#*voila* (wrote the post)

[grubloved]

embarrassing that i ever even briefly thought of this blog as A Platform... i do not write posts to Inform the Populace this is my little cave with treasures in it and i am a little monk . u have stumbled upon me in the wilder ness. i will expound upon my personal esoteric doctrines when i want to but god willing i will never make a post with the tumblr viral post voice again . however it will never leave it will never come back etc

[frogeyedape]

May I present: (Certain) Western Pleasure Quarterhorses

They may be bred to have poor conformity

They are trained to move so so slow that their gaits are unrecognizable

Due to conformity issues or wretched, labored gaits, they are often lame (in pain and gaits are visibly affected)

Eg:

From above reddit thread:

A non-reddit source for your pleasure:

I wonder if I could start an argument among horse people by asking one question:

Which horse breed, in your opinion, is the cybertruck of horses?

[dood-itsradical]

Cool? Cool.

Pairing: Jake Kim x GN!Reader

Summary: An awkward rendezvous with Big Deal's leader.

Genre/Trope: Friends to enemies to friends to more(?). Non established relationship. Can be viewed as platonic as well.

Warnings: Cussing, self/oc indulgence? (I mostly wrote this for myself), no use of Y/n, MIGHT be OOC Jake (judge them yourself, this my first time writing for Lookism).

A/N: It's been TWO YEARS since I post fanfics so I might be lil stiffy, bare with me chat. I DON'T do request btw!

Masterlist

“Man, so what now? We just…went back to stop being allies?” You questioned bluntly.

It's been a few days since the Hunt for Gun event. Everything went back to how it was. Or some would say, for the better. You weren't exactly on any sides of the crew. Scratch that, you were one of the Workers. And to be fair, you sort of still carry that guilt. Like Samuel, you wanted- no, needed money. Again, scratch that, you aren't exactly like him, God bless. You just have responsibilities at home that need to be taken care of.

Because first of all, being a broke college student got you into this shit and you practically worked your ass for it. You just wanted to pay for your student loans, bills and groceries. Second of all, news flash, Korea ain't as great as influencers described them to be. When you first moved here, you were still expecting the struggles of the norm. Not fighting gangsters. Let alone joining one.

Thirdly, you know basic martial arts. You know what, fuck that. You're actually pretty decent at it. Sparring and training with these dudes around you, paid off. And through the journey you gained friendship, learning to understand different types of people. That includes multiple reality checks, unlocking new traumas as the list goes on. Part of you have thought of the alternatives and the what ifs. While the other half is actually grateful.

“It never has to be that way, you know?” Daniel replied, offering a soft smile.

You wanted to ask if the whole fighting and scheming thing is over, now that Charles Choi is gone. So is the matter of the Red Note. But you keep those questions to yourself, knowing it's far from done when Gun is still alive even if he's in juvie. Besides, he's not the only bad guy they need to watch out for.

You shrugged sheepishly, hands shoving into your pockets. “Right.” Your head turned to the ground for a bit. Daniel senses this and continues, “We're still friends, right?”

You looked up relieved by his words, “Of course. You're cool. You too, Jay.” You added. The blond gave you a big sincere smile as you bent down to pet the puppies. They equally ushered closer for attention. Your expression softened before exhaling.

“Hey.” You started, taking a second to collect your words. “You think Big Deal would diss the hell out of me if I go in their turf? I need to talk to Jake.”

Daniel shrugged back, giving his usual reassuring energy. “I don't think so, after everything. You want us to accompany you there?” You shake your head, mimicking his smile, “I'm good. Thanks though.”

It was by then you found yourself stepping in Big Deal’s street. You weren't a coward, but you still hold respect for each of Four Major Crews. If you are being honest, you didn't even belong here. You're just a person who was caught up with your own personal issues and was left with no options but to use physical violence for your own selfish gain. It wasn't selfish, you told yourself. You just have your own goal and achievement like everyone else.

You were immediately recognised and being semi interrogated by the other Big Deal members due to your sudden and random arrival. You kept your tone as calm as possible. Getting straight to the business and voila! There's Jake.

You muttered a thanks to Jerry before turning to your old friend. Ice breaking sucked, this everyone can relate. But man, you acted like an ex begging to get together with him again. “Sooo……”

You trailed awkwardly, eyes darting everywhere in the room except him. “Big Deal's boss doing paperworks, huh? Guess nobody escaping that.” You tried to humour him, to light up the mood, anything. And luckily, he stifled a chuckle. Or a subtle exhale, you counted it as that either way.

“Yeah, well, it's my responsibility now.” Jake replied, shifting in his chair while leaning back.

To put it simply, you and Jake aren't completely strangers. You two were somewhat colleagues, let's put it that way. You never dare ask about the friendship part. Are you two even friends? Buddies? Amigos?

I mean you're very much aware of Big Deal's history. Jake isn't so secretive, mind you. You've privately met Sinu himself before, good man. You're most definitely familiar with Samuel. And by God, you weren't very fond of him. But you didn't judge him either, and as mentioned, everyone here has a personal goal. You've managed to exchange conversation with him from time to time. If I may say so myself, a LOT. Boy, was he an interesting character.

When you first joined Workers, you were clueless. Eugene offered you good deals. Obviously you hesitated in the begining. You were no fool, you knew what you signed up for. Fortunately for you, you weren't involved too much. You did side jobs, mostly undercover. When Jake finds out, he confronts you. Which actually surprised you. You fought him. You fought everyone else while sticking to the white uniform. Although he can definitely tell you held back at that moment.

“No hard feelings, Jake.” You said back then before getting into stance. You took his hit many times, hardly using your full strength before discovering you were just buying him time to let others finish their business. And he didn't blame you either. He felt bad. Guilty even, that he couldn't offer you better hospitality, better support. And yes, he admits that he was kinda cold back then. He never gets the chance to apologize. But he does now as you basically presence yourself to him.

“You aight? You know, after all the…” You trailed, subtly recalling the recent fiasco. He blinked before nodding, “Just peachy. You?” You nodded back. “Yeah.”

As if it couldn't get any awkward, you were starting to regret showing your face here. On top of that, he wasn't any near being his suave self. He had it fine with the others but with you? There's an unfinished business. He thought it's odd. It's exactly the same scenario that happened between him and Samuel, yet the tension wasn't supposed to be this palpable as far as he know.

“I'm sorry-” You both said in sync, now looking at each other weirdly. Chuckling nervously, you both did it again, “You first. No, you. Not me, you. Fuck.”

Sighing, you both let out small genuine laughters. “No, seriously. You first.” he offered.

You nodded, “No hard feelings, right?”

He smiled, “No hard feelings. It's good to see you again.” You returned the smile, the burden finally left your shoulders. “Same here. You didn't break a bone. I'm not surprised.”

He leaned forward, folding his arms on the desk. His arms bulging through the fabric doesn't go unnoticed. “Well, colour me surprised. You didn't either.” He joked back. His mood has lifted as did yours. You rolled your shoulders, pretending to flex slightly. “I tried.”

“Say,” Your expression turned slightly serious, still with a bit of amusement in your tone. “I guess I owe you a jack of explanation, huh?”

He tilted his head, “Oh? Do you, now? Lemme check.” He pretended to go through his paperworks. You just chuckled, shaking your head at his sense of humour. “Asshole. I'm serious.”

Jake faced you again, “I know. And I'm listening. We can get food while we're at it.”

“Let me guess, my treat?” You raised a brow.

He gets off from his seat, his duty now left abandoned. “C’mon, I'm not a monster.” Slinging his arm around your shoulder as he leads you to the exit.

[blissfullyapillow]

┃It’s always you

₊˚⊹♡Jing Yuan x gn reader

₊˚⊹♡‎wc: 2,357~

₊˚⊹♡warnings: suicide (reader), angst with a happy ending, death & rebirth, soulmate au type beat 

₊˚⊹♡notes: I’ve been obsessing over Blade lately but Jing Yuan remains to be the OG lmao. On a serious note: I rediscovered the song Back 2 You by Selena Gomez during a time of emotional turmoil and.. voila.  I originally wasn’t going to upload this. I was gonna scrap it or just keep it for me, for personal use, but I decided to post it after I revised it. I wrote this for personal reasons I will not delve into, but I hope this helps someone else as much as it helped me. You’re loved, and there’s always someone out there who will listen, understand, and love you. I promise. ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚

₊˚⊹♡Main Masterlist

Jing Yuan’s experienced many relationships before, ranging from platonic to romantic in nature.

Yet the end of said relationships failed to pierce his heart as deeply as his heartbreak for you.

ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝

He still remembers that day vividly.

Your slumped figure sitting in a pool of your own blood, with a letter loosely held in your cold hands.

The rest of the scene became a blur, as his vision became clouded with tears.

a rare occurrence for a man like Jing Yuan.

He partly blamed himself, even though he knew your actions weren’t a reflection or a result of his own actions or feelings.

his heart lurched as a broken sob racked his trembling form. Still, he gently removed the beautiful parchment from your lifeless hand to scour your last words.

your written declaration of love and gratitude, for him, brought a self-deprecating smile to his lips. Your words are so powerful and moving, yet your body lay lifeless before him.

He takes a shuddering breath as his eyes slowly trail up your slumped figure. his fingers curl around your letter as his heart stops.

The sight of a dagger plunged deeply into your chest, directly into your heart, is all it takes for his soul to cry in agony.

His throat constricts, and his lungs fail to adequately exchange oxygen, yet…

He refuses to look away; he does not dare to tear his eyes away from the love of his life, even in her demise.

ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝

Jing Yuan never hid from the public eye. Even with the tragic, countless losses his heart continued to endure, he never resided in solitude for long.

…

Your death was the first time he remained in seclusion.

He knows you belong to the Vidyadhara, a humanoid race, so your body will be repaired.

but..

Your memories of him, of the time you two spent together, will not remain.

He doesn’t even know if he’ll encounter you again in his lifetime, but the possibility is high.

So, he waits.

ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝

After Jing Yuan’s long period of seclusion following your death, he resumed work.

On a particularly slow day Fu Xuan stopped by to see the general of the Luofu. She knew of your fate, and although she was loath to admit it she was concerned for the general.

When she saw that lazy smile on his lips, she almost chided herself for being worried.

That is, until she realized his smile didn't meet his eyes.

She entertained small talk with the general as contemplated how to broach her concerns with the grief-stricken general. As the conversation slowly trailed off, she steeled herself. 

The Master Diviner braced herself for backlash as she gave the general unsolicited advice… albeit from the goodness of her heart; the general is a sloth at times, much to her annoyance, but she truly did wish him well. 

So, with that in mind, she cautioned him that if he were to meet your reincarnation he should not engage and move on.

Even as his lazy smile morphed into a deep rooted frown, she continued on. She informed him that there’s no guarantee your fate will differ from your past life, even if you two reunite.

Although Fu Xuan’s words struck a nerve, he knew she was coming from a good place.

After a brief farewell he watched her retreating figure. He considered her advice despite his reluctance. 

Though it pained him to admit it, her words were not ill advised. 

Maybe.. he should try to move on.

ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝

He tried to heed Fu Xuan’s warning.. in his own way. 

He attempted another relationship, but shortly broke it off.

He deemed it a fruitless endeavor since his thoughts were filled with you as he was lying beside someone else. He’d hate to be inauthentic, so he did what was best for him and his brief companion.

It feels like millennia pass by as he moves through the motions. His duties as general serve as a welcome distraction for his desolate heart. 

Now, his droopy eyes rove over words that seemingly blur together as he reaches the end of the document. Once his signature is elegantly signed on the bottom of the document, he leans back in his seat to indulge in a brief moment of rest.

His sleep addled brain immediately thinks of you, as it usually does.

He reminisces about his very first encounter with you. 

He had made a visit to a bookstore with hopes of finding an engaging book that could be a much needed distraction from work.

Preferably, a book about cats.

He took his time to scan the vast array of books the store had to offer. His eyes lit up with unbridled joy as he found what he was looking for. 

He reached for the book, but before he could grasp it someone bumped into him from behind. When he turned around, there you were.

Your eyes were glazed over. It was obvious you were daydreaming about something and your mind was elsewhere. It took a few moments, but your eyes came into focus. 

As your anxious orbs stared into his eyes, he winked at you.  

He laughed at your flustered reaction; you began to apologize profusely as you tried to look anywhere but at him.

He didn’t know it at the time, but he would grow fond of your clumsy actions. 

ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝

Subconsciously, a smile forms on his lips as he remembers the adorable smile you graced him with when he dismissed your apologies. 

In contrast to his smile, a pained sigh leaves his lips. He’s struggling to recall the name of the bookstore.

After you died he avoided going anywhere near that bookstore. He physically couldn’t handle walking down that path, that same path you used to always accompany him on.

To those close to him, it was fairly obvious that your death impacted him greatly. Unfortunately they could only do so much to alleviate their general’s heartache.

Jing Yuan hated Yanqing’s blatant concern when he purposely took the long way back to his office. Even so, Jing Yuan continued to avoid the route all together, for many years. 

He evades it to this day.

He forces his heavy eyes to open, staring at nothing as he tries to snuff his beautiful memories of you.

…

….

He slowly puts the signed document down with a despondent groan. 

It’s no use.

For some reason, he can’t stop thinking about that bookstore.

…it feels like he’s forgetting something important.

His mind reels as he desperately tries to recall the name of the bookstore. His eyebrows crease in concentration once the name of the bookstore is on the tip of his tongue. 

Come on Jing Yuan, it shouldn’t take you this long to- 

Ah, he remembers now.

Jing Yuan looks down at the paper as he mindlessly fiddles with it. He doesn’t know why, but he feels compelled to visit the bookstore once more after so many years. However, with every fiber of his being, he tries to quell the urge. His finger taps against his knee as his leg bounces. 

He detests how easily he wants to give in. 

He’s avoided the store for years, so why does he-

…

Wait. 

He shoots up from his seat.

He’s quick to scan the document he signed until he finds the date. Once his eyes land on their target, he feels the air leave his lungs like someone punched him. 

Ah.

It’s the day you…

He takes a sharp intake of breath. His knee resumes bouncing as his heart pounds against his chest.

He moves abruptly, heading for the door. 

Some papers flutter off his desk due to his erratic movements. He pays no mind to the wayward documents as he swiftly leaves his office.

ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝

Jing Yuan finds himself walking down a road he hasn’t set eyes on in years. The esteemed man admires laughing children and busy salespeople as he walks down the familiar path.

It feels like a weight is lifted from his chest as he continues to walk. A tentative smile reaches his lips as he draws closer to the bookstore.

His heart threatens to burst from his chest as the sign comes into view so he stops walking to take a deep breath. 

He closes his eyes and centers himself. 

He focuses on the sounds of life around him; His trained ears pick up the sound of laughter, of footsteps that rush past him, of a baby babbling… 

Once he’s composed himself he completes his journey to the bookstore.

ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝

Honestly, he’s fond of this bookstore. It is where he first met you after all.

He leisurely peruses the books in stock as he smiles at the seller. They gaze at him curiously with a tentative smile in silent reply. They’re obviously surprised that the General of the Cloud Knights is here to pay a visit to their bookstore. 

He scans the selection one more time. When he doesn’t find anything of interest, he says his farewell to the shop owner. 

He did what he came here to do. He’s proud of himself for walking down this route after so much time has passed. He feels the best he ever has in years.

This was a healing experience for him. 

He turns around, ready to return to the many documents that await his approval and revision. He unwittingly bumps into someone during his haste, and blood rushes to his cheeks as he quickly apologizes.

The person stumbles backwards, but he’s quick to reach out and steady them. His eyes quickly scan the figure as he opens his mouth to apologize once again, and..

Oh.

Oh my.

The words die in his throat.

His heart leaps out of his chest and into the hands of the beautiful person in front of him.

You.

 He knows it’s you; your pretty features are permanently engraved in his memory.

Your expression is one of surprise, yet a subconscious smile, reminiscent of a past life, graces your beautiful lips.

His mouth parts in shock as his skin runs cold. He releases you to subtly wipe his clammy hands on his pants.

He regrets letting go of you immediately.

Your head tilts as you stare at him, and an ethereal smile presents itself on your lips.

The same lips he dreams about every night. 

The same lips he achingly yearns to kiss once more. 

He instinctively tilts his body in your direction. 

“General!? It’s a pleasure to meet you! Am I in your way? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

His Adam's Apple bops as he tunes out the rest of your words. His eyes remain zeroed in on your lips. They only look up when your lips stop moving. 

Golden eyes blatantly admire the sparkle of amusement in your gorgeous orbs.

He longs to pull you into his arms; he’s missed you so much. He was uncertain if he’d ever meet you again, and he didn’t know he’d do if he did.

He hopes you aren’t facing the same struggles you previously were. If you are, he won't hesitate to do everything in his power, and more, to prevent the same outcome from occurring. 

“I.. I missed-“ 

His voice… it’s..

Strained. 

Hoarse. 

In desperate need of water.

He coughs into his fist as an embarrassed blush graces his cheeks. In his urgency to reconnect with you, he forgot that you won’t remember him. You don’t know him since you’ve clearly molted, and everyone knows the memories of the Vidyadhara unfortunately don’t carry over.

But oh he hopes you’ll spend this lifetime you have with him.

All of it.

So he settles for an elated smile. His heart flounders in your hands when you visibly become flustered; you look down as a shy smile manifests itself on your divine lips.

He falls in love with you all over again. 

Oh, how he loves you.

“Don’t worry that pretty head of yours over it, I’d hate to see a frown mar those ravishing lips. The fault lies with me. ..As a way for me to amend my mistake, why don’t you accompany me on a walk?” His velvety voice makes you swoon, and you fail to hide how giddy you feel. 

With a knowing smirk he offers his arm to you, but you hesitate to accept his offer. 

“Are you sure, General? I may not own anything of interest, but I’m sure I can-“ “Oh, but you do. Please, indulge me.” His eyes bore into yours, and you see a glint of… something.. within them. You aren’t sure what it is.

Although his words leave you confused, you oblige. Your arm wraps itself snugly in his and your body moves closer to his own. 

His eyes water with unshed tears as he fails to mask his euphoria. His wobbly smile is the last thing you see before he hides his face from your view.

You remain none the wiser to the tear that managed to escape.

As you both walk up the road he’s avoided for years, his gaze trails back to you once more. He chuckles at the flagrant jubilation on your enchanting face. You were always bad at masking your emotions around him.

He initiates a conversation with you, and it isn’t long before he’s blessed with your melodious laugh.

He hopes that he’ll be able to revive the object of interest that you own.

His heart.

ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝

As the years go by you grow close to Jing Yuan once more. You successfully revive his previously shattered heart, and you make him the happiest man in the universe when you agree to marry him. You remain by each other’s side for eternity, and in this lifetime of yours he’s proud to say he was able to grow old with you.

P.S: He always reunites with you after you molt, and you two continuously fall in love with each other in every life that you have.

There’s no one else he’d rather spend his immortality with than you.  

[vhaos-chaotic-writing]

Mini announcement for my followers!!

To my dear followers that have their accounts like this:

Empty, with no reblogged posts, biography (specially with y'all pronouns and specially AGE), no profile picture or wallpaper - I'll start blocking you. (╬▔皿▔)╯

I encourage you to personalize your account! Here on tumblr we have a problem with bots, aside that for the type of things I like to write (and I'll start to write), I'm quick to assume that if you are a blank account is 1) you're a bot or 2) you're a minor. And maybe other accounts here on tumblr that you follow think the same!

BUT VHAOS - HOW CAN I PERSONALIZE MY ACCOUNT?（＞人＜；）

Keep reading to find out!

On PC you can do this:

On your profile, on the right menu, you can find an option called BLOG CONFIGURATION - There, you'll be able to modify everything: blog name, biography, profile picture, wallpaper once you click on the upper high right button which says "MODIFY APPEARANCE".

Once you've wrote your pronouns, age and whatever else you want to add, changed your profile picture and wallpaper, click on the upper high right button "SAVE"

On your phone:

When you enter to your blog (little human icon on the lower right) you can find, on the very top menu, the icon of a 'color palette', which if you tap on you'll be able to modify everything: blog name, biography, profile picture, wallpaper

Once you've wrote your pronouns, age and whatever else you want to add, changed your profile picture and wallpaper, tap on the upper high right button "SAVE"

And voila! You're no longer a suspect of being a bot or (in my paranoiac mind) a minor!

Now go! Change your profile! Be a true tumblr user if you wanna keep reading and liking the stuff of my blog! ☆⌒(*＾-゜)v Cuz remember - MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT! (doing it for my safety and your safety, guys)

[jaybirdiewrites]

Graves are important to ghosts.

Danny knew this. He had found out a few years after his natural life would have ended, but things had happened and eventually, Danny had just given up on buying a headstone and a plot to bury some trinkets under. It happens.

Which is why it ended up super awkward for him when this centuries colleges started researching ghosts.

Danny was honoured, really! It’s just that… well, questions about his grave and burial weren’t the most comfortable for him. He didn’t have a grave, which he was totally fine with! It was okay. He got busy. But, it wasn’t totally fine when they started asking a few too many questions

which is why, after oh so long of just letting the grave thing be, Daniel James Phantom was getting a grave.

Batman had taken him headstone shopping, and Diana had helped him pick out a secluded little plot in the corner of the cemetery. The headstone was black and white, with his name and the date of the accident neatly carved, along with his hero symbol.

instead of a coffin, Zattana had helped him collect items from around the world that were once — or still were — sentimental. A quick ritual, and the box holding the items also held a little piece of his soul.

A few members got together to hold a ceremony for him, just a few quick words on how they wished he had lived a longer life, but we’re glad they had met him.

If anyone said that Danny was crying, they were lying. Absolutely no crying was done.

After that, Danny had felt the most at peace then he had in a long, long time.

he had to admit, having a grave really was a nicer feeling than not.

Danny had lived a long time, far longer than anyone really should. It's just what happens when you're the balance between life and death.

A lot of other things also happen when you're the balance between life and death. Including casually shapeshifting.

The Justice League has only really just gotten used to Danny's casual shapeshifting. One moment he looks to be the common age of most leaguers, the next he's a teen boy with a grumpy expression as he concentrates on his paperwork.

Eventually, they try to look into it, worried that his younger form might put him in danger if he's shifted into it during serious situations. They don't understand that he has no true age anymore. He doesn't want to explain it to them either. He enjoys their worry, it's sweet even though misplaced.

Though maybe he should've tried to calm those worries instead of leaving them to their own devices. Next thing he knows, they're asking if he's willingly staying in the land of the living or if he can be put to rest. They're asking where his grave is, if they can leave flowers, and if giving him gifts directly still counts. He doesn't know how to answer all of these sudden questions, he was utterly unprepared for them.

So instead of thinking, he simply doesn't, letting himself auto-pilot in a way he will regret later. So when they ask all of their questions, they get a neat little, "Maybe I'm just a long-dead ghost of a teen waiting for a grave that'll never come", which is not what he wanted to say at all but okay that happened I guess. And of course they don't take it for the joke (is it a joke? he's lost complete understanding of what isn't and is a joke when it comes to his half-life now) that it is.

And now they just won't leave him alone.

But the flowers and glass beads are nice. Along with the rings, earrings, trinkets, and fancy bells. He really likes the fancy bells.

[uncouth-the-fifth]

pythia, a supernatural rewrite. bloody mary, rough draft.

read it on ao3.

words: 6k notes: hi y'all! yes, you read that chapter title right - this is a little unconventional, but since I've unfortunately shifted hyperfixations and have drifted away from SPN, I thought I would post what I have for the next part of pythia. since I'm moving into resident evil land, I'm not sure if I'm going to come back to this fic—but I absolutely didn't want to leave you guys empty-handed!! I'm so so sorry that this fic will go unfinished (for now), and I'm so grateful to those who were along for the ride with me. I have so much love for all the people who motivated me through writing this fic. all of you are beyond kind!! and I hope you enjoy this dose of pythia content, featuring some of my notes and process-work, lol. I only had a few heavy chunks of the beginning written, but the prose for this chap (ironically) started to get into the meat of what I really wrote this fic for—psychic bullshit between reader and Sam. It was just too plain juicy to not share!! All of my spn fics will remain up, but if you keep up with me, expect lots of Leon Kennedy bullshit and tomfoolery. Again - thank you so much for your endless love and support, I had so much fun writing what I could of season one!! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy this unfinished chunk of silly/ansty Christmas drama :)

EAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN - Dec 21st, evening.

Sam drops the stack of glossy, brand-new legal pads into his lap, and flashes his brother a plain smile. “Thanks, Dean. I needed more of these.” From your spot seated on the living room rug, you twist your rings and wait for Dean’s witty reply. With all those notes you’re always makin', Sammy, I’ll hafta buy you some for New Years, too. You wait for him to make a crack about the gift he got Sam, something about diaries or his brother’s girly handwriting.

Instead, Dean shrugs, “Well, then there ya go.”

Voila. And with that, the feeble threads you’d tried to braid into a proper Christmas are cut. Without a word, your Mom picks up the little wooden jewelry case the three of you had thrifted her and recedes into the dark hallways of the house. Dean peels himself out of his seat to clean up. Sam sighs, picking at the plastic seal around his legal pads. Hilariously, this all plays out while Paul McCartney chimes about what wonderful Christmastime he’s been having from the radio in your kitchen.

Technically, you hadn’t just been celebrating Christmas. No, you managed to completely bomb both Christmas and the sacred Winter Solstice sabbat that the Proctors had been celebrating for a bajillion fucking years. The special sabbat that would have a real spiritual effect on you for the next couple months.

You’d given it a good ol’ college try. First, you’d painstakingly picked out gifts for the boys and your Mom. Good ass gifts, too, that you’d been hiding in your duffle since summertime. Hell, you’d been looking for the Eagles album you bought for Dean in tape form for at least two years. (Cool, Dean had said, half alive in his armchair after your chupacabra hunt in Illinois. He was at the ugly front end of a cold. He’d sniffled, Don’t have this one.) And knowing that this would be Sam’s first Christmas without Jess—the one person who had given him any kind of good holiday when he was away from home—you’d poured extra love into his gift, too.

He’d been begging you to read Frankenstein since high school, and you’d dodged it because sometimes books that pushed too far into the “classics” category could lose you. Mary Shelley got a little wordy at times. But you were a big girl with a big brain, so you’d read the whole thing for Sam… and annotated the whole thing for Sam…

He’d taken one look at your labor of love and murmured, “Good. Glad you read it.”

…Yeah. You had half a mind to check if he’d been replaced by a clone, hearing that. Fifteen-year-old Sam would have melted into a babbling, ecstatic mess if someone had carefully combed through one of his favorite books and shared their thoughts on it with him. Bare minimum, you figured he’d at least enjoy having his own copy of Shelley’s work. All his other books had been lost in the fire.

But you’d given the book to a Sam who was twenty-two, not fifteen. Fine. People changed.

The boys being a collective bummer was something you could deal with. Sam was always sullen around the holidays, and you couldn’t exactly be mad at Dean for being exhausted after a stressful hunt. But your Mom…

Beth used to make Yule her bitch. When you were a kid, come December 1st, the Proctor House could easily have been the center of all Wicca celebrations in the world. If working retail during the holidays tested one’s love for festive music, then the non-stop winter songs bouncing off Beth’s vinyl player would’ve made Santa beg to hear something else. Every room would gush with the smell of evergreen branches and holly. Your family’s altar, the home of all the love and joy for the season, would be lush with offerings and presents. The candles you lit as a family to welcome the light of the new year would glow in a neat row—your little silver candle, your mother’s tall red one… and the biggest. Your Dad’s.

Now, your Dad’s candle was tucked away with the rest of the unused decorations in the attic. From your spot on the floor, you couldn’t help but stare at your piss-poor excuse for a family altar. Beth hadn’t “had the time” to find the table runner your great-grandmother had embroidered just for that space. The small bouquet of mistletoe you’d brought sat pathetically on the wide, barren surface, framed by your family’s dollar-store candles: silver for you, red for Mom, and twin green candles for the boys. 

It was stupid. Really, you shouldn’t have cared so much. You were almost twenty-five, and the older you got the less people cared about silly, trivial things like a single holiday out of the year. That was just a fact of life.

Still, an ugly ball of bitterness sat in your gut. She couldn’t have tried to decorate? Even out on the road, you’d still found ways to make today a little special for the people you loved. Did she really have such little strength left in her? You’d dragged the boys up to Wisconsin with you so your Mom didn’t have to be alone. Was it really that impossible, after eleven whole years without your Dad, to try and be happy?

Fuck this. Yule isn’t over yet. There’s still time for you to squeeze some life out of today, and you’re going to start straight at the source. You find your Mom in the kitchen, mindlessly swiping invisible crumbs off pristine counters. When she senses you paused behind her in the kitchen doorway, clutching in both hands the gift she got you this year, the radio suddenly needs to be toyed with. Then cleaned. There are gray strands in her hair that shine like tinsel in the low kitchen light.

“Hey,” you say, your voice bright and christmas-card perfect. “I don’t think I got to say thank you for the gift.” (You did. More than once already.) “It’s been a bit since I read this one.” The gift in question is your Dad’s second edition print of The Shining. It’s even older than you are, with soft, petal-thin pages that reek of that wonderful old book musk. Rolling the flexed and cracked paperback between your hands, your Gift automatically picks up the distant echo of the hands that had touched these pages when they were new.

When you were little, you’d always found it kind of strange that your Dad considered this book his favorite. He was a sweet, soft-spoken person, and the mental image of him indulging in uncensored horror novels didn’t mesh with the Ray preserved in your head. Having since grown up and read it for yourself, you understood that it was less about the gore of the Overlook and more about “the shine;” the array of psychic abilities that kept five-year-old Danny Torrance alive through the book.

Years of having book-club with Sam had trained you to form cultivated opinions about the stuff you read, but The Shining existed in a realm that made it hard for you to describe how you felt about it. See, you had Danny Torrance’s shine—on the same level, too, enough shine to power the decades of ghostly ballroom parties and mob conspiracies inside the Overlook for a century. Seeing your Gift put onto a page so nakedly and cinematically made you uncomfortable. Yet, feeling the weight of your father’s book in your hands, standing in the kitchen he hasn’t touched in a decade, you know that it must’ve comforted him. Back then, surrounded by a psychic mother-in-law, girlfriend, and daughter, it would've been impossible to survive without a little shine of his own. You’re sure that your Dad's Gift was faint and unimpressive next to the psychic blackholes of your Mom and Grandma. Just enough to know if you’d skinned your elbow or had a nightmare. On the days that you came home from school tear-streaked and ruddy-faced, Dad would be waiting on the porch with soup.

You can still feel the faint psychic imprint of one of his whiskery kisses on your face. You don’t have many vivid impressions of him left to feel; none that haven’t been rubbed again and again, like the hollow of a fingerprint smoothed into the face of a rock over time.

Your Mom gives a non-committal hum at your attempt at conversation. Not because she doesn’t care—you can feel how much she cares from across the room—but because she’s tired. Adult Tired, like when she’d turn down your pleas to play together as a kid. Not tonight, baby. Momma’s exhausted.

“Mom,” you say, sounding as glossy and clean as a brand-new cookie tin. You open your mouth to say more, maybe to start in on one of your long-winded book-rants that had everyone wondering where Sam had suddenly appeared from. You know the answer, but you ask anyway, “This was one of Dad’s favorite books, right? I vaguely remember him talking about the hedge animals.” Beth accidentally hits a button as she’s dragging a rag over the shiny front of the radio, forcing Paul McCartney to have yet another wonderful Christmastime. She doesn’t look at you.

“Yup. But you knew that already, honey.”

C’mon. Nothing? She won’t even throw you the smallest, most pathetic olive branch? A psychic battle occurs. You get so frustrated all at once that your throat closes up, and that frustration balloons out into your family kitchen like the expansion of a bomb. You push. There is no give. The bubbling stormcloud of grief and loss hanging around Mom is there, then it’s not. The side of the kitchen your mother stands on is suddenly a void of absolute nothingness, empty of any feeling whatsoever, good or bad. She’s cutting you off from reading her—and protecting herself from your explosive emotions, as per usual.

Beth keeps cleaning the radio, her back to you.

Your rage bubbles out of you all at once. One day! One day out of the entire fucking year, the day your Dad always made special, and she can’t even pull herself together for that. You know you should be a good daughter and empathize with the woman who made you, but you’ve been a good daughter about this since you were twelve years old. Eleven Yules have gone by since your Dad passed. Just for one measly moment, you want to talk about him like he’s not a corpse rotting in the living room.

And the worst part is that Mom knows that. She’s known you’ve felt that way all day, a slow-bubbling pot building to a boil across the room. The two of you can always feel each other. You’re the only two who can; she’s the only other radio tower that can receive your station in its purest quality, and yet she has the gall to shut all her signals down.

“Fine!” You burst out, making the conversation physical.

It should feel good to yell, really. After the slow, ungratifying day you’ve had, you’ve been a shaken soda bottle waiting to implode. Instead, since you’re the crazy person yelling at nothing for no reason in the kitchen, your anger booms out of you and fizzes out in the same breath like a faulty firework. Fine. Fuck all of this. If you can’t beat em’, join em’. If everyone’s determined to rot the day away, then you’ll go wallow in self-pity the Proctor-Winchester way, too. Merry fucking Christmas, and a happy fucking Yule.

There is no satisfying door to slam on your way out of the kitchen. You take a sharp right down the front hall, hoping to veer up the stairs and slam your feet down on every single step up to your room. If your Mom wants to live forever in the year your Dad died, by all means—you’ll even bring home your thirteen-year-old self and her childish tantrums, just for time-accurate ambiance. Sam’s standing frozen just outside the kitchen archway, and you catch his deer-in-headlights look as you go peeling around the corner. You’re still keyed up with enough lashing rage to spare, so seeing him, just as hollowed-out and not there as your Mom, only feeds your pyre.

As you get to work thoroughly stomping the staircase to death, you hear him go into the kitchen and ask Beth about soup for Dean’s sore throat.

Upstairs is even more painfully quiet. Through the floor, Paul McCartney muffles down to a cheery mumble. All old houses shift around a little, but yours settles like it's alive, clicking, creaking, swaying. You don’t look at the portraits of Proctor women up the stairwell. The dusty grandfather clock in the hall watches you with its stained glass face, and you’re so lost in your own head—

—and Dad’d be so pissed we didn’t decorate the altar or listen to the Tull Christmas album, he’d riot, he’d talk some sense into her—wouldn’t think any of this is stupid— —that you don’t hear it when it chimes. Muscle memory plants you right in front of your bedroom door. Having a good cry under the covers sounds like a perfect end to the night, right? And yet you stop. Your hand drops on the knob and stays there, unmoving. Maybe it’s your Gift, or good old-fashioned human instinct knowing when something in the home has been nudged two inches to the left, but the air in the hall tastes staler than usual. A draft? Your gaze is pulled all the way down to the opposite end of the hall, where the untouched, stately storage room door is ajar.

Your Mom probably left it open. Maybe she’d gone in there to hunt around for all the heirloom Yule decorations, only to rediscover Dad’s football memorabilia or Dad’s engraved cigarette case and go bolting out of the room. —everything’s different without him, Sam and Mom and Dean too. So am I. Everything’s twisted—without him— Still riding the whirlwind, you stomp from one end of the yellowing, starry zodiac carpet (Aries) to the other (Pisces), the floorboards squeaking under your weight. You push the door and it goes shuddering into the darkness. This was one of many rooms in the house that Mom had banished you from as a kid, mostly as a way to shoo you away from the hunting world. It’d given you this insatiable fascination with it as a result, but when you tug the chain to turn on the closest lamp, what it illuminates doesn’t come close to the spectacular stories you’d made up in your head.

It’s just a room. It has windows and shelves and old things, some from your childhood, some from your Mom’s. Some from even further back than that. The closest fascinating thing is a shiny gold blob poking out of your baby things, which turns out to be Sam’s eighth-grade mathlete trophy. You had no idea what possessed Mom to come up here so often. There was no way she wasn’t in here at least a couple times a week; the tall metal storage shelf where she immortalized your Dad’s things was never dusty, and yet the whole room reeked of rotting books and insulation. You shove the box with Sam’s trophy aside with your foot until it skids out of your way, and then send the heavy door shut behind you with a wall-shaking bang.

A flurry of dust hails down from the ceiling. You cough through the cloud, wandering in your blindness towards the neat row of plastic storage tubs labeled with your Dad’s name. Clothes. Misc. Books. Maybe that’s where Mom had gotten your new copy of The Shining from, halfway through one of her sacred meditations over Dad’s things. You drop a hand onto the cold lid of the tub. Nothing, not even the slightest psychic imprint, reaches back.

What is she even holding onto anymore? You try the clothes next. The rounded corners of this bin have been scuffed gray from how many times it’s been pulled off and then pushed back on its shelf, again and again. The case feels as lifeless to you as it would for anyone else, but you try your luck and slide it out onto the floor. It comes loose with a solid thud.

When you were old enough, Beth would sometimes send you up into this room to grab things (spell ingredients, books you didn’t keep downstairs). You would run full-tilt right up until you hit the storage room door, then pass inside like a stranger in a dangerous realm, watching where you stepped and always, always keeping your Dad’s shelf in the corner of your eye. On brave days you would pick up his silvery cigarette case and roll it between your palms. It grew harder and harder to feel him each time, the ghost of him whittled down like a rock made round by the current of a river.

When you crack off the lid, you expect some kind of smell. You don’t remember what he smelled like, but you have a few guesses—cheap, vanilla-sweet aftershave, or maybe the woody stale smell of cigarette smoke you know you shouldn’t love. Maybe both. It doesn’t really matter. The neatly folded stacks of your Dad’s old shirts and jackets don’t smell like a damn thing. You dip your face into a holey band-shirt with the sleeves scissored off, but all that comes back to you is the rotten smell of dusty insulation. He’s here—he’s right here in front of you, right in your fucking hands, and yet the whole world is dead of him. You can’t sense even a sliver of him left.

The same old reservoir of despair pushes and pushes at your composure, wiggling through your cracks, widening them with a hundred thousand tons of pressure bearing down on you a minute. It is a day by day task to handle the reservoir. You like to think you’re good at handling it, at patching the cracks as they come and letting them breathe when the moment calls for it. But when you lift your face from the bin, the leak springs—really, genuinely springs, like it hasn’t in years.

You fall back onto your haunches, swallowing back sudden stinging tears. The bin and its askew lid go shrieking back onto the shelf with a lash of your foot.

-

The music downstairs stops. You can’t tell how long it’s been.

When his death was fresh, and you were stuck deep, deep within the reservoir, you’d wondered if it would always feel this way. It got easier, right? And in many ways it had—on most days you could talk about your Dad without it hurting, letting the dam’s water run. The battle was still there, but it was a burden you were proud to carry if it meant his memory lived on in you. He would want you to be happy, your Mom used to urge. So you gave being happy your best shot, loving and giving as much as you could.

That’s what frustrated you so endlessly about your Mom. She’d been right; your Dad would’ve wanted the two of you to move on, and yet she still entombed herself in the bottom of her reservoir far too often. There was no release, no acceptance with her. The dark part of you that wanted to pass blame wondered if this was all because of John, and how well Winchester grief happened to mingle with a Proctor’s. How would your mother’s life be different, if the evil that’d taken Dad hadn’t been put down a week later? Would she be just as hellbent? With your knees sore from pressing into the floor, you knew the answer. You knew if the thing that’d taken Sam or Dean from you was right in front of you, you’d chase it until you were in your own grave. You knew that even after it was dead, you would be digging your nails into the backseat of the Impala and clawing for every psychic molecule of them left in the leather.

And that’s what scared you—was she just going to be chasing Dad forever, til’ there wasn’t a wisp of him left in the world to feel? 

Something dawns on you, thudding through your mind like a rock dropped down a chute. With limp hands, you slide The Shining towards you on the worn wood floor, part the pages with your thumbs, and press your nose into the binding. There’s the smoky, earthy scent of old paper first… then something just underneath the surface that no one but you and your Mom can pick up.

Old books. Yes. Yes, that’s what Dad had smelled like.

-

You’re seated on the floor of the storage room, back pressed to one of the ancient metal shelves holding up your gramma’s VCR collection, when a blot of the future is tossed at you. Cheap deodorant and lemon cough drops.

Around a minute later, the stairs beyond the door squeak under someone’s weight. Even without the roulette glimpse of the future, you can tell by the footfalls who it is. Heavy knuckles rap the door and come straight in without waiting for an answer. Behind him, the silence of the rest of the house is even heavier.

You try to sound like a reasonable adult, but the mopey teenager slips out anyway. “Thought you were sick, Dean.”

He artfully dodges your point. (Dean is, after all, a master of the craft.) You don’t look back at him, but the lemon cough-drops glimpse you got of him creates a clear picture: Dean’s whole body listing into the door frame, one hand on the knob, his face lacking its usual color. His cheeks have graduated from stubbly to scruffy, neglected. “Hey,” he says. It’s the, okay, you’re done cooling down, let’s have a grown-up conversation kind of hello.

You don’t know what to say back. You’re not sure if you can have any kind of conversation right now.

Dean rolls with it, trying to decide if this silence is begging for a subject change or a heart-to-heart. You’re not sure what he goes for when he says, “I had an idea.” “Did it hurt?” You joke. Jokes you can do.

There’s his opening. After a beat, you’re—

—fucking lobbed with a foam football. Like you’re fucking twelve. Dean’s throw arcs straight towards your head and bounces clean off the top, a perfect spiral. You yelp in outrage, and before you can think you’re following where the stupid ball went so you can clock him right in the face with it. Asshole. It loop-de-loops on the floor around an old dining chair, and you clamber on your knees to fish for it.

Just when you get the toy in your hands and you’re about to demolish him with it, Dean ducks behind the doorway, chuckling, “Woah! No face shots! You wouldn’t bash a poor, sick guy’s face in, would’ja?”

God. You can’t fucking believe him. If anyone else did that…

You lower your hackles and drop the foam toy into a basket, far out of reach of congested troublemakers. When his shining eyes appear in the slit of the doorway again, your cheeks are aching with an impossible smile. “You’re lucky it’s Christmas, loser. What is it?”

Dean hesitates a moment more, just in case you’ve got something else to throw at him, then joins you in the storage room with the evil little oily smile you love. The same dust cloud that got you earlier descends on him in a rough coughing fit, but this lets him get a good look at the little mess you’ve made: the book on the floor, your Dad’s things open and askew. When he clears his throat for the last time, he looks pained.

For your sake, you pretend it’s an empathetic kind of pained. And you know that’s a part of it—Dean doesn’t enjoy seeing you and your Mom like this. But it’s an unfortunate fact of your life that you will have four times as much context for him than he will ever have for you. Just breathing the same dusty air as him, you know he’s been nursing a sinus headache since Monday, one that’s made his head feel like it’s chock-full of stuffing, and that Sam made him canned chicken noodle soup—and at first he felt a little smug making Sam play nurse, until he stewed on it more and—

—hate it when he gives me that dead-eyed look, like he can’t even pretend to care anymore. Like he’s just dragging himself through this for our sake. Poor kid scares the shit outta me. Is this how it’s always gonna be? Sammy aching over her, night after night after night—

You know just touching the bins holding your Dad’s things that on a icy February afternoon in 1994, fifteen-year-old Dean had picked up the plastic tubs for your Mom from the store.

So when he gives you that pained look, you know it’s part-concern, part-fear. If this is what you look like eleven years after your Dad’s passing… if John never comes home from his hunting trip, is this what Dean will become? The loyal son, waiting and waiting on that porch for a man who would never come home? 

Your whole life, you’ve felt like you were becoming more and more like Dean; lately, it feels like he’s becoming so much like you. Your last four years on the road together had slowly but surely melded you together.

“Okay, so, Yule’s a fire festival, right?” Dean grasps around in his memory for the yearly history lesson your Mom gives about the Wicca calendar. “Uh, we lit candles… I thought about burning Beth’s Muppet Christmas CD with my lighter a couple times. That’s about all the fiery, burny-stuff we did today.”

“I love the Muppets Christmas album,” you pout.

“After the millionth partridge in John Denver’s goddamn pear tree, you’d change your mind,” Dean swears. “But I was thinkin’—we got the firepit in the backyard, marshmallows, and I think I could put together some vodka shots. Then we can blow em' out and eat em' with the s'mores.” Your eyebrows raise. Only he, of all people, could take your sacred family traditions and twist them into such a wonderful, stupid-ass thing. Maybe it’s ridiculous, but… there is chocolate and graham crackers downstairs… and with how cold it is outside, a fire would be perfect… It’s the best blend of weird Proctor-Winchester traditions you need to save Christmas and Yule. Dean takes your silence as glowing awe. “Exactly. I told you, I'm a fuckin' genius. Helluva way to start the wiccan year, right? You in?”

You’re well aware that this is an elaborate plan to coax you away from your moping. Still, it’s just too Dean to turn down. “...Hell yeah.”

At first R hopes that it’s just her and Dean, and that Sam and Beth keep their grief to themselves. But then she realizes how cruel and selfish she’s been—everyone grieves in their own way, and just because she works through it by talking about it doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. It’s not good that Beth is holding on so tightly to her loss, but that doesn’t mean R wants to leave them out.

Lead this into a touch of psychic!Dean and how he has a teeny tiny second sense for what she needs, just like her Dad did. Just enough shine to get by.

R and Dean come downstairs and invite Sam and Beth to their campfire 😀

Or, at the very least, all the psychic happenings in the house echoing between them; if Dean's sharper instincts were as psychically heavy as a shadow falling on grass, then Sam's Static was six feet of snow in an arctic blizzard.

It tingles all the way up to your shoulder when Sam touches you. And that, oh, that was a whole new can of worms. As they get dressed for the snow outside and assemble the s'mores and flaming shots, you try not to head down that train of thought again.

Every time you’ve glanced at Sam these past few weeks, you’d been unable to hide from what you’d sensed there—from what you’d seen in the demon, and what you now knew to be completely and utterly true after reading its mind.

Sam had It. The Gift, the Shining, whatever the fuck you wanted to call it. Not the vague imprint of psychic-ness from loving one or sharing the Impala with one for four years; full-on, unlatched, REDRUM, I-saw-it-before-it-happened psychic abilities. In the weeks you'd had to sit with that revelation, you'd poked carefully at Sam from afar. Obviously, you knew what a fucking psychic felt like. The five-year-old Sam who'd cut Dean's gum out of your hair had not been psychic. Yet this Sam, twenty-two with three-fourths of an ivy league law degree under his belt, was as psychic as a fucking—well. You. He was just as psychic as you.

Without even a sliver of the same control or even understanding of—of what he had, yes, but you were confident that if Sam was pushed, he could reach into your mind just as easily as you could reach into his. There had been a shift, then. At six, having gum cut out of your hair, you had been decidedly less psychic than you were at twenty-four. So Sam had gone through the Proctor Rite Of Passage; some terrible moment had cut him deep, deep enough to pull a new kind of blood to the surface. After Jessica, he had been... yeah.

It was fucking crazy. And yet it also slotted perfectly into some of the weirder things you understood about Sam; about who he was now and the vague, strobing flashes you got of his future. It freaked you the fuck out. Did Sam know? Did anyone know, besides you? Had your Mom recognized that spark in Sam, the same way she'd seen it in you? Had John?

And the plain existence of the Gift in Sam begged the question—why? Had he just happened to drop from the tree as a different kind of apple? Or was this something you could trace back to his mother, the same way it traced back to yours? Had Mary…?

The implications of that took pretty much everything you understood about Sam and Dean’s life, lined it up on the chopping block, and cleaved it in two. Needless to say, thinking about it made you sick. How could you even begin to bring this up to them?

You cursed your abilities with all you had. There were nights when you sat on the bathroom floor, wishing you could dig in with your nails and rip out whatever had put It in your head. Never in a billion fucking years would you have wished It upon anyone else; especially not Sam, good, selfless, wonderful Sam, who already ached so deeply for other people. Seeing their future, too? And even more often, seeing it and being helpless to change it?

He used to cry over squashed spiders as a kid. You'd felt a whole lot more than just spiders die.

…Beside that shuddering horror was another, far more selfish feeling. As scary as the implications could be, when you thought less about the Winchester family and more about your relationship with Sam, you were… excited. Relieved, even.

There were only four people in the entire world that you could share your Gift with. One of them has been six feet under for over a decade. Your Gift was a clingy, possessive creature, too. It was maybe two steps shy of being an eldritch horror. It poked through Dean’s dreams when you slept beside him, sucking them up like cigarette smoke. It breathed down Sam’s neck wherever he went. If you wanted, no one could lie to you—all punchlines and stories were spoiled for you, you knew when people found you annoying or pretty or stupid. If that particular Proctor gene had skipped you, then maybe you’d be able to form relationships with people where you didn’t immediately, intrinsically understand who they were and why. Dean would say, You need a drink. You would know without asking that he meant, You scare the ever-living hell out of me n’ I know I can’t hide it from you. Fucking hell, kid, I wish I could.

You knew you were a freak. The tiny human vessel for the lashing, bubbling, soul-melting, cosmic weight of a star about to bloom into a black hole. Only your mom would ever understand what it felt like to exist on the fringe of time, between the exhaustive influence of the past and the vast, spotty expanse of the future. You were a tool to men like John; an anomaly for men like Bobby; and a responsibility to men like Dean. 

But Sam… Your best friend Sam, he’d always tried to understand. Maybe he’d never fully get it, but the point was that he tried to. You remembered sitting with him on the curb outside your old high school, the concrete thrumming with music from the junior prom you’d both left behind inside.

How either of you had gotten dates was a miracle. You, the class weird-freak-emo punchline, and Sam, on his fourth round being the new kid that year, were two peas in a pod. Your date had never picked you up; Sam’s had escaped with her friends long before their first dance. Neither of you were very broken up about it.

The future had sprawled in front of you that night as clear as could be. You must've sat and talked on the curb for three straight hours, pressed together at the hip with Sam’s blazer around your shivering arms.

He was always beautiful in the boy-next-door kind of way, dimples popping with every good smile and freckles rising out of the too-short sleeves of his button-up. But that night he’d been fucking Helen of Troy, and the roar of the past and future slowed to a halt around him. 

Do you really see the future all the time? Every second? Sam had curiously tilted his head, sending a gleaming swish of chocolatey hair out of his eyes.

Swallowing hard, you’d hesitated, Not every second. But a lot, yes.

Again, the head tilt, then the swish. His gaze was innocent and intrigued. No existential dread, no sweeping sense of fear. Just plain curiosity. Not even morbid curiosity. Sam had asked, What about right now?

Sam’s cologne—oh god, his cologne—was steaming off his borrowed jacket and floating around your head in a wonderful rosy fog. You’d poked at the future. Sometimes things came back, sometimes they didn’t. That night, the future had come back tasting like Sam’s vanilla chapstick and junior prom punch, and your face had gone up in flames just sensing it. He’d waited for an answer. You’d blurted out the plain truth: In a minute or two, you’re gonna kiss me.

This kind of absolute, unshakable certainty about the future had made other hunters’ blood run cold. You’d braced yourself for Sam’s displeasure or worse, his fear. But instead, there were those dimples again, and Sam had the gall to bat his lashes at you and delightedly ask, Really? That’s what the magic eight ball has to say?

His big hand had dropped onto your knee and you’d squeaked out a shrill, Signs point to yes!

Sam loved the stupid magic eight-ball joke. You could feel him smiling about it as he kissed you, kissed you, hand-on-knee, his face tipping down to yours, the shitty school punch staining his lips as the two of you connected. At fifteen and sixteen respectively, this was the first kissing that either of you had ever done. It’d been wetter and warmer than you’d expected, and Sam’s vanilla chapstick had left the slightest print on your mouth, one that your tongue swiped over obsessively for the next month. Your Gift had chased him for weeks after that, silently and invisibly swarming him every time he entered a room.

Back then, your mind had been on the Curse. But now, you thought about what had led to the kiss in the first place. Sam hadn’t kissed you on a night when your Gift had been crammed down deep where it could bother nobody but you. He’d instead chosen the precise moment where your Gift was most raw, one of Its fingers coming down from the sky to press against the pulse of the future. It was small, but at a time in your life when you’d wanted to claw your Gift out with your bare hands, Sam had gotten the smallest glimpse of It and had fallen in love.

You couldn’t help but see this thing inside him, his Static, and feel the exact same way. His powers were twisted and unavoidably demonic, and yet you kind of loved them. It made perfect sense to you. No one really understood you like Sam did. Now, it's clear why.

-

tags: @samssluttybangs @cookiemumster1 @lacilou @cevans-winchester @leigh70 @seraphimluxe @emily-roberts @emme-looou @aloneatpeace @williamstop @ornella0910 @chaoticshepardplaid @dakota-dream @lcvecstiel @goghkiss @spnexploration @stoneyggirl2 @urm0mmmbbg @mulattomoon @poeticsorcery @deansapplepie @rennydenny @babydollfoster @badlandsbrunette @hallecarey1 @pplanetcaravan @notanotherthembo

[a-forbidden-detective]

The 12 dolls and their owners. Truth to tell, they have formed connections with the Moriarty Family, unwittingly or not.

Lando Hamib, he is a hacker who tried to sell Moriarty info to the dark web. I assume by talking to the will-be clients in the dark web he gets a cut of a fee until a Moriarty clan member reaches out to these people. Searched if AA designates his name like a code or something but nothing came out.

Camilla Zapata, a businesswoman who gave a false testimony to convict a rich Moriarty man to protect herself

Vincent H, a banker who claims he has severed ties from the Moriartys but is still using their name to make money. Now, what’s with the H.?? What does it stand for? I only know that Vincent has been a character on “The Godfather” and “Pulp Fiction.”

Chaka Garcia, a cleaner for the Moriartys who charged the clan a double fee to make more money. The M Clan is so greedy that their accountants know if one outsource member is earning more money than they should be.

Nouveau Cesar (the new Cesar? heh 😈) , a curator who tricked the Moriartys 30 years ago and made money out of it.

Now upon researching his name, I came across the French sculptor Cesar Baldaccini, who lead the Nouveau Réalisme. Put the name and his movement together and voila you have the absurd name. No wonder this character’s profession is curator.

Li Koki, a college student, a small fish who writes fake articles about the Moriartys and makes money out of it. The M Clan is so petty it has its own PR maybe.

Reiko Zaion (Amano wrote Zion Reiko) who conspired with a governor to steal earnings from the Moriartys

Nike Gorgeous (Nike Gojazu), Alice didn’t elaborate her offence but she might have influenced some of the Moriarty clan members to donate to her church.

I initially thought her name was the Greek goddess whose famous statue graces the museum Louvre, but Amano is probably referring to the RPG shooting game, Nikke. It is a group of women in post-apocalyptic setting hope to reclaim their territory.

Maruru Mayer (Amano has written Mallek Meyer), Gorgeous’ disciple

RonToto, who always impede the Moriartys’ evil deeds.

And the dark horse, Amamiya.

It should be this man, (Li)am Gibs(o)n (?), who should be there playing for his life. He could have been British or an American. A businessman? A crime boss that has ties with the M Family?

Now that Alice M has told them the rewards: their freedom and hundred millions of dollars, the nine players are eager now to play.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I've got all the writing structure/craft books, watched tons of advice videos and have been checking out novels to learn by example. But just because I can write doesn't mean I can write a book. This is hard. At what point should any writer consider taking writing courses or hiring a book coach?

When to Consider a Course or Book Coach

Reading books, reading craft books, and watching advice videos isn't enough to teach you how to write a book. You also have to practice...

Imagine if you'd never sewn anything before, had never pieced together and hand sewn or machine sewn anything in your life. You could spend years reading books about sewing and garment construction and could watch hours upon hours of sewing videos on the internet, but that doesn't mean the first time you sit down to actually sew a garment, you're going to end up with a garment worthy of a ritzy department store...

Writing books IS hard, even if you've written a lot of them. I've written a dozen books (though they're not all published), and I still don't find writing a book to be a piece of cake. Part of that is just because different books present different challenges--and where you are in life can also play a big role--but the point is, no amount of learning or practice is going to make it easy.

There's an unfortunate myth among aspiring authors that being an author looks like this: spending some time learning to write, writing your book, and voila! You have a book to publish! The truth is very few authors publish the first book they ever wrote, and if they did, they probably have mountains of short stories and/or fan-fiction or other writing behind them. Most writers write two or three books before their skills are honed enough to write a publishable book. Which doesn't mean you can't write a publishable book on your first try, it just doesn't happen a lot.

So... writing courses... there's not a lot you're going to learn in a writing course that you haven't probably learned from reading, reading a lot of craft books, and watching a lot of advice videos. Certainly, anything you would learn in a writing course you can learn online for free. The main benefit of a writing course is the interaction with others, but even that is really dependent upon the teacher and your classmates. You really have to go into it with a thick skin, knowing that the opinions of your teacher and classmates are not the end all be all.

Writing coaches can be great but they're expensive, and you get more out of the experience if you go into it with a complete or near complete WIP that you want to query or publish, but can't quite get where you want it to be.

So, having said all of that, before pursuing either a writing course or coach, I would recommend trying to finish one or two WIPs to at least first draft stage, but preferably second draft stage, and see how you feel. They don't have to be good. In fact, if you haven't completed a WIP before, they're not going to be your best work (because that comes much later), but remember that part of the writing process is taking the "rough draft" and improving it, and revision is where you really start learning things.

Ultimately, though, follow your gut and follow the path that feels right to you. ♥

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[crackinglamb]

AO3 Year End Roundup, 2024

Tagged by @pikapeppa and @theluckywizard. Thank you both! 🥰

Tagging @lilbittymonster, @anneapocalypse, @espressocomfort, @gefionne and anyone who wants to do it who hasn't been tagged yet. Consider this an open invite. Tag me so I can see!

Words posted: 308,473

Additional Words Written: ~145K

Grand total of words: ~453K

Fandoms: 5. I wrote for Doctor Who, Southern Vampire Mysteries/True Blood, Dragon Age, Fallout 4 (and the tiniest bit of 3) and Fallout TV

Works: 17, 16 of them new.

Highest Kudos: Different Animals, at 325. Cooper Howard|The Ghoul/Lucy MacLean (FOTV). Rated E, 9528 words.

Highest Hit Oneshot: Different Animals, at 2565 as of this post.

New Things I Tried: May-June of this year saw me fall down the rabbithole that was Fallout TV’s first season. In quick succession I wrote 7 fics for Ghoulcy before the Muse ran dry.

I also went back to my first published fandom (FO4), but with a twist: Modern Girl In the Commonwealth. And the Days Go By, F!SoSu/Hancock, rated E, 65K words, complete. I actually just finished posting it two weeks ago.

Fic I Spent the Most Time On: Driftwood, my Bullmance series. I finally finished writing The Turning Tide (Iron Bull/OFC (DA), rated E, 42K words, WIP), and started posting it before DAV dropped. It’s currently the only work being updated. But it is totally written, and there will be no gaps in posting it through to completion next year.

Fic I Spent the Least Time On: Well Developed Personality, Cooper Howard|The Ghoul/Lucy MacLean (FOTV), rated E, 1696 words. It’s the shortest thing I wrote (and the filthiest, ‘ware the tags), and I managed it in about a sitting.

Favorite Thing I Wrote: This is always tough for me, because I hop around fandoms so much, and each one brings its own set of joys to the table. So in no particular order, the top three:

Destiny Is Just In the Timing, Female Cadash/Varric Tethras (DA), rated E, 52K words, complete. In the way of procrastination projects, Destiny began its life as something else to work on when I was stuck on T3. Varric is my first DA love, and I will always return to him. I got to thinking about his canon DA2 Carta contacts, and how a Cadash Inq is from the Carta and...boom. Instant ship, just add pining. Half the fic covers DA2 from an outsider POV, the other half is the events of DA:I. Guaranteed happy ending. [side-eyes BW]

Different Animals. Ya know, I didn’t plan to get as deep into Ghoulcy as I did. Then again, I never anticipate how deep I’ll fall into a ship. Before I’d even finished watching the show, I was writing this long oneshot. There is just something about the vibe of it that ticks all my boxes, and it’s probably the thing I’ve reread the most this year of my own work.

And the Days Go By. Modern Character In [Setting] is a favorite trope of mine, as anyone who’s read my DA longfics knows. I took that premise and put it into my favorite comfort game. Voila! Jack Nunn was born. I had so much fun figuring out what parts of the game mechanics I’d keep in the story as plot devices and how much a woman from our world would struggle to cope in the Fallout universe. It started out as crack treated seriously, then I grew to love her so much I kinda forgot that part.

Favorite Thing I Read: Again, tough decision. I’m a multitasker. And that’s true of my reading habits too. So, also in no particular order, the top three:

Kiss Me Moonstruck, by LuckyWizard (@theluckywizard). Female Trevelyan/Male Hawke (DA), rated E, WIP. Sometimes you just need a fantasy romcom. This indisputably fits the bill. It’s a light-hearted and highly entertaining matchmaker AU, and it sizzles with the palpable chemistry between Rose and Garrett. I love every word, and Lucky is a delight I’m happy to call a friend.

A Distinct Lack of Exploding, by gotfanfiction. Cooper Howard|The Ghoul/Lucy MacLean, (FOTV), rated E, WIP (with one chapter left according to the count, but the author has stated that shouldn’t be taken as gospel). This is a romp of pure ridiculous fun. Hot fun. Read the tags and you’ll get an idea of what you’re in for. And the author delivers on every word. I’ve read it at least three times so far in its entirety.

A Thing Called Hunger, by Syrina. Female Rook/Lucanis Dellamorte (DAV), rated E, WIP. In order to keep things spoiler free for Veilguard, I can’t talk about this one too much. Other than to say it’s witty and clever, the spice is excellent and the characters are wonderful. I get excited with every new update.

Something I Finished: The Turning Tide. It took 18 months, but I finished it (shortly after I began posting it, bending my own rule about publishing before completing the principle wording). And even though I said no more epics – being defined as anything over 100K words – guess what? It is. Mirabull in the Inquisition, ho!

Miscellaneous Highlights: I bounced around a lot this year. And a fair amount of my work didn’t get any mentions here. So I’ll compile some of them now.

Not a Bad Life?, Rose Tyler/Ninth Doctor (Doctor Who), rated E, 33K words. Written for Fluff-uary 2024. Among the WIP’s that were written but never posted was the next arc in Rose’s life with the Doctor. Ultimately, I’m glad the series leaves off here, because honestly I lost steam with it, and I don’t know when I’ll get back to it. But considering there are two years between She’s My Plus One and this fic, eh, who knows? Not I. I am but a drifting fan of many things, floating around from ship to ship.

Stardust, Rose Tyler/The Doctor (DW), rated G, 4220 words. Speaking of Doctor Who, this oneshot was written after the 14th Doctor’s stint during the holiday mini-series. I just wanted Rose to come back home and for Fourteen to get a happy ending, okay? And with it, The Spaces Between Our Atoms, rated T, 3174 words. A sort of sequel, written to commemorate the passing of Bernard Cribbins (Wilf).

Set to Repeat, Subject to Change, F!SoSu/Hancock, (FO4), rated E, 76K words, complete. I published (and completed) this fic back in 2018. I always wanted to write a sequel for it, but never did. Burnout’s a bitch, and I don’t have the mental energy to do All That. But I did write an epilogue, six years late. Incidentally, the final chapter was posted on the anniversary of the fic’s first chapter, which ticks the ‘coming full circle’ box for me. It’s the little things, ya know?

Writing Goals for 2025: [noncommittal noises] As of right now, I’m attempting to put together some ideas for continuing Wicked Things. With DAV now here, I have some work ahead of me to make it reconcile with where I was going with WG. But frankly, I’m uninspired. Part of that could be lingering burnout, but part of that is also some...ambivalence over what we got as the next entry to Dragon Age. I haven’t actually played it yet (although anyone who’s read any of my work knows that has zero bearing on me creating something), but I’ve watched some playthroughs and have all the spoilers. Whatever I manage to write for next for Imogen, it will most definitely YEET the canon. More than likely a lot of it, honestly.

And of course, there will be another Fluff-uary. I'm not sure who will get the nod next year for pairing(s). But I'll come up with something, I always do.

Final Thoughts: As much as I’ve talked about burnout and writing less...I managed a lot this year. I was honestly shocked at that wordcount total. And I’m sure I missed some of the WIP’s that got started and never went anywhere in the ‘additional words’ section. I just counted the things that were close to done or had a significant amount written that I could find in my document files. One of them is a full, completed fic. I’m just not ready to carry on with that series and don’t want to leave it on a cliffhanger for however long it would take me to get back to it. Another is nearly complete, but I got stuck on the ending and then moved on to other things and have been considering a rewrite from the ground up. And a third is a oneshot that’s ready for posting but has zero context for it yet. [sigh] But that’s always the way, isn’t it?

I fully expect next year will be a bit slower for me in terms of creativity. Life being what it is, and my circumstances what they are, I won’t have as much time. And I feel like I say that every year, but this time I think it’s going to actually happen. I’m currently in the longest stretch of writing nothing at all that I’ve had since I began writing fanfiction in 2017. And I have very few ideas percolating in the back of my mind. And you know what? I’m okay with that. I keep saying I’m going to take a break and then never do. Maybe I’ll actually do it this time.

If you’ve read this far, cheers. See you on the flipside. 💕

[chuluoyi]

hii! i was wondering on how you make the words gradient? if you could answer it'd be appreciated ♡.

hii nonniee! so yeah, for the gradients, i used this very convenient text colorizer here. and as of the steps, i'll explain more under the cut!

upon arriving at the site, this is the view:

just follow the site's steps! enter your text in Step 1, and then choose the color effects you want in Step 2, there are several options you can try:

pick the colors you want in Step 3 and i personally don't think Step 4 is important so i often skip it

here i choose the horizontal gradient and pick blue and yellow palette. afterwards it'll show you the end result in Step 5:

if you're satisfied with the color combos, you can proceed to the codes. there are 2 kinds of codes generated by the site, but to use it in tumblr post, pick the second one with "html code for this text: (to use on your website)"

copy the whole code and let's move to tumblr. write whatever first in the post as a dummy text and then pick the setting on the right & choose html:

afterwards 2 tabs will appear under your username: the "html" and "preview". we go to the "html" one and it'll show you your post's html codes

here, you see the "title" i wrote earlier in the post, and now replace "title" with the html code from text colorizer webpage:

afterwards, go back to the "preview" tab and voila! :D you have the gradient-colored words!

hope this helps! feel free to come by again if you have further questions :D

[lavalais76]

I recently wrote a post asking if any of you think Jon Snow is actually dead. I got likes, but no response. I had to be sure I wasn't the only one thinking this way, so I copied a comment from RyanBarnes13 on Reddit, and I agree with him and a few others as well.

RyanBarnes13:

He’s alive. Aemon has that dream vision on the trip where he wakes up and is almost desperate to tell Jon " cold preserves." The first was a non- fatal neck cut. 2nd was a belly stab, (depending on where) could miss all vitals. 3rd stab was in the shoulder blades. So into the bones, not organs. He fell to the snow. And never felt the 4th blade. It's very, very likely that Jon wasn't actually stabbed a 4th time. (All he felt was the cold)

The key thing is the SNOW, it actually freezes and stops the blood loss which is what actually saves most stabbing or shooting victims. People have laid in SNOW for 12 plus hours and recovered from what should be a very fatal wounds.

Yes he will warg into ghost, and he is probably unconscious and in a coma like state. Jon has to finish the crypt dream of Winterfell that he continues to have,and wakes up from. This time he will finish it, and will talk to the wolf he saw in the last iteration.

And yes the regular science will confound everyone, and after sewing or burning his wounds, Melisandre will light a fire, put Jon there and the rapid warmup will help Jon recover and voila!!!!!!! A miracle!!!

Edit: actually if you look at the very last sentences, he falls first, does not feel a fourth stab, cause there is no stab, he does not warg, he only feels the cold. He is laying in snow. So he is still in his body. He calls to Ghost for help.

“Jon fell to his knees. He found

the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …”

— George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones 5-Book Boxed Set by George R. R. Martin

That belly punch is the big if. If he hit organs yeah it’s a slow septic death if Jon survived the initial stabbing. But it reads like it wasn’t near as bad of a stab. Bowen Marsh is crying unlike the others. Reads like he still isn’t quiet 100% on doing it. And definately is lacking the fighting skills. He punched Jon. And the dagger stayed when he let go. That says it went in deep enough to stay in. But who the hell stabs a guy and it is described as a punch????? Seems off.....

But unlike nowadays they stabbing into lots of muscles. Not fat. It’s a lot harder to cut through.

We actually had a soldier in Iraq that worked out all the time in our free time, he got shot in the abdomen. Turns out working out saved his dam life, the bullet hit the ab muscles and it actually stopped the bullet before it penetrates to the organs. Honestly we all worked out after that. Protein shakes and weights for the whole platoon.

But that’s what I’m seeing described more in this stabbing.

*This last comment comes from: BowTiesAreCool86

"Oh, you think he's dead, do you?" - GRRM.

Also, from another interview

I: "Getting stabbed to death by one of his friends?"

GRRM: "Wait til the next book"

I think he'll be pulled back from the brink, a more successful spell than was worked on Khal Drogo, but it will cost him part of his "soul" in one way or another.

* I personally think Jon will be in a coma like Bran was and he will Warg his wolf. From there Jon will learn of his abilities with the help of Bloodraven and Bran. I also think Jon is more powerful than Bloodraven AND Bran. Jon will probably be allowed to leave the wall when Rob's WILL surface which is SOON, or the Northerners will come together and will be Jon's "get out of jail free" card.

As far as they know he is the last living son of Ned Stark, and they would rather see a Stark in Winterfell than the Bolton's or Stannis. They are bidding their time, but Jon is in grave danger even at the wall as we already know. I'll say this until the books prove me wrong: Satin had something to do with Jon's stabbing. He is "the hidden dagger."

Things will change BIG TIME once Sansa Stark makes it to Castle Black as well. These are my thoughts on Jon Snow. Everyone automatically assumed he died and the theories I read of his return are totally unbelievable. YES, he will be a changed man and NO he will NOT be some zombie who can't communicate or stuck in Ghost.

No one ever talks about Jon's unnatural super strength. They showed a little in the show, but not enough. Jon has the blood of the 1st men and old Valyria. He is full of ancient magic that he isn't even aware of. His near death experience and being in Ghost's skin will change EVERYTHING. I also happen to believe that Jon is a greenseer and will find out of his heritage himself.

Jon might die later in the series and be brought back, but as for now; Jon lives. Any thoughts? 😊

[twilightarc-gm]

Last Line Meme

Post the last line that you wrote!

Tagged by @yeliuxi 😘 I have been writing a lot lately trying to get this ChengXian zine entry done, so uh, voila!

With Wei Wuxian warm and tucked up right around Jiang Cheng's arm and against his side, to keep this sensation and be able to recreate it as much as they want, the temptation is undeniable.

👏Cuddly ChengXian for the soul👏

I am not picking 35 people to tag though so hello to you lucky few! 🥰 As always, participate if you so desire!

@unreliable-narratoe @not-rude-ginger @cynical-harlequin

@miss-fiery @fanfictiongreenirises @sailuncharted

[beautifulpersonpeach]

A few days ago I responded to an ask, explaining that Korean K-pop stans overall are the more intense version of whatever you see on the international side, and that one way k-fans perceive international fans is that international k-pop stans are easier to manipulate and rile up.

For anyone who is aware of the subway scare and the supposed link to ARMY and BTS, pay very close attention to what’s happening right now as a case study demonstrating what I wrote, happening in real time.

As a quick overview:

1 - This happened about an hour before Yoongi’s live where he showed his tattoo

*

2 - About an hour after this happened, an ARMY coming back from Yoongi’s concert, watching his livestream on their way home, reacts to his tattoo by screaming while in the subway. They record themselves and post the video on Twitter. The tweet itself is deleted now so I can’t link it, but I’ll link the OG video in point 5.

*

3 - After that ARMY posted their reaction to Yoongi’s tattoo, this Korean k-pop stan claims a fan screamed next to them on the train and caused panic and a stampede. This account’s most recent activity is from 2022, but the first thing they tweet in 2023 is that an ARMY caused a stampede because of Yoongi. Okay.

*

4 - One of the followers of that account then retweets that account to post an edited version of the ARMY reaction video, blurring out the reaction on the train, and further linking the two events (1) an ARMY screaming about Yoongi, (2) a resulting stampede that needed police intervention. This video is then used as the basis for user posts and articles written on k-blogs which then get translated as user posts on Allkpop and Pannchoa.

*

5 - For reference, this is the OG video from that ARMY showing what actually happened on the train. Note how there’s no panic in the train.

***

Basically, two events separated by about an hour are conflated on purpose by linked anonymous accounts on the Korean side, quickly translated into English and spread on the international side through k-pop gossip blogs like Allkpop, which Korean soft media (blogs etc) then picks up and takes as further credit to the underlying claims, though those claims are false.

And voila, a scandal is born.

Now, this isn’t to say BTS, ARMY, and people affiliated with them never do anything wrong and can never have a legit scandal. For example, I think anybody screaming for no good reason in a packed subway train is an idiot and should face some kind of consequence if harm is caused. But that’s not what happened here. What that ARMY did was stupid but harm wasn’t caused and Korean antis instead used it as an opportunity to link BTS with an incident that happened an hour earlier.

Occasionally, some of you might’ve seen me write about ‘manufactured controversy’ before, usually in passing when discussing something else. I remember I’ve mentioned it a few times such as during Jimin’s missed insurance payments scandal, during Jungkook’s Itaewon scandal, and also Min Heejin re: NewJeans (after just 5 minutes of looking at the original claims in Korean. The only thing holding the majority of the claims against MHJ together is sheer willpower and vibes atp). Someone has also asked me about hate ‘slave rooms’ before (context was Twice attacked by slave room hate) and I responded that hate in Korea towards people in the k-pop industry, is incredibly organized and insidious. And the bigger the target, the bigger the fall and the bigger the payout.

Please keep that in mind when you read shit online. Keep your eyes open and your wits about you. Become more media literate and learn how to think for yourself. Seriously. Because in this machine called k-pop, nearly everything about it is designed to suck you in till you have no idea which way is up. Pay attention, please.

2026 is still a long way off and we’ll have many incidents like this before then.

Good luck everyone.

[hiccupscloud-26]

Oh my gosh FINALLY! I finished it! Took a little longer than expected and lost inspiration for a bit, but it's done!

So this story was inspired by a prompt I saw on here, but I forgot who wrote it and just scrolled through all my likes for like 30 minutes trying to find it to come up with nothing😭 it was something along the lines of someone eating spicy food even though they hate it and they actually hide the pain well and are proud of themselves for hiding it, until the hiccups start. I thought this would fit Calliope and Indyko, so voila.

Idk if I like how this ends, but I'm so ready to move on to the next idea I have and I've just been staring at this for too long so I'm posting it.

(Green-haired cyclops is Indyko, I just haven't updated the picture yet, my bad)

CW:

-painful hiccups

-hiccup burps

-mentions of nausea (but no throwing up)

-loud hiccups

-let me know if I need to add more pls

And now, without further ado, I give to you:

Spicy Curry

Calliope was lounging on her couch on her phone, her legs spread out on Indyko's lap. Mentioned cyclops was reading some romance novel that seemed more like a porn, but they didn't mind it. They would forever be grateful for the situation they were in. A beautiful apartment, a beautiful girlfriend, a wonderful life indeed. If you were to ask them a few months ago if they'd expected to be here today, they'd probably shake their head and laugh it off to keep from crying.

“You ok, Indy?” Calliope asked softly, “you've been glaring a hole through that page for a while.”

Indyko blushed and moved the book down so they could see their love's beautiful face. They smiled and nodded, “yes, I'm just…feeling grateful, that's all.”

Calliope couldn't help but smile back at them. She reached for their hand and they gladly accepted it, “I'm grateful to have met you too.”

“Callieee,” Indy giggled quietly and squeezed her hand softly, looking at her as if she was their whole world.

“Indyyy~” Calliope rubbed their knuckles.

Indy smiled and brought her hand to their lips and kissed it gently. “I'm so glad you found me.”

“And I'm so glad you stayed,” the redhead smiled before slowly sitting up. “It's getting late, I better start dinner. Any requests?”

“No, anything you make is bound to be absolutely delicious,” Indyko smiled at her, releasing their hands slowly.

“Awww, such a sweetheart~” Calliope chuckled and kissed their cheek.

The cyclops giggled and planted a kiss on Calliope's cheek before she'd stood up and headed off to the kitchen.

It wasn't long before Calliope had finished cooking the meal and setting the table for two. Indyko's stomach grumbled when they smelled the different spices and chicken.

“Smells so good, Callie,” they complimented, sitting down on a dining chair, sitting in front of some sort of chicken dish with rice. “What is it?”

“It's a dish called chicken curry,” Calliope told them as she sat in the chair across from them. “I was craving something a little spicier this evening.”

Indyko blinked and froze in their spot as Calliope mixed around the rice and chicken in her bowl. “S-spicy?”

The black woman pierced her fork through one of the chicken bits and looked up at Indyko and nodded, “yeah, it's spicy. Oh shoot, is that ok? I should've asked if you liked spicy food.”

“No no, I'll be okay, I love spicy food,” Indyko reassured her, even though they knew spicy food wasn't for them.

Their first experience with spicy food had been undeniably unpleasant. They'd found some spicy noodles in the dumpster a few years back and the memories of them puking their guts out as their tongue burned remained engraved in their brain.

However, they knew Calliope had put her soul into her cooking, she always did. They didn't want to waste their food, especially knowing that there were people out there who didn't have food at all. So they decided to just suck it up. How hard could it be?

They picked up their fork and pierced through the saucy chicken bit, taking a deep breath before putting the food in their mouth. Instantly, the different flavors and spices flooded their senses. Indy smiled, “it's really good.” They were pleased to know they actually meant it.

Calliope smiled, “aww, thanks, Indy. It's not too spicy?”

“Spicy? No, I don't even taste the spiciness,” Indyko swallowed the chicken, feeling the flame burn down their throat. They almost winced, but they held it in. They couldn't show Calliope that they couldn't handle it. They'd dealt with rotten, spoiling food before.

They would get through this.

Calliope nodded, “hmm, maybe I should add more cayenne pepper next time then.”

Indyko remained silent as they gulped down another forkful of curry. Maybe if they ate it quickly, it wouldn't affect them as much. Only pausing to sip on their water, they took in two more forkfuls back to back. Their mouth felt like it was on fire, but still they were keeping it under control.

They had to admit, they were proud of themselves for being able to fight through the heat. They were doing well.

*HULP!*

Indyko's eyes widened and they covered their mouth, eyes instantly locking with Calliope's, seeing her mouth open, her fork frozen in place.

“A-are you okay?” Calliope placed her fork back on her plate.

Indyko jolted in their seat with another *HIUP!*. Their eyes started to water and snot poured from their nose.

“I got *HUP!* the hic-*CUP*s,” Indy announced before they attempted to hold their breath.

They quickly released the air, their mouth way too hot to hold it in. Their whole body jolted with their powerful hiccups overtaking them. Calliope shuddered slightly, hoping Indy hadn't noticed her strange behavior.

See, she hadn't told them about her…appreciation for hiccups, feeling embarrassed about it all. Plus, neither of them had any cases since Indy had moved in.

“My mouth *HOLP!* is on fire *H'GUP!*” Indy whined.

Concern instantly filled Calliope's face and she rushed over to her partner, all thoughts of her excitement gone at the sight of Indyko in pain.

“Indy, I thought you said you loved spicy food,” Calliope pushed their hair out of their face, her hand being thrown back against the force of their next *HU-UP!* “Hold on, let me get you some milk.”

She hurried to the kitchen, quickly pouring a cup of milk into a glass, not caring about the mess she was making. After grabbing some extra napkins, she rushed back to her partner and handed them the glass. “Drink this, it'll help with the heat.”

Indy nodded and gulped down the milk in one go. They panted, casually interrupted by their loud hiccups. Calliope noted they weren't too fast, thank goodness, but the way they moved them with such force that their whole body-

No, not the time, Calliope mentally scolded herself. She took a deep breath and placed her hands on their shoulders, “is that a little better?”

Indy looked up at Calliope with teary eyes. Their face was a red blotchy mess, but they still smiled and nodded, “yeah, a little *HULP!*-” they blushed impossibly redder, “excuse me *HUUUUP!*-ooh, these are bad. I'm sorry *HUCK-UCK!*-ah, shoot. It burns.”

Calliope frowned and hugged them close, “don't be sorry, Indy…I shouldn't have made something spicy without asking. So I'm sorry, and now I know for next time. Now…how can I help?”

“It's really ok, you *HILP!*-ah, didn't know, and um…can I *HULP!* get some more milk? Oooh, or *GUPrrrp!* ugh, please excuse me. Erm, does ice cream *HICK!* help?”

“Yeah, any lactose helps honestly,” she gently squeezed their shoulders before heading back to the kitchen.

After retrieving the carton of vanilla ice cream and a spoon, Calliope returned to Indyko, but they looked a little green in the face. She hurried over them, “Indy? What's wrong?”

They held up one finger and she noticed them trying desperately to hold their breath again. Their body betrayed them every few seconds with strong, muffled hiccups that jerked them in their seat. Calliope set the ice cream and spoon on the table before rubbing their back comfortingly. She glanced at their bouncing stomach, hidden only by a thin tee shirt. She wanted to rub her partner's pains away, but didn't want to break any boundaries.

Suddenly, she gasped, feeling Indyko gently grab her hand and place it on their stomach. She looked at them, seeing them nod their head as they still held their breath. Calliope didn't hesitate as she gently massaged their upset tummy.

Her hand was quickly thrown off by a powerful hiccup as Indy released their breath. “I'm sorry, I *HILP!* I can't seem to shake these things *HICK'M!* excuse me.”

“Don't worry about them, unless…are they hurting you?” Calliope worried as she started massaging their stomach again.

“I wouldn't say they *HUCK! HEEEKrrrp!* oh gosh, please pardon me,” Indyko covered their face, blushing profusely. “They don't hurt, per se, but *HERK!* they're just uncomfortable because of the heat, but it's slowly dissi-*HIP!*-pating.”

“Do you feel like you're…gonna throw up?” Calliope continued the gentle massage.

“Not anymore, it pa-*HACK!*-passed,” Indy rubbed their sternum and exhaled softly, being interrupted by another loud spasm.

Calliope nodded, “those are so s-strong.” She continued rubbing their belly, feeling every jolt. “D-do you wanna take this to the couch? It might be more comfortable for you.”

Indy wordlessly nodded as they stood up and grabbed their ice cream and spoon before heading to the couch. Calliope smiled and followed them to the living room, watching as they sat down, opened the ice cream, and dug in. She giggled and sat next to them.

The cyclops looked at her confused, “what? *HICuuurrrp!*-ugh, excuse me.” They covered their mouth with a fist.

Calliope giggled again as she sat next to them. “Nothing, I just…love you, is all.”

Indyko froze as they gasped and flushed a deep red. “You…you…huh?”

The red-eyed woman glanced up at them confused, “hmm?”

“You…love me?” Indyko squeaked out.

Calliope blinked as she realized what she had said earlier. She blushed and looked away, taking a deep breath before looking back at them and nodding her head. “Yeah, I do…you don't have to say it back if you're not ready, no pressure at all. But I do love you.”

Indyko teared up slightly before hugging her close. “I love you too…it feels good to finally say that.” They giggled and kissed her cheek. “I love you too.”

Calliope gasped and smiled, “I'm so glad the feeling is mutual.”

“Me too,” Indyko smiled back, then placed a hand on their chest, “oh hey, my hiccups are gone. Your expression of love must've shocked them out of me. My hero yet again~” they snuggled up close to her.

Calliope internalized her disappointment, but smiled, “more than happy to help, my dear. How are you feeling?”

“Much much better, now I can eat my ice cream in peace,” Indy chuckled and Calliope couldn't help but chuckle along with them.

One day, Calliope would eventually tell them her secret, but for now, she liked the way things were going now.

Fin

[m0llygunn]

I decided to edit a tutor smutty stupid thing that I wrote July 2023 (lol) so that I could have something to post and I actually can’t I can’t I can’t like I only have 1.5k/6.5k left to fix but writing is so fucking boring reading it after is nice but writing is actually painful. anyway, a portion of the pained writing in question voila vas y: