couldn’t seem to see anything

then, you spot that ghost guy from earlier

he was sitting on the side of your house, leaned against the wall

If jaehwan remembered anything about humans, it was that they seemed to calm down when there was music

you slowly walk over to him, your feet making crunching noises on the fresh snow

You just stand across from him listening to his voice

when he stops you look at him in surprise and disappointment

“Why’d you stop playing?”

Jaehwan smirks

“You seemed pretty calm enough”

he stands up to take his leave

“Y-You’re voICE IS NICE!”

you’re still kinda creeped out about the fact that he’s a ghost AND WHY ARE YOU SEEING HIM!?!!?

but he just had this familiar comforting feel

you stop him by reaching out for his arm when he merely smiles at your compliment and starts to walk away from you

then remember he’s a frkn ghost

but as you retract your arm you feel the cloth of his jacket

0o0o0o0o000o0o0o0

why were you able to touch him!?!!

Jaehwan can feel after all these years

More like a few months but

“ARE YOU MY SOULMATE!?!?!”

Kim jaehwan plz

you’re like “bro wtf?”

he proceeds to explain how if a human can see him and touch him, he gets a chance to go to the afterworld

for some odd reason, jaehwan was rejected bc he had someone in the real world who wasn’t ready to let him go

This usually wasn’t a problem but the wanting of his presence was REALLLLLYYYY STRONG

So he had to stay in the human world until he found that human and spent three weeks with them to convince them to let him go

“Are you saying it’s me?”

“There’s really no one else who could touch me”

He honestly didn’t know why you were able to touch him

Let alone SEE him

but he felt like you were the owner of that strong, unseen force of wanting his presence

you’re really confused tho bc you’ve never seen him b4

“IM JAEHWAN!”

he suddenly blurts then grins

“....y/n…”

and like JAEHWAN REMEMBERS YOU

You were that one girl who he always played his ukulele for in elementary school!

he had once seen you cry bc you’re mom was running really late and he walked home so he stayed an extra twenty minutes just singing and playing until you cracked a smile

But maybe you weren’t that girl bc he knew at least two other ppl named y/n

Anyways

he doesn’t mention that he may or may not know you and just follows you into your home

by then your mom is calmed down from this morning

there’s already a plate of pancakes set on the table for you

Jaehwan takes a tour around your home while you eat

You finish eating then hear his laugh again

You temporarily forgot there was a ghost in your home, so you freaked but then

“Right… jaehwan”

After you wash the dishes you go up to your room but jaehwan’s already in there

WEARING A FRKN BRA

you clamp your hand over your mouth so you don’t scream from the shock, but instead, you start laughing

“I WISH I COULD TAKE A PICTURE OF YOU RN!”

you’re literally on the ground and Jaehwan just smiles at you and sits on your bed

STILL IN YOUR BRA

“STOP TOUCHING IT!”

it’s only been a few hours of spending time w/Jaehwan in your room

but you feel like you’ve known him for years

he told you about the day his first tooth fell out all the way to the last time he was still existing

you had shed some tears during his talk about his death and what he had felt when he saw the car barreling towards him

soon, a week passed

It was Christmas

You open up your presents

You had asked for a guitar and there it was

You honestly had NO KNOWLEDGE about guitars whatsoever, but the instrument always caught your eye

But ya know

Jaehwans a pro at guitar

So he basically teaches you the basics and helps you get started

You bond even quicker bc of the guitar lessons

And seriously

You never realized you would be best friends with a ghost

Christmas passed by really quickly with Jaehwan hanging out w/you all the time

his presence was always comforting

butttt a lot of your relatives prob thought you were crazy from giggling out of the blue and appearing to talk to yourself

you wanted to tell jihoon and woojin about jaehwan but you couldn’t find the time to meet them during the break

Soon it’s December 31st

third week

Jaehwan had mentioned his past b4

Especially he was now 99% sure that you were the one not letting him go after seeing, from your pictures, that you WERE that girl from like 14 years ago

you didn’t even realize that you were holding on to him from leaving this world

you didn’t even know that you were always missing that one kid in elementary school, who always managed to put a smile on your face and brighten up your day

you now knew that you were the one keeping Jaehwan from leaving to where he belonged

behind the Heaven gates

you kept putting it behind

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow…in three days…. next week….”

until it was New Year’s Eve

10:05pm

You were sitting out on Ong Seongwoo’s empty patio w/Jaehwan

Ong Seongwoo - a freakishly rich dude that somehow became friends with Jihoon and Woojin despite the four year age gap

Seongwoo had thrown a New Year’s Eve party

there were mostly college kids, but a few high schoolers from jihoon and woojin’s dance team were also invited were at this party

You have no idea how you were at this party, but woojin had insisted you come

you had spent some time talking with some of the dancers’ girlfriends and with Jihoon and woojin, but decided to get some fresh air bc the loud music and smell of alcohol was too much

Jaehwan hadn’t come with you even tho he begged to come as long

you wanted jaehwan to stay home

Just in case you did something completely embarrassing

but one thing you should know

don’t ever trust kim jaehwan

Especially when he’s a ghost

you were just gazing out into the night sky when you saw a glowing figure

you were about to freak out

BC ANOTHER GHOST!? JAEHWAN WAS ALREADY A HANDFUL

but then you saw that it was just Jaehwan

the ghost that you had somehow fell in love with

You really wished he was a person

As jaehwan spent more and more time w/you

the less and lesser you would be able to tap his shoulder, give him a small hug, or even high five him

It was like the very first time you tried to tap his shoulder, the first time you met

your fingers just went through him

you knew that you couldn’t let go of him

you missed his presence whenever you would wake up and not see him there on the floor, gazing blankly at the ceiling

Jaehwan was prob just lowkey stalking your other neighbor, Hwang Minhyun

I mean he still couldn’t believe someone could be so…..

clean

anyways

you don’t think you would be able to live without him

but that was just your selfish desires

You knew the longer jaehwan spent his time in the real world, the more dangerous it would become for him

Jaehwan would be turned into a human, but obviously he had to experience another death since he’s not supposed to be alive

but if that happened, he wouldn’t even get a chance to go to trial to go to Heaven

you didn’t want that

you would rather miss him for a bit then see him again in the form of an angel

so you decide to let him go at exactly 12am, January 1st of the new year

when jaehwan appears, he already knows you made up your mind

he could just tell from your eyes

both the sadness and determination

“Y/N?”

“Yes, Jaehwan?”

“I’m sorry I forgot I was a ghost the other day and tried to carry your guitar.”

you chuckle at his belated apology

“No worries”

The two of you spend the rest of the time talking about the three weeks you’ve spent together

it felt like you had been with him for years

Before you know it, it’s 11:58pm

ppl inside are already starting the countdown

Two minutes b4 the new year since seongwoo’s like that

Both of you know you’re running out of time

and you just suddenly break down in tears

you became so attached to the ghost in front of you in a matter of three weeks

It was like fate had brought you two together after he had died and give you the time to grow love for one another just to break you apart again

sure, it was only three weeks

But you already knew that you would be willing to spend the rest of your entire life with him

You had literally seen all sides of jaehwan

The good sides, the bad sides, the funny sides, the broken sides

“I love you, Y/N”

you look up in surprise

You were half expecting to be like

“AHhAHhahHAHkakkjakH LOVE YOUUUU”

And joke about it but

nope

you look in his eyes and you know he’s not joking around this time

your eyes were still half-filled w/tears, so you quickly rub them away in order so you can see jaehwan properly

But he’s fading away

WHY WAS HE FADING AWAY?

Jaehwan steps closer to you and you can actually feel… body heat?

you missed being able to actually physically touch jaehwan

he sadly smiles and all you see in his eyes are tears and genuinity

“I love you”

you hear the loud cheers of the people inside counting down from ten to finally celebrate the new year that will bring new New Year Resolutions and fresh starts

The countdown slowly fades away as you see the space between you and Jaehwan grow smaller and smaller

Just as you close your eyes and feel a light touch on your lips,

“ONEEEE WHOOOP!!!”

You hear cheers grow the loudest they’ve ever been that night

The touch…..

it’s gone

Jaehwan….

is gone

After Jaehwan just disappears into thin air, everything else is a blur

You remember woojin coming out to find you squatted down on the ground, about to cheer how it was the new year, but instead sees your face in your hands, and tears streaming down your face

he knew better than to ask what was wrong

he immediately takes you home and wishes you a Happy New Year and leaves a light, shy kiss on your forehead

if you hadn’t met jaehwan in the duration of your winter break, you prob would’ve been bursting with happiness rn

You had always had a small crush on woojin

but obviously it all changed when you had seen jaehwan

Instead, you offer a small smile, thank him for being such a supportive friend and bid him a safe walk back home

you trudge back into your room and fall face flat onto your bed

you want to cry

and…. you do

But as you struggle to calm down and get up to wash your face and move on with your life….

you hear a tiny crinkling of paper

you look over, confused and see a small piece of paper sticking out from the first fret of your guitar, fluttering from the wind that was being let in from your slightly open window

with trembling hands, you open it up and let some more tears fall

happy tears

“Merry New Year’s, Y/N! Don’t miss me too much. :P Move on with your life. Don’t forget about me though! I still want some attention you know lol (i used that slang word! Lol keke I saw it when you were texting that friend of yours lol) Thanks for letting me go. I will never forget you and all the things we’ve been through even though it’s been only three weeks. lol…

I love you. - Kim Jaehwan”

as you struggle to keep in your tears and not roll his eyes at his overuse of the “slang” word ‘lol’ you notice something falling out from the small note he had left

you crouch down and pick it up from the floor to see

his guitar pick

[clarenecessities]

6/20/17

hell of a day, folks. hell of a day. as some of you may recall it is extremely rare that i am genuinely angry--last time was about six months ago, and the time before that? four years. unfortunately it does have a tendency to make up for lost time bc i have been known to fly into a rage (none have been directed at other people since The Dark Times, which we’re not going to talk about today)

so basically: we’re doing locker room clean outs, right? like we go through and we cut all the locks that are still on lockers (we gave them upwards of a month’s notice to clear them out) and then bag the stuff up and label it in case they come back like “uh hey my locker is gone and also all my shit”.

yesterday went pretty smoothly, but lucie and emma weren’t there today so it was me, Charlie, Lani, Ali, John, and Briana. A brief breakdown:

Charlie is our staff facilitator, a position which was invented specifically for him because he is one of the most dedicated employees this facility has ever seen, and was passed over for a lead position when Ray (our boss) selected the two people who he had worked with the most--which were unfortunately just the people who had been kissing his ass the most, Adam (a condescending misogynist who hasn’t been in the building for upwards of a month) and Lani. Charlie actually does his job, which is saying a lot at the CRC tbqh. Charlie is my adopted son and I love him, damn it. As staff facilitator, he basically runs the ops staff (me) and does what needs doing. He also does every part of Adam’s job that hasn’t already been pawned off onto Lani.

Lani is one of our two leads. She is very, very young for a lead and socially reads somewhat like an anxious child who can read the vibe, but has no idea how to respond to it. She’s very friendly and loves to give compliments, but hates all negativity. It amplifies her awkward fidgeting by like a hundred. She’s John’s long-time girlfriend and has recently (since her promotion) become friends with Ali.

Ali is the worst.

John is very hard-working, genuine, and generally a positive person. The only fault I’ve noticed is he follows direction without consideration, so he can be pulled in several conflicting directions.

Briana is the younger sister of one of our former ops staff, and basically lives in the awkward zone Lani sometimes inhabits. She’s very young, a moderately hard worker, and desperate for approval but not recognition.

picture the scene... a humid, smelly locker room covered in discarded pieces of trash and waiting baskets. the morning begins with lock-cutting, which continues unimpeded for the better part of an hour and a half, until Lani has to go upstairs for a meeting.

chaos descends.

charlie and i had just finished cutting through a lock specifically designed to resist cutting, and subsequently had to cut off the latch of the locker because we twisted it so bad. (this locker had been locked for the entirety of my CRC employment, like... there was a card in there that expired in september of 2014.) we were trying to cut other locks but our arms were under a little too much strain, so charlie was like alright, i’m calling a break.

so we all rest for about fifteen minutes. charlie went somewhere else so the break room was me, ali, briana, and john. it was..... hell. ali was like “hey where did lani go” because she doesn’t actually listen when lani speaks, so i was like “she said she had a meeting.” Now, a little more background: Ali is being trained in admin functions. This is essentially a meaningless distinction in regards to hierarchy, and instead reflects pay scale. Emma is also being trained, and doing much better, and I’m going to start training next week. if they’re asking me to do it? it’s not about hierarchy. anyway. Ali started fucking power tripping. she was like “oh well is it an admin meeting” and i was like “no, charlie didn’t know about it” because charlie, as staff facilitator, must be present at admin meetings. ali has visibly decided that not only is staff facilitator a fake position that she won’t recognize, but that her actual fake position conveys real power, and says “yeah but if it’s admin then i should be up there“ like no, ali, you really fucking shouldn’t. you are living in an Assistant TO THE Regional Manager world, my dude! anyway she kept asking me fucking questions about it and eventually i was just like, “dude, if you were supposed to be there, lani would have told you” and she stopped.

oh i forgot to mention, during the lock cutting phase i asked her why she had the american flag on her cast and she was like “oh because i love america” and i was like “oh cool so you hate the flag? that’s what this is?” & charlie and i had to explain the flag code to her. not the part about not using it as a costume or whatever: The existence of the Flag Code. it’s also just like a really fuckin’ ugly cast, it’s more stars and bars than stars and stripes... she fucking voted for trump though so hey whatever’s racist enough for you i guess

at the end of the break, charlie comes into the breakroom and says, quote, “let’s get jiggy with it” and gestures to the locker rooms, so i like get up & we get back to work, right?

the others stayed. either they didn’t understand the pantomime, or they weren’t done talking about mediocre horror movies, which they’d been doing when i left.

so twenty minutes later, after our allotted fifteen minute break, they mosey back on into the locker room and begin bagging. charlie’s more irritated than i am at this point--i was mostly like, alright, whatever, at least i don’t have to listen to them circle jerk it for another twenty minutes. it took all three of them, working together, to bag one row of lockers, in additional twenty minutes. contextually: they had to empty a grand total of three lockers. the majority of the twenty minutes was spent either gaping at a jar with some spit in it, or by ali complaining that her leg was on fire. i should add that she’s in a cast because she broke some toes about a month ago, she’s got one of those little cart things that she’s wheeling around on rn--not a wheelchair, like a scooter with a high bench. anyway she physically couldn’t cut the locks and so had been sitting around the majority of the morning distracting the others, and was now spending the noon complaining for anyone within earshot, which was everyone.

charlie and i, meanwhile, had finished cutting all the locks, and were now onto the bagging process. we cleared four rows in addition to the six additional locks we cut while they were all working on their three bags.

i was mostly tuning them out and focusing on the content of the lockers, because charlie was getting the stuff out and i was writing it down

at the end of this twenty minute interval, they approached charlie and me and said ray had given us $20 dollars for lunch. ali suggested the greenery (our campus cafeteria), which is ludicrous for a number of reasons, foremost among them being that the greenery Sucks, and that it costs $10 per person and there were five of us. i suggested pizza but charlie was like ehhhhh bc we had pizza yesterday and normal humans don’t subscribe to my unholy eating regimen--but it was too late. they’d already seized on the idea. so at 12:26 (i checked my phone) they left.

a half hour later, as we were wheeling bags back to the lost and found, we saw them talking with lani in the hallway. they continued to talk until about 1:08, at which point state troopers were doing a patrol of our building as part of their wider sweep of campus, because i guess that’s where we’re fucking at right now

while they were gone, some serious shit happened, and i’m gonna copy and paste it from facebook bc it’s A Lot:

charlie and i were cleaning out the lockers and heard people throwing weights. we were like "uh, what the fuck" so charlie went up to check it out. he found 3 athletes working out and he was like "yo... we're closed." this guy is like "oh, the coaches let us in, you can go check with them" and charlie's like "uh yeah okay i'll go do that" and as he's walking away the guy calls him a bitch like you can't even say it to his fucking face? christ dude so charlie's not a fucking twelve year old & just keeps walking, he bumps into ray who apparently did let them in, lets him know the situation. five minutes later i am Incensed on my son's behalf and they're still throwing weights, so I go up there to ask them to stop, have some words if necessary, you know two of the guys are chill about it but this third one is like "uh, weights make a noise when you set them on the ground" like yeah thanks man I haven't worked in a gym for three years or anything i had no idea. i continue to tell him to set them down & not pick things up if he can't fucking lift them, he gets increasingly belligerent and brings up charlie "disrespecting" him and "coming at [him] like [he's] a liar". so I'M like "oh, you mean my supervisor, who you just called a bitch?" and he goes off about how he doesn't do anything to us, he's never done anything to us, like we shouldn't be wondering why he's in a locked building filled with dangerous equipment with no supervision, or asking him not to damage our fucking floors he kept turning away from me and putting his earbuds in to front like he doesn't give a shit about me but he just came off like a fucking coward. he also wouldn't say bitch to me? like he said charlie "was being a B-word" like jesus christ dude you aren't entitled to be here! it is specifically against the rules and i have no idea why they let you in, so if you insist on being here, how about not verbally abusing our staff facilitator and treating the ops staff--who is seconds away from peeling you like a god damned onion --like a five year old

i ended this in a full-on rage tbqh. like thank god i did eventually develop some impulse control or i might have murdered that guy in our weight room.

came back down and was just real, real fuckin’ mad, told charlie what happened, tried to channel fury into productivity (surprisingly effective, although my hands were shaking which may have affected legibility) and tried to talk myself out of breaking something.

oh also the guy explicitly told me “we’re enemies” like DAMN dude you have no idea what a can of worms you just cracked open. you wanna be enemies? ohhh i’ll be enemies. y’all can add this asshole to that murder suspect list from yesterday because it’s all downhill from here my guy

well. anyway. about 2:06 john is like “hey clare your pepsi’s in the breakroom” (i asked them to just bring me a pepsi wherever they were going) and i was like “cool i’ll be right there.” i still needed to calm down before being in a room with anyone even mildly irritating so i did a couple more lockers and waited for charlie to finish wheeling the bags out.

we step into the break room and ali’s like “did you remember to put the bags in the same place” with no preamble, like A. of fucking course we did, this isn’t rocket science, B. you never told us that in the first place, C. you have absolutely no authority over me, and charlie outranks you. like yes she’s one of those people who just everything they do is annoying? but this was like... an explicit show of dominance, because lani was in the break room, and ali wanted to show off to her. tashina had also turned up and was the only one who seemed to notice that charlie and i were both seething--charlie was like “okay well i’m going home” and she told him to relax (in a slightly awkward but well-meaning attempt at saying ‘hey i can see you’re upset but probably don’t wanna talk about, take it easy out there’ that charlie interpreted as ‘calm down lad’ until i was like no, she was trying)

so then ray (you may recall; our supervisor) shows up to grab a couple slices of pizza, asks how everything’s going, and ali was like “oh yeah we did half” and i was so fucking done at that point, i just stared at her and said “no”

like nope, “we” didn’t do shit, and charlie and i got about a third down without you.

we talked for a while about operations... i mentioned the athletes to ray and he actually has a plan for it, i guess we’re going to meet with the teams before the school year and be like “hey, ground rules” which i think is a pretty good idea because the basketball guys are almost all dicks

ray mentioned at one point that he was probably going to base summer hours on who was turning up for these cleanouts, and tashina made a point of mentioning that charlie and i had been working “especially hard” which i really appreciated, because the idea of having to work a shift with ali over like lucie or emma makes me want to Die

so about 2:50 they’re like “okay well the pizza’s been gone for a half hour, i guess we should work now” and i was like man, you know, charlie is gone and i’m still really fucking angry, so i don’t think i should be trapped in a small, hot space with y’all rn & i went home

as i was walking back i actually ran into charlie, he had been on his way back because he had calmed down some & wanted the hours, but he was like yeah shit if you’re not there there’s no way i can handle them

so we were talking about the Parade of Bullshit that comprised our work day and somehow it turned into me going back to his place (he lives in my apartment complex but like three buildings over) to see his guns. i can now officially say i’ve held a gun, & it was just as surreal and terrifying as i imagined! i’m never gonna be a gun person tbh but it cool to see the differences between his, he’s got a soviet issue rifle (complete with bayonet) & then a more modern one that looks like plastic but isn’t

we just hung out for a while, his dog lucky wouldn’t stop jumping on me, which was all in good fun but i like moved my hand wrong and hit his tooth so now my hand hurts :/ he showed me the Last Of Us which i’d never really seen outside of gifsets & i was actually pretty impressed with the graphics! the animation was good too, which i feel like you don’t see in games so much. we got through the prologue part & then i gave charlie a ride to physical therapy bc he had forgotten the bus schedule changes for summer, & i was going that way anyway to get some bubble tea

i get to the mall, guess who’s out of boba!! i was like no.................. my heart can’t take this, but then alyssa checked & was like “yeah the next batch will be ready in twenty minutes” so thank god. thank heckin’ god. i grabbed some lemonade and pretzel bitz from wetzel’s pretzels--that fucking vine with the Indiana Jones song has been fucking haunting me by the way--and chilled in my car because my phone had died at charlie’s place and i needed to charge it up. went and got my bubble tea, got some gas, picked up charlie & then took him on some errands ‘cause like fuck the bus, right? hatched some good pokemon

came back home, relaxed with toby and my bubble tea & forensic files. finally achieved Calm.

decided at about 10:30 that i wanted ice cream & i was like shit if anybody deserves ice cream it’s me rn so i went to mcdonald’s & got a cone & two apple pies for a grand total of 2-something dollars. how am i supposed to resist going back there every day is the real fuckin’ question man

anyway now i’m super tired and i’m going to bed so like....  yeah