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angelanimedesaray · 5 years ago

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Through The Looking Glass Chapter 2: Like Smoke

AN: Ahhh, yes, I get to continue this one--I keep getting distracted...by the planning for this series. I’ve got pages and pages of notes for this series now, It’s getting to be quite the ambitious project. OH and I have a playlist for the series, too, on YouTube. There’s a link for it on the Masterlist. BTW I’m tagging all of the things that have to do with this (Chapters, Masterlist, and Playlist) #TTLG and all my fanfics have my penname AngelDesaray in the tags (Unless for some reason I forgot)

P.S. to find my masterlists, I link the masterlists for series in every chapter (As well as previous or next chapters). Links to stories and series masterlists can also be found in my Author Masterlists, which can be found as a separate page on my blog under the Masterlist tab on desktop (Only shows published pieces), or as a link in my blog bio for mobile users (Also has upcoming pieces listed).

Characters: Levi, Reader, Reader’s Mom, Kenny (Mentioned)

Pairing: (Eventual) Levi x Reader

Warnings: I mean, there’s fluff...and there’s some sad stuff near the end...

Word Count: 5004

<---Previous Chapter Masterlist Next Chapter--->

(Gif From Your Lie In April, found on Your-Lie-In-April on Deviant Art)

*Levi’s POV*

The sound of a distant woman calling a familiar name roused Levi from what may have been one of the best rests he’d had so far in his very young life, eyes fluttering open slowly as he tried to remember where he was. Everything was so soft, and he just wanted to drift back to sleep, curl up in the fluffy warmth around him and…

The woman’s voice came again, a little closer this time, and there came a sudden burst of movement next to him, Levi’s eyes flying open as the little body of Y/N flailed to untangle themselves from the mess of blankets around both of them. She struggled to her feet with a squeak and fumbled for the door that she toppled ungracefully out of, crawling on hands and knees out the door and kicking it shut. Levi was left dazed, halfway risen out of the blankets, and wondering what had just happened, but now also laden down with the weight of several more blankets since she had thrown blankets and pillows onto him in her mad dash to get out the door. He pushed a few blankets off, crawling over to one of the tiny windows to catch a glimpse of the girl reaching the door to the back of the house, where the woman who had been calling her name was standing in the doorway. He could only hear fragments of the conversation if he listened hard enough.

“...sleep in...all night?”

“...forgot...check...almost couldn’t sleep....”

“...school...thirty minutes...late…”

Levi shook his head, dropping back down into the mess of blankets with a muffled yawn as he glanced around trying to find the water bottles in the now tumultuous mass of blankets and pillows. Once he found them buried in one of the corners he finished off the one bottle he’d started on the day before he laid back down, contemplating going back to sleep despite the light filtering into the little house. He was so comfortable, and if something happened and he had to go back, then he wanted to enjoy it while he could.

The door was thrown open, startling Levi with the suddenness of it all as he saw Y/N stick her head inside, huffing like she was out of breath and hadn’t stopped running since she scrambled out of the tiny house. After her head poked in and she saw where Levi was, she tossed a sac of some sheer, opaque material inside, its contents rolling around. She spoke quickly in the brief flash that he saw her, the last part tacked on as she shut the door and hurried away.

“I gotta go, I’m late for school! Here’s food, see you later!”

Her mother shouted from the house for Y/N to hurry, even though she was already scrambling back. Afraid that if he tried to fall asleep again she’d simply re-appear and scare him awake, Levi resigned himself to getting up for the day, reaching for the bag she’d tossed inside and poking through its contents. There were two more rolls inside, no longer fresh and warm like they’d been yesterday, but still good. There was also a green apple, something hard wrapped in some kind of thin, shiny, silvery covering, a spoon, and two white and red containers a little bigger than his hands that were cool to the touch and had a similar silvery covering over the top.

Deciding to investigate the stranger things later, he munched on the bread and the apple first, gazing out the window thoughtfully.

When all that was left of the start of his breakfast was half the apple, he grabbed the bag and one of the water bottles and decided to venture back outside, a little more used to the light this time since he’d woken up to it. His legs were stronger than yesterday, steps surer as he tentatively ventured out of the little house, staying close to the walls of the little house and his head turned towards the house to keep an eye on it as he shuffled closer to the trees behind the house. He wanted a closer look at the trees--wanted to sit quietly outside in the warm sun, breathing in the fresh air while he ate and explore the surface while he was up here. If Y/N was going to be gone for a while, then that was what he wanted to spend the day doing.

The shade was much kinder to him than the direct sunlight, easier on his eyes that were used to the dark and not as hot. It was comfortable and cool in the shade, and he stopped when he saw another large house starting to appear through the trees, doubling back a bit and finding a nice dry patch of grass in the shade to sit down in, curling up comfortably on the ground and squinting up at the sunlight flickering down on him through the leaves. He was close enough to a tree he could put his hand gently against its trunk, feeling the grooves of the bark beneath his fingers and watching the rather large black ants travelling up its trunk while carrying tiny crumbs of food.

Speaking of, he still had the stranger things in the sack she had thrown him to eat.

Resting his back against the tree trunk with his knees pulled halfway up to his chest, Levi set about investigating the stranger, silvery wrapped things in the bag, finding a soothing solace in the quiet and the green all around him.

*Reader’s POV*

School couldn’t go by fast enough. Sure, you were in trouble with your mother for messing around outside looking for a stuffed animal instead of getting ready for school. It was better than her finding out you’d hid a boy in your playhouse all night, though, right?

Of course, with how antsy you were to get back home and see him when you had school to distract you, he must be bored out of his mind alone in that playhouse! And he wasn’t going to get lunch until you got home, either!

With all these thoughts, you were bouncing in your seat on the bus, then racing home on foot once you finally reached your stop. Your backpack lay abandoned at the front door, causing your mother to yell at you to pick up after yourself as you skidded into the kitchen. Your tongue poked out as you hurried to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before your mother came in and tried to stop you from having a pb&j for a ‘light snack’. Once that was finished, you grabbed two Capri Suns your mother probably thought she’d hidden, grabbed a family sized bag of chips, and dashed outside towards the playhouse.

“I’m back! I brought...some…”

You paused, head craning and foot poking at the mess of blankets in case he was simply buried under all the fluffy things. Still, you didn’t find Levi in the playhouse, and you stepped back outside with a frown, wondering where the little boy had disappeared to. Your mother would have instantly pulled you aside to talk about Levi if he’d gone inside the house and been seen. Maybe he’d wandered into the brush behind your house?

Changing directions, you started picking your way through the trees and bushes, looking for the skinny boy you’d been smuggling quite a bit of food to by now.

“Levi? Levi!” you called as you came closer and closer to the backyard of the people who lived behind your family.

You squeaked in surprise as his head suddenly peaked out from behind one of the thicker trees, disheveled strands of black hair falling into eyes that were slightly brighter than they had been yesterday. It seemed he was sitting with his back against the tree, legs curled up towards him, and the plastic bag of food you’d given him earlier now holding his trash at his side. You gave him a bright smile, sitting down next to him and offering the pb&j to him.

“I brought lunch,” you said cheerfully, opening the bag of chips that made Levi jump from the loud pop sound before you placed the bag between the two of you, working on punching the yellow straws into the Capri Suns.

The silence lasted perhaps only a few seconds as Levi tore into the sandwich before it rapidly devolved into almost frantic smacking noises from Levi. Maybe you’d put too much peanut butter on it?

You giggled as you watched him continue to make those smacking noises, struggling with the amount of sticky peanut butter with an amusing look of bemusement on his face. When he looked at you accusingly for laughing at him, you offered him one of the Capri Suns with that bright smile still on your face. He took it carefully from you, eyeing you more than it as you sucked happily on your own Capri Sun. When he finally started drinking the juice, he seemed to relax, the juice soothing his peanut butter problem.

“You must have been bored, out here so long,” you said once your Capri Sun was finished. Levi shrugged, taking smaller bites of the pb&j now.

“I like it out here,” he said simply, and now that you looked, his eyes did seem to constantly drink in the greenery around the two of you.

“There’s a...a con...conservation place a little ways away,” you said slowly, making sure the bigger word came out right. “Mom lets me go play there--we could too. There’s long grass, and trees, and berries, and a pond with fish and frogs and rabbits--we can play there.”

Levi was silent, chewing on the last of his pb&j thoughtfully. “How far is it?” he asked slowly. You suddenly remembered how he’d had a hard time moving around yesterday.

“A few streets over…” you admitted sheepishly. “But I could carry you!”

Levi made a face, but you were already on your feet and exuding raw unbridled, positive energy. “No, really, I’m pretty strong, I can pick up my friend at school, and you’re tinier than them. I could give you a piggyback ride there!”

You started putting your trash in the plastic bag, rolling up the so-far untouched bag of chips. “We can take the chips with us--I’ll throw this away, tell Mom where I’m going, and come get you!” you said cheerfully, already making your way back through the brush towards the house before Levi had the chance to agree or disagree.

*Levi’s POV*

She hadn’t been lying when she said she could carry him. It was embarrassing, but no one seemed to be looking as the two children made their way down the sidewalks. Levi’s legs were wrapped around her waist, her hands tucked under his knees to support him as she leaned forward slightly, Levi leaning against her back with his arms wrapped around her shoulders and across her chest for extra security. His head peeked around hers to look around him as she carried him down a few streets paved with some kind of seamless black stone down the middle and raised brown stone on the sides. Every now and then he saw some sort of strange horseless carriage like objects sitting unmoving along the edge of the black street or still on the wider brown-stone pathways leading up to homes. He didn’t ask what they were, figuring it was something only surface people got to have, and Y/N was pretty much ignoring them, so he figured it was a normal sight for her, even if he found it strange.

As they went up a hill, Y/N started to pant underneath him, her hands starting to feel sweaty on his legs and her movements a little slower.

“I can walk,” Levi murmured as she continued to struggle. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to make it if he tried, honestly, but the girl shook her head.

“No, it’s...just on the other side. I can carry you...the rest of the way,” she said between huffed breaths, shifting her grip on his legs and picking up her speed slightly as she powered stubbornly forward. Levi clung tightly to her, turning his head and resting it on her neck as his eyes looked up at the light blue sky, gaze tracing the outlines of the soft white clouds that drifted lazily by and watching the leaves of the trees in various yards sway high above him in the breeze. If he hadn’t been so transfixed by the sight of the surface world, he could have easily fallen asleep against her back, the secure comfort she was giving him making him feel drowsy in contrast with the energy that raced through his system with the excitement of everything around him. Her breathing underneath him was heavy, and he could feel her quickened heartbeat against his ear, but she kept climbing with Levi on her back without a word of complaint.

When she crested the hill, the street dipped low just briefly before stretching out in one straight road, trees framing both sides for several paces before the trees on the right gave way to a meadow of long grass, just like she said. Levi stretched forward over her shoulder to see it, eyes widening as more and more of it came into view.

Y/N only carried him until the edge of the meadow, setting him down in the soft grass with a relieved sigh. Levi pressed some of the longer grass down as they walked forward, the meadow opening up and dipping into a lower basin where a fairly large body of water rippled and sparkled in the sunlight. On the other side of the meadow was a thick collection of trees and bushes, and if he looked hard enough, he could see spots of dark red or blue on some of the bushes. But that was for later--right now, he wanted to get closer to that giant pond in the middle of the meadow.

The grass tickled his arms and legs, causing him to scratch here and there as he stumbled his way down the uneven slope on shaky legs, Y/N close by the entire time with her head tilted up to the sky and the warm sun with a smile on her face. She was so...so...happy. She probably didn’t have to worry about anything, didn’t have to be afraid of anything. She could only be this happy because she lived on the surface, and the things that lurked in the dark underground weren’t lurking above it. Her life seemed...easy, perfect, and he envied her for it. But he couldn’t envy her for it for long, because she was still sharing it with a dirty Underground dweller like him, even if he couldn’t fathom why.

“Can you swim?” she asked him as they finally reached the bank, already taking off her shoes and socks as she spoke, sitting on her rear with her feet kicking in the air in the process. Levi shook his head, and she gave him a sheepish smile. “I’m not a good swimmer, yet, I just bob. We can just stick our feet in, cause it gets a little deep.”

She sat down on the edge and dipped her feet in with a little giggle, smoothing down a patch of the long grass around her and looking at him expectantly. Levi still approached the water slowly despite the fact he was already imagining how refreshing it was going to feel, not wanting to get too eager and accidentally fall in after she said it was deep. He settled down next to her, feet stretching out experimentally towards the water and tentatively dipping his rather dirty feet below the surface. It was cool--not cold thanks to the sun shining down on it, but not warm either. Pleasant in contrast to the warm air with the sun beaming down on him when there was no shade to protect him. Levi leaned down, letting his hand dip into the water as well, swirling the waters around between his fingers.

While he was doing that, a thought occurred to him, and he dunked both hands below the water, taking the time to scrub at the dirt on his hands, arms, legs, and feet before he cupped his hands and scooped up water to splash on his face, rubbing at the dirt there, as well. It felt so good to be clean, to see and feel the dirt giving way against the crystalline water and see the water droplets against his skin shimmer clearly under the sunlight.

Now he wouldn’t get any more dirt on all those comfy blankets and pillows in the small house he was sleeping in.

There was a sudden splash, and water spattered across his face, followed by the sounds of giggles beside him. He was taken aback at first, looking over at Y/N just in time to see her splash the water towards him again with a huge grin on her face. She laughed more audibly this time, with Levi trying to duck to avoid getting splashed in the face again before he returned the splashes with some of his own. It quickly escalated, water sloshing violently between them and getting them both soaked, Y/N’s gleeful shrieks filling the air and a wide smile working its way across Levi’s face. He felt lighter than he’d felt in some time, like he would float away up into that blue sky any moment.

“Okay, okay! Uncle! Uncle! I give up!” she eventually laughed, the splashing finally calming down and the waters returning to its calm state around their feet. They were soaked now, and Levi shivered, but the sun was still warm against his skin, and he felt like he’d dry out in no time. Y/N pulled her feet out of the water, trying to wring the water out of her hair as she stretched, eyes on the bushes on the other side of the pond. “Do you want some berries?”

“Okay.”

He watched her head over to the bushes he’d been eyeing earlier, brushing hair out of his face and watching as she picked berries off the bushes and used her shirt as a makeshift basket to collect them in. The only sound was the occasional drip of disturbed water or the rustle of leaves, and he laid down, some of the grass curling back up around him and towards the sky. A soft breeze wafted the grass above him, the thin blades waving in and out of his immediate field of vision.

Please...let me stay...

A few minutes later, Y/N had reappeared, standing over him with her shirt basket heavy with berries as she kneeled down next to him. He sat up on his elbows as she showed him her collection of small red cup-shaped berries and round blue berries, her free hand already digging into her collection to grab a few of the red berries.

“Raspberries are my favorite,” she explained with a small giggle, offering the berries to him after she’d grabbed what she wanted. Levi got a handful for himself, a lot less hesitant in trying the foods this time since almost everything she’d given him so far had been delicious.

He didn’t care much for those chalky rectangular things in the silver wrapping this morning, though.

Something caught Y/Ns attention, her head turned to the side as she went still, nose wrinkling as she suddenly became far more concentrated than Levi had seen her so far.

“Hold these,” she said quietly, dumping the rest of the berries on him so suddenly that Levi had to scramble to snatch them up before they all tumbled to the ground. She wasn’t even paying attention anymore, crouching low in the grass and creeping slowly towards the pond like a kitten stalking a mouse. He watched her, confused, wondering for a few moments if she’d seen a fish in the pond or a bird or something.

Suddenly, her hands shot out, cupped around something as she let out a loud squeal and leapt to her feet.

“I got it, I got it!” she crowed, prancing back over to where Levi was sitting, getting really close on her knees with her cupped hands between them. She held it up close to his face, but craned her head awkwardly so she could see as well, forehead knocking against his. “I don’t want it...to get away…”

Slowly, she bent her thumbs, a small crack appearing in her cupped hands that she gradually widened further and further. At first, Levi didn’t see anything, but then, slowly, two glimmering, tiny, beady black eyes caught some of the sun, and Levi realized there was some kind of tiny creature trapped in her hands. He got closer, trying to see what it was, faintly making out a fat but tiny body, spindly limbs, and--

Y/N suddenly shrieked, hands opening reflexively. “AH! It peed on me!”

All Levi registered was peed and the fact that suddenly a tiny little brown and spotted body was flying out of her hands, through the air, and directly towards him. His own vocal reaction was lost in her continued shrieks of disgust as he tried to get out of the way, a tiny, bumpy, sort of slimy body landing on his arm. Afraid the thing was going to pee on him, too, his arm jerked upwards in response, and it flew off of him and disappeared back into the tall grass.

Y/N had abandoned him to the little menace already, her hands plunged into the pond as she scrubbed valiantly at her hands, muttering ew over and over before she pulled them back out and tried to shake the water off her hands. Levi was still wide eyed and trying to figure out what just happened.

That grin was back on her face as she turned towards him again. “I think I want to try and catch another one!”

“Why?”

“So I know I can really catch a frog; I wasn’t just lucky that time!”

Levi scowled, looking down at all the berries that had been scattered everywhere while he’d flailed around trying to get away from the stupid, tiny frog. She only laughed at his reaction, coming over and grabbing his arm to pull him up onto his feet, dragging him with her towards the trees.

“Okay, okay, we can play hide and seek instead. There’s plenty of places to hide in the woods. C’mon, c’mon!”

And just like that, the little hellion frog was forgotten as she urged him on towards the next experience, sweeping him away into more discoveries and experiences before he had the chance to dwell too long on whatever bad tried to poke through. Even though his legs were shaky, she volunteered to be ‘it’ over and over so he could rest in his hiding spots while she tried to find him, stopping every now and then to look at a bug they’d found, to pick a few berries from the bushes in the area, and at one point, to stare in wonder at a small nest of baby bunnies hidden in a hollow at the base of a tree. They looked but didn’t touch, watching the two tiny rabbits squinting back at them with their little noses twitching furiously, the two rabbits curled close together much like Levi and Y/N had curled up under the blankets last night.

And when the sky started to turn to a rusted orange, she carried him on her back without complaint once again as they headed towards her house once more. Levi could hardly stand after all the running around they’d done, but he didn’t regret it. In fact, he was perfectly content, even with the burn in his legs and ache in his arms. He was already dozing off as he tucked his head against her back once again, the exhaustion mixed with the relief from her carrying him back instead of him having to walk back, mixed in with the warm air and the dim light from the sun making it easy to simply...drift…

He woke up long enough to realize when he was being set down in front of the little house, weaving on his feet as Y/N helped him back inside and he curled up in the cloud of blankets and pillows with a softly sighed good-night, his hand groping about to find Tuff before he slipped into a blissful sleep.

When Levi opened his eyes again, it wasn’t to the bright light filtering into the tiny house as he curled up in a nest of blankets. It was dark, and the smell of sweat and dirt and decay assaulted him much more viscerally after the contrast of the clean, fresh air. He wasn’t even curled up on his side like he’d been when he’d fallen asleep, but still sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, back against the wall, arms wrapped around his legs.

Directly across from him was the bed that still had his mother’s dead body.

It was...a dream?

Blinking slowly, it seemed he hadn’t moved an inch, and he was covered in dirt and grime once more, not a hint of a clean patch of skin after scrubbing clean by that pond.

Or was I...seeing things?

It didn’t matter...it wasn’t real. Levi’s heart plummeted, and he ducked his head into his arms, surprised that his eyes actually stung with tears when he’d thought he was too dehydrated to cry anymore. None of it was real. The surface, the sun, the air, all the green, the nest of blankets, the food, the girl...it wasn’t real. He was still wasting away, forgotten where no one cared about him anymore, waiting to finally die. If he was seeing things, maybe he was finally close.

And yet…

The door to the room opened, a pale yellow light cutting across the room and over the bed, drawing Levi’s attention towards the man who stood just inside the doorway. The sudden appearance made him forget--for the time being--that he wasn’t hungry anymore.

*Reader’s POV*

“Where do you think you’re going with that bowl, young lady?”

You froze by the back door, a bowl of cereal you were hoping to bring out to Levi before you had to go to school in hand, suddenly feeling cold at your mother’s scolding tone. This was it, you’d been caught, you couldn’t think of an excuse fast enough and your mother was already closing in, probably to take the bowl from you, but Levi needed to eat before you left.

Looks like you couldn’t hide the boy in your playhouse much longer. Why did you feel like telling your mom about him was going to get you in trouble.

“I...I need to...Levi needs breakfast,” you said in a small voice, feeling like you were about to get yelled at any moment.

“Levi?” your mother asked, pausing just by the door. “Who’s Levi?”

“T...The boy in the playhouse.”

Her expression went blank, and then for some reason, worried. “There’s a boy in the playhouse?”

You nodded very slowly. “He-he’s been there since the other day. He needs to eat before I go to school, or he’ll have to wait till I’m home.”

Your mother’s expression was unreadable as she stared at you and the bowl in your hand for several long moments, then carefully said in an even tone, “Can I see Levi?”

She wasn’t yelling, so you didn’t think she was angry. Maybe this was good--if your mom knew about Levi, she could make sure he was taken care of while you were at school--he could have real food and eat dinner inside with you, sleep in a bed--or on the couch at least--and probably get a change of clothes.

After you nodded, your mom took the bowl out of your hands and followed you outside towards the playhouse. You hoped he was already awake--he probably was, since he’d fallen asleep so early yesterday.

“Levi?” You called softly, opening the door to see...a mass of blankets and pillows, like yesterday. Again, you pushed around a few of the blankets but couldn’t find him. Your mom was standing outside the house with the bowl still and you shook your head as you immediately went to look in the brush again. “He was back here when I came outside yesterday, he’s probably there, now.”

“Y/N…” your mother was starting to say tiredly, but you were already picking through the trees looking for Levi again, ignoring her as you tried to find your new friend.

“Levi? Levi? Levi!” you called, hoping his head would peek around one of the trees again. But he didn’t show up--you couldn’t find a trace of him. Did he leave? Did he leave in the middle of the night or before you woke up? He’d seemed happy yesterday, so why would he leave? Didn’t he like you, didn’t he like sleeping in the blanket nest?

“Y/N, its okay to have imaginary friends, but you can’t waste food on them, they don’t eat like you and mommy and daddy--” your mother was saying carefully behind you. Hearing her suggest Levi wasn’t real made you suddenly angry and frustrated as well as hurt at the thought that Levi had simply left.

“He wasn’t imaginary, he was real! A real boy that was really here!” Your eyes burned and a few angry, hurt tears slipped past your eyes, the words starting to stick in your throat as you felt yourself starting to cry. “His name was Levi...and he didn’t even say bye.”

Next Chapter--->

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og-danny-dorito · 5 years ago

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《 Call Out My Name 》

〔 A/N :

Hey, I know no one likes reading this part so I'll try to make it brief. This was done as a gift for @youthbitch whom is very entertaining and sweet and honestly just flat out adorable with the coolest and most creative ideas I've heard in a really long time. I hope y'all like this, even though it's not that great of a project considering some of my other stuff. Basically Jason tells the reader to vent and they do, leading to an awkward pat and a promise that he'll be there for them. Tell me if y'all want gendered five or not and I'll release ones for any genders separately or change the pronouns in some to be custom to male, female and/or gender neutral. Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you like the story thing.

⁃ Danny ✌🏼🗿 〕

<<------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->>

Cigarette smoke pooled on the hotel ceiling. The scent of it hanging in the air, the visual as it whisked in curls on itself as it moved freely, even the feeling of it curving around your skin made you feel the familiar sensation of a flipping stomach. You could remember the exact moment where this had all began; where the phone calls on the middle of the night and the surprise break-ins through your window took place has remained no lost memory even though it happened quite a few months ago. There was always someone nearby, always someone watching. It had been like that from the beginning.

He was quiet as he breathed, his eyes closed as he inhaled the smoke from the cigarette between his left index and middle finger. It was a crime how pretty he looked while breathing in that cancer stick. A self destructive item for an equally self destructive person, you supposed, but it didn't stop you from feeling the same amount guilt for not being able to talk him out of it. You weren't perfect; you never had been. And you didn't intend to make it so either. So why did he look at you like that? Why when he touched you, you felt like the most implant person on the planet? Why, even though he rarely spoke, did his words feel like they were made for you? A chunk of you felt shame for it.

Shame for the selfishness of wanting to keep him there, with you, away from what he so often found solace in even though it was a continuation of the past events that left him so scarred and beaten. You weren't a perfect empath, but if you were in his position, every day would feel like the beginning of the end. Waiting for it to all come back looping. For the cycle of attachment, pain and grief to repeat itself only to halt when he could no longer bear to witness its gruesome pillage of the people around him and himself. No matter how strong he was, he felt the pain. And you saw it. When you were alone. When you were quiet and settled. With his hands gripped tightly to you and his head rested in the nook of your shoulder. Armor did only so much with a fragile warrior underneath.

"I can almost hear your thoughts from over here." His voice was low, kept quiet due to the desire to keep this serene state of the room. The TV ran, but the words weren't heard. Background noise; always a good deterrent from doing any hard and focused thinking. He seemed to take another drag from his cigarette, and, turning his head over to roll in your direction, he shifted in place to adjust his sore muscles a little. Jason hadn't bothered to undress into pajamas much less take of his shoes before getting into the bed, settling with just putting on the TV, lighting a cig and letting his thoughts run with a warm body next to him. Of course, he hadn't ever implied using you as just a warm body, but you had thought it over and decided you didn't mind much if he used you like that for a night or two.

You were quiet before glancing over, leaning your head back against the board of the cheap bed frame. Silence. You couldn't find anything to say that might contribute, but he managed to stay patient. You noticed he was getting better at that lately; he must've been going to therapy more often lately. "Something up?", he said, concern lacing his tone. You raised a brow, moving your head over just enough to roll to meet his eyes. Vibrant green, like radioactive waste., almost like they were glowing. A light at the end of a river. Or a beacon of a lost past long since having been chased after in hopes of its repeat. The question jarred a small grin out of you. "Not much you'd be interested in. Why, you wanna switch listening positions for tonight?", you asked, sounding coy. He snorted a little, rolling his eyes before taking another drag from the cigarette. It was interesting to see how his lips closed around it. They were chapped but full. Almost made you wonder what they'd feel like under the pad of your thumb, but you were smarter than tricking yourself into thinking it would happen.

Jason exhaled the smoke after keeping it in his lungs for a while. It shot from his lips quickly, soon rising to the ceiling before eventually dissipating after a few moments of lingering around it. It was so dim in here you could imagine that the ceiling wasn't grimy and stained from previous chainsmokers. But you doubted anyone else had revealed the deepest parts of themselves like you had both done before here. His amused grin turned to a small frown as time passed, and you watched as his brows furrowed. "I'm..." he paused. "I'm just concerned, is all. You just seem a little dissociated. Haven't contacted anyone lately or really talked to anyone in a few days, even me. I might be reading this whole thing wrong, but if something's up, you can...” He took a second to shift a bit in his seat. “...I want you to let me know."

The last sew words seemed to permeate for a good few reasons, but he spoke with such determination in his voice you swore he'd hunt down and strangle your problems to death if it weren't for the fact that they weren't tangible. You ran a hand through your hair, and almost immediately he managed to grab a small strand and twirl it between two fingers. He had always been fascinated with your hair, although you never found much special about it. He seemed to care more about smaller details than the bigger picture. For a good few seconds, you remained quiet, eyebrows furrowing to try to figure out what the hell to say without making yourself seem pissed off.

He extended the cigarette to you, and you shook your head before straightening up a bit. The bed creaked under the pressure. "I uh..." You squinted at the TV ahead. Seemed like some infomercial was on, but it didn't catch your interest. Even though you wanted to, you didn't change the subject entirely to the infomercial since he'd pinpoint that as avoiding the question and would then be even more worried for you. You attempted to sort your thoughts, but you supposed venting wasn't about organization. "I'm not sure, to be honest. I like...I'm just getting tired of all the shit around me, yknow? I just want things to change."

He nodded, making sure to slowly make his way up to rub at your scalp. It felt oddly nice, maybe even a little soothing, to have someone vaguely pulling upon your hair. He was quiet, taking drags from his cigarette whilst also paying close attention to you. But thankfully not to the point of feeling like you were being scrutinized. "But..my goal takes time. And I'm a patient person, but I can't...I don't want to wait if it's all I do. I wonder a lot if it'd be different if I was somewhere else in a different environment, but I don't want to just...leave everyone. I've got a good system set up.", you said, furrowing your brows. Jason was quiet as he listened but made sure to nod while you spoke. He sighed a little, leaning back. You were feeling yourself sink into the mattress. You had to get somewhere tomorrow, but it wouldn't kill you to fall asleep here. You'd probably sleep easier if you were next to him, anyway.

He seemed to tense a bit at the last part, but spoke nothing of it. The only way you could tell was how his left bicep shook a little to make your hair feel like you were being petted like a cat, but he covered it up by shifting quickly enough to play it off as an attempt to get more comfortable. You pursed your lips. Maybe he felt uncomfortable. You refrained from talking for the moment, letting him mess with your hair for now. It made you feel at ease, although the tenseness in your shoulders gave away your lack of relaxation. From the corner of your eye you could see him slow to a stop in his movements, scooting a bit closer to your side. "What would you do if you could?"

The question made you pause, head tilting back to expose the bare flesh of your neck and the slight sheen of sweat that formed on the surface like a veil. It wasn't even that hot in here, but since he was an old man and always hated the cold he cranked it up enough to leave you a little damp on the skin. He might've liked it actually; the way it shone in the light brightly to make this messy afterglow on you was priceless. It was odd to think that you weren't just some vivid hallucination he felt when he got like this, that you were a living body with weight and a mind and tangible flesh. Even more so, it was odd to think that you even felt comfortable talking to him about this. Jason didn't deserve this. He was becoming more sure of it as time passed.

"I don't know. I..." Your brows furrowed, leaving you with your eyes blankly looking to the tv. White noise, a distraction. A distraction from focused thoughts or too much of them. The only time it wasn't helpful was when you were trying to genuinely sort out your thoughts; like writing words on a page, only to have your elbows violently jerked every so often by some outside force to derail you for a few moments. Your joints and muscles felt sore from the day. It had been a long one, and you were pretty sure you needed another swig of the beer that was sitting between your thighs. Grabbing it, you brought the rim of the bottle to your lips, letting it clink against your teeth softly before allowing the burning to go down your throat.

He was quiet as you did this, letting his hand fall to his lap where the cigarette slowly burned out. "I wouldn't know where to go from here. I mean I have an idea but I don't know if it'll work...", you trailed off, letting your head drop. It took Jason a moment to fully register what you said but by the time he did he was already splaying his hand out at the back of your scalp. His hands had always been chapped, regardless of whether he was working or not. Always something to keep him busy. Always something to keep his mind off of things. But he didn't feel the anxiety he had before at most things. Now it was a dull undertone of a feeling, a familiar knot in his chest that made his brows furrow together and his mouth pull into a taut line in thought, just as he had now.

You assumed he was listening intently, but a part of you wished he would feel more than you thought. Simple confusion was easy to decipher, but he seemed more...concerned. Concerned for you. Which seemed like an odd concept right now considering you did most of the worrying. But you didn't question it, and after a few long moments of glaring at the TV screen and letting the slow feeling of sleepiness come over you, you felt the hand leave your scalp to snake around your shoulders.

This initially caught you off guard, but as soon as you saw that Jason was narrowly avoiding eye contact and lighting another cigarette with his free hand and the stick between his teeth, you found yourself cracking a small but noticeable grin. The bags under your eyes seemed to disappear for a moment as the muscles beneath your cheeks scrunched up. "It's uh... it's gonna be okay, alright?", he said gently enough to hear but not loud enough to echo. You sunk a bit into the mattress and his arm behind your head, head turning lazily in his direction. For a moment he seemed awkward, but at your relaxation into his embrace, you felt his arms soothe a bit under the pressure and revert from their tensed state. "Is it?"

The teasing question made him avert his eyes even further, finding interest in the wall nearby. But it was noticeable that he was blushing, regardless of the poor lighting in the room. Here- where it smelled like ashes and cleaning products, where the light burned a dying yellow and the mattress creaked under little to no pressure, where the smallness of the room and bolted down furniture made you feel odd and away from home. Here is where you felt the most safe right now. Not with anyone else, not anywhere else. Just here. And as you reached over for the cigarette between his lips to take a drag from it yourself, you watched as the smoke rose to the ceiling and dissipated without another word.

"I'm here for you, Y/n."

<<_E N D_>>

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watchmegetobsessed · 5 years ago

Text

Enchanted - Adam Sackler (pt. 2)

hi guys! this is a repost because something went wrong with the original one and it couldn’t be opened for some reason. let me know if it doesn’t work again! im also posting this story on AO3 so if anything happens next time you can always find it there! click here to see my profile

series summary: You are casted as Giselle in the Broadway adaptation of Enchanted with Adam as Robert.

word count: ~4k

Part 1

masterlist

Chapter title: Limo

“Let’s see one more time from the second verse,” Cynthia, your vocal coach instructs sitting back behind the piano, eyes fixed on the sheets before her fingers start working on the keys, bringing the song alive again.

Taking a deep breath your chest buffs and a moment later you are singing the lines you’ve been practicing for hours now. Your vocal chords feel tired, but you keep pushing and the notes come out almost perfectly.

“Amazing! Don’t forget to make the end of the second line a little more airy and sweet,” Cynthia reminds you when you finish and grabbing a pen you circle the word to remind yourself next time.

“Thank you, will do,” you smile as you start packing your stuff.

It’s been just two days since the table reading, so far you’ve had two rehearsals with Cynthia and two meetings with the animation crew that will be making the beginning of the story into animation, just like in the movie and it’s going to be projected to four different screens on the stage, giving a shorter version of the original one before anyone sets feet on stage in real life. You are beyond excited and thrilled to see the outcome of all these little pieces, but that’s gonna take a little longer.

As you say your goodbye to Cynthia you walk out of the room and head up to the office since Petra asked you to drop by for some more signing. One arm deep in your bag, you’re looking for your phone when you turn the corner in the hallway and you bump right into someone.

“Whoa there, Giselle. Watch out, this is the real world.”

Two large hands are on your arms as Adam’s low chuckle rings in your ear.

“Oh, sorry. I’m a little tired,” you shyly smile taking a step back and as your eyes find his gaze the picture of him spanking that girl in the short film appears in front of you, making your cheeks red as a tomato.

“It’s exhausting being a princess, right?” he jokes with a charming smile, brushing his hair out of his forehead as he shifts his weight from one leg to the other. “Where you headed?”

“I just, um… I need to sign a few papers in the office.”

“You done for the day?” “Yeah, I just had a rehearsal with my vocal couch,” you nod tugging your hair behind your ears, his intense look making your nerves tremble inside you. This man is really just something else and figuring out seems like the hardest task you’ve had to face so far.

“Sounds great, wanna grab something to eat? I feel like we should get to know each other better. Dance practices start tomorrow, I would hate to feel awkward when we are trying to look madly in love.”

He has a valid point, though you’re not sure if being alone with him is a good idea, but you just don’t want to appear rude, so you don’t have any choice than to accept the invitation. Adam walks you to the office and waits for you while you sign the paperwork, chatting up with a young assistant outside and when you return you have no doubt she has fallen for him under those three minutes you’ve spent inside.

“Alright, see you around Susan,” he salutes seeing you walk out.

“Bye Adam!” she giggles returning to her work and you can’t help but glare at her a little longer, watching her absentminded smile linger on her lips from the conversation with him.

“What?” Adam asks when the two of you are in the elevator and most likely your look on him gives away you are deep in your thoughts about him.

“Nothing,” you shake your head forcing your eyes away from his tall frame.

“Come on, I can tell you have something to say,” he chuckles tilting his head to the side.

“I don’t,” you insist. No way you are telling him what’s been on your mind.

“So you are the kind of person who just pushes everything deep down into herself and then at one point you’ll just explode?”

“I’m not pushing anything down, I just like to keep some stuff private,” you narrow your eyes at him. “Do you share everything you think about with the people around you?”

“Actually, I do,” he states as the elevator door opens and you walk out side-by-side. “I’m an honest person and I have always had a hard time filtering what leaves my mouth.”

“So you just blurt everything out?” you ask with an amused chuckle.

“Basically,” he nods holding the door open for you as the two of you step out into the chilly late afternoon of the city.

“That’s can’t be too beneficial sometimes.”

“Have I offended people with my words? Definitely, but at least you don’t have to worry about what I think about because you actually know,” he scoffs and you shake your head at him chuckling.

He suggests a pasta place near and you let him lead the way while the two of you keep up a rather light, nice conversation. When you finally sit at the table with your delicious looking carbonara spaghetti right in front of you, that’s when you realize how hungry you’ve really been feeling.

“So, I’m not really big on dancing,” he starts, eyes fixed on his plate as he twirls his fork around, getting the pasta around it before sticking it into his mouth. “I apologize for all the times I’ll crush your feet in advance.”

“How did you get the part if you can’t dance?” you chuckle.

“Do you think Patrick Dempsey was a great dancer in the movie?” he asks and you see his point. “Anyway, I’m just that charming, I guess,” he shrugs jokingly.

“Yeah. I’ll be doing the real work anyway.”

“All the singing, dancing and everything, it really is on your shoulders.”

You just silently nod, suddenly realizing the truth behind those words. The excitement and amusement have pushed everything aside in the past week, but the thought of being a leading role in a Broadway show has been weighing on you secretly, building up your anxiety in the back of your mind about how much is really on your performance.

“Did I say something?” Adam asks, the fork stopping in his hand before he places it back onto his plate, looking at you searching for an answer.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Then why do you look like you just saw a pedophile for the first time?”

“That’s an odd comparison,” you huff at his words.

“But it’s the truth. So what’s gotten you all pale suddenly?”

“I guess it’s just the weight of this whole thing,” you shrug, trying to make it look like a smaller deal than it really is for you.

“It really is a big thing,” he nods in agreement and you’re glad he doesn’t try to convince you it’s just all in your head. “When my previous show opened on Broadway, my then girlfriend just dropped at me that she is moving to Iowa and I couldn’t focus through the night, I felt like I fucked the whole thing up.”

The mentioning of his ex-girlfriend has you wondering who he is talking about. Is this the girl from the film or the one he made the movie with? Is this Jessa girl still his girlfriend anyway? You didn’t find that out and it would be weird to just ask him about it, right?

“Sounds like the worst thing to say to someone who is about to go on stage.”

“Yeah, she didn’t really understand the concept of timing, I guess.” Adam shakes his head at the thought as he continues eating and your curiosity is growing bigger with each passing moment. You just can’t let it slip without a word, you need to ask him about the film. He put it out himself for the whole world to see, he can’t be that ashamed of it, right?

“So… Is this the girl from your film?”

His eyes flicker up to you and you immediately feel your cheeks heating up under his gaze. At first you regret opening your mouth, his straight face frightens you, but then you see that tiny smile playing on his lips and you figure he is more amused than mad.

“So you did your search on me.”

“My friend did,” you shrug and this is the truth, it was Lora who went digging, but he doesn’t have to know it was your idea.

“I bet you have questions.” Leaning back in his seat he drops his hands to his lap.

“Quite a few,” you nod, not wanting to lie now. This is your chance to have a better look at what kind of man he really is.

“Shoot them.”

“Is it true? The plot really happened?”

“Indeed,” he nods without the slightest sign of shame on his face. “I dated Hannah, kind of on and off for a while, then we broke up, and I formed a surprising bond with her best friend, Jessa that eventually turned into a relationship.”

“Don’t you think it was fucked up to date your ex’s best friend?”

You still haven’t been able to wrap your head around the betrayal that it must have been for the first girl, to see her ex with someone she probably trusted and loved.

“I’m not denying that we could have dealt with the situation in a smarter and nicer way, it would have been better if we just came clear at the beginning and be honest with Hannah, but I do not regret being with Jessa.”

“Has she moved on?” you ask and you quickly add: “Hannah, I mean.”

“She lives upstate now and has a baby. As far as I know she and Jessa made up, so… Yeah.”

“So you and Jessa are not together anymore?” You find yourself asking, and the amount of curiosity in yourself surprises you. You definitely shouldn’t care about this as much as you do.

“No,” he shakes his head. “It was never gonna last, we were destroying each other.”

You’re dying to know more, wanting to find out what he really means by that, but you feel like you can’t cross this line just yet, so you have to put up with whatever you got.

“You watched the whole thing?” His eyes flicker up to you, now he is the curious one.

“No, just a little bit of it,” you say, feeling the blush return to your cheeks as the spanking scene immediately starts in your mind again. Adam stares at you for a bit, trying to figure out how much you really saw and you guess your face gives you away way more than you’d want it.

“You think I’m weird,” he states and not questions.

“I was just… surprised,” you admit chuckling. “I wasn’t expecting to see you spank someone on the screen.”

“So you are that… vanilla type of person, huh?”

“I’m sorry?” you grimace.

“Spanking is not that kinky, you wouldn’t believe what kind of fucked up shit people actually do. But if you are horrified of spanking you really are that prude type of person.”

“I’m not prude,” you defend yourself, the hurt in yourself surprising you. Why do you care what he thinks about you?

“Oh really?” He raises his eyebrows at you, obviously enjoying where the conversation is heading. “What’s the most extreme place where you’ve had sex?”

Now you really think your head looks like a tomato and you regret getting into this conversation. You should have known he would go into details.

“I’m not talking about this with you.” Shaking your head you reach for your drink and wish you could drown yourself in the icy water.

“Why? It’s not that big of a deal, you already know something juicy about me,” he chuckles, clearly enjoying making you feel uncomfortable.

“No, but I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

“You’ve seen me spanking someone, I’m sure you can’t get the picture out of your head. Give me something I can think about so we can be equal.”

“That’s literally the worst reasoning I’ve ever heard,” you shake your head laughing.

“Come on! If you tell me, it will help bringing us closer and we can work together better.”

“I doubt that would be the situation,” you give him a look placing your glass back to the table, but he is just smirking at you cheekily.

“I won’t tell anyone, alright? And besides, I’m asking for just one thing. If you watch my whole film, you’ll have a lot more on me, so you’ll be winning.”

“I don’t know if it should be considered winning and I’m not planning on watching the rest of your film, so…”

“Y/N, stop being a pussy!” he groans rolling his eyes at you. “Just spill it!”

He is really not giving up and you blame yourself for getting yourself into this in the first place. You should have just kept your mouth shut.

He leans forward and pouts his lip at you, begging with his eyes and you know you’re screwed. You have no choice but tell him.

“In a limo,” you simply say and you watch his eyes go wide.

“W-With like other people in there, or…”

“No, it was just me and the guy and the partition was up, but I think the driver knew exactly what was happening,” you shake your head chuckling at the memory.

“When did this happen?”

“I was… twenty. So like five years ago. I was dating this rich guy who took me to a posh party and I drank a little too much from the fancy champagne so I didn’t care to wait until we got back to my place.”

You don’t feel that nasty like you were expecting to, it’s like sharing a dirty little secret without getting judged, because Adam looks more thrilled than disgusted by this little detail he just learned about you.

“Was it any good?”

“I mean, we were kinda drunk and it’s not as comfortable as you’d think it would be in a limo, because the height is not enough in there, but it wasn’t bad for sure,” you admit chuckling.

“Mhm, alright, now I’ll think of you every time I see a limo somewhere,” he nods and you kick him under the table making him laugh.

“Shut up. Don’t you ever bring this up, alright?” you warn him holding up a finger in front of him. Raising his hands he shows he got the hint, though you are not perfectly sure he won’t ever mention it.

You hate to say but he was right when he said it would bring you and him closer. After sharing such an intimate thing you don’t feel that anxious just being around him. You’d think talking about your most extreme sex experience and his kink of spanking someone would birth some very awkward tension between the two of you, but it’s not like that at all. You still think he is quite weird in some kind of way, but then… who isn’t? You’re pretty sure he has something against you as well, this is just how it is.

***

The thing with Adam and his role is that he basically falls out of all the dancing and singing, leaving the hardest tasks to you and Clyde while he is usually just… there. In the park scene you’ll have a whole ballet with about thirty dancers with a continuously changing set around you, dancing for about three minutes straight while all Adam has to do is just… follow you around.

But he still attends rehearsals because Matt says Adam needs to know where he stands in the whole at all times. This is why you are at a huge mirrored room with ten dancers, you and Matt, relentlessly working on the choreography for part of the park scene while Adam just basically lingers around the room, occasionally standing in his spot.

“Get a great hold on her hip and just let her momentum help you raise her,” Matt instructs to the young dancer guy whose name you’ve been trying to remember for an hour, but it just doesn’t come to you. You stand facing each other as he nods and grabs on your hips firmly while you put your hands to his shoulders.

“Five, six, seven, eight!” Matt counts and you leap away from the ground, jumping up, but he misses the beat and doesn’t hold you in time, making you fall back to your feet and failing the move, again. “It’s not that hard, Jordan!” Matt snaps, clearly annoyed that you’ve been trying to nail this move for about ten minutes now. At least now you have his name.

He nervously lets go of you, rubbing his face with his hands, you bet he is trying his best, but he is just too nervous to do it.

Looking around Matt seemingly tries to find a substitute, but the small group of dancers at the rehearsal is not too promising, given the fact that most of them are women. You cross your arms on your chest, swinging your hips to the sides absentmindedly as you wait patiently. Matt’s dark and tired eyes land on Adam, who is sitting in the corner, reading a book and he makes an immediate decision.

“Adam, would you join us, please?”

His head shoots up and nodding he puts the book down striding over to you in the middle of the room.

“We need to improvise and I’m sure you’ll have no problem lifting her up,” Matt explains and walking around he instructs his hands to your hips.

You gulp hard at the warmth of his touch, having him so close is suddenly making you more self-conscious at the way you stand and look. Matt tells him how the move should go and Adam seems to be deep in his focus as he nods at the instructions.

“Y/N, try to jump a little higher, Adam is taller so you’ll need more power.”

“Okay,” you nod placing your hands to his broad shoulders.

“Alright, five, six, seven, eight!”

Bending your knee you push yourself away from the ground, your eyes meeting Adam’s gaze the moment your feet rise into the air and unlike with Jordan, you actually stay in the air.

His grip on your hips tighten, fingers digging into you and you suck on your breath holding part of your weight on your arms leant onto his shoulders. Just as Matt told him, he twirls you around, the skirt you’ve been wearing for rehearsals to make you get used to your future dresses flows after your frame until he finishes the whole circle and gently puts you down to the floor again, hands still on your waist and you don’t let go of him either.

“Okay, this looked amazing, so we are keeping it with you,” Matt cheers clapping his hands together, making both of you turn to him.

“What?” you ask a little confused.

“Yeah, I think it would look great.”

“Isn’t the scene about him being totally skeptical about the whole singing and dancing?”

“Yeah, but there is conflict in him, the music takes him a little bit so I think it would actually be amazing if he was the one doing the lifting.”

You see his logic and you have to admit it looks good, so you don’t question his decision. Matt puts the music on and the dancers take their spot around you as you start the previously learned choreography. You see Adam following his way around while everyone else is dancing around him, keeping up his skeptical act before it’s finally time for the lift again.

Your hands go to his shoulders and this time the whole move is faster, it’s just about a heartbeat long, but your eyes meet again and you let out a gasp knowing the music is tuning out the sound of it. You wouldn’t bet your life on it, but for a split second it feels like he squeezes your hips while holding up, and when he lets go of you his hand brushes against your butt or so it feels.

Your body reacts regardless of what your brain is telling yourself. It feels good to be touched by him and whenever his fingers dig into your flesh you think about what it would feel like if you weren’t dressed. And then, you make the mistake of thinking about the film again, the way his arms flexed with each movement before his palm collided with the girl’s ass.

You miss a step, but luckily, it’s not that big of a deal, Matt just tells you to focus next time and you shortly nod before he orders a five minute break. Wanting to escape the closeness of Adam you launch for your bag in the back of the room and grab your water feeling like you need to clear yourself out somehow.

“You clearly can’t contain your thoughts.”

His voice makes you jump and turning around your eyes meet his satisfied grin that you want to wipe off of him so bad.

“It would be easier if you weren’t touching my ass.”

“I wasn’t!” he protests, but the cheeky smile on his face gives him away and that you felt it right. He really was touching your ass. “If it makes you feel better, I thought that your rich ex-boyfriend had the same view of you in the limo while you rode him that I have when I lift you up.”

“Fucking Hell, Adam!” you gasp smacking his arm as he just laughs, enjoying that he can make you feel uncomfortable so easily.

“Come on! I’m just joking, okay? Let loose, you are so tensed.”

“If you kept your promise I wouldn’t be so tensed,” you mumble under your breath turning away from him, but he moves to get in your sight once again, leaning against the wall.

“Alright, I’m sorry. But I didn’t tell anyone, I swear.”

“Better keep that way.”

“Have you watched the rest of the film?”

“No, Adam. I told you I don’t want to,” you sigh, but it’s not really the truth. You do have curiosity about the rest, you just don’t know if you’d be able to handle it.

“Okay, alright. Sorry for bugging you. Though I’m curious what you’d say about the whole thing, like cinematically.”

“I’ll let you know when I choose to watch it and have an opinion,” you force a smile to yourself before walking away or more like escaping from the conversation.

Rehearsal ends an hour later and you have to do the lift three more times, having Adam stare into your soul every time you are above him, but you don’t think about the film anymore. Instead, it’s all about what he is thinking about. The thought of being on top of him in the back of a limo poisons your mind and no matter how hard you are trying to let go of it, you fail every time because there is that tiny smile playing on his lips and it’s making you lose your shit immediately.

You manage to leave without running into him once the rehearsal is over. It’s a huge wave of relief once you finally arrive home and you also feel like you could collapse right into bed from being so tired. After a relaxing shower you climb to bed and take your computer just checking up on your usual things. Right until you find yourself in your browser’s history, the cursor lingering above the link to Adam’s film.

“I’m losing my mind,” you whisper to yourself opening it and the film starts on your screen once again.

general/forever taglist for Adam Driver

i do separate taglists for different people, but not for different works of mine! if you ask to be on my Adam taglist, you’ll be tagged in all of my Adam fics!

@superdriver @siren-queen03 @holacherrycola90 @spencer-is-amazing @unusual-kindred-spirits @hailthemightywoecloud @holy-kylo-stars @kowalskibro-adamdriverblog @hurricanesunset @writerandee @luxury-0pps @prncess91 @malefoygal @zaahidahhh @filternotincluded @fire-in-her-veinz @emily-strange @ktellmeastory @grouchosgirl @tapismyforte @unusual-driver-paterson @beeblisss @septicvic97

if you’d like to be taken off or added to the list, please let me know!

#adam sackler #adam driver #hbo girls #adam sackler imagine #adam sackler fanfiction #adam sackler fiction #adam sackler au #adam sackler x reader #adam sackler x you #adam sackler x y/n

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addictedtostorytelling · 4 years ago

Note

Hello, there! Addicted- that sounds like an appropriate name kkkkk-, I would like your advice on one subject. I want to make a gif from a movie, "Fear" do you know it? I have it downloaded on my computer, Which program you advise me to use? I never made one before, so I'm pretty lost here.

hey, @mementovive!

you can call me aj, if you prefer. 😉

as far as gif-making goes, i make most of my gifs from dvds, but the process is pretty similar to making them from downloads, from what i understand.

the programs i use are:

handbrake (to convert files to mp4 format)

windows movie maker (to cut and manipulate the mp4 files down to the right scenes and sizes)

and adobe photoshop cs5 (to make the actual gifs)

the process itself is kind of involved, so i’ll put the instructions after the “keep reading,” if you’re interested.

__________

i suppose i should preface this post by saying i have a pc, and i have no idea if any of these programs work for macs.

so.

to make gifs, i start in handbrake, where i take the following steps:

(note: if your video file is already in mp4 format, you can skip down to the “windows movie maker” part of the tutorial.)

select the source from wherever i have the video file saved.

“browse” to find the destination where i want to save the converted file and save it under whatever file name i want.

select the “high profile” preset from the right-hand menu.

make sure the cropping is set to zero in all directions. (if a change to the cropping is needed, select “custom” in order to do so.)

make sure that the “anamorphic: none” and “modulus: 16″ size options are selected.

hit the “start button” up top and wait for the video to convert.

the bigger the file is, the longer it takes to convert.

(i typically try to only convert short clips, a few seconds or minutes in length at most, to avoid crashing the program.)

i then move to windows movie maker, where i select the little filmstrip icon in the center of the screen to import my newly-made mp4 file:

once the mp4 file uploads, i use the slide rule on the filmstrip to select where i want to crop the file. then i hit the “split” button and delete the excess video material i don’t want.

since photoshop balks at longer files, i usually limit each clip to no longer than 25 seconds in duration. i also try to leave some extra frames before and after the scene i actually want to gif, as photoshop tends to shave off of a second or so from each clip when you upload to start giffing.

after cropping the file down to the size/length i want it to be, i click on the blue “file” tab at the top of the program, select “save movie” and then the “recommended for this project” setting on the sub-menu. i then save the file to my preferred destination.

i am now ready to go to photoshop and begin giffing.

to open my intended mp4 file, i go to the “file” menu, select “import,” and then select “video frames to layers” from the sub-menu.

i then select the mp4 file from whatever destination i saved it to in movie maker.

at this point, a pop-up menu called “import video to layers” appears, like so:

if i want to gif the whole clip, i select the “from beginning to end” option. otherwise, i click “selected range only” and use the slide rule on the video viewer to select which portion of the clip i want.

in either case, i make sure that the “limit to every” box is checked, like so:

i typically choose 2 frames, as doing so makes the gifs smoother.

(the higher the number of frames selected, the more gaps there will be between frames, which translates to the gifs ultimately being choppier.)

i also keep the “make frame animation” box at the bottom of the pop-up menu selected.

once i have selected everything i need to, i then hit the “ok” button, at which point photoshop creates an animation timeline at the bottom of my screen.

from here, my next tasks become

cropping,

sizing,

coloring,

and sharpening

my gifs, in that order.

my first item of business is to delete any extra frames i do not wish to gif from the timeline. i do so by selecting said frames in the timeline and clicking on the little trashcan icon at the bottom of the timeline, near the scroll bar.

once i have the frames i actually want to work with---which may all be for one gif or for multiple gifs i intend to make into a set---i click on the menu icon on the right-hand side of the animation timeline.

doing so opens up a pop-up “actions” menu.

i then select “select all” from the actions menu, which highlights all remaining frames in the animation timeline.

next, on the “layers” widget on the right side of the screen, i select all layers, making sure that they’re highlighted, and press CTRL + G to put them into a “group” folder. the name is this folder is unimportant. (photoshop will automatically name it “group 1.”)

i then return to the animation timeline, where, with all frames still selected, i click on the little black arrow at the bottom of a frame (beside the timestamp that says “0.03″ and select “other.”

i then input a set delay of 0.09 seconds and click “ok.”

now i select the crop tool from the tools widget on the left side of my screen. i use this tool to cut away any framing around the gif, like so:

next, i click on the “image” tab at the top of the screen and select “image size.”

the size of image i want will depend on what kind of gif(s) i’m making. if i am making a single gif or large gifs for a “stackable” set like this one, i make it no wider than 540px. if i am making a gifset that is two gifs across, then no wider than 268px. if a gifset that is three gifs across, then no wider than 177px.

if i adjust my gif to the width i want and the height ends up being less than ideal, then i undo the width adjustment, input the height i want, and then crop the gif to the proper width (manually) using the crop tool rather than the “image size” menu, as doing so prevents skewing.

in any case, once i have the gif the size i want it to be, i start on coloring.

honestly, coloring gifs is the most artful and least scientific part of the whole process. the tools for doing so are found both in the “layers > new adjustment layer” tab at the top of the program and in the “adjustments” widget on the right-hand side of the program, adjacent to the layers widget.

there are lots of good tutorials on coloring available for beginners, both on tumblr and on youtube, so i recommend reading/watching a couple, just to get a feel for what all goes into the process.

once you have the basics down, you kinda just have to play around to find what looks good to you. some gif-makers use psds, some color by hand.

i tend to have kind of a “base set” of coloration that i use and then go by feel on a lot of stuff, favoring bolder colors where i can, though i am still striving to achieve the kind of beautifully vivid hues expert gif-makers like @panchostokes create.

seriously! check these out. they’re gorgeous!

in any case, after coloring the gif comes sharpening, which is another process i suggest you check out tutorials to learn.

tbh, sharpening is one of my weakest skills as a gif-maker, and particularly as i most often make gifs of 90s and early 00s shows, which tend to have low resolution and therefore need a lot of work; in addition to using tutorials, i’ve been playing around with my own sharpening “recipe” lately, but i haven’t hit on the perfect admixture just yet.

once i’m finished with the gif---cropping, coloring, sharpening---i go to the “file” menu in photoshop and click “save for web devices.”

before saving, i make sure that the lower left-hand corner of the pop-up shows that my gif is under the current tumblr gif size limit (to ensure maximum image quality).

at present---as of september 2020---the current limit is 8mb.

however, most gif-makers try to keep their gifs under 5mb, when possible, as tumblr compresses larger gifs, ultimately lowering the quality by changing them from .gif to .gifv files.

if i find one of my gifs is over the size limit, then i go back to make the gif smaller---by cropping it---shaving off the extra mbs.

finally, i check to make sure that the “forever” looping option is selected, so that my gif doesn’t stop running after its first play-through.

once i have everything as i like, i click “save.”

---and that’s the basics of how i make gifs.

of course, mine is neither the only nor best way to make gifs, and i’m sure that more seasoned gif-makers reading this tutorial are probably side-eyeing my process 👀 👀 👀.

there are undoubtedly easier ways to do things and methods that achieve prettier results; this process is just the one i’ve developed through trial and error, so it’s the one i stick with.

note that i also didn’t say anything here about adding text to gifs, but that’s something else you can learn how to do through more thorough tutorials than this one.

my best advice for aspiring gif-makers is to find a gif-maker whose work wows you and see if they have any tutorials or tips; i personally learned almost everything i know about gif-making from this very excellent tutorial @everynineyearsandthirtyfourdays posted years ago.

anyway.

good luck giffing fear!

i hadn’t heard of that movie before, but i see that billy plays a role. nice!

feel welcome to send more questions any time.

#answered #mementovive #**#my tutorials #giffing

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marshmallowprotection · 5 years ago

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17 with Saeran!! With Saeran borrowing the clothes from a MC which is on the bigger size, please? 💖

(God, my weakness is plus size MC. Anybody else? Before I lost weight due to my health issues, I was starved for content like this. Well, no, I’m still always looking for content for bigger people in imagines because people just don’t write it often enough. Also a personal HC here and not to self project but, Saeran struggles with dysmorphia.)

17. guess I have to wear your clothes… but they’re so big!

You heard the sounds of his footsteps from the other side of the house long before he appeared; You tilted your head back against the arm of the couch to catch a glimpse of him as he came into the room.

Saeran looked over at you from the doorway with the look of drowsiness still leaving his face as he yawned, and patted down his messy locks. Normally, you would have hopped onto the hype train for how cute he looked. Although, something was a little off today. You weren’t quite sure what it was but something was different.

It wasn’t all that strange for him to clock out in the middle of the day for a nap if he was having a particularly bad day with his mental health.

Sometimes when he felt that his first instinct was to put himself down or just let it fester, but normally he would reach out and ask for you to join him so that he wouldn’t be alone. That was the way that he had been coping since you two had gotten out of Magenta.

You had been out that morning doing some shopping so he had no choice but to take care of himself in the meantime. His coming solution was a depression nap, but, hey, there was nothing wrong with that. Then, it smacked you in the face, you figured out what had been off.

That was your hoodie that he was wearing, not one of his own. It bunched up and hung off of his frame, as most clothes did.

“Saeran, are you wearing my hoodie right now?”

“…Mmm. Yeah, s'warm.”

It felt a little odd.

Normally, this was the other way around in relationships. It was you that was supposed to be stealing your boyfriend’s clothes. Not him taking your clothes instead, right? Well, that was how you had thought it was from years of seeing people do that.

You two weren’t exactly one of those cheesy couples out there, though.

The issue with this in your eyes was he was rail thin and you were blessed with curves and tummy rolls. All those years that he had spent working himself into the ground and avoiding taking care of himself had made him on the rather small size. He had gotten much better in recent months.

But, there was still this gap between both of you.

There was still a stark contrast between the two of you at times that you couldn’t help but see. You weren’t always self-conscious about your size and your body but sometimes it just flared its ugly head and once it got into you, it would stick around for a while until you could push it away again.

You frowned. Flipping back over onto the couch you stared up at the ceiling and blew out a low sigh. How was it that he looked better in your clothes than you ever did?

Saeran sank down beside you on the couch. You didn’t glance at him but you knew that he was very much looking at you. He always did that. It was actually kind of sweet that he could look at you and read you like an open book, though, sometimes it was a bit of an irritation.

There was no avoiding conversations when it came to you. It was the same for him, you wouldn’t have let him get away with that, either.

“Is something wrong with that, Y/N?” he asked, quietly.

“No…“ You trailed. You still avoided looking at him. “It’s just, it’s supposed to be the other way around. That’s just what’s normal for couples. I’m the one that’s supposed to borrow stuff from you like that… but, I’m just… too big for that, you know? I’m not exactly the most dainty person around. I could never do that with your stuff…“

Saeran clicked his tongue. He understood what you were trying to say now, and he understood very well what you were saying about your body. He too had a lot of ill feelings about his own figure. His fingers interlocked with yours, and he made sure to give it a reassuring squeeze.

“What’s normal for others isn’t what’s normal for us. We aren’t like everyone else, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I never thought that you were too big when I met you. You were just right for me. You take care of yourself and it shows, and I couldn’t have been farther from that back then. I never would have started listening to my body if you hadn’t been so adamant about making sure I took care of myself.”

“…”

His cheeks had the smallest bit of red to them. “I don’t care about that sort of stuff. You don’t have to be smaller to do stuff like that for me to love you. You know I love you, every part of you. I actually like that I can wear your things… it smells like you and it’s just the right size to make it feel like you’re hugging me… and when I’m down on myself too, it’s nice that I can surround myself with pieces of you.”

It didn’t go without saying that Saeran also struggled with his looks.

He could barely look into mirrors. He would go out of his way to avoid them no matter what it took. He hated seeing himself, he hated seeing his thin body reflected. It was always distorted in his mind’s eyes in such a way that it took him back to a bad space.

But… when you were with him?

He could finally stop focusing on all the things he hated and start thinking about all the things that you loved about him instead.

You briefly glanced back at him and couldn’t stop the small smile from appearing for a moment before it shifted into a little laugh. You were happy that he was with you. He was trying, trying his best to reassure you. “And I love you too, Saeran. I never thought about it like that… that’s… that’s really kind of sweet of you.”

“I hoped you would say that because I’m not taking off your hoodie.“

“Heh. Well, the pink suits you.“

#prompt list #ask #anon #mod kait #mystic messenger #mysme #saeran choi #choi saeran #saeran mystic messenger #mystic messenger saeran #saeran mysme #mysme saeran #mm saeran #saeran mm

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wrestlingisfake · 4 years ago

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Bound for Glory preview

Eric Young vs. Rich Swann - Young is defending the Impact Wrestling world championship. This is only Swann’s second match since suffering a legit knee injury in January. He returned to the ring for a five-way title match at Slammiversary on July 18, where he eliminated Young. Eric “reinjured” Swann’s leg to cost him that match; when Swann was forced to “retire” on August 4, Young assaulted him again. Since then Young has gone on to win the world title, while Swann has been doing a whole “come out of retirement for revenge” storyline.

It’s funny to think about how these guys are headlining this show, considering that most fans would probably remember them best for being lost in the shuffle at WWE. But this is Impact’s level, and it has been for years. Just because these guys would be working a dark match on Smackdown doesn’t mean they can’t have a compelling main event here in a much smaller pond.

The basic “Rocky movie” approach to booking this feud would be to have Swann overcome adversity to conquer his most dangerous rival and finally win the big one. But Impact has a long history of trying to outthink that logic, and I have a long memory of them swerving away from big coronation moments. It was only a few months ago, in fact, that they were building up Ace Austin for an inevitable run on top, and then they just...didn’t do that. So Swann might win, or they might tell a story that he has a lot of ring rust to shake off before he beat Young. Nevertheless, my gut still says Swann wins the title here.

Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin vs. Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson vs. Ethan Page & Josh Alexander vs. Ace Austin & Madman Fulton - This is a four-way match for the Impact tag team title, currently held by the Motor City Machine Guns (Shelly and Sabin). Per standard four-way rules, the only way to win is by pinfall or submission, and the first man to score a fall on any opponent wins the match and the title for his team.

The North (Page and Alexander) held the title for just over a full year as various other teams broke up or drifted away from Impact, so they got to be able to say they cleaned out the division. Then Sabin and Shelley came in as the wily veterans to get a big push (which is sort of ironic when you consider their history with this company). Austin and Fulton came together earlier this year as a “rising top heel and his enforcer” act, but they ended up as a tag team when they began feuding with the Good Brothers (Gallows and Anderson). All along, there’s been a sense that the Machine Guns are just keeping the titles warm until they put over the Good Brothers.

I could see any of these teams getting the title, but it’s pretty clear Gallows and Anderson are top attractions in this company, so one way or another the title picture is going to revolve around them. One interesting wrinkle is that the Good Brothers plan to work for both Impact and New Japan, and New Japan has a tag team tournament coming up, leading into their biggest show of the year. If I’m Don Callis, I want to send Gallows and Anderson to Japan for a couple of months to soak up that exposure, and I’d want them do it while wearing Impact title belts. I’m probably getting ahead of myself with that speculation, but since I’ve got no other clear way to pick a winner, I’ll let that be why I’m going with Doc and Karl.

Deonna Purrazzo vs. Kylie Rae - Purrazzo is defending the Impact women’s title. Kylie earned this title shot by winning a battle royale on July 18, the same night Purrazzo won the championship. Since then Kylie has won the Warrior Wrestling women’s title, but that belt isn’t at stake here.

It was just about a year ago that Kylie debuted here, coming off a surprisingly abrupt exit from AEW. It’s always felt like Impact wanted to do a slow build to her as the face of the women’s division. And yet, Impact has also given Purrazzo a strong push since her debut in May. Each of them would be my pick to win against any other woman in the company right now. But against one another, it’s real tough to choose. Feels like almost every match on this card is a pick-’em, which is a good thing.

I’m gonna go with Kylie to win just because she makes me happy.

EC3 vs. Moose - Moose has spent most of the year as the self-proclaimed “TNA world champion,” but EC3 stole his belt and I’m not sure what happened to it and I’m not sure either guy still cares about it at this point. EC3 gained his widest exposure to fans in his NXT/WWE run, but Impact viewers know he really made his name in this promotion, back when it was called TNA. “EC3” literally stands for “Ethan Carter III,” from when his gimmick was that he was the (kayfabe) nephew of longtime TNA owner Dixie Carter.

The story is that after EC3 was laid off from WWE, he decided he had to exorcise his old failures, which I guess are symbolized by Moose carrying around the belt he once held. So EC3 started interfering in Moose matches and stalking him and playing cryptic videos for him and other weird stuff. This has been going on since July but EC3 has yet to wrestle for Impact in all that time. Aside from a couple of indie shows, and some ROH stuff that hasn’t aired yet, this will be his first match in 2020.

Back in July I assumed that EC3 would sign with Impact. Then when I heard he was doing stuff with ROH, I figured it was a side project before he fully committed to Impact. But after three months with no Impact matches, I’m starting to wonder if his Impact deal is a one-and-done. Actually, the fact I’m wondering that helps the match, since if I was sure he was sticking around, it’d be super obvious that he has to beat Moose. As it is, I’m still leaning toward EC3 winning, but that little doubt in my head will keep it interesting.

Eddie Edwards vs. Ken Shamrock - I lost the plot on this one, but as I recall Edwards had a vicious feud with Sami Callihan in 2018, and then Shamrock had a vicious feud with Callihan earlier this year, and now Shamrock and Callihan both hate Edwards for some reason. Incidentally Shamrock is being inducted into Impact’s hall of fame this weekend, so it’s kind of weird that they decided now is the time to turn him heel.

I think the easiest way to sum both of these guys up is that neither of them knows when to quit. They both look grizzled and stopped-giving-a-fuck, which makes them scary in the way that convicts in movies seem scary. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised it took so long for this match to happen.

The x-factor here is Callihan, who will undoubtedly be interfering on behalf of Shamrock. I don’t know who the hell Eddie can get to counteract that; usually when he needs backup it ends up being his wife Alisha, which works better than you might expect but still not all that well. I guess if Davey Richards was going to return, this would be a cool way to set it up. But failing that, I don’t think Eddie can win this match.

Rohit Raju vs. Chris Bey vs. TJP vs. Jordynne Grace vs. Trey Miguel vs. Willie Mack - Raju’s “X division” title is on the line. This is being billed as a “six-way scramble match.” I tend to think that’s just a cute name for a standard six-way match, where whoever scores the first fall on any opponent wins the match and the title. Of course, in WWE a “scramble match” was a specific stipulation where whoever scores the last fall in a specified time period is the winner. But I think if Impact was trying to bring those rules back, they’d have made a bigger deal about it, and I would have heard something about it by now.

The backstory here is that Bey was getting a big push and beat Mack for the title, and Raju started lobbying to be his henchman. This led to Bey vs. Raju vs. TJP, with the idea that Raju would help Bey against TJP, but Raju went into business for himself and won the title. So now everybody is gunning for Raju, including Trey for some reason I forget, and I think Grace just got thrown in there to make it more interesting. Basically, Raju was a prelim guy before any of this happened, and he’d be the underdog against any of these opponents, so you’re supposed to think he’s doomed in a match against all of them.

I’m a tad surprised Grace is involved, because it wasn’t all that long ago that it was Tessa Blanchard as the woman chasing the X title, and then the world title, and that didn’t work out so well. Then again, Tessa’s gender was hardly the reason that run fell apart, so maybe Impact is determined to do it again until they get it right. Thing is, if you want to seriously present a woman winning a men’s championship, you want the champion that puts her over to be stronger than Rohit Raju. So if they’re gonna do it, I’d say they should do it later, with Grace challenging one of the other guys for the title one-on-one.

Anyone could win this match, but it’s a real old trick to have the most hated heel be the biggest underdog, and then he steals a win after his opponents destroy each other. So I’m going with Rohit to retain.

20-person “Call Your Shot” gauntlet match - This is a timed interval gauntlet match, similar to WWE’s Royal Rumble. Two participants start the match, and each additional participant enters at regular intervals. (I don’t think they’ve said how long the intervals are, but I’m guessing 90 seconds or two minutes or something.) For most of the match, a competitor can only be eliminated by leaving the ring over the top rope and placing both feet on the floor; however, once all but two wrestlers are eliminated, the rules change so they can only lose by pinfall or submission. The last person left in the match is the winner and earns the right to a title match against the champion of their choice.

So far Impact has confirmed eleven participants, seven men and four women:

Acey Romero, of the XXXL tag team

Alisha Edwards, whose last singles victory in this company was in 2018 against AEW’s Rebel/Reba

Brian Myers, formerly known as Curt Hawkins in WWE

Havok, aka Jessicka Havok in the indies

Heath, formerly Heath Slater in WWE, with the gimmick that he hasn’t yet secured a contract to work for Impact

Hernandez, once a rising star in TNA, now some sleazy guy backstage with a giant wad of cash

Larry D, Romero’s partner in XXXL

Rhino, the former ECW/WWE star who’s been trying to help Heath get signed

Taya Valkyrie, probably best known from AAA and Lucha Underground

Tenille Dashwood, formerly Emma in NXT and WWE

Tommy Dreamer, the ECW legend, who has been feuding with Myers

The order of entry is supposed to be random, but the results of an October 20 match slotted Hernandez as the last entrant and Rhino as the first. The added stipulation for Rhino and Heath is that their jobs are on the line: If either of them wins, Rhino stays and Heath is signed, but if neither of them win, Rhino is fired and Heath can’t keep coming around asking for work.

It feels like this match has to end with Rhino or Heath winning, to pay off that storyline. In fact, I could easily see it being a deal where one appears to be eliminated, and hides off-camera until the other is thrown out, and then Josh Matthews can play Michael Cole being all shocked that there’s still hope. It feels so obvious that I’ve seen speculation that Heath needs to turn on Rhino right after one of them wins, to keep it interesting. But I think we’re all overlooking the alternative, where they’re both kicked out of the company but nevertheless keep appearing in comedy skits for weeks until they get some other chance to earn contracts. Personally, I’d just keep it simple and have Heath win leading to Heath and Rhino challenging for the tag title.

Dez & Wentz vs. Cody Deaner & Cousin Jake - This is being advertised for the pre-show. Dez (Desmond Xavier) and Wentz (Zachary Wentz) are, along with Trey Miguel, the stoner team of the Rascalz. Cody Deaner has been Impact’s resident redneck good-ol’ boy on and off for years. Jake is better known on the indie scene as Jake Something, the current Black Label Pro champion. Between the two teams, I think Impact is more committed to pushing the Rascalz, but this is another one where it could really go either way. This whole show has been really hard to predict. Let’s hope it still seems unpredictable after it’s over.

#impact wrestling #bound for glory #eric young #rich swann

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rocket-remmy · 5 years ago

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Cabin In The Woods|| Luce and Remmy

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @divineluce and @whatsin-yourhead SUMMARY: Remmy and Luce subvert at least a few horror movie tropes.

Driving down the stretch of highway that led out of town, Luce glanced over at Remmy. They had been pretty quiet since they’d stepped into their car. Which, she honestly chalked it up to nerves or something. They were cute, in a nervous way-- in the same way that a bunny rabbit or a baby dear was cute. But, cute was cute and besides. She liked watching them squirm. It was funny to see how much of an effect she had on them. “So. Brain milkshakes, hm? You’ll have to let me try some of yours. I told you before that I’m no stranger to weird foods.” She teased, looking over at the passenger side of her 4x4 with a grin. Turning the steering wheel, she pulled off the paved road onto the long dirt path that wound its way through the forest. “It’s a bit out of the way, might be a little bit of a bumpy drive.” She said, her headlights bobbing up and down as her car negotiated the rough road before them. As fun as bringing back one of Nell’s friends to Bea’s place sounded, she wasn’t in the mood to deal with her sisters right now. Which worked out. No one had booked her cabin for the weekend-- probably because the lake was closed-- which meant she had the place to herself.

Remmy usually would’ve been more than a little nervous for something like this, but things had been changing lately. Maybe it was just them trying to process everything they were going through, but things just didn’t seem as dire or important to care about anymore. If they hadn’t known better, they’d’ve thought it was their depression coming back. It was, after all, a similar mindset to when they’d first woken up, but Remmy wanted to believe that maybe it was just them changing for the better. Like they’d told Alain. They'd finally talked to Morgan, but none of that was relevant right now. Right now, they were just trying to do whatever made them happy. And having brain milkshakes, possibly with alcohol, with Luce, alone, in her cabin, was what made Remmy happy. And who knew? Maybe other things would happen. “If i didn’t know better, I’d think you were taking me out into the woods to kill me,” they teased with a lopsided grin. All it took was confidence. Or, you know, faking it. They could do that for a night.

While she was mostly focused on the road in front of them, Luce had driven down this path for five years. She knew it like the back of her hand, which is why she felt more than comfortable looking over at Remmy with a bemused expression. “You know, when I said you could practice the flirting thing, accusing me of attempted murder wasn’t the direction I thought you’d take it. Weird choice, but I can work with it.” She laughed as she followed the slight turn. They passed by the mailbox she’d made years ago, carved out of a sunken tree stump by the main road, and soon Luce was parking the car in front of her cabin. It was a small place, much smaller than Bea’s place, but it was home to her. Grabbing the grocery bag full of ice cream and liquor from the back, she gestured for Remmy to follow her inside. “C’mon in. Place isn’t quite how I used to keep it, but it’s still home.”

Remmy snorted as they gave a little chuckle. “Hey, you can never be too careful. I was entirely convinced you wanted to kill me when you asked what I was. But I might just be a little paranoid,” they answered, shaking their head. As they passed the mailbox, Remmy couldn’t help but turn their head to look at it, taking in the intricate details carved into the wood. The car pulled to a stop in front of a small, intimate looking cabin, and Remmy couldn’t help but feel awed. “You live here? Or, uh-- lived here?” they asked, sliding out and following her around. It was so quiet out here, deep in the woods, away from the city. Remmy would’ve thought to bring Moose if they weren’t so focused on keeping a good mindset. He’d’ve loved it out here. As they headed up to the door behind Luce, they took a moment to give themself a small pep talk. They could do this. This was fine. They could flirt, too. “Why’d you have to move?”

“Fair, oh you of little faith.” She said. With a practiced motion, Luce waved her free hand as she entered the cabin. The candles that were set about all over the house burst to life at once, illuminating the room in a flickering glow. She had solar out here, and a back-up generator too, but for lighting she’d always preferred to use fire. Which, given that it was a log cabin in the middle of the fucking woods, probably would have been a nightmare for anyone who wasn’t a fire witch. Grabbing the blender from out of the cabinets, Luce set her contributions to the milkshake on the counter top-- ice cream, milk, rum. Just what she wanted. “Used to, mhm.” She said as she grabbed a couple glasses from a shelf. “Family stuff. It’s better for the three of us to be together, even if we butt heads from time to time. Also, I’m going to be making mine first. We can stick the brains in after.” She said, before looking over at them, “I’m still going to steal a sip of yours. I’d like to see you try to stop me.” Luce teased, feeling perfectly at ease in her old home. The wood and stone that surrounded her was just as she left it, the artwork she had left here, nostalgic. She missed living here, even though she knew it was safest for her to live with Bea and Nell.

“Yeah, well, I still came and met you, right?” Remmy said, heading inside after Luce. “And I’m definitely glad I did.” They were going to open their mouth say something else, but Luce gave a short wave of her hand and suddenly all the candles in the house lit up. “Woah!” Remmy breathed, stopping dead in their tracks, eyes open with awe. They meandered around the room, holding the container of brains as they did, looking at all the different drawings and paintings she had up around the room, and the rusticly decorated cabin. “This place is amazing,” they said quietly, “I’m kinda jealous. Not that I don’t like where I live now, but damn--” they finally turned to look at Luce over in the kitchen again, “this place is awesome.” They made their way back over to the kitchen, setting the container on the counter next to the ice cream and stuff. They gave a crooked grin. “Hey, I was being nice before. I could totally stop you if I wanted to,” they challenged, pushing the container closer to them. “We’ll see if you can take it from me this time.”

“You did do that, yep.” Luce grinned, amused by their awestruck expression. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the fire magic or the interior decor, but it was funny all the same. It was a witch’s cabin, of course it would look the part. Sticking milk and ice cream into the blender, she whipped up a quick vanilla shake for herself and poured it into one of the glasses. “Thanks. It’s exactly how I always wanted my home to look. Well. Maybe with a bigger shower. One thing Bea’s place has over mine is a nice bathtub.” She said idly before opening the container they pushed her way. The brains in the tub were grey-ish and smelled… like organ meat. Which, duh. They were fucking brains. “What if I don’t want you to be nice?” She said with a sly smile before dumping the contents into the shake. She added ice cream and milk to the mixture with a liberal hand. The blender made quick work, churning it all up into something that resembled a pinkish milkshake. She poured the chunky mixture out to the glass in front of Remmy. Fishing a jar of cherries from the grocery bag, she stuck one on theirs and one on hers, popping a third into her mouth, stem and all. “Brain appetit.” Luce joked.

Remmy leaned against the counter as they watched Luce whip up the milkshakes. “Well, guess it can’t really be paradise without a big tub, can it?” They couldn’t help but smile at the playful banter-- despite Remmy being “too kind” as some described it, they could be witty, too. They knew how to throw banter-- they’d grown up around straight, white military boys, after all. If they hadn’t been able to tussle with them both physically and verbally, then they never woulda made it. “I can be mean,” they said, though they doubted Luce would believe them right away, “but you’re gonna have to ask nicely first.” Gave a little smirk. See? They could do this, too. Just...let go of everything, just get over the initial nervousness. They’d had some practice now, too, that it didn’t seem so strange anymore. Openly flirting with women. They reached out and took the milkshake offered to them, giving a little snort at her joke. “That’s bad,” they said, “that’s really bad.” But the milkshake itself was good, and, hey, they could taste it. That was something new. “You know, this isn’t half bad,” they said, setting the cup back on the counter, hand still on the cup, “though it’s not Al’s shake.”

“You’ve got that right. Oh well, gives me something to hope for. Or, a project to think about if I ever decide to remodel the place.” Luce said with a nod, chewing the cherry. The stem separated in her mouth and she toyed with it for a moment, flipping it around with her tongue as she watched them smile with a hint of mischief on their face. Cute. Sticking out her tongue, she showed them the knot she’d tied into the cherry stem before tossing it into the garbage can. “You want me to ask nicely? Make me.” She dared them as she took a sip from her own glass, staring over the rim at them. “Also, of course it isn’t as good as Al’s. I’m pretty sure their shake recipe was traded to them by a demon in exchange for like… their first born or whatever it is demons like.” She said with a wave of her hand. Just as she was about to swipe at their cup to steal it, a dull thump came from outside the house. Not near the door, by the side of her house with the woodpile stacked against it. “Did you hear that?” She asked, glancing over at Remmy as she set her milkshake down.

Remmy felt their cheeks prickle with warmth again at Luce’s challenge. She was definitely better at them than this, but practice made perfect, right? And, besides, Luce was attractive and easy to banter with. If a bit nosy. But Remmy didn’t mind too much. They actually kinda liked her. Getting to know her better was becoming a plus. “Don’t tempt me,” they said, watching her lips closely as she tied the cherry stem inside her mouth and presented it to them before tossing it. Remmy swallowed, throat suddenly tight. “That’s...quite the skill.” They almost didn’t notice her reaching for their glass, despite just moments ago they were going to yank it away as soon as she tried, but-- a loud thump! Made them both jump and Remmy turned their head quickly towards the source. Skin prickling for a moment, they subconsciously moved between Luce and the sound. “Maybe it’s just an animal? Is there a lot of wildlife up here?”

Watching as Remmy seemed to stammer at the little cherry stem trick, Luce couldn’t help but laugh. “What can I say, I’m very skilled. It’s not all about being good with your hands.” She said, pausing deliberately before adding, “You know, as a tattoo artist.” And a lesbian. But, as much as she would have loved to continue making Remmy squirm, whatever the fuck was out there was making a racket. Frowning as they stepped between her, Luce brushed passed them towards the window. Looking through, she shook her head in mild annoyance. She couldn’t see anything through the window. “We get stuff out here, sure. But most of them know better than to poke around here. I used to have wards all around to keep bears and moose away.” She said. Before she could pull away from the window, another loud thump rang through the cabin, this time on the other side of the house. Irritated, Luce made her way to the door, swearing quietly under her breath in Turkish. She was going to blow up whatever shitty animal was out here, trying to wreck her cabin.

“Right. Not just about...mmhmmm…” Remmy mumbled, absently following Luce when she brushed past them to go look out the window. Remmy also couldn’t see anything, but they could hear the skittering of feet, and a strange squelching noise. “Do you not hear that? Luce, I don’t think--” they started, turning in a half circle towards the sound, only to look back and find her heading for the door. The hairs on their arms were standing on end again, and say what one will, Remmy did have a good intuition about danger. It was part of being a soldier, after all, and what’d kept them alive on the field so long. “Wait, what are you doing!?” they said, stumbling quickly towards her. “I don’t think you should go out--” but they never got to finish, as in the next moment, the door was bursting open and something was leaping inside.

Remmy’s words of protest went ignored-- whatever the fuck was going on out there, it was nothing a good fireball couldn’t handle. Luce was just about to grab the door when whatever it was outside crashed through. Startled, she just barely reacted in time to dodge out of the way of gnashing teeth that lurched through the door and were intent on ripping her face off. Luce slid out of the way, her shoes skidding across the wood floors while the slick, disgusting creature whirled around. A thick, dripping tongue appeared as the thing sniffed at the air before leaping again at her. Not missing a beat, Luce drew from one of the candles next to her and directed a long stream of fire from the candle towards the beast. But… the flames seemed to dissipate the second they touched the creatures skin. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Luce shouted in disbelief before scrambling out of the way as the monster threw itself at her again. First Mr. Blume, now this slimy ass monster. How many magically immune monsters were there?

Remmy instantly went into fight mode. Their vision narrowed into a tunnel and all they saw was this thing, this creature-- slimy and pale with gnashing teeth-- lunging for Luce. And even though it didn’t click right away in their brain what it meant, that this thing brushed off her fire as if it were nothing more than a splash of water, they didn’t need it to. They were lunging this time, as the thing righted itself once more in the direction of Luce, and with a quick swipe of their arm, sent it careening into the fireplace from mid air. “Get up,” they barked at Luce, body between her and the creature. This time, there would be no hesitating. When they hesitated, people got hurt. Julie, Morgan, Mina. Not this time. “Stand back.” Words weren’t ever their forte, and when focused, even less so. But the creature, only momentarily disoriented, was already gunning for them again. Only launching itself at Remmy because they were in the way of getting to Luce. It tried to skirt around, but Remmy-- having only taken a sip of brain milkshake, and therefore still hungry- darted faster and stomped on the creature, stopping it dead in its tracks. Kicking it across the room once more. “What is this?” they asked, finally acknowledging Luce. “How do I kill it?”

Luce watched as Remmy smacked the absolute shit out of the monster, sending it into the fireplace. Holy shit. She stared in surprise before the authority in their tone had her rising to her feet, backing away without a second thought. Well, damn. Seemed like there was more bark to this zombie than bite. Pun intended. As amusing as the thought was, Luce immediately ducked behind Remmy as the shitty monster began to circle around them, trying to get to her. Its tongue still lolled out of its nasty, stubby head and it seemed like it was trying to grab at her with it. But, it completely ignored Remmy-- if they weren’t actively fighting against it, she had a feeling that the beast wouldn’t even lift a slimy claw against them. “I don’t know, I’m not a monster expert!” She said, her hands grasping Remmy’s shoulders to keep them firmly between her and the monster. The beast let out a roar and began to charge once more at them both. “Hit it till it dies? I don’t fucking know!”

Remmy ruffled their brow at Luce’s very unhelpful advice. They glanced back at her once more when they felt her grab their shoulders, pulling them slightly off-balance enough for the monster to launch itself directly into their stomach. Remmy stumbled back with an ‘oof!’ but hardly moved an inch, feet planted on the ground, guarding Luce from the monster as it scrambled back, baffled by the unmoving body in front of it. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted. “Get behind the counter,” they instructed, backing up a little, so that the thing’s only way to Luce was through them or over the counter. Kept their arms up and ready, as it paced, as if trying to figure out the best angle. “Wh-what’s it doing?” they asked, leaning back slightly, wondering if it was going to launch again. Instead, it swerved and scrambled for the counter, spilling their milkshakes, the container of brains, and everything else around in a loud clatter. Remmy lunged on top of the counter and grabbed the thing by its hindlegs, gripping them as tightly as possible as it ripped and tore to try and free itself from their grip. “Go!” they called out, “Run!”

Following Remmy’s orders, Luce positioned herself in the kitchen with the countertop and the zombie all that protected her from the shitty fucking monster that was trying to eat her. As the monster seemed to size up the situation, pacing as it moved back and forth, Luce realized what it was doing. Just a second too late. The creature hurled itself over the countertop and she dove out of the way, throwing herself to the ground. Remmy had launched themself at the monster and she didn’t need to be told twice. Scrambling to her feet, Luce ran for the door. Throwing it open, she ran outside and looked around her yard for-- there it was. An ax, leaned up against the wood pile on the side of the house. Hefting the weapon, she gripped it tightly in her hands. If that thing came for her again, she was going to go down swinging.

Remmy was grateful that Luce had the sense to get the fuck out of the way when told. The monster shimmed in their grip and jerked enough to tumble both of them from the counter top to the ground, Remmy’s hands still firmly around its back legs. It scrabbled on top of them and bit hard into their shoulder, immediately reeling back with a hideous yowl. “Hey!” Remmy shouted, rolling to their knees and tossing the thing hard into the oven, its body crashing through bottles on the counter and whatever appliances Luce had out. “Rude!” It continued to spit and heave as if the taste of Remmy in its mouth was the most awful thing, but Remmy didn’t stop to wonder why, grabbing a knife from the woodblock on the floor. They slashed at it, and it cried out again, leaping away, scrambling for the door, little legs carrying it faster than Remmy thought something so small and stumpy should be able to move. “Stop!” they shouted, leaping after it in a hurry, trying to get the door closed before it got outside. Hands slamming the wooden door so hard they heard something in the creature-- or perhaps the door itself-- crack, jamming the thing in between it. At least it was held in place now, and Remmy started applying more pressure to the door, shouting with a great heave as they attempted to crush the thing between the door and its frame.

Luce winced as she heard shouting, smashing, and cracking come from the inside of her cabin. Fuck. She was going to need to hire a carpenter or something to fix the place, wasn’t she? Grimacing, she held the ax firmly in both hands and made her way towards the door of her house. Fucking shitty ass monster, interrupting her date, destroying her cabin, attacking her in her own goddamn home. When the monster appeared in the doorway, Luce watched as Remmy chased after it, smashing the door into it. But, she wasn’t empty handed anymore. If fire wouldn’t work on this shitty monster, an ax would do the job. “Open the door!” She shouted as she ran up onto the porch, poising herself just outside the door frame. She could hear the monster’s efforts to break free intensifying. It could clearly smell her. “Let it out, Remmy!”

“Are you crazy!?” Remmy said, looking up as Luce shouted for them to let it out. “It’s trying to kill you! I’m not letting it out!” The thing began to struggle back against them, the door shaking open just enough to let it squirm its way out. Remmy stumbled back but quickly regained balance. It was readying to leap at Luce again, and Remmy reached out over it, grabbing the axe while simultaneously shoving Luce out of the way. Its mouth closed around the space where she’d been and Remmy reeled the ax back, before swinging it down with all their might. The blade went straight through the creature’s body, pinning it to the porch, and it let out a loud, blood curdling screech. It squirmed, and squealed, and struggled as it bled out under the ax’s blade, Remmy’s hands knuckle-white grip. It finally stopped moving and for good measure, Remmy lifted the ax one more time and brought it down on its head, cutting it clean off. With a huff, they straightened up and turned to look at Luce, a smear of whatever that thing was blood across the front of their shirt. “Are you okay?”

Luce had thought she was prepared to attack when the monster forced its ways out of Remmy’s grip and out the door. She’d thought she had been prepared and ready to strike. But, instead, she found herself being shunted out of the way with a firm hand. The ax was suddenly in their hands and coming down once then twice. Her eyes widened as Remmy brought the ax down with enough force that the creature's head was quickly and brutally separated from its body. Blood splattered across their shirt and pooled on the front of her porch. Heart pounding, adrenaline still screaming through her veins from yet another near death experience in this fucked up town, Luce stared at Remmy for a long moment. She closed the gap between them and grabbed them by the front of their shirt. “Holy. Fucking. Shit,” She breathed, before pulling them in for a rough, bruising kiss. Lips pressing hard against theirs, Luce’s fingers grasped their shirt tightly before she remembered– immediately, she stepped back. Pupils blown and lips slightly red, Luce laughed, shaking her head. “Aren’t you just full of surprises.”

Remmy opened their mouth to say something. Luce wasn’t talking, just standing there, staring, but in the next moment, she was kissing them roughly. Remmy swore they felt their heart leap into their throat. Felt as if it could just restart beating at any moment now. The axe was still in their hand, even as Luce pulled away. It was their turn to stare, cheeks flushed, eyes wide. “Guess I am,” was all they managed to say, before tugging her back to them to kiss her again, this time reciprocating the roughness. They somehow felt breathless, without the need to breath. After a moment, they pulled back, finally remembering the ax in their hand and the dead thing on the porch. “Should...should we clean that up?”

Startled when they pulled her back in for another kiss, Luce felt her lips part all too willingly against Remmy’s. She hated playing the part of damsel in distress, particularly when she should have been able to handle whatever shit was thrown at her. But, if this was the pay off? She could get behind it. When they broke apart, Luce blinked, slightly punchdrunk from the kiss and the rush of the fight. Glancing down at the dead monster on her front porch, she grimaced. “Probably. Or…” Her voice trailed off as she ran a hand up their arm, tilting her head back inside her cabin with a smirk. “We can go back inside and deal with that later?”

Remmy’s skin prickled as Luce ran a hand up their arm. Her fingers were warm against their cool skin and the sudden awareness they had of feeling her tough them made their entire chest feel like it was somersaulting. They looked at her with heady eyes, lump in their throat, still feeling worked up after the adrenaline rush. Did zombies even get those? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they wanted to keep kissing Luce and it seemed like she wanted that, too. “Yeah, let’s-- let’s do that,” they said, nodding as they followed her back inside the cabin, shutting the door.

#chatzy: luce #luce #chatzy #wickedswriting #cabin in the woods

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marcamatic · 4 years ago

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Its been a while

Hey, long time no see, I’m still alive, and I’ve realized I’ve let my different social media slip a lot, which I can assure you wasn’t intentional, well . . . partially, I’ve come to a few conclusions since my last post, nearly two years ago, firstly the scope of my project Fade was impossibly big, even to get the first season done on my own would eat up years of my life, and almost no-one would see it in the end. Secondly I’d been juggling Fade, college work, other projects and personal stuff, and it all became overwhelming in the end, so I took a break, focusing only on college work. that break has now become two years, and while I still very much want to keep working on Fade, distance and hindsight are really highlighting how foolish it is hinge so much of my time and future on something so massive.

Third thing I realized is that I’m just straight up bad at collaborating and being in charge, I work to please everyone and plan for everything, and when I miss something it shatters myself esteem. Along with Fade I was working on a small project and honestly it didn’t go well. I was inspired by a classmate’s story and wanted to make something with a similar theme, my story would have actually been similar to Cartoon Saloon’s Wolfwalkers film, but I made the foolish mistake of telling them, they made the argument that they would like to see their story made without changes, and from that point on I never really felt in charge. Now let me make it clear, I don’t blame this person for sticking to their idea, it the situation was reversed, I might have said the same, but it illustrates my own inability to stand up for myself, and its something I really need to fix moving forward.

I’ve also realized I need to incubate myself and my skills, I’ve finally realized how much I don’t know, and how little I can do with just myself, I’m in a unique position with this pandemic, I’m able to work and practice solely on my craft, and in the last six months I’ve noticed a big improvement, and compared to the early Fade concepts I’m leagues above where I was, but I’m still far from going professional. As for working with other people, I’m stumped still, but I’ve had some insight: Money. A budget shifts the dynamic a huge amount, its something to offer people, and its a type of leverage, because its tangible it can be used, so it is encouraged not to waste it, but this leads to the part that is stumping me:

How do I get a budget?

Well I’m going to try be smart about it, I’m working on a much smaller project, a small, self contained story. I’m going to save up a small amount, to advertise a Kickstarter pre-campaign, this is mostly just going to directing people to a small website with a landing video and an email form, so people can sign up for updates, then once I’ve got the pre-production done, I’ll make a Kickstarter for the short, if that's successful, I’ll use that budget for hiring animators and artists, and save a little for the next ad campaign. At least, that's the theory to it. From the research I’ve done it becomes easier every time you do well, so its really just staying at the table long enough.

Lastly is a problem I’ve realized I’ve never really admitted online, I’m terrified of social media, I love looking through it, but the idea putting stuff out there and getting back what feels like blank stares kinda sucks, or worse getting back hate, I released an animatic trailer for Fade a while back, and it got a genuinely vitriolic hate comment, this guy was offended by the quality of the video. Now its clear the guy had no clue what an animatic was, and he might have been just jealous, or tolling, or just misdirecting problems in his life at the video, and I’ve been playing it off for laughs, but it stuck with me. The main reason I like making stories is to try connect with other people, not validating myself, to get an emotion that I feel and plant it into someone else, I feel that endeavor is one of the most important things in the world, and that comment kinda shows a failure to do that. That video was unrelatable, it was confusing to him, alien, and I felt like a failure because of that, it still hurts even though logically its just a bored dude on the internet, and since then I’ve gotten plenty of praise. but it still worries me that I’ll get more people like that. I’m also worried about the speed of my work, everything I do is pieces of a bigger work, so I’m reluctant to throw them online because its not the whole picture, but to build a following I need to be posting stuff regularly, and I just don’t have the mental endurance to do that daily, so I’m at a little bit of a loss on how to proceed on that front. Maybe this is a way of starting?

Ah, I didn’t mean for this to get negative, I’ll give some positive news too, I’ve finished college, and I did a final year film, well, its more of a proof of concept, but I’m proud of it: https://vimeo.com/424300549 I’d love to pitch the show to somewhere like Netflix, I have no idea where go to even apply but the solution is just more networking in the industry, I’m confident I’ll find a platform for it at some point. I’m also working on another pitch for Animation Dingle’s big pitcher event, which I’m hoping to get to this year, I don’t want to post anything about it just yet, but I will once the event is over because I’m really pleased with where its going! Other than that things are all quiet with me, if you read through all this I’m really grateful! hopefully it won’t be another two years before my next post! ~~Marc out

#update #im back #crowdfunding #animation #blog post #thoughts #ideas #cartoon pilot #cartoon #cartoon pitch #self relfection #been gone awhile #planning

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immortal-imagines · 6 years ago

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Panic (Henry Cavill Series - Part 1)

Summary: When work becomes too much, (Y/N)’s co-star and secret crush is there to calm her down.

Part 2 (Feelings), Part 3 (Sunny (End))

(Henry Cavill x Reader)

Warnings: Mentions of sex, panic attack

Word Count: 2,239

Requested by: Anon

A/N: Sorry it’s taken me a little while to get to these requests. I have a few Henry Cavill ones coming out soon, so I hope you like them! It’s kind of a little series, but can also be read as one-shots, so read them however you like. I will number them, but it doesn’t have to be looked at as a series. Requests, as always, are open so please send stuff in!

As an actress, your job was hectic to say the least. Press tours, early morning shoots until late at night and costume fittings were barely even half of it. On top of that you had to learn lines, attend rehearsals and train like mad at the gym, depending on the role of course. It never used to bother you. You had always been quite good at handling stress. That was until recently.

“It’ll be a great move for your career,” your agent told you, when two casting directors wanted you for their movies.

“Two films at once? Are you sure?” you’d asked, to which your agent had given a very enthusiastic ‘yes’.

So, you agreed to do them both. One was a relatively small comedy, in which you played the quirky best friend of the protagonist. It was a bit of a cliché, but you got to work alongside Lilly Collins, who you’d always adored. The other was much bigger romantic comedy, starring none other than Superman himself, Henry Cavill. It was no secret among your friends that you had a giant crush on Henry from the moment you laid eyes on him when he was in The Tudors. You had worked as an extra on that show, so had admired from afar, but now you were starring has his love interest in a big movie. It was a dream come true, but also very terrifying. The minute you found out who your co-star would be, you rang your best friend, Natalie Dormer. You’d hit it off on the set of The Tudors and been inseparable ever since.

“You’ll never guess what?” you told her on the phone, barely able to contain your excitement.

“What? Did you get the romance film?” Natalie asked. She was incredibly supportive when you told her that you were going for both roles and had even helped you rehearse for the auditions.

“I got the comedy and romance!”

“Congratulations! Who’s in it?”

“I’m playing Lilly Collins’ best friend in the comedy and, drum roll please,” you said.

Natalie rolled her eyes, “Just tell me!”

“Your good friend Superman is my romantic male lead!” you shouted down the phone.

“No way! I’m so excited for you! I’m going to have to text him and tell him to be nice to you,” she teased, “So, you get to make out with your dream guy, how does that feel?”

“Utterly terrifying,” you sighed, “I’ve already been given the script and there’s a sex scene and a scene in a bath. I’m looking forward to doing the film because it’s going to be good for my career and a load of fun, but these intimate scenes are always awkward.”

“It’s all about chemistry,” Natalie advised, “If you guys get along well then the intimate stuff will come more naturally. Do you want me to tell him you’re feeling nervous?”

“No! I want to make a good first impression. I need to act professional. Yes, I do find him insanely attractive, but I have to put that aside and focus on the job,” you said.

“Good luck. Call me if you need me. I’ll definitely visit you on set, once you’re all settled in!” Natalie said. You thanked her and hung up. Two more days until the first read-through began. You took a deep breath and thought to yourself, I can do this. Until then, you had two days of shooting the comedy. It was going to be a busy week.

The days of shooting the comedy flew by and before you knew it, your alarm was going off at 5 am for the first script read-through of the romance film. You were exhausted, hauling yourself out of bed and into the shower. You didn’t have much time, so grabbed a coffee on the way to the studio. The role you played in this film was a dancer, so on top of all the learning lines and filming for the other movie, you had to learn dance routines and somehow fit in training at the gym. It was a lot, but you were determined to get it all done. Once you set yourself a goal, you were going to stick to it.

You arrived nice and early, wanting to make a good first impression. The table read was first, followed by a run-through of a scene with Henry, to see how your on-screen chemistry would work, followed by a rehearsal of a dance number, then to the gym to see your personal trainer. According to your agent, Henry shared the same trainer, so would be joining you. When you told Natalie this, she said, “It’s all part of getting to know him. Yes, you will be a sweaty mess in front of your crush, but at least you’ll be bonding. It will make filming less awkward, trust me.”

You had met Henry a few times before, but only briefly. In the audition for this film, there had been a stand-in actor to read with you, as Henry had been out of the country. Today would be your first time meeting him for this film.

You had on your comfy gym leggings and a sweatshirt over your sports bra. You knew you needed to be comfy for the long day, plus it saved changing later on. Your hair was up in a messy bun, a pen shoved through it so you could add notes to your script. Whenever a director or writer gave you a comment on how you should read a line, you liked to write it down straight away and keeping the pen in your hair just seemed more convenient.

You greeted the director, producer and various other members of the team upon arrival and took your seat at the table in front of your name. Henry wasn’t there yet, but a few other cast members were, so you chatted with them, getting to know who you’d be working with.

The door swung open and there he was, looking gorgeous as always. Henry was smiling from ear to ear, as he greeted the director with a bear hug. He spotted you and waved. You waved back, trying to hide your blush. Butterflies danced in your stomach as he approached.

“(Y/N)! It’s so great to see you! It’s been a while!” Henry said, holding his arms out for a hug. You stood and quickly hugged him, not quite believing what was happening.

“It’s great to see you too, Henry! I’m looking forward to working with you,” you said.

He sat down next to you and picked up the script. “Looks like this is going to be a fun one,” he chuckled, “I haven’t done anything this romantic for a while, so it’s going to take me a minute to get back into the swing of things.”

You smiled and nodded, “Me too. I’ve got two films on the go, so it’s going to be a lot of work.”

“Yeah, Natalie told me! That’s brave!”

“You spoke to Natalie?” A fresh wave of nerves washed over you.

Henry nodded and smiled, “Yeah, she told me you had a lot going on and to make sure you weren’t over-working yourself.” Noticing the sudden panic on your face, he squeezed your shoulder and smiled, comfortingly, “I’m here to help if you need it. We have to play a couple in this film, so we’re going to have to get close anyway. You can come to me with anything.”

Your heart skipped a beat when he said that. You smiled back at him. “Thank you,” you said.

“Any time,” he replied. The director called everyone’s attention and the table read began.

A month into filming both movies and you were a zombie. It was exhausting training and filming and learning lines for two separate projects and it was starting to get to you. The comedy was almost wrapped up seeing as it was a much smaller production, but the romance would be going on for quite some time and it was intense. The dances got harder each week and you and Henry had been at the gym almost every day with your trainer. You couldn’t deny how you felt every time you saw Henry, though. He seemed to brighten up any room he was in and immediately lift your spirit. No matter how tough the day had been, he always managed to make you feel better.

You’d covered a lot of scenes together already, but the ones you hadn’t gotten to yet were the ones you dreaded: the sex scenes. You felt faint whenever you thought about them and a tight feeling would form in your chest. You’d done scenes like that before, but not on such a big scale and with such a famous actor. On top of that, with a guy you had feelings for. Working with Henry everyday had turned the crush you had into full-blown love and you were struggling to hide it. you blushed when you saw him and your palms grew sweaty. Big problem when you had to be so close when acting. But you tried to remain professional. If Henry knew anything about your feelings for him, he hadn’t said anything. There was no way you could admit it either because he wouldn’t reciprocate. That would make work extremely awkward.

When the day came and the director announced that you would be running through the bath scene, your heart nearly stopped. You couldn’t avoid it anymore. You had known before you got the part that there would be nudity and sex in this movie, but that was prior to knowing who would be in the film with you.

Standing in your trailer on the big day, you took a deep breath. You had to be professional and if this movie all went well then you could be looking at a lot more jobs as big as this. Usually, taking a deep break and a moment to yourself worked. It would calm you down. Today, however, that didn’t seem to be the case. The tight feeling in your chest and knots in your stomach weren’t going away. In fact, they were getting worse. Your breath quickened and you had to sit down. You curled up on the sofa, knees hugged tightly to your chest. Tears rolled uncontrollably down your face, as your breathing became difficult to maintain. Your mind was racing with questions and worries.

What if I mess up?

What if Henry thinks I’m stupid?

What if I look ugly?

What if I can’t get it right? Then we’ll have to keep re-shooting and this will go on forever.

Your thoughts were interrupted with a knock at your trailer door. “(Y/N)?” you heard Henry’s voice, “(Y/N), are you okay? We’re supposed to be on set. Can I come in?” He opened the door a crack and peaked his head in. Catching sight of you on the sofa, he came and sat next to you. “(Y/N), what’s up?”

You covered your face with your hands, embarrassed. “I can’t do this,” you said, your voice muffled.

Henry gently rubbed your back. It was soothing and your breathing slowed down to an almost regular state. “I’m so unprofessional,” you whispered, “You must think I’m so stupid.”

“Of course, I don’t,” Henry said, “I think what you’re feeling is understandable. I get like this all the time before a big scene.”

You lowered your hands and looked up at him. “You do?”

“Yeah,” he smiled at you, taking your hand in his and squeezing it. “I know it will be a little awkward at first, but you’ll be fine. We’ll take the scene at your pace and have fun with it. I can tell you some really awful dad jokes if you like?” He raised his eyebrows, like he’d just offered you a million pounds, “That’s a once in a life time deal. Cavill jokes don’t get told to just anyone.”

You laughed and sat up, wiping your eyes. “Thank you, Henry,” you said, “You’re a really amazing person.”

“I do try,” he said, grinning, “Now, let’s get on set before they all lose their minds looking for us.”

He stood, taking your hand in his.

As you walked to set together, he looked down at you and said, “You’re very pretty, (Y/N). Even when you cry.”

Your stomach did a loop, as you stared at him, wondering if you’d just imagined him saying that. “Wha…” was all you managed to say.

“Sorry,” he said and you almost thought you saw a blush creeping onto his cheeks, “I just thought I’d say that before we get in a bath together.” He chuckled, “I also wanted to say that I think it’s admirable, the amount of work you put in to everything you do. Impressive stuff that not many people could do.” Those were the words you needed to hear. Somehow, his presence seemed to calm you and you forgot about how nervous you had been earlier about the scene. Like Natalie had said, the more time you spent with him, the more comfortable you became. Without realising it, the past month you’d both been working together had brought you closer together.

With his hand still firmly in yours, you both walked onto set. Henry Cavill had seen you cry and thought you were pretty and now you were going to have a bath with him. What a weird day.

#henry cavill #henry cavill imagine #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill fluff

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years ago

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Witches, Chapter 15: orcas and penguins and pearls

It’s December, so I’ve got time to edit all these 13k chapters I wrote during NaNo! My buffer is assuredly smaller than I expected because it doesn’t take very many 13k chapters to reach 50k.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

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What they actually have to do is not complicated at all. All they need is evidence of a murder weapon, any hint of anything that could have been used, because Orla is an orca and only humans and fae use tools to kill each other with. (As far as Phoenix knows. Maybe gorillas are getting more advanced. He might have free tickets for life to a circus but he doesn’t know anything about animals.)

If there’s a murder weapon, it means there was a killer that wasn’t Orla, because Orla is only an orca, not a shapeshifter.

And, well, okay, then after that they’ll need a prosecutor willing to indict, but Phoenix is going to take things one step at a time and not just because he’s coming up empty-handed at the question of any prosecutor who might take this one. Edgeworth might miss being able to stand in court but he cares too strongly about his work as chief prosecutor to take time away from it for an orca; Franziska is abroad, incredibly busy, and cares too strongly about her work with Interpol to take time away from it to kick Phoenix’s ass over a goddamn orca; and Apollo isn’t part of the defense team so there’s no chance of him seducing Klavier into abandoning good sense to indict an orca and also face Phoenix in court again, so his best shot is probably convincing Kay of the merit of the case and letting her drag Sebastian into it.

Sasha takes them for a very brief, circular tour around the top of the orca pool. “I know it looks real small in here, and it is,” she says, gesturing to the tank. Orla has circled it as they walk, keeping close and watching them. “We do a lot of training here, since we can leave the props all out but out of sight. At the front when you come in we’ve got with the aquarium maps a schedule of when Orla’s gonna be where. Here the guests can see her swim underwater, but we’ll only keep her in here for a bit since orcas like to be able to swim straight. So we’ve got the big big show pool, and since we’re right on the water we’ve got scheduled times that we let her out and go out with her in the ocean.”

“Like, take a boat out alongside her?” Athena asks. Sasha shrugs noncommittally. “She’s never just gone off and not come back?”

“‘Course not! She loves us, and the aquarium.” Sasha has a spring in her step as she walks and Phoenix, looking at the floor slick with water splashed up by Orla, bites back a fatherly warning to watch her step. It’d be too easy to slip and crack her head open, or fall in the orca pool. Fall in the orca pool after cracking her head open. “The captain found her beached and he fed her and made sure she was healthy and tried to take her back out to sea to her pod, but she just kept coming back. Ol’ girl got attached to him just like a barnacle!”

Her smile collapses from the corners inward, her eyes unfocused on a distant memory. “I can hear Sasha’s pain,” Athena whispers. “She really loved the captain.”

“Orla played with him all the time,” Sasha says. She’s lost her cheer. Athena might be the one who fully experiences others’ feelings, but Phoenix is pained, too. “She’d steal his hat and headbutt him and go tearing off, and he was the only one of us big and strong enough to keep up with her. She loved him! She wouldn’t kill him!”

Maybe - probably - it’s true that she loved him. And maybe - Phoenix realizes it with a sense of gnawing dread and familiarity - that still doesn’t mean she didn’t kill him. Humans are fragile, and powerful creatures that love them don’t always keep them safe. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes they don’t just die anyway, but because of.

(Does it help, has it ever solved a case for him, to consider whether he is a funhouse mirror image of the situation beforehand? It doesn’t. He does anyway.)

Sasha is in the midst of explaining now to Athena how they give Orla commands for performances - a whistle with a pitch too high for humans to hear, and specific patterns to correspond to her every trick. “Anyone who knows the commands could ask her to do a trick, not just me - you could, Athena.” Athena brightens, standing up straighter, her eyes moving from the whistle Sasha put in her hands to the orca. “Except the commands are a secret, sorry!”

Athena’s shoulders slump.

“You can’t just ask her to do whatever it is, in words?” Phoenix asks, secretly relieved that Athena isn’t going to get a lesson in orca-training because he’s terrified of how that could end. “Since you said she can understand people.” Or Sasha was just fucking with him saying that Orla was offended by his question.

“That kinda breaks the show immersion,” Sasha explains, “if you’re yelling ‘now’s when you do a backflip!’ The whistle’s less noticeable.”

Orla disappears beneath the surface, a moment later launching herself up out of the water and wheeling through the air. When she dives back down she slaps the water with her tail, hard, and a wave splashed up over the three people standing by her pool. Sasha frowns in concentration. “She understands some people, somewhat,” she admits, apparently reluctantly. “Except the captain. He’d have full conversations with her and she’d chatter right back. Cap’n always joked his mom was a sea witch.”

“Are you sure it was a joke?” Phoenix asks.

“Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t,” Sasha says. “But most people get acting like they were zapped by an eel when you say that, then laugh it away all awkwardly. Didn’t expect you both to be cool as sea cucumbers about it.”

“I’ve only worked with Mr Wright for three months but I’ve seen some crazy stuff in that time,” Athena says. “Three months” is definitely debatable - she’s worked with Apollo for three months, sure - but the regrettable amount of magical mishaps she’s been through aren’t. (Why, when he reluctantly agreed to give her office space, had he thought she wouldn’t get into any more shit?) “I could probably believe anything now.”

(An addition to his case notes: make sure Athena knows not every legend is true, so she doesn’t go chasing Bigfoot or the Jersey Devil.)

This first pass through the orca pool room doesn’t net them anything that in any way resembles evidence. They get information about their client, the importance of which he won’t dismiss, because they can’t exactly directly ask their client anything. Seals and whales that eat seals surely don’t speak the same language, or could they? Maybe they all have different dialects of ocean animal language, ones that are partially understandable by each other, but only partially. (There’s a word for that. He’s pretty sure there’s a word that specifically means that and he’s coming up empty.)

With nothing in hand to present to the prosecution, he and Athena leave the pool room, leave Sasha behind sitting on the edge emphatically explaining to Orla that the police won’t let her be moved back to the bigger pool because they’re afraid if they give Sasha an inch she’s going to figure out how to abscond with a two-ton whale. Phoenix crosses his fingers that won’t happen; the last time a client of his disappeared was - well.

Fulbright has set up his investigative base in the lobby near the glass tunnel; Phoenix watches fish swim above his head, bright little reds and yellows darting between huge silver ones, and among all of them, sharks that he’s surprised don’t just eat the rest. Security camera footage from the time of the incident, taken from the first floor, looking in at the orca pool, is downloaded to a police laptop set up on a bench. As soon as Fulbright’s back is turned, Athena pulls up the relevant segment and films the screen using Widget. “There’s nothing you can see that’s absolutely damning for our case,” she explains, slowing down Widget’s playback and scrolling through its projection frame-by-frame. It’s about fifteen seconds when the victim’s body isn’t ever visible, but Orla‘s head tilts down like she’s headbutting something into the props at the bottom of the tank, and plumes of blood billow up through the water. Someone stands in frozen horror, back to the camera, in front of the tank. “This isn’t decisive! What’s Fulbright talking about? Decisive?—”

“I agree,” Phoenix says. “It’s not proof of anything.” But they can definitely expect to hear from that witness who was standing right there.

Athena lowers her fists, abruptly silent, like she hadn’t expected him - even though he’s a defense attorney too, even though he agreed to this mad venture too - to listen to her. “We’ll keep investigating,” he adds, glancing over the police laptop again. The thumb drive stuck in it is shaped like the back end of a fish and labeled return to Pub O’ Danger. Presumably the location in the aquarium that the security cameras are managed from. “Shall we?”

Athena knows exactly where in the aquarium to go - of course she does - and she leads Phoenix up around, back past the orca tank, to the second floor where they find that the "Pub O' Danger" looks really nothing at all like anything he'd consider a pub. A few large decorative bottles, filled with seashells or jellyfish - are those real? - sit on a shelf on the back wall, and one giant one filled with more jellyfish hangs from the ceiling, along with a skeleton of some ocean creature. Or maybe a crocodile. It looks like a crocodile. "Athena," he says warningly, and she guiltily lifts her hand out of the touch tank. "We're here for a job, remember?"

"Of course I remember!" she protests, perhaps a bit too loudly, and Phoenix shakes his head at her. He scans the room again, watching Athena from the corner of his eyes, and thinking he doesn't see her she sticks her hands back in the tank at the center of the room to pet a starfish.

"A-hem!" Someone loudly clears their throat; Phoenix jumps, as does Athena, wrenching her hands back and flicking water up into Phoenix's face. "Do you mind? I'm rather busy here, and you are being quite loud, young lady."

The woman already in the room, who they didn't see off to the side, standing in front of a door marked with Employees Only, wears a long black overcoat and a white scarf over her blonde hair. "Who are you?" Athena asks.

“Goodness, young lady, don’t you have any manners?” The woman huffs and Athena blanches. Phoenix can’t really vouch for any of Athena’s manners, because they’ve had strenuous debates about what is and isn’t allowed in a courtroom, and no, Athena, asking the prosecution to “take it out back” is not, even if they are being jerks. “Aren’t you even going to introduce yourself first?”

She’s really got Athena thrown for a loop. “Oh, I, uh - I’m—”

“Never mind,” the woman interrupts. “I shall save time and space for more important things in my memory by simply calling you ‘yellow girl’, and him over there ‘blue boy’.”

“I’m thirty-four years old, you know,” Phoenix objects, and she ignores him as he expected her to, but at least he can say to his dignity that he tried.

“My name is Norma DePlume,” she continues. “An esteemed guest and frequent patron of this establishment.”

“I’ve got it!” Athena crows. “So you aren’t someone affiliated with the aquarium!”

Solid work on that deduction there, kiddo.

“And what exactly do you imagine you are?” DePlume asks icily.

Athena hikes her shoulders up toward her ears, her hands rising in fists at the ready. Widget might be useful for its functionalities in court, but its changing colors and blurted words aren’t close to necessary; all of its information on Athena’s emotional state, she’ll project plain as day on her face, in her posture. He doesn’t need to read her like he would opponents in poker - nothing is small when it comes to her habits. “I’m not a what!” she protests. Fair enough to get offended; it’s rude way to ask that question, even if what are you is one that’s technically valid to wonder. Better not to ask at all, and besides, Phoenix knows that DePlume didn’t mean it in the way that Phoenix wonders it, because he’s given her a once-over and she’s the one person in this room who’s normal. “I’m a lawyer!”

“And I, uh - run a law office.” Phoenix trips on the words. He sort of runs a law office. He badly runs a law office. It runs itself. It’s still easier for him to get that sentence out than to say that he’s a lawyer. What are you? Isn’t he supposed to know that now, again?

“Well, I don’t have the slightest interest,” DePlume continues, examining her gloves like she can see her fingernails to fix them.

Then why fucking ask what they are and risk offending a fae when they presume she’s asking what are you, human or not? Maybe she doesn’t know. Maybe she isn’t from around here. Maybe she doesn’t care if she offends anyone, human or fae or all the people at the crossroads in between. She certainly doesn’t care if she offends the two right here.

She’s damn lucky Phoenix doesn’t work cases with Maya anymore, even if Athena is growling, actually growling, in frustration and rage. “Just who does she think she is, Boss?”

“An esteemed guest.” The customer who is always right, and Phoenix is glad that the only vaguely retail career he’s ever had is one where he could kick the customers’ asses in a poker game after he offended their artistic sensibilities with his piano “playing”. His friendship with Kristoph was his customer service face: being pleasant to someone who wouldn’t hesitate to throw him under a bus or get him fired. Actually Kristoph did get him fired. And probably wouldn’t have hesitated to eventually get him fired from life.

Right. Murder. That’s called murder.

“I thought they closed the aquarium to members of the public, though,” Athena says, squinting suspiciously and turning back to Phoenix, waiting for him to validate her suspicions. “Why are you here?”

DePlume has a deep, haughty chuckle that balances on the edge of smug before tipping straight into the center of it. “O-ho! But I have special permission to be here, you see.” She sounds less like she’s actually amused and more that she’s trying to signal to them their inferiority, that they are amusing, trivial things beneath her concern. Athena is close to blowing a gasket anyway, so if that’s what she hears she can’t actually get any more heated.

Now that’s interesting. “And why is that?” Phoenix asks, doing his level best to sound like he’s only casually curious. She wouldn’t happen to have seen something, did she?

“Well, it’s of course because of the incide— good heavens, I’ve said far too much!”

The whole world blinks, pauses on an inhale - DePlume, turning away back toward the door she was lurking outside of; Athena, readying another objection - and the hum of the aquarium, the tank filters and the internal air, drops dead away, and almost instantly that still silence breaks with the stark cold rumble of chains and the two red locks that nail into place at the intersection of the chains.

God dammit. Phoenix breathes in, lets his anger hiss out among the background noise of the aquarium that has come back to life. “What’s wrong, Boss?” Athena asks. All she would have seen was his mood drop suddenly, more than a reluctant witness should make happen, because how often do they have a witness who isn’t reluctant?

“Psyche-Locks.” It might as well be a curse word. It certainly is a cursed word - words? (Does the hyphen make it one word or is it still two? He assumes there’s a hyphen. It’s how he visualizes it and that might be magic that plopped the word(s?) in his mind in a written form.)

“Bike socks? Cyborg clocks?”

Athena, what the hell is a bike sock?

“Pysche-Locks,” he repeats, enunciating it clearer and louder this time. DePlume doesn’t care what they have to say and probably already thinks they’re crazy, so talking audibly about magic isn’t going to make any difference. “They’re locks around a person’s heart that represent the secrets they’re hiding from me. An old friend of mine granted me a blessing that lets me see if I’m being lied to - that’s how it manifests.”

“Oh, wow,” Athena says. “I knew you had your eyes thing” - she points a finger to her own eyes and swings it back and forth to signify the changing colors - “but I didn’t know you can tell that people are lying, like Apollo, too!”

Like Apollo, god. Like Apollo. He’d taught Apollo the trick to watching for people’s tics and told Trucy to explain to him the same, on basis of blood and a guess - that he knew how Trucy’s blessing worked for her, that Zak said Thalassa had the same, and Apollo is Thalassa’s child too. Even if Truth was his boon granted by a different source, maybe it worked the same, he figured. And it did, but the larger question has been gnawing at him since. Apollo’s blessing wasn’t from Magnifi; it looks nothing like either Trucy’s or Thalassa’s, and Thalassa confirmed that Magnifi never met Apollo. And when Apollo confronted Phoenix for not telling him about Kristoph, he sounded genuinely confused at the suggestion that he could’ve had any experience with the fae in the past.

Some one of the fae loved Apollo enough to give him a blessing, but even for valuing Truth highly enough to give it to him, didn’t tell him that truth that they were fae and that he had this gift. It’d have to be love, wouldn’t it, because Apollo is human grown up in this world. He isn’t Thalassa, a tactical advantage to be played against an enemy; he looks nothing like his mother who is glamoured to the high heavens for spending so long in the Twilight Realm.

(Note to self: ask Thalassa sometime why Apollo didn’t grow up with her and the Troupe after his father’s death in the Summer Court. Also, bother her some more to see if she’ll say where the Summer Court is.)

“Boss?”

“I’m listening,” he says reflexively, even though if she’d said anything before that, he sure as hell didn’t actually hear it. Apollo, Apollo; Apollo’s a stable functioning kid who escaped growing up a Gramarye and his mystery can wait while Phoenix has a case with Athena. There is enough right here on his plate.

“Can you unlock these Psyche-Locks?”

Unlock, no; bludgeon into shattering with brute force, yes. Maybe that’s what the black ones meant, a warning that it wasn’t worth trying to break them, or that he couldn’t, because Kristoph isn’t great at poker but did know how to keep his cards close. “Yeah. It’s basically the same as cross-examining a witness; you hit them with evidence until they crack.”

Athena smacks her fist against her palm, massaging out her knuckles. “All right! Sounds like a plan!”

“Not literally hit,” Phoenix says hastily. She probably knows that, maybe.

DePlume knocks loudly on the employees-only door. “I know I heard movement back there!” she announces loudly to the door, or whoever might be behind it. “I demand to speak with you!”

“Er, what are you doing?” Athena asks, already moving from the matter of the Psyche-Locks to this next mysterious behavior.

“This aquarium’s veterinarian has an office here,” DePlume snaps. “And he has most ungraciously been avoiding me! I insist on being able to speak with him, and I will not leave until I get such an opportunity!”

“Okay,” Athena says, “but—”

“If you, yellow girl, wish to further badger me in your impolite ways, you will simply have to wait.”

Athena frowns. “We might as well investigate elsewhere in the meantime,” Phoenix says. If she’s not leaving until the vet does, and she acts this overbearing and demanding in every aspect, then there’s little chance the vet wants to talk to her and a much higher likelihood that wherever else they go in the aquarium, when they return, she’ll still be right here. “C’mon, kiddo.”

Athena’s boots smack off the floor louder than she usually walks, but as they move back through the aquarium, past tanks of sea dragons and lionfish and informative backlit wall displays about the represented species and ecosystems, her steps lighten and her pace slows. Light comes from the tanks, and only them, blue on Athena’s face, her eyes even brighter as wide as they are, soaking up every sight as though she hadn’t ever been here before. She’s eighteen, still a kid really, should be heading toward her senior year of high school or freshman year of university, not skipping half a dozen grades to have a law career for - what, exactly? Franziska had a father to live up to, Sebastian too, and Klavier an older brother. Athena carries with her righteous fury to find justice and save the innocent, with no catalyst that birthed it in her heart, no vehicle carrying her down this frantic road. He’s thought it before and will again, but she lives like she’s desperately chasing something always just out of reach. Something Phoenix can’t see.

He lets her smile at the fish a moment longer and then prompts her to get moving. “I wish I could actually visit without the crowds,” she says. “There’s usually so many people here, it’s kinda just eerie now.”

“A man did die here,” Phoenix says, but now that she’s got him thinking it, yeah, he doesn’t like this emptiness. Like wandering through the snow between circus tents, not a sound but their feet and fabric flapping in the wind, when a few nights ago he’d seen the full bustle of the crowd around a show. Like the bowl club in the quiet after closing, his voice echoing in the stairwell after a call to the police, the only sound in the den his heart pounding in his ears as he realized this was the final round, the hand already dealt, and this was his last chance to bind Kristoph to iron. “That eerie feeling isn’t surprising.”

The next sign of human life they find is one of the animal feeders, hauling along two buckets full of fish and alternating rhyming and beatboxing as he goes. Budding slam poet? Soundcloud rapper? “Hello!” Athena calls, her voice ringing loudly through the dark. The man yelps, dropping a bucket and spilling fish across the floor.

Once Athena has apologized for the fright, and he has requested that they purge his attempts at rapping from their memories, he introduces himself as Marlon Rimes, relatively new to working here, not always sure what’s happening on the best of days, and this is definitely not that. He does tell them that none of the aquarium staff have been allowed to go home, while any visitors not related to the incident have been thrown out. “Sasha had to get special permission to go out and get a lawyer,” Rimes explains. “Us staying overnight usually means we leave just after opening, but ‘just after opening’ is when the captain’s body was found…” He blinks furiously and rubs at his eyes. “Haven’t seen our vet, Dr Crab, around at all, though.”

Probably because if he is here, DePlume has him cornered in a back room.

Rimes gives them a few more tidbits of information that could be useful: he certainly believes the orca killed the captain and says that Sasha is the only one here who doesn’t, he’s lost track of a penguin named Rifle who has the run of the aquarium but didn’t come in to get fed at her usual time, and he has a friend he calls “Small Fry”, a high school student - maybe an aquarium intern? - who went off after Rifle and hasn’t returned. “She mighta been going back to the orca pool,” he says. “And, hey, if you’re headin’ back there, or just around, Rifle loves the smell of fish, so if ya have some she might come over.”

Athena’s face lights up. “I would love to feed a penguin! Would that be okay, Boss?”

I’m not your dad - you don’t have to ask me for permission. “As long as you’re the one carrying the fish.”

She seems much less enthused as Rimes plops some very stinky, very dead fish into her outstretched hands. “It’s so fishy.” She wrinkles her nose and cranes her neck to stick her face into her shoulder. “Whew!” Widget cries.

“Can’t be all flower smells and penguins working here,” Phoenix says. Even though he really did manage to keep a straight face saying it, his amusement seeps into his voice and Athena lifts her head with a sour glare. She wants to befriend the penguin, she’s got to deal with the consequences and the method of doing it. Like befriending a fae meant suffering her crouching over him at two am to ask him when he can get more ice cream because there’s none left.

Back at the orca pool, they find Sasha, and a walkie-talkie shaped like a sword that belongs to Rifle in order to locate her. Athena brightly suggests must mean Rifle is, or was just recently, around here; they might not have jackshit to work with on their case, but Athena’s going to feed a penguin if it kills her.

It comes close, when Orla bursts out of the water, chittering loudly and smacking her flippers against the surface. Phoenix flinches, and Athena, with more sensitive hearing, closer to the pool where the floor is wet and slippery, springs back with a scream. Her feet splash down in a puddle and slide straight out from under her, dropping her right to the floor. The fish spill out of her hands across the pool deck, a few landing in the water, and a few falling in her lap. “Oww,” she groans, showing no inclination to pick herself back up, and she must really be hurting if she hasn’t recoiled from the fish yet.

Orla whistles. She sounds confused, almost. Maybe apologetic? “You okay?” Sasha asks, extending a hand to help Athena up. “You’ve gotta be careful around here or you’ll slip right in!”

Athena groans again, scooping the fish up from her skirt back into her hands. “Yeah, no kidding.”

The large pirate hat balanced on Orla’s head, behind her blowhole, slowly slides forward and plops into the water. Orla hasn’t really moved, not enough to upend her headgear like that, but with the hat fallen away Phoenix can now see a penguin waddling along Orla’s back. She puts her nose to the edge of the pool, allowing the penguin to hop down to the floor. “Rifle!” Athena cries. “There you are!” She brandishes a fish at the penguin, who doesn’t even turn at the sound and movement and trots on unperturbed to the doors. “Hey! I have food for you! Don’t you run away from me!”

That gets Rifle’s attention. Its pace picks up to a run - away from Athena. “Now I think you’ve scared her,” Phoenix says, but Athena, not having learned the lesson about wet floors yet, starts running after her. Sasha exchanges a sideways glance with Orla but doesn’t say anything; if the penguin is running around outside of its enclosure on a regular basis, they probably expect or have a protocol for when it’s chased down by eight-year-olds. Or eighteen-year-olds. The penguin’s well-being is not what he’s worried for: for those stubby legs, Rifle moves fast, and Athena looks on course for another spectacular wipeout.

The doors swing inward as Rifle comes up on them, bumping it onto its back. How do they right themselves with those proportions - there must be some way for them in the wild, if they fall over, but Phoenix doesn’t actually get to witness the attempt more than a few seconds of flailing feet. “Oh my goodness! I didn’t know you were there!”

Athena pulls up short, watching the young woman who crouches down and gently lifts Rifle to set it back on its feet. Her eyes lift up to study Athena with several seconds of the most intense stare that Phoenix ever found himself under. Fae eyes only change color to red when their glamours drop, but he knows that scrutinizing gaze. It’s the one she gives everyone when she first meets them, assessing who they are, what they are, and whose side they seem to be on. So much woven into a glance, so much caution and suspicion, but Morgan raised her to be queen, and the throne in Kurain isn’t a shield that stops knives coming from behind.

“P-Pearls?”

“Mr Nick!”

He’s seen her more than he’s seen Maya these past eight years, but in his head she’s still the tiny child she was when they first met. Very little about her has changed in that time - she’s a little taller but still slight and petite, and her eyes are only a little too big for her head, her forehead no longer the same size as the other half of her entire face. And he blinks, and studies her again: her iridescent skin like the inside of a seashell, almost white but a dozen other colors, pale shades of blues and pinks and greens, shimmering with the light, with her movements, up to her horns that curve along her head and once they reach the points of her long ears, they curl up and loop in toward each other, forming almost the shape of her hair. She has six eyes, two where they should be and two smaller above each. All six blink in rapid unison, and she raises one dainty clawed hand to cover her open-mouthed, sharp-toothed shock.

“What are you doing here?”

She asks at the same time he does, their same single thought tangling on itself. Pearl giggles. Her laugh doesn’t quite sound the same as it always used to; some of her smooth refinement has been chipped away, and even a giggle is a little louder and rougher, a little less regal. She’s lived with Maya as her closest family longer now than she lived raised by her mother. That rubs off and for once in this instance he doesn’t think Maya’s influence is a bad thing.

“A summer camp from Kurain Village took a trip here,” Pearl explains. “I came with them because I’d never been to an aquarium like this, but then this incident happened, and I only just got done being questioned by the police.”

She says it so calmly, this incident, a man is dead and she isn’t fazed and she’s steadily watching Phoenix with her big eyes wondering if this incident suddenly makes sense, why it happened, if Phoenix is here. People drop dead around him all the time. She’s been there for a bunch of those, and even though that’s hardly a moral indictment of him - there’s plenty of other reasons to make those - he feels the need to hurry to explain that for once, he showed up after the death. “We’re here investigating the case,” Phoenix says. “Ms Buckler - Sasha - asked us to defend Orla and prove that she didn’t kill anyone.”

Pearl nods, and Phoenix feels a surge of appreciation for her. Finally, the one person who isn’t going to question this entire providing legal representation to an orca thing. All she knows about lawyers, she learned from Phoenix, and that Orla should be one of his clients doubtlessly seems entirely normal. “Who’s ‘we’?” she asks. “This lady here with you?”

“I’m Athena Cykes, attorney-at-law! I’m the newest member of the Wright Anything Agency!” Athena grins; the prospect of a new friend has given them a momentary reprieve from her frustration over Rifle. “Nice to meet you!”

Pearl’s expression lightens after the few seconds it takes to absorb Athena’s introduction, her very human manner of throwing out her full name first. Welcome back to this side of the veil, Pearls. “I’m called Pearl,” she says. It’s not her name, not who she is, just what others call her. She loves humans, tries in some ways to deliberately imitate them - he doesn’t know when or how exactly she got really into fashion, but that might be Trucy to blame - but names are names are rocky ground. “Or sometimes Pearly with my friends! How do you do!”

A moment later, something else sinks in, and Pearl jumps, actually jumps, and she hangs in the air just long enough to be noticeably weird. “Wait, Mr Nick! If you’re here to defend a client, that means—!”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve got my badge back.” Or a badge. A new badge. He’s got a badge again. My badge. Practice saying that some more.

He can’t summon the excitement that he should feel, but at least there’s Pearl, clapping her hands together, all the enthusiasm that he’s missing. “Congratulations, Mr Nick! That’s so exciting! Queen-Mystic Maya told me that you’d cleared your name but she didn’t tell me you were lawyering again!”

“That’s because those didn’t happen at the same time,” he says. “I only just passed the Bar. This is my first case - and my first day back.”

“Oh, I’m so happy for you! Have you told everyone yet? All our friends? We should throw a surprise party for you!”

“That’s not really a surprise if you’ve told me, Pearls.”

“Then - then we wait until you forget! Or we make you forget!”

He still has nightmares about forgetting himself, about walking into court with Maggey’s life on the line not just unprepared in terms of evidence, but his very head wiped clean of everything that would help. “I would prefer if you didn’t,” he says. “But I appreciate the surprise party thought.”

Pearl is distracted any further from protesting by Rifle, plucking at the hem of her robes with its beak. “How did you get her to like you?” Athena practically wails the question and Phoenix grinds his teeth together to keep a straight face, to say nothing, so that this time Athena won’t know just how amusing he finds her penguin dilemma. “What am I doing wrong?”

“You could try offering her some fish,” Phoenix prompts. She carried the stinky meat this far, she’d better not have forgotten about it.

“Hey, Rifle!” Athena waves a fish by the tail; Phoenix steps back out of range so she doesn’t fling it at him while she tries to get Rifle’s attention. “I’ve got food for you! Fish chock-full of love from me to you!”

She tosses it in Rifle’s direction, but Orla lunges, hefting her body almost halfway out of the pool to snatch away the fish. “Oh,” Athena says. “Okay! I guess I’m bonding with Orla instead!”

“Friendship blossoming via exchange of food!” Pearl says. “Isn’t it moving, Mr Nick?”

Yeah, that’s one way to put it. Phoenix wouldn’t really agree, but that’s one way to call it. And this really is starting to sound more and more like a friendship with a fae. The easiest way to make a bargain with Maya is to pay her in food. There’s no cheaper price for a deal than a meal.

“Orla doesn’t usually eat at this time,” Sasha says, frowning at Orla, who is making some chirping noises that sound like begging. “The captain’s the one who feeds her, every morning, and I don’t think he’d forget.”

That implies that the time of orca feeding is regularly before the captain’s time of death, if Sasha is talking about him forgetting, or not, and not the fact that he died this morning. Either he was preoccupied with something else before his death, enough that he didn’t think to feed the very large whale that he works with every day, or they’re all mistaken about his time of death. There’s no evidence at all to point to the latter thought, so Phoenix files it away as a last-ditch argument to pull out if he runs out of every other possibility in court tomorrow.

Athena brandishes another fish at Rifle, who ignores her. Orla chirrups again. “How did you do it, Pearly?”

It’s a good question, and a surprise to Phoenix, too. He can’t say that mundane animals and the fae get along well - he’ll never forget when Gumshoe offered to lend Missile to him and Maya, only for it to start howling and wailing so loudly that half the cops in the precinct poked their heads out to make sure that nobody was physically torturing the dog. And he wouldn’t be surprised if Matt Engarde’s cat was just generally the most unpleasant cat in the world, but it had ignored Edgeworth and gone straight to claw the hell out of Phoenix and Pearl, so he’s again inclined to guess that it was a fae thing. Maybe wild animals, like penguins, are different, but there was also the time Regent the tiger tried to eat him.

So yeah, a good question, one he’s been pondering himself. “Didn’t he say that Rifle is drawn to the smell of fish?” Phoenix asks. Rimes had given Athena the fish for that reason, and there is a bit of a strange fishy smell coming from more than just Athena.

“A - are you saying I smell like fish?”

Phoenix weighs his options for answering. The fae do generally appreciate the truth, even when it’s something rough. But Pearl already looks offended and ready to roll up her sleeves and smack him through two walls, so he’s got to tread lightly. “Uh, maybe a little bit, yeah…”

He tenses every muscle in his body and waits for the deathly strike, but Pearl just slumps over. “Oh,” she says softly, more to herself than anyone else. “I really do need to change my clothes.”

What’s she gotten herself into? Why, of all the visitors to the aquarium, was she kept here and questioned while almost everyone else had to leave? No easy answer comes as he ponders it, listening to Sasha, Pearl, and Athena talk about Rifle and Orla. It’s Pearl, of all people, who’s worried about Orla eating Rifle - maybe it makes sense that she would think about it, orcas being to penguins and seals what fae are to humans, but that’s exactly also why he’s surprised it would occur to her. It would occur to Maya, who for all her chaotic tendencies is well aware of the gaping divide between human and fae, but while Maya likes hanging around with humans, Phoenix has always gotten the impression that Pearl might want to be human.

(And Iris, he knows for sure, wishes she was human.)

“Our Orla’s a big ol’ sweetie,” Sasha says. “She puts up with Rifle picking on her! The captain said he only had to give Orla a talking-to once, when he first introduced them, but he was constantly telling Rifle not to be such a meanie.”

Chalk a few more points up under the sea witch thing was not a joke.

“They seem to be very good friends,” Pearl says. They probably remind her of Phoenix and Maya, except Rifle acts way more like Maya even though Orla is the one with the teeth.

She leaves to escort Rifle back to Rimes. Athena, pouting exaggeratedly, plops a few fish in Pearl’s hands and with pained, obvious longing, watches her walk away with the penguin. The rest of her fish she throws to Orla. It’s Sasha, after Pearl has left, who answers Phoenix’s unasked questions. “I’m surprised you know her,” she says. “I thought she was a friend of Marlon’s or something - heard that she was down in the staff hallway by the food prep room, and that’s why the cops were questioning her.”

“Huh.” She’d said herself that she had never been here before, and Rimes - Phoenix will have to remember to check if he looks like someone who lives in Kurain Village. “That’s really odd.”

“We’d better just go ask her then, right?” Athena says. “Unless you think she’d lie to us when we ask?” She watches his face intently, looking for a clue as to what level his friendship is with Pearls, whether she’d lie, whether he’d expect her to.

“She can’t lie,” Phoenix says, “and she’s not great at hiding things, either.” Through the years he’s found her to be no good at hiding anything from him - he’s not sure how Morgan thought she would ever survive Court politics. Or maybe it’s only him that she’s no good at talking around the truth with. “Maybe if we’re lucky something she knows can help our case.”

They catch up to her near the eel tank, as she’s saying goodbye to Rimes and sends Rifle along with him. “Hey, Pearls.” She flinches at his sudden call and in the dim light her skin flashes to a shimmering surface like an opal, her glamour dropped momentarily in her fright. He’s always wondered if that’s an actual built-in fae defense mechanism - if something startles her, startle it right back by showing her true face. “We just had a real quick question for you about your relationship with Mr Rimes.”

“My—?”

The thing about Psyche-Locks is that they used to show up when someone directly lied to him, by contradiction or blatant evasion of his questions. What was I doing when the murder happened, Mr Nick? Why do you think I was doing anything when the murder happened? But exact words - I did not kill Juan Corrida - left him in the dark. Maybe he’s gotten stronger since then, or Pearl has and by extension so has the blessing she gave him; and he’s seen locks on half-truths when there’s something more buried deep within. He sees them almost proactively now. Pearl has barely begun to speak, to echo his question right back to him, and there it is.

He’s afraid one day he’ll see locks without any prompting at all, that before he knows what to ask they’ll just appear. A visualization of how everyone of course has secrets, but he won’t know whether they’re related to a crime or not, and it’ll drive him out of his mind paranoid.

(It’s a common fae fate, losing their minds to paranoia. It’s practically built into their culture.)

“Pearls,” Phoenix says wearily, “why do I see a Psyche-Lock?”

It’s just one, thank god, one single lock sealed at the intersection of two chains. “Oh,” Pearl says, looking down at where the lock sits over her chest. She’s never been clear on whether she can actually see them or if she just otherwise senses the ones that Phoenix has already seen. “B-but there is no ‘relationship’ between Mr Animal Feeder and me!”

“I don’t necessarily mean romantic, Pearls.”

She laughs nervously. “But I, um - I still shouldn’t talk about it,” she says.

But she doesn’t say that she’s made any promises, specifically, to keep a secret. There will be a way to work it out of her. She gave him Truth, and he’s going to use it.

“What were you doing in the staff corridor?”

The answer is simpler than her behavior makes it seem; she got distracted by the gift shop immediately when she arrived, bought a cute penguin calendar to help her with her understanding of the concept of time, and got lost when she tried to get back to the aquarium exhibits. She found the food prep room, scared the hell out of Rimes on entering, and knocked a few tubs of fish over onto herself, her new calendar, Rimes, his calendar, the floor—

Really, he’s just relieved that her fishy smell isn’t because she’d started eating some of the animal food. Or gotten into a tank and started eating the exhibits. And her mishap has netted them a little more information: Rimes didn’t want anyone to know he was in the food prep room, and Pearl picked up what must have been Rimes’ calendar instead of her own when they extracted themselves from the fish. Meet the captain @ orca pool, 7a, under today’s date. A clue to the victim’s movements before his death?

“You said you came here with your summer camp group?” Athena asks. “Did they get sent out of here with the rest of the visitors? Do you need to let them know where you are, or get back to them?”

“Oh, no, I’m not with them,” Pearl says. “I just traveled here with the group but they shouldn’t notice I’m gone. I’d rather help you and Mr Nick now anyway!”

Air hisses in through Athena’s teeth and she looks helplessly to Phoenix for a verdict. Like now he’s supposed to be Pearl’s dad, too. If she wants to go somewhere, no force on any earth can stop her. Her mother bragging about her powers was a preface to her attempts to get rid of Maya, but she wasn’t wrong, either, is the thing. Pearl has subtle control over her glamours that Phoenix has never seen in one of the fae; her slight manipulations of attention are the kind that Klavier and Thalassa do. There’s a reason that no one, not Gumshoe or Franziska or Edgeworth, ever questioned Phoenix bringing a small child to court and crime scenes. Pearl makes herself seem like she belongs anywhere, and disappear just as easily when it’s time to move on. The biggest surprise is that Sasha and Rimes even noticed something amiss in her presence at the aquarium at all.

(It took Phoenix a while to actually realize what Pearl had done by giving him a magatama charged with the power of breaking glamours. Realize that she handed him the key to undo her greatest strength. Maya has teeth, and Dahlia curses, but in the end there’s little stronger than perception. Little Pearl, raised to be a usurper, raised to strike at what she feared and to fear all the world outside the royal manor, gave a human she just met a magatama and a blessing to see through her both literally and metaphorically. He was so focused on saving Maya he didn’t realize just then how much Pearl wanted to save Maya too, how much she loved her too, to make herself weak to help her.)

“So what’s next?” Athena asks. His silence has answered her as assent, permission for Pearl to stay.

What next? Everything. They’ve meandered around learning all about the care and keeping of aquariums and nothing about the case. “We still need some sort of actual evidence we can point to for anyone other than Orla as the culprit, and her that to Fulbright. And we’ll want to go back and get Ms DePlume to tell us what she saw.”

“If there’s evidence anywhere it’s gotta be in the pool room, right?” Athena asks. “¡Vamanos! We’ll search over and over until we find something!”

Or at some point presumably accept that nothing turning up means that Orla probably did kill the captain. But they aren’t there yet, haven’t hit that wall, so he doesn’t yell after Athena as she careens down the hall, boots squeaking as she makes a hard turn on the sleek tile flooring. Two officers stand guard outside the orca pool room doors, like they expect Sasha to try and sneak Orla out this way. They both flinch away as Athena bodily slams into the doors and tumbles back inside. Neither smiles when Phoenix offers a placating one.

“I’m gonna go check out that mess in the back again!” Athena calls, barely slowed, her sprint picking back up.

“Hey, I’m doing my best!” Sasha hollers back. Her grin tells the rest of them she isn’t offended, but Athena, not looking back, has to hear it in her voice. “There’s a lot of work that goes into this place!”

With a shriek, Athena hits a patch of water and her feet shoot straight out from under her. Another epic wipeout snds her clattering into the pile of props and orca toys. Phoenix presses his hand to his forehead. “Athena,” he sighs, “you are the reason every public pool has about twelve ‘no running’ signs.”.

“Ugh.” She’s slow to get herself back up, kicking a small prop dummy, marked by deep teeth marks, nearly into the pool, in the process of extracting herself from a skull-and-crossbones flag. “Yeah. But I’ve got us a new angle on it, right?” She brandishes a broken plastic sword that he hopes she didn’t break. Its other piece is nowhere to be seen, so maybe she didn’t. What she did do is scuff up the tape that marks the body’s location, which even before her was wet and barely stuck down in several places.

Pearl tilts her chin back. On anyone else it would be haughty, but she is regal until a moment later she inhales deeply and scrunches her nose up. “There’s blood here,” she says, nose still twitching, mouth pulled to one side in a grimace.

“I think I’m just bruised, not bleeding.” Athena rubs her elbow. Then she freezes. “You aren’t, uh, smelling blood, is that what you’re—?” The terrified expression on her face isn’t subtle, and with Pearl standing right next to Phoenix, him noticing means she notices it just as well. Athena steps straight back through the prop pile, over the fallen limb of the ceiling-mounted octopus, until she’s bumping up against a pile of wooden crates with nowhere else to run.

“No, it’s not you,” Pearl says. “It’s dried.” She closes her eyes and inhales deeply again, holding it in with her shoulders up. “Human, mostly.” Athena squeaks, but Pearl’s attention is fixed in the mess. Squatting, she shifts aside a few smaller plastic swords and a volleyball and then, with a soft but triumphant laugh, she holds up something above her head. Not that she’s holding it, exactly: the glinting circle hovers a centimeter above her fingers so as to not leave prints on it. It looks like a coin, another piece of prop pirate treasure, half bright gold that catches the light, and half dull red—

Blood. There’s blood on the coin. “Th - that’s—” Athena sounds faint. “That’s blood. That’s - do you think that’s the victim’s? And how did it get here?”

Phoenix accepts it when Pearl offers it to him. It certainly looks and feels like metal, but one side is emblazoned with a skull and the other an anchor - nothing usable as far as currency goes. “I don’t know, but this might be what we need. It’s blood outside the pool - not like Orla can leave the water. Hey, Sasha,” he calls. She springs up from where she’s sitting on the other side of the room and hurries over, slower and more carefully than Athena hurries. “Do you know anything about these coins?”

“They’re part of the show! Guess I missed a few when I was cleaning up. The cops gave me the go-ahead to put them away after they were done looking at - at—” Sasha crosses her arms tightly. “The coins were all scattered around - around by—”

“Around here,” Phoenix offers, motioning at the outline of Jack Shipley’s corpse.

Sasha nods, and with a shudder, straightens herself back up, propping a hand on her hip. “No time to be a sad blobfish about it!” she says. “Gotta snapper out of it! Captain always says, when it’s showtime, you’ve gotta put on a smile!” She very obviously doesn’t look back down at the tape, the way Phoenix, if not occupying his mind with something else important, takes a wide step over the carpet beneath the window.

“My mentor had a saying a lot like that,” he says. Sasha jerks her head up, barely catching her hat as it slides off. “She always said it was a lawyer’s job to keep smiling through the hardest times.”

“Sounds like a wise lady,” Sasha says, suddenly subdued again. Was the implication, the comparison from the captain to Mia, and the past tense, that obvious - the other thing they share, besides advice about keeping optimistic, that apparent? Hanging onto the words of a dead mentor right after it happened, yeah, Phoenix has been there too. She lets the silence rest a moment longer and then she adds, “I still haven’t managed to find all the coins. There should be about three hundred total.”

“Maybe some ended up in the pool?” Athena, now extracted herself from the trashed corner of the room, no longer trying to hide from Pearl, leans over the water from the top of the ladder. “I think I see something glittering down there. I’ll go in and grab them!”

She is really not learning her lesson today about having an ounce of sense in and around the orca pool. “No, you won’t,” Phoenix says. “Not dressed like that. It’s sixty-five feet deep and your clothes are going to make you sink and drown. Sasha, maybe you can — Athena. Put your clothes back on right now.”

Athena shrugs her shoulder back into her jacket, but she has the audacity to not look even slightly ashamed, just indignant that he would have the audacity to stop her from stripping to dive into an aquarium tank already occupied by a killer whale. What part of I’m her boss, not her father has the universe at large not understood? Apollo wouldn’t be putting him through this. He wouldn’t have to stop Apollo from drowning himself.

“Sure thing, Phoenix, I’ll go grab them!” Sasha peels her crop top off over her head and even though he knows that she’s got a wetsuit on underneath the vaguely-pirate kinda-punk-rock gear, he still looks away - it’s polite. She leaves her shirt and shorts in a heap on the wet floor, her shoes having been discarded pretty much as soon as they made it back to the aquarium from the office, and without preamble or preparation she throws her hands over her head and dives down into the orca pool. Orla had been watching them curiously, and she swims slow circles around the pool, slowly descending, keeping some distance from Sasha but not enough that Phoenix isn’t still incredibly nervous for her.

What’s the longest an ordinary human can hold their breath underwater? The answer for an ordinary human working as an orca trainer is surely longer than Phoenix could imagine, definitely way longer than he could manage, but he doesn’t actually have a number to know if a selkie in human form surpasses that. Sasha is difficult to see, blurry through the deep water, and making Phoenix even more anxious as time ticks by slower than ever and she doesn’t, and doesn’t, and doesn’t come back up. Then Orla sinks further, to Sasha’s level, and she grabs the orca’s fin and lets her rocket her back up to the surface.

“There were a ton down there!” she exclaims, understandably breathless from her venture, and dumping the coins on the deck. “I mean, not actually a ton. They’re all around seven pounds in all.”

“That’s still a hefty bunch of coins.” He watches Sasha hoist herself out of the pool, ignoring the ladder not far to her right. Seven pounds of coins, one with blood on it, scattered all around a crime scene and a corpse. What’s it mean? It’s always something - write nothing off as coincidence. Everything’s good for a bluff, if nothing else. Seven pounds of coins, blood, a corpse, no murder weapon so all the suspicion’s on the orca. Seven pounds of coins, blood, corpse, no murder weapon—

He watches Sasha carry the wet coins over to a small box and dump them in. “What if the coins are the murder weapon?” he says.

“How?” Athena asks. “How could you kill a grown man with a little coin like that? Is this a fae thing?” Pearl shifts her stance, her sandals squeaking against the floor and her robes rustling.

“One coin on its own wouldn’t do anything, you’re right - but if you took all seven pounds of them, and put them in a bag…” He deliberately trails off, leaving her room to logic out the rest of the thought.

“You could use it as a blunt instrument!”

“Exactly. Though I don’t see any coin bag around here.” Maybe in that mess of props, as though they haven’t already gone through it twice.

“If the killer took it, it would look even more like Orla did it, and it doesn’t matter now, anyway!” Doesn’t it? Actually, for the moment, she’s right. “The coin and this theory is enough for reasonable doubt! We’ve gotta go let Fulbright know! This should be enough for him to take it to trial, right?”

“Right,” Phoenix agrees. “And I still wanted to speak with that woman and find out what she saw. She’s hopefully still where we left her. Let’s go.”

“Rapide! C’mon, Boss! Pearly!” In her excitement, Athena has already forgotten that she was, and rightly still should be, afraid of Pearl.

Norma DePlume is still at the Pub O’ Danger, now doubting that the veterinarian she’s harassing is here at all, and her Psyche-Locks snap like tree branches beneath a heavy Kurain snowfall. It was one of the weakest efforts he’s ever seen. She barely tried to pretend she wasn’t a blabbermouth who wanted to spill everything to the first person who crossed her path.

(Still would’ve been nice if she hadn’t attempted the pretense at all and just said it.)

Her claim is that she saw the moment Orla took the victim in her mouth and shook him to death, which - didn’t Fulbright say that the orca rammed him to death up against the tank glass? Until they have an official up-to-date and updated autopsy report it doesn’t really matter but it’s nice to know he can still spot contradictions, still remembers how to fire those connections in his brain. A stroke of fortune means that Fulbright shows up right as DePlume finishes her tale of the violent orca brutally maiming the poor owner, who she had so tried to warn of Orla’s tendencies, only to be so cruelly blacklisted from the aquarium. (And got back inside anyway.)

“I think you can see from this testimony that there’s no way this can be anything but accidental death,” Fulbright says. “But don’t feel bad! It’s the thought that counts and you’ve done all you can, I’m sure!”

Is that supposed to be consoling? Kind of him to try, but also in legal matters, it really, really isn’t the thought that counts. “Actually,” Phoenix says, “I think we do have something.”

Fulbright listens intently to their theory about the bloody coin, while DePlume shrieks and recoils from it. “That’s not decisive evidence of a human killer,” he says, but over Phoenix’s protestations adds, “But your theory does seem enough to warrant further investigation. I’ll give the Prosecutors Office a call about reinvestigating from a possible criminal angle. When we spoke earlier there was one prosecutor interested in the case, if you could find some merit to it - maybe now he’ll be willing to take it to trial. I’ll let you know!”

Phoenix closes his mouth. Of all the batshit bluffs pulling through for him, he’s about to bring an orca to court. They’re not exactly going to be able to sit her in the defendant’s chair. “Thank you, Detective.”

“I really hope they’ll listen to him,” Athena says. “We’re so close now!”

DePlume snorts disdainfully. Pearl has a hand in the touch tank, allowing a crab to crawl up her arm. Nothing even close to fear enters her posture - she acts like she’s right at home here. A pearl happy as a clam in the sea. What’s in a name? Magic, and the fae shape themselves and others by what they’re commonly called.

Athena joins her at the tank, leaning over it far enough that her hair swings across the surface of the water. She could attach a bobber and lure to it and go fishing with her ponytail. The two girls talk in quiet voices, either hoping not to disturb Fulbright just outside in the hall, or to eavesdrop on how the conversation is going. Phoenix paces a large circle around the edge of the room, watching the jellyfish bob lazily in their bottle-shaped tank suspended overheard. Do they ever get bored? Do they have enough brains to get bored? Do they have any brain at all? He can’t make out what Fulbright is saying on the phone, just that he’s talking, and then silent, and then saying something else. Is the length of time this is taking good or bad? Fulbright talking up a convincing case, or the Prosecutors Office going into detail about why this insane venture won’t be permitted.

He reenters with a yell. “You won’t believe what the Prosecutors Office had to say!” Athena snaps to attention. Phoenix hopes this is the good kind of won’t believe, where they won’t believe that Edgeworth actually agreed to allow someone to take a goddamn orca to trial, and not the bad kind of no, you wouldn’t believe that even with some evidence and reasonable doubt they’re just letting this one go.

“What happened?” Athena asks, bouncing on her heels. Pearl eases the crab back into the tank and folds her hands in front of her, waiting expectantly but much stiller than Athena.

“When I explained what you found, and your passion for the case, they said that the prosecutor I mentioned earlier is willing to take it to court!”

Phoenix’s stomach unclenches and then twists up in a worse knot. Holy shit, the day he gets his badge back and he’s got a case. He’s got a case and it’s an orca. “Yes!” Athena pumps her fist in the air. “We did it!”

“Does that mean there’s a human suspect being indicted?” Phoenix asks. Sure, he and Athena have already taken up legal representation of the orca, but maybe there’s a condition somewhere in there, that even a prosecutor who thought sure, what the hell to the initial matter has a line.

“No, I’m afraid not,” Fulbright says. “And to be perfectly frank with you—” He steps closer, posed conspiratorially, but his voice gets louder as he says, “Prosecutor Blackquill said he just wanted to prove the orca’s guilt in court.”

Ah. Of all the prosecutors available, this should not be a surprise. The witch (witch?) with the hawk. What are the odds that Edgeworth’s having a conniption?

“S - Ss—” Athena’s words comes out more like a hiss, no clue as to what words she’s going for, and then the hiss rises to an indignant yelp. “Prosecutor Blackquill?” Widget blinks yellow and immediately cycles to dark blue and then red. Athena’s tone tips past anger to a distraught wail. “It’s Prosecutor Blackquill who wants to prosecute Orla?”

Poor kid. She must still be fucked up from the Tenma trial, facing down the samurai-convict and surely imagining that after that her life would be free of him. But Phoenix is - not looking forward to this, no, but this badge back on his chest is tied inextricably to Blackquill’s fate. For Edgeworth, and Edgeworth wants to help Blackquill. And to help, Phoenix needs to know Blackquill. Needs to face him himself, and not just watch Apollo do the same. “Thank you, Detective,” Phoenix says. “Thanks for getting this arranged.”

“You’re taking this rather calmly,” Fulbright says.

“I’ve been committed to defending Orla from the start,” Phoenix says. With a few doubts and second-guessing what the hell he was doing, but orca or no, doesn’t that happen every case? “It doesn’t matter who’s prosecuting her - I’m not going to back down, now or ever.”

“And I’ll be doing my very best to make sure that justice is served,” Fulbright replies.

It’s finally occurred to Phoenix why Fulbright is a familiar name, why it set off a weird itch he couldn’t scratch when he heard it back at the trial in April. Edgeworth had mentioned him at the same time he first told Phoenix about Blackquill. Fulbright’s the one who’s been backing Edgeworth from the beginning. Fulbright’s the one who volunteered to be Blackquill’s point of contact to the free world, to chaperone him about and keep others safe from him.

(“This entire matter would have been dead on arrival if not for Detective Fulbright,” Edgeworth had said. “I was fighting with the precinct over Blackquill since before I officially became chief prosecutor. They refused entirely to allow any of their officers or detectives to be assigned as Blackquill’s monitor. If Fulbright hadn’t volunteered I’d still be spinning up against an endless argument about liability and rehabilitation for a man who aggressively pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.”

“Understandable on their parts,” Phoenix said. “But you think there’s more to it than that.”

Edgeworth fixed a withering glare on him. “I wouldn’t be letting a killer prosecute if I didn’t.”)

Three months have passed since Blackquill first took the bench, but the negotiations started much earlier, and with all that time spent around Blackquill and discussing Blackquill and acting as the liaison going between Blackquill and the people discussing him, Fulbright’s got to have heard a lot of shit about him. The mundane, and the loftier rumors. After all that it’s got to be a surprise for Fulbright to run up against someone who’s not recoiled in horror at the mere mention of Prosecutor Blackquill, the way Athena draws back against the touch-tank, her hands gripping tight against the edge of it, holding herself upright.

What’s Fulbright’s impression of those particular rumors about Blackquill, the ones Edgeworth barely thought to mention? There’s no way to know for sure without asking - a person appearing untouched by magic might be the most superstitious, easily believing whispers about witches and monsters, and on the other side there’s Phoenix all tangled up in it but still with no idea what in hell Blackquill’s deal is. But the quick once-over he gives Fulbright tells Phoenix that he’s the opposite of the prosecutor he’s tied to, unchanging and unchanged through both sets of eyes. Statistically that’s what most people are supposed to be - according to Edgeworth, anyway - but it never fails to surprise Phoenix when he finds someone human and unmarred by the tricks of the Court.

“Hey, Mr Attorney,” Fulbright says, and Phoenix jumps nearly out of his skin, suddenly sure that he’s read straight into his mind, somehow, even though if mind-reading was any magic Phoenix had ever heard of, he’d probably be able to See it. “Huh. Funny, I thought for sure for a moment that your eyes changed color there!”

“Oh.” Phoenix’s voice comes out poker-table level, and he decides that a smile, even a small one, is trying a little too hard to put him back at ease, so he keeps his face blank. “Yeah, I’ve noticed the lighting gets pretty funny in here, too, what with…” He points a thumb at the jellyfish and shrugs.

He seems dense, the detective, but Phoenix isn’t going to doubt his commitment to justice. Not because he keeps spouting off about it at the barest provocation, but for what he’s done. For Orla, and for Edgeworth. For Blackquill.

They’re left with the hum of the tanks, the last splash of Pearl’s hand in the water, Fulbright and DePlume’s voices fading down the hall. She’ll be a witness for the prosecution. Phoenix would love to see the battle between her and Blackquill as he tries to prepare her testimony. If she’s this fired up about the injustice of the killer orca, what’s she going to think of a murderer-prosecutor?

“So,” Athena says. “You know how we need, like, the signed defense request from the defendant to put us on the docket? Who’s going to sign that?”

“We could get Orla’s flipper and a stamp pad?” Pearl suggests.

“I think we’ll just talk to Sasha,” Phoenix says. She’s Orla’s trainer - she’ll be the next closest thing to the owner, someone who can be a representative of some sort, acting on her behalf. “We’ve got to let her know, anyway, that this is going to court.”

Sasha is thrilled. Hopping up and down - Phoenix once again fights the impulse to tell her to take more care on the wet floor - she turns to Orla and asks, “Did you hear that? They’ve done it! Your case is going to court!”

Phoenix swallows a lump that tastes something like shame. Poor Sasha - she just lost a coworker, show partner, and mentor, had not even her other coworkers believe in her animal friend, and she came to him on basis of a cross-examination of a parrot a decade ago. That’s desperation, and he nearly turned her down. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up too far,” he cautions, and Athena’s grin, directed at Sasha, snaps down into a glare affixed firmly on Phoenix. “We’ll still be fighting an uphill battle in the trial tomorrow, but we’ll do everything we can.”

Sasha plops down on the edge of the pool, dragging a foot through the water. She watches Orla nose a volleyball across the surface. “I feel so bad that she’s got to stay cooped up in here,” she says. “The big show pool outside, since we’re on the waterfront it’s a pretty quick shot to the ocean, we’d take her out all the time, butI think they’re afraid that I’m going to try and sneak her out and free her into the wild to save her.” Honestly, that doesn’t seem that far out there as a possibility. “But she’s so sad in here without the captain to play with - I just can’t keep up with her. You should see her fastball when she’s playing volleyball!”

She must know the word, or understand Sasha in particular, because Orla dives down deep in the water and breaches the surface, jumping high and spinning and smacking the volleyball straight into the back wall. It hits with a booming smack and bounces all the way back to land in the water again. “Oh, wow,” Athena says, a breathless, shocked kind of admiration, but Widget squeaks out, “Yikes!”

“And orcas if they’re kept in captivity in places too small for them, they start going crazy!” Sasha throws her hands into the air and then smacks them down at the pool’s edge. “Whacking themselves up against the walls, and there’s real problems with fin droop where it goes like—” She holds up a hand, perpendicular to the floor, and then swings it down flat. “The captain was always so concerned to make sure she had enough space, and was healthy, and that we were learning from every other sea park that did stuff wrong—”

“Sasha,” Phoenix says.

“I’m smiling, I’m smiling!” She forces a pained grin, more of a grimace, onto her face. “But nobody else knows how to take care of her, just me and the captain. And it’s like he’s counting on me, but I can’t do it right.”

“It’s like any human defendant having to spend a night or a weekend in a holding cell before their trial,” Phoenix says. “We’ve survived it” - or at least I have, three times, and god forbid Athena or Pearl has to go through that - “and I’m sure Orla will too. She hardly looks droopy now, does she?”

“No,” Sasha agrees. Orla chirrups and Sasha reaches out and pats her snout. “Thanks, Phoenix. And Orla thanks you too.”

“I thought you said Orla only understands certain people,” Athena says.

“Yep, pretty much!” Athena’s apparent argument seems lost on Sasha, but a second later she picks it up. “Certain particularly weird people, and your boss is one of them.”

Ah. Great. Sounds like a certain proximity to fae magic is what does it. “Thanks, Sasha,” Phoenix says wearily. At least it’s a better prospect than the animal vehemently hating him for that same thing. If he’s not being attacked, he’ll accept being called weird by an orca-training selkie. “No, weird is good!” Sasha throws up a hand in some sort of rock on! gesture.

“Yeah, Boss!” Athena echoes Sasha with a peace sign. “We’re the weirdest law office in LA and we’re proud of it!”

Just in LA? Where in the rest of the world is she finding any office weirder than the Wright Anything Agency? In complete honesty, Phoenix wouldn’t want to meet them, not while he’s too much for himself to handle.

Sasha grasps at straws to keep the conversation going, reluctant to let them leave and return to having Orla as her only conversational partner. And Orla emits a soft, mournful cry as the doors close on the three of them, ushering them away. In the lobby, as they pass the tank, Orla dives down and puts herself on eye level with them, bumping gently up against the glass. Through the speakers placed around, her sad sounds waft out to them. Pearl meanders to a halt, drifts slowly back and presses a hand up to the tank.

“Mr Nick,” she says. “You have to save her. This isn’t right. This isn’t fair.”

“We’ll do everything we can for her.” Phoenix watches frost form on the glass beneath Pearl’s increasingly sharp fingertips. “Pearls? What’s wrong?”

“She’s called a killer whale, isn’t she?” She grates her claws against the glass before she pulls them away.

“She’s not a killer!” Athena snaps. Has she even noticed the claws? “She didn’t do it! That’s just a name!”

Pearl sets a hard-eyed stare on her. “Names mean a lot,” she says. “They knew what her name is and what she is by nature, didn’t they? And even if they trained her and she still likes them, that’s still what - she still…”

“She still has teeth,” Phoenix finishes for her.

“But she grew up in this aquarium!” Athena protests. Has the subtext missed her? Is she too fixated on Orla and her case to hear that? “She didn’t want to go back to the wild! She wanted to stay! She was raised with people!”

“They were raising her hoping to change her nature?” Pearl asks.

“We’re not still talking about orcas, are we, Pearls?” Phoenix interrupts.

“What else would we be talking about?” Athena looks between the two of them, her eyes narrowing further and further as neither of them express the same confusion as her. She hasn’t been pondering what Phoenix has this whole afternoon, doesn’t think oh, this again. She doesn’t think of Maya’s glossy black hair and killer smile visible in the orca’s shiny skin and mouth snapping open to catch a fish, and she doesn’t think of Phoenix as the dead man bleeding poolside or maybe the trainer who fiercely believes in her despite everything. “Pearly, I thought you believed Orla is innocent!”

“I do!” Oh, god, if this turns into a fight Phoenix does not know how he’s going to stop either of them. Either could snap him in half. “If Mr Nick believes in her, then so do I! But the way they’re treating her even thinking that she did, isn’t fair.”

Who is Pearl thinking about? This veiled way they’re speaking - is it about changelings, sympathies for the devil? Or Pearl herself, walking her personal tightrope between worlds and the fae way Morgan raised her versus the pieces of a human childhood Phoenix offered. Nature or nurture, he always wonders - what makes the fae the fae? They can defy their natures, they can rise above circumstances - that’s what distinguishes fae and human from orca.

Athena blinks confusedly. Phoenix presses his eyes shut and wishes that this conversation had never started. Forget it, forget what he’s thought since the beginning, the parallel running through a funhouse mirror. She’s just an orca. “She’s just an orca,” he repeats out loud. “I think we might be - humanizing her a little much?” Pearl raises her thumb to her mouth, sharpening her claw on her teeth. Phoenix corrects himself. “Personifying her. She’s smart, sure, but she’s still a wild animal and arguing about whether or not she can defy her nature and instinct is—”

“Orcas aren’t just animals!” Athena can harness her anger and turn it on one, and only one, person at a time. She’s playing against Phoenix now, not Pearl. “They have feelings! They have their own songs and languages specific to their own families and pods! They’re one of the only animals that goes through menopause because the older females stick around and help raise kids and look after the pod!”

“We’re not your opponents, Athena.” How long has she been this deeply passionate about marine life to have all these orca facts on hand to spout out. How much does Phoenix not want to be having the moral and ethical conversation about whether it would be wrong to punish an orca for killing someone, and if said orca can even have awareness of what she’s done, if she really did it.

Athena’s shoulders fall; her arms tuck in close across her chest. “I know,” she says. “It’s just, all of Sasha’s sadness, and nobody believing in her, and how Ms DePlume is, it makes me so mad!”

“Save it for the prosecution,” Phoenix says. “Hang onto it all, and then let him have it. Orla deserves someone to fight for her, instead of just writing her off like they were going to, but philosophizing about her is not helping us.” Is she smart enough to be malicious, or is that only people, fae and human, who are? That’s the crux of the question of whether or not she would deserve to be punished for killing a person, but how are they supposed to get an answer.

“Philosophizing - wait, so you weren’t still talking about orcas?” Athena asks. “I thought you both sounded way sadder than you were whenever we’d talk about Orla, but if it wasn’t just her what were you talking about?”

“Us,” Pearl says.

#roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles

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mysticsparklewings · 4 years ago

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Sparkle By the Sea

Pardon me as I just barely squeeze a MerMay piece of art in. I'll be honest with you guys, I've been pretty lacking in artistic motivation since NaPoWriMo ended. Although if you've noticed my lack of uploads, you probably could've already guessed that. This isn't abnormal for the aftermath of a month-long challenge for me, especially with a brand-new video game calling my name at every moment of the day, but even so I feel like this particular motivation drought was a bit different. Part of it definitely had to do with the changes to DeviantArt that I'm sure I don't need to remind everyone of, but that's been more of me dreading seeing what the state of the community is than anything else. (However, I have noticed I'm not a fan of the new tag system over the old category one, as confusing as the category system could be sometimes.) Rather, I think this lake of motivation has more to do with the fact that being largely absent from all social media during NaPo reminded me...well, that I hate social media. This is really a bigger discussion for a journal or something, but suffice to say it did not feel good to realize just how many literal hours I had previously been spending trying to desperately to scrape up just a little bit of support on other social media platforms (namely Twitter), versus the more natural growth I see here on dA that also feels a lot more genuine and less forced/obligatory. I can't really explain it, but that reminder/realization really helped my brain slip back into a place where I felt like creating again. And with that, I'll transition into talking about the art and save the social media talk for, as I said, a journal or something later on. Naturally, I've been seeing a lot of mermaid art this month and every year I feel the urge to get in on the fun, though I know better than to try actually doing the MerMay Challenge (especially not this year after having just done NaPo), so I usually either do a one-off drawing or if I'm too busy with other projects I just skip it. But I was starting to feel that need to make art in my brain again and I've had a specific set of stickers from the dollar store sitting in my stash for quite a while now that more or less sealed the deal for me. How do these stickers fit into the mix? Well, I originally fell in love with/picked them up because they are mermaid-themed and absolutely adorable--See for yourself! And I thought they would make for nice decals in a book project since they're wall stickers and therefore repositionable with minimal adhesive-yuck. And at first, I thought maybe I'd end up making them into said hypothetical book project in time for MerMay...except that felt a little cheap in combination with my lack of uploads. Did I really want to come back with a book project featuring mermaids I didn't even draw? And for MerMay of all things? So I sat on the idea and left the stickers out where I could see them, and eventually I sat down and took a closer look at them. The art style, upon further inspection, actually didn't look like it would be too far outside my usual art-making realms...Most of the coloring looks a lot like watercolor, except for the skin which I thought was flat and smooth like alcohol marker and the glitter accents which from my perspective pretty much had to be digital, but could potentially be replicated with glittery/metallic supplies... And that was the moment the idea hatched. I decided I'd try drawing a mermaid myself in the same style. This would work for MerMay, have something to do with the stickers, and based on my plans would work well for me as a mixed-media project, which as I'm sure I've said before is where I think my artistic talent shines best. I thought the scariest part was going to be replicating the looser and less strict line style, and to a point it was, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I find it's usually kind of tricky to explain this, but really what this part of the process boils down to for me (if I'm replicating an existing style and not using my own), is really just studying the original artwork(s) and looking for patterns, then trying to stick to those patterns. For example, the style here features fairly large & rounded faces, and the hands are more like hand-shaped mittens (which was great news by the way because hands are always a pain in the butt for me), so I did my best to emulate those features. As per usual, I did start with a sketch, but I tried to keep it looser than usual, and then when I did the inking I started with my 0.2 Micron, again trying to keep things loose and no be too fussy if I could help it. Then I went back with a brush tip liner from Prismacolor to get more natural variation in the lines and to force myself to not have quite so much control over the line weight. I was also very careful with my choice of liners because I knew pretty much everything except the skin was going to see a lot of watercolors, which meant the lines had to be waterproof. And of course, I went with watercolor paper (my nice 100% cotton stuff this time) to make sure I didn't have any issues with blending or layering. Now, at this stage, I didn't know what I was going to do for the background, though I was leaning towards the idea of making one separately and placing the mermaid on top afterward, as sort of a nod to the original mermaids being stickers. But I wasn't totally sure yet. What I was sure of was how scared I was to just dive into coloring. The sketching and inking and gone so well I was thinking I was in for a rude awakening at any moment. So, just in case, I scanned my uncolored lines as a fall-back if I royally screwed up. With my paranoid mind set at ease (for the most part), I could begin with color application. I started with the skin since it was the easiest; Just one good layer of alcohol marker, leaving a little white space here and there like the artwork I was emulating. Although 1. The marker color turned out a bit darker than I was expecting and later blended too well with her tail, so I had to lighten it in Photoshop, and 2. because watercolor paper really soaks up the ink, I ended up with less white space than I thought I would. But beyond that, this step went off without a hitch. So then came the second-scariest part: The watercolor. I used a mixture of my Master's Touch watercolors and Mermaid Markers (yes, that was a very conscious supply choice ) and tried to take my time and be mindful of the color balance I was looking for. I'd decided ahead of time that I wanted to try and stick with a soft-ish palette like the original art, but I still wanted my choices to be different. Since yellow/gold is featured in the original but not used for a tail color, that's what I went with, and I opted for the blue-y-purple hair since a soft blue and purple are also prominent in the original and based on color-theory would be a nice contrast to the gold-orange tail. Though I did also try to get some pink in both the tail and the hair for a bit of unity and calling back to the pink in the original art. The trickiest part with the coloring was actually the tiny lips and blush spots. I ended up using a fluorescent pink for that turned out as more of a red originally and had to be touched-up via Photoshop because of that and also because of the lightening I did to the skin. It's more that it was a bit of a challenge to get the shapes of these much smaller areas right and in the correct place, since I had to use very minimal pencil markings, lest I end up with nasty graphite marks mixed into the paint. Getting the hair to be dark enough without being extreme compared to the rest of the drawing was also a great test of patience, but it ultimately worked out, I think. I also had a hard time deciding what color the piece of coral in her hair should be, which is why it ended up as this vague dusky-orange color. And I got more pink on the sand dollar next to it than I intended, but neither of those things is a huge deal. While I waited for all that to dry though, I had to decide how I was going to go about tackling all that extreme sparkle the original art had. I could have just added it in digitally and not even attempted it traditionally, but everything else had gone so smoothly that I decided to push my luck this time. Originally, I started with just glittery gel pens, but I found pretty quickly that they were sinking back into the colors underneath them too much and thus just weren't doing what I wanted. I wanted high-impact sparkle. After some brief consideration, I turned to the metallic watercolor sets I have made by Art Philosophy, which are very high-impact metallic and pretty opaque, which would work well over my failed gel pen and would work wonders for the areas where I wanted that high-impact over an opposing color. (I.E. Where I wanted the blue sparkle over a very orange-yellow area, which would normally make brown mud if the color on top wasn't opaque.) The funny part about that is that I originally used a different shade of purple and gold for those areas of sparkle that I ended up completely covering with different shades (the purple needed to be lighter and the gold needed to be darker/more gold and less yellow). And her eye shadow cover saw all three colors before I settled; The purple just seemed wrong, and the gold blended too well with her skin. I thought the blue wouldn't work so close to her blue hair, but it actually ended up looking the best out of the three. Although, I do have to make a full disclosure that the high-impact sparkle you see here is in fact where I went in and re-did it digitally once I scanned the artwork in. Unfortunately, glitter and metallic supplies just don't scan very well and usually end up looking too dark, dull, or flat by comparison. The metallic paints work just fine in person since you can move the art and see how they reflect the light, but it just doesn't work in a still image that's been captured by having a bright light uniformly shined over it. Still, re-tooling the sparkle digitally ended up being an interesting challenge, especially since it's been a fairly long time since I was messing with digital textures like this. Also worth noting is that I had to re-paint some of the metallic areas because they weirdly lifted off onto the plastic cover I used to protect the art when I pressed it onto the background to make the glue stick. I'm not sure if it's because those were the extra-layered areas and they hadn't fully dried all the way down to the paper, or if that particularly plastic just picks up this metallic paint really easily or what. And speaking of that background... Like I said earlier, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do for a background for a while, but after reviewing my mermaid-centric Pinterest board I decided a simple rock seat and something to vaguely suggest the ocean/water without getting too detailed would suffice just fine. Based on that, I felt like using gouache would work nicely (and I just really felt like using the gouache since I don't find a lot of opportunities to use it) and that a color scheme that flipped her hair and tail colors would be best for the effect I wanted. I've found I really like the Strathmore 400 series mixed media paper for gouache because of how smooth it is, so I cut a piece down to size and got busy. For the most part, I just kind of went in with the colors doing whatever felt right, and trying to use some gouache I'd already mixed from past projects (since gouache can be reactivated and I've found this kind, in particular, seems to reactivate really nicely) either on their own or to mix the colors I felt like I needed. And I also tried to do a lot of blending straight on the paper to get more variations in color and make things a bit more lively. Oddly enough, this ended up being a good example of gouache's covering power because I accidentally started applying the colors upside down--using more greens and blues on top and more pinky-purple on the bottom--and not only had to flip the paper around but also had to do a fair amount of covering the colors I'd already put down with colors you don't really want to mix with them because they don't make very pretty results. But it worked out just fine, so yay! I also added some clouds for a little extra ambiance, which I think looks quite nice. Believe it or not, the most difficult thing about the background was the rocks. I spent far longer than I care to admit (or bothered to document, for that matter) trying and in many ways failing to mix the proper shades of gray I wanted, and the end result didn't turn out quite as clean and graphic as I had hoped, but by the time I put the mermaid on top, you really can't tell because you can only see a fraction of what's actually there. And I mean, the end result isn't terrible, it's just not quite what I was picturing in my mind's eye is all. Personally, I know it's kind of an odd choice, but I really like how there's no defining line between the water and the sky, and yet you still get a clear idea that they're separate and the rocks aren't just floating in space. I'm not sure how, but I think I'd like to work with this kind of ambiguity more often. It's like a step between abstract and more structured art. Anyway. With the background done, the next step was to attach the mermaid, which I felt like doing in a more 3D and less flat manner, so I chopped up a cardboard box that previously held a chocolate bunny I had on hand and glued some pieces together to boost the mermaid up a bit. This where those deep shadows between her and the background are coming from. Here I feel the need to insert a comment about how difficult it was to get my tacky glue to dispense the glue for me, though there's a chance this is because I need to poke the opening in the tip to be a bit wider. (You have to poke it open yourself and I always felt like I never did get it open quite enough...unless you like strenuous hand exercises...) Of course, once all the above was done then I had to scan the art in, which I was admittedly a bit nervous about after the incident with the plastic cover peeling off the metallic paint (though fortunately, the scanner glass didn't have the same effect), and then all that was left wad the digital retouches. Overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out. It doesn't blend in as well as I originally wanted it to with the original art, but in the end, that doesn't really bother me. It's just a nice piece of art on its own that is also unique from what I normally do...except it's still got a lot of similar elements to how I normally make art. It feels a lot like the days when all I made was fanart. The key difference here is that I know myself better as an artist now and thus can use that knowledge to my advantage. I can't promise this a return to regular posting for me, though I do hope it's a gateway to me posting more frequently at least, but I can say I do intend on getting back to working on art more often and therefore being more present online again. At the very least, I can happily tell you guys that I have a couple of new art supplies en route to me that I've been wanting for a while and am excited to share with you once they arrive. If nothing else, we at least have that to look forward to! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#mermay

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