#I Can Do This Until The Heat Death Of The Universe. -Mai

[maifromshowfall]

Narrator:

According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible.

Cut to Barry's room, where he's picking out what to wear.

Barry

Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Ooh, black and yellow! Yeah, let's shake it up a little.

Barry uses honey from a dispenser to style his hair, rinse his mouth, and then applies it to his armpits.

Mom (Janet Benson)

(calling from downstairs:) Barry! Breakfast is ready!

Barry:

Coming! (phone rings) Oh, hang on a second. (adjusts his antennas into a headset) Hello?

Adam Flayman

(on the phone) Barry?

Barry:

Adam?

Adam:

Can you believe this is happening?

Barry:

I can't believe it. I'll pick you up. (hangs up, sharpens his stinger) Lookin' sharp. (flies downstairs)

Mom:

Barry, why don't you use the stairs? Your father paid good money for those.

Barry:

Sorry. I'm excited.

Dad (Martin Benson):

Here's the graduate. We're very proud of you, son. And a perfect report card, all B's.

Mom:

Very proud. (touches Barry's hair)

Barry:

Ma! I got a thing going here.

Mom:

Ah, you got some lint on your fuzz.

Barry:

Ow! That's me!

Dad:

Wave to us! We'll be in row 118,000.

Barry:

Bye! (flies off)

Mom:

Barry, I told you, stop flying in the house!

(Barry drives his car to pick up his classmate. Adam's outside his house, reading the Hive Today newspaper. The front page headline reads "FRISBEE HITS HIVE ! Internet Down. Bee: 'I heard sound, then Wham-o!'")

Barry:

Hey, Adam.

Adam:

Hey, Barry. Is that fuzz gel?

Barry:

A little. It's a special day, finally graduating.

Adam:

Never thought I'd make it.

Barry:

Yeah, three days of grade school, three days of high school.

Adam:

Those were so awkward.

Barry:

Three days of college. I'm glad I took off one day in the middle and just hitchhiked around the hive.

Adam:

You did come back different.

(a bee calls out as they drive past)

Bee:

Hi, Barry.

Barry:

Hey Artie, growing a mustache? Looks good.

Adam:

Hey, did you hear about Frankie?

Barry:

Yeah.

Adam:

You goin' to his funeral?

Barry:

No, I'm not goin' to his funeral. Everybody knows you sting someone, you die. You don't waste it on a squirrel. He was such a hothead.

Adam:

Yeah, I guess he could have just gotten out of the way.

(They make various noises as the car goes up and down some hills and does a loop on the road.)

A & B

Woah! Oooooooh!

Adam:

I love this incorporating an amusement park right into our regular day.

Barry:

I guess that's why they say we don't need vacations.

(They arrive, fly in and take their seats.)

Barry:

Boy, quite a bit of pomp... under the circumstances.

Barry:

Well, Adam, today we are men.

Adam:

We are!

Barry:

Bee-men.

Adam:

Amen!

A & B:

Hallelujah! (bumping each other) Aaaaaaaaaaaah!

Announcer:

Students, faculty, distinguished bees, please welcome Dean Buzzwell.

Dean Buzzwell walks onto the stage and taps the microphone.

Buzzwell:

Welcome, New Hive City graduating class of... (presses a button to change the timer on the podium from 9:00 to 9:15) ...9:15. And that concludes our graduation ceremonies.

(Students cheer, throw their caps into the air as helmets are placed on their heads.)

Buzzwell:

And begins your career at Honex Industries!

Barry:

Are we gonna pick our jobs today?

Adam:

I heard it's just orientation.

Barry:

Huh. Woah. Heads up! Here we go.

(The stands for Winger University the students are sitting in begin converting into tram seating.)

Female announcer:

Keep your hands and antennas inside the tram at all times. (flies down to go in the tram as it starts moving and repeats it in Spanish:) Mantenga sus manos y antenas dentro del tranvía en todo momento.

I would have you sent you the entire thing, and by god I tried, but it crashed tumblr twice in the process, so consider yourself spared

Please Stop Sending Me Asks.

[elsvenus]

𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐆 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐄 ✷ 𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐌𝐒

𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 ✷ reaped from district seven - lumber - ellie williams is set out to win the hunger games no matter what cost, regardless of her feelings towards a certain district four tribute ✷ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 0.7 ✷ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: set in the hunger games universe, mixed characters from different media you may recognize, slow burn, eventual graphic mentions of death, blood, murder, assault amongst other hard themes

← (𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞) 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞 →

𝟎𝟎. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆

DISTRICT FOUR

The first thing that had struck you from Abby was her perpetual smell of sea water, as though it’d ooze off her pores at any second, and every whiff, every touch, was a christening of your head, beneath it to rise for a purer soul. Her caress to your cheeks were especially engraved by wrinkled fingertips from ocean exposure and when she’d leave the waves towards the shore of open arms every droplet that slid down her body onto yours was a sacred nature branding, burning itself onto your features until your brain was uncertain whether Abby smelled of sea or sea of her, and you likewise, covered. It was the first thing missing when she came back from her games a victor. Your Abby, scentless. Flowery.

You twist the blonde locks of Abby’s hair between your fingers while she hums impatient. The rose scent of her shampoo fills your nostrils and bleeds anxiety into your chest, quickly brushed off for the continuous motion of braiding, a distracting pattern safe haven. For a moment your lip quirks up, a tease by the tip of your tongue about her Capital perks and otherworldly strawberry scented imported lotions she promised to share and still hid away from you during visits. She would not tell you it was to preserve the same thing from you, the homeliness she’d only find buried deep into your neck, peace she’d never get back as she hoped every night of sleep in your arms awoke nostalgia that’d overpower nightmares of brutal savagery. The Victor’s Village was off limits to a commoner such as yourself but Abby batted her eyelashes and District Four peacekeepers turned a blind eye, or so you both thought.

“I got you something” Abby whispers, pulling away from your grasp as she feels your hands tug the end of her hair into the perfected hairstyle. The blonde leans over the shelving of the house far too big for an orphan in these districts, painted shades of white and blues, hardly decorated by the elite designers assigned, too busy assembling new units in the near invincible districts One and Two, and brings you a small box “It’s your last year at a reaping, so I got it for good luck”

A starfish necklace. You gasp as it lays on your hand delicately before Abby makes the first move of adorning you in it. For the first time since she has been back from her games the blonde takes your face into her hands and presses a kiss onto your lips, so soft it ghosts over them long after she is gone, the missed sensation weighing down your eyelids.

“Do I look pretty?” You twirl around jokingly and Abby can only nod, sucking in her bottom lip between two front teeth “All the odds are in my favor with you, Abs, relax”

When your name is called out during the reaping ceremony all you can feel are the hands of the peacekeepers by your waist, escorting you, and the metal of your starfish by your neck. All you can hear, however, are Abby’s screams.

DISTRICT SEVEN

There is sweat dripping down her forehead onto her eyelids, thick layers coating every inch of skin until it morphed itself a new layer of it, a wet armour. And there’s a moment where the heat and the trees are working together into suffocating her and Ellie thinks she can swing the axe towards herself, spare the wood, and end it on her own terms. Fuck the Capital. Fuck the Hunger Games. Fuck the reaping. Unfortunately, it’s too easy to see through her.

“Ellie” Joel lays a hand on her shoulder and the axe drops on the floor, glaringly close to her own foot “It’s only one more year”

“It’s every fucking year, Joel”

“Yeah, well, that’s someone else’s problem now, all I care about is you staying alive. You just stay alive and don’t be a fucking hero”

When her name is called in front of the Hall of Justice those are the only words going through her mind as to not break the neck of the Capital man in flamboyant clothing that announced her name and stared at her with a toothy grin she mimicked for picturing punching it out his face. But Joel is looking at her. And she knows they win. They win because she will put on a show despite her hatred. Because she doesn’t want Joel to watch her die like he watched Sarah. They always win. She always loses.

[obae-me]

The Brothers and their Nightmares

I was going to post this for Halloween, but things came up as they always do and I couldn't get to finishing it until now. Enjoy the late angst and spoops!

These are just dream scenarios I imagined the Brothers would suffer with, connected to both their Sin and the personal things they struggle with. Most of it is symbolic but could still be triggering for some.

TW: Hurt/No Comfort, Violent Images, Death, Blood, Angst, Nightmare Scenarios, Burning, Broken Bones, Disturbing Scenes that may upset readers. As Always, Read Safely.

Lucifer:

Displayed in a box. Preserved. Hung on a shelf for all to see. Trapped in a clear case with giant pins puncturing his wings and limbs in place. A perfect specimen.

The pain is immense. The torture almost unbearable, but this is where he belongs, right? To be shown off with Pride? To weather any struggles and pain to shine ever brighter in the light? A diamond only need be pressurized, cut, and polished before it's valuable.

Blurry faces of demons and angels and humans alike all pass him by, pointing at him and observing him with awe, sometimes fear, but nothing more. A living piece of art. He's searching for any familiarity amongst the crowd. The people he loves the most, the people he wants to shine for above all, the people he's suffering for!

Please! Give him a reason to endure this crucifixion! Prove to him that this is worth it! Let him know that he's enough! This prison must mean something! Don't say it was all for nothing! Everything he's worked for! Everything he's lamented over, toiled for! Look at him! Appreciate him!

But no one ever comes.

In the end he's left alone. The pins push deeper. The blood dripping from his eyes.

Just a caged butterfly.

--

Mammon:

Glistening palms. Shimmering faces. Gold as far as the eye can see. A perfect shining kingdom. Frozen lifeless subjects. This isn't what he wanted.

Come on, Belphie. Beel? What about you Asmo?... Satan?... No... Levi, please... Hells no... Lucifer!

Unmoving metal lips match each stiff jeweled eye. His hands... He- he had only touched them. That was all he did. Right? All he had done was love them. The Greed had become too much. In his ambition for glory, his corrupted embrace had tainted his family past the flesh. Motionless mannequins, that's all they were now. Cursed to shine till the end of time. His treasures that he had always craved.

Was this what he had wanted all along? No! He had created this all for his family! His friends! His loved ones! They were to all to gimmer with him! Not leave him alone! He did this. He always took things too far. Steal and cheat and lie until nothing remained! Rotten scum! Why couldn't he just listen? Why couldn't he just be better?! Give him a second chance... please. He can be better... Someone say something...

A destiny written in stone. Take. Even the lives of his brothers.

No matter how hard he tries, he only makes things worse.

Surrounded by the Fool's gold.

--

Levi:

Clanging, burning chains. There's a constant deafening buzzing in the air, the chatter of thousands of people. The voices rise and fall in rhythm, like the beating of war drums, or the increasing pace of his heart. He can't think, he can hardly see, and he can't breathe.

Millions of shining eyes stare down at his restrained body in the middle of a stadium. The blinding gazes singe his body, his skin melting off his bones. He's not the only one at the center of attention. Other people, other contestants are here to play the same game. Win, and get everything you ever dreamed. Lose, and be forced to burn with Envy and shame.

Every failed attempt of his makes the arena hotter. The infernal heat spills from the breaths of the crowd sharing his weaknesses to the world. They give his competitors the advantage, kicking him while he's down. The thrumming gets faster. It's not fair! He's trying so hard! Was he just doomed from the start? Was he born a failure? Hated by the universe since the moment of conception?! Is that why he's never good enough? Is that why all his brothers get to move on without him?!

His dreams always just out of reach. He's not good enough to be loved.

The bitterness eats him up from the inside.

Till he's melted into a pile of nothing.

--

Satan:

A mess of strings. The curtain is drawn. The show begins! It's the same routine day after day after day after day-- He can't take this any more!

He doesn't even understand this masquerade! The story he's forced to play out is gibberish, some fickle plot he can't even begin to fathom. Everything is foreign to him. The audience, the dance, his body, his Wrath. None of it is recognizable. And they chuckle like they know, like they enjoy his ignorance. Limbs are pulled in any direction the strings choose. Bones broken, lips sealed shut, he's pushed to the brink of oblivion once again.

But he worked so hard! Everything he's read, everything he learned, so he could stop feeling like this! He's not just a hollow doll, controlled by someone else's ambitions! He has thoughts, he has feelings! He might... not fully understand them yet, but he's trying! Tell him he's smart, that he's strong, that he's his own person! Let him stand on his own!

But only his mind is allowed to scream as the congregation watches.

A wicked dance until the strings are snipped. His opportunity to be independent. But instead, he falls into a lifeless heap on the floor.

Nothing without someone else.

The poor wooden plaything will never be real.

--

Asmo:

An endless winding labyrinth of mirrors. He runs, panting and crying as he tries to find his way through the illusions. Make it stop! Let him have peace!

The creatures are invisible to his normal eyes, only showing up in the reflections of the mirrors surrounding him. There's hundreds of them at least, crawling over each other to get to him. They don't even make a sound, silently scrambling towards him. An amalgamation of Lust. Each time they grab him, they take something precious from him. His fingernails, strands of his hair, his beautiful lips, the blush from his cheeks. They rip off of him as easily as tearing away a puzzle piece.

They're stripping him of his beauty bit by bit! How is he supposed to be loved like this?! If he's not gorgeous, than what is he? He has nothing left! This is all he has! He's not strong, or smart, or powerful! His physical charm is all he has! Please, leave him alone! He's supposed to be a jewel! That's all anyone ever sees him as!

He can't bear to look at himself. Every time he glances he's slightly different. Until he no longer recognizes the humanoid shell in the mirror. But he has no choice to keep looking if he wants to keep an eye on the monsters pursuing him.

A single fumble.

It's rather quick and painless as the souls each take what they want from him.

And leave him broken in shards on the floor.

--

Beel:

Screams echo from every direction. Buildings crumble as the earth shakes and the air hums. A moving living black cloud sweeps through the town. Where's his family? He has to help.

The sky a vast pool of crimson as the Celestial Sun and Demonic Moon cross paths and cast a torrent of blood down onto the merging realms. The ground beneath them all trembles, growling. It's Gluttonous. Every person he tries to save is always just too far away. They either get consumed from the plague of insects or fall into the gaping maws of the starving earth. And he still can't find his family.

Why? Why is this happening? Why isn't he strong enough to save anyone?! All the workouts, all the training, pushing his muscles stronger than any demon ever has, all so he can quit feeling so useless! He told himself he would be ready to take on anything! Even an entire army if he had to, just so he could save somebody for once! Lilith... Belphie… everyone... he's sorry... Sorry he's so weak. This is his fault.

The foundation beneath his feet begins to crumble.

His wings feel far too fragile to fly.

It makes sense that in the End of Days, no one would be there to save him.

He didn't deserve it.

--

Belphie:

There's something rotten in his chest. It feels like a pit in his soul, growing larger with every passing second. The sensation is agonizing.

It's something no one can see, but something he feels with every breath. It's very slowly stripping him of everything he is. His love, his memories, his desires... He needs to go find help. The House is laid out all wrong. Doors lead to where they shouldn't, hallways bend in the wrong directions. His house doesn't even feel like home anymore. Every step feels harder than it should. The supposedly easy task of getting help seeming more like an impossible feat. This rot is more than just Sloth. It takes what seems like hours to finally find his family. That's when he reaches out to them, trying to tell them what's wrong. But he can't speak for some reason.

Gestures and panicked grasping means nothing to his brothers. The desperation in his eyes goes ignored as most simply rub his head or push him off to the side, not taking him seriously in the least. But this hurts! He can't take the pain anymore! Someone help him! Don't push him away, don't treat it like a joke! Listen to him! Take what he has to say into consideration! He can't possibly speak over six other voices!

His efforts wasted, his energy depleted.

The rot ate away at his heart and left him numb.

And everyone walked away, leaving the boy who cried to cry alone.

[adalricus]

(AMAB)Yandere!cat hybrid x gn!reader hcs:

- You were just coming back home from your job and it was raining

- Unbeknownst to you someone was following you home during that rainy night

- As you were opening the door you felt a cat rubbing against your leg and meowing at you loudly

- You couldn't just leave this little cutie outside

-You fed it only the best cat food and obviously pampered it, despite the fact it kept nipping at you with somehow the most loving face a creature gave

- You came home early from work one day just to find who you thought was cat, since you only saw it's ears being a GROWN (pretty short tho) MAN ON YOUR COUCH WITH CAT EARS AND A CAT TAIL

- You were horrified to say the least "I can explain!" The black heard man said

-After explaining you were just kinda mad tbh

- "I LET YOU IN THE BATHROOM WHILE I WAS BATHING AND YOU WATCHED IT ALL PERVERT!" "I MEAN HOW COULD I NOT? HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR ASS?"

- Dw you eventually got used to him

- He scents you all the time and acts so betrayed when you dare come back home smelling like another cat, much worse a DOG

- He is such a spoiled little shit

- Yes you'll buy high grade salmon and yes you will cook like a high grade chef

- Yes you'll season his chicken to perfection or his not eating

- WDYM YOU'RE TO TIRED TO COOK, well chase the fatigue away or some shit

- If you annoy him to much he may break a few glasses and plates to put you in your place.

- but don't you dare give him silent treatment he will use as a scratching post

- It took you a fuck-ton of time to convince him to tell you his birth name.

- It's Lynx btw

- This motherfucker thinks he's the boss of you, when in actuality 5'1 but he could still somehow beat your ass so..

- Please don't adopt a normal cat he will be devastated, is he not enough for you?

- Please don't think he doesn't care about you, he just only wants you to take care

- Like as in until the heat death of the universe and will probably stab someone with idk a pen? (He did actually do that at some point smh) to make sure that is assured

- If you keep coming home he will start marking you

- Don't give him affection at the wrong time will scratch you the fuck up

- How will you know when it's the right time tho? Just fuck around and find out ig

- Congrats now you have a catboy who you don't what he's feeling and probably doesn't know himself, attached to you.

[magellanicclouds]

Halo - An Essay: regarding waste management systems and devices for MJOLNIR armoured Spartans It has been a hectic sort of few weeks. Between work and getting sick again (for the fourth time already this year thanks to my crewmates who can't remember it's their duty to stay home when they're ill) I've been on the outs. I haven't had the energy for much, but I'm usually a pretty active person, so this has kind of made me loopy? Which feels like as good a time as any to talk at length about the concept of catheterizing Spartans for waste management in MJOLNIR.

Let me explain.

This Silly Post crossed my dash recently and I fully understand it is meant as lighthearted fun - we have fun here. But it also dragged out some strong thoughts I've had haunting in the back of my mind about this for years because I'm super normal about Halo, and have time on my hands and the right amount of sleep deprivation and medication on board. So I wrote 3500 words about it. And about Karen Traviss, who is pretty knotted up in this conversation, since she's the one who decided to start it back in 2011.

To preface, I'm not an expert, but I have worked in emergency medicine for 25 years, and been a fan of Halo for almost as long. I've had more of a lukewarm relationship with it the last decade or so if I'm being honest, but it will always have a home in my heart; I just think letting it under my skin like that in the first place may have made me feral and prone to biting. Thankfully, I can always happily rotate Fred in my mind until the heat-death of the universe, so that's nice. Anyway, full disclosure: the essay below contains discussion about medical devices, physical trauma, and I am sharing quite a lot of personal negativity about the Kilo-5 trilogy and Karen Traviss. That said, if you'd like to sit in on the length of what I'm about to yell into the sky about all this, you can find it under the cut. I love you.

Welcome to my dissertation.

Section 1 - The Relevant Background:

Equipping Spartans with urinary catheters weeded itself into the Halo universe in the 2011 book Halo: Glasslands, during a conversation between Spartan II Naomi-010 and ODST Mal Geffen. Glasslands was the first in Karen Traviss's Kilo-5 trilogy, and she is both the originator of this, and the only official Halo author or source to have used catheters specifically since. Some context: I don't personally like these books, or their author, or even her reasoning for why she chose to add this. My personal preference doesn't make something 'bad', and I'm not out to hurt any feelings. Kilo-5 isn't a total wash for me, there are some characters and ideas that I'd of otherwise loved to have seen explored through the lens of a different author, but these books felt smothered under Traviss's habit of always injecting her very loud personal voice into the narrative fabric. I think this is something that's fine to do in an original series, but doesn't really belong in an established third party IP. She bangs on about so much of her own narrow worldview and self-assured prejudices across the trilogy that still discussing them today creates division in the fandom, and sadly did a lot of lasting damage to a couple characters. But for the topic here, the dialogue that started all this cath chat came from Naomi-010, having idle conversation with Mal who asks her about bathroom breaks. “I’m catheterized. Another reason why that machine has to be so precisely calibrated. This suit plugs into me in a lot of places.” 'The Machine' she's referring to is a Brokkr assembly, which was introduced to the lore as a large mechanical armature used to get Spartans in and out of MJOLNIR. You can see them in action in cinematics from Halo 4 (+Spartan Ops) and 5.

One single mention, and it was big news. Traviss was naturally interviewed about it because of course she was - people can't help themselves but forget an entire novel and tunnel vision on 'but how pee pee?', and her answer has always irritated me. It's not in what she says, so much as what 'what she says' means in her voice. Traviss didn't answer it directly, but instead talked about how she likes to get into character's heads by addressing the mundane necessity of things that often go overlooked to expand a sense of familiarity with the character and their world. Sounds super reasonable, I know, but don't give her too much credit - that's not a quote. It's just me paraphrasing and honestly I was pretty generous in my wording. Probably because I agree! What bugs me about it, is if you've ever read literally any interview with her, or her personal musings about her writing process, you know there's a bit of an 'honesty' issue there. She's somebody who feels perfectly comfortable ignoring established character voices, traits, or histories to satisfy whatever roles she's reinvented for them, and too many others wind up as mouthpieces. How much are you really challenging yourself in finding characters' voices when most of them are just yours? And the part about familiarity with their world? I giggled a little. She doesn't care about their world, or their aesthetics, or their technology, or their medicine. Because she didn't care about Halo while writing these, and she's not vague about admitting that. It's a matter of pride for her to purposefully refuse to research those things, in the same way she disregarded Star Wars and Gears of War - she doesn't consider the effort to be a valuable part of her process. So instead she'll skim the foundation, gather some recognizable names, pick her targets, and trusts that her personal experiences combined with an outsider perspective will generate better content to seamlessly overwrite what existed. Cool, Karen. Annoying, but why bring all that up? We're here to talk about catheters, right? Well, the fandom for the most part begin and end their assessment of the dialogue at urinary catheters, but the whole quote implies so much more than that - "This suit plugs into me in a lot of places." We're not just dealing with a cath, but apparently with multiple additional external-to-invasive connections. Reader, this dialogue is a plinth to Traviss's bizarre refusal to research not only the franchises she's contracted to write in, but also just into the basic function and hazards of existing concepts that she wants to introduce, and all because she's convinced herself she's done learning about the world. Choosing to ignore the creative freedom of limitless potential in a future of technology that would be basically magic to us today, and instead degrade 529 years of advancement is certainly a take, but it's even more ridiculous to do it with a subject (The Spartan Programme) that is considered to be the peak of advancement in that future's setting. That's clownery, just like her alleged commitment to adjusting her perspective to suit a universe's world.

I want to close out this section with a question: Why is it that writers in the Halo space - both fan and official - cling so tightly to current-day modern concepts as if they'd still be perfectly relevant in 500+ years? Music, for example, apparently suffered a multi-century stagnation in lots of published and fanmade Halo media. Though my partner made a strong counterpoint about this to be fair: we still listen to music composed by Mozart. So there's an argument to be made there. Medicine though. There is way less latitude to embrace the classics there. It's been shown across several games, novels, and films to be sufficiently advanced well beyond anything we're currently capable of or even understand, so why undermine that and choose to drag it centuries backward? For clarity, I am not talking about what might be standard in the public or private sectors, nor the enduring things that'd be used by the public and military alike, like sterile dressings, syringes, supplemental oxygen equipment. Those are the Basics and they will be relevant to us indefinitely. But I'm talking about the UNSC. I'm talking about ONI R&D. I'm talking about Section Three. Retrograding tech and failing to address a necessity that applies to every living person in the Super Soldier Wizardry department makes my mouth flatten into a tight little line.

Section Two - Caths, and why this whole thing got written:

Indwelling urinary catheters, both urethral and suprapubic. There's a laundry list of problems here, but I've distilled it down to the three biggest when suggesting they'd have any safe practical application in Spartans: Care. Activity. Damage. There is unreasonable expectations of care and maintenance for caths with regards to people who can be on operations isolated for months at a time with no support of any kind and are often limited to carrying only what can be kept on their person. The level of extreme physical activity Spartans engage in on any perfectly normal day whether deployed or not is unfit for the stability and safety of a cath. And damage; obvious enough, but with this one I'll be taking a huge emphasis on concussive forces - explosions. Something Spartans are subjected to a lot. I'll be using the height of modern-day catheter quality as a baseline for this, since that's what Traviss felt was sufficient. Regarding Urethral vs Suprapubic, Traviss doesn't specify by name, but Naomi's comment in full reads to me that she's only catheterized temporarily while armoured, hence the assembly needing to be so finely calibrated. Foley caths are temporary urethral caths that would only supplement the urinary process while a person was armoured. Suprapubic caths however are surgically placed devices. They do need routine tube replacement to keep them clean, but unlike the Foley that just serves as an aide measure for an otherwise fully functioning bladder, suprapubic caths are usually placed in people with congenital bladder disfunction, or who've suffered injury or disease that left the bladder in poor health or failure. This type of access will always require a tube in place and this would be the exclusive method of urination - in or out of armour. My Big Three Concerns fit both types similarly, though there is some additional risks associated with urethral caths that I'll cover.

Care: Caring for an invasive cath is a not insignificant effort. They're prone to blockage, kinking, and bacterial growth. They're so frequently responsible for UTIs and kidney stones that these complications are just considered the Standard Fair for having a cath. Their need to be frequently replaced because of their penchant for bacterial growth is the kicker here - whole floral colonies sprout up in caths and can eek their way out into the body through compromised tissue and wreck havoc. They have no self-cleaning mechanism, and steadily deteriorate. Changing and replacing an indwelling cath is a procedure that requires additional supplies that'd have to be carried, and needs to be done in a practiced and clean setting; preferably medical. Granted, there are people who manage the removal and insertion of their own caths at home, but they still need to ensure a clean and safe environment while they do this. A Spartan could never be guaranteed that, nor would it even be wise to consider the vulnerability of removing so much armour to handle it. Modern day caths are recommended to be replaced every 30 days or so, with some models able to be in place for a few months at a time, but that's with constant daily care and cleaning; something that'd be unreasonable for a Spartan to maintain while entrenched who knows where for who knows how long, and without access to replacement medical supplies. Those endurance times between replacements are geared for the average public person who leads an average public life and care for their cath as directed and don't get into fist fights with Sangheili. Needless to say, the endurance time for the same device in a Spartan who leads a wildly different lifestyle probably cuts those times down to a third.

Activity: Modern day caths are designed to offer people the most utility and versatility possible. Both models are available for people who are bed-bound or have extremely limited mobility, as well as for those who are mobile, independent, and live out average lives. With regards to the latter, suprapubics are somewhat more common, if for no other reason than to reduce the Foley's higher risks of induction injury, but modern urethral caths also allow for regular movement and activity with a more reduced chance of becoming dislodged or damaged than they would have had a couple decades ago. But when I say regular activity, I mean going on a walk. Shopping for groceries. Doing basic house chores. Even light exercise and sexual activity can be managed with physician advisement and the appropriate precautions taken. Anytime a Spartan was fielded they'd have to be all the more overly-cautious about Movements Outside of Their Control during confrontations, maneuvers, ambush, environmental or vehicular incidents. Even when things go well there'd be too much risk involved. That said, traumatic decatheterizations happen more frequently than anyone would like, and I'm talking about regular old Joe Everybody. I respond to no less than a dozen of these incidents a year. Both types of catheter are held in place by a bulb balloon that's inflated from a port with around 10-30ccs of saline after the tube enters the bladder (30ccs would be more appropriate for better security of the line). Before removing a cath, the saline is removed to deflate the balloon and the tube is guided out - with a Foley cath, that means being guided out of the urethra. When a Foley cath is traumatically removed, the saline filled balloon - which is like five times wider in diameter than the average 6mm urethra - does a pretty devastating amount of damage on it's way out, penis or vagina; though a penile urethra has significantly more length to damage, and the penile meatus very typically is torn. These incidents run high risk of bladder hematoma as well, which requires urgent surgical intervention. The very worst traumatic decatheterizations I've responded to were all penile and had trauma to external tissue. Ever microwaved a hotdog a little too long?

Damage: How often are Spartans subjected to explosive and other concussive forces? Silly question - answer: a lot and often and unavoidable. And we know they still feel the powerful feedback. Despite shields and dampeners and a self-moderating gel layer, strong inertial forces are still felt through the suits. Across multiple novels we're given details about near misses and blasts, accelerated or uncontrolled falls, rattling their teeth, hampering their vision, hearing, or balance; they've been rendered unconscious and suffered internal injuries. The fact that most of these events don't flat out kill them is a credit to their armour and augmentations. For reference - when a person experiences explosive or concussive force from a distance enough to avoid separation of limbs, bisection, etc, the totality of their injuries can't and won't be seen externally. How they present on the outside is just the tippy tip of the iceburg - it's what's happened to them internally that you need to be concerned about. Cracked or fractured bones, torn musculature, arterial shearing, hollow organ rupture, cardiac and brain tissue bleed, to name some common ones, and this kind of trauma extends to all implanted devices as well. For example, rods and nails and other structural aids or replacements are much more resilient than your organic tissues, and can dislodge when tissues tear or rupture, damaging anything in their way like shrapnel. The fragile little balloon of a catheter will shatter when subjected to even relatively minor explosive force, so to even consider for a moment that this would be a viable piece of equipment for people intended to routinely be involved in explosive environments is beyond willful negligence. That there wouldn't be a better solution to the question of waste management - a necessity for literally all human people who make up the entirety of the Spartan branch, with the infinite funding of ONI R&D seems so stupid to me that I… well, that I wrote this. Because, friends - participating in active warfare is not cath-safe. The kinds of physical demands and forces on Spartan bodies are not cath-safe. The risks will never outweigh the benefits to this. Even while sealed in powered armour and a skinsuit tech layer, the very thought of Section Three engineers or Halsey or anyone involved in the development of MJOLNIR dismissing the glaring obvious failure of Spartans having any kind of externalized invasive devices is so unreasonably negligent that it could only be the brainchild of an author who's convinced that these characters are all actually just psuedo-intelligent government boogiemen who aren't as capable as they claim to be. But No. They are that capable, and they are that intelligent and the fact that they have a bottomless budget and deeply flexible ethics is literally what makes them so dangerous.

So if we have to address this, how do we do it? Apparently there was always an official answer for this. Former Franchise Development Director, creator of the Master Chief**, and extremely racist asshole Frank O'Connor weighed in on this in the same interview, where he almost immediate rejected and denied Traviss's catheterization claim and says that 'this sort of stuff' was the kind of thing he and the other creative heads at Bungie/343i talked and planned about all the time. So how does this work then, because we're invested now. According to 'ol Frankie's elegant input: they just pee freely into the suit. That's it. For clarity, he's talking about the skinsuit and not the MJOLNIR interior proper. He goes on to say that connectivity between body and MJOLNIR at all levels is fully noninvasive, but precise, and that it doesn't matter what kind of body output a Spartan introduces into the suit interior, because a hygienic valve system (??) will scrub it continually and collect all matter for recycling and reintroduction via capillary action powered by movement. It's not clear in what layers or intermediaries these mechanisms occupy, he doesn't break it down more than that. But that's the answer, and it did exist back when Traviss was penning Kilo-5.

Is this answer better than haphazardly plugging extension cords from actual organ systems into MJOLNIR interior? Yes. Like, leagues better by comparison, but also I still think it sucks. To me anyway. It's flat out gross as hell, which definitely fits the personal brand of a man who proudly overfed his cat and called himself "Stinkles", but also it just doesn't strike me as the kind of design strategy ONI would pursue for any of their assets. Beside it just being 100% torn from Dune's stillsuits, it's also missing that special brand of proprietary Section Three je ne sais quoi. There's layers upon layers of too-specialized equipment installed into these people for everything else, why skip this? A body function that should have been Point 3 on a 50 point list of 'stuff to manage'. Also though? It's a lot of freedom. This is just another easy opportunity to add yet another layer of dependence. Spartans are expensive equipment. It doesn't do to give them any fewer reasons to think they can ever walk away.

So anyway, I figured I'd take a crack at it. I came up with this while editing the last two paragraphs: [Waste management] - a fully internalized collection and processing device - lets say a cybernetic implantation - that entirely replaces the bladder. It has bio-organic lumens that interconnect it to the GI and Hepatic organs. The implant assists in accelerating the processing of gathering and refining waste materials with the help of nanobots that identify and redirect waste along the lumens of each system, plus they keep the implant clean and free of bad flora. All twice-processed waste gets refined a lot quicker and any water by-product of the process is refined and redistributed back to the organs along the lumens. None of the refined water is removed from the body for drinking, because that's an unnecessary step; it's already inside. (Drinking water would be the responsibility of a suit system more likely - like, sweat leeching in the skinsuit; refine, filtrate, purify, collect into a reservoir, and jettison the excess sodium. ) There is no 'extraction of other viable nutrient' from the remainder, it's been twice identified as waste. It gets catabolized and consumed by the nanobots as a fuel source, and no externalized waste is created at all while the Spartan is geared up. The implant doesn't always run like this - it only engages this way when the Spartan is wearing MJOLNIR, and when they're not, it just works like an out-of-the-box bladder. The intermittence of usage lets the organic organs truck along as usual, preventing risk of atrophy, and the Spartan can just use a bathroom like everyone else. I'm not a bioengineer, but I do like sci fi and I think all that sounds like something that'd be possible in this sandbox. And that's the real fun of it, isn't it? There's no way anyone today can anticipate what sort of gadgetry might be available 500+ years from now, especially in a fictional universe that includes military tech hybridized with reverse engineered alien tech.

I think it's fascinating when writers and artists shake loose and really grab the reins, and I love seeing the fruit of that labour in this particular tumblr community so often. We're not a huge Halo circle, but we're a passionate one, and if this essay leaves you with nothing else, I hope it will at least remind you to Go For It when you're writing your next fic or drawing your next piece, or composing, or sewing, or printing, or anything!

In Conclusion: Rest easy, friends.

Despite Traviss's word and even books that went to print, the official canon is that Spartans are not catheterized. If that's a bummer for anyone, canon can't stop you from writing whatever you want, but I do hope maybe you'll remember my reasoning for why it might not be the best idea? At least not for armoured Spartans. A Spartan, but they're laid up in hospital? Any non-Spartan personnel? Maybe you're writing in the public sector, a colony world or vessel? Sure - I'll bet caths are still plenty widely used. Why not? They're a blissfully simple and useful effective piece of equipment. It's just all about adjusting and adapting for practicality. Medical science, like any technology, adapts and evolves infinitely as we learn and discover new things. Treatments or drug algorithms I'd of used just last year have already undergone changes, and protocols are amended constantly. It's why a person 'practices' medicine; why a scientist is always a student. If questions like this or similar really need answering in your next work, remember: Give yourself the credit you deserve, and embrace the spirit of invention. Let my Cyber Bladder, by Sparklets be the candle in the window for you!

You may all retrieve your keys from the bowl and unsilence your phones. Stay safe and please text me when you get home. Thank you. ' u ' **Addendum: Former Bungie Creative Art Director Marcus Lehto is in fact the person who is most associated with the creation of the Master Chief.**

[sinni-ok-sessi]

Would love to hear any thoughts on the codification of the poet-persona over time? 👀

Ok so in the spirit of the ask game, I am not checking any citations on this whatsoever, but if you want those lmk (though they uh. largely do not exist for rímur-poets specifically, because only me and Hans Kuhn have ever cared).

This is going to require some context because, as established, the number of living people who know and care about medieval rímur can be counted on my two hands. Probably without thumbs. So, rímur are a poetic form that developed in 14th cen Iceland, which look kind of ballad-y, in that they often use four-line stanzas with ABAB end-rhyme, though actually the ballad tradition in Iceland is quite distinct (on which, see Vésteinn Ólason, The Ballads of Iceland). End-rhyme was very exciting for Icelandic poets because it was only previously a thing in some uncommon types of skaldic metres, but rímur (as their name suggests) have end-rhyme as a defining feature and rapidly become The dominant form of poetry in Iceland until well into the 19th cen.

There are two very distinctive things about rímur, other than their metres: 1) they almost never tell 'new' stories; almost all rímur narratives are attested earlier in other forms, usually in prose, which can sometimes lead to the fun cycle of saga -> rímur cycle -> old saga is lost, new version is written based on the rímur -> more rímur are written based on the new saga -> repeat until the heat death of the universe; 2) as the form develops, it acquires introductory stanzas known as mansöngvar, a term which elsewhere usually means 'love poetry', although that's not really what they're doing here.

Mansöngvar are verses, sometimes in a different metre to the rest of the canto they're attached to, in which the poet speaks directly to the audience. In the medieval period, they're pretty short and often don't say more than 'look, I made you some poetry', but as time goes on, they get more and more elaborate, and the character of the poet begins to develop some quite distinctive traits. What's interesting here is that rímur were (certainly in the medieval period; less certainly later on) performed aloud, presumably by the poet, so there's definitely some questions to be asked about how accurate the poets' self-descriptions are when presumably the audience could go 'you're not pining away for love, Jón Jónsson, I've met your wife!'

So anyway, these mansöngvar are often linked to the medieval German Minnesänger tradition (er. The actual German word might be slightly different because I still don't speak German despite my PhD supervisor's pointed remarks), which is more overtly love poetry and which sometimes features the poet as an abject and despised lover of some cruel lady. This is something rímur-poets from the later medieval period and onwards have an incredibly good time with. You may be familiar with the story of Þórr wrestling with Elli, the personification of old age in the form of an old woman. There are at least two medieval rímur poets who have a whole extended passage about 'oh alas, when I was young I was a terrible flirt but now I'm old and no women like me, except oh no, I am being courted by this ugly old giant lady; Elli is the only ladyfriend for me now, wah'. it's very playful, it's very fun, it's drawing on this general sense that the poets put forward that they're poetically gifted, but romantically unlucky, which is kind of a Thing for poets across a lot of European literature (and probably more broadly, but I don't know much about that), and is especially pronounced in the earlier Icelandic sagas about poets, which usually feature poets failing to win the love of their life for various reasons (sudden attack of Christianity; sudden attack of magic seals; sudden attack of Other Guy With Sword; etc). So in evoking this, rímur-poets are situating themselves in this existing Image of the Ideal Poet, but doing so in a way that ties them into the specifics of the Norse literary/mythological tradition as well. Poets are also frequently old and tired (same, bro), and a statistically improbably number of them are also blind (although that might just be two guys we know about who were really prolific; most rímur are anonymous so it's hard to say. But it is perhaps convenient that this also links them to A Great Poet of Old, namely Homer).

The other thing that rímur-poets really like to bring up in their mansöngvar is the myth of the mead of poetry, which I will not recount here except to say that Óðinn nicked it from a giant, and also that some dwarves used it to buy safe passage off a skerry once, so it's poetically termed 'ship of the dwarves' because it's the thing that brought them safely across the sea. Every single medieval mansöngur, if one exists at all, refers to this myth in some way, even if it's just by having the 'I made you some poetry' bit use a kenning for 'poetry' that references the myth.* And poets have a lot of fun with this too! Iceland's a coastal community, they know about boats, so you get these extended metaphors about poets trying to board a boat to sample the mead of poetry and finding only the dregs because other, better poets got there first. Or they will describe the process of poetic composition in terms of ship-building: 'Here I nail together Suðri's [a dwarf name] boat'; 'Norðri's ship sets out from the harbour [= I'm about to start reciting the main bit now]'; 'the fine vessel has now been wrecked on the rocks [=I'm going to stop reciting now]'. They'll also speak of poetry as smíð, which means a work of craftsmanship, usually physical craftsmanship (obviously cognate with smithing in English), and of brewing the ale of Óðinn, so they're really into metaphors of physical craft when it comes to the intellectual craft of poetry, which I think is really neat.

*kennings = poetic circumlocutions, e.g. 'snake of the belt' is a sword because swords are vaguely snake-shaped and hang from a belt. Common poetry kennings are '[drink/liquid/ale/wine/mead] of [any of Óðinn's literally dozens of names]' e.g. 'Berlingr's wine', and the aforementioned 'ship of the dwarves' - poetic Icelandic has literally dozens of words for different kinds of ships and also literally dozens of dwarf names, so you can get a long way without repeating yourself.

So all these things that I've mentioned that poets like to bring up - old age, unluckiness in love, poets as craftsmen - become more and more tropified as time goes on, which in turn leads to these imaginative and extended reworkings of the metaphor. No longer can you just say 'I'm old and no one fancies me', no, it's 'My only assignations now are with Elli, wink wink, here's a long description of our date'. So you end up with this very codified image of The Ideal Rímur-Poet as an old man,* ideally blind, ideally unmarried, incredibly self-deprecating about his poetry, and because that's how everyone else talks, it's self-reinforcing.

*there is one (1) known female rímur-poet from the medieval period, the poet of Landrés rímur, who unfortunately didn't write many mansöngur stanzas but is doing her best with the 'unlucky in love' bit, although her lover (male) seems to have died rather than ditched her, which is a novelty.

Anyway, it's cool and weird and fun and as I say, only me and Hans Kuhn care, academically speaking.

[cosmichorrorsarestillnicerthanme]

Round three of death by Snu Snu with boyfriend master wearing I want GF to sit on my face with Penthasalia, Caenis, Medea, Medusa and Atalante( berserker) if you can do her. As a treat you can also sneak Gorgon in if you want

You have chosen death.

She is going to make you see stars.

She may also make you pass out from a lack of oxygen.

Penthesilea can get pretty… excited.

Especially in an environment that has emotions running high.

To put it simply.

You may be walking into that room on your own two legs.

But you either won’t be coming out for a few days, or you will be rushed out and put in a full body cast.

The more likely of the two is the second one.

Again, she tends to get excited…

If it makes you feel better, she’ll be by your bedside the entire time you're recovering.

Caenis is not someone who flusters easily.

However…

Even she has her limits…

One of those is you proudly walking around in that shirt.

How could you be so shameless while wearing it?

She felt like she was going to self combust out of embarrassment!

She had already decided she was going to be teaching you a lesson when she first saw it.

However, her idea on what lesson she was going to teach you…

Well, that got less and less like a punishment as the day went on.

If anything, it got more and more debauched.

Then again, Caenis isn’t known for holding back.

She was going to explode.

How?

How did you wear something so… so… so…

HOW!?

The poor lady was red as a tomato while looking at you.

The entire time, fighting off impure, unmaidenly thoughts about what she and you could get up to.

She was going to give you a piece of her mind by the end of the day.

If she didn’t vaporize first.

If she doesn’t, you will be in for a lecture.

This will be followed by perhaps the longest and most insane night you have ever lived through.

You… may also want to hide the shirt before she burns it.

Medusa will have two very different reactions to the shirt that will depend on the environment she is in.

If she is alone with you, she’ll tease you for a bit before giving you what you want until you tap out, or she does.

If her sisters are around however…

She will be scrambling to shove you into whatever she can to hide you from them.

In small part because of the shirt, yes.

But also, because you were hers and hers alone.

Also, if they saw the shirt you were wearing she would be teased about it until the heat death of the universe.

Though, if she got to keep you, it would be bearable.

However, you would have to be her… chew toy for lack of a better term.

Something tells her you wouldn’t mind that.

And she wouldn’t either.

You are in immense danger and only have two options left for you to take.

The first option is to ditch the shirt and hide until Atalante cools off in… eight centuries.

The second, is to accept your fate, write a last will and testament, settle all earthly affairs, and ready yourself for execution.

If you take the second option, she is going to tear you apart.

Once she is done with you, your soul will have left your body and your body will be in desperate need of either healing, or a funeral service.

Do not wear the shirt around her.

Seriously.

DO!

NOT!

If you do, you are either extremely brave, or extremely stupid.

[pennpenn]

FremiMay Day 8- Fatui

I took some inspo from Collei's background for this one!

Fatui Experiment Fremi!

It was mainly so I could practice drawing a different pose that I wasn't used to. You guys get a bit of line work just for a treat.

This probably comes from an au where he is sent off to Dottore before Arlecchino became knave. He gets long hair because I said so.

More details about the experiment au below because it has mild spoilers to the Fontaine archon quest

Tomorrow's prompt is 'kitty'!

The experiments being conducted would be related on how to get Fontaine-born people to resist the primordial sea water.

Dottore's plans are to see how much a person can take and what puts them on the brink of dissolving. He also wants to study dissolving and why it happens. Yet, Dottore isn't actually aware of the Fontaine people being Oceanids.

Freminet happened to be the experiment where he found the perfect point of: becomes water but doesn't dissolve. He is completely unable to control his powers and mental state. Just like Manga Collei he just kinda... Gets possessed? He becomes more Oceanid than human, the voices of his Oceanid brothers and sisters scream to him. Freminet loses the ability to act on his own and has a period of time where he just rampages.

His body has a blue tint to it, but can retain some color. Such as his hair still being blonde.

His Oceanid can escape his body but it causes his body to melt into a puddle. The tail of the Oceanid cannot leave the puddle. When the Oceanid returns to the puddle it takes a bit for his humanoid body to return.

Freminet also likely has issues with sensations. He can't necessarily feel pain due to his body being water, but he also can't necessarily die by being stabbed. Because his body is water.

Talking about his body being water, let's talk about elemental reactions:

Having cryo be used on him is probably the closest he'll ever get to the sensation of death. His body and mind are frozen, it's as if his time has completely stopped.

He cannot feel the force of geo. If you were to crush him with a geo construct he would end up reforming in a few days. If you were to trap his body within a geo construct his mind would still work. He can't necessarily die without more primordial seawater turning him into a full Oceanid at this point, so he would just have to wait patiently until he is freed.

Freminet typically avoids dendro because it zaps his energy. It becomes harder for him to fight his Oceanid urges and he loses control easier. He does, however, move slower when dendro is being used on him.

Electro makes him jittery! He violently shakes when he is imbued with electro unless he is touching something to transfer the charge. If the electro pulse is too strong then he will become immobile.

Pyro is probably the closest Freminet will get to actually feeling 'hurt'. His body literally boils if it gets too hot. If he gets too much heat then his body will be unable to keep its form and he may melt. So if you are bringing him to the Sumeru desert make sure you bring a bucket! Otherwise you may have to shovel some wet sand in your bag and wait for him to reform later.(He luckily does not evaporate)

Anemo doesn't necessarily do anything special to Freminet. If he is hit with a strong burst of wind that would shred his body apart he typically reforms quite quickly. (When he is a puddle it takes a lot longer to reform than if he just has to rebuild some water to get a neck or arm again)

Hydro doesn't necessarily effect him. He kinda works like a hydro slime. But on the note of water, liquids that aren't room temperature may risk him experiencing discomfort.(Like if you were to try to microwave a mug of cold water, sometimes half of the water is warm and half of the water is cold. It's uncomfortable to drink. He gets that feeling when drinking things other than his current temperature)

Not me coming up with an entire universe and lore for a simple art prompt.

I could go more into a ramble on if he escapes then his own personal Amber(as she is Collei's hero) would be Chongyun. Cuz I think that would be cute.

Anyways kudos to you if you actually read everything. If you want me to make this into a full fledged au lemme know in my ask box or in the comments. If you wanna be goofy then if you read this far put 🪼 in the comments. I like jellyfish.

[staycalmandhugaclone]

Because I clearly need more things

I may have mentioned, but my rough plan is to do some Asks, then do some Doc fics (because I miss her, mkay), and then just go back and forth pretty much until the inevitable heat death of the universe. So... which prompt do you guys want to see next? (These are most of the ones remaining from Whumptober)

(Yes, I chose this gif purely because I love everything about it)

[calciumdeficientt]

hey everyone!!! below is a little commission i wrote for @wolfxplush that they were kind enough to let me post. if you like what you see, may i direct you to my ko-fi. now with shiny new commission buttons!

Lovette Jackson had some huge shoes to fill. Not only was she the second youngest prefect in Bullworth history, first place went to one Alfred St Clair, a fourteen year old boy in 1960 with just ten months left to live on account of a giant tumour behind his eye that gave him a sort of Quasimodo esque appearance, whose dying wish was to bring down sweet justice on his teasing classmates for the remainder of his short time at Bullworth. Usual candidates for prefect were fifth year seniors and recently graduated alums that just couldn’t give up the ghost that they weren’t members of the student body any longer, all of these candidates were male. Lovette was also the first woman. Expectations for her were higher than for any other prefect, just because she didn’t have balls. Not real ones anyway, the metaphorical balls on her were just fine.

Crabblesnitch didn’t trust that the girls dorm, changing rooms and other such women-only venues were all sunshine and rainbows as Ms Peabody was recounting to him; so when his loving niece, Lovette Jackson joined the school (kicking and screaming) as a 5’10“ freshman,and still growing, he had to appoint her as prefect. To make it less emasculating for the current prefects, he waited until she was in her Sophomore year, the year of her final growth spurt, to give her the position. Besides, no one in their right mind would let a freshman (no matter how physically imposing) give them orders or accept penalties dealt to them, upperclassmen especially.

Now, she was a Junior, and had settled in nicely to the position. Her relationship as Crabblesnitch’s niece definitely played a hand in achieving the role. How could it not, she’d tear the school apart if she didn’t get her way. That’s just how it worked between them, she got what she wanted from him, or she’d run riot. Lovette wasn’t a bad girl, not by any means. She was just… a facilitator of conflicts. Everyone needs a bit of cash now and again, and she found that selling illegal, potentially deadly Chinese fireworks to students that gave her a good enough price to make up for her dorm room smelling like civil war reenactment (sweat and tears included) made her life at Bullworth much more of a breeze. These little deals proved time and time again to be an absolutely ideal way to get her through the week.

She wasn’t being paid for her labour as a prefect, why shouldn’t the people she protected give her a little something for her trouble? At Bullworth, you can have money, or you can have morals. Both can’t coexist, not in a place like Bullworth academy, it creates a domino effect that eventually leads to the heat-death of the universe and the collapse of the space-time continuum(Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. You have to trust me here). Every brick of Bullworth Academy is tainted with something seedy and underhanded. It punctuates everything. Every ring of the school bell. Every scrape of chalk against the chalkboards. Every panel of asbestos in the ceilings. All students from varying walks of life end the knee to Bullworth’s unspoken rule: ’If you’ve got friends. Use them.‘ Canis Canem Edit. It’s dog eat dog at Bullworth.

Then, midway through her second year as prefect, came Jimmy. Jimmy. Fucking. Hopkins. A menace by all accounts, but a true embodiment of the spirit of Bullworth… at least what Bullworth thinks it is anyway. Jimmy’s a mercenary just like Lovette is, he stands valiantly opposed to the power system amongst the students, protecting innocents from Bullies, Vagabonds and otherwise harmful influences. Jimmy’s defiance of the clique system also extended to the Prefects. No gods, no masters, no class for Jimmy Hopkins. At least, that’s what he had planned. His mother had dropped him off at yet another corrective school to run off with yet another man that was old enough to be her father, let alone his. So as a big middle finger to her, Jimmy planned to let her spend all that cash on tuition fees for classes he never bothered to show up for.

Presently, he was in the little plaza where the main school, the gym, Harrington House and the auto shop intersected. He circled the fountain, making note of which section was which clique’s jurisdiction “Rich kids, ‘roid monkeys, greaseballs No man’s land” he repeated as he stepped from section to section. He was still getting used to the layout of the school, and making acquaintances amongst the cliques, so other stragglers simply put his little wheel around the fountain as the new kid being completely off his box. Same old same old at Bullworth. His mindless circles were stopped midway through his spiel when he collided with another person. He was facing the auto shop, so made an assumption that he’d clashed with a Greaser and quickly hopped to name calling “Watch it! Christ! Brush the hair outta your eyes you big lo-“ Jimmy let his eyes trail upwards, across the vast landscape of navy blue and white. This wasn’t a greaser, it was a prefect. Once he finally reached the blonde braids on either shoulder he put two and two together. Looming above him by about a foot, give or take, was Lovette Jackson. “Oh- its you” this wasn’t his first run-in with Lovette, he’d gotten to know her quite well, the on thing he knew especially well about her was the way her hands felt when they wrapped around the scruff of his neck and tossed him like a caber into Crabblesnitch’s office.

“Don’t you have class to be getting to, Hopkins?” she asks exasperatedly. She didn’t have the energy to bicker with a child over his classes, even though that child was of a similar age to her, and certainly old enough to know better than to play truant in plain sight, during the brightest hours of the day. “Dr Slawter isn’t feeling well, he told me himself. You didn't hear? I thought you were faculty.” he responded flatly, his buzzed head nodded up and down curtly with the kind of bravado only a teenage boy who is blatantly lying could have. Lovette narrowed her eyes a little in disbelief, it wasn’t her first rodeo. Kids will tell you anything to get out of class, and nine times out of then, all of it was bare-faced lies.

“You have chemistry this morning, Hopkins” she reminded him, adjusting her arms to be folded a little tighter to her chest. Jimmy’s face dropped a little, not happy to have been caught like he had. He just sort of stood there… dumbfounded. “Well? Go on, I’m not walking you to class. I’m not your mother.” Lovette looked him up and down, thoroughly unimpressed but not keen to leave in case he was having some sort of absence seizure or something, technically she was supposed to escort any busted students to class, but she hadn’t had her morning cigarette yet, so she left Jimmy to make the right choice. he wasn’t as stupid as he made himself out to be, Lovette knew that just as well as Jimmy did.

Once she saw Jimmy start to move towards the main school building, Lovette began to go towards the gym, like King Arthur bravely venturing out from the comfort of his round table to find the Holy Grail, which in this case was not a stupid, crusty old cup but one of Casey Harris’s coveted Marlboro reds. But, never one to let sleeping dogs lie and get off basically scot free, Jimmy just had to open his mouth and deliver a death sentence for getting away with truancy “Hey the new Planet of the Apes movie was great by the way!”

That was a little odd, sure, but Bullworth students had a tendency of thinking out loud, there was nothing Lovette hadn’t heard before, so an impromptu movie recommendation was all par for the course. Lovette turned, raised a brow and popped a hip “I beg your pardon, Hopkins?”

“I’m just saying, I liked Planet of the Apes. I know it must’ve been hard on you… but you looked great as a gorilla”

Oh hell no, he was making fun of her.

“Watch your fucking ass, Hopkins. Go to class.”

Jimmy, in another act of defiance, turned to walk the other way, towards the entrance to the Harrington House. He assumed he could just lie through his teeth again and claim he didn’t know where he was going. He was wrong. Nicotine starved and altogether just tired of everyone’s bullshit, Lovette lunged forward and caught Jimmy’s arm in a vice grip. Her fingers were likely to bruise his skin, and she’d have one hell of a hand cramp by the end of the ordeal but if Jimmy wanted to play this game with her, she intended to win. Her uncle was already wary of the mistake he’d made by promoting her to prefect. She may as well look like she was doing something right before she got herself demoted back to standard non-clique.

She gripped him even harder -if that was physically possible- and began tugging him, now dead weight, towards his chemistry classroom. Jimmy hadn’t just bit the hand that fed him with that Planet of the Apes quip, he’d torn the whole arm off, and Lovette’s wounded ego wouldn’t give up without a fight. Lovette Jackson stomped across the courtyard, her footfalls loud and unmistakable, had she been in heavier shoes the concrete could well have cracked beneath her.

“Hey, you got any more movies lined up?” JImmy asked so casually that just the tone of his voice was an insult in and of itself, feeling the familiar prick of pins and needles flood his arm as his circulation got considerably more cut off, his arm limp and useless in her grip. He looked over at his arm, the unmistakable milky white associated only with poor circulation… or death.

“Be a shame to waste your talent… maybe you should try out for a Godzilla movie, I hear they’re hiring. A big monster like yourself? You’d be back on the silver screen in no time.”

She inhaled deeply through her nostrils as she tried to stop every synapse in her body from sending those sweet sweet contraction signals to her muscles and tossing him into the stratosphere like a discus.

“Stop talking to me, I’m not your fucking friend… and pick your feet up when you walk jackass, you’re making me look bad”

she hissed, her voice dripping with venom as she continued to drag him through the courtyard and up the concrete steps to the school‘s main building: ancient, gothic and falling to pieces. Above them, a gargoyle watched idly as Jimmy Hopkins was brought to justice.

Once she had manoeuvred him up the main steps, and opened one of the heavy double doors that sealed the school’s main entrance shut, she let go of his arm just a smidge. He couldn’t run so far now that he was in here, or he’d bump into one of Lovette’s less merciful colleagues. She escorted him like a prisoner set to receive the chair, right to the door of Dr. Watts’ classroom and made a loose gesture with her free arm for him to enter. He was only 10 minutes late, but considering every period was a measly 45 minutes, he’d missed a good chunk of valuable playing with dangerous chemicals time. Jimmy was quick to shrug off her touch and stomp sullenly into the classroom. Lovette was equally as quick to post herself up outside the door. Leaning against the wall, the smooth paper of a printed student body president campaign poster protecting her navy blazer from being assaulted with dust from the cheap, crumbling plaster that had been rotting off the walls of Bullworth Academy since its installation in the early 1950s.

She didn’t have to stay, of course she didn't. Her job was done. The perp was busted and was rightfully in the custody of his chemistry teacher, she was free to get her cigarette in peace. But she knew better than that, if she didn’t stay Jimmy would make a trip to the bathroom from which he would not return. Standard troublemaker procedure, she’d done it countless times before she switched teams and started playing the role of ‘goody two shoes’. Her past career as a little shit kid really helped her out in her prefect role, she was able to get into these kids’ heads and pretty easily figure out what the fuck their damage was and why they wanted to waste their parents hard earned money by never going to class. It was pretty cool, sometimes it made her feel like a really lame superhero, one of the X-men professor X kept on the back burner, locked away from all the cool, important mutants so they wouldn’t damage his rep.

Her daydreams of X-men were interrupted when she heard the swift click of professionally cobbled, nicely polished, Italian leather shoes; a sound that could only mean the approach of the ever-poised Edward Seymour II. Lovette swivelled to face him and he regarded her with a knowing look.

“Everything okay?”

He asked, a light, almost sarcastic smile on his pursed lips. Lovette gave him a look, quirking a brow as she raised her padded shoulders into a shrug.

”Yeah, fine, yeah” she answered dismissively, trying to wave him away from her, like one does with a fly or a bad smell. He knew well enough that she was not fine, she’d gone to bed late on the last watch and had gotten up with the sun to make sure all the female students were up, dressed and on their way to breakfast before 8AM. She was tired.

“Trouble in paradise?” He pries a little more, trying to figure out why she was standing outside the Sophomore chemistry class like a sentinel.

“What? Oh god no, I told you I’m past that.” Her face dropped into an expression of disgust, that was just on the brink of morphing into offence. Just the thought of Derby Harrington was enough to nauseate her now. She’d fallen hard for the older boy and had to scrape herself back up from rock bottom, the end to this ordeal had just transpired a few months prior and she was only now just getting back to normal. Edward thought maybe she’d stopped for a moment of brooding, not very becoming for a young prefect, they were expected to be alert and moving at all times. Like sharks.

“Okay, okay, I understand,” he tweaked his glasses and rocked back on his heels for a second. “You must be waiting for someone then, yes?” He asked quietly, looking her up and down as he spoke.

“Hopkins” she responded, the word feeling like poison in her mouth. Edward’s eyes widened in recognition behind his thin frames, he was surprised she’d caught him, he was quite the slippery fellow. He regarded her with mild sympathy, tweaking his glasses again.

“Ah… I see. Would you like me to hold down the fort for you? There’s muffins in the staff room”

Damn, muffins sounded so good right now. She’d had to break up a food fight at breakfast, her oatmeal had been used as a weapon, poor Donald was probably still rinsing it out of his hair as they spoke. God, now that she thought about it, she was absolutely starving.

“Did a student make them?”

She queried, now fully considering the idea. A muffin would do her good. A muffin made by a little shit kid with access to cheap laxatives, would not.

“No, they’re from a parent, I believe. Some sort of apology for structural damage their child inflicted on the library building”

Home baked muffins, waiting in the staff room. She couldn’t say no, it wouldn’t be right. “Could you cover for me?”

She felt like a dick for even asking, but she hoped a pleading look might sweeten the deal.

“It would be a pleasure and a privilege...now go, before I change my mind”

he responded teasingly, swapping spots with her outside the door.

Lovette was off like a shot to the staff room, now that Edward had made her aware, she just could not seem to shake the nagging feeling of hunger. She felt like her whole abdomen was on fire, she hadn’t eaten dinner the previous night either, she didn‘t even remember why. Lovette was really running on empty. Her walk to the staff room was brisk, but not too fast, she walked with a straight spine, regarding the paintings on the walls with disinterest and boredom. The faces of the founders glared back at her, their eyes following her down the hall with stern distaste. Eventually, she made it, and opened the door softly; the hinges were squeaky and rusting, opening it too hard would not only make an awful noise, but could send the solid oak slab crashing down on her. Not exactly ideal.

Inside, she was greeted with a wave of warm air from the worn out, antique radiators that decorated each wall- it was the least Crabblesnitch could do in the bitter autumn and winter months-, and the smell of freshly brewed- if not slightly burned- coffee inside the busted up old Keurig on the counter. The staff room was the prefects’ sanctuary… but only when there was no actual staff in it, they would often come in during class time and have a little coffee, take a little cat-nap or otherwise act like typical teenagers when they were certain everyone had their butt at a desk, or on the track, or just… anywhere educational. Lovette ran a hand through her hair and approached the aforementioned muffin basket, a little wicker thing likely bought from k-mart or some other similar chain. It was cute, she had to give them that. Each flavour was neatly arranged into small piles within the basket, a sort of muffin rainbow if you will. Although, a very uninteresting rainbow, more a mix of browns and beiges, sometimes with small flecks of blue or red. Lovette reached towards what she assumed was chocolate chip and took a tentative bite, despite assurance from Edward she was still partway convinced that the treat might detonate in her hand or release a neurotoxin or something. It was odd for something so wholesome as a muffin basket to exist at Bullworth, not without it being full of something sinister like razors or human faeces, for that matter.

That first nibble didn't seem to do anything too bad to her, so she ate a little more, still a little afraid… and once again she was met with no concerning side effects like stomach cramps or a bleeding tongue. Eventually, her hunger consumed her and she, in turn, consumed three more muffins. Lovette neatly disposed of the evidence and made sure the basket looked presentable for when the intended recipients arrived to maul it like starved lions. As she was terraforming the muffin kingdom, Lovette became aware of the sound of a window pane sliding open. Everyone at Bullworth knew about the ghosts in the building, but everyone also knew all they really did was flick pens across classrooms, flicker lights and start small fires. What they didn’t do was open the windows. That was a purely human activity. She chalked it up to delirium brought on by sleep deprivation and continued to fiddle around with the muffins, a veritable career if Bullworth didn’t work out. It was only when she heard the window slide closed again that she turned around, and who else was before her other than Jimmy Hopkins, brushing some dry leaves off of his sweater vest. Lovette kept quiet, she wanted him to see her first, it was more fun that way.

And see her he did, after he was done preening himself he got about four steps into the room before he realised it wasn’t as empty as he thought it was in the staff room.

“Hopkins! Lovely to see you again and so soon too!”

“Hi… Lovette. I’m here on business, Dr Watts sent me for..”

“For?”

It was funny watching him scramble for an excuse, he wasn’t as calm and collected as their encounter twenty minutes ago, Lovette watched his squinted eyes scan the room for a valid reason to be in there but it was clear he was coming up blank.

“A… mug. We ran out of beakers”

It was almost endearing how much he didn't want to be in class, he was inventive, she had to give him that.

“He sent you unattended into a staff-only room to collect a mug? Yeah, likely story”

He pressed his hand to his heart and tried to look sincere “Scout’s honour, he wanted a mug”

Lovette shook her head and leaned back on the counter, a wry smile on her lips as she regarded Jimmy’s smaller frame. “And he sent you up here through the back window?Cut the crap Hopkins, what did you really want?”

Well, Jimmy had to give up the ghost now, she’d seen right through him. And that little window in the chemistry classroom was so damn hard to wriggle out of. “If I said I wanted a muffin would you hold it against me?” He asked, putting his hands up in mock surrender as he slowly but surely approached the basket that Lovette was leaning beside. His movements were slow and calculated, if he went too quickly she’d probably suplex him through the floor and into the basement. “Depends, if I grabbed you and dragged your sorry ass up to my uncle’s office would you hold it against me?’ She asked, her coy smile only growing as she watched Jimmy falter. Two counts of truancy in one day was a surefire way to land himself at least a week’s worth of daily detentions. There’s only so many times you can mow the school lawns before you wonder what kind of fertiliser is making the grass grow back so damn fast. Jimmy eventually made it to the muffin basket, plucked one, and began eating it with the kind of hunger only starving Victorian factory workers, and teenage boys possess. It was like watching an eagle eat a rabbit, weirdly gruesome for a mid-morning snack.

Lovette didn’t even have the heart to even so much as think about grabbing him, the sheer ballsiness of this kid alone was enough for her to keep letting him get away with blatant acts of misconduct. He was funny for a little shit. Lovette sucked a little bit of air in through her teeth, and then exhaled in a deep, guttural sigh of annoyance. Jimmy looked up at her, his face smattered with chocolate muffin crumbs

“So, you gonna chase me or what?”

“I’m working up to it, cool your jets hotshot” she waved him off, her brows knitting together for a second “I’ll give you a ten second head start”

Once again, Jimmy couldn’t leave it alone, and decided to try his luck with a little bit of good-natured bartering “One minute”

”One minut- hell no are you crazy” Lovette did a double take, absolutely floored by the absolute audacity of this kid. He was a pretty stellar businessman, his bravado made it hard to shut his offer down completely.

“Fine! Forty seconds then. Jesus you drive a hard bargain”

”Thirty-five. Final offer”

Jimmy nodded in agreement, that seemed fair enough “When do I start?”

Lovette watched the second hand on the old grandfather clock in the corner tick away, waiting for the last minute to pass before she set him loose “Riiiiiight…. Now”

And away Jimmy Hopkins leapt, right back out of the window he slid in from.

Damn it all. Lovette was going soft.

[notsofunsenpai]

Wedding Bells 🔔 💕 💖

@pride-month-challenge

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

You smiled to yourself on the bed,looking at your hand that was in the air,admiring the golden band wrapped around your finger as your husband slept next to you. You had the TV playing,it was some cartoon playing. Why were you up at like four in the morning it was because you couldn't sleep and ended up feeling all giddy inside when you suddenly looked at your wedding ring.

You remember how you wore a white long dress with flowers around the cuffs of the sleeves as Kenji wears a tuxedo along with having well kept here for once as it was slick back with some jel. You walked down the isle mortified you might tripped on your dress but act confident as can be,trying not toncry as you see your love ones crying along with Kenji's. You stand across from Kenji,immediately blushing at the looked he gave you,something you'd never forget. His soft blue eyes staring at you with lots of love and hope while with the happiest smile plastered on his face,you could also tell he was crying alittle because his eyes were alittle red but nothing to noticeable( You can't wait to tease him later for it♡). The priest says some words then the two of you said your vows with Kenji going first as he first clears his throat.

His voice cracked alittle making you and everyone laugh as his cheeks heat up in embarrassment,"As your husband.I am yours now; I give you my heart today and forever.I cannot promise to find a solution to ALL your problems, but I can promise that I’ll be there to face them with you." He doesn't break eye contact with you as he says it with the most sincerely in his voice. You hold back your tears to not cry,never thought you'd get married ever when you were younger but here you are now as you take a deep breath to say your vows.

"When you walked into my life, love walked in. It was a magical moment that I will treasure forever with you. I will walk together with you always. " Your voice sounded shaky alittle as you tried not to let it show but Kenji knew,he knew if you started crying he would too,he was and always will be soft towards you no matter what.

The priest smiled before speaking,"do you Y/N take Kenji to be your lawfully wedded husband/partner? Will you honor and cherish him; love, trust, and commit to him, through joy and pain, sickness and health, and whatever life may throw at you both, until death do you part?" He asked.

"I do." You smiled taking the ring from your ring barrier and putting it onto Kenji's finger.

"Kenji,do you take Y/N to be your lawfully wedded husband/wife/partner? Will you honor and cherish him/her/them; love, trust, and commit to him/her/them, through joy and pain, sickness and health, and whatever life may throw at you both, until death do you part?

"I sure do." He proudly said taking the other ring,putting it onto your finger as he looked deeply and loveingly into your eyes.

"Kenji and Y/N, having proclaimed your love and commitment to one another in the eyes of these loved ones, and with the power vested in me by the Universal Life Church, I am so happy to pronounce you husband and husband/wife/partner! You may now kiss." The pastor says.

The two of your leaned in for a kiss,it was short but filled with love as everyone cheered. You two shared few more kisses before walking down the isle together as you rested your head onto his shoulder as he hold you close. Truth be told you guys didn't know how long you could hold it back but once you both got in your ride that was taking you back to the hotel or whenever you were staying at,the both if you broke down in tears with smiles on both of your faces.

"I..I'm so happy,sorry." He sniffs,crying into your shoulder while your arms gently wrapped around him as you shared the same feeling.

"No need to feel sorry,never say sorry for things like that." You cried joyously,sharing another kiss with him,feeling his lips tremble against yours as he cries some more.

You felt a hand grabbing yours,seeing the same ring you wore held your hand tightly as you snapped out of thought,you turn your head to see a sleepy kenji looking at you with a small frown on his face.

"Why are you still awake..?" He barely was audible.

You kissed his face gently as he whines softly at you for the surprised attack,"Couldn't sleep I guess.thoughts were keeping me awake love." You whispered to him.

"What's.. on mind?"He asked.

"You." You answered him honestly,watching as it took him a minute or two to process what you had said before feeling his face slightly heat up with a lazy grin on his face.

He slowly gets ontop of you attacking your lips with multiple kisses,giggling like a school girl. "Aw,I tend to have that affect on everyone. " He jokes in between kisses.

You rolled your eyes,"I take back what I said,get off of me you loser." You said kissing him back.

He laughs softly,"I have you know yo ass married this loser so you're the loser here for marrying a loser."He wrapped his arms around you,kissing your neck gently.

"I hate you,get off of me husband of mine." You huffed.

"I loovvve you tooo husband/wife/partner of mine." He grins slightly mocking you which made your eye twitch slightly.

"You're annoying."

"I know~" He laughs.

[crithaus]

I like to think Vex and Percy's marriage proper was under the Sun Tree in their fanciest clothes for the occasion. Yennan as their officiant and they only told Cass cuz as this is her house too it's only proper.

It's a damn nightmare trying to keep this under wraps, Vox Machina might be cast to the winds but Vax is by near daily, and Pike talks of settling down here, and if castle staff know then the whole city knows and if the whole city knows that their wayward Prince and their new Grandmistress turned Princess are getting married then it will be the most annoyingly gabbed about news in the whole of Northern Tal'dorei.

So it's kept a tight secret. Cass presses Vex's bouquet into her hands and laughs at Percy's nervousness and retreats to the ballroom for the reception. Yennan clears the town square for a scant handful of hours near sunset and strings a pretty light into the branch they'll stand under.

Percy recites to himself a speech he'll forget upon first sight of his soon to be bride, and Vex invites her mother to these proceedings with a heart full of so much. Sorrow in bits, trepidation in increments, Joy by the handful, more than she can hold. This will be their secret thing, their own little hour of paradise before the world starts ending all over again. Before the end of times, there will be a moment just beneath the history books where the two of them were delirious with joy, hand in hand, and they can pretend this will be forever. A moment where they are just Vex and just Percy and are going to get married under the sunlight and dance until dawn in each other's arms, in love, love, love.

He cries when he sees her, naturally. She's decked out in their colors now and they suit her. Her place here is obvious, and unshakable, and she glows with the surety of it. Of belonging. Language has no words that adequately describe how she looks now but they're all he has so they'll do. Beautiful, beyond that, sublime and awe-inspiring, and She's his, agreed to it and everything, and the worst part of all is that he's hers too and she accepted that without a fuss.

She cries too, when she sees him. It's the smile that does her in. It's so unreserved. So happy. No mask to speak of, no stiff upper lip, no good breeding covering up his true feelings. He's beaming at her, and he's so beautiful, and so clever and so kind and he's been through so much and after everything, he still asked her to marry him, and he still looks at her like that. Like she's finally someone more worthy, more precious than all the treasures of the world combined. And he is hers. All of Percy, all the wonderful, brutal, beautiful bits of him, hers to have and hold until the heat death of the universe.

Her mother brushes her hair back to press a kiss to her temple and she could swear that she feels it. And then, in a whirl, the words are done with and Yennan says,"you may now kiss the groom." With a nudge in Vex's direction, and Percy takes it up on himself to pull her in by the waist and dip her, for her benefit you understand, so she can reach him better.

And that first kiss, as one, as this new beautiful new thing, as De Rolo's, is a cut above all the rest they'll have ever, they're sure of it. But, since they have forever, it wouldn't hurt to try and top it.

[authoralexharvey]

INTERVIEW WITH A WRITEBLR — @magic-is-something-we-create

Who You Are:

P.K. Finn || He/they

I'm a queer, neurodivergent creative that's been elbow-deep in art of all kinds since I first started having control of my hands!

What You Write:

What genres do you write in? What age ranges do you write for?

Adventure, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi. New Adult and Adult

What genre would you write in for the rest of your life, if you could? What about that genre appeals to you?

I could write the blurred line between Sci-Fi and Fantasy until the heat death of the universe, honestly! The absolute freedom to change reality and stretch the boundaries of what my mind can come up with when making new worlds is one of the most fun and interesting things I've ever done, and once I started on the path of world building, I realized I couldn't stop. Even just world building, without a story attached, is one of my favorite pastimes.

What genre/s will you not write unless you HAVE to? What about that genre turns you off?

I personally don't enjoy writing anything set in the real world - whether historical or contemporary - if it doesn't have at least a bit of magic or speculative science attached. While I like reading realistic fiction on occasion, I've always found myself drawn more to what could be than what is on the creation side of things.

Who is your target audience? Do you think anyone outside of that would get anything out of your works?

It depends on the story! My blanket target audience is the same kind of reader I am: those who like to pick apart stories and draw plot threads and foreshadowing to their potential conclusions as they unfold, and can't help but analyze it every step of the way. Rereading to find all of the places where hints were laid, to see what about the story changes once you know the end - are there lines I glossed over the first time that, with the new context, have taken a whole new meaning or emotional toll? How often was a reveal teased or cloaked in metaphor before I was given the information I needed to actually see it? Where is the plot mirrored in little ways, where are we told blatantly what will happen in a way we don't notice at first? Those kinds of readers are who I write for, as a whole. But I also know that those won't be all of my readers, and that each story will attract a different group that needs it, so I try to tailor those accordingly if I can.

What kind of themes do you tend to focus on? What kinds of tropes? What about them appeals to you?

One thing I've found to be a recurring theme in everything I create (not just novels and other stories; it's leaked into the D&D campaign I'm running for friends, too) is the idea of Godhood/Idolization/Ultimate Power and Responsibility being unfathomably isolating and traumatic. With that also comes the idea that even deities are still people, capable of just as much emotion, mistaken belief, and regret as the rest of us, and often with far less control and power than worshipers might think. Hand-in-hand with that, I tend to end up with narratives where the antagonist(s) are a mirror or exaggeration of the protagonist(s), because I love making my protags question whether they're the ones in the right, when they may agree on many or all points of the antags opinions, just not on their methods or the lengths to which they'll go. And I also love to make the protags understand and sympathize with their antags - and by extension, try and get the reader to do the same - because one of my favorite things to explore is the common root of all good AND evil being one and the same, and those concepts at all being subjective and fluctuating.

What themes or tropes can you not stand? What about them turn you off?

I've never understood stories that place certain characters/concepts/actions on pedestals or trash heaps without ever stopping to explore anything beyond the shallowest why, if that. I want to question which side is in the wrong, or whether wrong and right exist at all in this story. I want the characters and/or the story itself to examine what they're doing, why, and what the lasting consequences will be - because there will be lasting consequences for everything they do. If the enemy army is shown as irredeemable and inhuman (derogatory), show me a deserter with friends still on the front lines. If the Good King goes unquestioned in his altruism by those around him, show me what machinations he hides behind locked doors to silence the dissenters.

What are you currently working on? How long have you been working on it?

I'm currently drafting two different stories set in the same world: The Millennium Saga is a high fantasy epic that's going to be between 5 and 7 books long, and I'm in the midst of drafting book three; Whispers is a tragic dark fantasy noir set 10-12 years after the start of TMS, planned to be a standalone that doesn't need, but is enriched by, the world context that TMS brings. I've been drafting it since mid-December 2022 as a bit of a break from TMS, which has gone through 10+ years of plot marinating and 2 years of frantic drafting now that my ADHD brain finally has the tools to sit down and do it.

Why do you write? What keeps you writing?

I write so that I can get the stories that play on loop in my brain out and inflicted on others. :)

How long have you been writing? What do you think first drew you to it?

The first thing I remember writing for fun was a short story about dragons that I wrote in third grade for school. I fell in love with the idea of being able to write my own books not too long after, because I realized that it let me decide what a dragon could and could not be, what an elf looked like and what powers they wielded, and what I thought a Loch Ness Monster Animorph would be based solely on the covers of books I never read.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Is that how you got your inspiration for your current project? If not, where did the inspiration come from?

My inspiration comes mostly from interacting with other peoples creations! I often get into an art or writing mood after watching drawing videos on YouTube or listening to the playlist I've Pavloved myself with, and often those initial sparks inspire what I do with them that day, whether it's practicing drawing architecture because of a speedpaint or writing a fight scene because I listened to a particularly energetic song. I don't usually get inspired for entire stories from those things, though; I couldn't tell you where the inspiration for my current works came from, because the ideas first came to me years and years ago, and have just morphed over time as I've grown.

What work of yours are you most proud of? Why?

The Millennium Saga! That story in particular has been occupying my brain for more than a decade, and while the current form of it is unrecognizable from the original version I wrote on the bus on the way to school, it is by far one of my favorite things I've ever done, if only for the amount of time and brainspace I've dedicated to it. It's how I figured out my current writing style, and it's a story I know I'll hold close to my heart long after it's done. And this isn't to say I'm not proud of my other projects, especially Whispers! They all hold equal weight in my mind, I've simply had more time to put the puzzle of TMS together than anything else, and I'm most proud of pushing through the blocks I hit along the way.

Have you published anything? Do you want to?

I have not, but I really want to! I started looking into the tradpub querying process in December with publishing TMS in mind, but since I put it on hold for Whispers for the moment, I've put that by the wayside as well. Ideally, I'll go the traditional route with maybe a webcomic and webnovel somewhere between official releases, but I'd be more than willing to figure out how marketing works for self publishing if that doesn't pan out.

What part of the publishing process most appeals to you? What part least appeals to you?

Traditional publishing is appealing for me because I (theoretically; I know the industry is in a bit of a hellscape right now) wouldn't have to be in charge of anything more than writing the books. But, like I said, that's in a bit of a weird limbo state right now, especially in regard to authors self-marketing, and that is, I think, the most intimidating and unsavory part of the process for me. Self publishing appeals because I would have a bit more control over what the book looked like overall, but again, marketing is not my strong suit. I'd much rather just be able to sit back and write and let someone else do the talking for me.

What part of the writing process most appeals to you? What part is least appealing?

My favorite part of the writing process is those moments where things start to fit together into a complete picture! I tend to avoid outlining ahead of time because it dampens my enthusiasm and always tricks my brain into thinking its a set of hard-and-fast rules rather than gentle guidelines, so when the threads I've laid out start to weave themselves into a tapestry through both editing and latter-half drafting, it makes every stumble before then worth it. The least appealing/fun part of the process is less about the actual writing for me, and more about the struggles getting past the blocks imposed by my brain chemistry. Executive dysfunction makes sitting down to write at all a chore, no matter how much I love it once I've gotten into the zone.

Do you have a writing process? Do you have an ideal setup? Do you write in pure chaos? Talk about your process a bit.

My process depends on the story! For Millennium Saga in particular, I've found I have to "script" chapters before I draft them, with a special emphasis on the dialogue and vague choreography, or else I get stuck super easy on the transition sentences between beats. But with Whispers, I've scripted only one or two conversations over the entire 40k words written so far, and haven't gotten stuck once. As for setup, mine is pretty particular in some ways, and wildly varied in others. I write in FocusWriter so that I don't get distracted with formatting, and can have a background/theme that's easy on the eyes and fitting for the scene I'm working on - but that theme changes on a regular basis, along with the music I play in the background and, often, where I take my laptop to write in the first place. I'm also a fan of doing writing sprints to get my brain moving, sometimes with friends on Discord, sometimes on my own, and at this point I do more writing without sprints at all. Sometimes I need the clutter of my desk to kickstart my brain; sometimes I need to be curled up in an armchair with no other distractions in order to focus. It really depends on the day.

Your Thoughts on Writeblr:

How long have you been a writeblr? What inspired you to join the community?

I joined Writeblr officially in March of 2020! While COVID might seem like the obvious culprit, it really wasn't at the time; it was really because I'd graduated the year before, and while my friends went off to college, I decided to double down on my dream of writing and drawing for a living, and realized that I wanted to have more people to share my ideas and stories with in the interim to help motivate myself to work on them. From there, it was just a matter of making the side blog, and the rest is history!

Shout out some of your favorite writeblrs. How did you find them and what made you want to follow them?

@/aritany was one of a bunch of others who joined writeblr around the same time as I did, and one of the first whose writing style really spoke to me and inspired a bit of my own! That, combined with their rather unique ability to get me invested in contemporary and semi-realistic fiction drew me in and kept me on board throughout the whirlwind we've both been through over the last few years. @writeblrfantasy is an absolutely delightful human being who I met one fateful world-building wednesday when she unlocked my rambling by asking about Goblins in the Ehlverse and received a full-blown illustration reference in answer. She's also one of a limited few who writes the kind of romance that gets me invested, and she has an absolutely godly drive to write an ungodly amount day in and day out that inspires me to no end! <3 @lanawritesalittle is someone I don't remember meeting, but whose stories and style I adore to no end. They're, like, top-of-my-list of those who haven't published yet, but who I will be frothing at the mouth for a copy when they do. They have a 100% hit rate of making incredibly compelling characters that I can't help but love no matter what atrocities they get up to. @ashen-crest first crossed my dash when she joined, and I remember reading one (1) excerpt of The Stray Spirit before falling absolutely head-over-heels in love with her style of cozy fantasy. Everything she does just feels so warm and full of love, it's like home, and it all only gets better with time. @zonnemaagd caught my eye first from her poetry blog, and then from her writeblr, and her descriptions and narrative voice are so incredibly unique and gorgeous that I literally cannot think of a single published author that compares. Gust, in particular, is a writeblr wip that will always live in my head rent-free, and someday I hope to be able to read it all and bask in the world the way it deserves. And, of course, @authoralexharvey (don't you dare think you can get out of being complimented in your own interview). Their worlds are so lovingly built and their voice is so compelling, and I don't think I'll ever be able to get Nadia and Simone of ASMLP out of my brain. Their stories are just so amazing all the way through, even at the drafting stage, and I love every single one that I've gotten to sink my teeth into.

What is your favorite part about writeblr?

The connection and sense of community! At least from the angle I've seen it, it's a truly wonderful space of encouragement and inspiration that I wouldn't let go of for the world.

What do you think writeblr could improve on? How do you think we can go about doing so?

I think one thing that a lot of us agree on is how it can sometimes feel like we're pouring our writing hearts out into the void without a response, so one of the things I've been trying to improve myself (and that I think a lot of us would benefit from practicing), is voicing the things we love about what we read on here where others can see it, unabashedly. Finding something to love in even the smallest excerpts from last line tags, whether it be a particular word choice or a mood that seeps through the page, and pointing it out in the tags or body of a reblog. And, when someone does that for us, thanking them without self-deprecation - because the more we foster that kind energy and enthusiasm for each other, the more we're able to remember that when there's something lovable in every piece of writing, our own writing is included in that, too.

How do you contribute to the writeblr community? Do you think you could be doing more?

I do my best to reblog and comment in the tags on everything that I read - and while that tends to mostly be things I'm on the taglist on, I also try to take advantage of the days where I have the spoons to read more of what I scroll through and add it to the queue no matter who it's from. Something I could absolutely do more of is consistent participation in ask and tag games; I know the kind of fire that gets lit when I get a particularly interesting WBW ask or when someone sends me a tag game that I'm excited to play, and I really want to pass that on more often.

What kinds of posts do you most like to interact with?

Excerpts, intros, and updates!

What kind of posts do you most like to make?

Excerpts and updates!

Finally, anywhere else online we may be able to find you?

I do writing and art streams on twitch.tv/alittlewarlord (ALEX: Watch and interact with Pax, he's so lovely!!), and VODs are posted on my YouTube channel of the same name. I'm also on Ko-Fi as alittlewarlord, and Patreon as P. K. Finn, both of which feature a bonus weekly write-in on top of the other streams.

[jamesunderwater]

a jily microfic - may 2nd: mourning

A/N: okay this is evidently turning into a greater fic, so I've named it and given it a banner, but the plan is to challenge myself to continue it each day with the jily microfic prompts. also...i am so sorry, in advance. @athenasparrow here is your continuation </3 thank you for reading!

a continuation of this fic! word count: 1607 - @jilymicrofics content warnings: underage drinking, underage sexual content, minor manipulation, implied parent death, implied parental abuse

leave out all the rest - linkin park Forgetting All the hurt inside you've learned to hide so well Pretending Someone else can come and save me from myself I can't be who you are I can't be who you are

Lily remembered the sag of his shoulders as he walked away, so caught in the image of it that she failed to blink until her eyes stung and watered. In all the years she’d known him, she had never heard James Potter’s voice sound in one moment so raw, so feral, and in the next so empty. Dead, as though he’d just finished burying her body and was looking down at the padded earth unfeeling. 

She could handle his ferality. In fact, she’d hidden a smirk at first, her body finally coming back to life as he screamed at her - yes, I’ve made you feel something, now make me feel something. Tear me in two. But it was the emptiness that had her mind suspended in midair hours after he’d stormed off. “Good riddance,” he’d said. Good riddance good riddance good riddance good riddance. Yes, she was a phantom that needed banishing. He’d done a good thing.

The whole thing had not started off as an attempt to use him. Really, it had started with very little thinking on her part. She had returned from break determined not to shed another tear for a man who had done nothing but hurt her. Good riddance. Instead, she discovered it did not take much firewhiskey to turn her brain to static, that she could schedule patrols to always avoid Remus, that long, empty corridors filled with sleeping portraits were an excellent place for a prefect to drink unbothered late into the night. 

And one night he showed up, seemingly out of thin air, voice loud and boisterous and always with her name at the tip of his tongue. “Evans! Now what is our diligent prefect doing on the stone floor at 2am?” 

A multitude of universes hung in the air before her, and Lily will never really know why she chose the one in which she teased him into joining her, offered him her flask, and held her breath while his radiance poured warmth over her numbed body. 

It was 4am and they’d spent the last 30 minutes impersonating Binns lecturing on the lewd sexual history of the Hogwarts founders when she noticed him staring, mouth open in a silent laugh, and what she should do next suddenly seemed clear. 

“Where is this side of Perfect Prefect Lily Evans in the daylight hours?” He asked, genuine despite how he tried to tease. 

She shrugged, smirking, “Maybe not everyone deserves to see this side.”

His eyebrows rose. “And I, the lowly James Potter, am deserving?”

“Evidently so.”

His eyes dropped to her lips for the briefest moment, and the anticipation she felt was the first thing in weeks to cut through the endless ache. She let him watch her eyes dart to his mouth, too, and saw the way his chest tightened as he held his breath. It was sweet, that he thought he could ruin the moment. That he thought he had any control at all.

She leaned forward, catching his eye, and there was hunger there. She felt it too, some creature that had been living inside her for who knew how long, more eager than she’d expected. She didn’t know, then, whose hand reached up first, who closed the final inch between them, only that a moment later his hand was in her hair and the heat of his lips on hers was better than any static the firewhiskey offered. She breathed his name between kisses and he groaned, losing whatever control he might have had before. He was pulling her on top of him and she was scrambling to feel his body and they were swimming, they were underwater, they had to be, how else could she feel nothing but his hands on her?

He’d stopped things, that first night. The gentleman she’d never expected, and didn’t want. But every night after they pushed things further, and soon she didn’t need the firewhiskey. The waiting to be with him each night was intoxicating enough, their looks across classrooms flooding her with desire, a dam against the rising current.  

It had been six weeks of this, of meeting in quiet corridors and abandoned classrooms, of her pushing him against the wall before he could say a word, of him nervously slipping a hand up her skirt, of her leaving hickies just beneath his collar line, of him making her laugh even in the middle of the heat of it all, of her pulling back from a kiss just to see the way he grins when he opens his eyes and it’s her standing there. 

But March 14th was her father’s birthday, and no amount of lust kept the thoughts at bay. He would have been 51, he would have been 51; good riddance good riddance good riddance good riddance. 

When James found her that night, she was a few shots into her flask of firewhiskey and eagerly offered him some. “Are you alright?” he asked, and the concern in his voice made her want to slap him. He didn’t know. He didn’t need to know. No one did. 

“Yes, and I’ll be much better when we’ve got some of those clothes off…” He rolled his eyes with a smirk, but she thought she noted a hint of falsity in it. “Drink up!” she declared, motioning to her flask in his hand.

He did, and she was grateful. They seemed to share the same buzz - the feeling that nothing could quite touch them, that time slowed and bowed to their every whim. They stood on abandoned desks and tables and declared the classroom their kingdom, giggled into each other’s arms at the childishness of it all. When things did start, it was somehow sweeter than usual. James touched her earlobe tenderly and she softened into his touch, sighing into their kiss. When he unbuttoned her blouse it wasn’t with the same impatience, and she felt each and every time his fingers brushed over her breasts. This was good - different, enough to distract her wandering thoughts. But she needed more.

They were pressed bare-chested together, he without any trousers, when she said it. “You–you do?” He stuttered, and she felt the hammering of his heart reverberate through her. 

She stood on her toes to capture him in another kiss and said, “yes, please, James,” against his open mouth and when he moaned, she knew he’d acquiesce. 

There was a wide-set bench at the back of the classroom they’d used before. It wasn’t without its awkward moments, but just before, when James had leaned up and looked down at her with the most earnest, caring eyes and asked if she was sure, she’d said, “Yes. I just want you,” and part of her had meant it. Most of her, though, just wanted to feel something different. 

After, she was lying on his chest, and he was tracing images on her back, when she felt it. He traced a flower. And she remembered. And the sob escaped her before she could stop it. 

“Lily?” James’s voice was almost frantic with worry as she scrambled off of him, holding a hand to her mouth. The tears fell, fell, fell, and she couldn’t stop them despite the embarrassment staining every inch of her. “Lily, what’s wrong?” He was reaching for her, but she was stumbling backwards, shaking her head. 

“No,” was all she croaked out, and then it was her flying around the room trying to find her discarded clothing, and him chasing after her, and her shaking him off, and him with those eyes, devastated.

“Lily, I’m so sorry, I didn’t-”

“James, no, I’m - I’m sorry.” She didn’t meet his eye. Her shirt was buttoned haphazardly, her skirt crooked, socks gone. “I thought - but I can’t. I’m sorry.” And she left him standing there, naked, confused, and - he hadn’t been wrong - used. 

They didn’t speak for five days. 

James gave it every effort to meet her eye, to catch her between classes, even came to sit beside her during dinner in the Great Hall, but by the third day he’d evidently decided to respect her space. She still saw his eyes, though. Devastated, no matter where they were looking. 

Then, one morning, he walked up to her so quickly that she didn’t have the chance to flee. “You’re in mourning.” No greeting, no preamble. He looked down at her on the stone bench and spoke as if he’d solved something. Not proud, but with some feeling like now he understood. 

She stared at him for a very long time. How had he found out? And who was he, to think he knew anything at all? The affection she’d felt toward him slithered down her skin and pooled at her feet. He thought that because he’d had her body, he deserved her tears. That he could dry them. 

“Fuck you, James Potter. You don’t know me.”

He faltered for a second, then seemed to recover. “Don’t I? Why didn’t you just tell me? Lily, I want to be there for you-”

She stood so suddenly that they were toe to toe, knees nearly knocking together. “Did I ask you to? No. I asked you to fuck me, and you did, and that’s that. Leave me alone.”

“Lily!” He’d called after her, and she could still hear it in his voice: care, hope. She threw up in the nearest bathroom before heading to Charms.

[bisexual-horror-fan]

If we're gonna multi may in this house, lorde says let's do it up!

just hear me out hear me out hear me out!

bo sinclair x fem!reader.

but wait wait wait!!!

featuring leslie vernon!

*holds for applause*

there is more!

have you heard lera lynn's wolf like me feat shovels and rope. because i promise it will fit!

ugh this has been such a great event! so happy you're doing something for you and everyone loves it.

Okay! So! I did it! I know Multi-May is done and over with but this has still be living in my head and I have not been able to get over it so here it is! A new and very unconventional poly ship! I hope everyone digs this, it is deff an interesting thing, pretty angst heavy but with some lighter moments and a smattering of smut, let’s get into it.

—

Rating. NSFW. Length. 4K. Bo Sinclair X FEM! AFAB! Reader FT.Leslie Vernon. She/Her Pronouns. Warnings: Bo And You Are In An Established Relationship. Slasher x Final Girl/Survivor Girl. Mentions Of Murder. Death. Gore. Hurt. Comfort. Cross-Over. Angst. Sex. Mild NSFW Content. Pining. Complex Feelings. Leslie Is SO Down Bad For Taylor.

—

There Is No True Substitute But God You’re Close.

—

It might have been overkill but there is no such thing as being too careful, being out of state seemed smart to him.

Leslie’s first outing had gone amazingly well, he was still riding high from the kills, the twists, from her. It went much better than he could have ever hoped, but now he had to lay low. So far it has been going well, he had this remote cabin he hung out at for a couple of weeks until he was sure that it was safe enough and then he began his celebratory post spree vacation road trip. He had some places to stop off, people to see and it was nice, being able to meet with people who were like minded, in the same industry and tell them all about how well his first foray went. Before he always talked theory but now it was backed by real life experience, he felt like he belonged, the first serious move of his career and to making a name for himself, to being taken seriously. 

The time we want to focus on however is when he had worked his way down to Louisiana, it had been a long time since he’d been here, Eugene encouraged him to take some real time while considering this career path to explore around, talk to some people in the business, be sure and Leslie was thankful for that. It affirmed to him he was making the right call, Eugene told him where to go and gave the people heads up and Leslie was pretty universally welcomed. A lot of the older people were excited, they claim so few people wanted to take up this job and do it right, the old fashioned way, the way that honoured tradition. 

This was one place he spent a decent amount of time. Coming back to Ambrose and seeing the improvement and expansion that had occurred in the few years he was absent was impressive. He arrived mid-day, Lester met him outside of town, greeted him as friendly as ever and there was much excited talking on the way in, Lester telling Leslie, “I got so many new knives, I gotta show you-”

“Hell yeah man, sounds great I can’t wait to see them!” He was always down to talk tools of the trade and Lester said, “And tomorrow morning fore’ the heat gets too bad an’ it starts to smell too much we can visit the gore pit.”

“You have a gore pit now?!”

“We do!” Lester said excitedly and Leslie asked, “Business that good down here?”

“So good! I mean the town is almos’ done, that’s what Bo says anyway-” Lester admitted and Leslie gaped, “Already? God, I know there are three of you but that turnaround time is amazing. What are you gonna do when it’s all done?”

Lester hummed, hands sliding into his pockets as he considered the question, “Honest? I dunno. This been our whole lives for years now, weird to think bout what’ll be like when s’ all done.”

“Well I am sure you guys will all figure it out, you’re resourceful!” Leslie assured as he clapped Lester on the back and he smiled, “Yeah yer right, we’ll be alright.” 

Soon they were at the gas station and Bo was coming out to greet him, wiping his hands on a dirty rag before a firm handshake was exchanged. “Leslie, how are you?”

“Great, so great.” He assured and Bo asked, “Drive down was alright?”

“Oh yeah, no trouble at all. Where’s ol’ Vin at?” Leslie asked as he released his hand and Bo scoffed, “In the workshop, don’t worry he’s excited to see you, he’s gonna come out in time for dinner.” 

Leslie was excited for dinner, last time he was down they treated him to some pretty good BBQ, it was going to be great. Bo and Lester proceed to show Leslie around town, updating him on changes and showing off all the new procedures, the developments and wax figures. 

It was a great afternoon Leslie was so glad he made the effort to get down here, and as the sun had begun to go down but the sticky heat remained, on the way out of the movie theatre Leslie asked, “Should we go get on cooking dinner?”

“Oh no need, should be just about ready.” Bo said easily and Leslie was confused, “What is Vin already cooking or something?” 

“Nope. You’ll see.” Bo said with a grin that made Leslie just a touch concerned but he didn’t pursue it further, the answer became clear once they had gotten his bag back from where they left it at the station and gotten to the house. 

“We made up the same room you had last time.” Bo told him as he started to come inside and Leslie followed, Lester bringing up the rear and there was a call from the kitchen asking, “Hello?”

“Heya, we’re back.” Bo responds and there is a series of excited footsteps from the kitchen into the living room and Leslie sees you for the first time. Barefoot and apron on, dish towel over our shoulder you asked with a point, “Is this him?”

“Yes this is the guy I was tellin’ you all about, this is our guest, Leslie.” You came forward and shook his hand, “Pleasure to meet you, I’ve heard so much!” 

Leslie returned the gesture before reluctantly pulling his hand away, “I wish I could say the same, this one hasn’t mentioned you.”

“You haven’t? Man, what am I gonna do with you?”  You ask as you snatched the dish towel off your shoulder and playfully swatted at Bo who waved you off with a scoff. There is a beeping coming from the kitchen and you say, “Sorry, excuse me, that’s the oven.” You turn and flit back off to the kitchen and Leslie turned and asked, “Who is that?” 

The story came out over the dinner you made. Leslie was regaled how you came to town alone, the chase, the hunt, the fight that turned to more than that, all of the struggle and eventually Bo deciding to keep you for a while before killing you off. That never happened. No instead you stayed, you fell and that was that. Leslie could not believe it. Of course he knew about Eugene and Jamie’s history, he loved them but he thought they might have been an outlier but to see it was possible for someone else? It’s everything. 

Listening to the stories, seeing how you held Bo’s hand and looked at him, made him ache. He can see it so clearly from how you both talked about it, the initial meeting, the chase, the scuffle, my God. He loves this for you both but seeing it? It makes part of him hurt. 

He thinks of Taylor. You remind him of her.

He tries to push that down and instead tries to focus on the rest of the conversation, how nice it is to be back here. 

You were cleaning up the dishes, bringing them to the sink and Leslie was currently saying, “Thank you so much, it was amazing.”

“Oh good! M’ glad, I spent so long in the kitchen today.” You admit and he asks, “What? For me?”

“Yeah! I knew this was a big deal, is it so wrong I wanted to impress you just a bit?” You asked in a joking tone and Leslie asked Bo, “What did you tell her?”

“Nothin’ that wasn’t true.” 

Leslie was unconvinced and turned to Vincent who signed without Leslie even having to ask the question, as opposed to responding directly he posed this, “Where’d all that confidence go?”

“Yeah, we don’t just hang round with anybody.” Lester insisted and Bo scoffed with a roll of his eyes, “Yeah we’re really picky about the company we keep.” 

“You joke but 99% of the people who roll through here get gutted and waxed, in that order.”  You say that so casually, so easily. It then comes out that you don’t just tolerate what happens, you help with the cause, luring, lying, cleaning up, whatever is needed. What a fucking dream were you. 

To have a quality survivor girl who not only makes the change but becomes part of the business? Unthinkable but fantastic that it is possible.

The rest of that evening you made yourself scarce, you were tired and went to bed early with promises of spending more time with everyone tomorrow. Leslie and the boys have dessert and drinks on the porch and he tries to keep you out of his mind, instead trying to focus on what Vincent was trying to tell him about the latest art project. 

The next morning he comes downstairs to find coffee brewed up and wrapped breakfast sandwiches, Lester was already in the kitchen and when questioned Lester said, “S’ Tuesday, she’s out workin’ on her art but she makes us all breakfast to go.” 

You were an artist too? I mean it made sense you would have some sort of creative outlet but hearing it confirmed was a horse of a different colour. It was sweet you thought of Bo’s brothers but even more so that you thought of him, a relative stranger, you were very trusting of him all things considered. 

This road trip was to celebrate, it was to get out of state, it was to keep things low key but also to try and forget a bit about her. Taylor was just so upset when everything came out, he was trying to keep his spirits up about their future but who knows what might happen, what if getting his own relationship shift like Eugene and Jamie or you and Bo had was an impossibility with her? He thought the distance would help and yet here you were reminding him of everything he really craves.

He goes out to the gore pit and does some work with Lester and loses himself a little in getting shown Lester’s extensive knife collection. 

Leslie hangs around town with the boys but with you too, he starts getting closer to you and the more he sees you and Bo are together he wants and he aches. 

He spends time with Vincent, getting shown the updated process of how he makes the figures as well, “So some of them are still technically alive when you coat them?” Vincent nodded and Leslie stood up from his crouching position with ample praise, “You sadistic bastard I love that!” 

Leslie was also treated to seeing the other ways Vincent expresses himself, the paintings in particular are amazing. Leslie goes on drives with Lester talking up a storm and adds to the pit, he actually has to consider fighting off the urge to gag when they went by in the late afternoon, “Christ on a bike Lester! How do you stand it?” To which Lester laughed and responded, “C’mon Les, taint that bad.” Leslie fires back, “Yeah says you.”

He spends time in the gas station with Bo, fucking around with cars, listening to music too loudly and touring around the basement as well as sharing stories. “Sooo you’ve gotten into photography?”

“Vincent has the sculptures and paintings, Lester has his taxidermy and wood carving, I take pictures.” Bo said with a casual shrug. Everyone is so creative here, it makes Leslie want to work more on his next outing, bringing in more creativity to his work couldn’t hurt. 

Leslie feels bad that you are putting in so much work with him around so he insists he helps out with cooking. He asks about your art while making lunch, he is genuinely interested and impressed to learn what you like to do and the answer is almost everything. Painting and doll making and sewing, some gardening, you dabbled in so many things to help fill your days and satisfy your creative urges. 

“How do you do it?” He asked as you both were deep in a sandwich assembly line, him taking out slices of bread and putting on the spreads and you building the rest from there, and you questioned him, “Do what?”

“All of that. Have the time and energy for pursuing so many different creative things?” 

You laughed, closing the current sandwich before telling him, “I have the energy and ability and fuck, the time, because of the guys. Being here affords me the opportunities to do all this. I have no one to answer to. I can just do whatever I want to, no schedule. Somedays I paint for hours, others I do not a damn thing and camp out on the couch, it’s great.” 

It did sound great, you had a full and well rounded life here. He listened as you expounded further and it made his little problem a whole lot worse. You spoke about the inherent drive to create that you felt, this sort of pulling that came from deep inside that made you want to take nothing and make something. He understood that, related to it, the talk endeared you further to him. 

“I love that.” He said quietly and you say, “I can tell.” 

It’s quiet for a moment before you ask, “I assume you do what you do for similar reasons?”

“You want to know?” 

“Uh duh-doy Vernon. Spill.” And so the rest of lunch prep and the meal itself was spent with him pouring his heart out, telling you all about why he did what he did, why he wanted it, what motivated him and it felt good. You seemed to genuinely listen, really give a fuck, you asked questions and engaged openly and by the time he was done you understood. You gave praise, commented and as he learns more and more you don't shy away from blood, guts or gore and that was so attractive. He wonders how much exposure therapy it took for you to get to that point.

“Oh I get it now.” 

“Get what?” He asked, “I get why you look at me like that now. You are thinking about her.” 

Shit. He focused so much on talking about her and in usual Leslie fashion when excited about a particular something he cannot contain himself, it is hard to hide his emotions at the best of times but when it came to her? It seems impossible. He tries to veer, to lie, “What? I don’t look at you any particular way.” 

You give him an unimpressed look, mouth a flat line and he cuts in again, “What?!”

Your hand reaches out and takes his as you look in his eyes and say, “Les. You are…A very smart, passionate, capable guy. You are gonna have some fantastic days ahead and hopefully a long and successful career but you need to work on your lying skills.”

“I can lie! I lie all the time!” He insists and you scoff, “Not about her. I dunno if you can about how you clearly feel about Taylor Gentry.”

He knows you are right. Instead he says as he looks away, “Even if I do look at her in any particular way, I don’t think I look at you like that, it’s ridiculous because you…You aren’t her and I know that.” 

You roll your eyes and drop his hand, “See I just complimented you and said you were smart but you make me regret it when you say shit like that.”

“Elaborate.” He asks and you say, “I know I’m not her, you know that I’m not her, that isn’t what is important. The idea is that I remind you of her and that is enough when the wounds are so fresh and so deep” 

How did you see right through him? Your level of observation is nuts. “You make me sound pathetic.” 

“Hardly. You are many things Leslie but pathetic is not chief among them, trust me. I’m not mad, I’m not upset, I think it’s understandable and a little sweet.” 

He wasn’t expecting that, nor was he expecting what happened next, you got up and he thought it was going to be you collecting the lunch dishes and instead you are sliding into his lap. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Something I think you need.” Your arms loop around his neck, hands crossed at the wrists behind his head and his mind was reeling, “What do you think I need?”

“A distraction, an outlet, whatever you want to call it.” You said simply and he asked, “What about Bo?”

“This was his idea.” 

“What?” 

“He has eyes and ears too Les. He hears how you talk and sees how you look. We talked about it and it’s okay.” You shrug and then add on, “And it isn’t like he and I are tied down to just each other. The photo wall in the basement hasn’t stopped getting bigger since I came to town.” 

“And that’s…That’s fine with you both?” He asks and you tell him, “Completely. He likes the aftermath.” 

You don’t need to say the word “reclamation” but you don’t have to, he can see it as if it were painted all over your face. He is still thinking much too hard and you take advantage of that, you lean in, kiss him and it is like his brain turns off, instinct takes over instead and he returns it. 

It feels wrong but right, you aren’t her but you are close enough for now, he touches, hands wander and he feels greedy as he drinks you in. He’s been so consumed with work for so long. When was the last time he was with anyone in this kind of way? He doesn’t know, he doesn’t care. 

It’s rushed, clothes are hardly removed, mostly just pushed down or pulled aside enough to facilitate and satisfy the immediate urge and need you had stirred up in each other. He is caught between it all, in taking you in, enjoying this and you for what it is and you are but still part of him is with her, just as it always is. You know this and you don’t mind, you are getting your own enjoyment out of it, you aren’t totally selfless in this. Sureit is helping him but the strong hand around your throat as he fucks up into you, opposite hand on your hip, fingers caught between the space where skirt and shirt, blunt nails digging into tender flesh as he is panting is very, very much for you. 

He is left a bit dazed when it’s over. You tell him that the others are probably wondering where their lunch is, you tell him to hang out here and on slightly unsteady legs you are off to go deliver Bo the food he helped you make. 

Leslie is out of the kitchen and nowhere to be found when you came back, you expected that. He needed time to himself to figure this out. 

Trying to make sense of all of this is one of the hardest things and after trying to figure it out for a few hours he ends up at the gas station and talking with Bo. “Hey there he is, havin’ a good day?”

The shit eating grin combined with the knowing look communicates that you told him already. The conversation is brief but it gets the point across. “S’ fine. Really. I trust you, s’ good for her.” 

It is crazy what finding the right person and relationship can do for a person, he seemed to secure.

In between times with the boys he is with you. There are highs, being wrapped up in you, hot and needy, passionate, and times of lows, self hatred, angst, pain. He can’t bring himself to stop, he will tell himself to give this up but then you give him one of those looks where he ends up with you bent over the kitchen table while the roast for dinner is finishing in the oven. 

He stretches his stay by another week but eventually he has to go. He knows he does when he has the briefest thought about running away with you and having you to himself but it is quickly forgotten. He could never betray Bo like that, he knows he is some fun on the side, not serious, you don’t want him like that and he is sure he doesn’t want you like that either, not really. It’s different with him and more than that, he wants what you and Bo have, what Jaime and Eugene have. 

He wasn’t the whole package. He wants the investment, the history, all of it, he wants the complex relationship from slasher and survivor to a more equal and level playing field of partners. He hasn’t given up on Taylor and honestly all of this with you has reaffirmed that for him, he can still get her, he just has to try harder. He is saddened for how long it might take to get there but ultimately he is better and emboldened for the experience. 

He really revels in the last time he has you the night before he goes to leave. He is incredibly selfish, the living room is dark, he can’t see your face, he is rough and almost as if you can sense it, when he starts to feel just a bit bad you gasp out, “S’ okay. Take it out on me.” 

He does. Who knows the next time he will be with anyone, or if he will ever be with you again, if he will ever truly get to have Taylor the way he wants. It bleeds from rough to much more than that, his face buried in your neck, arms around you, fucking you the way he is praying to whatever messed up God might be listening in that he hopes to do to her one day. You know what it is, it’s a little too close, a little too intimate, you give into the fantasy and allow it to happen without commenting on it. When it’s over and your shared breathing has returned to normal, when the sweat has dried, you get up saying, “Should get to bed, you got a long drive tomorrow.” 

“Yeah. I’ll be up in a minute.” 

He heads up five minutes after you do. Your bedroom door is closed. He stares at it for a minute before retreating to his own room that is already packed up.

Lester gifted him a knife, Vincent had made a small figure of Leslie in his slasher gear and Bo handed over a CD that Leslie from a band Bo introduced him to during his stay that he ended up loving. You gave him some packed food, you refilled the cooler that he brought and told him to, “Drive safe, have a good rest of the journey. It was so great getting to know you, I hope you’ll be back some time.”

“I intend to, promise.” He admits and once the van was loaded up and about to leave he leaned out the window and asked just Bo who was seeing him off, “Are you two gonna be okay?”

“What? Cuz of what happened between you two?” He laughs, “Yeah, we’ll be alright. Thanks for the concern but s’ not needed.” 

“You are like, so, so lucky, you know that right?” He asked and Bo said with a glance over his shoulder in your direction, “Yeah, M’ aware.”

“God, you’re an asshole.” Leslie sighed and Bo said, “Hey you are too, she’s got a type.” 

He has a point. When Leslie took off to go to a mostly abandoned summer camp in the same state for some camping you still lingered on his mind, he was sure, if the arraignment extended or not he’d be back to Ambrose sometime in the future. 

[rphelperblog]

Beth Revis Quote Rp Meme

A new york times best selling author who is most famous for her Across the Universe Trilogy- please feel free to edit or change pronouns for rp purposes

“I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one.”

“You never know. Something small and broken really can be powerful.”

“Is almost a good enough reason for fear ?”

“I will do anything to make her happy again, so I give her the stars.”

“A leader isn't someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give him strength to others so that they may have the strength to stand on their own.”

“Science can make a heart beat,but it can’t make it race.”

“Love without choice isn't love at all.”

“But there's a difference, isn't there? Between saying goodbye and death.”

“What if eternity is nothing more than me, alone, in the darkness?”

“When you wake up, your face will be dry. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t cry.”

“They'll never truly be able to comprehend how much was lost for their limitless sky.”

“We can fight, and we can disagree, but I'm never going to let you walk away from me thinking I don't love you.”

“If it's a matter of dying here or dying there, I think I'd like to at least see the world first.”

“Don't you see? Those monsters you've been so worried about. Not aliens. People. The monsters have always been people.”

“What matters right now is this: we're each of us standing here, together, alive, together.”

“It’s not selfish to be yourself and pursue your dreams.”

“I want her so much that it overrides everything else, every other thought in my head, every instinct, every restraint.”

“And I know what I told my father was true: let us taste the world, and we’ll do whatever it takes to shape it into our home.”

“This ship is built on secrets; it runs on secrets”

“So you’re sticking with me, and I’m sticking with you.”

“I’m sorry.’ The two most inadequate words in the English language.”

“A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people.”

And there is nothing between us but rain.

Then there is nothing between us at all.”

“Choice or no, my heart is his.”

“I would trade all the stars in the universe if I could just have him back again.”

“But i don't care. Because we can say them or not; it doesn't matter. What is in our heats is real whether we name it or let it exist only in darkness and silence.”

“Even when you're silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life.”

“Because I can think of no better way to meet a girl than to see her through the eyes of the story she loves best.”

“It's bad, being frozen, but it's better than waking up alone.”

“Who are the real monsters?”

“It wasn't that he called me a freak. It was the way he said it. Like he really meant it. Like he believed it.”

“He's the only stable thing in the swirling chaos.”

“And in her smile I see something more beautiful than the stars.”

“This is the secret of the stars. In the end, we are alone. No matter how close you seem, no one else can touch you.”

“Well, sometimes home is a person.”

Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't.”

“My heart stutters—not why? or how?—those are not the important questions. The really important question is: by whom?”

“You gonna fight for something, you fight for something that you're willing to die for.”

“But of course these are scientists. Tell them to leave something alone, and all they want to do is poke it with a stick.”

“I've never seen the stars before.And I never knew they were so beautiful.”

“But, really, grief left a hole in you, and while you healed around the hole, you never didn't have it. A piece of you was gone. You couldn't heal something that wasn't there.”

“Maybe the secret of the stars has nothing to do with being alone.”

“But...If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise.

Let it end with hope.”

“It's not knowing that's killing me. Not knowing if there's a chance that something can change, not knowing if there's hope at all.”

“There is only him and me and this thing between us that I cannot name, not out loud, but that my heart knows is love.”

“I can think of no better way to meet a girl than to see her through the eyes of the story she loves best.”

“It is like a piece of my soul had been lost, empty, and it is now filled with the light of a million stars.”

“But death doesn't work like that. It doesn't care if someone loves you, doesn't want you to go. It just takes. It takes and it takes until eventually you have nothing left.”

“I want to take her into my arms and hold her tight. But at the same time, I know that is the exact opposite of what she wants. She wants to be free, and all I want is to hold her tight against me.”

“More than the sound of my own beating heart, I miss the sound of a ticking clock. Time passes. It must pass....”

“I feel alone.”

“I have the whole world now, but I don't have him.”

“Sometimes home is a person.”

“You could have valued our lives more than your secrets.”

“That is what a book is: a million little things, a thousand feelings, hundreds of experiences, all melted together and sculpted into a book-shaped vessel.”

“If we don't have that, what do we have to live for? Does it matter if it's a lie if it keeps us alive?”

“She was a good person. She didn’t deserve to die.”

“The sea is a dangerous place because it makes you believe in forever.”

“Memories always kill nightmares.”

“I cannot imagine a more perfect hell than being trapped inside my own mind.”

I don't mean i feel lonely; I mean i feel alone, the same way i feel the blanket resting on my body, or the feathers of my pillow under my head, or the tight string of my sleep pants twisted up around my waist. I feel alone as if it were an actual thing, seeping throughout this whole level like mist blanketing a field, reaching into all the hidden corners of my room and finding nothing living but me. It's a cold sort of feeling, this.”

“Sorry? Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. Every. Single. Thing. I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was.”

“Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own.”

“Old people die. It's what they do. “

“If I can only see him in madness, is it worth trying to hold onto sanity?”

“You must dedicate your whole life to this idea: you are the caretaker of every single person on this ship. They are your responsibility.

You can never show weakness in front of them: you are their strength.

You can never let them see you in despair: you are their hope.

You must always be everything to everyone on board.”

“This is the secret of the stars. In the end, we are alone no matter how close you seem, no one else can touch you. Maybe the secret of the stars has nothing to do with being alone.”

“You never know all of a person; you only know them in a specific moment of time.”

“Even though I know the rain is fake, it feels the same as real rain, and I desperately need that.”

“I can't be the kind of leader you want me to,I will never, ever be the kind of leader you want me to be. And I will be better because of it.”