#I have not felt this full of joy and whimsy in YEARS

[crazymecjc]

this looked so awful we are SO BACK

[spookierdeer]

OL EUA YUGQ G XGOYOT OT MXGVK PAOIK, OZ ZAXTY OTZU G MXGVK. NGVVE NGRRUCKKT! 🎃⚠️

(costume talk and yapping under the cut)

starting from back to the front:

stan and ford are handing out candy this year, stan dressed in his vampire costume and planning to scare kids and ford is wearing a mabel (turtleneck!) pumpkin sweater, about as festive as he's willing to dress up this year. ford was originally planning to hole himself up in his lab and work on data analysis or whatever nerd shit he has going on but stan invites him to help scare the hell out of kids. ford declines initially, better things to do, but after checking to see how stan's doing (badly), ford decides to help by bursting out of the bushes with a glowing laser gun, face cloaked in shadow. it's more fun than he expects or admits and he eventually fully joins stan.

soos and melody are trick or treating in a couple costume, soos as zelda and melody as link. melody wanted to cosplay link for awhile and you cannot convince me soos wouldn't jump at the chance to dress up as a badass anime elf princess who can fire lasers.

mabel, pacifica, and waddles are dressed as utena, anthy, and chu chu respectively. i have a headcanon that post working at the diner and slowly getting used to normal kid things, pacifica discovers anime. specifically shojo princess anime. she finds utena and loses her mind over it in private, with mabel eventually breaking down her walls and getting her to admit to the sin of liking anime. mabel gets pacifica to show her her favorites and mabel immediately insists they need to cosplay as utena and anthy for halloween, pacifica is a princess after all! (said in jest, but baby gay panic ensues on pacifica's end. mabel is pretty oblivious to her plight and doesn't realize why being pacifica's knight makes her feel so giddy until later on.)

dipper sees pacifica joining mabel as an excuse to flake out on trick or treating without being a total jerk, especially since they'll be joined by candy and grenda later. i know he's working on not trying to grow up too fast by the end of the series, but kids and teens are full of anxiety and doubts and i figure he would be pretty awkward about a lot of things still, even after learning otherwise. wirt doesn't want to dress up since the previous halloween ended with him in the unknown then waking up in the hospital, but greg still wants to go trick or treating. dipper tags along to help babysit greg despite it not really being necessary, wirt's just glad to have someone to chat with while he takes greg, especially someone who doesn't leap to finding him strange. greg is going as a ghost elephant and wirt assumes it's just the weird kid tradition of layering costumes over the years, but greg's logic is that he "died" as an elephant last year so now the elephant is a ghost. if wirt heard this he would probably end up freaked out, but kids are often more aware of things than expected. dipper is wearing wendy's hat since she traded with him at the end of the series.

putting wirt and greg in there could feel a little random, but these are my two favorite shows to watch during autumn and i associate them with each other. plus, it's otgw's ten year anniversary and it's so perfectly halloween, i think it makes enough sense to put them together. idk i love joy and whimsy, i am cringe and i am free.

i initally wanted to include other characters, candy, grenda, and wendy for sure but i was also considering coraline, wybie, and norman. felt way too complicated so maybe i'll draw something with those characters some other time.

[majesty-z]

First draft of my fic that I don't want to delete. This is the second chapter but in Ace's POV. Originally, it was in the first chapter but. Kept making me laugh. So I switched POVs to try and combat it and it worked!

(<1k btw.)

-~•~-

Ace gave Luffy a faint, reassuring smile. It didn't seem to have worked though, as Luffy's face scrunched up and he turned to frown at the man.

Ace glanced at him and had to do a double take. The blank look from earlier was gone. Now, he looked heartbroken as if seeing ghosts. Was he...?

“Who the hell are you?” Luffy yelled out. Glaring, he walked closer to Ace so they stood side by side.

“Luffy!” Ace couldn't help the reprimand leaving his lips.

The man just smiled and shook his head. “It's alright.” His voice was different from before. Strained and soft. “Please, don't fight. It's the first time I'm seeing you like this, you know?” It didn't resemble Sabo's but voices changed. It has also been a decade since Ace's even seen or heard his brother.

What was he thinking? His brother? Him?

The sight of that man was quickly making his blood boil. “Come on,” he said to Luffy, “let's go.” The blond was confusing him. There weren't any talks of ghosts or paranormal activities on this island.

That man looked like Sabo, had years old scars that could explain a possible survival, and wielded a pipe. And yet he acted strange.

Ace was sure they hadn't consumed any weird stuff but hallucinations weren't off the table yet. He had never seen a grown up Sabo before. It hurt to see what could've been. Over the years, the ghost of his brother stopped haunting him and Luffy, but Ace never forgot.

How high were the chances of meeting like this?

Not-Sabo smiled tiredly. “It was good seeing you. Ace, Luffy,” he said their names in farewell.

His heart sank.

“Sabo?” It was spoken breathlessly. Ace felt unsteady as if the earth could crumble underneath his feet. No, no. Everyone knew their names, it didn't mean anything. Luffy stood confused next to him.

“Yes?”

His eyes burned. His heart which had been unstable this whole encounter picked up the pace. He could hear it loud in his ears, as his blood rushed.

Luffy, on the other hand, bristled. “You're not Sabo.” It was like a bucket of cold water which left Ace breathless. It made Ace's head spin. He needed to get a hold of himself.

Not-Sabo exhaled amusedly. His smile has gained a teasing edge (just like how their Sabo's used to).

“Of course, I am.” His grin was bright and full. No gap. “Who else would I be? Don't you recognise me? I guess I have changed a lot.” His gaze downcast as he raised a hand to his face. Ace flinched.

“Sabo is dead.”

Not-Sabo blinked. “So are you guys.”

Ah.

A beat, then two, then many more. They didn't dare speak. Ace's mind went blank as he stared at Possibly-Sabo.

Shit, had they died unknowingly and this was Sabo's ghost, adult edition? (Did he take over the afterlife or something? Who the hell was he talking to before?)

“Um... No?” Ace tried nonetheless. He was ninety percent sure they weren't dead.

“Um... Yes?” Possibly-Sabo repeated in that same mocky tone he used to take when they were brats. He hated it so much. The percentage dropped considerably.

They were at an impasse.

Obviously, the only thing to do was take Sabo with them and deal with it after dinner. The Sunny should still be there and if Luffy's crew also were, then that meant everyone was alive and Sabo was a fucked up hallucination. Or a ghost able to interact with the living. Luffy swiped at him and it didn't phase through so.

Speaking of his brother, he was still skeptical. What a fun reversal of personalities. Ghost-Sabo was all joys and whimsy, while Luffy stayed cynical and suspicious. What that made him, Ace didn't know.

Either way, they continued on their return to the Thousand Sunny, with a kidnapped blond in tow.

(He came willingly though he claimed needing to leave before sundown. Busy secret work, he said. Busy secret take over of the hereafter, he meant.

Ace was still suspicious. He had no problems imagining a ten year old Sabo on Hell's throne with a spiky crown and fire surrounding him as he cackled maniacally.

This grown up version of him definitely looked evil enough for it.)

Or they would've, but Luffy got antagonistic very quick. Someone using their brother's name really pissed him off. Who knew?

It didn't take long for Ghostbo to spill all his secrets to get Luffy to believe him. Ace himself wasn't sure how to feel. Ghostbo was definitely Sabo. He proved it with intricate knowledge of things long past. Ace just wasn't sure they hadn't conjured him up with their minds.

Luffy hit Ghostbo again after he voiced that out.

He sniffed soon after, and his lips wobbled and his eyes started to water — and he was crying.

Luffy had fully latched onto Sabo, limbs wrapped around his body tightly. He was still not phasing through. Sabo looked horrified, eyes wild as his arms waved about uncertainly. He sent Ace a pleading look.

Ace walked over, and hugged him.

Solid. Alive.

Oh.

Sabo was alive.

-~•~-

[chromecore]

hello friends! i’ve been tagged in a couple things the past few weeks so i wanted to finally get to them uwu

i was first tagged by by @elmknight and @clockworkvenus a little while ago to share the origins of my username. to be honest it’s not the most exciting story but i started yapping and i definitely did a lot more than answer the question but here we are! and then @glassrunner tagged me to fill out this get to know me tag so that will be under the cut as well!

thank you guys for tagging me i love doing these tag games hehe <3

get to know your mutuals and tag 6!

Favorite color: oh i love them all but pink and blue

Last song: i’m gonna assume this means listened to? plan b by megan the stallion u_u

Currently reading: piñata by leopoldo gout. it’s a great read i just have horrible time management skills and am trying to repair my tiktok attention span so it’s taking a while to finish

Currently watching: ted lasso with my partner and pen15 by my lonesome

Currently craving: “whatever life feels like when I'm not burned out lol” <- prev answer honestly a mood but i could also go for some tofu stew

Coffee or tea: matcha when i can afford it but rn coffee because i can’t afford matcha u_u

Last song I sang out loud: mmmm naked in manhattan by chappel roan???

Favorite chip flavor: …takis but don’t judge me i get the trader joe’s ver with no red dye and a mild amount of spice because i’m at the age where my stomach fucking gives out whenever i eat actual takis

Last book I opened: same as my currently reading

Earbuds vs. headphones vs. nothing: i do enjoy headphones a bit more than earbuds but my curly hair can get flattened weird by them sometimes so i guess i use headphones when i’m home and my earbuds when i’m out lol

Last place I went to other than home: my partner’s house

A color that looks good on me: i’ve been struggling a bit with my body image lately so i’ve only really been wearing black lol but i feel like darker colors in general look best on me regardless

Last trailer I saw: mmm i honestly don’t have a clue i want to say the last trailer i watched that kept my full attention was final destination bloodlines lol i know it’s been out for a week or so but i’m not seeing it until this saturday with my siblings *-* honestly pumped

origins of chromecore

i had played cyberpunk for the first time honestly maybe a year or two ago. it was gifted to me by my sibling on the ps4 (I KNOW…) and then on the ps5 after i bought my partner one. first time i played on my pc was march or april i think. i believe i was about halfway through a playthrough with the v that i would later develop into vivienne <333 and i realized in the back of my mind randomly that in all this time i’ve been playing and falling in love with these characters i’d never once checked ao3 for fic. this was my first mistake /j time getting exposed to other people’s ocs and the community and but i was just instantly reminded of my time on deviantart as a kid making silly ocs for the anime i watched with my friends… it made me so nostalgic! not to be dramatic but like tangent time maybe it’s the abusive relationship i was in a while ago but i got all the life and joy and whimsy sucked out of me by this leach of a manchild and i felt like all my interests were childish and stupid. i didn’t do anything but work and take care of an apt for almost two years. i know now that he’s a narcissistic prick that couldn’t handle that i was better than him at everything but he did a lot of damage to my mental health regardless so. it took me a while to unlearn those things. anyways back to the point i was hit in the nostalgia reminiscing but here were all these people still doing what they loved regardless of where they were in their life and i was just like in awe. like wow… i wanna be apart of this…

so ANYWAYS skip forward a little i keep playing my game, but i spent most of my time dicking around in photomode and debating whether or not i wanted to try and return to fandom life. eventually i came across @luvwich and her wonderful novel of a fic (read. it. even if you don’t know anything about cyberpunk she has such a way with words i genuinely am so in love with this fic that i don’t want it to end and have yet to read the last few chapters. i’m insane) and i also came across mike in game for the first time around the same time and it was a wrap. he was kind of the final piece of the puzzle. the final nail on the coffin of my free time if you will. i don’t know i’d managed to go however many playthroughs without meeting mike but i suppose i never realized how many gigs reggie offers you lol but anyways i was in love with his loser ass

i made an ao3 account just to let luvwich know her fic changed my life and after doing some brainstorming and studying of other people’s cyberpunk usns i managed to snag chrome_hearts on ao3 which i thought was such a cool usn. i tried every variation i could on tumblr but apparently it’s a clothing brand or something lol so i eventually settled for chromecore. i do think it has a better ring to it though. the alliteration rolls off the tongue a bit nicer. i was hesitant to start posting but i’m so glad i did because i’ve met sooo many wonderful people and made so many new friends and here we are! my old tv fandom/kpop blog turned video game/personal blog owo

i’ll tag (no pressure of course) @soju-poppi @me-ns @angelsofcode @sixthmagic @weisshapt to do both or just one if you’ve already been tagged or have a preference!! love to get to know some of my newer moots!! annnd @luvwich @elmknight and @clockworkvenus to do the get to know ur mutuals game since i know you guys already did the other one <3 if you waaaant have fun

[demon-girl-izalith]

This is a small piece I had written after a particularly important experience I had this sluggish summer day as I was grappling with a lot. I hope it's able to brighten some of your days as well.

Bright Suburban Rain

I used to enjoy electronic repairs. A childlike wonder filling my body as I looked underneath the plastic shells asking them to tell me their secrets, the mysteries of their seemingly arcane powers, I would carefully prod the circuits and tiny components inside -- it was like magic to me. But despite all my efforts, my job as a repair technician with all its customer service glory, often resulted in a form of cursed trade, a trade made under coercion. A trade for the wonder and whimsy of a subject I once held dear to me for money that I needed in order to survive... I sat there, feeling my pain medication's effects wane.

I had to take opioids daily to keep myself up and able to work, the horrible medicine my only relief from the pain caused by a botched spinal surgery. I sat there working with my reduced hours, the anxiety of the limited income from the cut hours numbing my mind to my feelings. It willed me with a rich fog that numbed both senses and mind, a fog made only more dense by the opioids. Horrible things that rendered me much like a tranquilized beast; I was made complacent with my suffering as I went about my tasks in the repair shop. I liked this job in many ways, despite the terrible spoiled and often well-off customers I had to deal with daily. But deep down I knew my real talents were wasted on this job, and all my coworkers new it, too; if it wasn't for my spinal disease I would have gone to graduate school two years prior, taught under a professor who explicitly wanted me in their department as a new professor. Before this current job, before my spine disease hit me in full force, I was a researcher studying an intersection in fields I was quite passionate about-- philosophy, neuroscience, and robotics. Sadly, that opportunity had likely withered to dust by now.

I poked at a retro console my coworkers set aside for me. They knew I enjoyed these repairs the most. It was a kind gesture, and despite myself I was appreciative. Using my probes on the green and copper pathways, poking them gently on either side of components and turning the nob on my meter to the appropriate settings, I swiftly identified the issue - a failed fuse in the power circuitry. I linked a new part in the work order notes, and quoted the customer the cost of the repair, the voice I spoke with on that phone betraying my severe utter lack of emotionality inside.

I used to feel something when working with these devices, a reverence for them even, I used to look forward to working on them. Even though my feelings were broken long before this job, at least fixing things still made me feel *something*. But this time... this time I felt little. That was becoming more common these days, as if I was reaching some desperate emotional event horizon of no return. That cursed contract almost completed, a deal made in hell, taking with it all my wonder, my drive, my hope, in exchange for survival. Against those same hopes and dreams, and against my consent, I was stripped of what I prized most-- childhood joy. I left the shop, my back aching from the implants not working as they should. "Damn quack surgeons" I mumbled as I crawled into my overly small car, trying to make haste to take advantage of the slowing lull in rain. I continued to feel nothing during my drive home.

The sun peaked through the clouds during this brief respite in the rain. As I drove I wished to myself that I wasn't a prisoner to this suburban hell, a dreadful place where every person acted like things were just fine. Things were not fine. I wished I could enjoy the sunshine and rain, I wished I could feel... I called my partner, asking how her day was. The call was a plea, a cry for help, a way out our of the unfeeling hell I knew we were both trapped in. I told her I loved her and I would see her soon at home. As I hung up the phone, I took notice of the dirty asphalt ahead of my car covered in small pools of rain, the cloudy fog and light mist creeping around the roads as I pierced them with my car, sending whisps into small spirals in the air. I briefly looked to my left and saw occasional sheets of water poking out of the gaps in the lawns of the near identical suburban houses, the greenery of trees that lived here long before the houses construction barely poking through gaps between the houses, their branches beckoning me to hold onto hope. I struggled to maintain grip on that hope as I drove the curve of the hilly road in my gross old car, the faint smell or cigar smoke mixing with the humid smell of rain hitting soil leaking through my poor climate control system.

A black truck suddenly drove past me, it's speed far too fast to be safe especially on a wet road such as this. "Stupid Republican idiots" I thought to myself as the car rushed by and kicked up water into a fine mist. Every pool it hit, new water kicked up into the foggy atmosphere, and as I drove further along the road the bright warm sun lit the misty air up, and to my wonder and surprise it filled it with beautiful and otherworldly auroras of rainbow droplets, constantly sustained behind this gaudy truck. I looked at those rainbows and felt something, and felt compelled to follow even though it diverted from my route home. I maintained distance behind that dumb truck, almost certainly unaware of the beauty it had created in its vile chugging along the road. I sped up to make it through the light, barely scraping by, but also clinging just behind at ther right distance so as to maintain enough space to hit the right angle and see that beauty. I craved that beauty. It was as if I was chasing my hope itself.

As I suddenly passed into a space with fewer houses, I once again saw the bright sun, it lit the suburban hell around me and I became aware of all the beautiful greenery, the dripping water, the vibrant life, hidden amongst the roadside brush, the water pooling around it and washing it clean of the roads contaminents. The world felt like it was telling me that despite it all, life would still be beautiful. To not give up. As if an assurance from nature that the capitalistic doom of suburbia wouldn't prevail over the beauty and hope of life itself. I felt my eyes water a bit, still maintaining a slight distance from the expensive truck. As I reached the end of the road I frantically clamored for my cell phone, calling my partner back, eager to tell her about my experience. I slowed to a stop as I approached a red light on a busy road. As I spoke and recounted my experience to her she talked in an almost similarly exhausted but superficially happy tone I had spoken with on the phone with that customer. I felt slightly awkward as I sat there, "perhaps I was reading into it" I thought to myself. Regardless I knew she didn't quite understand what I was trying to say. I hoped that one day, somehow, she was able to see through the veil of misery that I did on that road, to witness an omen, a sign of triumph over the nihilistic purgatory we are all trapped in. I clenched my fist and breathed in the faintly smoky smelling recycled air of my vehicle. As it filled my lungs, I made up my mind to hold on as long as I could.

[cerisesakurainspring]

Iwaizumi Hajime × Reader

~~A loving hand to hold for eternity~~

The soft glow of the morning sun trickled through the window, and you saw it cast a comforting light across the nursery. 

In front of the crib sat a man whose alluring face contorted in concentration. His striking features made more pronounced by the warm sunrays streaming over his face.

A slight bead of sweat glistened under the sunlight as Hajime taped the edges of the soft carpet in place so it would not be a tripping hazard.

The view of your husband's face made you sigh in bliss while your hands tenderly caressed the gentle curves of your growing belly.

Being in the ripe month meant you had limited mobility, and you were unable to assist your husband with completing the nursery. However, he was very much happy to take on the task by himself, ensuring that the room was not short of perfection.

You and Hajime chose everything in the nursery with the utmost care and consideration.

From the floating clouds made out of polyester stuffing that's naturally hypoallergenic to ensuring the wooden crib was free of splints and that the frames on the walls were secured in place. Every minute details. Every corner. Every single thing in the room was planned and inspected the nth time with scrutiny. Making certain that it will be a sanctuary of safety, warmth and comfort for your little one.

Once Hajime had secured the carpet in place, he stepped back and stood beside the sofa you were sitting on to take in the full view of the nursery.

The pastel-painted walls bathed the room in whimsy and wonder and made the ambience feel mellowly sweet. You were quite proud of yourself for choosing those pair of soft, light-toned shades.

Seeing the nursery ready for occupation caressed your hearts with excitement and joy for an angel that will soon bathe your lives in laughter and light.

You hear your husband sigh in elation at the sight before you, and you fondle his arm lovingly. The gesture made his heart jump in glee, and he proceeded to kiss the top of your head before kneeling in front of you.

His hand rested on top of your baby bump as he stared at your beautiful face. Your little one must have felt his father's presence because you both felt a movement from within your belly as if to say hello.

His warm eyes that you adored stare into your orbs with tenderness, and you loved that the forest of olives in his irises always held a solemn promise of an eternal springtime.

Hajime loves your eyes just the same and how they always sparkled in merriment. It was like the stars were within his reach every time he gazed into yours.

Your baby thrived on attention. It loves expressing its presence to both of you by kicking relentlessly. Hajime jokes it's probably going to somersault its way out of you. Too excited to see the world. 

"Papa is eager to meet you, little angel." You hear him mutter softly as it kicks under his touch again.

You basked in the warmth of the moment, but then, without warning, you felt a sudden gush of warmth between your legs, dressing your maternity dress in pale yellow spots. The sudden realization made you gasp, and your eyes widened in surprise.

He truly loved the flutters of life within your womb and the gentle kicks tapping beneath his fingertips.

You gently stroke the back of his hand as he caresses your belly. Very soon, the roughened textures of his hands that held yours unwaveringly through the years will be the very same comforting hands that will guide and hold your newborn's tiny fists.

Hajime's concerned orbs snapped to yours, panic coursing through his alluring eyes. "What's wrong?"

Your heart raced as you felt another rush of liquid. "My water.." Your voice wavered uncertainly, and you bit your lip before looking at your husband. "I think my water broke."

Hajime leaped to his feet, his calm mind suddenly becoming a jumbled mess from the flurry of thoughts and emotions that coursed through him. "What does that mean now? Do we call the doctor? Should we go to the hospital? Are you okay? Do you feel any pain? Should I call an ambulance instead?!" His words tumbled in a frantic rush as panic surged in his veins.

Your trembling hands reached for him as you took a deep breath to steady yourself. "Haji, it's okay. We've prepared for this." Your voice came out surprisingly calm despite the urgency of the situation.

Your gentle voice and small smile seemed to soothe your husband's anxiety. Taking a deep breath himself, he forced his trembling hands to dial your OB/GYN's number.

With his newfound strength, he looked at you with a determined resolve as he squeezed your hands tight. "Stay here for now. I will go grab your delivery bag and start the car. I'll come back for you soon, okay?" The gentle command in his voice was remarkably calm compared to his chaotic state earlier on.

You nod with a small smile. Your trust in him is unwavering. With Hajime by your side, you were confident. As long as you both hold each other hands, everything will be just fine.

The once light atmosphere was now laden with anticipation for parenthood.

It was palpable in the air, almost tangible.

This is it.

A new chapter begins.

~Haikyū Lovers Series~

[sylvesterelle]

The Fallout Zone - Chapter 3

Images: X, X, and X

Soap and Ghost were already rifling through the cupboards when she returned, grabbing glassware while Gaz cleared the leftover plates from the island, and Jack slowed for a moment, feeling something quite like joy in her chest. Even when this kitchen was just a sketch on notebook paper, she'd imagined it full. It'd been mostly just her for so long she'd forgotten. But now Jack's heart ached pleasantly at the sight of it, just a little.

Slow burn poly!141 x fem oc, Chapter 3, 6.1k, general audiences (rating will go up), cw: alcohol

Read on AO3 I Previous Chapter I Next Chapter

Chapter 3 - Jack

Jack groaned as she slid down the atrium door, letting her head fall back against the metal with a heavy thunk.

Jesus, it had been a day. Even though it was only—she tapped the device on her wrist—half ten in the morning. She groaned, rubbing at her temples and the headache sure to be brewing there. Let her eyes close for a moment, just resting. She’d get up and find the men in a second, she swore.

It was just she was so tired. She’d gotten maybe an hour or two of sleep the night before; had only just nodded off when Nik radioed their approach, cocooned in aerial silks twenty-odd feet off the ground.

There were many fine aspects to living in an abandoned nuclear reactor, but the high ceilings were chief among its charms. A little strategic drilling, a few dozen feet of rigging, and she was off and away with a system that could support silks, slings, hoops, and even a trapeze, if she was so inclined.

One retained such quirks after running away with the circus. Or, rather, running away, and then some interminable time later finding sanctuary with a circus.

At the time it was really more a matter of convenience than anything else (though the aesthetic sensibilities certainly didn’t hurt). But in the end, those few years she spent traveling Europe and Russia with the small caravan were so full as to have outsized importance on the rest of her life.

It was the skills her father had given her for survival that secured her place with the carnival. The precision shooting and knife throwing were critical, but so too the (temporary)strategic abduction of their resident sharpshooter moments before a large performance—creating the exact conditions required for the ringmaster to overlook that Jack was malnourished, underage, and clearly on the run from some demon or another.

Though, she quickly came to learn, that last bit was rather par-for-the-course among circus folk. It kept their crew small and close, looking out for each other, and Jack further ingratiated herself by her sheer willingness to learn; to cover for those who needed a break or a night off. In the process, she gathered a set of tools that had proved invaluable both in work and in whimsy in the years since.

Naturally, it was juggling she learned first. Balls, bowling pins, swords, flaming daggers, any fruit within grabbing distance—Jack could (and would) juggle them all.

Lion taming hadn’t been so much a skill as strategic application of chin scratches and meats, but training her heart to slow and her body to mask the signs of fear was a useful one for lie detectors and stressful missions alike.

The equestrian acts were much, much harder; it took months and months of work and more than a few broken bones, gathered while falling from the back of the monster Clydesdale she’d been paired with. Many times had Jack surfaced into consciousness with the great beastie lipping at her face, back flat on the dirt of the circular arena. But the bursting, intoxicating pride she felt when she finally nailed what was to become her signature made it all worth it: simultaneous dual revolver trick shots followed by a series of rapid-fire knife throws, performed from atop a galloping horse and kitted out in satin and sequins (not for nothing had Annie Oakley been Jack’s childhood hero).

Of the others, tight rope and trapeze were fun, and God knows they’d helped Jack out of a tight spot or two in the years after Kate found her. Clowning too, surprisingly. But far and away it was the aerial skills that held her heart.

Long after the crowds had gone and popcorn boxes littered the ground, Jack could be found curled around a hoop or twined in bright silks high in the air, totally lost in movement and the feeling of being.  

Jack wasn’t always great at having a body. Being a body. Usually lived so far in her head that all those usual cues were muffled—when to eat, when to sleep, when to stop even when she was bloodied and pale with exhaustion. She’d read every psychology textbook and self-help book she could get her hands on, knew the whats and the whys and hows of her neuroses (both born and bred of trauma). But it was one thing to know this intellectually, and quite another to translate it into being.

But from that very first aerial lesson, when she wrapped the beginner’s sling around her foot and pushed past the ache in her arms to climb into the sky, Jack had felt every inch of her body come alive.

And when she learned to fall, arms thrown out as she tumbled magnificently through the air, believing utterly that the loops of silk would catch and hold her safe—God, it was like her brain went totally still. Just air and silk and soft animal body moving through the world. 

In the expansive toolkit Jack had since assembled to manage what she only half-jokingly called “the madness,” the silks were her most reliable. And Jack had needed that quiet this morning, kept awake by a gnawing itch of something not quite right; a wrongness that she could never really placebut made her want to peel off her skin like too-tight clothes.

So, into the sky she went—losing herself in music and dawn light until she finally, finally dozed off, rocked gently to sleep in the silk sling. 

The alarm that woke her was decidedly less gentle.

Jack had damn near tumbled to the ground at the high-pitched alert that signaled a breach of airspace, Nikolai’s tinny voice coming through a moment later from the small device on her wrist—she could control the entire sprawl of the place from it, even blow it to high heaven if she needed to, and it rarely left its place on her arm.

After Jack confirmed Nik’s approach, she’d closed her eyes, soaking in one last moment of peace even as a small bit of anxiety wiggled in her stomach. Company was always welcome, but unexpected visits generally meant news.

And news, in their line of work, was rarely good.

…

Jack had heard Kate’s voice overlapping Nicky’s when he radioed, so she hadn’t been surprised to see her familiar blonde bun trekking through the woods. She had beensurprised by the four men trailing after in balaclavas and full tac gear—though perhaps she shouldn’t have been. Wichita had always been designed with a purpose; Jack just hadn’t expected its time would come so soon.

Her mind moved fast as she cleared the rest of the woods and stabled her horse, mentally recalculating the supplies she’d need for winter. She wasn’t sure what they were feeding the British army these days, but she’d have to make some significant adjustments based on the sheer fucking size of them.

It wasn’t jumping the gun; she’d had been on strict lockdown for almost five months. Pissed off too many of the wrong people until Kate forced her into temporary retirement, to Jack’s enduring chagrin. So, if Kate was bringing strangers to her, especially strange soldiers, it could only mean one thing: someone needed sanctuary, someone Kate trusted.

Jack had gotten just close enough to confirm Nik and Kate weren’t being coerced before the big one leveled a rifle at her—the cracked skull plate giving her as much a clue to their identity as SAS emblazoned across their vests. Kate and Nik knew well enough not to involve Jack in jobs with the American or British military, but they kept her abreast of major players and the more interesting missions—of which the members of Task Force 141 were usually involved.

But these men looked miles from the crack soldiers she’d heard described. It didn’t take a genius to see they’d been through the wringer; something had clearly gone down, and recently. Only one had a visible injury, his arm in a dirtied, makeshift sling, but the others all sported their own hurts and each one of them was caked in dust and dirt and dried blood. Evac’d straight from whatever snafu they’d been caught in, like as not.

The details could wait. Once inside, Jack had gone straight to the kitchen. Didn’t even mind depleting the stores of her favorite comfort food when she heard the story and saw how exhausted the men looked behind their masks. 

How exhausted Johnny looked, and wasn’t that just an absolute kick in the ribs. She hadn’t seen him since they were teenagers, wild-eyed and forever wreaking havoc on the base her father had been stationed at.

Their goodbyes had been…painful. Johnny had been her best friendduring that incredible summer, an immediate kinship at first (well, second) sight. Probably the best friend she’d ever had, if Jack was being honest. Certainly the last friend she had before it all went to shit.

She’d looked for him after her—well, just after, but she never found any record. Not even one of his death, which shouldn’t have given her hope but, well, Johnny’s destiny had always been clear. Not a doubt in Jack’s mind that he’d make it all the way to the top, the place where names and faces could easily be erased, disappeared, turned forever into something else.

But seeing him standing there her kitchen erased the decade plus in-between. Jack felt feral and fifteen again, grinning at Soap with matching bloodied knuckles and gaps in their smiles, the breeze cool against the short fuzz that covered her scalp.

She’d kept it like that for a long time, liking the freedom of it, the ease, how it made her blend in with the boys. Only grew it out when she needed something to hide behind, a girl with a buzz-cut a little too memorable when anonymity was her paramount need.

Johnny, for his part, looked mostly the same (if several inches taller and beefier by an order of magnitude). His eyes hadn’t changed a bit, blue as ice and just this side of too intense. The mohawk was a little shorter than she remembered, but the complete disregard for personal space was familiar and welcome after so many months alone and starved for touch.

But time had done for him just as well as it’d done for her—there were new lines creasing between his brow, a tightness in his shoulder and jaw that spoke of long nights and little sleep. And the bruises, Christ. He looked like he’d near been stoned; battered with some kind of heavy debris at the very least.

The others looked the same, shades of exhaustion worn a little differently by each. The young one, Gaz, tried to hide it with a dazzling smile and cheeky wink, not quite enough to distract from the ashen skin of his face and slight tremble in his hands. 

The big one, the Ghost who kept his mask on and moved surprisingly quick on his feet—he was harder to read. But Jack marked the slight reaction to Johnny’s hands on her and marked, too, the glimpses of amusement that laced his deep voice.

And then there was the matter of their captain.

If she had thought John Price larger-than-life in stories, he was utterly devastating in person.

Even beat all to hell he was a sight to behold. Dizzyingly broad shoulders, lean waist emphasized by the short tactical vest, the straps of his holster highlighting the mouthwatering spread of thighs—Jack knew her weaknesses well.

And when he took off his mask to reveal kind eyes set above the first Franz Joseph she’d seen outside of the circus, well, she was done for.Wanted to lick him, just a bit. Maybe fit her teeth to his forearm, gnaw on him for the taste. 

Jack had learned from experience that this was not a thing normal people generally said aloud, but even she could recognize the unusual fervorto her desire. Reasoned, quite practically, that it was simply the stir-crazy talking.

The captain had kept it together impressively well through the introductions, his steady and commanding presence reacting levelly to what Jack would be the first to call unusual surroundings. But so, too, did she see the way he breathed sharply through his nose and flexed his hands when no one was looking, clearly fighting a losing battle against his own exhaustion. 

Nikolai had taken care of ushering them from the kitchen with promises of a hot shower, clean clothes, and a very well-stocked medical room, giving time for Jack and Kate to hash out the details.

It’d been about what Jack had expected. She’d already been on lockdown, but now they were going full dark. No communications in or out, not until Kate was positive there was no suspicion of the task force’s survival. Until she or Nik came in person, they’d avoid any signal that could show their hand.

Could be months, Kate warned, but Jack knew what it was to have no place to go, and this place had always been designed as a sanctuary.

The company would be…nice, Jack reasoned. She had been rattling around a little on her own, haunting the halls as her own tactical disappearance stretched from weeks to months. 

Too soon, Nik had reappeared to collect Kate and bring them back to civilization. It was well known that they worked closely with the 141, and they both needed to be as far away as possible when someone inevitably came looking.

It was then that Kate gave Jack one final bit of information.

She’d taken Jack by the forearms, her eyes as serious as Jack had ever seen them, and told her they had eyes on her father’s next cache in Belarus with plans to move soon.

This itself wasn’t all that surprising—Jack had been working with Kate and Nik for several years to recover pieces of intelligence relating to her father’s last mission, the breadcrumbs he’d left in the event of his death.

But the next part, well. Jack hadn’t quite been expecting the next part.

Kate’s fingers were warm against her skin, grounding her for what came next. “It’s time, Jack, we’ve got to finish it. Everything we’ve recovered from your father’s intel so far points to corruption in the highest levels of government. Someone with the exact kind of position and power to have orchestrated the mission that almost put my men in the ground.”

Jack went predator still. The years hadn’t done much to soften the flare of grief and rage she felt when thinking about her father’s last mission or the information he died protecting (and that she half-suspected got her mother killed, too). A secret she’d hated, raged against, despaired, and still spent years trying to uncover.

Did not at all like the thought these men were somehow wrapped up in it. 

Kate’s words sent her fully inward, mind racing, no longer aware of the pressure of Kate’s hand on her arm. Too busy trying to fit together a picture from a partial puzzle even as she berated herself for not having done more.

She’d put off solving it for too long, lulled into complacency by the sweetness of her new life. By the pursuits she’d thrown herself into.Maybe shewas out of immediate danger, her true identity so long obscured as to be almost fiction, but she’d been stupid to think there’d be no additional collateral. Her dad used to say that war was a hunger machine, but how many more lives could one fucking secret eat? 

Some distant part of her knew she was spiraling, moving into that dangerous territory of “what ifs” and “maybes.” Maybe if she’d been faster, better at unraveling his clues, not so distracted with other projects, so excited by playing savior and assassin, she could have put a stop to this years ago. Maybe those men never would have even been in a position to—

But Kate knew her too well. 

“None of that now,” she’d said firmly, cupping Jack’s face and running her thumbs under her eyes. Grounding her in the present. “We’ve talked about this. Your father had his life and you have your own—and it is so much more than playing cipher in a game you never agreed to, I promise.”

Kate pulled Jack close, holding her together until she could find her feet. “Your father’s secret, whatever it is, may help the 141 or it might not. We won’t know until we know, Jack. And it has little to do with why I chose to bring these men here either way.” 

Jack buried her nose in Kate’s collar while she spoke, taking comfort in the familiar smell of lavender detergent. Homemade from the lush plants in her back garden, like everything her wife, Bea, created.  

It was this reminder that Kate, the most type-A person Jack knew, was head-over-heels in love with her wickedly funny herbalist wife that gave Jack an anchor to grab on to. She took a deep breath and let the thought of them, the sanctuary they’d offered her and the life they’d helped her build, guide her back to the present.

Jack squeezed Kate tightly before pulling back, giving her friend a small smile. “So why did you bring them to me, then?” 

“Thought the place needed livening up. Thought you needed livening up, little ghost,” she’d said, tweaking Jack’s nose. “It’ll be good for them too. Remind them they’re more than bodies to be thrown at a problem.” 

“You know I’m always better with a project,” Jack had told her optimistically. “Looking after your puppies will give me something to do.” 

“You might try letting someone look after you for a change.” She chucked Jack on the chin affectionately. “Think on it.” 

Kate was gone a moment later, Nikolai following after a tight hug and a kiss to the forehead. 

And as Jack locked door behind them and slumped against the metal, she felt a familiar and fervent stab of gratitude that her father had such friends.

Friends who loved her, looked after her like their own, made sure she knew she was never, not for one second, alone in the world. 

Not anymore, Jack thought drowsily, not even noticing as she fell deeply into a dreamless sleep.

…

“Do you think we should wake her?”

“Aw, but she looks so cute sittin’ there. Snoring like a wee chainsaw.”

“We could move her, maybe?”

“Like we could find her bedroom in this fucking maze.”

Jack came slowly into wakefulness, roused by low voices as her brain struggled to turn fuzzy shadows into shapes.

Goddamn it, she thought with sinking realization, letting her head fall back against the door with a wince.

Probably concerning she’d felt comfortable enough to doze off with four strange men in her home but, well. They weren’t really strangers, were they?

Not with all those stories she’d heard of a god damned battering ram of a team, willing to take on missions no one else would touch, even if that meant going against the orders of their own superiors. 

She liked that, that clarity of vision. Felt much the same about her own work.

Respected too, that their highest loyalty seemed to be to their captain. By all accounts a good man to the bone, if a bit bloody in his execution. A rare enough character that Jack had been thoroughly intrigued long before she laid eyes on his team.

“And they never even told me you were pretty,” Jack mumbled, rubbing sleep out of her eyes as a figure crouched down before her. 

“What was that, lass?” It was the captain himself, of course, a flicker of worry in those storm-blue eyes. Though he looked miles better for the shower and clean clothes; they all did.

Jack waved a hand dismissively, resigning herself to wakefulness. “Kate and Nik leaving out critical details, what else is new.” 

She accepted the hand he offered to pull her to her feet, reveling a little in the knowledge of the calluses that lined his palm. 

“Wait,” she said, brow furrowing as a thought occurred to her. Critical details. “Why haven’t I heard your name?” she said, letting go of Price’s hand to turn accusingly at Johnny. “I’ve heard dozens of stories about the 141 but nothing about no Johnny MacTavish,” she said, affecting an exaggerated Scots accent.

“Not bad that, actually,” she heard the big one—Ghost—murmur behind her.

Her brain was still a little fuzzy with sleep, but she went back through names in her head. Skull boy was Ghost, though he had a plain balaclava on now. Jack made an absent note to see if he needed help fixing the cracked mask she’d spotted earlier—had more than enough tools to make it happen.

Price was Price, no two ways about that, and the one who winked was Gaz. Garrick, she remembered from his introduction. She knew the fourth, she was sure of it…

“Soap,” Jack’s voice was gleeful with realization. “I should have put that together sooner. It is precisely as silly a callsign as I always hoped you’d have.” 

“Awa’ an bile yer heid,” Johnny said, pushing her smug face away with a big hand. “I’ll have you know it’s for a right cool reason.” 

She waited in silent invitation.

“It’s classified,” he muttered, cheeks pinking.

Jack stifled a smile. “Your whole file must be. Explains why I couldn’t find you in any database,” she said, looking expectantly at Price.

He confirmed with a nod, a small smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

“Aw, you went looking for me, bonnie?” Soap asked, shooting her a pleased grin.

Of course she had. Her father had made it clear anyone they contacted could be in danger, probably shouldn’t have done it in the first place. But she never forgot Johnny, how could she? 

“Don’t let it go to your head, Bubbles,” Jack told him instead, smacking him in the stomach as she walked off down the hallway. 

Grinned, but didn’t look back when she heard Soap sputter in rage, followed by a muffled snort she thought might be Ghost.

“Still hungry?” she called over her shoulder when she reached the kitchen. She’d been around enough soldiers in her lifetime to know they were bottomless pits, the lot of them.

“Nah, but I could do with a cuppa. Or something stronger if you had it.” The low voice came from nearer than she expected, Price standing just a hair closer than polite, heat radiating off his large frame. 

Maybe that was just the kind of man he was, intent. Intense. Equally likely to be an interrogation tactic to throw her off balance, feel out her edges.

Knowing what she did about the man, probably both.

Jack hummed, flicking a glance at her wrist. Still early but, well, needs must. “You’ll get both,” she declared. “I’ll grab the booze, you’re on kettle. Assorted tea and mugs in the left cabinet.”

Jack paused to watch him move around the kitchen for a moment, quick to do as she asked. She found she liked the great John Price taking her orders. Made a girl feel rather powerful. 

She ducked into the pantry and, after a moment of consideration, snagged the Islay single-malt she’d been saving for a special occasion.

Soap and Ghost were already rifling through the cupboards when she returned, grabbing glassware while Gaz cleared the leftover plates from the island, and Jack slowed for a moment, feeling something quite like joy in her chest.

Even when this kitchen was just a sketch on notebook paper, she’d imagined it full. It’d been mostly just her for so long she’d forgotten. But now Jack’s heart ached pleasantly at the sight of it, just a little. 

Price caught her eye, the weight of his gaze enough to ground her back in the present. “Milk?” he asked, and she nodded toward the walk-in.

Again, he passed just a bit closer than polite, making her unusually aware of her body in space.

“Fuckin’ hell,” his low voice echoed from beyond the door. “You preppin’ for an apocalypse I should know about?”

The other men crowded into the freezer for a look before opening the pantry as well, poking shamelessly through her stores.

“How the hell did you get all this?” Gaz asked, looking lovingly at the American cereals lining one wall. “I barely saw any roads while we were coming in, much less a Waitrose.”

“Waitrose, he says, like a proper posh boy,” Ghost heckled him.

Jack watched in amusement, pleased by their easy admiration. She’d worked hard on this place, though few ever saw it.

“Nikolai’s cousin, Dmitri,” she told Gaz. “He lives at the family estate a few miles up the coast and handles the smuggling routes in this district—primarily shipping. The snows will come in a month or so and the forest becomes a fortress, hence the stockpiling.” 

Price looked thoughtful at that, leading his merry band back to the island with milk bottle in hand. Jack followed, slipping onto the place on the other side of the kettle.

She watched with a smile as Price add milk and sugar to the other men’s mugs before passing them over, clearly well-versed in how they preferred their tea. Felt the weight of his gaze as she poured her own and got the distinct sense he was memorizing how she took it. Wondered if she should like that idea quite as much as she did. 

Jack bought herself a moment rifling in a drawer, grabbing a couple straws to leave near Ghost as she forced down the heat on her cheeks. A curse of freckled skin, but one she’d thought she’d long since mastered.

Jack wrinkled her nose at the thought she was going soft. Half of Europe knew her as The Ripper for fuck’s sake; had sharpened her teeth on men like John Price and his team for years. 

Not like them another part of her whispered.

Jack ignored the voice soundly. She’d been alone too long; cabin fever, that’s all it was. The voices were proof enough of that.

Oh shit, Jack realized suddenly. Just like The Shining. Jack Nicholson, Jack Torrence, Jack Last-name-redacted. Clearly, she had brought this on herself; fulfilled some fucked-up, coke-fueled Stephen King prophecy.

The unusually pointed silence pulled Jack out of her head. 

Price was leaning against the counter with a small smile. The other three perched at the island, looking at her expectantly over their mugs.

“Get lost in there, soldier?” Price asked, eyes sparkling in amusement. “Penny for your thoughts?” 

“Ah, you know. Nomen est omen and all that,” Jack answered honestly. 

“I have a clarifying question,” Gaz raised his hand.

“Name is destiny,” Ghost drawled before Jack could.

“What the big fella said,” she confirmed with a nod.

“Since when tae fuck d’ya speak Latin?” Soap said, shooting Ghost a look halfway between impressed and offended.

“Was an altar boy, weren’t I. Tried seminary for a bit. Didn’t take,” Ghost said evenly, as if this did not level his teammates.

“Get fucked,” Soap breathed. “That is so hot.”

Jack murmured her fervent assent. 

“Why the fuck else would I know Latin?” Ghost asked scornfully, glaring at them.

“Da Vinci Code situation,” Gaz said immediately.

“To read The Ancient Texts?” Jack offered with emphasis.

“And which would those be again?” Soap raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know, I don’t read Latin,” Jack said, shrugging. “Know a bit of Aramaic if you’re in need, though.”

“Horse,” Price muttered, his low voice cut through the rest.

“Horse?” Jack hummed in thought. “Soos, I think.”

The captain looked at her askance. “What?”

“Soos. That’s ‘horse’ in Aramaic.”

“What?”

“Oooh,” she said with dawning recognition. “Get lost in there, soldier? Need us to catch you up?”

Price shot her a dry look. “Simon’s Catholic, priests are hot, sky is blue. I miss anything?”

Jack stifled a smile. “No, sir. Horses, you were saying?”

“Horse, singular. As in: the demon mount who damn near gave me a heart attack in the woods.”

“Oh,” Jack’s eyes lit up. “You mean Jacques?”

There was a beat of incredulous silence.

“I beg your finest pardon,” Soap said lightly. “D’ya mean to tell me you have the same name as yer fucking horsie.” 

“No, that would be ridiculous,” Jack said evenly, uncorking the whisky and pouring a dram for each of them. “His is French.”

Ghost groaned and plunked a straw into his glass, downing it in one go. He physically recoiled when the taste hit him a moment later. 

“Jesus, Mary, and fuckface Joseph,” he said with a full-body flinch.

The others looked suspiciously at their glasses.

“Let me guess—tastes like the ass end of a tire fire?” Price gave Jack a knowing look. “Kate takes it the same.”

“Lassie’s got excellent taste,” she confirmed.

“Lassie,” Gaz whispered in awe.

Jack grinned at the sergeant. “Lemme know the first time you try to call her that, I’ve love to be there,” she told him before turning back to Price. “Anyway, what would you like to know about Jacques?” 

Price sipped at his own glass consideringly, apparently not displeased at the taste. Jack stifled the urge to preen.

“Well, where you keep the big bastard, for one. But mostly I’m confirming that he’s for after the snows fall. To get through the forest.” 

“Clever lad,” Jack said, pleased. “Got it in one. Jacques was already with me when we came here, but a draft horse like him can pull a sled or carry a rider through almost anything. Even without the snow, the easiest way through the forest is on foot or horseback—too many roots and close trees for much else.” 

Jacques had been one of several horses that traveled with the circus, the gentle giant who lipped her into wakefulness and let her bury her face in his mane when she needed a good cry; who held her steady as she performed her routine balanced on his broad back.

When it came time for her to leave, to go with Kate and start the next part of her life, there wasn’t a world in which Jacques didn’t come with her. 

Jack inhaled the sweetfire scent of the liquor, warming her more thoroughly than the tea had, settling drowsy and sweet in her veins.

“For your other question, he’s in the stables out back. I’ll take you around later—or tomorrow,” she amended, “after you’ve gotten some proper rest.” They all looked worlds better after a good scrub, fresh clothes, and some food in their bellies, but Jack knew they were rapidly fading—herself included. “Outside of winter and during missions Jacques stays with the others at Dima’s. You would not believe the stables he keeps. That family has an uncannysense for horses, I swear it.” 

“Dima,” Gaz repeated, cocking his head like a puppy. “That’s Dmitri, yeah? Nikolai’s cousin?”

Jack nodded her assent. “Each member of that family crooked as a creek, but excellently so.”

“When you say the others are at the stables, do you mean you have more horses?” Price asked. “I can’t imagine you’d need one or two.”

“There’s more to life than necessity, John Price,” Jack said slyly, a mischievous glint to her eye. “I’m told one also needs pleasure.”

He didn’t so much as blink, but Jack swore she saw the tiniest flush creeping up his neck, suntanned and warm, and wanted to crow with delight.

She topped up his glass, feeling charitable now that she had him off balance. “I’ll go up and borrow a few horses from Dima in a day or two—I don’t like having you all here without an easy means of escape.” 

“I, uh, I don’t actually know how to ride a horse. Don’t think I’ve ever met one in real life,” Gaz frowned.

“And not in real life?” Soap asked him skeptically.

“Played a lot of Zoo Tycoon.”

They all nodded in understanding.

“Not to worry, sweet thing, I’ll teach you,” Jack promised with a wink. “Doesn’t take long to learn the basics. Same for the rest of you?” 

They all nodded, and her grin turned a little predatory around the edges. “Oh, I find I’m looking forward to this very much.”

She rummaged in one of the cabinets, pulling out a packet of biscuits to approving noises. 

“What I want to know, bonnie, is just how long you’ve been hiding out here. Haven’t had hide nor hair of ye for over a decade,” Soap asked as he stuffed his face. “Don’t tell me you’ve been here since you left Scotland?”

Same atrocious manners but all Jack felt was fond. God, she’d missed him. Hadn’t really realized how much.

Her dad had been stationed at that base in Scotland for the whole summer and even a little after—long for them. The CIA moved assets around far more frequently than the army and made it hard to make friends, much less keep them.

It was also the last base before her dad grew more…obsessed. More paranoid. Wouldn’t let her stay in touch with Johnny, no matter how much she’d begged. He’d cut them off from everyone after that, even Kate and Nik—arguing it was to keep them all safe from the something he wouldn’t tell her.

It was all safe houses after that. Off the grid. Just the two of them.

Then just her.

Jack shoved the memory down with practiced effort and refocused on Johnny, alive and well and spraying crumbs all over her counter, the menace.

She tapped her finger on her chin. “Let me think…what year is it again?” 

She snorted at the four identical looks of horror she received.

“I’m joking. Been living here on-and-off for about five years, but I’ve only been on lockdown for…four? Five months?” 

“And you’ve been alone all that time?” Price asked, a note of concern in his voice.

Jack shrugged. “It’s not so bad. Plenty to keep me busy.” 

He didn’t look convinced, but Jack wasn’t about to tell him she felt miles less lonely here than she did when she was living like a ghost in the world; so utterly alone she wondered why she bothered to keep running at all.

Plus, Wichita was her baby; tailor made to her exact specifications. If she had to be alone anywhere…

“And you’ve not gone off your head yet? Good for you,” Soap chimed in with his usual tact. He made a noise of protest when Ghost smacked him on the back of the head, and Jack shot the larger man a grin.

“Well, we thank you for having us just the same,” Price inclined his head to her, eyes sincere. “That’s a debt I’ll not soon forget.” 

“Oh, no trouble at all, we’ve got plenty of room.”

“We?”

Jack grinned wickedly. “You know, me and the ghosts.” 

“You lie,” Soap said flatly.  

“I truth,” she said emphatically. “It’s part of the reason I chose this place. Rumored to be haunted from a tragic suicide and a nuclear waste accident,” she said, waggling her eyebrows.

“Run that last sentence by me again, soldier,” Price commanded, and Jack softened as she looked up at him, oddly touched by the repeated designation.

“Don’t worry, there’s nothing to it,” she told him, resisting the urge to pat his hand. “This place was never functional. It was the pet project of an oligarch with big dreams of bringing his old region to the modern age. Then he made bad investments, pissed off some important members of government. You know how it goes,” she shrugged. “That’s why the tower looks weird–it’s unfinished. Not quite sure how the story got to be an accident, but it keeps people away well enough.”

“And the suicide? The oligarch you reckon?” Gaz asked.

“Nah, pissed off someone in the Bratva while he was at it. Body’s probably somewhere at the bottom of the Neva, poor bastard.” 

Jack topped everyone up with the last of the bottle. “To his loss and our gain,” she said, and they drained their glasses in toast.

Jack eyed Soap as she set her glass down, suppressing a smile. “You know, I don’t know that it’s not haunted for some other reason. I could probably dig up an Ouija board if you’d like to know for sure.”

“Absolutely not,” Ghost intoned.

“You fuck off right now,” Soap echoed, leveling a finger at her. 

Gas just shrugged.  “I’m in.” 

“I knew I liked the look of you, kid,” Jack said, dimpling at him before turning expectantly at Price.

He didn’t answer. Just gave her a long, considering look before reaching out, thumb just grazing her mouth as he brushed away a stray drop of whisky.

Jack went rabbit-still at his touch, and for one incredible moment, her brain was totally quiet—like flying in the air, twenty feet above ground.

“You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?” Price hummed, still studying her. He didn’t look displeased about it.

“Good trouble,” she promised, and felt she rather meant it. “Now, let’s get you all some proper rest. I’ll make sure to keep the ghosties away.” 

Author's note: I had a lot of fun writing this one, especially the kitchen scene :). Hope y'all enjoyed your first look inside Jack's head and if you're feeling a bit lost don't worry--we'll get more of her story over the next couple chapters, promise.

If you read Meditations in an Emergency, you may have spotted some echoes in this one! That fic grew out of a thought I had while I working out Jack's character in this chapter (and was initially the reader sending Price a drink across the bar because she liked his mustache, naturally). It ended up a very different story, so if that idea speaks to you please take it and run, because I would dearly like to read it.

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[dee-writes-angst]

The Sun: A Short Story

A/N: Hello everyone! I know this isn't something I normally post, but after too much time spent agonizing over it, I decided I wanted to share this with you. I have spent several months working on this short story and didn't want it to go to waste sitting in my drafts and figured I might as well share it with all of you. I really hope you like it and please let me know what you think! <3

----

THE SUN by ME <3

The streets are quieter than I remember. Cracked sidewalks still wind through the neighborhood like they always had, but the houses lining the street feel different– darker, smaller. The sun is low, casting long shadows across the pavement and cutting out silhouettes of the homes surrounding me. They look like claws, reaching out, swallowing the light, refusing to give it back. This place– where I could remember laughter filling the streets, screams of joy cracking through the air– now feels abandoned, a thick layer of ash and the smell of burnt wood and flesh all that remains.  

Another headline flashes across my phone screen, all too familiar by now: Thirty killed in an attack today, several more injured and misplaced. The words blur together, but it’s not like I really need to read them. Not when I already know, when I’m standing here taking in the carnage. Despite the heat of the lingering fire in the air, I can’t help but pull my coat tighter around me, trying to abate the chill creeping up my spine as I force myself to stare at it, to know what I caused. And for a moment, I wonder if he carries it too, if he feels the weight of all the pain he’s caused. 

Or maybe I’m the only one left who feels anything at all and maybe I deserve that too.  

The man with the ability to produce fire from his hands, white-hot and devastating, has struck again. My son. Not that anyone knows, not that they care when they just assume he is some heartless monster. They simply think he struck a street full of innocent families out of cruel whimsy, a senseless display of power. They can’t see the truth etched into the fractured pavement and crumbled walls, the weight of a thousand shadows that linger in the dust-filled air. To them, it's just another scar on the city’s surface. But to him, every crack in the asphalt screams with memories too dark to be silenced—laughter that turned to screams, windows once alight with warmth now shattered and cold. They don’t know the weight of a past that grips his chest like a vice, forcing his hands to destroy the very place that destroyed him. 

I tuck my phone away, unable to look at the placid faces of the reporters as they describe the devastation and implore people to evacuate the area. Murderer, arsonist, cold-blooded killer. The words ring through my mind in distorted, faceless voices as I take it all in. It feels strange to be standing here again, a feeling akin to shoving a square peg in a round hole: it just doesn’t fit. Instead, I think about how different things could have been. How much I’d give to go back to that day, to pull him into my arms and tell him– don’t go, don’t give up.  

I walk slowly, letting my eyes trace past charred homes and burn marks to those familiar cracks in the road, to the collapsed porch where a swing would creak in the summer air as I sat and watched him play. I moved away years ago, just after he left. I refused to come back since, but somehow, when I heard what had happened, I couldn’t help myself as I felt pulled here, dragged almost against my will through the past. It all feels so heavy, like the weight of my mistakes has been personified into my very own ball and chain forcing me to face it all. I can’t outrun what he’s done. What I let him become. 

Our old house took the brunt of the damage, the windows charred, some shattered or even melted– but I can still see him there, a small boy with messy hair, darting through the yard, laughing so hard that his cheeks turned a dark shade of red. I can almost hear the ghost of his voice calling out to me, “Mommy! Watch me!” 

 I stop, my feet frozen to the ground. For a moment, I’m not sure I can keep going.  

I allow my eyes to fall shut, remembering him as a boy– his smile wide, as bright as the sun reflected in his grassy eyes. His name, one I had picked from a magazine in a waiting room, now holds a deeper meaning than just the warm feeling in my chest as I called after him. Now Achilles more accurately reflects its true meaning, one of sorrow and despair.  

There was a time when he wasn’t so afraid, when he wasn’t angry. Before the world became cruel, before the grass grew frost and a scar marred his face, taking any light left behind just like the shadows crowding the street.  

My feet move again, carrying me toward the house, past the memories, past everything I’ve tried to leave behind. It all feels inevitable now. The path, the return. This is where it was always leading, wasn’t it? Back to where it all began, where things first went wrong. 

The neighborhood is so still, like the entire world is holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. For me to see him again. For the truth to hit me in the face, like it always does. 

I round the corner, and my breath catches in my throat. 

There he is. 

Standing at the end of the block, his back turned to me. His silhouette is unmistakable, the way his shoulders hunch forward, the way he tilts his head to the side when he's thinking. For a moment, I can't move. I don't know if it's shock or fear or some horrible combination of both. But he doesn't see me. Not yet. 

The world narrows down to him, to the space between us. My heart pounds in my chest, loud, like it’s trying to break free. There’s no escaping this now. 

I should turn around, leave before he notices. I should run. But I don't. 

This was always going to happen. We were always going to meet again, here, in this place. There’s no avoiding it anymore. 

I take a step forward. Then another. The distance between us shrinks, and with it, the years of separation, of silence, of wondering where it all went wrong. All those moments I spent running from this, from him, were pointless. 

When he turns around, his eye locks onto mine, and time stops. 

— — — 

It was his teenage years. That much I remember clearly. Back then when flames would dance so elegantly from fingertip to fingertip and I would marvel. An elemental child, already so rare and prejudiced in our world, but one of fire, the most unlikely of all. He still had friends, he laughed at stupid jokes, and he’d stay up late playing video games until I had to force him to bed. But something changed—gradually, quietly, until it wasn’t quiet at all. 

I think it was that day. It had to have been. 

I can still see it: the blood, smeared across his face like a mask. His hands shaking as he pressed them against his eye, the other one wide with shock and fear. I wasn’t there when it happened—he never told me the full story, and I never asked. But I know it was that boy he was dating. The one I never liked. The one who had a temper, quick to raise his voice, quick to make my son shrink beneath the weight of his anger and extinguish his flames. 

There was a fight. I don’t know who started it, but I know how it ended. That jagged scar, cutting deep across his right eye, so deep it stole his sight. When he came home that night, bleeding and bruised, I wanted to scream. To kill that boy for what he did. But my son—he didn’t let me. 

“No, Mom,” he said, his voice cold, dead. “It was my fault. I deserved it.” 

I didn’t believe him. How could I? He was my child, my little boy. He couldn’t have deserved that. But he wouldn’t let me call the police, wouldn’t let me take him to the hospital. He just disappeared into his room, locking the door behind him. 

That’s when I started to lose him. Slowly, at first. He’d spend hours in his room, sitting in the dark, letting the world pass him by. I’d knock, sometimes, trying to talk to him, but the conversations only got shorter. He stopped telling me things. He stopped laughing. 

It was the scar. It had to be the scar. It took more than his eye—it took the light out of him. It turned him hard, distant, and angry. His flames no longer danced and jumped, they burned and blazed and hurt. I know it wasn’t my fault—how could it be? I wasn’t the one who hurt him, wasn’t the one who pushed him away. But still, I couldn’t reach him after that. Couldn’t fix whatever was breaking inside him. 

He started staying out late, disappearing for days at a time, coming home with new bruises, new injuries that he wouldn’t explain. He’d look at me with that one good eye, but it was like he wasn’t seeing me anymore. Like I wasn’t even there. 

I tried. I tried to help him, to be there for him, but every time I reached out, he pulled further away. I didn’t know what to do. He wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t let me in. 

By the time he stopped coming home, his eyes had hardened and his lips were permanently pressed in that tight line that said more than his words ever could. No more smiles, no more grassy Saturdays. He didn’t even hug me when he left, didn’t even say goodbye. He just disappeared into the night like every day before, but somehow I knew that he wasn’t ever going to come back, that I had truly lost him. 

He had slipped into something I couldn’t pull him out of, falling deeper into whatever dark place had swallowed him whole. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know why it happened. But I know it was that boy, that fight, that scar. That was the beginning. 

It had to be. 

— — — 

“Achilles,” I breathe, and time has seemed to start again as his face shifts and his brows furrow– he resents me.  

I ask myself why over and over again, but I simply can’t come up with an answer. The bitter part of me wants to yell, to scream in my defense– I didn’t cut you, I tried to help– but the other part, the part that always wins, is the guilt, the feeling that I could’ve done something more, that I could have been more.  

I watch as fire fills his hand, it’s so abrupt, so well mastered during both years of happiness and sorrow, that it doesn’t even seem like he has to think about it anymore. I don’t think he’s actually thinking, not as I watch the flames arc through the air like a tidal wave and I can’t move, can’t think, as those flames slam into me like a wall.  

It’s like being submerged, but this isn’t water—it’s flame, licking at my skin, biting into my flesh with sharp, searing teeth. 

Pain blooms in waves, overwhelming every other sensation until my body is foreign. It doesn’t belong to me anymore, it belongs to those hot, hot streaks of blue as they move over my chest, my legs, burning through both fabric and skin alike until it all melds into one. 

I want to move, to pull away and run from it, but my legs; they won’t obey as the weight of the fire pins me in place. My skin feels tight, like it’s shrinking around my bones, cracking and peeling under the relentless heat.  

The pain—God, the pain. It’s beyond anything I could have imagined, worse than the most petrifying of nightmares. My muscles twitch involuntarily, spasming as the flames crawl higher, dancing up my body, their fingers weaving through my hair, across my face. 

I can smell it—my body burning. My hair singeing, my skin crisping beneath the fire. It’s sickening, thick and acrid, filling my nose, coating my throat. I want to gag, to scream, but my voice is gone. The heat has taken it. My chest tightens, every breath coming in short, painful gasps, as if I’m trying to suck oxygen through molten glass. 

My eyes cloud with boiling hot tears as I stare at him standing just a few feet away, his face menacing as it’s bathing in the flickering light of his flames. I forget the pain as I look at him, watching as my mind shifts his reality until I am staring at a little boy with grassy green eyes again. But there is something on his face that doesn’t quite match the memory– something lost, broken. He is not the monster they say he is. He is not a villain. He’s just a child, one that went through too much pain too young.  

And when the image melts, there is no recognition in his eyes, no spark of the child that would cling to me when he was scared, or call for me as he proudly executed a new trick. The boy I knew is gone. Instead, a stranger stands in his place, one with tight lips, sagging skin, and tired eyes. 

I want to apologize, but my fingers don’t move and my lips won’t part. The pain is too much. It’s everywhere, a thousand burning needles driving deeper and deeper into my flesh. 

My skin is splitting, cracking open like overripe fruit. I can feel blisters forming, feel the raw, exposed flesh beneath. My hands—pointless things—they don’t even look like hands anymore. Just blackened, twisted, curled in on themselves, utterly and completely useless. 

Is he watching me die? 

Does he see what he’s done? Does he care? 

Through the haze, I watch him stand there, frozen in the aftermath of the chaos he created. His hands fall limp at his sides and for the first time in what feels like forever, he is motionless. 

He’s staring at me. 

At first, it’s like he doesn’t understand. His face is still hard, blank—expressionless, like he’s in shock, like he’s not seeing me at all. But then something changes. Slowly, so slowly, I watch the realization dawn in his eyes. 

He steps closer, and for a moment, I think he’s going to stop it. That he’ll extinguish the fire roaring in my skin, that he’ll save me. But he just stands there, his one good eye fixed on me with something like...horror. 

It’s only then that I realize—he’s seeing me. He’s really seeing me. 

I don’t know if it’s the fire, or the way my body is crumpling under the heat, but something in him is breaking. His chest is heaving, his face contorting, as if he’s struggling to understand what’s happening—what he’s done. 

And then it happens. 

His hand trembles, the flames flickering like they’ve lost their strength. His lips part, a soft gasp escaping as his gaze drops to the blue inferno consuming me. 

“Mom…” 

It’s barely a whisper, but I hear it. I feel it. The way his voice cracks, breaking like glass under the weight of it. That word—Mom—carries so much pain that it cuts through the fire, cuts through the searing heat and agony. For just a moment, the pain dulls, and all I feel is the pull of that single, broken word. 

I try to reach for him, but my body is failing, the fire too strong. My vision is darkening, my legs giving way as I collapse to the ground. The pavement is rough under me, but I hardly feel it. 

He moves forward again, just a step, his hands shaking as the fire slowly begins to die in his palms. His face—it’s changing. The rage, the fury—it’s gone, replaced by something else. Something far more human and familiar. 

His mouth opens again, as if he wants to speak, to say something, to apologize maybe. But no words come. 

Instead, his face collapses, his good eye—the one that isn’t hidden behind that scar—fills with anguish the kind of horror that only comes when you realize you’ve crossed a line you can never come back from. The green of his iris reflects the dying embers around us just as it once did the sun. 

He steps forward, his movements slow, hesitant. His hands tremble at his sides, the fire in his palms now completely extinguished. His face twists with something I can’t quite place—recognition, maybe? Regret? I don’t know. 

His face crumples, the hardness that he’s worn like armor for so long suddenly falling away. His hands start to shake, trembling like leaves in the wind, his fingers twitching as though they want to reach for me but don’t know how. 

I try to move, lift my hand again, reach for him, tell him it’s okay, that I’m still here. But my body doesn’t respond. The pain is fading, replaced by a kind of numbness that I know I shouldn’t feel. 

And then– he hesitates, his gaze darting away, avoiding mine. The silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating, filled with everything neither of us can say. 

For a moment, I think he’ll reach for me. That he’ll drop to his knees, pull me close, and tell me it’s going to be okay. That he’s sorry. That he didn’t mean it. 

But he doesn’t. 

He stays there, standing over me as his expression shifts until it’s unreadable. And then—slowly, almost imperceptibly—he turns away. His shoulders sag under the weight of something I can’t see, and he takes a single step back. 

Then another. 

The embers glow faintly around us, the world growing quieter, darker. I want to call out to him, to beg him not to leave. But the words stay trapped in my chest. All I can do is watch as he fades into the haze, his figure swallowed by the smoke. 

And just like that, he’s gone. 

I lay there, staring up at the sky, the silence pressing down on me. The fire crackles faintly in the distance, but even that seems to grow quieter, softer, until it’s nothing more than a whisper. 

“Mom…” His voice lingers in the air, faint and fragile, like a memory slipping through my fingers. 

I can’t move, can’t feel anything anymore. The world fades into darkness, and all that remains is the memory of him—of the little boy who used to wrap his arms around me, who used to laugh and call me Mommy. The little boy who I loved more than anything in the world. 

I close my eyes. And let it go. 

[shanicetjn]

In what order is ur fav Willy wonky?

Omg Kit- You can't just put me on the spot like that!! /light-hearted

If I really HAVE to choose from the films, it'll have to be Timothée Wonka - Johnny Wonka - Gene Wonka.

Info-dump below:

I grew up watching and getting obsessed with Willy Wonka through Johnny Depp from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). I literally have watched that movie at LEAST 60 times and it's one of my favourite favourite films ever!

(I might be the ONLY one having this opinion but-) That film is the most magical thing I have ever seen as a kid and Mr. Wonka is just the most relatable person to me. Also, how can you not love THIS face:

That later introduced me to the book by Roald Dahl that the movie is based off of which I read religiously. I never knew about Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) until I started seeing the memes!

Fast forward to recent times- To the Wonka (2023) trailer that dropped last June..I initially thought it was a joke because I just could NOT believe they would still make Wonka stuff let alone a film. But no, it was real (and I watched the trailer a good 20 times).

Went to the cinema TWICE because I was so absolutely blown-away by Timothée Chalamet...It felt like I was transported back to my childhood and all that whimsy came back to me at full blast.

He's so beautifully interpreted...EXACTLY how I imagined younger Willy to be like. Literally reignited my love for Mr. Wonka of 20 years! And the most important thing to me? It's so absolutely surreal to see a Willy Wonka that is the same age as me.

After that, I finally got to watch Gene Wonka twice in the last 2 months after knowing about it for idk-how-many years. AND I love him so so much too..??

He's totally different to Johnny Wonka yeah but once again- What's not to love about and relate to an unhinged chocolate man that has murderous tendencies? >:3c

It was so fun to catch all the little details / references they put in the Wonka (2023) film from that movie! Also, it makes the transition from Timothée Wonka to Gene Wonka all the more tragic.

Sorry for such a long post and info-dumping but I just really wanna talk about him and the amount of joy Mr. Wonka has given to me over the years!

Willy Wonka never steals but he has certainly stolen my heart. ♥

[minban]

honkai: star rail 3.3 update reactions and screenshots. spoilers below ///

phainon you are so pretty but ain't no way they're explaining that amphoreus has a virtual reality training room. i know screwellum and herta would have loved to have a field day with this.

correct me if i'm wrong but is this someone's self insert fanfiction starring anaxa.

this fat flying unicorn sounds exactly like a pokemon

the tiny little backstory between cipher and aglaea is so cute but aglaea how did you get cipher to accept boots that were too big for her in exchange for the gem. and people call cipher a thief, smh

phainon my poor boy, you have come into your position in the worst of ways but you're already doing so well. aglaea knew what she was doing when she passed the torch down to you.

does this game want me to cry? do they want to make me sob? huh? is that what they want? saying goodbye to each and every one of the chrysos heirs as he takes a moment to grieve the fall of aglaea. phainon you are too kind for the world of amphoreus. AND THEN SAYING GOODBYE TO MYDEIMOS??? that's not a goodbye, that's a see you again despite knowing what their fates will be.

girl are you telling me you understand what the "doot-doot"s mean

hyacine i love your flying pig but why do you keep calling him DANNIE??? OF ALL THINGS???

so it's not a secret that the chyrsos' heirs will become the titans at the end of the flame chase journey? so why was this such a revelation when anaxa revealed this fact to everyone else.

can someone please give me back caelus' original english va please. they took the youth out of him and gave him depression.

this is sending me so bad. it was obvious from the start that little ica is a pegasus but putting them side by side is like the difference between day and night. hyacine what are you feeding your flying horse to make them so fat

cipher you are too cute. it makes me sick that you're also going to have a tragic ending. i'm also staring directly at your nails and wondering if you painted and shaped them to be like aglaea's

are we really watching them die / ascend one by one in this patch, all at once? these devs like to see suffering

final thoughts ;

first and foremost, and no shade to the new voice actor, but i wish they didn't change caelus' voice actor after two whole years of me getting used to caelus' voice. he didn't talk much in this patch but it still weirded me out whenever i heard his voice because it doesn't feel like it's full of the youthful joy that is so starkly attached to the trailblazer. it's exactly how i felt when they took away argenti's whimsy.

it's boggling my mind that a whole fanfiction was written about anaxa and a self insert and that whoever wrote it just left it laying around in the grove's library. they're so lucky they didn't mention any names but the personality just screamed anaxa. phainon that better have not been you because there is currently no other mention of anaxa having to teach another student one-on-one.

we got to see phainon go from a joyful happy guy to watching how his light and cheerful energy slowly got sapped from him with each responsibility that was trusted upon him and each death that he had to face. and he had no time to grieve, having to push forth unless hesitation costed him the lives of anyone else. idk if it was just me but his voice was so low and shaky from the time of aglaea's death and it continued to grow with frustration as the story progressed. he wasn't snappy per se, but we saw how he had to be the voice of reason and urgency when hyacine kept pausing and hesitating when the sky castrum was crumbling before their feet, and he probably hated every second that he had to act that way. i know it frustrated him to no end that he, out of all people, would have to step up and be the responsible leader who had to make the hard decisions.

i can't imagine what phainon was feeling when he had to watch the chyrsos heirs, the companions he has come to think of as a second family, die before his eyes one by one. the pure agony that he was feeling that this was the second time that he has left mydeimos on the battlefield, and then seeing the flame reaver again with the thought that mydei didn't make it this time filling his head. and through all of it, he still had it in him to be kind, to give the trailblazer and dan heng a way out of amphoreus and back to their express family before resetting the world.

we saw how phainon stepped into the role of a hero in this patch, and i can't help but to think that this is something that phainon never wanted for himself. his dream as a child was to live a normal life, and yet fame and glory was thrusted upon him with all of the hard choices and responsibilities with it. phainon grew into his role as a leader wonderfully, but i know this is something he wish he never had to do. he's too kind to refuse this, he would never drop this role on someone else, not when this is the role that was entrusted to him by his family. and he knows that he is the only one who could succeed kephale's coreflame, taking on the burden of holding up the world like atlas all by himself. my poor beautiful husband

so maybe i was wrong about it earlier and that they did not, in fact, know about their fate to turn into the titans once they kickstart era nova before anaxagoras had unveiled this knowledge to them. which i guess makes sense! because why else would hyacine be tasked with retrieving aquila's coreflame. my understanding of it was that the knight lady fused with aquila in the same way that anaxa had fused with cerces. as in they were one with the titan but they didn't ascend the titan's powers.

three whole patches later and it's just now that they're revealing that march 7th is playing the role of phainon's sister!!! and the nerve to end the patch right there. like what capacity is it in. was march 7th sent to this world to play a character, was she originally phainon's sister, or is there some other force thrusting this role onto her and how does she return to her original body.

on god i'm about to shake the people who cast the voice actors because wdym all this time the amphoreus' saga of heros was supposed to be voice by caelus and now it's being voiced by his new va??? cut this shit out and give me back our original caelus

[glowcowboy]

hi so, you’re post about “we’re gonna be okay btw” changed my life a good bit, if I’m entirely honest. I am having a Bad time with life, and things aren’t going well, and I’m just not feeling very full of whimsy and joy. and I haven’t been able to fix that for years. But I dunno, that post just. made me happy. maybe that isn’t the right word, but it made me feel excruciatingly… good, I guess. like when you’re going through life and maybe not everything is great but that’s okay. it felt kind of like laying down and having a picnic in a big field with flowers and dandelions. and I really really appreciate that. The post made me cry a little to be honest, and i don’t know if there are words which exist to express how I feel about it. the best way I can explain is it felt like pastel flowers, if that makes sense. anyway, I don’t think I can ever express how grateful I am for that, either. but I’m so, so, so, so, so grateful.

oh i’m so glad!!! it can be so easy to lose our grasp on whimsy and joy. not to be like “we live in a society” but i think living in the society that we do is not like. conducive to keeping that mindset at the forefront. it’s completely understandable. sometimes we need a little nudge. i’m so glad i was able to help!!! sending love & light to you!

[missmisfitchronicles]

My GOmens Experience

I put off watching GO for, well, years. I can't quite pin which specific clip finally reeled me in but I'm glad that it did, WHEN it did.

The main thing I have to say is that this isn't the first of Mr. Gaiman's works that sparked a joy in me that I can't quite describe. The first of his works to awaken such a feeling in me was 'Coraline', it was full of whimsy, fun, humor, a dash of mundaneness, a bit of dread, and above all, love.

I get the same feeling from GO and I am so happy to have felt this way once again. That feeling of giddiness and wonder. The feeling of falling in love with the small things, seeing two people fall in love, hope, heartache, and the feeling of yearning.

Seeing bits and pieces of myself in these otherworldly characters is comforting; seeing glimpses of what I want to become, gives me courage and strength.

Of course, the people who bring those characters to life on the screen, play a significant part in how I perceive Mr. Gaiman's works and I absolutely love their interpretations and how they insert parts of themselves into the characters.

I can't wait to see what comes next for all the characters I've come to love or loathe (Metatron), but all good things take time.

So for now, I'll revisit the story as it is set thus far.

Thank you for the Ineffable feelings, Good Omens.

[tripintothemind]

Stargazing

One of my first flash fiction assignments. I had a like spiritual download when I was writing this, it was pretty profound.

What a fucking joke. Chet should have known his 17 years of life would amount to this. Rotting away at some putrid job he hated by night, sleeping through school every day. Being completely alone whilst surrounded by seas of faceless people.

He slumped in bed, as he always did, he heard a knock, as he usually did, he saw her face, as he hoped he always would. Vicki. Partners, the two of them. Yin and yang, light and dark. Balance the two of them. Whole.

He lowered the rope, scaled the white plaster wood walls of his home, and vanished into the night. They walked, ran, pranced. Like two rabbits in the late hours of twilight, unaware of what lay beyond their view. Uninterested in it.

In the distance, the clearing, that they always found. In her hands, her guitar. They lay there in the hazy beige of the ground, each strand of dying grass totally subsumed by the whole. From a distance, their singularity was imperceivable.

They shared. In three words or less, feelings. A dance of hearts. Back and forth they stepped. He felt anger, she felt peace. He felt fear, and so did she, but he held it in, she played it out. On that magical instrument of hers. He felt pointless, she felt like flying.

The stars shone above, where they always were. She named them, drew shapes with them, as if to exercise some modicum of influence. A game as old as man itself. As old as pre-man. Who would know, he said with his eyes, what would it matter.

We would know, she responded only by shrugging, and we matter. Those words meant more to him than anything anyone could say. The stars watched this silent exchange as if they were ants, walking along a scentless path. Their destination, unknown.

As they looked above, the stars seemed to shift, different than before. A trick of the light, she thought. He wasn’t so sure. She strummed, on that instrument, a tune. Idle, with no real feeling apparent, but something more hidden. It felt like them, like their relationship.

He felt lost. If everyday was the same, full of anger, fear, and if he had no control, then why? Why do it? The question felt so pertinent, poignant. Maybe no one else had thought this before. Maybe he was the first to see. 

Was there truly a point? Or where they simply two more specks in a field of specks, on a world of specks, itself a speck of a world. He looked to the unfeeling stars. She rolled over, her face blocked the sky. He looked into her eyes. The question suddenly felt foolish.

They both looked up.

They saw stars, and they moved.

Beyond reason or comprehension. Each star, so static, so fixed, seemed to take a life of its own. The night sky came alive. The stars seemed to dance, frolic, possessed by some cosmically immense sense of whimsy, joy, freedom. He felt something. That never happened.

He looked down, away. He was shaking. How could this be? How could any of this be? What force was so immense it could propel the stars to dance, and to what end? For what purpose? For them, some small voice whispered. He snuffed that voice. They didn’t matter.

She took her guitar, staring with wondrous wonder up at the cacophony of the sky. And she played. A sonata, a symphony of the most wondrous degree. How? he asked with his hands, what music is that? “I don’t know” she said with her words “the stars… they told me”. Impossible.

He saw. A grand song, the stars composed it. Each one placed with such precision, such purpose, such care, that together they spun a song more beautiful than Beethoven, more vicarious than Vivaldi. A song that would have made King David throw what he had written into fire.

He sang, something he had never done. At least not in front of people. She looked at him. She saw him, truly, deeply, fully, as if he had peeled back the layer of his soul. And he saw her in kind. They played, sang, existed together in that beautiful moment. When the song ended, both instantly and infinitely later, both satisfyingly and yearning for more, they stared. She at the sky, as if filled with a sense of reverence. He at the stars reflected in her eyes.

They kissed, in an indescribable, immortal moment. 

There was no grand purpose, no great reason the heavens moved to compose their piece. They simply wanted to bring joy to two kids.

And in the end, that was reason enough.

[just-a-girl-fr-07]

Welcome to my corner of Whimsy !

I miss waking up in the morning.

I haven’t done so in years.

The sun still reaches for me through the blinds, but I don’t meet it halfway. Instead, its warmth barely grazes me before the weight in my chest sinks deep, heavy and unmoving, anchoring me to the mattress. Minutes slip by—too many, yet never enough—while I wait for the strength to pull myself upright.

By the time I finally rise, the echoes of yesterday’s worries have already found me, wrapping around my thoughts before I’ve even taken my first step. I move through the motions, slow and unwilling, already losing the day before it has even begun

That’s not what waking up is supposed to feel like.

I miss laying out my clothes the night before, neatly tucking my homework into my bag. I miss taking my time in the morning, unhurried, because why rush? There was an entire day ahead, full of possibilities, waiting to be lived. What was there to fear when the world still felt like something to explore?

Somewhere along the way, I let responsibility eclipse wonder. As if growing older meant surrendering the small joys I once carried so easily. As if the only way to be good enough was to let my days become nothing but productivity and exhaustion.

Maybe the real problem was that I let work swallow me whole—let it drain the color from my days until nothing was left but deadlines and exhaustion. Maybe it wasn’t that I needed to be better, or that I had to wait for the right moment to enjoy life again.

Maybe I just needed to stop letting work consume me.

So, here’s to this—my quiet rebellion, an arbitrary act of reclaiming something for myself. A blog about stories I love. A place to write, simply because I want to. Will I keep this up for a year? Will I abandon it in a month? It doesn’t really matter.

All I know is that it would be nice—so, so nice—to wake up one morning, stretch into the sunlight, and think,

"I can’t wait to write something today."

[ronaldanthony4]

It’s always an exciting moment for me to complete a new piece of digital art, and today, I’m thrilled to share my latest creation. Once again, I’ve poured my heart and soul into depicting my beloved original characters, Arlon and Liliana. These two are more than just characters to me; they embody my vision of the ideal romantic love—a bond that evolves, transitioning from childhood friendship to a deep, soulful connection. Creating art that resonates with others is truly a rewarding experience for me.

This artwork showcases Arlon and Liliana as children, enjoying a carefree moment in a lush garden filled with vibrant greenery and blooming flowers. The scene radiates warmth, joy, and childhood innocence, but to me, it holds a deeper meaning. It’s more than just an image; it’s a tribute to the kind of love that grows from a strong foundation of trust, mutual understanding, and shared experiences. Vibrant colours and intricate details in the painting serve as a visual representation of the depth and beauty found in enduring connections between people.

Liliana, with her enchanting smile, steals the spotlight in her white mini-dress. The white strapless romper is simple yet elegant, a perfect choice for a young girl full of life and cheerfulness. It flows gently around her, allowing her to move freely as she skips across the garden. Her hair, a cascade of glossy brown curls, seems to dance in the sunlight, giving her an almost ethereal glow. And that single flower tucked into her hair? It’s a small but significant detail, adding a touch of whimsy and natural beauty to her look.

Arlon stands by her side, his hand firmly holding hers, a subtle but powerful symbol of their connection. His outfit is practical yet charming: a white collared shirt under khaki dungarees. The earthy tones of his attire complement the lush surroundings, making him appear as though he belongs in this paradise. His expression, a mix of calmness and joy, perfectly captures his reserved yet thoughtful personality. His slightly tousled dark brown hair gives him a boyish charm, while his serene smile hints at the maturity and depth of his character.

The background of the artwork adds another layer of magic. A sparkling blue lake surrounded by vibrant foliage serves as the perfect setting for the duo’s playful moment. The cascading waterfalls in the distance add a sense of motion and life to the scene, while the soft, fluffy clouds overhead complete the picture of a serene, almost dreamlike world. It’s the kind of place that feels untouched by time, a sanctuary where love and friendship can flourish.

As I worked on this piece, I couldn’t help but reflect on the significance of this week in my country. It’s Autism Awareness Week, celebrated during the third week of January. The timing felt serendipitous because Arlon’s character is inspired by my own experiences with autism. He represents the quiet strength, resilience, and unique perspective that come with being autistic. And Liliana? She’s the friend, sister, and eventually, the lover that every person—autistic or not—dreams of having. She’s the one who sees beyond the surface, recognising Arlon’s true essence and standing by him through every challenge and triumph.

This artwork isn’t just about their story; it’s also a reflection of my journey as an artist and an individual. Creating characters like Arlon and Liliana allows me to explore and express my thoughts on relationships, identity, and the importance of acceptance. Through them, I can tell stories that resonate with others while also honouring my own experiences and values. By delving into their dynamics and emotions, I can delve deeper into my understanding of human connection and personal growth.

When I think about Arlon, I see a part of myself in him. His reserved nature and calm demeanour mirror my tendencies, while his quiet determination reflects the inner strength I’ve developed over the years. Drawing him is like looking into a mirror, not just to see myself but also to imagine the person I aspire to be. Liliana, on the other hand, represents the kind of person I hope to meet—or perhaps the kind of person I strive to become for others. She’s vibrant, compassionate, and unwaveringly supportive. Her cheerful smile and infectious energy remind me of the importance of kindness and optimism, even in the face of adversity.

As I worked on their poses and expressions, I wanted to capture the essence of their relationship. The way Liliana’s hand is clasped in Arlon’s, the way their smiles mirror each other—it’s all intentional. These small details speak volumes about their connection. They’re not just two individuals sharing a moment; they’re two halves of a whole, each bringing out the best in the other. The garden setting was a deliberate choice as well. To me, it symbolises growth, harmony, and the beauty of nature—qualities that are often associated with love and friendship. The vibrant colours and serene atmosphere create a sense of wonder and joy, reflecting the purity of their bond.

As an artist, I’ve always believed in the power of storytelling through visuals. Every stroke of colour, every line and curve, is a piece of the puzzle, contributing to the overall narrative. With this artwork, I wanted to tell a story that’s not just about Arlon and Liliana but also about the universal themes of love, acceptance, and the beauty of being different. In many ways, this piece feels like a celebration. It’s a celebration of childhood innocence, the magic of friendship, and the strength of love. It’s also a celebration of autism, not as a limitation but as a unique lens through which to view the world.

Looking at the finished artwork, I feel a sense of pride and fulfilment. It’s not perfect—no piece of art ever is—but it reflects my passion, my growth, and my commitment to telling meaningful stories. And knowing that it might resonate with others, even if only in a small way, makes it all the more rewarding. As I share this piece with the world, I hope it sparks joy and inspires reflection. I hope it reminds people of the beauty of diversity and the importance of embracing one another’s differences. And most of all, I hope it serves as a reminder that love, in all its forms, is worth celebrating.

Arlon and Liliana may be fictional characters, but their story is one that I believe in wholeheartedly. It’s a story of connection, understanding, and unwavering support—a story that I hope will continue to inspire and resonate with others for years to come. With this artwork, I’ve tried to capture not just a moment in time but also a feeling—a sense of warmth, joy, and possibility. And as I look ahead to future projects, I’m excited to see where Arlon and Liliana’s journey will take them next. For now, though, I’m content to let them enjoy their moment in the sun, hand in hand, surrounded by the beauty of the garden and the love they share.

[ropes3amthoughts]

Wow it’s 3am. I thought maybe I could share some 3am thoughts like my username but lowkey I am not thinking anything interesting at all. I’m thinking I’m hungry so I want to go to sleep so I can eat breakfast tomorrow (actually today because it’s 3am) but also I want to stay up and keep reading fanfic because lemme tell you chat I’ve been having an awesome time I recently started shipping something for real and I’m really enjoying reading in fanfics it makes me feel full of love and whimsy and joy and like woohoo I am having fun I haven’t felt like this in like a year and a half oh joyous times also tomorrow (which is still actually today) I want to shower because I think it would be nice to have a warm cleanly shower lord I’m surprised my body hasn’t given out because I eat bad and sleep bad like I ate a small dinner today and some chips as the only thing I ate today but that’s not my fault because I had school today and I can never really eat a proper breakfast or lunch when I have school there’s just no time at all and then my brother was watching a show with me after school so we were eating chips so I didn’t feel hungry when it was dinner then I just had some small leftovers and I honestly did not mean to stay up so late I’ll probably head to bed soon honestly bc the hunger and drowsiness are both setting in like a wicked double status effect combo thing blegh