#(ive already made one but i lost the file)

[cutiebetutie]

the entire vargas fandom (and we all know each other too)

VARGAS NEEDS MORE ATTENTION AUGH WHY COULDNT JTHM BEEN MORE POPULAR AND THE PEOPLE WHO LIKED THAT FANDOM READ MORE FANFICTION

tho strangely i feel like most people who love vargas had to read the jthm comic AFTER vargas (or im just projecting my own experience)

@zarla-s drives our little bus and keeps having to tell us to quiet down bc we start scream singing back there

I CALL THE SEAT NEXT TO @disposal-blueeee (we are looking at pictures of jakes abs in the back seat)

[pampushky]

i hate the air he breathes his foolish decrees

Alpha! Lando Norris/Omega! Lauda! Reader - chapter 2 - 5k

woooo welcome to part 2 my loves! sorry for the slight wait. I've been doing hot bitch shit (my actual job). but now we're back. enjoy the fuck out of it. TW: no mention of abuser other than as him. mentions of abandonment and severe physical trauma in the form of a house fire. lore drop on the main character too!!

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Mid-March 2005. Los Angeles.

Niki gets a call from an unknown number that wakes him up from a deep slumber, and he hardly has any time to think as he’s pulling a sweater over his head and forgoing a hat entirely. It’s his third day in as your legal guardian, and you’re already transferred to a state-of-the-art hospital in Los Angeles, across the country from where you’d lived previously. A newer set of mountains. A city to the hamlet you’d once known, hidden away in the foggy mountains of North Carolina.  

As he blearily walks into the hospital lobby, there’s already a small team of doctors waiting for him, explaining rapidly what's happening to you as they walk him up to your room in the burn ward. You’re in the best hospital for burns on the continent— Niki had made sure of it. Had paid for the flight over here two days ago, with a medical staff on board to keep you stable during the five-hour flight. 

The doctors swarming around your unconscious form resemble vultures. The burn center director explains everything to him when they finally get to your room. The rapid medical treatment nearly made you present early. Freakishly early, by all standards. It’s understood to have been a panic response by your body— because you're on the brink of death in the burn ward, your hormones so out of whack that for whatever reason, your brain had gone, ‘Oh, yes, it’s time to do that now.’

Studies had shown that those in areas where the risk of death was high often presented much earlier, with other cases that also supported something known as “panic presentation”. You’re an extreme example of the latter. But it had never been seen to this degree. You need to be knocked out for several days, going comatose while a team of doctors works around the clock to save your life while it seems likely you will melt away like the first snowfall on a sun-warmed road as it seems new complications get piled onto your case file every day. The way the doctor talks about you makes Niki feel like you’re more of a specimen meant for study, and not a pup who’d just lost her Dam. 

Marlene has already decorated the sterile room to reflect more on a child’s room. And wherever there’s an empty space on a table, she’s placed down vases full of fresh flowers. Flowering dogwood. That’s what the state flower was of North Carolina, and however early in the season for blooming it was, she managed to find fresh ones every day. Now, Marlene was back at the hotel, settling a new wave of interest about your identity while Niki tried to figure out what he was going to do with you when he's lead into the room.

You’re already on several new medications to prevent you from presenting early, having them inserted in through an IV and eventually, to be taken as a pill when you could swallow. You'll be on these same medications until you’re seven or eight, when they can start to consider weaning you off of them to let you present then because it’ll be safer. Niki hates the idea of you presenting even then. You should be almost fully grown when you present. Not— not still a pup. With baby teeth still in your mouth. You should be wrestling. Learning to access your canine form, and causing mayhem like his sons had. 

So he does what he’s been doing for the past five days. Niki sits quietly by your side in your private room. Holding your tiny hand while a machine breathes for you, not even five years old, and fighting for your life. Completely unaware of the complications your existence has thrown straight into Niki’s lap, dredging up old, old wounds that his sons have yet to recover from.

Because the great complication is that you’re his biological grandchild. 

Through a son, a beta, that neither Lukas nor Mathias had gotten to know. Or Niki, for that matter. But here you are. The only link to that son. To the ultimate undoing of his marriage and mating, his infidelity thrown back in his face in the form of a sedated, traumatized pup that can’t understand him through his accent.

Left without a dam, your mother. Lost to the roaring flames of a housefire that you’d somehow survived. Part of Niki wants to know how his son had ended up in the area, and if there are any other new descendants he should know about. So he petitions the court to gain access to your files before he legally adopts you, and he stares down at them before finally lifting the cover of the manila folder and starts to read.

All the files seem to stare right on back at Niki as he continues to pour through them, officially five minutes and nine seconds into being your legal guardian. They’re meticulous, just as expected— it had become standard for anyone who’d had so much as a visit to a hospital to create a DNA profile, especially after they presented. His affair child’s profile stares back at him, with what he can only assume is an up-to-date photo. Male. Beta. Signed away parental rights before birth. Austrian nationality. That’s all you have to go on for your biological father’s identity. 

That’s all that linked Niki to you, and how the social worker had managed to contact him. All other positive matches from your father’s side are his former mistress as your biological grandmother and his two sons with Marlene as your uncles. There are no other pups listed for his affair child. No other grandchildren that he has to worry about. Your dam’s profile is more complete. A smiling picture of her holding you as an infant, left by her family.

Female. Omega. Deceased. American nationality, born in Banner Elk, North Carolina. 

And under that:

Dam’s pack signed away pack and next of kin rights to the pup. Relevant health history is accessible through the International UN DNA database. Pack requested no contact order until the pup has reached legal age, or unless the pup does not survive her time in hospital, so they may bury her in the family plot with her Dam.

This makes a chill run down Niki’s spine. Your pack had… signed you away? The only people who had been familiar to you— and they had signed away their rights as though you were more of a burden than anything, only asking for you back if you were dead. It makes him shudder, as he looks down at your tiny body again, for what must have been the thousandth time since he’s been introduced to you. Since he’d so quickly agreed to become your legal guardian, your legal sire. Covered in bandages and hooked up to dozens of wires. 

The social worker explained that signing you away was them not wanting to pay for the massive medical bill, along with the scandal your birth had caused in the small community. Your Dam was unmated, and even worse, unmarried, raising you on her own in a less-than-up-to-code cabin her late father had left her, further out in the mountains, a thirty-minute drive into town. 

The matriarch of her pack had been well-regarded in the area— it was an open secret that she was looking for any excuse to remove you from the picture. This just happened to be the perfect excuse. How was she going to be able to pay for your medical costs on her own when it was just her? All the advanced treatments you’d need— it would be too much in her old age.

When told about the Children’s Health Insurance Programs that could easily provide care for you, your grand-dam had just made a sour face and told the Social Worker she was still signing away her rights. Her surviving children were quick to follow her lead.

What a backward system. Niki had growled to himself, pacing in the room. Reading the reports from the insurance company he’d managed to legally bully his way into receiving from your biological family. 

The cabin had burnt down in nearly an hour. You’d been trapped under a metal bed frame when the roof collapsed in on itself. When they’d found you, it had been a recovery effort for bodies. And despite it all, you’d survived, your whimpering and crying alerting the firefighters that you were alive. Severely burnt, with the old mattress and polyester blankets having melted and dripped across your little body as the embers settled. Half of your body severely burnt from where the flames could still reach you. Crying out for your Dam even as you were airlifted to the nearest hospital with a functioning burn ward.

Going over your files has become a habit for first past three days. Ever since Marlene had gone silent when Niki told her that he was going to adopt you, before brusquely starting to order furniture and calling countless contractors that a new pup-friendly room be added to his house in Hof. He’s lucky to at least be considered a friend of his former mate, otherwise, he would be stumbling through his second round of parenting. He looks down at the newest addition to his pack. You. Four and a half. With burns covering an incredible amount of your body. Nearly 45% percent of your torso, completely mangling one of your legs, crawling up your neck and dancing across your jaw. Now lying in a medically-induced coma to conserve your energy. 

You wake up nearly two days later. Five days into Niki’s tenure as your legal sire. Unable to scream. Eyes fixed on Niki as your little chest heaves with the effort it takes to breathe. You pull at your IV and try to snap at a nurse who tries to stop you. But your eyes are still fixed on Niki, likely horrified by his burns. You were glancing at your own bandaged arms and body as if to gauge how you would one day look. 

There is a wild look in your eyes as you look at him. The way you tremble as the doctors try to explain everything. It hurts Niki’s heart, especially with the gasping noise you let out before they sedate you again when you’re still not responding well to anything. Niki wants to wrap you up in his arms and never let you go. You mumble something out as you drift away again, tears in the corners of your eyes. Foggy eyes on the extravagant bouquets of flowers on the tables beside your bed and across the room.

Where is my Dam? 

Early February 2024. Woking.

Your left leg was acting up again. It always did when you were stressed. The fire had mangled it— and that was putting it lightly. Not bad enough to amputate, because that would be too easy, and they didn’t want to send your body into even more shock. So you had your crispy, chicken-fried, useless leg. You could put some weight on it now, after nearly twenty years of intense therapy and correcting surgeries. But it was still incredibly weak. All twisted, mottled skin and a full knee replacement.

That’s what had made it so easy for him. That’s what had made it easy for him to chase you down as you tried to leave every situation that saw him near you. Easily able to keep pace with your shambling, stress-induced walk as you choked on his scent. 

Your upper thigh twinges. The needle pierces your skin all over again. That was the only reason you’d been able to walk away without experiencing a true heat from whatever drug he’d hit you with. The bad, mangled leg of yours. Your downfall and savior. 

The halls are winding, but you can vaguely follow the way to your office from previous talks. You call Lewis the moment you get to the room. There’s already a brand-new mini fridge sitting on your desk, likely from the accommodations you’d listed in the countless documents you’d had to sign when you got hired. 

There’s a few people unboxing your items and they look a bit shocked to see you back from what was supposed to be a much longer meeting.

“Ms Lauda—”

“Leave, please,” you whisper while pacing across the room, trying to calm yourself down. You can feel your scent-blocking, adhesive strips tingling. Your scent glands, especially the damaged ones, threatening to blister from the stress of what just happened. You were going to be sacked for certain. Not only had you yelled at the driver you were meant to work with, you’d also thrown an empty can at him. “I’d like some space.”

The workers, your new assistants, you realize, hurry out, not even catching your mumbled thanks as you tuck yourself into a corner where you can’t be seen from the door. So much different than Williams. So much more support. Lewis doesn’t pick up immediately, but just as you’re about to call again, his contact photo appears on your screen. 

“What’s wrong? Are you okay—” Is the first thing you hear, like the protective older brother he’s always situated himself as in your life. “What room are you in? I still haves ways to get into the classified parts of the MTC—” 

“I’m going to fucking kill Lando Norris,” You growl into the phone, and Lewis lets out a relieved noise, before breaking off into a fit of laughter, his voice more distant as if he’s trying to muffle himself. “Don’t laugh! That fucking brat, I should box his goddamn ears, showing up nearly an hour late to what was supposed to be our initial meeting—” 

“Ah, yeah, sounds like Lando!” 

“Fuck off, Lewis,” You whine, and he has the audacity to laugh even harder, because your accent slips, as it always seems to do when you’re with your immediate pack. You can hear him shuffle a bit. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“No, you won’t.”

“No, I won’t,” You concede to him with a soft sigh. You hear the chortling barks of Roscoe in the background of Lewis’s call. “I’m gonna do my job. But I’m gonna hate it. Unless I get switched to Oscar.”

“Don’t sound too hopeful.” Lewis chides on the other side of the phone, and you hear the doorknob jiggle, followed by a soft knock. “Sounds like you have some work to do.” 

He hangs up before you can say something in response to him, leaving the gentle knocking on the door to slowly drive you insane. Likely Andrea or Zak, telling you that you were going to be let go for committing a minor assault against their star driver. 

And you're right, it is Zak. But he looks more concerned than angry with you, immediately putting his hands up in a placating manner when you open the door as if you’re the one with all the power and he’s not the CEO of McLaren Racing, your ultimate boss. Your boss’s boss. The one who bulldozed his way into getting you on the team because he’d seen your work to get at least a modicum of respect back to Williams, and, in his own words, got a good vibe from you.

(And maybe Niki had been in his ear a little bit about it, but when Niki Lauda spoke, people had a habit of listening rather closely to whatever he said.)

“Mr. Brown,” You start formally, leaning down in a way that is traditionally seen as submitting and a very, very formal way to apologize before he starts to squawk in surprise at it all. 

“Don’t– What are you submitting for— are you alright?!”

The last thing you expect is Zak fretting over you like you’re a pup. He’s gently squishing your cheeks with his hands, checking you over, and you can see his nose twitching, as if he’s checking your scent for any signs of distress. Only to look confused by how… clean, you smell.

“Are you— are you still hurt from everything?”

“No, I just,” You take a step backward, and hold up your hands just like he had just been doing for you a few seconds ago. “It’s easier to hide my designation when I smell like this.”

He just looks confused at your explanation but doesn’t seem to question it.

“And you… want to continue hiding it?”

“Preferably.”

Even as you say it, you can see a bit of pity in his eyes. You know his mate is an omega. He has a pup who’s an omega. Both of which he supports wholeheartedly. You’d seen all the articles. Part of you is jealous. Another part just wants everyone to stop caring about what your designation may be. Why should anyone care what you are? 

You’re proud of yourself, regardless of your designation. You’re not some prize to be won! You can stand on your own two feet, you can take care of yourself. You had more than shown that—

Zak is hugging you. Rumbling softly like any parent would do for a distressed pup.

“You don’t have to justify it. I just need to know so I can make sure that no one else is told, aside from our medical people.” He whispers, and you sag against him. Relief fills your mind. “What— what do people think you’ve presented as?”

“Alpha. Like Vati. They think I’m an Alpha.” 

“We can work with that,” Zak pulls away, looking at you. There’s only worry in his eyes. “Can I ask one more thing?”

“Yeah,” You sniffle, not realizing you’d starting to tear up as you look at him. “What is it?”

“Why…. did you throw an empty can of Red Bull at Lando? You’re not in trouble, I just want to know why.”

You flush, and Zak just starts to laugh. 

McLaren is much, much different than Williams.

Lando has been sitting in a chair while Oscar screams at him. Andrea has disappeared. It’s been ten minutes and all he wants to do is curl up and die and apologize for commenting on your voice and being late and not charging his phone and really, every other thing that he’d done wrong, ever.

Yes. He is technically the older one. No, he shouldn’t be acting like such a pup over this.  

Yes. He should know better than to comment on things that people can’t change or help about themselves.

Yes, Oscar, Lando was aware that you had survived a very traumatic house fire that nearly killed you. No, it’s not okay that he called you a robotic bitch. No, he didn’t read the email about the apparent triggers that you had from this event. Frankly, he wasn’t even aware that they had emailed those to him. That seemed like a bit much.

“I mean seriously, Lando! This is ridiculous! Fucking calling her that!” 

It feels like he’s being lectured by his Dam again, her words blending English into Flemish until he can’t tell what she’s saying, just that she’s pissed at him. Instead, it’s just Oscar’s accent getting thicker and thicker until Lando’s certain he’s never heard anyone sound so furious with him, and that’s really saying something. 

“I get it,” Lando whines, letting his head slip so that he can press his forehead against the table. And he does feel bad! Really! “I didn’t know she’d respond like that!”

“Wonderful excuse to be a fuckhead, champ,” Oscar drawls, eyes narrowed. His arms are folded. He looks unimpressed. He smells more, now than ever, of rotting oranges. Lando can imagine the maggots. “I’m shocked you didn’t comment on her designation as well.”

“She’s an alpha! And she smells so medicine-y,” Lando wrinkles his nose, lifting up his head enough to glare at the omega in front of him. Oscar’s face is a blank mask of annoyance, with a flicker of some other mystery emotion. But he can at least tell what he’s thinking because he can smell his displeasure from across the room. It’s all rotten oranges, burning rubber, and singed hair. “C’mon! I didn’t know it’d set her off that much, man!”

“Commenting on traumatic events tends to do that to people.”

“How was I supposed to know it was traumatic?!”

“Wow, you really didn’t read any of the emails,” Oscar lets out a low huff, sitting across from Lando in one of the plush office chairs. “We’ve been in talks with her for weeks!”

“You were in talks with her, maybe,” Lando says snidely, narrowing his gaze at the omega across from him, “I didn’t think I needed a new race engineer, yet here we are. But you seemed awfully interested when you heard she was looking for a new team.”

Oscar scoffs. His cheeks turn slightly pink. “No, I wasn’t. She’s a good friend. I thought she’d be a good fit for the team.”

“Oh, so this has nothing to do with the fact that you have such an obvious crush on her? I bet Logan even helped set you up,” Lando knows he’s been a dick again. But he’s frustrated. He’ll get lectured by his therapist for this later, and he’s okay with that. He just needs to make Oscar squirm a little for his high-and-mighty attitude. “You want her pups, I bet. Already have the first three named.”

“Fuck off,” Oscar snarls, and Lando decides to keep digging a bit more. “It’s not like that! Besides— I’m courting someone!”

An awkward silence settles between the two. Oscar’s flushed pink. And Lando starts to grin. All evil like, in Oscar’s opinion. Gleefully, in his own. 

"Oh, but it is!” Lando chimes, his voice all sing-songy. He’s in full older brother mode. He knows exactly what to do to push Oscar’s buttons now that his teammate has shown his weakness. He’s done this with his sisters. And Oscar’s probably used to being the one doing the tormenting, as his family’s oldest pup. “You like her!” And then, with a very dramatic gasp, “Oh, you’re probably courting her! No wonder you wanted her here!”

Without so much as a warning, the Australian driver leaps at him with a snarl the moment the words are out of his mouth. They’re both tussling on the ground, before it turns into the two of them in their canine forms, snapping and snarling at each other. This is when Andrea decides to make a reappearance, looking a bit startled to see a mousy-brown wolf and a dark-brown wolf rolling around on the floor of the conference room. Oscar is large for an omega in his canine form, but still smaller than Lando. Lando is wirey, not as bulky as many would expect an Alpha to be. It’s rather evenly matched, considering how often the two of them are training. 

One moment, Lando has Oscar pinned. Another, Oscar has him pinned. Snarling and biting and kicking until the door opens again, and now it’s Andrea, Zak, and yourself watching the two of them wrestle until you fearlessly walk into the fray and grab Oscar by one of his hind legs.

Oscar turns human again immediately, hitting the ground with a loud ‘oof’ while Lando scurries away, watching as you start to lecture the other driver as he stands up. Your tone is hushed, but it’s clear that this seems to be a common occurrence between the two of you. You’re leaning over him, and the rumblings of annoyance and displeasure are clear as day.

Lando can’t help but smirk as the other man makes fleeting eye contact with him as you sit on his side of the table, taking your place as his engineer, despite your obvious contempt for him. 

“Now, let's get to business…” Andrea sighs. You keep your eyes ahead. Hands folded neatly in front of you. Letting his words blur until you feel Oscar gently tugging on your arm. He looks concerned, and you smile tiredly at him. Only just remembering the promise of cuddling in his nest with him when this was all done. 

You don’t even care if you look or act nothing like the Alpha that Lando thinks you are. You just slump against Oscar with a grumpy half-whine as he hoists you over his shoulder. The other driver lets out a loud snort at that, and your friend only glares at him, about to say something else before you bring one of your hands to tap his cheek lightly.

“Just get to th’nest,” You mumble, leaning against him. Your leg aches. You don’t want to walk. “Wanna get th’blockers off.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Oscar sighs, glaring at Lando over his shoulder before walking past with you in his arms. You don’t care about how it looks. You’ll deal with it later. And before you know it, you’re curled in the world’s comfiest nest, all in shades of orange and black. With the comforting scent of sweet tangerines and charcoal. Oscar hands you a nice little bottle of micellar water to help get the sticky adhesive of the blockers off, much more gentle with your skin than you ever are with yourself. He’s even soaked cotton rounds to make it a bit easier to apply, gently rubbing them across your scarred glands to clear any remnants of the adhesive off of your skin.

The smells of mountain rain and fresh baked peach cobbler mix with Oscar’s scent as you stretch, rubbing your cheeks tiredly.

You let yourself relax then. Sinking deep into the soft pillows as Oscar comes to spoon you from behind. A commonplace action, and had been since he started to get more and more bold with you in his attempts to court you. 

You can hear Oscar start to Facetime someone, probably Logan. But you honestly don’t care all that much— he’s there, and you’ll give your friend a full debrief, of course, after you’ve fully rested. 

“Your leg acting up?”

Oscar nudges you, and you grumble, trying to press your face further into the plushness of the nest, voice muffled by pillows. “Who cares if it is?”

“I do.”

“So do I!” Logan chimes in from the phone, and you roll over enough to glare at him. “Did you take all your meds, mouse?”

“Unfortunately, yes. So I’m afraid you’ll just have to put me down at this point—”

You don’t even have time to respond as Oscar cuffs your ear. You let out a dramatic whine, actually letting yourself act on your instinctual noises. Nothing hurts, of course. Oscar’s always been gentle, making sure nothing actually hurts when he wrestles with you or cuffs your ears. 

“Did you have to get my bad ear?” You whine, looking accusingly at the Aussie who just grins down at you, cuffing the same ear once again. “I’m gonna tell Lewis.”

“He doesn’t scare me, and besides, he’d probably agree with me! All, ‘C’mon, Mousey, that’s not how your therapist said to cope with your trauma—”

“That’s a bit scary, how accurate that was,” You prop yourself up to glare at your dear friend, only to smile broadly at him. You can’t help it, really. He manages to make you smile, even when you feel like shit. And even when he cuffs your bad ear by mistake, after swearing he won’t do it again.

In truth, the ear looks almost melted. It’s usually carefully hidden by your personal stylist, with hair masterfully combed over it. The skin around it— luckily missing your scalp— was mottled and pink. What was left of your ear was little more than a small ridge of skin and cartilage at this point, and was much the same in your canine appearance, just more dramatic without all the fur. The upper half of your ear was utterly gone, along with most of the lobe. It was the ear you were deaf in. 

“Can it even hurt if you’re deaf?”

“Yeah! Doesn’t mean it’s gone numb to the feeling,” you pout, looking at him as he sets his chin on your shoulder. Logan giggles from FaceTime. He’s set up somewhere, Williams blue all around him that makes you avert your gaze but continue talking to him nonetheless. “Ugh. Logan, I almost killed Lando.”

“She threw a can of Red Bull at him,” Oscar clarifies, to his rather shocked-looking boyfriend and courting partner. To his credit, it takes a few seconds before Logan starts to cackle.  

“It was empty!” You protest back, but there’s a wide smile on your face as you hazard a glance at your former partner. “He was being a little bitch!”

“Should I be offended I didn’t get the same treatment my first day?” Logan’s voice crackles and his face is frozen on the screen with a mix of a confused look and smirk, before serenading both of you with a jumbled, robotic mess before the call abruptly ends. 

“Stupid wifi,” Oscar mumbles, pulling the phone away to text his boyfriend to see what happened. You just settle back into your side of the nest, closing your eyes and letting yourself drift off while Oscar’s comforting scent wafts over in you waves. You could just about fall asleep when there’s a gentle knock at the door, followed by Andrea poking his head in. 

He blinks at the two of you. You blink back at him, already knowing you won't be able to take a much-needed like you had originally planned.

“Ah! Ms Lauda— can I speak with you for a second?”

“Can I do it from here?” you try to press yourself deeper into Oscar’s nest. You’d need to find a place to make one here— a nice, private room. Somewhere you can easily reapply your scent blockers and can fully surrender to your instincts until you were comfortable with more people knowing about your designation. “Took off my blockers.”

“Of course. I just wanted to check in, make sure everything was alright after… how the meeting went.”

There’s a hearty pause. As if he can tell you’re thinking over your words carefully.

“It certainly… went.”

“Ah. And… no other comments?”

“I meant what I said. You baby Lando.” You shift slightly. Tiredly. Giving the team principal the trademark Lauda stare from where you’re comfortably curled into the nest. So soft, yet so harsh at the same time.

“Then it’s a good thing you’re here to fix that,” Andrea smiles politely at you, and ducks out of the room without another word. You just settle deeper into Oscar’s nest, wondering what in the hell you’d gotten yourself into. The only thing on your mind when you finally manage to fall asleep is how much you miss your mother's fresh peach cobbler.

tags: @the-holy-trinity-l @laura-naruto-fan1998 @amalialeclerc @st0rmzi3 @poppyflower-22 @hiireadstuff @seonghwaexile @mrsmelinda

[karleksmumskladdkaka]

Guess who just received a fuckton of new DL stuff? \(//∇//)\

Now that I am loaded with new things I figured the time was ripe for an update/follow up to this post I made a while ago, so that you guys know what to expect in the future! I fully intend to share everything with you in due time ✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ ) ( @otomehonyaku feel free to add any of the things you want to your upcoming translations list ^^ The moment I post the audio/scans, they're at your full disposal)

Without further ado...here are my new (and old) treasures ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

Booklets & Perfect Guide ⋆⋅☆⋆⋅

From upper left to bottom right:

More, Blood (CD) Stellaworth Booklet

More, Blood (VN) Stellaworth Booklet

More Character Song Stellaworth Booklet

Bloody Bouquet Stellaworth Booklet

Lunatic Parade Stellaworth Booklet

Lost Eden Special Booklet

Eternal Blood Stellaworth Booklet

Versus IV Stellaworth Booklet

Grand Edition Stellaworth Booklet

Daylight Animate Booklet (Mukami ver)

Daylight Stellaworth Booklet

Dark Fate Perfect Guide Dark Pleasure

In addition to these I've also acquired the Versus Song Stella booklet, though it's in storage atm. Which means I only have Para-Selene left to snag ╭( ･ㅂ･)و ̑̑

Drama CDs ⋆⋅✮⋅⋆

From upper left to bottom right (uncrossed!):

Vandead Carnival Special Voice CD

MB Limited V Edition Special Voice CD

Dark Fate Special Voice CD

Lost Eden Special Voice CD

Sadistic Night 2017 CD

Versus IV Stellaworth Tokuten CD (Ruki)

Grand Edition Animate Situation CD

Daylight Stellaworth Tokuten CD (Ruki)

Nothing new here, as you see. Was too lazy to take a new picture lol so I've just crossed out the ones I've already shared with you from the old one

Miscellaneous ⋆⋅☽⋅⋆

From upper left to bottom right:

More, Blood Stellaworth SS Paper

More, Blood Ebten After Story Card (Shuu)

More, Blood Ebten After Story Card (Ruki)

Christmas Message

Bloody Bouquet Stellaworth SS Paper

Postcard with message

Blood Affair Message Card

More, More Blood Deluxe Edition Message Card

More, More Blood Mini After Story Card

Bloody Ghost SS Card

Secret Memories SS Card

Daylight Letter

Bloody June Bride Letters (2)

Forever Gift Letters (3)

Surprise Q&A (not pictured but will 200% be shared in the future)

I also have a shitload of bromides and clear files etc. most of which I'll post individually later on. And I've got some additional message cards in storage, so... I won't run out of things to post anytime soon dhfgfhjk

[joekeeryswife]

Hi girl!!

I had an idea for a while now and I thought you might want to hear

It’s kind of a two paragraph thing

Reader and Joel are married and she is Sarah’s mother and also pregnant and she planned to tell Joel the day after the outbreak but doesn’t get to it. The day of the outbreak she was working late and never got home. Joel is sure he lost his entire family but reader (and the baby) made it through.

Twenty years later in Jackson a woman in her early fifties and a twenty year old young man/ woman (your call). After confirming they are not infected and have no bad intentions they meet Tommy , that leads to a beautiful and emotional family reunion.

Thank you🫶🏼🫶🏼

Apocalypse - J.M

hey honeys! first Joel imagine.. changed it slightly to instead of y/n being Sarah’s bio mum to her step mum but been with her practically her whole life🫶 i kinda made this like y/n’s friends where trying to protect her from hearing what was going on and ive also kinda not specified how y/n got lost until the end. i love a good angsty imagine!!! I ACTUALLY HATE THIS SORRY! I PROMISE MY NEXT JOEL IMAGINE WILL BE BETTER! enjoy reading xx (Joel is 36 and reader is 27 at the beginning)

(join my taglist🫶)

September 26th 2003

“i promise i’ll be home early today. i’m only on a half day so try not to be late as well yeah? i have something to tell you” it was 6:30 in the morning and Joel didn’t have to get up for another two hours. you felt him nod and with you both sharing ‘i love you’s’ and a quick kiss on his cheek you were gone.

being a midwife was hard, especially when it pulled you away from your family. today was Joel’s 36th birthday and every year you would usually all spend the day together but this year, you and Joel had been pulled into work. you were meant to both be off but someone had called in sick and you had been persuaded into going in.

you had been excited for this day, you had found out last month that you were pregnant, 12 weeks when you found out, and you wanted to wait for his birthday to tell him. you had planned to tell him at dinner with Sarah. you had been in Sarah’s life since she was 5, she was 12 now and ever since she had met you she begged you and Joel for a brother or sister.

honestly you were excited, you had been with Joel for seven years and now was finally the right time for you and him to become parents. you had discussed it a few times in the past and one thing led to another and you both decided to start trying and as luck would have it, third time lucky you got pregnant. you had your first scan at work and decided to keep the gender a secret for now but being a midwife meant you could possibility find out the gender just by looking at the ultrasound picture so you hadn’t looked too closely.

-♡-

when you finally clocked in at work you already felt tired. being pregnant, nauseous with a headache did not help you whatsoever but money was money and you needed to start saving for your baby. “hey mama, how are you?” your co-worker and best friend Julia said as you entered the staff room. you sighed at set your bag and coat down on the table before sitting down.

your shift hadn’t even started yet and you were already ready to go home “hey, i’m alright. you been on the floor yet?” you tucked your hair behind your ear and rubbed a hand over your face. “no not yet but i’m sure when we go on we will be dealing with most of it” what she said was true, most of the staff here didn’t listen to instructions so it was up to you, Julia and a few other staff members to clean up their mess.

there were a few other co workers in the staff room with you, most of them eating their breakfast but it was practically silent except the two of you talking. “let’s go, i just want to get this day over with” and with a nod you both stood up to go to the delivery floor.

“you finally telling him tonight?” Julia asked you as she looked through a patient file “yeah, him and Sarah. she’s been begging for years so it’ll be nice to tell them at the same time. i was going to pick her up from school and tell her before but you know, duty calls” you joked. the two of you laughed and started making your way to a patients bedroom.

-♡-

you had been at work for eight hours before you finally got a break and sat down. it had been hectic and all you wanted to do was go home but your head of department had let you know that you would be staying at work way past the time you were meant to go home. three more people had called in sick and he thought because you were here you were supposed to stay.

you got your phone out of your scrubs pocket and dialled Joel’s number. it took a few rings before he finally answered. “hey sweetheart” he said in his thick Texan accent. “hey honey, happy birthday” you replied as you smiled, all you wanted to do right now was go home and cuddle with Joel. “thank you baby, how’s work?” you scoffed.

“that’s what i wanted to talk to you about. David is making me work till late, says there’s too many people calling in sick so i have to stay on” you heard him sigh

“you booked this day off months ago and they make you come in and they can’t let you leave at the time you’re meant to? that’s bullshit baby” you could sense that he was rolling his eyes.

“i know, i’m sorry. i begged him to let me come home but he wouldn’t budge.” you felt awful, letting him down on his birthday because of your stupid job.

“i’m gonna try my best to get home before 9 i promise, i want to spend at least an hour of your birthday with you” you said, trying to lighten the mood.

“don’t stress yourself too much baby okay? we always have tomorrow to celebrate. you said about telling me something this morning, is everything alright?” you opened your mouth to answer but Julia came into the staff room looking for you, a panicked expression on her face.

“y/n i’m so sorry but i need your help” you sighed, feeling deflated. you couldn’t even have a full break. your whole body was aching and you wanted a moment to just sit down and talk to your husband.

“i’m guessing you’ve got to go” Joel said making you laugh and roll you eyes. “i’m sorry, yeah i do. i’m okay though Joel, i’ll talk to you when i’m home okay? i love you” before he could answer you quickly hung up and followed Julia.

-♡-

“that was a weird conversation” Tommy said as he peered over at Joel who looked confused. “she sounds stressed. ain’t had a fucking day off in three weeks. barely see her now” he knew you loved your job but he also knew how much it stressed you out.

“maybe there’s a reason she’s been working so much?” Joel scoffed “she’s been tryna get a day off for ages and her boss is a fucking asshole, don’t give two shits about anyone except for himself”

“she’s gonna try get home a bit earlier but i doubt it, gonna do something together tomorrow if they allow her the time off” Joel wanted to have one day where you could all spend the day together, or even just a day that you and Joel could be together without worrying about anyone else.

“hey, old man, turn up that radio for a second” Joel chuckled and rolled his eyes, Tommy wasn’t even listening to a word he said but nevertheless he turned up the radio.

‘there has been suspicious activity in Indonesia, people are acting strange which has spread through many different countries. the government is advising that people stay indoors-’

“what a load of bullshit that is, turn it back down” Tommy scoffed and got back to work and Joel turned down the radio, what had that been all about?

“why don’t you finish early today? i know you told Sarah you’d be back late but you should go home”

“i gotta get this job finished, i told her latest ill be back is 9 now shut up so we can maybe get this finished quicker” with that, the two of them got on with the job.

-♡-

it was now 12:30am and there was no way you were leaving work yet. everything was just going wrong, so many people coming into the hospital to give birth (which was a given) but the amount of times the alarm had went off in the main hospital ward was ridiculous.

every 20 minutes like clockwork the alarm meant off meaning something violent was happening or a lot of people were not responding.

“i just want to go home” you said to Amy, the front desk worker as you stood in front of her, your head falling on the desk carefully. “go home, seriously” you looked up at her and saw her with an expression you’d never seen on her face before, pure panic and seriousness.

“are you kidding? David would fire me if i went home, besides there’s too many people off sick and i need to-" she shook her head and cut you off “y/n. go home. there’s been some weird shit on the radio, people going crazy, you’re pregnant and you need to be safe so go home”

your body filled with anxiety, you’d never seen her like this ever. you nodded “yeah uh, okay, i’ll go home now. you stay safe Amy yeah?” with that you quickly rushed to find Julia to let her know you were going.

you didn’t know why but the way Amy spoke sent a shiver down your spine. was Joel and Sarah okay? was your parents okay? were your family okay? you felt nervous and worried.

you quickly ran to the staff room and grabbed your stuff before searching for Julia. “Emma, have you seen Julia?” Emma was another midwife who worked with you. “yeah she’s at front desk, why have you got your stuff, did David say you could go home?” you ignored her and ran back to the front desk.

“y/n go home, what are you still doing here?” Julia asked as she saw you jogging towards her “i came to find you to tell you i’m leaving. Amy said there’s something going on but i didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye to you”

you didn’t know why the two of them were being a little secretive. Julia felt her eyes water slightly and she hugged you “i’ll see you soon okay? get home safely and look after that baby” you hugged her back. “i will, i promise” with that she let go of you and with that you left the hospital.

as you were driving home all you could hear on the radio was ‘an outbreak has happened, get home and lock your doors’

you felt sick, what type of outbreak? you quickly got your phone and called Joel, you were scared, terrified even and you needed to know he was okay.

“Joel, i’m 20 minutes from home, what the fuck is happening? they look like they’re blocking the highway off, i’m just pulling into town now” you could hear Tommy in the background telling Joel what to say “baby listen carefully okay? don’t go home, go to straight to town, don’t talk to anyone, don’t stop the car for anyone just try get there” his voice was filled with panic “Joel what-”

he cut you off “i’m going to get Sarah and we will meet you there as quickly as we can, i will find you there i promise. i love you okay? if i don’t get-”

you looked at your phone which had abruptly cut the call. “Joel?” you dialled his number again but the call went straight to answer phone.

you hoped whatever was happening that Joel, Sarah and Tommy would make it out safe and you prayed that you found them before whatever this virus was destroyed everything.

-♡-

“get in the truck, right now” Joel shouted as he got out of the truck with a wrench in his hand. Joel pushed Sarah to the truck but stopped when he saw Mrs Adler.

Joel froze in fear as he saw the usually quiet old lady who sits in her chair run toward them, screeches coming from her. in the time he had lived in that house he had never heard a single sound from that lady yet here she was running.

“what are we doing Joel?” Tommy lifted the gun up, fear laced his voice. Mrs Adler was coming closer and closer by the second and without thinking Joel hit her over the head with the wrench.

she fell to the ground and stopped moving. what the fuck had he just done? he dropped the wrench and quickly turned to look at Sarah who looked terrified.

he put his hands on her cheeks carefully “you killed her” Sarah said, her voice breaking slightly. “baby i’m so sorry” he pulled her in for a hug, his hand cradling the back of her head.

“Joel, we gotta go” Joel pulled away from Sarah “it’s not just the Adlers okay? but we are gonna be brave and we are gonna get out of this” the three of them got into the truck and drove off.

“they’re saying it’s some kind of virus, a parasite” Tommy said as he drove quickly down the road toward the town. “are we sick?” Sarah asked, her eyes filled with tears as fear overtook her body.

“no, course not” Joel quickly said, trying his best to reassure her. “how do you know we are not sick?” Joel turned to look at Sarah then back at Tommy.

“they said it’s mostly people in the city. that’s why they’ve got most of the highway blocked off” Tommy glanced over at Joel then focused back on the road.

“what about mum? she works in the city? is she sick? where is she?” she asked, her eyes darting between the two men.

“mum is fine, i spoke to her before i got you. she’s not sick, she’s in town and we are going there right now okay? she’s fine” to be honest Joel didn’t know if you were okay. it had been thirty minutes since he last spoke to you and he had no idea where you were. he just hoped you were somewhere safe until he could find you.

-♡-

November 12th 2023

20 years. it had been 20 years since Joel had last saw you and he was sure you were dead. he had promised you he would find you, keep you safe and he failed to do that. he felt like he had failed you and failed Sarah and he wanted nothing more then to be with you.

when they got to town is was destroyed, fires everywhere, cars flipped over, people dead in the road and there was absolutely no way he would have been able to find you.

he would have nightmares every night. the nightmare of Sarah dying in his arms the same way over and over again but with you, he had no idea how you died. he had dreamed every way imaginable that you died and it was awful. he felt disgusted with himself every single day for not being with you.

he would think about how different life would be if the outbreak didn’t happen. the two of you would have had two kids, both girls, moved into a bigger house more in the countryside and lived together forever, but then he’d realise what had happened and images of that night came crashing back.

Joel had decided to move to Jackson after the whole ordeal with Ellie realising that that was what was best for her. Jackson was safe, secure, nothing could happen to her and he felt somewhat free from the world outside those walls.

they had been in Jackson for six months at this point and life had finally started to feel somewhat normal again. he was grateful Maria gave him a chance to turn his life around after feeling his stopped because of what happened to you and Sarah. he wanted to be better for Ellie now, she was his main priority.

it was a Sunday and usually the whole of Jackson would have a day off (except from patrols) and Joel and Ellie had decided to take a walk through Jackson. it was snowing but it was nice to walk through the streets and see families be happy together.

Tommy had been helping the builders by the front gates when they opened meaning the patrollers had come back from their shift. he looked up briefly and saw two new people on the backs of Maria’s and Michael’s horses.

he didn’t know why but he felt the need to go over there and greet them, coming into somewhere like this could be scary for some who hadn’t been in this sort of environment for a while so he wanted them to feel welcomed.

the patrollers stopped and everyone got off their horses. Tommy had a warm smile on his face as he saw the younger woman out of the two lace her arm around the older woman’s.

as he got a closer look he couldn’t believe what he saw. a woman who he thought he’d never see in his life again was standing right in front of him. his heart swelled with joy and he didn’t know why but he felt his eyes fill with tears.

“Tommy?” before he could even talk the woman spoke making his assumption correct, it was you. you looked a little older, you had a few scars littered around your face and your hair which used to be quite long was now shoulder length but suited you so much.

“y/n, it is you oh my god” he rushed toward you and wrapped his arms around you. you couldn’t believe it, Tommy was here.

your brother in law who you thought had died was here, did that mean Sarah and Joel were here too?

“i thought you had died, i didn’t think id ever see you again-” Tommy was cut off quickly when he heard his brothers voice behind him.

“Tommy who the hell are you hugging?” Joel and Ellie had walked toward the gate when they realised there were a few new people. you pulled away from Tommy and your eyes immediately made eye contact with the ones you used to love staring into.

Joel’s heart felt like time had stopped. there was no way he was staring at the woman he loved right now, there was no way, it had been 20 years and he thought you were dead. “Joel” he heard you whisper.

you quickly made your way toward him and wrapped your arms around his shoulders. “y/n” he pulled you in closer and kissed your forehead. “my god i thought you were dead” his voice cracked as he spoke, both of you had tears in your eyes.

“i promise i tried to find you but there were people everywhere-” you pulled away slightly, shook your head and kissed him passionately. he hadn’t felt anything like this since the outbreak, happiness. you were here, you weren’t dead, he hadn’t failed you. 

“you would have never of found me. don’t beat yourself up over it Joel” his eyes scanned your face, you still looked as beautiful as ever. you noticed the young girl stood next to him confused, where was Sarah?

“where’s Sarah Joel? is she here? i bet she’s gotten so much taller” his face softened “she died on the day of the outbreak” you felt your heart drop, you sweet Sarah was gone.

“oh Joel, i’m so sorry” your hands went to his cheeks, stroking it softly. “it’s okay, i think i’ve finally come to terms with it” he turned to look at Ellie who was just watching the two of you.

“Ellie this is y/n, my wife that i told you about” you turned your head to look at her too. “i realised with all the kissing and hugging the two of you did” her voice was filled with sarcasm which actually made you giggle quietly.

“it’s nice to meet you Ellie” she just gave you a small smile and a nod. “i, uh Joel” you pulled away and turned around to see Margot stood awkwardly behind you. “this is Margot” he looked at the young girl, she looked about 20 years old.

dark hair, dark eyes but her face looked almost identical to yours. Margot walked closer to the two of you “she’s your daughter” he frowned “what?” he unwrapped his arms from around you “i know it’s a lot to take in-”

he quickly made his way to Margot and hugged her close “hi dad” he heard her say, voice filled with anxiety. he was just as anxious as her “hi baby girl”

you watched the two of them with teary eyes, you never thought that this was where you would be 20 years into the pandemic. in a safe haven with your daughter and your husband finally happy once again.

[petertingle-yipyip]

RECKLESS DRIVING - MATT MURDOCK

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Reader

Word Count: 3,820

Summary: (requested) Hello, I have a Matt X wife reader request. You had a serious accident and all your memories after the collage are lost. In the hospital you are frightened by Matt , who is shocked and desperate at the same time. Matt tries to tell you that he is your husband and that you love him, but you can't remember. Matt tries everything to get your memory back and fall in love with him again. In the beginning, you distance yourself and live with your brother Frank Castle, who helps Matt get you back together.

The lights were bright when you first opened your eyes. You couldn’t remember anything. Clearly you were in a hospital, but which one? Your entire body ached and you could hear the beeping of the machines, felt the sticky residue from the sensors attached to your chest, but what happened? You heard voices through the small crack in the door, but who were they?

You looked around the room confused and saw the name on the chart near the door. You wobbled to your feet, head spinning once you sat up, and inched your way across the room.

Y/N MURDOCK. 

Wait, Murdock?

That didn’t feel right. Wasn’t that the asshole from college that was always taking your favorite study corner?

You pulled the folder and plopped it open on the nearby counter so you could lean on your elbows. You skimmed the page, noting the various injuries.

Mild whiplash. Rib contusions, hairline fractures on left 3-5 ribs. Dislocated shoulder that was reinserted. Bruising all along the left side and uncertain risk of brain injury. Concussion likely.

None of that explained why your name was wrong.

The door suddenly opened at your side and you were quick to shut the folder. You turned and leaned backwards on the counter, earning a small sigh and smile from your doctor. He offered you his arm and walked you back to the bed, ensuring you were set before he spoke.

“I’m Dr. James Wilson.” He said kindly.

“Y/N.” You answered and he laughed. “How bad?”

“Well, you’ve already looked over the chart so you have a general idea.” He picked up the folder and gave it a small shake. “Do you remember what happened?”

“No… I remember I had just got picked up by the taxi and then.. Then nothing.”

He sighed slightly and took a tentative step closer.

“This is what we were worried about.” He said regretfully.

“Trauma-induced retrograde amnesia.” You finished and his brows raised. “I was in a pre-med allied health program.”

“Well, good thing is we’ve already gotten in touch with both of your emergency contacts. They’ll be here shortly.”

“I’m sorry. Both?” Your head cocked and it made your neck ache.

“Yes, uh..” He flipped open the file. “Your brother and your husband.”

“Have I been here before? Is that how there’s contacts already?”

“Few years ago, you were admitted with a pretty severe upper respiratory infection while in the area.”

“Right, right…” You glanced around the room. “So this has to be Princeton-Plainsboro?”

Dr. Wilson nodded and pulled the chair near your IV line closer. “What else do you remember about this place, Y/N?”

“You’re in oncology.. Head of the department, I think. Yeah, I remember doing some undergrad research with you.”

“What was your topic?”

“The influence of a moderate exercise program on quality of life for leukemia patients post allogeneic bone marrow transplant…  Dr. House said my system was “moronic and no self-respecting med student would present their research that way”. “

“This is really great, Y/N.” He smiled and stood to leave. “I’m going to bring this to House and his team. Dr. Foreman will likely come in soon, look for neurological problems and we’ll talk about your discharge from there.”

“Wait.” You went to get off the bed but lost your balance. You ended up falling back onto the mattress. “When they get here, I just want to see my brother.”

“I’ll let the nurses know.”

The next time you woke up, Drs Cameron and Foreman were bringing your brother in to see you. He gave you a bit of grief for making him speed down the highway to New Jersey, of all places. You apologized profusely, admitting you didn’t even remember why you were going to Jersey to begin with. Ultimately, he was just relieved you were alive.

“Y/N, based off what Dr. Wilson has told us, it seems only emotional memories have been impacted.” Dr. Foreman explained carefully,

“How does that happen?” Your brows furrowed.

“Well the brain is a tricky thing. It seems there’s a disconnect between the long term memory system and the emotional control center. It’s likely just due to the swelling, but we would like a few tests to make sure there’s nothing serious.”

“Okay.” You nodded. “Yeah, is there like a consent form I-“ You tried when you heard the loud voice and rhythmic tapping coming down the hall. You shifted on the bed and the sounds drew everyone else’s attention as well. “A consent form I need to sign? Or is verbal okay?” You tried to keep going past the sounds outside your door.

“Verbal is fine.”

“Then, yeah. I’m guessing CT and MRI?”

“For starters. And then if we need to keep going, we’ll talk about it.”

“Oh, thank god.” He said in clear relief as he burst through the door, white cane in hand and round glasses on his face. “How you feeling, Sweetheart?”

“Uh…” You trailed off carefully.

“Do you know this man?” Dr. Cameron asked carefully when she saw your hesitation.

“Um..”

“Y/N?” He asked, clearly upset by your lack of a reaction.

“Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to-“ Cameron tried, gently attempting to escort him out but he yanked his arms away.

“I’m her husband!” He insisted. “Frank, tell ‘em.”

“You don’t remember him?” Frank asked you instead. Your eyes were still trained on the man claiming to be your husband.

That would’ve made him Matthew Murdock. You vaguely remembered the name from college. Law student, in the top of his class, sort of funny. Cleary blind. He had a friend, a loud guy with long blond hair, also in the top of the law class. You remembered Matthew was always at your preferred spot in the library. He would flash you a smile and you always had to refrain from chewing him out.

“Y/N?” Frank tried, gently shaking your arm so your attention would turn to him. “You don’t remember Murdock?”

“I remember him from college, but not as my husband.” You confessed quietly, as if you were somehow worried about hurting the man’s feelings.

“Nothing? Not your wedding or your apartment? His jobs? I walked you down the aisle, Y/N/N.”

You shook your head quietly, tears welling in your eyes.

“This is why I didn’t wanna see him.” You said quietly. “Make him leave.”

Frank nodded before he stood and moved towards Matt. Dr. Cameron took your brother’s old spot soon enough, placing a gentle hand on yours and speaking soft consolations. But you were listening to the boys’ hushed conversations. You caught words every now and then and were able to assume what they were saying.

You gotta go, man.

That’s my wife. I’m not going anywhere.

You’re freakin’ her out. Give her time-

No.

The doctors gotta run some tests. Give her some space and -

I’m not leaving.

There was a light sound of scuffling as you assumed Frank dragged Matthew out because when you looked back, the boys were gone but the expression on Dr. Foreman’s face was shock and slight amusement.

When you were discharged a few days later, your team of doctors promised there was no obvious damage to any brain structures. They said the amnesia would last for an undetermined amount of time and to not force yourself to remember anything. You were given moderate pain medication and left in a sling with a list of care instructions for the rest of your injuries.

As you were leaving the hospital, Frank had the car waiting for you out front. However, there were a couple others waiting with it.

“Why is he here?” You mumbled as Frank helped you out the hospital mandated wheelchair.

“Wouldn’t leave.” Frank answered simply.

“The guy with him.. That’s his friend, Francis Nelson, right?”

“Franklin, I think. They call him Foggy.”

“Foggy.” You repeated, and it felt familiar to say.

“Hey, Y/N.” The blond - Foggy - said carefully. “You look, uh, good? All things considered.”

You offered a small smile. “Thanks, I think.. I’m sorry, I don’t really-“

“You don’t have to.” He nodded quickly. “You’re a good friend of mine. I just wanna help however I can.”

“Thank you.” You gave a genuine smile this time. “I remember a little bit, here and there. You were at Columbia and we crossed paths a few times but that’s about it.”

“That’s as good a place to start as any.” He grinned. “I was also this guy’s-“ He threw his arm over Matthew’s shoulders. “-best man, but we can worry about that later.”

“Y/N, sweetheart, please.” Matthew stepped forward, shrugging Foggy’s arm off. He reached for your hands but you took a step back, nearly cowering behind your brother. “Please, just hear me out. I- I love you, more than anything. Please. Let me explain. I can- I can show you our wedding video, pictures. We can talk to my mother or Father Lantom, he officiated the wedding.”

“I don’t know who those people are!” You exclaimed loudly. “Matthew, I don’t remember whatever relationship we had. Everything you feel, I don’t.. Not right now, at least.”

“But… Y/N, you love me.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t love you like that.”

“But I love you like that.”

“You’re just staring at me like you’re not convinced that this is real.” You said quickly, though once the sentence left your mouth you realized your wording may not be effective against a blind man.

“I don’t wanna lose this. I- I- I want you to know just how I feel.”

“This’ll kill us if I don’t let go… You have to let go a little bit too.”

“We…” He lost the words, mouth opening but no sound coming out.

You said nothing as Foggy pulled Matthew out of your way so you could get into the car. Frank put himself to the other side to create a barricade between you and Matthew and you thanked him quietly. The ride back was relatively quiet, you and Frank playing an occasional Fill-In-The-Blanks-Of-Your-Memory game.

As the days went on, you stayed with Frank. He went to your alleged shared apartment and collected enough of your things to last you a couple weeks. He told you that he didn’t bring everything because he knew you’d go moving back in with Matthew soon so there was no point. And though you didn’t believe him, he clearly knew the relationship better than you did.

Matthew, however, seemed to be relentless in his quest to win you back and restore your memories. It seemed pointless to you, to try and force someone to feel something they don’t. But the love Matthew had for you was so strong, you found it hard to deny that there was something.

Your alleged husband sent you flowers, ones he swore were your favorite. He showed up with meals from local businesses, swearing that you two had some sentimental date there or you loved eating from that place. He even brought over your wedding album and video, along with your wedding band that the hospital gave to him upon your discharge since you refused it. You accepted all of his gifts with a quiet sigh and a polite smile, though you said very little to him during the exchanges. It was hard to miss the way his shoulders dropped and his face would fall when you didn’t exchange the sentiment that he offered every time, when you didn’t say you loved him.

“You gonna watch it?” Frank asked as you sat beside with the DVD case in hand.

“Should I?” You asked quietly. “All I can really remember about him was that he was an asshole in college. He was a pretty boy with good grades so he thought he could get away with whatever he wanted. We never really got along until..”

“Till what?”

“Till… something. I don’t know.”

“It’s all good. You’ll get it.” He shrugged.

“Did I ever tell you why it changed?”

“No. But I think one of you talked about it in your vows.”

“So I should watch it?” You shook the case.

“I’m just sayin’… It could have something.”

“It could?” Your brows raised. “Or it does?

“Dunno.” He shrugged. “It’s your wedding. I was taking advantage of that open bar.”

You smacked his arm and he laughed, causing you to laugh too. You slid the DVD onto the coffee table and carried on with your day, but the idea of what could possibly be hidden on the disc kept plaguing your mind.

Later that night, when Frank had gone to bed, you popped the disc into your computer.

—————

“Is he out there?” You asked anxiously, hands wringing nervously as you waited near the doors.

“Yeah, I’m here. C’mon, Y/N/N.” Frank called from the other side.

With a small, excited squeal, you opened the door and stepped out. You took a deep breath before tapping your brother on the shoulder. You smiled widely when he faced you and his jaw dropped.

Both hands covered his mouth as he grinned, eyes brimming with tears as he took a few small steps. You opened your arms and he embraced you tightly, nearly bringing you to tears.

“You look beautiful.” He mumbled and your smile got a little wider, if that was even possible. “I’m happy for you, kid.”

—————

“Y/N, I’ve thought about this day since I first met you. You’ve always been so outgoing and honest. From that first instance, I just knew I needed to have you in my life. We haven’t been perfect but you’ve always been there. And for as long as you’ll have me, I want to be the one in your heart. You’ll always have a piece of me, sweetheart. No matter what happens from here, no matter what we go through, I will always put you first. You are my love, my light. And I would go to hell and back to give you everything you deserve. I love you, until death and even after. My soul, my heart, my very being, will belong to no one but you.”

—————

“Matt, you were always my one guarantee. In college, I knew that I’d find you at my study corner every Wednesday night. After college, I knew we’d stay in touch. I knew we’d find a way to be in each other’s lives, but if you had told me before that party that I’d marry you, I would’ve laughed. But now, here I am. In a beautiful dress, at a beautiful church, with a beautiful man. You’ve been a handful for as long as I’ve known you, but everyday you make it worth it. You always make me feel so loved and so special, and when I wake up with you, I swear to make sure you feel the same. You, my sweet boy, are everything I’ve ever wanted. With you, I hope to have a long, happy, beautiful future so full of love. In front of everyone here, your family and mine, I give you every piece of me for as long as you’ll have me. I love you, with all I have to give.”

—————

You paused the video after that. The vows were beautiful, drawing a tear to your eye. You spun the ring around your finger. You slid the cursor to find the frame where he put the ring on your finger and there it was. The exact same wedding band on your hand was the one in the video.

With the evidence in front of you, it was hard to deny your wedding. The only other thing to make it more convincing would’ve been a copy of your taxes with the marital status. It made sense logically, but the emotional aspect was still severely lacking. But maybe…

Maybe you didn’t have to be so cold towards Matthew. Maybe you did start to see why you had liked him enough to marry him.

You jumped up and practically ran into Frank’s bedroom, socks slipping on the hardwood floors. You thumped him on the forehead frantically until he woke up.

“Frank. Frank. Frank. Frank.” You repeated until he caught your wrist, eyes still closed.

“The hell are you doing?” He mumbled.

“What party?”

“What?”

“In the vows. Matthew didn’t mention anything but she- I did. What happened at the party?”

“Why don’t you ask someone who was actually there?” He let go of your wrist and rolled to face the other way.

You groaned to yourself and kicked the mattress before heading out. Checking the clock on your computer, you saw it was a little after midnight. With no real plan, you pulled your phone and scrolled through contacts.

You couldn’t find anything that would’ve been obvious as Matthew. No MATTHEW, MATT, MATTY, MURDOCK, or any sort of typical term of endearment. Only HELLSPAWN with a stupid photo of your brother.

But you did find a contact with only a red heart and a devil emoji. With a hunch, you selected the contact and pressed to call.

“Y/N?” His voice came through almost immediately, not even sounding tired. In fact, he sounded more awake than you were. “Is everything okay?”

“I just wanted to… To talk to you about something.”You explained awkwardly. “I watched the video…”

“The wedding video?”

“Yeah… Unless there’s some other video we made.”

“Well.” He laughed slightly and your cheeks went hot. “I’m kidding, sweetheart. I’m kidding.” He laughed a little more.

“Yeah, you’re as hilarious as I remember.” You rolled your eyes, though you wore a small smile. “In my vows, I talked about a party.”

“Mhmm.”

“What party? What happened?”

“Why don’t you come over and we can talk? I still have some of that ice cream you like.”

“I don’t know where to go, Matthew.”

“Muscle memory.” He countered smoothly and you could picture the smirk he was wearing. “Meet me on the roof, okay?”

“If I get lost, I swear to God…” You grumbled as you stood and found your shoes. You tossed on a hoodie and pushed to acknowledge the cologne it smelled of.

Looking down at the sweater, you saw it was a Columbia hoodie but from the law department. You gave a small chuckle as you realized you recognized it as Matthew’s cologne.

“What?” He asked with a laugh.

“Uh.. Nothing. I’ll call you if I get lost.”

You hurried out the door and through the chilled night, stopping at various corners as you hesitated on which way to go. After a while of second guessing and uncertainty, you settled on a building. As you entered, you felt a sense of familiarity and you took that as a good sign. You wandered up the stairs until the roof and found Matthew was already waiting for you.

“Wasn’t sure I was at the right place at first.” You confessed as you sat beside him on the ledge. You looked over at him and saw he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

“I knew you’d get here.” He said honesty, turning towards you with a gentle smile. He reached for your hand but hesitated, allowing his palm to hover over your wrist for a moment before pulling away. “So.. You wanted to talk about the party?”

“Yeah.. What happened?”

“I went with my roommate and you went with yours. It was some sorority mixer for one of their anniversaries, but both of our roommates ditched us.” He leaned his palms on the roof behind him and leaned back, closing his eyes and tilting his head back.

You saw the red tint of old bruises poking out from under the collar of his t-shirt. Short cuts were illuminated across his face in the moonlight and the slightest purple tint showed around his eyes. You wondered who would assault a blind man so much as to leave him with a black eye.

“And then we got married.” He said simply with a small shrug.

“Sorry, what?” You asked, snapping from your admiration of him.

He laughed lightly and flattened out to his back, a hand reaching out for you. With a small hesitation, though somewhere deep in your gut you knew it was okay, you put your hand in his. He pulled you down to lay beside him and you let out a small groan as you thumped against the concrete.

“Your roommate ditched you for some frat guy and mine… I still don’t know where mine went that night.” He explained again, looking over at you with a soft smile. You tried to keep your eyes up at the faint pinpricks of stars, counting what you could see and trying to find constellations. But you could see him out your peripherals and you ended up rolling onto your side to face him. “Anyway, you didn’t know anyone else besides me and her so I stayed with you. We talked and you ended up leaving in my sweater.”

“This sweater.” You said and tugged the material.

“Yeah..” He said softly, barely above a whisper. He cleared his throat and continued talking. “I walked you back to your dorm and you made me call you when I walked back to mine… You told me you wanted to make sure I didn’t get hit by someone on a bike on my way but I think you just wanted to hear my voice some more.”

You laughed honestly and tucked your head against your arm. You felt his hand on the side of your face, his fingers inching into your hair, as he gently turned you back towards him. His unfocused eyes scanned your face and you could see the love in his expression.

“I told you…” You began carefully as you tugged the string of the memory. The memory at the base of a massive pile that if you could just get it out, maybe everything else would make sense. “I told you that you’d be a hell of a lawyer cause you managed to convince me not to hate you.”

“I think it was a little nicer than that.” His brows furrowed before he smiled.

He really had a beautiful smile, didn’t he?

“And then you asked if.. if that meant..”

“C’mon, sweetheart.” He said softly, practically to himself. “A little more.”

“If that meant we would spend more time together… We started studying together, in my favorite corner. We…”

“Yeah?”

“We fell in love.”

“And here we are.”

“Yeah…” You gave a small, slightly sad smile as you removed his hand. “Here we are.”

“Are we still in love?” He asked carefully, clearly terrified of the answer.

“I don’t know.” You said honestly. “But I do know that I liked you. And I think I’d like to see if we can fall in love again.”

He grinned widely and nodded eagerly. “I can live with that.. Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah.” You laughed.

[cielles-random-vault]

new year's hangover☆

lil drabble where you befriend ghost at the tf141 new year's party... what can possibly go wrong?

content: drunkness, socially anxious-ish reader, ghost being ghost, passing out and hickeys.

author's note: UHHH HAI IM BACK?!?!? icl im kinda hating myself because im posting a drabble instead of a full work.... am sorry.. mi bad mi bad... also im waiting for friday for new invincible content because the brainrot is REALLL

also pls pretend i posted this on new year's eve... HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YALL BTWWWWW

shotout to @unabashedcroissanttreefan bc i want to make her bitter /hj, and to @michelleart8 ! <3

anyway enjoy and pls reblog

wc: 1836

"will you be coming at the new year's party tonight?" price asked as he noticed you filling some paperwork in the common room.

"i dont think so" you sigh, "im not that much of a social person, and i still have a lot of paperwork to fill in,let alone medical files."

"are you sure?" price asked, worried you might overwork yourself, but then an idea suddenly came to his mind. "i heard the lieutenant will be there as well, rumors have it you have a crush on him, so it'd be a good opportunity to actually talk to him, instead of just- avoiding him like you do."

the thought of captain price having noticed you had a crush on ghost sent a bright blush to your cheeks, but you waved those thoughts away.

"even if he was here, that doesn't mean i stand a chance with him" you reply, losing focus on your paperwork, now that the lieutenant was mentioned. "we barely talk anyway, and he seems to hate me so..."

"he seems to hate everyone" price chuckled, "dont take it personally. did the fact that he will be there change your mind?"

"i dont know" you sigh, but your little smile was betraying you. "it will depend on whether i have finished filling those files. at what time will it start?"

"around 7!" price replied with a subtle smile, feeling like he convinced you to come. "oh,and, you can come in a casual outfit, no need to pull up the formal uniform", he winked and left.

the few hours that separated you from the awaited party came, and all of a sudden a sudden peak of anxiety invaded you.

what if everyone made fun of your awful social skills? what if you didnt dress well enough?

your overthinking stopped as you felt your phone vibrate in your pocket; surprisingly enough, it was a text from price.

are you coming? ghost is here 👀

you chuckled as you put on a comfy sweater, and headed to the common room.

"you came!!" price greeted you, smiling brightly at you. "make yourself at ease, go get yourself something to drink, and who knows? maybe alcohol can help you make a move on our lovely lieutenant" he chuckled, before handing you a cup of alcohol.

"do you... want to get me drunk so i could get rid of my social anxiety?" you asked price, raising an eyebrow.

"maybe" he chuckled, already sounding drunk, "is it working?"

"not reall- ouch"

you blushed brightly as you noticed ghost was the one who stumbled into you.

"oi," he said, sounding slightly drunk as well, "im sorry. must've lost my balance, probably drank too much already. you're y/n, right?"

"y-yes," you nod, still not over the interaction, praying he didn't notice the bright blush on your cheeks, "why?"

"because..." he tries to articulate, and nearly fell on the floor, "ive been meaning to tell you... you're doing a great ass good job... dont let my mean words convince you otherwise, k?"

"oh-" you said, taken aback by this sudden demonstration of kindness, your heart melting. "thank you lieutenant..?"

the evening went on, until the cheerful "happy new year!!!" resonated in the walls of the tf141's buildings, everyone happy to finally greet the new year.

the party then came to an end, and so you decided to stay a little longer to help clean the room. once you got done, and got ready to head back to your quarters, you noticed an odd figure.

was ghost... asleep? he sure seemed to. he probably passed out due to all the alcohol he had drank, and you couldn't blame him.

that's how he somehow ended in your quarters - and if you were to be honest, carrying a man as massive as him was NOT an easy thing, but you somehow managed to. you tried your best to put him in a comfortable position on your couch, but bringing him here was already kind enough, wasn't it? so you just left him laying down on the floor, covering his massive frame with a blanket, and put a pillow under his head.

"this sure was a strange new year's day" you thought out loud, "happy new year lieutenant"

just in case something happened to ghost, you decided pull an all nighter (?), and you were right to, well at least, soft of.

in the middle of the night, ghost woke up, seemingly not over his hangover.

"i'll tell you what, y/n, ive always been in love with you." he mumbled, barely able to stand.

your heart dropped at this confession, but you had to stay lucid: he couldn't possibly mean it, it had to be the alcohol, right? that would make no sense if he was in love with you.

but you couldn't help to secretely wish what he was saying was true, after all you know the saying: drunk words are sober thoughts, and now you really hoped the saying was true there.

"lieutenant,you're drunk, you should go back to sle-"

he interrupted you by kissing you, first on the lips, and then moved on to your neck, leaving a little trail of hickeys here and there.

you gave in the kiss, you knew it was wrong, but it felt so good, but quickly waved those thoughts off: it was wrong in any way. he was your superior, and drunk, you couldn't abuse his drunken state like that.

but the feel of his lips on yours sure felt like heaven...

as if nothing happened, he smirked softly as he pulled out of the kiss, and resumed his peaceful slumber on your floor.

however, the next morning was nothing like that.

"looks like someone had fun last night" ghost grumbled as he noticed your many hickeys. "what the fuck am i doing here? and where even is here, and did you poison me? why is my head pounding?" he asked, back to his usual stern self, and you would actually be surprised if he didnt.

"youre in my quarters" you reply as you handed him a cup of anti hangover tea. "i brought you here because we were the only two remaining at the party, and you passed out. and hum... about the hickeys, how much do you remember from last night?" you ask as you look away, embarassed at the thought of last night's passionate kiss.

"i dont remember shit, why?" he asked, sounding more annoyed than mean.

"okay i..." (you sigh) "promise not to get mad at me if i tell you?" (he shakes his head, annoyed) "okay, so... you confessed yesterday." you blurt out, "but that is not all." (you gulp.) "we also kissed and... you gave me those hickeys."

"oh." he said blankly, and you could feel the blush in his voice, despite his mask.

"yeah.." you chuckled awkwardly, not daring to look at him, "but i have one question though. were you honest when you said you... 'always have been in love with me?"

your heartbeat quickened as you waited for his answer, but you had to know.

"would it be weird if i said yes..?" he asked, unable to look at your eyes, and your heart nearly missed a beat. "i mean, youre always doing what youre told to despite the fact that i treat you like shit and... i don't know, i guess that made me develop a kind of soft spot for you... do you happen to feel the same way..?" he asked, and you could feel the vulnerability in his voice.

"i- i think i do..?" you replied, both confused and relieved. "i mean, i always thought you hated me but.. this feels a bit rushed. can we do it again?"

"okay" he nodded, "how does 'hello, my name is simon riley, known as ghost, lieutenant from the task force 141, and i am in love with the wonderful y/n' sounds?" ghost chuckled with a soft smile, loving at you with loving eyes.

"much better" you reply with a soft smile, butterflies fluttering in your stomach, way better.

later on that day, when you and ghost headed to the briefing room hand in hand, price couldn't help but let out a small laugh.

"see? seems like alcohol can do wonders" he whispered, and it made you let out a small chuckle as well.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Ccommd IV 2002 IDM / Abstract

Continuing this foray into the now-ancient, pre-social media days of online music community building with this highly ephemeral, half-decent IDM comp from 2002 that was made by the message board denizens of the website of Warp Records. Warp itself had long carried the torch of being the world's premier IDM label, and the folks who contributed to this album seem to have been highly inspired by a bunch of their own acts, like Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Autechre, Boards of Canada, and a whole bunch of others.

And knowing that these musicians loved Warp to the point that they'd be regular contributors to its own message board kinda makes me feel that, while listening to this, I am myself someone at the label who's constantly seeking out fresh talent and wades through neverending, enormous piles of demos that they've received. And I've just happened to pop this Ccommd IV CD into my changer to see if anything might catch my ear 🤞.

Except, in reality, I didn't actually find this one on CD, because apparently, virtually no one can. It's not currently for sale on Discogs, it's never been sold there, and only 4 users on the site claim to own a copy right now. Super rare!

But thankfully, although it's been long out of print, the UK-based collective that was responsible for putting it out originally, TEFOSAV (The Electronic Foundation of Sound and Vision) records, has made it available on their own Bandcamp site for free, which is where I was able to come across it 👍.

So what we have here in the fourth installment of this Warp-inspired series, as is probably somewhat average for someone who gets tasked with listening to demos, is a comp with a good deal of half-baked clunk on it and a few nice gems too. The album hits back-to-back with Sktbx's "Wikal - Butcheredcetacea Mix" and Orange Dust's "Bitmap Sunset," both of which should have you feeling like you've come across a pretty sweet, nearly-lost-to-the-y2k-Internet-sands-of-time IDM goldmine. But most of what then follows that beginning turns out to be pretty underwhelming 😔.

That is until the grand finale, with Autofire's "Boots Akid (Nautilus Remix)," which is one of those songs that specializes in the art of splicing together multiple split-second samples of various bits of sound in order to construct melodies and rhythms out of them. I especially love when people do this type of stuff because I feel like it's such a meticulous process to make these collages in the first place, and it also happens to throw up a big middle finger and shit-eating-grin to the absurd copyright police, who can't sue you if the provenance of the minuscule bit that you've sampled is actually unknowable 😁. That said, though, I'm pretty sure I can hear the distinct voice of a very prominent TV character in this one. Not gonna give it away for fear that some big, evil, corporate web scraper comes across this post and files a cease-and-desist and/or lawsuit because of me—these posts show up in Google searches, folks!—but I'm pretty sure I'm hearing that voice. And Nautilis, by the way (yes, I know, I spelled it as Nautilus before, because that's how it was written on the tracklist!), had already made his first release on Mike Paradinas' (µ-Ziq) Planet Mu label the year before this album itself was released.

So, I had a feeling that I knew what I was getting myself into with this from jump, because most comps of this type aren't likely to consistently knock it out of the park, but given that fact, this album was still able to satisfy enough. So far, this little online y2k-era archaeology project of mine's been fun, even if a good portion of the music's ended up leaving a bit to be desired.

And for more posts like this one, check out Finnish label Luumu's Into the Core of Luumu and this double-disc that was made by folks from the ambient mailing list of pioneering online electronic music resource, Hyperreal, too ✌️.

Highlights:

Sktbx - "Wikal - Butcheredcetacea Mix" Orange Dust - "Bitmap Sunset" Pro(xy) - "D.C.K." Autofire - "Boots Akid (Nautilus Remix)"

[wanderingaldecaldo]

OC Personality Quiz

Tagged by @ouroboros-hideout and @ronqueesha tagged me to do this personality quiz for my OC (and ofc I used Val).

Curated Top 10 (Based on media I know)

John Connor (Terminator 2: Judgement Day): 83%

Kaylee Frye (Firefly + Serenity): 82%

Naomi Nagata (The Expanse): 82%

Hoban Washburne (Firefly + Serenity): 80%

Fox Mulder (The X-Files): 80%

Basher Tarr (Ocean's 11): 80%

Stitch (Lilo & Stitch): 80%

Ed (Cowboy Bebop): 79%

Marty McFly (Back to the Future): 79%

Jyn Erso (Rogue One): 79%

Some other results that made me happy:

50. Luke Skywalker (Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope): 77% 51. Sharon 'Boomer' Valerii (Battlestar Galactica): 77% 52. Marion Ravenwood (Raiders of the Lost Ark): 77% 78. Arya Stark (Game of Thrones): 75% 102. Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly + Serenity): 74% 103. Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games): 74% 104. Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace (Battlestar Galactica): 74% 106. Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): 74%

And coming in under 200...

197. Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice): 71%

Val's "real" Top 10 and tags after the cut...

Actual Top 10

Frenchie (The Boys): 86%

Caleb Rivers (Pretty Little Liars): 84%

John Connor (Terminator 2: Judgement Day): 83%

Kaylee Frye (Firefly + Serenity): 82%

Naomi Nagata (The Expanse): 82%

Suzuha Amane (Steins;Gate): 82%

Darlene (Mr. Robot): 81%

Kim Ki-woo (Parasite): 81%

Tris Prior (Divergent): 81%

Powder (Arcane): 81%

Not sure who's done this so tagging with the usual no pressure/sorry if you were already tagged: @awwwokay @chevvy-yates @gloryride @jackiemychoom @luvwich @nncc77 @valsilverhand @thelonestrider

[lorcaswhisky]

Tag Game: First 10 Lines Challenge

Rules: Share the first line of your last ten published works or as many as you are able to and see if there are any patterns!

(Thanks for tagging me, @curator-on-ao3 !)

From newest publication to oldest:

1. Long Shot

(Discovery, 123,907 words)

He ran the data a second time, even though he already knew there was no mistake. He had made quite certain of that.

There it was again. Proof. Incontrovertible proof.

2. Probably

(SNW, 732 words)

"Next week?"

"I'm in the Antares Sector next week. Next month?"

3. We are here, and this is now

(SNW, 794 words)

“Are you alone? Or are there others like you?”

Brown curls bobbed as Khan nodded towards a photograph tacked to the cold grey wall, barely illuminated by the flickering light overhead. 

4. tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

(Discovery, 1,490 words)

"This is a terrible idea."

Katrina opened her eyes.

5. Tactical Briefings

(Discovery, 1,378 words)

Commander Angharad Jones halted outside the Captain's quarters and took a deep, calming breath. She had carefully rehearsed what she would say on the turbolift ride to deck five. Rule one of crisis management: don’t make an even bigger crisis by saying something stupid.

6. Nutritional Values

(Prodigy, 385 words)

Janeway folded her arms. 

“None of the items on this menu provide an appropriate balance of nutrients for - any known species.” 

7. Drawn that way

(Lower Decks, 847 words)

"Did you see how her hair moved? All - swooshy? And she had, like, in-di-vidual eyelashes." Eyes boggling, Mariner wiggled her fingers. "So gross."

8. Tap

(Discovery, 1,436 words)

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It’s been more than an hour now. Waiting in front of a screen for a call from - someone.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

9. Lost Cause

(Discovery, 55,980 words)

This one is a little different, and I couldn't work out what counted as the first line, so have the whole chunk...

Personnel File - Lorca, Gabriel

Status: Retired

Current location: [REDACTED]

Service record: [...] 2246.3 Awarded Medal of Commendation for action taken on Tarsus IV. 2246.7 Promoted to Commander, assigned to USS Hawking [...] 2251.2 Assumed command of USS Buran [...] 2256.4 [REDACTED] 2261.7 Retired

-Starfleet Personnel Logs, accessed 2270.3 by <UNKNOWN USER>

*

>>MESSAGE RECEIVED 2261.7.10.22:34<<

TO: Pike, Captain C.

FROM: Lorca, G.

SECURITY: HIGH

Chris,

I don't know if my last few messages reached you. I guess not. I'm hoping this one works.

You'll have heard the rumors by now. They're true. I'm home. Back, anyway. I can't say any more than that here. I need to speak to you, in person. I have so many questions. I'm sure you do, too.

Let me know.

Gabriel

>>MESSAGE DELETED<<

10. Settle

(Picard, 1,819 words)

"We’re safe here."

Laris snorts.

"All of the Romulans on this vineyard are ex-Tal Shiar. Of course we aren't safe."

Pattern analysis:

Hmm. My shorter fics tend to start mid-conversation. My longer fics, though ... they start however they want. I think all of them ask some kind of question, either big - what data? Why has all this information been redacted? - or small - who are they talking to? Who's waiting for what? I don't seem to go for many action starts, though, so maybe that's something I could try in a future fic. Opening lines are definitely something I'd like to strengthen in future projects.

Tagging: @lizardperson, @liz-squids, @ussjellyfish and anyone else who'd like a go!

[olet-lucernam]

A Hollow Promise [9] chapter ii, part iv

{_[on AO3]_}

main tags : loki x original character, post-avengers 2012, canon divergence - post-thor: the dark world, canon-typical violence, mentions of torture

summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, the Avengers need a few days to build a transport device for the Tesseract. With the Helicarrier damaged and surveillance offline, SHIELD sends an asset to guard Loki in the interim: a young woman who sees the truth in all things, and cannot lie.

Even long presumed dead, her memories lost to her, Loki would know her anywhere.

And this changes things.

Some things last beyond infinity. And the universe is in love with chaos.

(Loki was never looking for redemption. It came as an unexpected side-effect.)

-

chapter summary : the morning after. loki and his guard play a game of twenty questions

recommended listening : gently break it, beck pete

-

[PREVIOUS] | [MASTERLIST] | [NEXT]

-

He didn't know how long it was until they spoke again.

"May I ask you something?"

Loki was turned to one side, his shoulder pressed to the wall of the cell, one boot propped up on the bone-white bench in front of him, fingertips laced in his lap, the books carefully stacked and pushed underneath.

Outside the cell, his guard was laid on her side amongst the rose and ivory sheets, one arm tucked beneath the pillow, the other hand fisted close to her heart, curls blending against the silvered skin at her shoulder blades, jagged as a splinter point in solid glass. A hardback lay within reach on the mattress, but untouched.

She might have been mistaken as asleep, or in a light doze- like a cursed princess from a fairytale- but the pattern of her breathing was wrong, and she answered promptly, as clear as crystal.

"Anything," she said neutrally.

Loki measured his breathing, weighing each pull of air within the scales of his lungs.

"You said that you did something reckless, enough for SHIELD to regard you as a serious threat. What was it?"

She hummed out a laugh.

"Oh. That," she said, as soft as a dream, shifting, wool-clad calves sliding against the sheets to tuck one ankle behind the opposite knee, stark as soot against the page of cotton and silk. "Yeah. I stole the Tesseract."

Loki froze in disbelief, his eyebrows steepling.

"What?"

"Last summer. When I broke into the Joint Dark Matter Research Facility. I took it." She paused. "I put it back after a month," she added lightly, as though in her defence.

The irony sank through himr.

Loki exhaled a laugh, closing his eyes and letting his head rest against the column behind him.

"We committed the same offence," he murmured.

"Mm-hm."

"I know I had my reasons," Loki mulled, "but what were yours?"

He heard her nails scrape against the linens.

"My objective was the PEGASUS files," she confessed against the pillows. "The archive was deep underground, near the testing chamber, and I could feel the Tesseract through the rock and concrete. It was like the Bifrost, and Mjolnir, and the Destroyer, only- more intense. And awake. It was like it was- calling out. Tapping on the glass to get my attention. Almost like the sceptre, in retrospect, but less insidious, less invasive. I knew it was a risk. I was operating on a narrow margin. And I was only there for the files. But its energy was just so familiar, and- something in me knew I would regret it if I ignored it. So I took a detour on the way out. As soon as I stepped into the room, the Tesseract's energy flared. It was like- like being greeted by an old friend. It was- happy to see me. When Agent Barton caught me, I had already pulled the Tesseract out of its inset."

She shifted, hair rumpling into a cloud of spun sugar as she buried herself deeper into the pillow.

"It made me an offer. I made a snap decision. I let it take me away from there."

Loki listened, staring at the column across from him. Its matte ivory surface was devoid of visible scuffs of scratches even under the unforgiving overhead ring of light, drawing out flaws like the crisp lens of a microscope, leaving Loki with a pristine canvas on which to sketch his thoughts.

The Tesseract's apparent sentience was no revelation to Loki. There was a reason Dr Selvig had referred to it as she, and his commentary on its behaviour was no mere convenient metaphor, as his colleagues had likely assumed. When Loki had reached out to Midgard, his magic coasting off the power source of the sceptre, he had felt the Tesseract turn its gaze on him, scrutinising and inscrutable- and eventually, by whatever unknowable metric it employed, found him sufficient. Later, when it had been removed from its containment briefcase in the underground tunnels, it had pulsed faintly in greeting, seemingly unconcerned to find itself in Loki's possession.

"Where did it take you?" He asked.

Loki heard her fist clenching beneath the pillow.

"It made the stars as stepping stones," she said quietly. "It took me across the length of the universe. For a month, it showed me- dying stars, the ruins of the Celestials, molten rock cooling into a new planet, civilisations at their peak, wildernesses and spacecraft cities and empires on the brink of falling. But it always took me back to the same barren planet to rest. Vormir. And whenever I was asleep- the Tesseract showed me you."

Loki's eyes flicked down, catching her on his periphery.

"Me?"

"I saw an asteroid field, out in deep space-" She hesitated. "Sanctuary?"

He closed his eyes, jaw tensing.

She knew. It was too late. It had been too late since before she had stepped into the room.

"Eventually, I asked the Tesseract to take me there. It did. And I saw- I saw you."

Loki swallowed.

"And," he said carefully, in an echo her earlier question, "what was your first impression?"

There was another shuffle of fabric.

"You're going to make me say it," she muttered ruefully, muffled by the plush of the pillow. "Stars."

Loki raised an eyebrow, curiosity and pulse piqued.

When she finally spoke again, her tone was a blend of earnest and abashed.

"You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen."

Her words lingered, like shiver of a crescendo's echo, vitrifying the air into a delicate web of glass, brittle and frozen.

"You were like- like a lungful of air on a midwinter night, cold enough to scorch. It was like tasting the dark between the stars. Or the entropy that ignites galaxies. You were wounded, brilliant, and beautiful- and I-"

She choked off whatever she was about to say with a small, strangled noise.

Forcing every muscle in his body to be still, Loki gave her a moment to collect herself.

"My soul knew you," she breathed into the quiet, crushing the words out of herself. "I swear it. I felt something just- lock into place. Like a part of me was waiting for it. As though, this entire time, I had been looking for-"

She took a shuddering breath and spoke in a rush on the exhale.

"Anyway. That's why I did it. Why I put the Tesseract back. And why I came here."

"You were ordered here," Loki countered, throat tense, sorting through the fragments of what she had said that he could bear to handle, and studiously ignoring the parts that could break him utterly if he allowed himself to think on them.

"I was. Do you remember why?"

Loki's brow creased.

"The assault. The damage extended to the surveillance for this chamber-"

"I never said that."

Loki sat up straighter in consternation, pressing on the heels of his hands. "No, you said-"

"- that the Helicarrier was damaged in the assault, and the surveillance here was intermittent," she said. "I don't recall ever saying that one caused the other, though."

Loki slackened in realisation.

"When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras," she mused, quietly prideful, "right?"

"SHIELD made an assumption."

"Mm-hm."

"You- how did you-?"

Loki heard the chafe of fabric as she sat up.

Involuntarily, his gaze was drawn to the motion. She half-knelt within the nest of mussed silk, her back to him, the gloss of her hair tangled, soft jersey shorts sliding up, dark socks loosening, the strap of her camisole slipping off one golden shoulder.

The sight was distracting enough that Loki startled when she flicked one finger towards the ceiling.

"Say what you mean, Tell me I'm right And let the sun rain down on me-"

Under her voice- warm and faintly sweet- the light directly above her surged brighter, and Loki felt the pull.

A shiver chased down the fuller of his spine, diffusing across his shoulder blades, at the rush of unrefined magic saturating the air.

The excess of it spilled from its focus like an overfilled basin, streaming through the wiring, mercilessly amplifying the flow of electricity until the circuitry was overloading. The bulb as threatened burst and shatter, the filament forced aglow like a seasonal flower in a glasshouse.

Its currents tugged at him, compelling, soul-deep.

Her wrist flipped, now pointing towards the cell.

"Give me a sign I wanna believe-"

The light above her stabilised, released from the magic's grip.

Instead, the rings of electric glass within the cage began to gutter. The diodes dimmed, struggling against the mana pushing against its power source, flowing backwards and disrupting the currents. Dashes of shadow flickered and slashed violently across the reinforced plates of the ceiling and floor, like lightning seen from fathoms below the ocean.

Her hand tipped towards the wall of the chamber.

"Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh, Mona Lisa You're guaranteed to run this town-"

Loki heard the hydraulics beyond the black steel stutter, the soft whirr from the blades of cooling fans coasting to a stop. The screen of the control terminal glitched, various functions and error messages winking across the glass between broken graphics.

Then- the electronic hum of his cell ebbed.

"Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh, Mona Lisa I'd pay to see you frown-!"

As she carried the last, bending note, the magic in the air faded.

Like an orchestra warming before a performance, the failing mechanisms restarted in staggered order

The stalled electronics breathed back to being in a low thrum, pulling together into a gentle, tuneless cloud of sound.

The damage wasn't permanent, and wasn't intended to be. It was a demonstration, a glimpse of what she was capable of.

"Spellsong."

Loki could taste the residue of her mana settling on his skin like a fine dust of powdered gold, seraphic.

It was a faded art on Asgard, diminished by centuries of disinterest and disregard, but rooted deep in its foundations, an unaltered truth- words had power; as I speak, I create. Language was an intermediary, an instrument.

And hers was a voice of truth.

Her hand dropped.

"It's not strictly necessary, but," her fingers brushed her throat absently, "it's a good conduit. Helps me control my power, for anything more sophisticated than just- pouring mana into channels that already exist. Carving out new paths, or redirecting them, is- well, even using spellsong, I can only manage the basics without something exploding. Thanks to my magical core-"

She tapped her breastbone.

"- I can't do anything that requires finesse. I'm sure you could tell."

He could. With only a dose of her magic as a sample, Loki could tell that her core was strong- too strong. Trying to tap into it for complex magecraft would be like trying to fill a champagne flute from a waterfall: if the sheer thundering force of the currents didn't shatter the glass, then more water would be knocked out of the vessel than be caught by it. Simple spells were a more viable vessel for her mana, with their straightforward intent and fewer intricacies to risk breaking; the more basic the structure, the more securely they would serve as a vessel for her mana.

Yet, ironically, spellsong was frequently considered one of the most difficult branches of magic to master.

To use spellsong was to call upon the world to listen, and have it yield.

"SHIELD doesn't know," Loki guessed.

She snorted softly, pulling the strap of her camisole back up and ruffling her fingers through her hair, loosening the snarls. "I'm not stupid."

"You could escape."

"I could have never let them catch me in the first place," she retorted testily.

Loki paused.

That's why I did it, she had said, why I came here.

Oh.

She hadn't been talking about the chamber. She was talking about SHIELD.

"You bought the Tesseract back," he said, soft and almost accusatory.

She stilled- then shifted to sit on her heels, shoulders pulling back as she stretched the softness out of her limbs.

"I had good reason to believe I was making the right decision," she said cryptically.

"And do you still think it was the right decision?"

Her laugh was like the sensation of putting pressure on a broken ankle.

In one smooth motion, she swivelled her legs underneath her, turning to face him.

"I'm not a particularly good person, you know," she informed him, the twist of her mouth factual and bittersweet, "not really. Despite what people assume about honesty as an inherent virtue. But everyone has some ugliness in them, the deeper you look- there's blood beneath every layer of skin. It's just that some people have the luxury of never knowing. I know. And I-" Her lips thinned, one hand fisting against the sheets, nails scraping across the weave. "Yes. I think I made the right decision."

"You abhor unnecessary suffering," Loki pressed, sharpening.

"I don't know that it was unnecessary," she answered easily, not looking at him. "I made a decision, based on the information I had. I've chosen to trust that it wasn't."

Trust.

It was a fragile thing, and a fool's game-

Love is a dagger- and trust is the heartbeat pressing earnest into its sting–

Loki remembered the words on her lips, like a stain, her soul alight and bleeding into his touch amidst a flurry of bare flesh and searching hands and gasps and friction and too close not close enough more, the words on her tongue cracked by helpless keens and cries, answered by his wrecked noises and breathless chanted promises against her skin.

It was one of the memories that he had managed to lock away. Loki had struggled to retain his own mind over the past two years, slowly forgetting how to retake control, eventually forgetting that he wasn't in control, lost in the incoherent clamour of rage-hate-want. Through the churning shards of ice scraping behind his browbone, his mind flayed and frayed and sliced into ribbons as he reached inside, he had seized what he knew he couldn't afford to lose and hidden it away, stalling as they shaved away at his defences until he knew he had to give in.

That memory was one of those that he had saved, so untainted that it hurt.

Trust.

"I never intended to survive the fall."

-

[PREVIOUS] | [MASTERLIST] | [NEXT]

[veryrealimagination]

Comfortember Day 9 - Aftermath

William immediately headed to the room that had been prepared before any of them came in. Terrence Meyers and his father made sure that a safe house was prepped and cleaned before transferring his people, James Pendrick, and Llewellyn from the small hospital.

Julia, thankfully, hadn’t lost her license straight out. The tape with her confession on having to operate on Llewellyn as the only doctor able to at the moment had been sent to the board. They were debating on possible punishments, or even if she deserved them. Now, she had taken up residence in the room shared by the worst of the injured. James, who remembered underneath rubble, had slowly been regaining his modern memories as he dealt with the past ones. His shoulder was once again, dislocated. At least with modern rehab techniques, it wouldn’t end up like it had in the previous life.

There was a doctor and nurse pair sent from the intelligence agency, vetted by Meyers and Harry before being allowed to step in and work on the four. Henry was propped up with a computer and offsite access to the intelligence information, barely waiting until the concussion was gone before diving into the investigation as best as he could. George was recuperating from the broken arm and an infection that he managed to get from the exposed bone marrow. The two were bickering and talking while they waited for the worst to pass through George and he could be up adding to research again.

Llewellyn had only woken up twice since his massive surgery, which worried the maternal part of Julia but not her medical background. Impaled through the lung, massive loss of blood, right arm had multiple breaks and his left has restricted blood flow for hours, one leg broken and the other with a jagged, deep laceration. It wasn’t a surprise that he wasn’t more awake, although that meant he was on an IV drip and had nothing to eat for a few days. He wouldn’t be moving for at least half a year, and she believed he wouldn’t be halfway to his old physical self for over a year.

Once he could stay awake, he would go insane.

Julia had taken over a couch. After the first two days of resting and eating from her intense work, she was just watching over her son while talking with James. She didn’t want to leave him until he was able to keep a cohesive thought and stay awake for more than an hour.

Murdoch had been going out with Meyers and Harry, working the bombing just the same as any case back in Toronto. Evidence was being processed steadily, although it was hard getting to the shrapnel and possible fragments left. The people working there were slowly being interviewed for what they saw, knew about Pendrick, and everything surrounding him. It was long, taking the better part of two hours.

There was also a fair bit to go through. Thankfully, there was already a table when he made his way to the room. He laid down the files and lightly kissed Julia before sitting down himself. “There’s going to be dinner delivered in an hour. Harry’s bringing pizza.”

Julia nodded, settling herself down on his side. “A good change from the canned soups Meyers brought and dropped off. The kitchen isn’t the greatest for cooking anything.”

He knew that well enough. The microwave died out when he started using that, and the stove was barely functional. There was a lighter sitting next to it to ignite gas when they turned the knobs. “Hopefully, it’ll be filling. Doing investigations into a terrorist act with Meyers hanging over my head is a lot more exhausting than it was previously.”

She huffed. “I know they’ve had issues with getting money, but a microwave can’t cost that much.”

“What is it, like, a hundred dollars?” a tired voice mocked. James was awake, and starting to listen in on the couple.

Murdoch nodded, somewhat understanding the reference. “One of the first ones I ever took apart was about that much. Mary screamed when she saw I had taken apart the one they were planning on sending to the trash. She and Caleb had to warn me about the dangers of unplugged microwaves.” Julia smacked him. Of course, he would do something dangerous like that.

“It was the first family one. Dad was so angry at me tearing that apart,” James admitted.

“At least you never,” a tired voice started. Julia snapped her head around when she saw Llewellyn looking over, “Had to deal with that from me.”

“Llewellyn,” she said, standing up and going over to the bed.

His smile was weak. “Just fingerpainted on Grandpa’s canvases.” William joined Julia by her side, gently pressing the back of his hand to an uncovered part of his arm. He hadn’t seen him awake at all since finding him in the rubble.

She threaded through his hair. “Those were pretty pennies to replace. Although he told me that one of those paintings sold well enough that he almost wanted to let you keep doing it.” He smiled, then grimaced at something sending a sharp pain through him. “Where?”

“S-side,” he whispered, closing his eyes when another sharp pain went through.

“Do you want a hit?”

He shook his head. “No. Don’t like fuzzy.” Julia frowned, as she didn’t like watching him be in pain. “I’ll ignore it,” he breathed, “Like I do the ‘artbreak.”

“You didn’t ignore that, you stole two bottles of wine while she was out doing interviews,” William ratted out.

“Hey,” he protested. There was a promise weaseled out of him to never tell Julia about what he did after being dumped by Jack.

“Llewellyn,” she hissed. Honestly, she already had a thought that something had happened the two weeks she had to go cross country promoting her new work. Coming home and feeling a change in the status quo between William, Dad, and Llewellyn, she carefully watched them for two weeks. Never quite picked it up, but now knowing there were two bottles that he must have drunk after Jack made her wonder about the time.

“I, replaced them!”

“You, out of all people, should know about underage drinking and how dangerous, and bad, it can be for you,” she said.

“Wasn’t that bad last time,” he murmured, falling asleep.

That frown was more pronounced than the last one. “I think,” James said, ��That I will take a walk-”

“Stay down,” she ordered, pointing at him with not even stopping her other hand. “William, we will be having a Talk about what happened.”

William knew how that was going to go. Which, he was grateful for Henry and George managing to get in the door. George had the laptop while Henry leaned on the crutches. “Should we come back later?” he asked, knowing he would get two different answers, at least.

“Yes.” Julia.

“No.” Murdoch.

“Please don’t leave me with them.” James. The last had everyone except the sleeper looking at him. “Mom and Dad are fighting,” he mocked, pointing at the two. George set down the laptop while getting more chairs. William went with him. “Anything on who bombed my lab and almost killed me?”

“A couple of suspects,” Henry said, taking Julia’s chair with permission. She nabbed William’s to look at the computer.

“Good. As long as one of them isn’t Allen Clegg,” he shuddered, remembering the rabies mutation that he made last time.

“Haven’t ran across him yet,” Henry relayed, “Or Sally. She is in the country, however.”

“Ugh,” he moaned, “At least she didn’t frame me this time.”

“William would have seen through it in a minute,” Julia said. “All of them would have.” Two more chairs, and the small group settled to start going through evidence that Henry dug up.

[horizon-forbidden-sheesh]

Writing Process: Google > Scrivener

When I began writing, I already had plenty of material to work from! For more details on this, read the Preamble. 💋

⚙️ When I began work on the fic, I was working in Scrivener, adapting first-person journal entries I'd drafted in my phone's Notes app. I wanted the full fic to be third-person in order to develop the background motivations for multiple characters. Scrivener gave me plenty of space to hold all the journal entries, timeline notes, and dialogue scraps I didn't know what to do with yet.

I originally planned for 10 Chapters, at ~10k words each. My initial outline looked like this:

I The Bulwark II The Kulrut III Returning IV Rest V What Was Lost VI Waiting VII The Scorcher (👈🏻 After 26 chapters and 90k words, we are currently here.) VIII Rebellion IX Endgame X Finale, or Returning, Reprise

However, I was quickly burning out due to the length of each chapter, and after asking around in Discord, I had a sinking feeling readers would be overwhelmed.

What I Did Instead:

At a certain point in April, after about ~6 months of on-again off-again drafting, I got fed up, a little drunk, and chopped up my enormous existing chapters into smaller chapters: five, to be exact. That night I posted the first one, ironically called 'The Last One.'

While I have been very selective about chapter titles, at the time, I didn't have a title for the whole shebang. But I was wine-drunk and flippant, and said "Oh just fuggin pick something u bish." So I called it 'The Marshal,' because it was just vague enough, y'know?

(I absolutely would have called it 'What I Choose,' if it didn't already exist.)

I told myself I'd post weekly. Just the first 10, ending in that bittersweet conversation Aloy has with Varl about Rost. It gave me 5 weeks to figure out how to write 5 more chapters. And I was off to a great start with 6 & 7 drafted in advance.

But then I got this comment on Chapter 6: "Looking forward to the Kulrut Hopefully we get some more of our power duo fighting together 😁"

I was... absolutely planning on skipping directly to the dialogue scene after the battle. And based on what I'd already plotted, I would need to squeeze in an extra chapter to get'er done, pushing out my 10 chapter outline. But I REALLY didn't want to disappoint anyone, especially if they were LOOKING FORWARD TO IT?!? 🥹

I was also traveling at this time, away from my computer and my stupid, bulky Scrivener file. So I whipped open a Google Doc and started firing on all cylinders to write a new Chapter 8 complete with Kulrut battle scene. And lo, I discovered:

⚙️ Writing in Google Docs gave me SO MUCH MORE FREEDOM. I could access my drafts from my desktop, my tablet, and my phone. These days, I write mostly in bed on my tablet, which is a FAR cry from the early days staying up till 2am at my desk.

It was extra comfy, because Google Docs is where I do all my client work. As I've mentioned: IRL, I'm a copywriter/project manager for print & digital design work. Mostly, I build websites, but as a freelancer, I work on a wide range of projects and the tools I use need to be flexible & accessible to a wide range of audiences.

The Google Suite is perfect for that, and I have a simple filing system for all my projects to keep things nice and neat. My writing work fit perfectly into that system, and the same flexibility & accessibility really supported my writing process.

Here's what my file folder looks like these days:

Which frankly, is a lot easier to navigate than this dumb Scrivener sidebar:

I finished chapters 8, 9, & 10 in Google Docs. I'm still really proud of myself for taking the leap and posting. Sharing your work is scary! Or at least, it was for me.

I'd never written ANYTHING on this scale before, and it felt like a huge accomplishment. I'll be honest, impulsively posting that first chapter with a short runway and a clear end-goal made it a LOT easier to be accountable. I would recommend this strategy to ANYONE!

Tips & Takeaways:

🖤 Consistency is key, but I've found it comes at a price. Trying to post once a week in perpetuity will slowly bleed you out. Wait to post until you have at least half your content under your belt, and set a clear end date—if only for your own sanity.

🖤 Be flexible in your outline!! In both Part 1 and Part 2 I ended up with an extra chapter that pushed my intended finale into the next season. I'm still glad I had an outline, but I'm grateful I left room for it to change. (This is something I would have had a LOT of trouble with 5 years ago! Personal growth FTW!)

🖤 When you start to feel like writing is just biting concrete, find the most fun way out. Is it writing the most exciting scene you can think of? Or is it looking at what you already have and finding a new way forward within your existing structure?

🖤 You're gonna be stuck with your title for the long haul, so make sure you like it. Or at least that it's something you can tolerate.

🖤 Do what feels natural. Everyone is different. If you're like 'okay yeah, but I really like writing by hand and then editing as I transcribe it' do that. Go bananas. Have a ball! Find your own way up the mountain. These tools may work for you, or they may send you into the pit of despair. And you should always avoid the pit of despair.

🖤 Write sober, edit drunk.

xo, Sheesh

[unlimitedtrees]

a build from mid 2015 of my old game 'Mr. Waffle Lover', and why everyone should archive their work

hello. this is gonna be a quick little post to talk about something. as you might already know. i've been making games since 2014. one of my Very First projects was a game called 'Mr. Waffle Lover'. i have a Lot to talk about it, but i want to save that for later. For now, i have something else i need to talk about.

So. this project was/is pretty important to me. it was one of the first things i made Ever, before i was even called 'Unlimited Trees' and before i was involved in Any online communities. i was learning A Lot from making it... a lot of the stuff i did for it is Unrecognizable from my current work.. and i havent made anything like it since. it means a lot to me, at least now.

Back Then, However... i did not treasure my work as i did now. You See, this game went through TONS of iterations. from 2014 to 2017, this game went through many changes across Multiple different project files, all with different assets and programming. during the early days, when i gave up on one iteration of the project, i would simply Delete the old files off my computer. And Then, at the beginning of 2016 when i changed my username to 'Unlimited Trees', i deleted ALL of my old work.

TONS of old games ive made were lost. some of the Very First works ive done Ever are completely missing. years of work went down the drain because i wanted to move on from my old work. But as time passed.. i became more fond of my old work, but realized that i could Never see any of it again. and since i never shared any of it to anyone outside of a few old friends (who i dont even have contact with anymore), there was no way i could get any of it back.

But. about over a year ago or so, i went through my old laptop and was able to find a bunch of old files with quite a few of my old games... some of these files werent the latest builds of these games so there was still a lot missing, but i was So Glad i found them... i have So Much i want to share and talk about and im happy i can share at least a little bit of the work ive done alone for years. even if no one cares about some dumb old games, im at least happy i dont have to worry about losing them again..

ANYWAYS. about this build of 'Mr. Waffle Lover'. it is the fourth iteration of the game. it has ideas which no other iteration has done (mainly the 'TNT' jumps). it has art and levels which i kind of like compared to the other early iterations. and it actually Plays Kind of Good , even if it is a little janky and basic. unlike most versions of the game, i actually remember sending builds of this to old friends, but i dont know if they ever played it or even still have it (i doubt they do Lol).

there's a lot more i could probably say about this, but i dont have the energy right now and will probably talk about it later in another post about 'Mr. Waffle Lover'. i have a Lot to share about it... just now is not the time. the video i posted speaks for itself, i think. its just a simple platformer with a basic OC. theres some stuff that wasnt shown in the video, such as an unfinished boss fight. but aside from that, thats all there is to see.

anyways, the point of this post is that i want to encourage more people to archive their work and not do what i did and delete all your stuff. even if in the moment you dont think your stuff is important.. you should at least keep your stuff saved in case you ever want to look back at it. Especially if youve been making things for Years... you might want to see just how much youve grown.. thats how i feel anyways. i am still missing a ton of work that ive made.. and ive since tried to archive everything i make. ive been making games for 8 years, and i put a Lot of time into the stuff ive made.. i never want to throw out any of my work again.

thats all i have to say for now i think. By The Way, the source code for this build of the game can be found here. just in case u want to give it a look. And By The Way, it's in my pinned post, but i have a few google drive folders full of All of my old projects, including everything i have from Waffle Lover (or 'Project Waffle', as it's called). i plan on moving more stuff onto github and making more posts about it.. but for now u can look thru it if u like

[herosplatling-replica]

im back with more commentary. related note i should make a little banner for these little director's cut rambles i go on, cause i have a lot of fun writing them :3

read below for notes on this art piece!

so this one was a lot of fun. For extra context, I found out that I was plural around the beginning of this year, after a good several years of accidentally doing stuff that was considered plural-coded. A lot of it is still complex and ive barely gotten a sense of what’s me and what being me pertains – though for the most part, it’s a lot of realizing I’ve got a ton of masks in the closet and I’ve been unconsciously swapping between them.

But, well, more about the art.

This piece came after finishing the bad ending version of System Failure (supremely funny thing now that im looking back on it cause now it has a double meaning), and I couldn’t stop thinking about how “Unit”, or Safe Mode/amnesiac Inny, was in essence an alter that fronted after a severely traumatic event for Inny. The idea that I had in mind when drawing out the comic for System Failure – File Corruption was primarily about toeing the line between synthetic and organic. Like, how do you define a feeling as genuine? How do you know it’s not just a simulation? A lot of the artwork I do of Inny that goes deeper into this stuff is existential, but I think I wanted this art piece in particular to feel like… coming to terms, if that makes sense.

It’s unavoidably existential, yeah, but the thing with Inny and Unit is that I guess it’s a meeting of the selves. @emo-hermit actually had some really good analysis about how Inny’s brain works and that there’s a lot of things that could be said about them and how they could be debatably plural, and then I drew this comic series and suddenly Inny has another headmate. (technically speaking, the CPU that speaks almost exclusively in code or machine speak in both this comic and prestissimo are the ‘original’ Inny. It’s complicated. Don’t let me talk about this for too long I’ll go off for hours and I already have a headache someone ask me later to explain Inny plurality moments ty xoxo)

all of this to say: I think a lot about Inny’s character. Inny is always scared and anxious, but loving. I felt like after everything had settled down and Inny had time to actually process what had happened to them, they would have a lot of introspection just primarily to thank Unit for being there. It was a scary situation, and Unit was just doing what they thought was best. Inny would’ve just wanted to at least thank them and give them a hug.

Of course that lead to me thinking about what would happen if they ended up speaking for extended periods of time, so I just. Ough. I think a lot about Inny. They hold multitudes. Anxiety is a core part of their personality to the point where if they forgot what it is that makes them alive – the fear for others, and fearing for people’s safety which is ultimately an act of love – it would be pretty devastating. And, well, admittedly, the original ending I had written for that timeline would’ve been that Inny never would’ve made their way back. Unit would live on in their body, since Inny was lost – but I’m a FUCKING SAP!!!!!!!! so I ended up doing what I wanted. Love wins, etc etc.

there’s just a lot to think about. The dialogue here was what I tend to ask my headmates in this nebulous headspace that I have. I guess the art was just, to express what it felt like? To call out and hear a response? I don’t know. I just know I had fun doing it, and it was really cathartic.

conscious // subconscious

[aretarers]

Guy who just had the weirdest fucking set of dreams in ages

inno particular order

In my dorm and i go ? Visit someone? i don't know who this person is supposed to be which is weird because usually my brain will make up a person and make me already know them, or just have them be someone i actually know, but this was neither. i sat or laid down with them or something and kind of just ? not lost consciousness but lost like all track of my body. I know they held my hand but i couldn't tell anything else really outside of that so i was like Hey im so sorry if im invading your personal space, i woke up at 3am (happened to me actually)and they were like Lol dont worry about it. i kept just ending up in like this weird twisting position where i couldn't see anything but i could feel the way my arms were wrapped - actually this may have just been the way my literal body was sleeping for real LOL. Was really scared cause i thought i was kissing them on accident and i was like Oh god im so sorry!!But i think it was literally just me sort of melting into the floor

Big long continuous dream that was one of those where im pretty sure ive never dreamed it before but my brain just makes me feel like I have. Something something very x files y , clones , body switching, etc

now x files y for REAL cause imjust in a grocery store with mulder and Scully while mulder goes and does who fuckin knows what but scully calls me over to this little desk area she's set up and is like Look at this ... This heart is from a navajo woman... And this other one isn't even human , this is a cattle heart...so i guess she was just going through a bunch of . Old hearts and that was somehow relevant to the case . At one point though i was thinking to myself Wow I didn't know we could unfreeze old old old frozen hearts and get them to start beating again that's kinda weird!

dream morphs so that im in a weird living space watching something with a couple other people . And then send me on my way by rusted root. you know. The song from ice age. like slowly starts getting louder....and i kinda look around to see if anyone else hears it and i can tell from their faces that they can ... and then suddenly it gets REALLY LOUD as ford pines runs around the corner of this like center pillar thing our TV is on with impact text "HEY" imposed on his hand and as he does like 3 laps around this pillar on my way gets louder and quieter. And then after the 3rd lap when he reappears from behind the pillar it's just like Actually j k simmons and the send me on my way cuts out entirely and me and these other people are like scream laughing cause i think my brain made up some Tumblr post about that and we were like DUUUDE JK SIMMONS SAW THE POST!!!

[wing-ed-thing]

Honey Cakes (Shino x Reader) Chapter II

Synopsis: You were stupid. You made a stupid choice; it left you with the first real heartache of your life and you could safely admit that you deserved it. But then the war came. And as quickly as it came, it was over. So what about you and Shino? Sequel to Honey Stand.

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V

Word Count: 2k

Warnings/Tags: Gender Neutral Reader, Post War, Slow Burn, Lightning Nature Reader, Slight Canon Divergence, Fake Tech Talk, Aged Up Characters, Vague PTSD Talk, War Commentary, Language  

Notes: I was stuck on this one for a long time. I swore I had more to say for the notes! AH!

Shino said nothing to you as you both exited Kakashi’s office. He wasn’t happy. Even despite your short lived relationship from long ago, you still knew him well enough to know that he was steaming underneath his hooded jacket. Granted, you weren’t ecstatic about being paired up with Shino either. He tucked himself further into the shadow of his head covering. He had since done away with the usual high collar he wore as a teenager and instead donned the updated uniform for Chūnin.

You could see his scowl clearly nowadays.

Shino took several long-legged strides ahead of you and swiftly exited down the stairwell. Surely, you didn’t expect much given your tense dynamic, but you also thought you would at least talk over how you were going to approach the mission so as to not dive in blind. The lack of communication, if anything, made you feel even more lost than you had before.

You had been tempted to linger around the building, a part of you hoping to find a presence that would comfort you and perhaps bring you down from the anxiety that started to well up in your chest. It took some effort to drag yourself down the stairs. You wondered if Shikamaru wouldn’t mind grabbing a drink with you before you left. But on second thought, he made it clear that he had time after you came back, so you kept walking until you exited the building. Of course, you reminded yourself, someone as important as Shikamaru probably had to schedule his social plans far in advance.

When you reached home, your mind immediately went to packing. You placed the mission file on your small kitchen table as you made a beeline for your workshop. You scooped up the supply pack that sat slumped over outside the door.

The room was originally set up as a guest room, but considering the fact that you almost never had guests, miscellaneous tools and projects had found their home there instead. You cleared off a space on your long work bench and plopped your pack on top. You made your way around the room, equal parts cleaning, reorganizing, and sifting through items you would need for a long journey. While this mission wouldn’t be the longest you’ve been sent on in terms of distance traveled, you were given no time frame for how long you were expected to stay at each base. That all depended on you. You hoped that it would pass quickly, but knew better than to pack for expectations alone.

You plucked a scroll out of your bag and unfurled it on the surface of your table, already imagining the type of technical issues you would potentially run into and what you would need to fix them. After much deliberation, most of your tools were swiftly swept into a sturdy, grey toolbox which in turn went straight into your storage scroll.

You thought that keeping your hands busy would mean clearing your mind, but seeing Shino today brought up more emotions within you than you anticipated. Your friendship— if you could even call it that— had ended the same year many of the upcoming genin were born. Narutrally, you saw each other around. With the relative size of the village and of your friend group, it was inevitable.

No one talked about the bet. Anyone who did seemed to forget after the war. After the horrors of adult life— of shinobi life— hit. Suddenly, Naruto didn’t care that you weren’t buying him Ichiraku for a month. Kiba had stopped trying to get Shino to talk to you. And at some point, even Ino stopped rushing over to your apartment any time she remotely saw the elusive Aburame.

You apologized and that was the most you could’ve done.

Shino had to be over it by now.

You repeated that to yourself as you continued to pack, brushing off the memories of kisses you once shared.

***

You met in the morning far before the sun had risen. The arches of the entrance gates loomed somewhere above your head, although you could barely make out the shape of them in the turquoise hue of the darkness. You looked out into the dim vastness as you waited, the trees in front of you obscuring what may be lurking in the forest ahead. Despite being right within the confines of the city, your inability to see the boundary properly made the beginning of the journey all that more intimidating. Despite your years of service, that feeling never changed.

Something changed in the atmosphere. You could feel Shino’s presence as he approached the gate and he remained silent as he came to stand next to you. He gripped the straps of the travel pack on his back and you studied his tall stature in the dimness. Even without the sun, you could still see the shape of his hood and round glasses on his nose. You clenched your jaw, brows furrowing with unsure eyes as you wondered if you should say anything, but before you could decide, Shino launched into the trees without you.

You didn’t hesitate before following him. You sped through the trees together, Shino's brutal pace ensuring that he stayed in front of you. Between his speed and the darkness of the morning, you were beginning to struggle to keep track of his figure as you avoided stray branches and leaves.

The two of you hadn’t spoken since you were placed on the mission. Normally you would’ve taken time to talk strategy on any other team, but you hadn’t been eager to reach out to your old classmate and he took it upon himself to disappear as he normally did. If anything, Shino was the one who made it clear that talking wasn’t on the table. But between the fear and your feelings of uncertainty, even you had to acknowledge that your lack of communication was starting to get reckless.

You stopped on a nearby branch. The village had just receded from view behind you as you called out to your partner. He stopped ahead, looking back at you, expressionless. The two of you stood for a few moments in the stillness of the forest. You had expected him to regroup with you, but upon noticing his stillness, you bounded forward to stand with him.

Only standing about a foot and a half away, you could see his features a bit more clearly.

Shino had grown tall, a stark contrast to his subtle presence. His face had slimmed over the past handful of years. At least you thought so considering that for much of his life, Shino had buried the second half of his face in the collars of his jackets. Little tufts of brown hair stuck out from underneath his hood which were far lengthier and tame compared to how he wore his hair in his youth. Shino stared at you blankly. He had never been expressive in the past, but you would have preferred a lack of expression over his subtle expression of bitterness.

“This is because of the bet isn’t it?” You asked, although the question came out with more of a confrontational bite than you had intended. Shino gave nothing away, not even the slight shift in his posture.

“Why would you think that?” He countered your question with one of his own and avoided answering all together. He was challenging you. Making a bet of his own that you wouldn’t dare talk about the events that transpired in your teenage years. Shino’s self projection had been correct.

You cast your gaze away as you stood in front of him, hyper aware of his question and unsure of how to answer. You weren’t exactly sure what you wanted to get out of a conversation with Shino in the first place. Even if you thought it was possible to repair the obvious rift between the two of you, where would you even start? Perhaps that was a large part of the reason why you never approached him again after your last meeting at the honey stand. But it was clear that he still held a grudge, and so you swiftly decided that the only thing of importance to you at that moment was the mission.

“Our mission is to get me to two bases to install two communication devices.” Shino continued to stare you down with his hands in his pockets. You took a deep breath, feeling the slightest bit of hesitancy. “We both have other things we would rather be doing, but talking to me sometimes will make this go a hell of a lot faster.”

The silence that followed your words felt palpable in the air. You met Shino’s untelling gaze and if you didn’t know him better, you would have mistaken his demeanor as indifferent. He took a deep breath in, the movement barely noticeable.

“Are you done?”

The three simple words he spoke were to whip up a frenzy inside of you. Something between anger, anxiety, and helplessness reverberated inside of your chest. The mixed feeling spread, freezing your voice and your muscles. Between the obscure nature of the dark and the obscurity of your own emotions, you missed a lone beetle which flew back to Shino and settled itself underneath his hood.

“The next few miles ahead are clear. We can get to the eastern base before peak heat.”

You nodded, not knowing what else to do before the two of you continued to advance.

The journey continued in more bouts of silence, but Shino had slowed the slightest bit. Travel at such speeds made it easy to zone out. The day had begun to lighten and in a blink, the forest had been enveloped in a gentle morning light. Your thoughts wandered all over the place from the electronic equipment in your inventory to what you would wear to Naruto and Hinata’s wedding.

You couldn’t remember the last time you went to a propper wedding. You knew of a few shinobi who married each other in the middle of the war— a way to try to feel a bit of control over something so monumental and heavy— but you never recalled attending anything other than small, intimate gatherings in your adulthood.

In a way, the wedding would also serve as a reunion. Your generation in particular had taken over the build of reconstruction after the war. As things began to settle, one of you would always try to gather the group for drinks or the like, but as the reality of adulthood set in, the more you came to acknowledge that things would never be like they were.

***

You found yourself stopped as it began to approach midday. Shino knelt, arm extended as a small gathering of beetles weaved through his fingers. He held them at eye level, interpreting their dancing.

“The bridge across the river has been destroyed,” he reported. You took a cautious look around, a hand on the pack of shuriken at your hip.

“How destroyed?”

“Probably unreported damage from the war, wouldn’t be the first.” Shino stood to his full height and turned to you. “I’ll let you call it in.”

You reached for the communication device strapped to your bicep. You remembered using simple, short-wave radios when you were a genin which looked more like toys in comparison to the technology you pioneered.

“So we have to cross on foot?” Your question took on the tone of an assumption. You glanced back at Shino as you finished your report. It would take some time, but you were sure that someone would be sent out to make the repairs. He shook his head.

“The water is moving too fast. I will look for a way around.” A swarm of beetles flew out from underneath Shino’s jacket and out into the forest. You watched them as they went. “I suppose we have been delayed.”

You almost told Shino that you would send word to the eastern base, before remembering why you were traveling in the first place. You and Shino stood in silence, the amount of time you were forced to be alone now indefinite.

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Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V​