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ckret2 · 3 months ago

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Chapter 63 of human Bill Cipher trying to debate his way out of still being the Mystery Shack's prisoner. Soos has found the stolen Journal 4 in Bill's possession and has to decide what to do about it in light of everything else he's learned about Bill lately.

[*you may notice chapter 61 is missing! This plot was done sooner, so I'll be posting chapter 61 sometime after 64. It's not chronological so you're not missing anything!]

Soos stared dumbfounded at the journal with a 4 on the cover that he'd pulled from Bill's hiding place. Ford had lost Journal 4 last fall—he'd said gnomes had stolen it. How in the world had Bill gotten it?

Soos sat in the attic window seat and flipped through it. The first few pages were Ford's journal entries—his observations of the dimensional rips they were glueing shut in Gravity Falls post-Weirdmageddon, a hand-drawn map highlighting various places around the globe he wanted to investigate, a few drawings and observations of paranormal beings he hadn't seen his first time in town, half a sketch of a gnome that ended with a jagged scribble across the page followed by a page that said "Shmebulock" over and over.

And then a page that said, in an unfamiliar handwriting of jagged, narrow gray letters: "CURSED BOOK! If your name is Mabon Mason Pines, STOP READING NOW or ENJOY YOUR HEX!"

Bill had written page after page of some weird code of gray and yellow-green dots and dashes. A few sentences in English—every one of them was a threatening message to Ford. "Everything would have been fantastic if you'd just helped me finish, Fordsy." "You'll regret not siding with me when you had the chance." "You should have known better than to let your idiot brother turn you against me." "Sixer, you're lying to yourself every time you say you never worshiped me, and you know it. You spent the first third of your life running away from the god you were raised with and the second third chasing after me. Don't waste your last third denying it. YOU'RE MINE." A small, worrying diagram of what looked like the interdimensional portal. And a sticker.

Wait, hold on.

A sticker. One of Mabel's. The rest of the page was the same as the others, the two-tone dots and dashes, except for the sticker, and an arrow drawn from one paragraph to the sticker.

A yellow smiley, its round edges filled in with black marker to make a triangle, over the words "Good job!"

Soos stared at the sticker.

####

A couple of weeks ago, Melody had texted to let Soos know that there was a mess in the upstairs bathroom, and the kids said they'd been fighting a werewolf ghost.

When Soos had gotten home the next morning, Melody had pulled him aside and quietly told him she hadn't wanted to worry him and the Stans, but she did not think it was a werewolf ghost.

When Soos saw the bathroom, he didn't think it was a werewolf ghost either.

It was a scene from a horror movie. Menacing magical sigils painted all over the walls in blood and toothpaste, Bill's zodiac painted on one mirror, the other mirror broken, glass and water all over the floor. It looked like the site of a really wet demon summoning. This contained none of the hallmarks of ghostly or werewolfish activity. Why would Bill do this?

Soos was kind of reluctant to ask Bill. Bill still sorta scared him sometimes. Sure, he looked like a lost 18-year-old, but Soos knew what teens were like in a fight. So he asked Mabel instead.

Mabel pursed her lips uncomfortably. "Ask Dipper."

So Soos asked Dipper.

Dipper winced and. "Promise you won't get mad."

Soos considered that. "Yeah, I guess that's a fair deal."

Dipper confessed that Bill got accidentally locked in the upstairs bathroom for like a whole day, because he and Mabel didn't hear him yelling. Not because they were out of the house when they shouldn't have been. They were just... somewhere else in the house. Doing something loud. For the whole day.

While Bill was trapped alone.

####

Soos had vented to Abuelita about cleaning the bathroom. Like sure, he got Bill was annoyed about being stuck, but that seemed excessive.

Abuelita had made the observation that sometimes people in profoundly bleak and oppressive situations would just... destroy whatever was around them. Like punching a hole in the wall or snapping a pencil when you were angry, but much more so. Not because they wanted their surroundings to be destroyed, but because that was the last and only thing they had power over, and they needed to feel like they were in control of something. Even if that thing was merely changing their environment from ordered to chaotic.

Bill didn't have control over very much. He probably hadn't since he died. Soos didn't know what kind of space triangle afterlife Bill had been in before he showed up as Toga Lady, but it couldn't have been great if he'd come straight back here.

Soos could remember the one time weeks ago he'd let Bill into the bathroom to shower and forgotten to come back and let him out. How Bill had screamed so all the Mystery Shack's tourists could hear; how he'd seethed in Soos's face, how he'd said he'd rather blow their collective cover and throw them all on the mercy of the town's law enforcement than remain locked in the bathroom a second longer than they'd agreed upon. Soos had thought Bill was just impatient and hotheaded.

Standing in the bathroom, looking at the material evidence of Bill's claustrophobic terror—the broken glass, the spilled blood—he wondered.

####

The same day, he had felt a breeze in the gift shop and found the trap doors to the roof left open. He'd climbed up, shut them, and in between tours he'd visited his office to check yesterday's security tapes.

He saw Wendy coming into the shack to hang out the morning before. That was fine. Soos had discovered she did that from time to time on days the shack was closed, but she wasn't doing anything bad and she hadn't brought it up yet, so Soos didn't bring it up either. Maybe she just needed a private place to hang. Teen stuff. He was just glad Wendy felt that safe at the Mystery Shack. Maybe she'd just gone up to hang out on the roof and forgot to shut the trap doors...

And then, right there on screen, Soos saw Bill letting himself into the gift shop, through the door, which he shouldn't be able to open. A chill shot up Soos's back. The door curse was their only real means of containing Bill. If he could use doors now, he was out, there was no way they could trap him without doing something crazy like locking him in the bunker and hoping he didn't kill himself.

Or could he use doors? Soos thought back to the frantic messages on the bathroom wall, written in Bill's own blood—his desperation over being unable to escape. Maybe he could use doors but not doorknobs. That was okay, maybe?

On tape, he saw Wendy run into Bill. He saw Wendy take Bill onto the roof. Out in the open air, where he could just... do whatever. But he didn't do whatever. Soos fast-forwarded the tape until Wendy and Bill came back down, and Bill simply returned to the living room.

He'd had the perfect opportunity to shove Wendy off the roof or escape. He didn't take it.

If all Bill was using his new door skills for was ducking into the gift shop and hanging out on the roof with Wendy, Soos thought maybe it would be kinda mean to take that away from him. There weren't a lot of other places Bill could go in the shack. (Soos kept seeing the blood on the bathroom wall. He kept trying to imagine what kind of helplessness would drive someone that far.) Maybe Bill needed the open air.

So Soos had put the security tape on his desk, not sure what to do about it.

####

A couple of day after that, while Soos was restocking the gift shop in between waves of tourists, he'd seen Wendy reading an oddly dull-looking booklet instead of one of her usual magazines. He tilted his head to glance at the cover. The Oregon state driving manual. "Aw dude, gonna get your learner's permit?"

"Think so," Wendy said. "Don't tell my dad."

Soos remembered Wendy groaning about her dad wrangling her into doing errands if she ever got her license. "Your secret is safe with me."

"Thanks."

"What made you change your mind? You were totally against getting a license a week ago."

"It's probably those stupid Gleeful Auto commercials that have been worming into my dreams." Wendy laughed. "I'm just waking up in the morning like, neeeed caaar."

"Oh yeah! Heh, funny coincidence, Melody says she had a dream like that too. Sometimes she gets these like, dreams about monsters watching her in bed? But one time, the monster was Bud Gleeful, whispering in her ear about a big car sale. She totally woke up laughing!"

"Ha! Annoying car commercials should be banned, man. Why do we need to be told multiple times a day to spend thousands of dollars?"

"You make a salient point."

They fell silent for a moment as Wendy read a couple more paragraphs. Then she said, "That, plus... I was talking to Goldie the other day."

Soos looked up from the t-shirt he'd been putting on a clothes hanger. "Oh. Yeah?"

"About where we wanna go when we get out of town."

"Huh." Very casually, Soos asked, "What did Goldie say?"

"He wants to go on some big vacation. Like a world cruise or something, I dunno."

"Huh." Soos wondered if that was true. He tried to imagine Bill Cipher as a tourist. Floating triangle in a Hawaiian shirt with a camera hanging from a strap and a fanny pack. What kind of places would he even visit? Soos bet he wanted to visit the pyramids. Heh. (Was that stereotyping? Maybe that was stereotyping.)

"And I told him I'm moving to Portland for college."

"Oh, hey, I didn't know you were thinking about college."

"I... actually, never told anybody else before," Wendy said. "I've been thinking about it for years, but part of me felt like it's just a fantasy? But Goldie said when he got out of high school, he did the same thing—moved to another town, made a new group of friends, all that. And... I don't know, actually talking to him out loud about it just... made it feel real, you know? So I thought, if I'm gonna move to Portland, I should probably start planning for it. Starting with how I'm getting there." She held up the driving manual.

Soos nodded slowly. "Huh. Yeah. That's a pretty mature way to look at it."

And that was what Bill was talking to Wendy about on the roof? Just... listening to a teen vent and helping her figure out her future?

And so, Soos took the security tape off his desk and put it in a drawer.

####

A few days later, Soos had heard the downstairs bathroom sink running for several minutes, assumed someone had forgotten to turn it off, and went to turn it off himself—and had caught Bill, in the dark, half undressed, washing himself in the sink.

After Soos had backed out and profusely apologized, he'd asked, "But—how come you're washing in the sink? I can let you in the upstairs bathroom if you need—"

"Worry about your own grooming habits and leave mine alone," Bill snapped. "As long as I don't smell, what do you humans care how I do it. Soap is soap and water is water."

It took Soos several days to realize he didn't think Bill had had a shower since he got locked in the bathroom. And nobody had noticed, because Bill made sure nobody noticed, because he'd been keeping himself clean in the bathroom he couldn't get locked in.

####

Dipper would go all summer without showering if he could get away with it; Stan showered like once a week and had constant old man smell; Abuelita also showered weekly and had a more refined old lady smell; Soos didn't know when Ford showered, but he'd never caught him doing it and Ford always smelled weirdly like burned hair. Soos showered almost daily during tourist season—that Mr. Mystery suit was hot—but outside that might go three days at a time. Mabel showered near daily.

From what Soos had observed, Bill was showering like, at least twice a week. He didn't know how often Bill cleaned himself in the sink in between.

That meant he was showering more often than two-thirds of the house.

Yet he was the only one in the house living under the threat of being thrown in the tub at 3 a.m. if someone decided he hadn't bathed enough for their tastes.

The reason Bill had refused to shower during his first week of imprisonment was so he could use the condition of his body as a bargaining chip—with no physical possessions in the world, his own body was the only bargaining chip he had—to try to buy a little more dignity. In return, his captors had taken more dignity away. They permitted Bill less autonomy over how to take care of his body than the household's children had.

Dipper had never gotten forced into a bathroom he couldn't let himself out of.

####

The day after the eclipse, Ford had pulled Soos aside and said quietly, "Soos, as soon as you have some time—could you repair the door to the kids' room? Before the end of the day? The latch has been broken since the tooth fairy's attack."

"Uh, sure, I can probably do that," Soos said. "How come?" The latch had been broken for a couple weeks, and the Pines hadn't been worried about it before.

"Right now, the door can swing freely with just a push," Ford said. "I think Bill's figured out how to use that to get in. Which is worrisome, since he shouldn't be able to use any doors..."

"O-oh." Soos thought about the swinging door into the gift shop. "Yeah, uh... sounds bad. Byyy the way—how'd you figure out he knows how to use the door?"

"Dipper says Bill somehow got in and out of the room last night," Ford said. "Mabel fell asleep in the living room and Bill carried her upstairs. I really don't like the thought of Bill being able to get his hands on the kids while they're asleep and defenseless."

Ford was mad at Bill for tucking a kid into bed? That was the big red flag? "No problem! I'll fix the door right after work."

The next time Soos visited his office, he took the security tape out of his drawer, rewound it, stuck it back into the tape recorder, and let that day's security camera footage overwrite and erase the evidence of Bill's visit to the gift shop.

####

And now, today, carrying Journal 4 in both hands, Soos trudged downstairs, trying to figure out what to do with it. He had to return it to Ford, obviously—but Bill and the Stans were already in the middle of a discussion that sounded a lot more like an argument. Flinging a stolen journal into the middle of the proceedings would just make it worse. Maybe he should wait until they were finished and everyone had cooled down a little��?

While Soos was upstairs, the discussion had apparently moved into the kitchen. He hovered awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs, watching.

"What do you mean, you need kitchen access," Stan was asking, "you already have kitchen access. It's never been off-limits! Even after you peed in the sink!"

"It's not kitchen access if I need to ask someone else for permission to eat anything but snacks."

"No one's making you ask for permission! You can take what you want!"

"Okay, fine. So what can I eat?" Bill gestures at the shelves. "Go on. List anything you can think of. Anything."

Stan grimaced, and glanced at Ford to see if he was willing to walk into the obvious trap first.

Ford looked at the nearby shelves. "Cereal."

"One point for Stanford Pines! Cereal! So am I supposed to eat dry cereal for every single meal, or—?"

"No, of course not."

"All right, then what else?"

"Brown meat," Stan said. "We've got plenty of brown meat. It's good for you!"

"You didn't give me can opener rights," Bill said.

"Huh."

"So no brown meat," Bill said. "No canned soup, no canned chili, no canned fruit, no canned vegetables—"

Ford cut in, "Some of the cans have pull tabs, you don't need a can opener for those."

"Terrific observation! As soon as you realized I could open those cans myself, you moved them all under the counter because you thought I'd use the sharp edges as weapons!"

"It's... possible to open cans without a can opener, I did it sometimes while roughing it in other dimensions—"

"Yeah, wearing off the metal rim with a rock, right? Lemme just go outside and grab a rock—oh wait." Bill crossed his arms.

Ford sighed, and turned to Stan to suggest something else.

Stan surveyed the available supplies, spotted the bread, and said, "You could make sandwiches!"

"With what filling?"

"Uh..." Stan kept looking.

Meats and cheeses, of course, were kept in the fridge. Along with jelly, condiments, most vegetables... tuna or spam weren't options, they were canned... "Hey, we leave out some meats that don't need refrigeration. Sausages and stuff."

"Right, right. The ones that don't need refrigeration because they're wrapped in plastic you need a knife to cut," Bill said. "Sometimes I bite the plastic open with my teeth and rip off chunks of sausage with my fingernails, that's always fun! Then you put the leftovers in the fridge, and I'm out of luck until we buy another sausage."

"You could put... peanut butter on your sandwiches?" Ford tried. "Peanut butter's nutritious."

Bill fixed him with a hard look. "For the past five weeks, every time I've gotten a meal without asking someone else to help feed me like a baby, I've had nothing but peanut butter and banana sandwiches, peanut butter and jerky sandwiches, peanut butter and raisin sandwiches, and peanut butter and potato chip sandwiches. And we're out of bananas, jerky, and raisins." He pointed at the tortillas. "Once I decided to get creative and made myself a cold peanut butter quesadilla! I can't even add spices, because guess where the breakable glass spice jars are kept?"

"Pasta," Ford tried. "We could keep the pasta out."

"Oh, wow, that'd be great! I just love pasta! But I can't open the microwave and I can't turn on the stove! How do I heat the water, Stanford?"

Ford frowned. "Hm."

"I can cook, you know—not that any of you bothered to ask! It might not suit your tastes, but it suits mine! I wouldn't need your help to eat if you didn't make me need help! I am sick to death—" his voice went thick and took on an uncharacteristic waver, "—of having to beg to... eat." He cleared his throat, squeezed his eyes shut, and rubbed his eyelids with one hand. "Sh-shouldn't even—need to eat." He clenched his jaw to keep it from trembling.

Stan and Ford exchanged a guilty look. Stan said, "You don't have to beg— I mean, we know the, uh... position you're in..."

Bill was silent for a moment as he tried to get a tough face back on. His voice came out as a rough whisper—too thick to get any louder without breaking. "I had to negotiate to get burnt eggs."

Ford winced.

Soos was dumbfounded.

When had Bill had to negotiate for food? He could all too easily understand how it might have happened—Bill was an annoying guy, sometimes they had to pull out dumb bargains to get him to do stuff. But bargaining for food should never be on that list. Meeting Bill's basic nutritional needs couldn't be dependent on whether he was annoying that day. If it was, he'd starve.

It sounded like he was starving. Right under Soos's roof. He hadn't even noticed.

He thought about the piles of junk food trash upstairs and the bag of chips Bill had hurled across the room.

Ford said, "We'll... discuss it."

"We'll figure something out," Stan said. "I mean it."

Bill nodded silently. Head down, without uncovering his eyes, he hurried out of the kitchen and toward the stairs.

He nearly bumped into Soos's chest without noticing him. Soos backed up a step, tucking Journal 4 under his arm. "Whoa, hey!"

Bill froze, head jerking up. "You." His voice was thick and his glare was watery and poisonous. "Don't you have anything better to do than eavesdrop?" He tried to elbow past Soos, smacking his leg with his umbrella. "Move."

Soos realized uneasily that Bill's face looked a little slimmer than it had when he'd arrived.

He stepped in Bill's way. "Can't go upstairs right now. Attic's being cleaned."

"I didn't ask you to clean!"

"I'm not cleaning for you, dawg. It's just gotta be cleaned."

"Fine! Whatever!" Bill veered around the staircase and stomped down the hall, muttering, "Can't decide when I eat, can't decide when I shower, why should I get to choose when my hovel's swept..."

Soos's leg hurt where Bill had smacked it. (Bill couldn't even control whether or not he cried; all he had control over was making someone else hurt.)

In the kitchen, Stan murmured, "Didn't even realize we don't keep anything decent out on the counters. They're so crowded..."

"Chip bags take up a lot of space." Ford sighed. "I assumed he'd get a serving with everyone else whenever Mrs. Ramirez cooks."

"He does, but she only does dinners. And he'll only eat it if he watched her cook it. I've seen him get lunch with Mabel, but I don't know what he does when she's not..." Stan spotted Soos on the stairs. He tiredly called, "Soos? You need something?"

"Uhhh..." Soos hid the journal behind his back. "Nope! I just thought I'd come downstairs! For no reason." He awkwardly walked up the stairs backwards, journal still tucked behind him. "And—and now I'm going up again." He stopped at the landing and scooted sideways up the next flight of stairs. "See ya."

He pressed the journal to his chest and returned to the attic.

####

When Soos and Abuelita moved into the shack, the first thing Soos had done was turn Ford's ground-floor study into a bedroom for Abuelita. Because she was a little old lady, and not quite as steady as she used to be, so Soos didn't want her constantly going up and down the stairs—because falling once, just ONCE, could send her to the hospital or worse. That was how serious it was! You don't mess around with that!

Bill tripped and fell on the stairs so often that they could use it to tell when he was awake. And nobody had thought to offer him a cane? Did anybody even ask if he was alright?

When Bill first arrived and tried to murder everyone, naturally, he came out of it pretty banged up and bruised. That was to be expected. It was self-defense. They'd gotten used to seeing Bill with scrapes on his arms and legs, rope burns around his ankles, and the angry purple-black bruises of chain links over his arms. But in all the weeks since then, Soos hadn't seen Bill bruise-free once. Bruises on his shins and arms, scrapes on his elbows and knees. Soos had seen him with a four-inch burn on his forearm. Bill had brushed it off.

In Bill's first few days in the shack, he'd resorted to peeing in the kitchen sink because nobody had bothered to give a guy who couldn't open doors a way to use the bathroom. And they were the reason he couldn't open doors in the first place!

He threw up in the living room in the middle of the night and went upstairs to sleep on couch cushions on the floor and nobody had talked about it.

He burned off all his hair and was so upset about it that he stole Soos's zodiac blanket and hid under it for half a week, and everyone but Mabel just ignored him.

In less than a month in the Mystery Shack, Bill had lost a tooth.

He had been dragged out of the house during a weird weather phenomenon while terrified out of his mind. Soos had seen Bill cowering on the ground in fear, Ford looming over him, grabbing him by the collar and snarling in rage. Bill had been pleading with everyone in hearing range not to make him go, and had come back in such a state of shock he could hardly walk.

And yet, he'd protected the whole town from getting hurt in zero gravity—and he'd brought a pet for Soos.

They'd tried to execute Bill two days later.

####

Soos sat in the window seat, flipping through the remaining filled-in pages in Journal 4. The last few pages were packed with stickers. A cat that said PURRFECT! A smiling fish that said A REEL PAL! Bill had started a little collection of pizza slice stickers for some reason. A couple of holographic rainbows, a smiling scratch-and-sniff sun. (Apparently, the sun smelled like lemons and oranges. Astronomy facts!)

Soos reached the current page. Bill was using several pieces of paper—regular printer paper and notebook paper, folded in half—like a bookmark. Soos unfolded them. A list of animals ranked by fuzziness. (Soos was satisfied that he'd been placed under the "smooth and squishy" category, but wondered whether he should be bothered by the fact that he shared the category with pigs and slugs.) A drawing of Bill riding a looping rocket ship and waving a fishbowl helmet above him. A drawing of a blue house with a couple of kids and a pig in the window. Several drawings of shape people kinda like Bill: a pink heart person labeled "Me in Flatworld," a stern-looking red stop sign wearing sunglasses labeled "Bill's parole officer," Bill dancing, the pink heart protecting Bill from some villainous-looking shapes—all clearly Mabel's art.

Several notebook pages in someone else's handwriting detailing names, addresses, and contact information, with statements Soos couldn't make sense of—as if maybe someone had been asking somebody else questions and writing down their answers. He thought the questions might be about how some people had reacted to the end of Weirdmageddon. He got the impression the people being discussed had known that Weirdmageddon was coming. He got the impression they were disappointed it hadn't happened. There were several questions at the end: How will we rendes-vouz? (Whoever was writing didn't know how to spell rendezvous, but to be fair Soos wasn't 100% sure either.) What supplies do you need? What are your interim orders?

Soos stared at the notebook papers.

He flipped back through the journal again, looking at each page more closely.

Sometimes the two-tone dot-and-dash segments had a stray human word: a few characters he recognized from his Teach Yourself Japanese workbooks, sometimes words Soos thought might be Arabic but honestly he didn't have a clue. At one point he listed half a dozen human names that Soos didn't recognize. The most common character was a stretched-out letter M (Mabel?), followed by a 6 knocked on its side (Sixer?).

The dot-and-dash segments had occasional amateurish illustrations. Sometimes they were human stick figures; sometimes the stick figures' heads had symbols off of Bill's zodiac wheel. He saw Stan's fish symbol, Gideon's star symbol, and Mabel's shooting star symbol. Ford's stick figures were the only ones with hands; Bill consistently gave them six fingers. The doodles were like particularly esoteric cave drawings; they were so bad that Soos couldn't tell what most of them were supposed to illustrate.

Except for one featuring Bill (as a triangle) and Mabel and some other inscrutable figures in a really awesome car with flames on the side, its coolness limited only by the fact that it was all in gray and yellow-green crayon. When Soos had been in high school, there had always been a couple of kids who didn't know how to draw anything except expensive cars or name-brand sports shoes, but they drew them in extreme realistic detail. Apparently, Bill was that kind of artist. Nothing but stick figures and the sickest crayon car Soos had ever seen.

It didn't do anything to dispel Soos's impression of Bill as a lost alien 18-year-old.

On one page, in sloppy lines of handwriting that meandered drunkenly up and down the paper, Bill had written, "I don't get why you won't give me a second shot. I asked you to join my gang. I serenaded you in a pyramid. I got a fantastic makeover. I offered you godhood. I showed you my dimension. I didn't torture you until I had to. I even made you a skin couch! I know how much you've always wanted a leather furniture set! I've given you everything from chicken zombification magic to jelly beans, what does it take? What am I missing?"

Soos reread Bill's other messages to Ford. All that "you'll regret not siding with me" junk wasn't threats. It was the impotent rage of a socially inept teenager who didn't understand his own creepiness had driven his friends away. It was the whiny moan of some guy going "Why doesn't she like me anymore" about an ex-girlfriend who had told him five times she didn't like him anymore because he didn't listen to her. Like that guy Wendy dated last summer. So like, a jerk, but not a terrifying world-ending monster jerk, just an annoying creep jerk. A regular jerk. A human jerk.

Soos stood, gave one last look at this journal—clearly stolen, definitely a violation of Bill's "no writing materials" restriction, completely stuffed full of mysterious messages to outsiders and some kind of weird alien code that could say anything at all and might have been super dangerous—and he slid it back into the ripped seam in the attic seat cushion where he'd found it.

He finished vacuuming up the potato chips Bill had flung across the room, thinking about how offended Bill had been that Soos had given him any food except what he'd asked for, remembering what Abuelita had said about people who destroy the things around them when they feel like that's the last and only thing they still have power over.

Enough was enough.

####

(Hope y'all enjoyed! Next week we may interrupt our regularly-scheduled programming to post a TBOB-based chapter I'm inserting early into the fic—it depends on if I get it done by next Friday. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to hearing y'all's thoughts on this chapter!)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #soos ramirez #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

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zipper-neck · 9 months ago

Text

Trans Rules of Engagement

By Florence Ashley

Strong communities make us all safer. As anti-trans movements gain in power and influence, holding space for each other through our flaws remains critical. Yet the very conditions that create our need for community care make it hard for us to care for each other. We are raw, wounded, traumatized, and hypervigilant. We make mistakes brought on by fear and hurt. We lash out at each other when we do wrong, often partaking in pile-ons facilitated by the synchronous nature of online interactions. Whether we realize it or not, we often exclude trans people from community when they need it most.

I have lost count of the number of trans people I have seen cast out of online trans spaces for misdeeds both major and minor—far too often with my help. I sometimes find myself wondering where they are now and whether they are still alive. Because, as Kai Cheng Thom has taught us, social death often means real death for trans people. Trans communities are life-sustaining in a world that hates us so, so much. In a world that wants us dead. We have lost too many people not to stop and think about how we can foster life among each other.

This goal I have for myself—that of fostering life—motivates the following principles and rules for engaging in online intra-community conflicts while preserving the life-sustaining spirit of our communities. Countless times have I failed to heed these principles and ignored these rules. This failure, which many of us share, is precisely why I now want to lay these principles and rules down on paper. If only as a reminder of my aspirations. The principles and rules are meant to be adopted for oneself, not imposed onto others. Their purpose is to foster productive engagement, not create even more conflict and rigidity. I hope that this will be a living document, and invite you to make your own version if you would like. Borrow what is useful, supplement with what is needed, alter what can be improved.

Some, and perhaps all, of the principles I acknowledge are false, hence the need for a living document. Each of my suggested rules have exceptions. In setting them out, I am staking a claim as to the sort of myths and half-truths that are necessary to sustain life in a world that wants us dead. We must treat them as true if we wish to foster life-sustaining communities and survive the hellscape we belabor.

Principles

1. We are all flawed, traumatized humans at the end of their rope. Many of our actions say more about the conditions we live under than who we are as people.

2. No one is disposable. No one is unsalvageable.

3. Life holds greater value than being right or comfortable. Hurt is preferable to death.

4. No one should be deprived of community.

5. Harm does not require further harm. Punishment does not equate protection or healing.

Rules

1. Do not depart from these rules, unless you have to.

2. Morgan M. Page’s Rule: Try to avoid criticizing other trans people in public. The world does it enough already.

3. Favor in person or private conversations: Addressing someone’s comments or actions in person or privately is typically more constructive and effective. It allows you to communicate more cogently and with more nuance problems in someone’s actions or words and because it is less likely to make them react defensively from a place of trauma or fear.

4. Take your time: Few things require an immediate response. Responding while caught in a surge of thoughts and feelings is often unproductive. Ask yourself how much harm was done, versus how much we are reminded of an earlier harm. Ask whether your response is rooted in misperception or potential biases towards the person due to race, disability, gender, or other marginalized identities. Consider whether their words or actions reflect a different kind of thinking or communication style, a lack of access to education, or limited access to progressive communities and norms. You can respond tomorrow, once you have collected your thoughts, talked to others, and gained perspective.

5. Don’t mob: Be aware of group dynamics. Ask yourself if you are connected to this person and in community with them. Avoid jumping into the fray when others are already criticizing the person. Do not invite others to join in and mob them. Withdraw if others join in, and kindly ask people to stay conscious of mobbing dynamics. Mobbing rapidly grows out of proportion.

6. De-escalate: Focus on de-escalating conflicts. Ask what people mean or want, and why. Ask them for clarification or elaboration if needed. Ask yourself if you know enough about the context of the situation. Distinguish the action from the person, and acknowledge that it is normal to respond defensively or aggressively to public criticism and mobbing. People are traumatized, mentally ill, and are scared of losing the little social support they have. As a result, conflict can trigger a fight-or-flight response in both those who are criticized and who criticize, which leads to escalating conflict and ends in a loss of community. Dropping the conversation to return at a later date is preferable to escalation. Often, I find it best to limit myself to three replies in conversations that aren’t constructive.

7. Respond proportionately: Responses to words and behaviours should be proportionate to their harm, and reflect a need for healing and protection rather than punishment. When we speak from a place of hurt, we can understandably but unfortunately forget the measure and impact of our response. Use language that reflects the nuances and gradations of harm rather than a coarse good and evil binary. Cutting all social support and community banishment are rarely a proportionate response, even for someone who doubles down and does not apologize. Responding proportionately is asking first and foremost what response sustains rather than dissolves life. Especially when it comes to words, it is better to under-react than to over-react.

8. Ensure support for everyone: Check in on those who are criticized and those who criticize them. Remind people that we are all in this together, and that banishment is not how we work as a community. Everyone deserves to have their needs met. Do not shun or reproach people who offer support to those who were criticized or called out. Distinguish supporting a person from enabling their behavior.

9. Hold space for people to grow: Allow space for people to be accountable, change, and move on from previous conflicts. Do not hold past behavior over people’s head, nor dig up past misdeeds to fuel present conflicts.

10. Resolve conflict and harm as a community: We must ask how our communities enable and cause hurt and harm, and find ways to transform the conditions that create them. Holding accountable, problem-solving, and conflict resolution are functions that should be taken up by the collective, not isolated and unsupported individuals.

11. Center those most hurt or harmed: Focus on supporting and empowering people who are hurt and harmed rather than on punishment. Ask what they need to be safe and integrated in our communities, while committing to support for everyone; what they need to repair their relationship to the person who hurt or harmed them. Focus your involvement on bringing people together, fostering dialogue and mutual understanding, and restoring a sense of community togetherness, rather than deciding who is right or wrong.♦

#florence ashley #trans rules of engagement #trans #community #article #ethics

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crowdsourcedgender · 5 months ago

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My zine, 'Label Coining as an Artform', is finally done! Transcript/Image ID underneath (warning: it's long). Printed version in a reblog.

[Image ID: A series of pages in a zine. The text is handwritten, and all figures described are simplified stick figures.

Page 1: ‘LABEL COINING as an ARTFORM in large text. Below is the multicolored MOGAI wheel, with three figures taking pieces of the colors and using them for art: sculpting, cutting a piece of paper, and painting. Below is ‘a MOGAI (& LIOM!) zine by Elliot/Hesper aka @ crowdsourcedgender on tumblr. Under the text are five pride flags: aro-spec, veldian, alterhuman, xenoman, and schooldoodlic.

Page 2: ‘Label Coining’ in large pink text. ‘(in this context) is the act of creating a word (and usually flag) for a certain experience!’. Next to this text is a figure filled in with pink with a speech bubble full of pink shapes, talking to someone using a cane holding out a hand and expressing a question mark. Below reads ‘generally a queer experience, but does often include or incorporate disability, neurodivergence etc.’ A figure asks ‘Why?’ and the text reads ‘I would say these are the ‘core tenets’:’. In a cloud next to this text is a blue and purple pride flag with purple text reading: ‘like this cool prosopagnosia flag I made!’.

The bottom half of the page is split into two columns: ‘Understanding’ and ‘Community’. The first column has a purple arm amputee explaining a purple rectangle to another purple person who is thinking ‘that’s me!!’. Next to them another purple person is explaining the same rectangle to a blank person, who has a purple-filled thought bubble with a white exclamation mark. Underneath the drawing is text surrounded by question marks: ‘Labels help people understand what they are experiencing, and communicate this to others. It’s easier to explain something when it’s already been written down!” The second column has a purple person holding a purple umbrella. They are waving to a purple person in a wheelchair. A purple person is leading another one to the group. Underneath the drawing is text surrounded by connected dots: ‘People can unite under a shared label whether this group is big or small! Whether for practical purposes (like advice) or just for fun, having people like you is nice.

Page 3: ‘And these are just as important as ever! But I’ve noticed what I like to call COINING for the sake of CREATION’. This last phrase is in large, dark and light blue text. Two sun symbols are on either side. Below is the text: ‘Vexillology is very clearly an artform, but label coining has become something more (not to mention that not all new labels have flags!). It’s composed of multiple skills has become more than the sum of its parts. Any art captures an experience, but label coining is much more explicit about it. And not just people’s experience of their identity! Part of the art of label coining is incorporating other concepts too, e.g. Schooldoodlic A gender related to doodling on school work papers and/or your homework. By spirits-gender-coining on Tumblr.’ The text about Schooldoodlic is small and light teal. Next to the text is its flag.

Page 4: ‘Elements of Label Coining’. The text on this page is separated into four green boxes.

‘Naming: Coming up with the actual word can be tricky. Generally, labels with lots of elements get more leeway with length. It’s important to check that a label isn’t already a word as well.’ Next to this text is more rough, dark green text reading ‘Premade suffixes + prefixes help! And latin (for some languages) as it’s possible to intuit meaning!’ Around the text is a few examples: ‘-vesil’ ‘-musica’ ‘an-’ ‘quoi-’

‘Flag making: Also known as vexillology, this is a pretty big deal. It’s also the most fun for me! You develop a really good sense of color from spending so much recoloring the same three stripes.’ Next to the text is 6 versions of the same pride flag, each with slightly different colors, with a 7th final version with a symbol.

‘Symbol making: Most flags don’t have symbols, but they’re good for groups of labels under a certain umbrella, or just if you have a really good idea.’ Next to this is rough, dark green text reading: ‘I drew three semirealistic flowers for a flag and ended up only using one’ with sad face. Under it is a drawing of a daisy, a pink coneflower, and lavender, which is circled.

‘Descriptions/formatting: Explanations can be artistic in their own right, and formatting is fun to mess with: many people have their own style. Make sure it’s accessible: add image IDs and plain text where applicable. There are a lot of good resources online!’ In dark green text is the phrase ‘Accessibility over Aesthetics’ with an image of a key on top and sparkles below.

Underneath the boxes in light green text is ‘Note: in the right context, any of these can be optional!’

Page 5: ‘If it wasn’t clear, I think this is AWESOME’. Awesome is in large text with yellow radiating lines. Underneath is ‘I’m a MOGAI coiner myself (generally) with about 65 coins at time of drawing. Using something I made, I wanted to demonstrate what a label coining might look like!’ Underneath is four versions of the same pride flag as well as a description, with ‘flag!’ ‘stripe meanings (I don’t normally do these)’ ‘symbol’ ‘name’ ‘pre-existing format’ and ‘experience’ labelled. The description reads ‘[Image ID was here] Human non-conforming (HNC). Human non-conforming (HNC, similar to gender non-conforming) is an umbrella label encompassing all identities and subcultures that somehow incorporate nonhuman elements in any way.’

Page 6: ‘The thing I love most about the label coining community is just that- the community! The way coiners and users interact, as well as how coiners can work together, is wonderful. There are 5 large words each with an associated doodle.

‘Requesting’: A figure leaning on forearm crutches has a speech bubble with yellow shapes exploding out of it. Another figure is taking shapes down from the bubble and forming it into a ball.

‘Collecting’: A figure is pulling a yellow cart with a large cloth bag labelled ‘LABELS’. They have stars in their eyes, and are looking at another person who is gesturing to a yellow rectangle.

‘Collaborating’: Two figures, one with orange speech and one with yellow speech and an AAC tablet are discussing, with many shapes and lines intermingling to make a fragmented rectangle.

‘Combining’: A figure in a grey hijab pulls down a lever. They are standing next to a large blender mixing orange and yellow liquids. On either side is bright yellow lightning.

‘Redesiging’: A small star with four radial lines coming out of it becomes more and more complex, indicated by black arrows.

Under the words is the text: ‘I’ve never participated, but there’s this amazing event called: COINFIGHT. Hosted by @ kiruliom on Tumblr. It’s inspired by artfight, and it involves coining labels for other people- but competitive-ish!’ Coinfight is in large, text with a crescent moon with stars at the top right corner, and a star at the bottom left.

Page 7: ‘I don’t think there’s anything like finding a label that finally fits you, or hearing that something you made did that for someone else.’ Under is a figure looking at an orange flower with light lines, then forming elements of the flower into a bubble, then showing an orange rectangle to another figure, with orange tendrils reaching towards them, forming the shape of a heart. Below is the text ‘There are a lot of things like pouring out your heart- or just having fun- while making or collecting label. I coin in the same mind I sketch and color and shade.’ On each side is a pen drawing an orange figure with a red shirt, and a tablet with an orange and red flag. Under this is ‘Label coining is an artform both like and unlike any other, and I’m proud to participate in it. I hope that if you want to, you can join me. And if that’s not your thing- thanks for reading!’ There is a drawing of a figure with dark grey wings holding up two fingers. Next is a ‘<2’ heart and ‘elliot’ as a signature. In smaller text next to these is ‘Thank you to the creators whose work is featured in this zine! Credit on the next page. Remember to keep this wonderful community and artform accessible to all!’

Page 8: ‘Credit’: This section has a pride flag next to each label. ‘Aromantic-spectum, @ theflagarchive on Tumblr. Turian, @ kenochoric on Tumblr. Schooldoodlic, @ spirits-gender-coining on Tumblr. Xenoman, @ ryanyflags on Tumblr. MOGAI symbol, Pride-Flags on DeviantArt. Alterhuman, @ vaestra on Tumblr. (the flag on pg. 4 is Wildflowergender). ‘About making this zine’: ‘I really, really regret handwriting this. Drawing over Helvetica Neue for so long might change my actual handwriting, [more rough:] which looks like this! According to Artstudio Pro, I took 14 hours! I barely planned this before starting, the color wheel theme and the people doodles. /End ID]

#mogai #microlabels #mogai coining #lgbtq #lgbtqia #zine #art zine #lgbtq zine #queer zine #label coining #queer vexillology #queer #queer community #long post #described #image described #image id #not coining

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deadhands69 · 1 month ago

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Something More [than a hangover]

Katsuki Bakugo x gn reader

MDNI + eventual smut/afab

Setting: fuckboy!Bakugo, mid-time skip, Senior Year of College. Reader did not attend UA high, just joined for university. Enemies to lovers (with a lot in between.)

Warnings, etc: series contains eventual smut, slight angst, light violence/injuries, mentions of drinking/intoxication, swearing.

part 1 - this is part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5 - part 6 - part 7 - part 8

“Oh my god, what was I thinking,” you grumble into Jiro’s bed. You’d been lying there face down for twenty minutes after waking up, remembering your night, and stumbling down the hall to her dorm.

“It’s not that bad, right?” she reassures you, lightly untangling the knots in your hair with her fingers. “I’ve known him since high school. He definitely takes things too far sometimes, but he can be a good friend. He seems to have changed a lot in some ways since then though. But still, it’s not like you did anything with him…?”

“I don’t think so…” you trail off, “I think I’d remember that.”

Last night. You remember being in a closet with Katsuki Bakugo, which for some reason unknown to you now, you enjoyed more than you should have. You remember drinking with him, talking all night, and - that’s about where your memory ends. Checking your texts, it looks like you wanted to kiss him. Did you? You’d remember that right?

Then there’s the photo you sent Mina and Jiro. Blurry and underexposed but you could definitely make out the situation. His arm around you as you lean into his neck, glossy eyes half closed but focused on him. His huge smile as he leans into you. You looked close. A wave of nausea hit again, sending you running to her bathroom.

It’s Katsuki Bakugo, what the fuck were you thinking?

After pulling your hair back, Jiro leaves to grab you a cup of water.

“Hey, uh,” she hesitantly starts, “maybe not the best timing but Bakugo just texted you to make sure you’re still on for the library today.”

“Ughh I do not want to deal with him,” your voice echoes through the bathroom.

“I can tell him you need to reschedule?”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll have to meet up with him eventually. Might as well rip the bandaid off.”

An hour later, you’d showered as well as you could after taking off your bandages (or what was left of them, it looked like you snagged them in the brush on the walk home.) The cold water helped the nausea and some of the pain. Dehydration made the remaining burns feel much worse so you try to drink as much water as you can keep down. Your raw and slightly blistered skin looks brutal but it’ll be better when you can visit Recovery Girl again on Monday. A few tylenol for your headache and pain, that was about all you could do for now.

Choosing an outfit, you put on basically what he made you change out of last night - skinny jeans and a huge hoodie, this time with cute sneakers in your favorite color. No makeup today, you throw on some oversized sunglasses instead. Grabbing an extra cup of coffee and your backpack, you head to the library.

Bakugo is already there. Leaning against a pillar, looking way too put together for the amount you saw him drink last night.

“Aww, you look great,” he says sarcastically as you half drag yourself to meet him.

“Ughh. How are you alive right now?” you groan back.

“I threw up twice, ate a lot, and slept it off. Looks like you didn’t.”

No words come to mind so you flip him off.

“You’re sweet when you’re hungover, this will be so fun,” he gestures towards the entrance, “come on, I already reserved a study room.”

In spite of being an asshole, he proceeds to hold doors for you.

The study room is small but quiet. There’s enough room for the two of you to sit on one side of the table with the notes and writings you’ve done on each other’s quirks, it’s not much. Each of the pages is crinkled from some combination of being passed back and forth between being on the receiving end of outbursts. Various colors of ink have crossed out each other’s writing, adding corrections. At least the quirk descriptions are done. You’d love to say the rest has been easier to work on in person but an hour and a half has dragged by without much progress. Still hungover, you wish you would have stayed in bed.

His phone sits on the table, buzzing with a new message. Glancing down, you notice five unchecked messages from three different girls' names.

You laugh and he silences his phone before setting it back on the table, this time face-down.

“Didn’t learn from last night, huh?”

“Eh, I dealt with it this morning when she was sober. Plus, it was an isolated incident,” he grumbles while you notice the tips of his ears turning red.

“Sure it was. Well,” you continue, ”when it happens next time, and I’m sure it will, I won’t be so nice and let you in my hiding spot.”

“Oh, your spot? Because if I remember correctly, I got there first. And I let you stay.”

“Aren’t you sooo sweet,” you lay on the phony niceness, batting your eyelashes at him before he throws it back.

“I really am,” his fake smile makes your heart flutter.

What. The. Fuck.

Back to our regularly scheduled sarcasm.

“Is that so? I’ll bet your mom must be really proud of you.”

“She is,” he asserts, “really. My mom is so fucking proud of me. Want me to call her and ask?” He picks his phone up to start dialing and you swear she’s saved as ‘Hag.’

“No, I take your word for it.”

Part of you is curious who raised the monster next to you, but most of you would like to be out of this room as fast as possible to figure your shit out. You really can’t tell if you’re annoyed, disgusted, or trying to flirt with him. All of the feelings blur together into one big mess while you helplessly watch your own reactions. You need to get through this.

Pulling your pen from behind your ear and grabbing one of the papers in front of you, you get back to work.

“So,” you begin before rolling your sleeves up, “right here you said your quirk works with...” but you realize quickly that your words fall on deaf ears. He’s staring at your arms, seeing your damaged skin for the first time. Awkwardly, you move to cover your wrists again before he grabs your hands to stop you. His mouth opens to speak but the words don’t come. Licking his lips, he tries again.

“I- uh, fuck,” he squeezes your hands a bit harder, “I really meant it when I said I’m sorry. I owe you. More than opening doors and walking you places and stuff.”

Recovery Girl is convinced you’ll make a full recovery with minimal scarring. You don’t say this though, staring at your hands in his instead. There’s nothing romantic about the way he’s holding onto you. More desperate and uncomfortable, but you can’t say the closeness doesn’t do something as his huge fists completely engulf your own. It leaves you speechless.

“I uhm…” you pull your hands away from his and pause to think.

You can’t let yourself get this distracted by him. He’s Katsuki Bakugo, your natural enemy. And on top of that, how long will he be nice to make-up for hurting you before he goes back to being his asshole self? If you let him get under your skin too much, you won’t be able to handle that when the time comes.

“I know why you’re being nice,” you start, “but two days ago you were being a total dick to me. I appreciate you trying to make up for everything, but it feels more confusing than friendly.”

“Two days ago, you weren’t exactly nice to me either. I know we never really became friends,” he hesitates for a moment and you cringe thinking of how you slapped him, “but you don’t know why I’m doing this.”

“Go on.”

“Yeah, at first it’s because I felt bad, but Racoon Eyes and Shitty Hair said we have a lot in common. And they’re right. I’m trying to be nicer because I don’t absolutely hate being around you, you’re kind of cool when you’re not going off on me.”

“You do deserve it sometimes,” you add.

Bakugo says nothing, instead he just nods. Sucking on the inside of his lip, he considers your comment before continuing, “If you don’t wanna be my friend it’s fine, just fucking say it,” you stare silently and he continues, “but with the way you’re acting I think that’s what you want too. And even if it’s not, we still have to find some way to work together because we have all this shit to do,” he says gesturing to the table of scribbled notes.

That’s it.

“Wait,” you nearly whisper while reviewing the papers in front of you, “no, that’s totally it.”

“Uh, care to explain?” he furrows his brows at you, his vivid eyes searching your face for an answer.

“That’s why this has been so hard to finish. We’ve never worked together. I know what your quirk does but every time I’ve ever seen it, we’ve been so busy trying to beat each other we don’t actually have time to observe. We need to work together.”

The rest of the hour went by quickly, mostly planning where and when to meet next. ‘Where’ was easy. You want to train together and the forest near campus works great. ‘When’ was harder. It has to be after you’re healed but before a huge storm rolls in early on Tuesday. Bakugo is leaving today to visit family and won’t be back until Monday afternoon anyways, so it has to be that night. You think you can sleep enough to recover after your appointment. You hope you can, at least. Parting ways at the library doors, you agree to text him Monday when you wake up.

On the walk back, you consider the last few days. Your biggest enemy now wants something like a friendship. A chill runs down your spine when the winter wind picks up, blowing air straight through your hoodie - making you wish you’d worn more layers. You walk faster.

Can you even be friends with Bakugo? Bickering with him has been a lot more fun without a bite under your words, but it almost feels too flirtatious considering who’s on the other end. And, as much as you hate to admit it, he’s hot. Too hot for his own stupid good.

You nearly trip over a curb in a rush to get back to your dorm.

Fuck, you need to sleep.

part 3

m.list

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bettsfic · 7 months ago

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Betts. how do I stop feeling jealous of everyone and everything and just focus on myself? I'm tired of being comprised of nothing but envy.

story time:

so i was recently at Millay, which is one of the top artist residencies in the country. they have an acceptance rate of something like 3%. when i was shown my room, there was a packet of all the residents' artist bios. i sat down and read through all of them. most of them were like half a page in length, single-spaced, listing out accomplishments i could never dream of. one artist had won a guggenheim. one author had published 12 books. another author published her first book at 19 years old. these were people who were extremely well accomplished and respected in their fields.

and we all became very good friends!

and then there was me. my bio was 3 sentences listing out a couple short publications and awards and other residencies i'd done. and my honest to god first thought was, "wow, the jurors must have really liked my writing to have accepted me among all these great artists."

and my second thought was, "that's the healthiest thing i have ever thought."

i had no jealousy of their accomplishments. even though my career hadn't even begun compared to theirs, i didn't attend dinner that night with any impostor syndrome. and that confirmed for me that i had grown out of whatever place i used to be in as a person, where i was basically a raw wound wrapped in barbed wire. everything hurt me and i hurt everything in return.

jealous feelings come from an intense need of external approval, but as i've mentioned in other asks, approval and validation is a well that gets filled over time. at our introductory dinner that night, i didn't talk about my work in the hope of convincing everyone i deserved to be there, which was what i would've done a few years before. instead we all ended up talking about a TV show. the most highbrow place i've ever been in my life, and we're getting wine drunk and discussing at length a cheesy discovery channel reality series. the guggenheim winner: loves box turtles. the guy who's published 12 books: his favorite movie is Spirited Away. the girl who published a book at 19: reads One Direction fanfic. the well-lauded poet: old school tumblrina.

actually, 4 out of 7 of us read fanfic and we had some great conversations about it. sometime i'll tell you about introducing the co-director of the residency to AO3.

when you think of the most accomplished and successful writer you've ever read, remember that they are, at the very core of their being, a nerd. and if you were to eat dinner with them, you would, with enough polite inquisitiveness, be able to unlock the goofy side of them that binges Property Brothers.

so that was the big change for me, i think. i started asking a lot of questions. i stopped talking and i started listening. it seems counterintuitive that admitting to not knowing stuff shows confidence, but it does. pretending you know stuff is what looks insecure. i think for me, i put so much of myself in my work, i wanted my work to be lauded so i could feel accomplished, and feeling accomplishment would let me believe i deserved to exist. but over time, i've reframed that mentality. my work is a thing that exists beyond me and is private to those who read it. it comes from me, but it is not me. what i am is just the person i am, and my life is a series of moments i choose for myself, and i am allowed to exist.

even sending this ask shows that you've begun filling your well. it takes someone who's already come a long way to realize jealousy isn't the status quo and is a feeling to be overcome. and you can overcome it. you can reach a place where you have enough success that other people's success has nothing to do with you, and you're free to just be happy for them. and when you read work that's better than yours you feel joy at learning something new.

so put your work into the world and let it be rejected. you'll rack up a couple wins or close calls, and those will give you energy to be rejected some more. and eventually you'll be rejected so much that rejection doesn't feel like anything, and you will have won enough to realize your work has a place in the world, and that place is no bigger or smaller than anyone else's. your work is allowed to exist simply as it is, and you are allowed to exist simply as you are.

#writing advice #feelings #jealousy

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potatoplace · 2 months ago

Text

You Can Have It - Chapter 4

Alpha!Feysand x Omega!Reader

chapter 3 | chapter 5 | series masterlist

Story Summary: You've been a baker for 75 years, and are finally moving on from the Winter Court to the City of Velaris to start your own bakery after your grandmother passes. After your grand opening, the High Lord and Lady of Night become daily visitors to your bakery for months, every day having your most popular pastry- one that increases fertility for a short time. All the while, the two alphas want nothing more than to call themselves yours.

Warnings: A/B/O Dynamics, nothing else I don't think

Words: ~7.4k

Author's Note: it's heeeereeeeeee aaaahhhhhhh RHYS AND FEYRE YESSS I hope you guys all like this chapter! And I can't wait for more cutesy lil interactions with them, all to start come the next update ☺️

18+ only pls

🤍🩵🤍💜🤍

The past month and a half had passed so swiftly, you could hardly believe it. Your days were filled with overseeing a few details of construction, and picking out every last piece of furniture that would be in your bakery, apartment, and garden. You and Mor went on lunch dates every Thursday, and most your other lunches were spent with Rella and sometimes Arana after shopping, or with Marcus between stints of supervising the construction.

Your dinners you spent alone most of the time, dedicating yourself to cooking every last recipe in your Night Court Favorites cookbook, enjoying your love for cooking as well.

The time you spent in your hotel room was either passed by reading the Healer of Time series that Gina had recommended to you, or creating your menu pamphlet for when you are finally prepped and ready to open your bakery.

It was completed already, and sent off to the printers for a custom metal press to be made. You had decorated it with a drawing of your bakery on the front, and the name Sparaiya Bakery. The rest of the pages were filled with drawings of your pastries, with the ingredients and, in some cases, added benefits next to them.

Construction had gone by quickly, and you could hardly believe it when finally, your large custom pink marble tub was flown onto the second floor of your bakery by three very strong Illyrians. It was a foot wider than your wingspan, and deep enough that you could float in it, and it also had pretty good veining done on it at your request. It was by far the most expensive piece of furniture on your second floor, coming in at 1,175 gold marks. But you didn’t care, you wanted your dream tub.

The most expensive thing in your bakery by far were your ovens, each one coming in at 2,000 gold marks with a lifetime warranty, and in a soft, pale blue. You have ten stoves in total, seven of them were against the wall separating the kitchen from the front room, taking up the expanse of it. Each are on an elevated platform so that you could see inside of them without needing to bend over. The other three were against the back wall of the building, slightly smaller oven sizes but with a stovetop on each of them, so that you were able to make the filling that some of your pastries require.

The kitchen was completely done at this point, as was the front room of the bakery. Your kitchen was decorated with the pale blue stoves as well as matching cabinetry with silver handles, and white marble countertops with silver veining. The wide window you had took up half of the wall in the center of it, allowing for more cabinets, as you would likely need them for all of your bakeware and ingredients.

The kitchen was exactly how you’d imagined it when you had envisioned it a month ago, as was the front room.

You had the cedar logs of bakery and it’s furniture stained slightly darker, wanting it to have the cozy feeling of a darkened cabin in winter. The log chairs and benches all had different shades of pastel cushions attached to the seats, and the backs of the chairs. The tables were beautiful as well, the carpenter, a kind beta named Oren, had done a fantastic job on all of the wooden furniture you had.

And the display cases Arana had made for you were lovely, two on each side of the wooden counter Oren had also made for you. Arana had made them of matching wood, with a glass dome on one side, and sliding glass doors on the back facing where you would be standing. The shelves were also made of glass, and you’d had Rella enchant them to be unbreakable, just in case.

There was also a counter running along the back wall of the front room, matching the counters in your kitchen, as well as having the same cabinets below.

Your fireplace- it was exactly what you had wanted, made of different shades of grey stone, and positioned on the left wall, even with the midpoint of the dining area.

Your front door had yet to arrive, but the artist working on it was bringing it by in the next week.

The upstairs was nearly finished as well, your bathroom, personal kitchen and bedroom were all fully decorated. Your bathroom and kitchen were both done in a soft, baby pink color, matching the marble of your tub perfectly. You had a small round dining table, perfect for four, made by Oren in the same stained wood as everything else. In front of your fireplace on the right hand wall, you had a matching couch placed parallel to it, and two chairs placed of to the sides and slightly in front of it, with end tables on either side of the couch.

And your bedroom was absolutely perfect, your nest filled with blues of nearly every shade, with white and silk thrown in every now and then. So many pillows, you have so many pillows. Back in Winter, you had been so focused on your grandmother that you hadn’t even truly settled back in, and your nest was one of the things you had consistently neglected.

But not anymore. From now on, you would honor your omega’s wishes, perhaps even find an alpha who would treat you right in the next few years.

You had a few bookshelves lining a wall of your room as well, and you were determined to fill them all in the next three years with books you’ve read while living in Velaris.

Everything about your apartment upstairs was perfect, you couldn’t have been happier with any other turn out.

And truly, the main thing left for you to do before you could declare your bakery’s construction complete is your garden. The enchantments are complete, including ones to keep the planters waterproof to avoid any possible leakage, as well as keeping the air crisp and humid for your soon-to-be plant babies. You have yet to fill the planters already in place with dirt, or pick up the plants from Winter though.

But that was your main goal for the next week.

You had finally moved in the night before, after Marcus had given you the all clear. Your bill with him came out to be 120,000 gold marks, and every single one of them was well spent, as you had your perfect bakery and perfect apartment.

You had woken up this morning and made tea for yourself in your kitchen, and stared out at the lovely view you had from your massive window. There were a few younger fae out already, skating along the Sidra. It had yet to unfreeze, the temperatures had stayed low ever since you had arrived in town.

You almost felt like winter was holding on a bit tighter, just for you.

You finished your tea and breakfast around nine, then got ready for the day, dressing in one of your new winter dresses, this one in a soft pink, with delicate silver flowers embroidered along the hems of your sleeves. You threw on a white scarf, hat, and mitten set, then made your way down the stairs, and out the of what will soon be your front doors.

You were planning to find a florist this morning, as well as find a garden supply store so that you would be able to visit Viviane later in the week.

Rella had told you of a nice florist who was on the south side of the Sidra, just west of the Palace of Thread and Jewels, so you were making your way there.

The streets were rather slick this morning, so you took your time in getting to the florist’s shop, as Mor had said, there was nothing quite like eating shit before a meeting or going somewhere- which you’d had more than your fair share of in the past month and a half, running around town so often.

Finally you reached the shop, painted a sage green on the outside, and there was a garden along the side of it that you could see wrapped around to the back as well.

You walked inside, making sure to stomp the snow from your boots before you entered. At the counter was a beautiful high fae, with lovely light golden brown hair in a messy bun atop her head, a few strands escaping it and framing her gorgeous face.

“Hello,” you said with a wave as you made your way to the counter. “My name is Y/N, Rella told me that you’re a florist?” You asked hesitantly.

“Rella sent you? That was so sweet of her, make sure to tell her thank you for me, Y/N! My name is Elain, it’s lovely to meet you.” She stuck out her hand, and you got a lovely breeze of her scent, jasmine and honey- another omega. You took her hand, surprised at the grip that the delicate looking fae had. “Did you need a florist for something?”

You nodded your head, answering “Yes, I’m opening a bakery in the next couple of weeks, and I was hoping you would be able to supply seasonal flowers every week.”

“Yes, I should be able to do that. Do you have a color scheme in mind at all, or just the seasonal aspect?”

“Jus the seasonal flowers, any color combination will be lovely, I’m sure.”

Elain smiles at you, her soft chocolate eyes crinkling at the edges slightly. “Very well, Y/N. Do you know how many bouquets you’d like weekly, and a price range?”

“I suppose I’d need…” you thought on how many tables you had inside of your bakery, as well at the mantle of the fireplace. “A dozen bouquets every week, I believe. And price wise… I’m not really sure, do you have a set type of plan?” You asked, feeling unsure.

“Yes, for a dozen bouquets my base price would be around 25 gold marks a week, and for slightly larger bouquets or more rare types of flowers, it could get up to double that.”

You thought about it for a moment. “I think that I’ll let you choose whichever flowers look best together, but I don’t need very large bouquets.”

Elain pulled a contract from beneath her counter, along with a quill and pot of ink. She wrote in the details of your request, then slid the paper over to you.

You read it over, then signed it and slid the page back to Elain. You handed your bank card to her, and she pressed it to her ledger before passing it back to you. “Alright, you’re all set up to start your deliveries, when you know the exact date just come back and let me know, okay?”

You nodded your head, then finally looked around the rest of her shop. There were large bags filled with dirt, gardening tools, large displays of seeds, and even a few types of planters on display. “Oh, you sell gardening supplies too? That’s perfect!” You said, happy to have likely found everything you needed to complete your garden.

“Yes, we even have carts that you can borrow or purchase to take everything home,” Elain said, already moving from behind the counter. “Are you starting a garden, as well?” She asked.

“Yes, just a small one for a few plants and herbs I need for my baked goods,” you replied, already moving to look at the types of dirt she had on offer.

Perfect. Elain already carried dirt from the Winter Court, exactly what you needed for your plants.

“I’ll take- oh, I think ten bags of the Winter dirt, please,” you said, hoping that it would be enough to fill up your planters. “And I’ll purchase a cart as well, that will probably be handy for just about all of my shopping for the bakery,” you said with a chuckle. Elain brought a cart over, and the two of you loaded ten large bags of dirt into it.

You also grabbed a few different sizes of hand shovels and a couple of watering cans, putting them into your cart.

“Is that everything you’re needing today?” Elain asked as you approached the counter once more.

“Yes, Elain.” You handed your bank card over, and tucked it back into the collar of your dress once she gave it back. “Thank you so much, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks,” you said, moving to push your cart through the front door.

“Did you need any help with your garden at all?” Elain asked before you left.

“Not at the moment, I just need to fill my planters with dirt today. But in the next week I’ll be transplanting some things from the Winter Court,” you replied, and her brown eyes lit up.

“Would you like some help?” Elain asked brightly. “I’ve been so bored during the winter, there’s not much to tend to, I’d love to help you out,” she said, with so much hope in her voice you couldn’t refuse.

“That would be lovely, Elain. I’ll come and get you once I have the plants back here, alright?”

Elain beamed at you. “Sounds like a plan, Y/N. I’m free all of this Wednesday, if that would end up working for you. If not, I’m sure I’ll be able to slip away for a little bit,” Elain suggested.

“I’ll try and get the plants here by Wednesday, Elain. Thank you again!” You said as you pushed your cart into the outdoors.

Luckily, the cart seemed to be enchanted to have the snow speared from its path, and you made it back to your home without much trouble.

Now the hard part: getting all of the dirt upstairs and into the planters.

🤍🩵🤍💜🤍

It took you a few hours to finish the planters off, and you were more than ready to wash the dirt from your skin by the time three in the afternoon rolled around, but you forced yourself to write a letter to Viviane, asking to come and grab the plants Wednesday morning before you did so.

You ran hot water in the tub, then let it fill up while you stripped your clothes from your skin and placed them in your laundry bin. You slipped into the tub, loving how your wings were able to sink beneath the water comfortably as well.

It was the first time they would have a proper wash in over a month, and you were looking forward to how soft and fluffy your feather would feel afterwards.

Taking your time, you spent over an hour in the bath carefully washing the first and debris from your wings, refilling the tub once so you could rinse clean. Afterwards, you wrapped yourself in a fluffy towel, one that was so soft that you had bought all of your towels from the same vendor, even for the bakery, in varying shades of blues, pinks, and purples.

A reply from Viviane had landed on your desk while you were bathing, confirming that she would pick you up in front of Mor’s townhome at eight on Wednesday morning.

You’d considered buying baking supplies and bakeware today, but after the hauling of dirt you were too tired, and nothing sounded better than getting a takeout from Sevenda’s and curling up on the couch in front of your fireplace with the third Healer of Time book.

But getting Sevenda’s would require going outside again, and going across the Sidra…

You had the ingredients for the chicken curry you had made on your second night in Velaris, and that, you supposed, would be less daunting of a task than leaving your home.

You got dressed in a soft sweater dress, another recent purchase of yours, and let yourself read for a half an hour on the couch, until your stomach was growling at you to loudly to continue ignoring. Fine. I will make the damn curry.

You stood up from your couch and went into the kitchen, chopping and stirring and waiting until finally you had your dinner. Your cooking skills had improved in the month and a half since you’d made this recipe, and you could tell in the taste of the curry.

Seated at the table, you read while you ate, so lost in the gripping story that you hadn’t realized you were done with your food until you ate a spoonful of nothing.

“Oh,” you said to yourself, then got up and rinsed your bowl out. You were so tired already, and it was barely six in the evening.

Today would be a good day to start getting back into a baking sleep schedule, if you were so tired already… And then you would be able to get up bright and early in the morning, make yourself some breakfast, then head to the Palace of Bone and Salt to buy enough baking supplies to make each of your recipes three times, to make sure you still have all of the techniques you need down pat before your grand opening.

Grand opening. You could hardly believe it, you’re so close to your dream becoming a reality, and it’s been almost nothing but fun the entire journey.

That was definitely in part to the wonderful fae you’d met in Velaris, each one that you worked with you helpful and friendly. You truly couldn’t have asked for a better start to your new life here.

You allowed yourself to read until seven thirty, then forced yourself to get into bed.

It took a little while for you to fall asleep, even with being tired, but soon enough you drifted off, thoughts filled with bags of flour and the pastries you would make tomorrow.

🤍🩵🤍💜🤍

Picking out your bakeware took you longer than expected.

Did you want glass or metal bowls? Pink or blue ceramic? Wooden utensils or metal utensils? You were so indecisive, trying to choose between whatever you liked most and trying to have a color scheme- but then you realized it doesn’t matter, all of them will be used for the same purpose.

And if you love all of your bakeware, then who cares if they don’t match?

So you’d gotten possibly double of everything that you needed, but that would just make it easier for you to do more batches or different things at once in the future. And you’re fine with that.

You’d carefully made your way home, trying your best not to break any of your new dishes.

Your only casualty was a cute mixing bowl you’d picked up for your personal kitchen, it was pink with little duckies all around it. You would get another at some point.

It took you two hours to have everything arranged the way you wanted, and immediately after getting your kitchen set up you went out again pushing your cart back to the Palace of Bone and Salt to get your baking ingredients. That shopping trip took you a bit over an hour, and by the time you got home you were tired once more, but more than ready to start baking again.

You had never gone much over a week without baking, ever since you were six years old. You felt like apart of you had been ripped away, until your hands finally sank into dough once more.

It was magical, how happy baking makes you. You baked for the rest of the night, probably eating far too many pastries for dinner, but you don’t care, because they’re pastries you baked, in your bakery.

🤍🩵🤍💜🤍

Two days later, it was Wednesday, and Viviane had picked you up as promised.

“So, how’s Velaris treating you so far?” She asked as the two of you were on your knees in the greenhouse, working to free the last of three hornberry bushes you needed.

“It’s been amazing so far, the change of pace as been absolutely wonderful, and getting closer to the grand opening of the bakery I’m getting more and more excited! And everyone has been so kind so far, I feel so welcome.”

Your four combined hands finally pulled the bush out of the ground, and you carefully placed it in the cart holding the rest of your plants.

“That’s so great to hear, Y/N. I’m glad you’re settling in well, you deserve it after all you’ve been through,” Viviane said, placing a kiss on the top of your head. “Did you need any other plants, dear?”

You looked over the cart thoroughly. “Nope, that’s all I need Viv. Thank you so much!”

“Of course, Y/N! You know this section of the garden practically belongs to you, right? You and your grandmother are the reason our birth rates and overall health as a court have gone up. If you need anything else from here, just write me again, okay?”

You nodded, smiling gratefully at her. “Oh, by the way, the money you gave me was far too much,” you said, and Viviane opened her mouth to speak. “But it is very much appreciated, Viv. It’s made getting the bakery perfect so easy.”

Viviane grinned at you. “I knew it was the right choice, telling you once you were already in Velaris,” she said with a laugh.

“That’s true, I would never have accepted it,” you agreed, chuckling along with her.

The two of you stood from where you were kneeling, dusting the dirt from your dresses. “Are you ready to see my bakery?” You asked, holding your arm out for Viviane to take.

“I have been since before it was built, Y/N,” Viviane replied, taking your arm and winnowing the both of you back to Mor’s townhouse. “Lead the way, dear.”

The two of you trekked back to your bakery, taking longer than usual with the cart’s wheels snagging on the snow.

“Oh, Y/N, it’s perfect!”

Your front doors had been delivered yesterday, perfectly depicting the change from dawn to day to night while snow falls over the Sidra, more beautiful than you had thought it could be.

“Isn’t it?” You asked dreamily, still slightly disbelieving that it was real, even when you’d been living here for the past five days. “Come on, let me show you the inside,” you said, unlocking the doors and dragging the cart inside after Viviane had entered.

“This is so cute! I wish you were open right now, I’ve been dying for one of your hornberry tarts. Leo does a good job, but I don’t think he’ll ever get them perfectly like yours, Y/N,” Viviane said, referencing the pasty chef you’d trained before moving.

“Well, if you come back for the opening or any time after, I’ll make sure you get a few to take home with you. I’m sure Kallias would like some as well,” you remarked with a smile, recalling how fond the High Lord was of your pastries.

“He’ll probably join me once you’re open, he won’t say it but I know he misses your baking. He does this cute little pouty face whenever something doesn’t taste perfect,” Viviane said, always ready to talk about her alpha. “Well, I’d better get going Y/N, I have a few meetings I need to get to, but let me know when your opening is and I’ll do my best to stop by.”

“I will, Viv. Winnow safe, okay?” You said as the two of you hugged, taking in one last breath of her calming snow and cranberry scent.

“I will, dear. Have fun planting!” Viviane said, winnowing away after giving a little wave goodbye.

You immediately set to taking the plants upstairs as quickly as you could, wanting to get Elain over at a reasonable hour.

It was eleven thirty when you finished, each and every last plant taken up the spiral staircase and placed next to the planter it would be replanted in.

You washed your hands, then put your winter wear on and headed into the city, going straight for Elain’s shop. When you arrived, the door was locked, so you knocked loudly on it. Elain came to the door a moment later, already dressed to leave the indoors.

“Lovely, Y/N, I’m so glad you could make it today!” Elain said excitedly, locking her shop up behind her. “And I get to see your bakery, I’m excited for that too!”

The two of you made your way to your bakery slowly, the two of you appreciating the people milling about as you walked.

“This is a gorgeous bakery you’ve got, Y/N,” Elain said once the two of you were standing in front of it, you unlocking the door.

“Thank you, Elain,” you said, swinging the door open and letting Elain inside.

“Oh, the inside is so adorable! Now I have such good ideas for your bouquets, after seeing the space. I’m thinking a blue flower in every weeks bunches, keep the winter theme going a bit.”

“I love that idea, Elain, that’s perfect!” You led her to the kitchen and up the stairs, and she rushed towards the garden.

“This is amazing! Who did your enchantments?” Elain asked once she was in the garden, the air even colder than it was outside.

“Gabrella, in the Palace of Flame and Steel,” you replied, joining her in the garden. “And this is my little garden,I’m excited to get everything planted. And please, don’t feel obligated to stay at any point, though I do truly appreciate your help.”

“I love to see new plants, and I’ve never seen any of these before. I’m guessing they’re native to the Winter Court, with the dirt you bought and the climate you’ve got here,” Elain said, hitting the nail on the head.

“You would be right, Elain. I use all of them in my pastries. All of them are pretty easy to plant, just make sure their roots are covered and then water them until the soil is completely soaked,” you informed Elain, already kneeling in front of one of the planters.

The two of you got to work, Elain watched you plant one of the bushes before moving to her own, planting it with expert hands.

As you worked, the two of you spoke of your lives, mainly your hopes for the near future. You spoke of your bakery, how excited you were to see it finally in action, and how the people of Velaris would react to your business. Elain talked about her mate and alpha, Lucien, and how they were hoping to have children soon.

“We’ve been trying rather vigorously,” Elain tittered, and you blushed along with her.

“Well, I cannot promise that it will work for sure, but I do make a fertility pastry with these berries,” you say, pointing to the spiky berries on the hornberry bush that you were currently planting. “We have seen a significant increase in births the Winter Court over the past five years, though that could be due to the end of everyone being imprisoned.”

“Anything at all that will help, we’ve been trying for the past five years with no luck so far. As long as it tastes decent, I am willing to try anything, I’ve wanted to be a mother for so long,” Elain said, sighing after she did.

“I believe they’re rather delicious, but you’ll just have to see for yourself,” you laughed.

Within two hours, you and Elain were sitting back on your hands, looking at your now completed garden. “Thank you for your help, Elain. Would you like to go to lunch with me?” You asked, wanting to thank her in some way other than words, and you had a feeling she would turn down any monetary payment you would offer.

“I would love to, Y/N. Did you have a specific place in mind?” She asked, already getting to her feet. You followed her up, then lead her over to the kitchen sink to wash the dirt from your hands.

“There’s this great noodle place on the west end of the Palace of Hoof and Leaf, if you’re interested? Or we can go someplace else, if you’d prefer,” you offered.

“Noodles sound great,” Elain said, smiling softly at you.

“Noodles it is, then.”

🤍🩵🤍💜🤍

Lunch with Elain was nice, and you walked her back over to her shop before heading home. The two of you had gotten to know each other better, and you were happy to know that you might already have three omega friends in your new city, very different compared to your sold one in Winter- Viviane.

When you got back to your home, slightly surprised to see Marcus outside of your doors.

“Ah, Y/N, there you are!” He said, walking over to meet you. “I was… I was hoping that I could ask you something.” For the first time since you had met him, Marcus sounded nervous.

“Go ahead.”

“Well, I was wondering if you would like to go out to dinner with me- on a date?” He asked.

You hadn’t seen it coming. You’d enjoyed his company, yes, he was fun to talk to and nice to be around.

“I… uhm…” you started, unsure of what to say.

“Look, there’s no strings attached, if you hate it halfway through, or even right when I pick you up, we can act like it never happened, hmm?”

You considered it for a moment. Would it really be so bad to go on a date with a handsome, friendly alpha?

“Okay, yes, I’ll go out with you. What night were you thinking?” You asked, looking up at Marcus nervously.

“Would tomorrow night at six work for you?”

You nodded your head. “Yes, tomorrow would be fine,” you respond. “I’ll see you then.”

“Good, I’ll see you tomorrow night at six, Y/N,” Marcus said before departing from you with a wave, leaving you to slink inside of your bakery and contemplate what had just happened.

🤍🩵🤍💜🤍

“You’re going on a date with Marcus? Oo, tell me what you’re going to wear!” Mor said excitedly, clapping her hands together.

“Just a dress and some tights, Mor, nothing fancy,” you said after swallowing your bite of salad.

“Well, at least tell me you’re excited for the date?”

“I guess so.” Mor stared at you, disbelief in her eyes as she chewed the last bite of her sandwich. “What? Marcus is nice, really nice, I just don’t feel any kind of spark towards him, that’s all.”

“At least give the male an honest chance, alright?” Mor asked of you before paying for the tab. “I’ve got to run, but next week you will tell me all about the date, yes?” You nodded your head. “Good. I’ll see you next Thursday, have a good date today doll,” Mor said, pressing a kiss to your cheek before leaving the restaurant.

You finished your salad, then walked the short distance home from the restaurant in the Palace of Hoof and Leaf.

Perhaps you should be getting ready excitedly at this point already, but you knew in your heart that you wouldn’t find that spark with Marcus. After all, you’d known each other nearly two months at that point, and you’d never looked at him as anything other than a friend.

But you supposed that going on a date, even one that you know you won’t go out with again, could be fun.

So you baked for a few hours, then took a long bath to make sure their was no flour left on your body. Getting dressed was easy, you simply slipped on one of your old favorites, a cute pink wool sweater dress that goes to your knees and some warm tights. You put on a little bit of eyeliner and a tiny bit of lipstick, but it only took you ten minutes to get ready. It was only five thirty.

You picked up your book and read, already on the fourth book of the series. By five fifty five, you had on your winter wear and boots and were downstairs.

Marcus knocked on the door exactly at six, looking handsome as usual.

“Shall we go?” He asked, extending an arm to you.

You took it, then said “Yes, lead the way Marcus,” with a gentle smile.

🤍🩵🤍💜🤍

The date was fun, that was true. But you felt no kind of connection with Marcus besides that of a friend. He seemed to sense as much when he dropped you off at your door later that night.

“I had a wonderful time tonight, Y/N.”

“I did too, Marcus, but…” you trailed off, unsure of how to say it.

“But you don’t feel the connection?” Marcus asked, and you nodded in confirmation. “It’s alright, I had to take my chance, right? An omega as amazing and wonderful as you, well, you’re a catch to any alpha with eyes and ears, Y/N.”

“Thank you, Marcus. And I’m so sorry, I wish it could have worked out. You truly are a magnificent person, and I’ve loved getting to know you over the past two months. Friends?”

“Friends,” Marcus confirmed, giving you a brief hug before pulling away. “I’ll see you at your bakery’s opening, when was it again?”

“It will be next Friday, I’ve decided,” you declared brightly, glad that things with Marcus could still be pleasant.

“I’ll see you next Friday, Y/N,” Marcus said before walking away, leaving you on your doorstep once again.

You sighed and headed inside, going straight up to your bedroom to get undressed and wash your face. After you had, you flopped into bed, wishing that you’d been attracted to such a kind, helpful alpha.

But you’d find someone, at some point. You would meet at the right time, the perfect time, and everything would fall into place from there, you were sure of it.

🤍🩵🤍💜🤍

“It didn’t go well, did it?” Mor asked as you sat down across from her in the noodle restaurant.

You sighed. “No, it was a fine outing, just not a good date,” you said. “I did have fun with him, there just isn’t that connection there, you know?”

The two of you ordered quickly when the server came over, then went back to your conversation.

“Are you sure you don’t want to give it one more date?"

You nodded your head. “I’m sure, Mor. There’s no point to it, if I haven’t felt any kind of attraction in the two months we’ve known each other.”

It was Mor’s turn to sigh. “Okay, okay. Do you have any other alphas that you might like to date?” Mor asked, wiggling her brows at you.

“None that I can think of Mor, you can tell Viv that I’m happily single at the moment.”

Your food arrived then, and the two of you tucked into your food, both of you humming happily at the taste.

“So, my bakery opens tomorrow,” you said after a few minutes of comfortable silence while eating, and Mor quickly swallowed her current bite.

“Tomorrow? Oh, that’s so exciting Y/N! What time do you open? I’ll try to get there near then, but no promises, I might be sleeping in.l

“That’s fine, Mor, I’m opening at seven so I don’t really expect you to be awake at that time,” you laughed, knowing that the alpha was the opposite of a morning person.

“Mother no, I would never be up that early for anyone,” Mor giggled. “Have you sent out flyers or anything yet?”

“Yes, I had some pamphlets printed up with the menu, they’re being distributed around town as we speak!” You said brightly.

“That’s good, that’s good. I hope everything runs smoothly, Y/N, you deserve it after all of the hard work your put in.”

“Thank you, Mor. I just hope that people like my pastries.”

“Y/N, just based on that little sampler basket you brought me at the beginning of the week, the people here will go nuts over your bakery,” Mor reassured you.

You had brought a basket of pastries to every person that had helped you in starting your bakery: Mor, Marcus, Rella, Arana, Oren, and the stained glass artist, Wren. You’d actually brought five baskets to Marcus’s office, enough so that he could have a basket of his own, and plenty left for the crew that had worked so hard to bring your dream together.

“Thank you, I’m glad to hear that. I hope that you can make it tomorrow, I believe that Kallias and Viviane will be stopping in later in the day, so long as nothing pressing comes up.”

“I’ll look forward to seeing you and them tomorrow, then, Y/N,” Mor said as she gave you a quick goodbye hug, her citrus and cinnamon scent washing over you again.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mor,” you said with a smile, managing to get your bank card down on the bill first.

You walked home alone, knowing that you needed to make sure everything was in order for the next morning as you went, taking a little longer to savor the warmth of the sun. It had started to warm a little bit, and most of the snow was cleared from the streets at this point.

You used your three hours before your self imposed bed time to check everything twice and make sure you had enough ingredients for everything you needed to bake in the morning, as well as plenty of tea and coffee for people to drink.

Your time to sleep went by too quickly, and soon enough it was four in the morning. You took a quick bath, then donned a comfortable lilac dress with a back scooped low enough for your wings to be free, something you’ll want as you will most likely be spending the next fifteen hours working in the kitchens and the front of house.

Finally, you thought, so happy that your grand opening is finally here.

You rushed downstairs, turning on the fae lights so that you could see your work.

Most of the pastries were done proving, and ready to go in the oven. You had plenty of your winter berry jams ready to go, all you need to do is make more dough and get it proving.

You spend the next two and a half hours working quickly and efficiently, the rush that baking on a large scale gave you fueling you on, faster than ever before.

You had just finished stocking up the pastry display cases, medicinal on the left and typical pastries on the right, when Elain showed up at the front door, bright eyes and perfect hair even at the early hour, You rushed over to unlock the door, opening it to let the sweet fae inside, and you flipped the open sign over as you shut the door.

“It smells absolutely wonderful in here Y/N. Lucien is bringing the rest of our family around, I made them all promise to show up after they devoured that basket of pastries you delivered to my house,” Elain said, shaking her head lightly at them. “I was able to try that hornberry pastry thought, it was divine. Tell me you’ve got plenty ready to go?” Elain asked.

“Oh yes, I’m already thinking it will be my most popular pastry, I’ve got two dozen ready already and another five dozen in the process of being made,” you reassured her, already going behind the counter to grab her a pastry and place it on a plate. “Here you go, and if you ever want to take some extras home, just let me know,” you said with a smile, loving that she immediately took a bite of the pastry.

“Seriously, these are so good,” Elain said, right as a crowd of people pushed through the front doors.

In first was a red headed male, who made his way straight to Elain, placing a kiss on her cheek and swiping the pastry from her fingers. Lucien, presumably.

Next in was a tall, bulky Illyrian with hazel eyes, holding hands with a beautiful fae- Nesta?

“Y/N?” Nesta asked, making her way over to your counter after she met your eyes. “I didn’t know you were the one Elain was working with, what a small world.”

You nodded your head, meeting her strong steel grey eyes. “Yes it is, I didn’t know that you were related to Elain, either. It’s nice to see you again, I’m hoping I can make it to that book club of yours in the next couple of weeks,” you said.

“That would be nice, Y/N."

“Introduce me,” the large Illyrian said after gently nudging Nesta, having followed her over.

Nesta rolled her eyes, a small but affectionate smile on her lips as she said “This is Cassian, my mate.”

Cassian stuck his large hand out for you to take, and when you did his hand practically swallowed yours. “It’s nice to meet you, Y/N. Now, am I allowed to order right away or should I wait a little bit?” The alpha asked, eyes already turned to the pastry cases.

“You can order right now, if you’d like,” you responded, letting him look over the options for a moment.

“Oh, Nes, we are so getting the hornberry pastries, remember that little promise that you made to me?” Cassian asked, turning his mouth to Nesta’s ear, whispering something that made the fae’s face turn beet red before she nodded. “We will take two of those, plus three croissants.”

You handed them their pastries on a large plate, telling them “Bring it up here when you’re done, or if you need a to go bag.” They left the counter, Nesta still blushing profusely, even when they sat down.

You looked back to the door, seeing Mor and another Illyrian next to her, this one with shadows swirling around him, occasionally dipping into his ears. They moved over to the right side pastry case, peering through the glass at what you had on offered. You glanced away from them and back to the door, and that’s when you saw them-

The most devastatingly beautiful male and female you had ever seen, power thrumming off of them in gentle, soothing waves, and their combined scents washed over you- citrus, sea, jasmine and lilacs. A perfect, heart stopping blend of two alpha scents that set your mind and body on fire in the best possible way. You felt so awake now, so present as you stared at them both, trying to memorize their faces as quickly as you could.

This. This is the feeling you wanted to feel when you went on a date with someone.

The couple moved closer to you, and Mor introduced them.

“Y/N, this is Rhys and Feyre, our High Lord and Lady.”

Oh, Mother, you are so fucked.

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N,” Feyre said, extending two beautifully tattooed hands to grasp yours. “Mor has told us so much about you, it’s nice to finally put a face to her kind words.”

Your heart nearly stopped, you were sure of it. “It’s lovely to meet you as well, High Lady-”

“Oh none of that, please call us Feyre and Rhys,” Rhys said, his strong voice pulling your eyes away from Feyre’s hypnotic ocean eyes. His were just as mesmerizing, violet with flecks are stars in them, just as beautiful as his mate’s.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Rhys and Feyre,” you corrected, your hands still captive in Feyre’s.

“Alright you two, stop hogging my friend, I’d like to have one of her delicious pastries for breakfast,” Mor said, breaking the spell the two alphas had over you, and you finally looked away from Rhys’s eyes to lock onto Mor’s.

“Did you know what you wanted, Mor?”

“Yes, I’ll have one of those cute little cheese danishes, and a cup of coffee with some cream please.”

You nodded your head, then set to grabbing Mor’s order. With your head turned from the group, though, you couldn’t help but close your eyes.

You are so fucked. They are mates, they are a couple, you will never have them. Remember that, you thought to yourself, before turning around, Mor’s coffee and danish in hand

Mor tapped her bank card to your ledger before you could stop her, sticking her tongue out at you. “You can’t make me not pay, Y/N, I just won’t do it,” she said while smiling at you, then left the counter to take a seat in front of the fireplace, where Elain and Lucien were now sitting.

You turned your head back to the couple that you knew would stay in your thoughts for days, maybe even weeks to come. “Did you two know what you wanted?”

Series Taglist: @icey--stars @breadsticks2004

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