#I think I’m probably not feeling movement yet as it’s still a bit early

[whentherewerebicycles]

[miedei]

terrible profilers

(aka the team meets early seasons!spence's not-so-secret girlfriend)

a/n: this came to me in my dream last night and i cannot get over it, pls send asks/requests and tell me what you thought!

cw: reader has she/her pronouns, the team is nosy, my niche personal headcanons of how i think spencer would text, probably more tech inaccuracies

wc: 3.5k

part one

(reblogs are the only way to promote fics on tumblr! please reblog if you enjoyed it :) )

mlist

The moment Spencer walks into the bullpen, he knows something’s up. Garcia never replied to the text he’d sent on Friday night, and he’d hoped she was just busy on their first weekend off in a while, but it’s clear there’s more. Clutching the strap of his satchel, he walks to his desk, observing the strange tension blanketing the room. For one, Hotch and Gideon are in the bullpen, standing in the corner speaking in hushed tones. Weird. They usually go to one of their offices to talk, and either way, they usually are stuck in their offices until lunchtime when they don’t have cases. Another thing. JJ and Penelope are standing around Elle’s desk, which isn’t out of the ordinary, but they’ve swivelled around to stare at Spencer like he’s an alien (which they do on occasion, but Spencer is pretty sure he hasn’t been strange yet. He just walked in!). Derek is sitting on Elle’s desk, leaning over to huddle with the three girls, but he’s frozen with his mouth open, like he just shut up for some reason.

“Uh… Good morning.” Spencer furrows his brows, but tries to shrug it off, more interested in the smell of coffee emanating from the kitchenette. Setting down his bag, he quickly busies himself with pouring his signature overly-sweet (according to you) coffee.

It’s like his movements snap a thread that has been holding his colleagues together, and they suddenly start bustling around the bullpen again. Derek sidles up beside him as he’s stirring in sugar, and Spencer braces himself for some Morgan-esque prod. But what he says has Spencer confused.

“Kid. You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Ok, something is going on. Spencer has worked with Derek since he was 22, and they’ve fallen into a very comfortable dynamic ever since. But neither of them have ever felt the need to reassure the other of their closeness.

“What’s up, Morgan? No jabs today?”

Derek stiffens, like he’s been caught in a lie, and scrambles to reply.

“Well… We- Um, Garcia worried about you on Friday. What was up with you leaving so suddenly?”

Spencer has to bite back a smile, memories of you, coming to ‘O Keefe’s just to see him, flooding into his mind. But he answers as smoothly as possible, still turned away from Derek as he elaborates.

“Oh, I felt a bit sick. I think it’s going back and forth from the more arid parts of the country that did it. Did you know, travelling between warmer and colder climates makes you more susceptible to contracting viruses because it strains your immune and musculoskeletal systems, causing the feedback loop of homeostasis to-” Derek puts a hand on his arm, and Spencer quiets.

“Okay, okay, pretty boy, I get it.”

With that, he walks off, and Spencer is left at the kitchenette, stirring his coffee, confused. It’s not like it was a lie, he was feeling a bit nauseous in the bar, so you insisted that you go home. He recovered that same night over a cup of tea, Metropolis on the television, and you cuddled up on the couch next to him.

When he walks back to his desk, mug in hand, he calls out to JJ, still standing by Elle’s desk.

“JJ, no cases today? …JJ?” The blonde is looking at him, but his words seem to fly right over her head, until Elle pokes her shoulder.

“Oh! No, the cases I’m being called about are still pending, we’re probably not leaving on anything until tomorrow.” Spencer smiles softly, glad to have at least one more night sleeping at home this week. Because of his reverie, he doesn’t notice the way JJ, Penelope and Elle are staring at him, befuddled expressions on their faces.

The day continues to be a little weird, much to Spencer’s chagrin. Around 1pm, Gideon emerges from his office again. This, already, is out of the blue. Gideon only leaves his office an average of 3.78 times a day, mainly to go to Hotch’s office, or to go home. This time, however, Gideon marches to Spencer’s desk.

Gideon comes to a stop next to Spencer’s desk chair, and it’s all he can do to muster a blank face and look into his mentor’s eyes.

“Hey, Gideon. What’s… What’s going on?”

The older man sighs wearily, looking down his nose at Spencer, looking uncannily like Spencer’s highschool Calculus teacher when she got irritated at him for being a ‘13 year old know-it-all’.

“Reid. You weren’t sick on Friday, were you?” What is happening? Spencer doesn’t lie, he’s never told Gideon something untrue, so this is incredibly out of the blue.

“Huh? No, what’s wrong? I felt nauseous, which could’ve been a symptom for an inner ear problem, inflammatory bowel disease, gastroenteritis…” Spencer continues to rattle off a list of things he could have had, not noticing the uncharacteristically soft, paternal gaze that Gideon has trained on him.

“...and even a brain tumour, but it was probably because I drank more than I usually do. Why do you think that’s not true?” Spencer finishes his little speech, looking up at Gideon with a confused expression. There’s nothing else the older man can do but sigh, patting his shoulder softly.

“Okay, Reid. Glad you’re feeling better now.” With that, the experienced profiler walks away, not bothering to reply to Spencer’s continued questioning:

“Gideon! What’s wrong? Why are you-” Gideon’s office door slams shut.

Unfortunately, Spencer cannot ignore the rest of the signs, spending the rest of the day in a state of coiled anxiety. Something is going on, but he can’t get anyone to tell him.

Derek and Elle are constantly glancing over at him, unreadable expressions on their faces. Penelope keeps finding excuses to go to Spencer’s desk, and even if Spencer wasn’t a profiler, he’d be able to see the words bubbling up in her throat, but she never says anything.

JJ doesn’t come talk to him at all, which is strange. Instead, she shoots him knowing looks whenever she’s in the bullpen, sending Spencer into a spiral every time she doesn’t say anything about why they’re all acting weird.

He’s even caught Hotch and Gideon peeking through the blinds over their office windows to look at Spencer, with the analytical looks they get when they’re observing a crime scene on their faces. It’s driving Spencer crazy, and he has to tell someone.

You’re leaving your desk at the university when your phone buzzes.

SPENCE <3: Hi. I looked normal when I left the house, right?

Your brow furrows at the text. Normally Spencer isn’t a fan of texting while he’s at work, and you’d told him multiple times how handsome he looked when he left the apartment this morning. He’s wearing his striped white button down and the purple tie you bought him for his birthday last year, he looks pretty. And you made sure to tell him so.

YOU: hi <3

YOU: no spence you look pretty i told you this morning didnt i?

SPENCE <3: You did, thank you. Everyone’s acting weird at work, and I can’t think of what it could be.

YOU: maybe its something with a case?

SPENCE <3: They would tell me if it was that, right?

YOU: ur right

YOU: if you cant think of it with that big beautiful brain its probably something to do with them

There’s a solid minute of silence before he texts you back, and you grin to yourself as you walk through the halls. You can see the flush growing over his face in your mind’s eye, the way he does every time you pay him a cheesy compliment.

SPENCE <3: I guess so. They won’t tell me anything about it, which is strange.

You frown a little, imagining his frustration at being out of the loop. Spencer has expressed his love for his coworkers to you many times, but he’s also told you about his struggles feeling like the ‘baby’ of the office, and the way it makes him feel isolated at times. Racking your brain to think of a way to cheer him up, you check the time on your watch (the twin of which is settled on Spencer’s wrist).

YOU: its nearly 6

YOU: if i leave my building now i can make it to your office in 30mins

YOU: i can pick you up and we could get thai for dinner

YOU: ?

The reply is instantaneous, and you smile, looking forward to seeing him earlier than you’d expected today.

SPENCE <3: That sounds great. I’m finishing up here but text me when you’re in the lobby and I’ll come down.

SPENCE <3: I need to go, I’ve been texting you from the bathroom.

SPENCE <3: See you soon :-)

The last half hour of Spencer’s workday flies by, unlike the way the clock had crawled previously. He finishes up the consults he was working on for the day, and begins packing up the moment the clock hits 18:27.

Derek and Elle are still sneaking glances at him, but Spencer couldn’t care less at this point. As he closes the flap of his satchel, his phone buzzes in his breast pocket. He can’t help but whip out his phone immediately, missing the bewildered looks that pass between his fellow profilers as he smiles down at the screen.

Y/N L/N: in the lobby now! i forgot how fancy it is here i feel underdressed

He doesn’t bother replying, instead opting to leave the bullpen through the glass doors, nodding at Derek and Elle, and pressing the elevator button immediately. He’s so engrossed in his thoughts as he stares at the closed doors, that he realises far too late what’s happening behind him.

He can hear the sounds of shuffling feet, a squeak of surprise (Penelope), hissed insult (Elle to Derek), and a firm clearing of a throat. Hotch. After sighing petulantly, Spencer turns on his heels to find the entire BAU team standing there, faces just as confusing as they’ve been all day.

“I’d ask you what’s wrong, but none of you gave me an answer the last 23 times I asked, so.”

There’s a beat of silence, before Hotch, of all people, says, “Reid, we need to… ask you something. About last Friday.” That’s strange. Spencer cocks his head in confusion.

“What about it? I already told Morgan and Gideon, I was feeling sick, but it turns out it was just that I’d just drank more than I was used to.”

Penelope looks like she’s about to burst, and finally, she blurts it out, voice slightly shrill. “Reid! Who is she?”

“Who is who?”

Derek butts in, a hand on Penelope’s shoulder. “Kid, that girl. The girl you were… close to, on Friday. At the bar?” Oh. That’s what they’re talking about?

“That was Y/N. My girlfriend. Are you mad I didn’t introduce you guys? I thought you were all busy.”

Spencer sees six sets of jaws drop. There’s more silence, before JJ croaks out, “Girlfriend?”

It’s a bit of a sight, to be honest. Penelope has clutched on to Derek, and Derek on to Elle. JJ is gobsmacked, eyes bulging out of their sockets. Even Hotch and Gideon look the most shocked Spencer has ever seen them. But why?

“Uh, yeah. She came to see me because we’d had plans before we decided to go out. Then when she found out I felt sick we went home.”

Gideon looks a little green, and when no one makes a sound, Hotch speaks, his normally stoic voice coming out a little shaky. “Reid, we didn't- We didn’t know you were seeing anybody.”

What? Now they’re being even weirder. Spencer can hear the elevator doors open behind him, but he doesn’t bother. This is something he has to get to the bottom of.

“How did you not know? I’m sure I’ve mentioned having plans with her multiple times. Elle, I told you about the time I went to the movies in New York with her, when we were on that case.” Elle looks more shocked, if that’s possible, but doesn’t say a word.

“Garcia, I asked you to help me find florists that have Gibraltar campions in Vegas that one time.” Penelope jolts, muttering under her breath about ‘idiot geniuses and their mothers’.

“Gideon, I asked you for advice on how to ask her out!” Gideon stiffens, remembering the time Spencer had asked him about his ex-wife. Was that Spencer asking for advice?

“I ran into you, JJ and Morgan, when I was with her, don’t you remember? She was in the aisle over” Derek distinctly remembers a time at the bookstore, they’d seen Spencer, but not noticed anyone with him. JJ shamefully recalls being too busy making fun of Spencer’s heart-studded tie to look around.

“Hotch, I told you about her! When I added her to my emergency contacts?” At this, Hotch pales. A year ago, Spencer had come to him with a request to change his 1st emergency contact from his mother to a Y/N L/N. How he never registered that this was a girlfriend, Hotch would never know, but he stares fixedly at his shoes as he contemplates quitting his job as a profiler.

Spencer looks at them, mystified. How did they not know? It’s not like he was ever hiding you! Of course, Spencer wanted to keep you to himself, so he didn’t talk about you that much, but they were profilers. He assumed they’d known, and just didn't want to embarrass him.

His phone buzzes twice, and he pulls it out to see another text from you.

Y/N L/N: spence are you coming

Y/N L/N: a guy in a suit is eyeing me weird he knows i dont belong come save me

A happy sigh leaves him, before he remembers the people standing in front of him, still gobsmacked. He scrubs a hand down his face wearily, and mutters slowly, as if he’s not sure if he wants to do this.

“She’s downstairs right now, we were going to take the metro home together. Do you… Do you guys want to meet her?” Penelope brightens up, and the rest of the team seem in higher spirits, despite their continued disappointment in themselves. Warily, Spencer opens the elevator door with a press of a button, and they all file in obediently.

“Please don’t be weird.”

“My good doctor, I would never!” He eyes Garcia with a fearful expression, but presses the ground floor button anyway. As the doors close, a strangled shout leaves JJ’s mouth.

“Wait, you live together?”

You are sitting on a bench inside the FBI Headquarters. No matter how many times you drop Spencer off or pick him up, this will always be surreal to you. And, right now, it’s not just surreal, it’s a little scary.

A real Danny Ocean type guy is sitting on a bench across the room, talking on the phone and eyeing you. Clearly, you don’t exactly look like an agent, you know that. Dressed in the uniform of a PhD student, jeans and an oversized Doctor Who t-shirt (Spencer’s), you know that you look out of place.

You’re just hoping Spencer walks out of the elevator before you get escorted out on suspicions that you’re a spy or something.

Like some deity has heard your words, you look up at the ding of the elevator to see Spencer… and a whole gaggle of people behind him, slapping at his shoulders and barraging him with questions. He looks harried, a line between his pretty eyes.

The line disappears, though, when he locks eyes with you. His eyes light up, and his steps grow in length, before he's left his entourage behind, at least for a couple of seconds.

He uses this time to explain to you: “Hi hello I'm so glad you're here and I need to tell you something-” As if on instinct, your hands come up to rest on his upper arms, thumbs moving in circles soothingly as he continues to ramble.

“-and well, they didn't know about you somehow? Which is crazy to me because you know I don't hide you so I don't know where they got that from but either way they were acting crazy, so I suggested they come meet you, and…” The group of people you now recognize to be the BAU have caught up to him, eyes darting between your face and Spencer's. His shoulders slump, and the agitated look returns, if a little less intense.

“Well, here they are.” He motions to the group behind him. “These are my coworkers, Jennifer Jareau, Elle Greenaway, Penelope Garcia, Aaron Hotchner, Jason Gideon, and Derek Morgan. Guys, this is my girlfriend, Y/N.”

Rising on your toes to see over his shoulder, you wave with a smile, eyes zeroing in on Penelope Garcia, who looks like she's vibrating from excitement, shouldering past Spencer to hold both of your hands.

“Hi! It's so good to meet you! I'd say I've heard a lot about you, but you know that's a lie, we didn't realize you existed until 10 minutes ago, but oh my god! You're here! You're so pretty- Spencer, she's so pretty!” She's practically bouncing up and down, causing Spencer to laugh sheepishly.

“Yeah, Garcia, I know that.” The next few minutes are a barrage of introductions and handshakes, all so brief that you can only get quick first impressions of them all.

Penelope is incredibly kind, not letting go of your hands until Spencer pries her off of you, telling you that you have to come out on girl's night with us, exactly like Spencer described her.

Elle is nearly intimidatingly cool, giving you a handshake and a smile, mentioning that she likes your eyeliner.

Aaron (Hotch? You're not sure how to refer to him) is nowhere near as stoic and intimidating as Spencer makes him out to be, breaking into a smile as he introduces himself, and grinning even wider when you congratulate him and his wife on their newborn child.

JJ is the sweetest. You've heard a lot about Spencer's best friend, and she lives up to expectations, squeezing you into a chaste hug with warm words.

Gideon is a little terrifying. He gives you a handshake, quirking the side of his lips in what you assume to be a smile, but saying very little beyond an introduction. You know how highly Spencer thinks of him, and hope he will warm up to you (Spencer is over the moon that he smiled, and tells you Gideon loved you later that night).

Derek is exactly how you expected him to be. Somehow, he makes you feel wholly comfortable after a single comment, and promises to regale you with all the Spencer stories you'd want (you see him punch Spencer in the arm, grinning and saying he approved).

Spencer pulls you away from them as quick as he can, citing your dinner plans as an excuse. He slings an arm around your waist, leading you out the door as you wave over your shoulder.

“It was great to meet you guys! We should go out to dinner or something!” You hear mixed shouts of agreement from behind you, before the doors shut and it's just you and Spencer, on the sidewalk outside the building.

It's butterfly-inducing, the way you can see the tension leave his shoulders when he turns to look down at you, brown eyes shining.

“I'm sorry that was so last-minute, I know they can be… a lot.” You giggle at the weariness in his tone, resting your forearms on his shoulders.

“They were really nice, Spence. I'm glad to finally meet them. They didn't know who I was?” He sighs, hands tightening slightly on your waist.

“I don't know what goes on with them half the time. I've told them things about you so many times, but they were just being dense, I suppose. They saw us on Friday, at ‘O Keefe’s, and they had no idea I was seeing someone!” He bends to rest his forehead in the crook of your neck with a sigh. As if on instinct, your hands come up to play with his hair.

“I guess they would have found it a little strange that you acted like nothing had changed, huh? Is that why they were being weird today?” He grumbles unintelligible words into your skin, before raising his head to look at you.

“I guess… You know I wasn't hiding you, right? I really thought they knew about you,” The earnestness on his face makes you want to implode, his thumbs rubbing minutely on your waist. Speaking would pop the bubble you've found yourselves in, so you find the best next option for you to show him your assertion.

Your hands roam up his neck to cup either side of his jaw, and slow, slow, slowly, you rise to your toes and kiss him.

Suddenly, Spencer's not worried anymore.

[letters-with-notes]

WOOYOUNG - PEACEFUL MORNING

💌 GROUP: Ateez 💌 GENRE: morning fluff & childish banters 💌 WORDS: 0.9k 💌 SUMMARY: You appreciate the sight of your quietly sleeping boyfriend, your boyfriend appreciates you with kisses.

A/N: my own work reposted, because this is still one of my favorite fics :')

The sun is already high up in the sky by the time you finally feel yourself waking up. The past days have been exhausting enough for the both of you to insert a long sleep-in time in your busy schedules, so that’s what you did.

Slowly opening your eyes and turning your head to the side, you can see Wooyoung still asleep, soft puffs of breath leaving his slightly parted lips. It’s rare that you wake up before him, so you don’t always have the opportunity to observe his serene face, and an interesting thought pops into your head, making you giggle. You feel warmth bubbling up in your heart along with your giggles, making a pleasant, comforting heat spread through your body that you can only recognize as your love for him. With a soft smile on your lips, you free one hand from under the cover and raise it to brush a stray strand of hair out of his face.

He probably wasn’t sleeping deeply anymore, because your touch unintentionally wakes him up and you can see him make a small frown along with a little noise, signaling that he doesn’t want to wake up just yet. You still your movements, giving him a chance to fall back asleep, but maybe because he sensed your fingers in his hair, he ends up opening his eyes.

The first question coming out of his mouth is, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

That’s when you realize that maybe it wasn’t your touch but your stare that disturbed his sleep, but there’s nothing you can do about it now. 

"You're just so quiet when you're asleep," you tell him, sharing the thought with the same loving smile that bloomed on your face when it first popped into your mind.

However, the sleepy look he’s giving you is still somewhat confused. "Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

You consider this for a moment and you suppose that he’s right, usually this would be the timing for a compliment. A compliment that’s just a simple observation, an objective fact that still portrays how much you love him. And even though that’s exactly what you’ve just said, you decide to go the extra mile for him and kindly add, "Yes, of course it’s a compliment, you actually looked angelic for once."

"So you're saying I’m usually not angelic?" Wooyoung asks immediately, looking a lot more awake than a moment ago.

"No, you're usually an annoying little devil," you grin, to which you get a high-pitched, offended scream,

"Excuse me?!"

You cringe a bit at the loud noise so close to your ears and sigh, "See, you just woke up but you're already yelling and arguing with me…"

"You started it!" he yells again, sitting up and getting ready to defend his honor at all costs.

You, on the other hand, are not as energetic to deal with this at the early hour of 11 in the morning, so you do the only thing that you’re able to do to make him quiet with the least effort. You put your hand over his mouth. 

"Shush, that doesn't matter, just shut up for a second and enjoy the morning."

Unfortunately, he’s not about to back down so easily and let you win the argument. If you think that just because you have your palm pressed over his mouth, he will stop complaining, you’re wrong. His reaction is immediate, and before you even realize that putting your hand to his mouth can be a double-edged sword, he’s already licked your palm.

You snatch your hand away fast as lighting, and wipe it on his pajama shirt, disgusted. "Ew, now I have your saliva on me…"

"Really…?" He looks at you with a raised brow, questioning if this is really how you want to play, and the next thing you know, he presses you into the mattress as he hovers over you and kisses you all over your face with wet, loud smooches. He makes sure that he leaves no spot unkissed and to make the kiss extra loud when he’s close to your ears for good measure. And even though it’s annoying, his lips tickling your skin and the silliness of the situation makes you unable to stop laughing.

You laugh until your stomach hurts and you're out of breath so you can’t anymore. Wooyoung notices it too and presses one last - this time a soft - kiss to your forehead before he pulls away.

You shake your head fondly when your eyes meet and you link your hands together behind his neck, then sigh, "Can't you just kiss me like a normal person?"

"You want me to kiss you?" His voice is teasing, so is his smile, and you can definitely tell that he expects you to get embarrassed and deny it, so then you would have another round of childish arguments. However, you somehow don’t want to do that right now. Maybe all the laughing cleared out your usual embarrassment to be honest with your feelings, because now you find it easy to look into his eyes and just nod, even if you can feel your face get a little warmer.

"So now it doesn't bother you that you're gonna have my saliva on you, huh?"

You roll your eyes and tug him down until he reaches you. "Just shut up and kiss me."

He lets you pull him in, probably because he wants to kiss you just as much as you do, but he still bites your lip because he wouldn’t want you to have the last word without consequences. You don’t really mind, though. It’s easy to let everything go as your lips move together, and you can feel that no matter how many childish arguments you have with each other, you could never mistake how much you truly love each other.

It’s just another peaceful morning in the relationship between you and Jung Wooyoung.

[growup-thatbeautiful]

Can I get asking gym crush!Dave Lizewski to spot you and needing his help. I think that could spark a beautiful romance

a:n: yes of course!! if anyone wants more of this idea definitely give me any thoughts. college aged dave :)

It's embarrassing. You don't even know his name, and you've never once talked to him. Sometimes he comes in with his friends- two of them- but you haven't caught any information about him besides his frankly impressive workout routine. And it's not like you see him a lot; he comes here way less than you. Yet somehow he seems to be stronger than most other regulars at the gym.

It’s probably for the best that you don’t see him a lot, though. Because when he is there, you find it hard to focus on anything except for him. Everywhere you look he seems to be there in the corner of your eye or in the glimpse of the mirrored wall.

It's unfair, really. No one should be able to look that good while covered in sweat, his curls sticking up in every direction and matted to the back of his neck. The compression shirt that he's wearing is dark with sweat, but his expression doesn't look fazed at all.

Today, though, you're determined for it to be different. You have a few more reps you want to do at the machine, then your plan is to go to the bar and do squats. Then you have your usual cool-down mile and stretching routine. Distractions don't fit into your schedule, especially because you’re already bone-tired today.

You do the last rep, timing your breath in and out to your movement. There's a pleasant, constant tiredness in your legs that you’ve come to love, and the music blasting in your ears pushes you towards your next exercise.

Luckily, the bar is open and you’re able to start your set right away. Maybe it's because you're still a little bit sore from your last leg day, or maybe you're just not feeling it today, but it feels harder than usual. By the third set, your legs are shaking much more than usual and you’re having trouble getting through the reps.

It’s definitely not your smartest decision ever to keep going, but you really don’t to stop early. Some part of you thinks that you can just push through and make it; the reasonable part of you is saying that you’re going to need someone to spot you.

Looking around, you don’t see anyone you know- no friends or friends of a friend. It’s relatively empty for the time of day, but you need to ask someone to spot you.

And in the opposite corner of the gym, there he is. He’s not doing any reps, and from the way he’s checking his phone you don’t think that he’s in the middle of any.

You try to tell yourself that everyone else is busy and he’s the only option, but you know it’s not true. Even if he was busy, you would wait for him to finish and ask him anyways. There’s no telling when you’re going to have another opportunity like this to talk to him- at least you have an excuse to go up to him.

If your legs weren’t already shaking, they are as you walk over towards him. It’s a sin, for him to look at good as he does without really doing anything at all. Your own music blasting through one of your dangling earbuds isn’t enough to calm your nerves. He’s wearing headphones too, so he can’t hear you coming, and he seems immersed in whatever he’s doing, so you stand there awkwardly while he finishes. When he looks up at you, a smile makes its way across his face, and he holds out his hand for you to shake it, not caring about the obvious sweat.

You tell him your name and shake him hand, your stomach doing flips the whole time.

He, in turn, introduces himself. “I’m Dave. Do you need something?” He says it with a pleasant tone, but he must think that he’s been rude because he backtracks immediately. “Shit, that sounded rude, sorry. I just- people don’t usually come up to me.”

“It’s okay,” you assure him with a laugh. “I actually wanted to ask you if you could spot me. I only have a few sets left.”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” He looks genuinely excited at your request, and he dutifully follows you to your rack.

You take a deep breath and look at the weights waiting for you. The soreness in your body seems worse now that he’s there standing behind you, his hands clasped behind his back. When you take another breath, it sounds a lot like a sigh. You’re thrilled that he’s willing to help you, but you don’t want him to think you’re weak.

“Hey, you got this,” he says lowly. “I’ve seen you do this a million times before, it’s just another rep, yeah?”

You don’t have the brainpower to think about him saying he’s seen you do this before because all of your thoughts go to his hand on your back, gently urging your forward towards the bar. He doesn’t say anything more, but the message is received.

You step underneath the bar and stand up straight, the bar’s weight settling into your shoulders. You can’t see Dave behind you, but you can feel the heat of his hands underneath your arms as he supports you.

You breathe in. Go down.

Breathe out. Push yourself up.

Do it again. And again 8 more times before stepping forward to rerack the weights.

When you turn around, Dave is looking up at the ceiling, his hands straight down at his sides. You fix your hair and pause your music before taking a sip of water.

“Dave?” you ask. “You can look at me, you know.”

“I didn’t want you to think that I was checking you out,” he explains while he brings his eyes to yours. “M’not gonna be that guy.”

“I appreciate it,” you respond, your heart warming at the sentiment. “Really, I do. But I wouldn’t mind you looking.” It’s not exactly the most subtle hint you’ve ever given a guy, but something tells you that subtle isn’t the right approach with Dave.

“What?” He really looks clueless as to what you’re talking about, his head tilted to the side. Your brain helpfully supplies you with “puppy dog.”

Too subtle, then. “Do you want to get coffee after this?” You’re positive that your smile is uncertain and crooked.

“Me?” he asks.

“Yes, you,” you laugh. “Look, I know you don’t know me, but I’d like to get to know you.”

“I’d like that, too.” The grin on his face is wide and full, bringing light and laugh lines to his eyes. You haven’t seen this smile from him yet, which is probably a good thing because it has a dangerous effect on you. “You have another set left,” he informs you. “So why don’t we finish that up and go get coffee after?”

“Sounds like a plan,” you agree, stepping back underneath the bar, a renewed vigor in your legs. That vigor, of course, goes away when you actually start the last set.

You do the first five without an issue, but you start struggling more with the sixth. By the eighth rep, you’re face is twisted with effort and you can barely get back up.

Dave doesn’t say anything, but you know he’s there. And his presence is fully reassured to you when he mutters close to your ear, “Come on, just a few more. I’m right here.”

He has to help you with the last rep, his arms supporting you underneath your armpits as he takes some of the weight off and helps you get back the the rack. It forces him much closer to you than before, and you can feel his heart racing against your back. You know yours is beating just as fast.

“Thank you,” you tell him, a little bit out of breath still. “You’re a live-saver.”

A funny look comes across his face at that, but it clears away in a blink. “Anytime.”

“How about that coffee?” you ask, grabbing your keys and water before shooting a quick text to your friends so they know where you’re going. Then, holding out your hand, you say, “It’s the least I can do.”

He takes your hand in between his own, leading you towards his own pile of things. “I know a good place around here.”

“Lead the way,” you tell him.

Maybe asking for his help wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

[thefandomsfervent]

Viktor x Reader Personal Pigments (Part 7) - Oro Scuro

IT'S HAPPENING, SLOW BURN INITIATED Find my imagine that inspired it here. Previous and next chapter will be linked at the bottom. Thank you for reading <3

╔═*✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧-✦-✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧*═╗

It's early when Jayce walks into the lab. The familiar sight of Viktor reading and a new compilation of notes for him to look over, settled on his chair. What's less familiar is you. Your hand dangling off the work table, head buried under your other arm. It didn’t look comfortable to sleep that way.  He would know.  On the rare occasions he pulled an all-nighter now, Viktor would wake him from that exact position. His neck and shoulders berating his every movement for hours after.

"What happened there?" He whispers to his partner. Viktor glances at him, then you. 

"She came back after you left." He didn't offer Jayce any more than that.

"Is she… okay?" He's taking in your desk. “Was that one of their burners?” The puzzled look on his face deepens, his mouth opening to ask more questions. But Viktor beats him to speaking.

"Probably, seemed like she had a lot to think about.  Came to work it out her own way I suppose." Viktor didn't share that he had moved your items for you after he was sure you had fallen asleep. You had adjusted several times over the twilight hours. You almost knocked over your beetle paint. Paint? Not paint yet? He might ask you more about it later. 

For now he just waited and read. Jayce was here, which meant that he would be forced to get some shut-eye himself. He's walked over to Viktor, large hands taking the book out of his own.

"You know the drill V." He’s still whispering.

"Yes, yes, no life changing discoveries without sleep." The sarcasm in his voice isn't there full force this morning. Hard to maintain sincere indifference with a yawn elongating his words. Viktor moves to stand, his knees popping with the effort. Jayce waits at his side, moving when he’s waved off. “I’m not an old man, Jayce.” 

“But you’re so grumpy.” The retort is laced with humor. Jayce puts both his hands up towards his chest, palms facing out, saying “sorry” in his gesture immediately. Viktor scoffs, walking over towards you. “You’re waking her up?” Jayce’s eyes were slowly widening with surprise.

“Oh, so I am the only one who has to leave?” Amber gaze narrowing at his friend.

“No, I just,” his golden hands moving to scratch his neck. 

“You are too easy to fluster.” This time it is Jayce who huffs in disapproval. The smile on Viktor’s face diffusing him instantly. He reaches down to wake you.

You feel a hand on your shoulder, it’s warm. You don't move. Savoring the heat that fills the spot there, as if it could warm all of you if you stayed still long enough. You feel yourself sinking back into sleep when it starts to move.  The hand pushing and pulling on you forcing you to rush towards consciousness. A grumble escapes you in response. The hand leaves and your grumble shifts to a disapproving hum. You open your eyes, light a bit too bright for your taste. Blinking blearily to adjust.

"You should go to bed" a familiar accented voice greets your ears.

“Viktor?” Your voice was thick with sleep, a slight rasp to it. His heart jumped to his throat. 

“Oh, this is new.” some part of him whispers, acknowledging the tug. When was the last time someone called his name like that? It felt tender, intimate even. Which is ridiculous because there was nothing abnormal about the situation. In fact, he and Jayce have both woken each other in the lab. Many times. He’s seen the sun shine on his partner’s golden skin and appreciated the glow he saw there before it was swallowed by black-brown hair. But something was different. What was different?

Has he noticed the dust before? The way it filters slowly in the still air of the lab. Weaving around the push and pull of someone’s breath? Swirling and settling. He’s getting a headache. 

“Did I,-” You're sitting up now.  “Did I fall asleep here?” You sound confused.

"You do not remember?" He tries not to look at you, at your sleep-addled movements. He is ignoring the way you have flattened your hair on one side. Ignoring this weird guilt and shame that's building in his gut. Like he's done something wrong for seeing you in this vulnerable state.  He glances at Jayce instead. "You poured your beetle juice into a filter and laid on the table." Jayce’s brows raise in question at that.

"They weren't beetles." You're stretching when you reply, it forces a yawn out of you. He catches the flinch when you realize that your range of movement is limited.  

"Yes, well. Beetle juice. Not beetle juice. You should lay down in bed.” He’s tilting his head when he looks at you. “Or is the table more comfortable for you?” You don’t miss the smirk there. You give a wordless reply, a simple hum as you stand. The joints in your body barking at you for your decisions. Twice now you’ve slept in an illy padded chair. 

He gives you space to move, watching as you make your way to the doors of the lab. “I’ll see you both later then.” Another yawn and you were gone. He’s turning back to his own seat, grabbing his cane when Jayce speaks.

“Beetle juice?” 

“She is making paint from bugs.” A factual statement said plainly does not take the absurdity of it out of the idea. He knows that. But it is funnier to watch Jayce be confused. 

“Bug paint.” 

“Yes.” 

“In our lab.”

“Yes.”

He knows when Viktor is trying to rile him up, he sulks anyway. Shoulders lowering in a temporary defeat. “Tea today. When you get back. Please?” 

“Tea does sound nice.” 

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The trek back to your room is a slow one. It’s early enough that not too many people see your disheveled state. You’re attempting to wipe dried drool from the corner of your mouth when you get to the door. Normally, you’d feel embarrassed. But you were too sore to really care. Your neck hurt, your back hurt, something in your left shoulder felt off. 

A mirror in your entryway shows dark circles under your eyes and your hair is a mess. Your clothes weren’t overly wrinkled yet they definitely could not be worn again today. Peeling them off as you walk to your bed, you nearly trip over the chair you left lying on the floor. You’ve got a sock in your hand when you move the chair back to its position. You were going to sleep. For a long time. The pigment could wait. It would take days to dry without a dehydrator anyway. 

You fall against your mattress, crawling your way under the covers. The ache in your left spine is soothed by laying flat, your neck is loving the soft pillow beneath it. You go to rub your shoulder, it’s still tense. Your palm is warm on the skin, working into the flesh slowly. 

Warmth, you had woken to warmth. And it hadn’t scared you.

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Viktor’s room was moved closer to the lab months ago, as was Jayce’s. He only needed to walk a few doors down. There’s the usual ache in his right leg, the same tightness in his shoulders from hunching. His right palm is buzzing, not residual pressure from his cane. But from you. The headache that started earlier was throbbing behind his eyes.

After you had well and truly fallen asleep, he had turned some of the lights off. They usually kept the lab naturally lit, so once the sun was down they had little light to work off of. You preferred the lights on, to help you see your drawings. Jayce did not mind the change, he had been getting on Viktor for weeks about straining his eyes. 

He was tired. Unusually tired. And it did not help that your voice kept echoing in his head. “Viktor?” He sneered at the mental sound. Barely had opened your eyes and you called his name. 

“Viktor?” Your voice was soft. Softer than it had been when you thanked him, for listening. “Unintentional”, he tells himself. You had been tired. He was tired. 

He needed to sleep, a couple hours, just enough to get moving. Then he would grab tea for the three of you and get back to work. No confusing thoughts to haunt him. He was simply tired, and unused to your presence. Yes, that was it. He lays down on the couch, not bothering to change or even go to his bed. Viktor’s closing his eyes, letting the dull buzzing dissipate. He lets the annoyance move through his body, out through his limbs, and he settles. Your voice not echoing, not a bug in his ear. Not helping him sleep.

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--------------.·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ Part 6-.-Part 8.·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .----------------

------------‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊ ♡ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙· Master Fic List *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ♡ ‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊--------------

[cyten0]

A Symphony In Crimson

Act 1: A Movement in Black

Chapter 17

… You can’t sleep. Still worrying about Sif. They're alone right now, dealing with… whatever is happening to them. Crab. You wish you had stuck it out a little longer, saw if you couldn’t get through to them. Helped them, somehow. It’s tearing you up inside, thinking about it.

You tried sleeping, and ended up with a nightmare. Sif crying blood, as something rips them apart from the inside. Crab. Nightmares aren't usually that close to reality. Guess your brain couldn't come up with anything worse.

Maybe you need some fresh air. You quietly get out of bed, so not to wake the others. And head out- Huh?!!!

You’re greeted with a message written in blood right outside the door!!!

I am sorry.

The king will be dead by morning.

My final act.

Farewell.

Oh. Oh No. Crab NO.

▲ “Everyone wake up! We have to go, NOW!!!”

✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸

You’re resting at the tree. You don’t need sleep, but your mind still wants it. At least rest. Trying to process this. Trying to figure out what to do now. You haven't even checked on Stardust. Why bother? They won’t want your help anyways. Not anymore.

You don’t feel bad about doing it. Never did. But blind it all. They shouldn’t have had to know. Not yet. Not till it was over.

You’re awoken from your musings by a familiar voice, approaching the tree.

▲ “Sif?! SIF?!!! Where are you!!!!”

The fighter? Up this early? They look desperate.

✸ “Oh my, What has dear Stardust done now?”

▲ “H-Huh?!? Who’s that?!”

You shift yourself outside your realm, right in front of them.

✸ “A friendly helper of our local white cloaked Traveler~”

▲ “W-What the!... Wait really?!?”

✸ “Of course! Was quite frankly made for that purpose~”

You take off your mask, briefly, showing the fighter your face. He seems surprised! You suppose wearing the same face as stardust has SOME perks! No need to spend time convincing them of your relationship~

✸ “With that in mind, I assume they’ve gotten into some extra trouble, if you're searching so frantically!”

▲ “I-! He left a note, outside our room and-!”

✸ “Oh? Let me see really quick~”

You shift your otherworldly eyes towards the clocktower… Oh. That. Is not good.

✸ “Oh dear, quite dramatic of them! They’re probably already at the house then~”

▲ “Crab, I thought so. I better get the others. We have to do something.”

You can’t sit idly by at this point. It’s all coming to a head! And if Stardust's mental state is this bad, the house might be...

✸ “Allow me to help! I’ll round up the others quickly, and I’ll help guide you through the house. You’re going to need it~”

▲ “Alright, I’ll start heading over!”

You suddenly have an idea. Yes, This could change things.

✸ “...Actually, could you do something first? Something that might give us an edge~”

▲ “Huh?”

✸ “You want to save Stardust, right? With all your heart?”

They look at you. And nod.

✸ “In that case, Let me teach you a ritual! To make the favor tree help grant that wish…”

◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉

You’ve been searching around for a bit when the strange person showed up, and told you where they are. So now, You’re just waiting for the others. Oh, Siffrin…

You can’t leave them to do this. Can't leave them alone. Not when they're going to risk their life for you all…

Oh! There they all are!

◉ “O-Okay! We’re all here! It’s… Earlier then expected, but we were planning to fight through the house anyways!”

✸ “I’m going to stop you there, dear housemaiden~ Don’t be expecting this to be ANYTHING like what you were preparing for!”

◆ “What does that mean?”

✸ “Stardust's unique nature can do quite a bunch! They've likely reshaped the entire house! Even worse, there's some extra timecraft thrown into the mix~”

▲ “More timecraft? Did the king do something to them?”

✸ “Nope! I will explain as we go, but Stardust has done this day a few times now~ But during those attempts, they made some changes to the sadnesses”

Changes? Siffrin can change a sadness?

✿ “Wait… Is that why that sadness before was movin funny?”

✸ “Very observant, Kid! Yes, stardust can control any living thing he puts a piece of himself inside, like a living virus~”

◆ “Should we be worried about infection?”

✸ “Oh no, don’t worry, you don't! I honestly don't think they will, not even a reason to bother! Besides, It's a fairly obvious transfer, and easy to clear out, at least early on~ Honestly a bit of Pineapple juice works just fine, and the Kid has plenty!”

✿ “...Why pineapple?”

✸ “Stardust is Allergic!”

✿ “Oh okay!…. Crab, that means I can’t make pineapple stuff for them.”

Hehe, kind of relieving a little to hear such a normal answer to something scary like this! Just allergies! Helps remind you this is still Siffrin…

Feels bad, thinking about that? You've barely seen anything, and you're still struggling with all this.

✸ “Regardless, the problem is control isn’t all they can do~ If they just eat the sadnesses for strength, we should be fine. But if they changed them further, put them fully under his influence… be prepared for this house to be far, FAR more horrifying~”

Okay, so you’ve read enough horror stories to get the idea. Kind of a zombie hivemind thing? Um.

◉ “I-I mean! If Siffrin’s controlling them, we should be fine! They’d never hurt us!”

Right? They shouted a bit yesterday, and got upset, but never actually hurt?

✸ “Yes, that was the reason they infected the sadnesses in the first place~ But they ARE still sadnesses, and stardust’s not consciously controlling them right now… So, keep on your toes?”

◆ “...The warning is welcome, thank you… I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name?”

✸ “Call me Loop! It’s not a very creative title, as you’ll find out, but it’s what I have!”

You nod. And head towards the Houses gate. It’s been closed behind itself, but not locked. You use a little craft to activate opening systems for the massive door and…

…You stare down the corridor. The walls are darkened with the King’s curse, yet living flesh seems to creep through the cracks of the stone, growing out of it like mold, yet beating like a heart. You see eyes stare out at you from the growths, looking around erratically but with the majority focused directly at you all, staring you down. The air seems to shudder within, with a rhythm you can feel but not hear.

You feel the others shaking. Even you need to take a second and steady yourself. But. You can’t afford to hesitate. You HAVE to press on.

◉ “… Let’s go. We can do this.”

The others steel themselves, and you march in.

… The strange growths continue, all the way inside. The eyes follow your movements, and it kind of makes you worry a little. But then… You hear singing?

You look for the source of the sound. And see something moving up ahead, in the darkness.

✸ “Looks like I was right. Get ready everyone.”

The creature starts shuffling towards you. As it approaches you can see it more clearly.

It looks like a sadness at first. But… There is a pale white mask, fused onto it’s face. The openings for it’s eyes are a lightless void. And it’s body… dark tendrils seem to peek out from it’s edges, it’s limbs seem skinned the way flesh has fused itself onto it’s liquid body, it’s hands are formed into cutting blades of bone and sinew, and it moves like it’s being picked up by invisible strings.

Yet it doesn’t stop singing. A perfect, unnatural voice, rings out from it's body in time to the unheard rhythm you feel in the air.

You ready your rapier. The others follow suit.

You charge forwards, piercing it’s heart, and filling it with craft power. You watch as it barely flinches, even as the injury rips it apart. You back off, as it takes a swing towards you. It’s blow cracks the ground as it hits, but Isa takes the opening to knock it off it’s feet. It falls to the ground, unmoving for a few seconds. But then lifts off the ground, and it’s body twists around towards him. Odile then fires off a paper craft to blast it into the wall.

◆ “Please let that be it.”

You watch as it doesn’t move for a bit.

Before it suddenly raises it’s head and charges at you all like a feral beast! It’s so fast, you don’t have time to-

BANG

A hole pierces through the creature's mask, and it stops dead, before dissolving into water and blood.

You turn, and see Bonnie holding a strange device.

✿ “… Eyes glowed funny whenever it got up. Gotta be a weak spot.”

◆ “...Huh. Good eye, Boniface. But also, more importantly. What was that?”

✿ “Oh, yeah, Frin gave it to me. Said it’s a craft revolver. I wanted to help fight, so...”

▲ “Huh. Sif gave you that huh?”

✸ “That they did. You’re a good shot, Kid.”

✿ “H-Huh!? No, I… I hit Frin last time I used it. I didn’t wanna use it but…”

✸ “You only did that because you were scared!… Look, you might not know it, but you have a very good track record! You once went through the entire house without ever missing a single shot~”

✿ “Huh? What’s that mean?”

✸ “Like I said, Timecraft~ This day has happened a few times!”

Bonnie looks at the craft revolver.

You look at the stain where the sadness was. You've read a lot of horror stories but. It's usually just walking dead, or ghosts, or serial killers. This... This is way beyond anything you could have come up with on your own...

◉ “S-Sorry to change topics but… Did Siffrin… Really do that? Did they make that... thing?”

✸ “Yes~ I hope you’ve gotten used to it! There’s almost CERTAINLY more where that came from!”

▲ “Well, at least we know their weakness. Hit them in the face!”

✸ “Fire would also probably work. Stardust had that fear for a reason, after all!”

◆ “Not that we have much access to that right now. But worth knowing, I suppose.”

You nod. Alright. You have a plan! So. Let’s keep moving.

You go a little further, and- Wait, something’s moving above you!

A sadness drops down next you you, and starts to make a swing!

…? It. Stops. Inches from your face.

It stumbles backwards, and starts to twitch and writhe. It’s singing devolves into screeching!

And then it… stabs itself. Over and over. Until… it drops dead….

✸ “… It seems Stardust is still subconsciously controlling them. Good!”

▲ “Holy Crab... That was… brutal.”

✸ “Still, too close for comfort! Best not drop your guard, anyways~”

You can’t move. You… heard something. While screeching. Just for a second… it…

◉ “It sounded. Almost like Siffrin…”

✸ “… At this point, I’d say these things are basically half Stardust… Don’t let that stop you! They’ll still try to kill you, even if part of them will try and hold back~”

You… Nod. And keep moving on… What could have pushed things this far?

>>>

◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

You all have been making good progress through the house. The deeper in you go, the more odd growths there are, and the more twisted the sadnesses. You’ve even seen entire hands and maws growing out of the walls. This... cannot be healthy.

Moreover, that eerie rythmic feel in the air just keeps getting worse. The sadnesses singing seems to keep to that invisible tune.... But despite everything, Loop has been guiding you through the paths well.

Loop. Strange character, they are. Oddly cheerful during all this, or at least faking it. They know far more about all of this then you. Best get information, while you all are making your way towards Siffrin.

◆ “So, Loop. You said you were here to help Siffrin? I presume with this?”

You gesture at... Everything, really.

✸ “Sort of! I wouldn’t need to exist if the monster deal was the only problem~ They've been handling it very well so far! But a different issue exasperated it significantly~”

▲ “Really? Mind telling us?”

✸ “Of course! First of all, I should mention the forces at play~ The first being wishcraft! It’s the power to turn desires into reality, with the right rituals~

▲ "Like that favor tree thing you asked me to do?"

✸ "Correct! There’s more to it, but The king used a different ritual to gain their powers over time. But they're not the only one! Another desire gave stardust the power to turn back time in desperate situations~”

✿ “Woah, Really?!?”

✸ “Yes! Stardust knew the rituals of course, they were born in the land that made wishcraft~ But a simple wish they made on a favor tree acted as a lightning rod for a much, MUCH bigger wish!”

◉ “W-What wish was that?”

✸ “Why, The wish of all of Vaugarde! To be saved from the king~ A desire as strong as that was MORE then powerful enough to rewrite history! I think we’re a little over a hundred attempts at this point?”

A hundred?! Awfully casual about that!

▲ “That many times?!? Did we never beat the king?!?”

✸ “That’s the Issue. You did! Rather early on, actually! But, things couldn't go that easily! By that point, a little flaw in this time traveling turned the whole situation on it’s head~”

◆ “What would that be?”

✸ “Two things. One, Stardust's hunger carried over attempts. They're not very human, and need flesh to survive~ And without hunting, Bonnie's snacks just couldn't cut it!"

✿ “What! No wonder they were a crab!"

✸ “I could cover their food somewhat, pulling in prey for them from elsewhere, even if options were limited~”

Loop rounds a corner, and snaps his fingers, as a sadnesses falls down, it’s head vanished from it’s shoulders, only to appear at Loops feet, who promptly crushes it. Efficient, aren’t they?

✸ “Sadnesses aren’t nutritious, but it’s not exactly like there was a lot of wildlife in Vaugarde to hunt~ Which led to the other issue! By the time Siffrin beat the king, they were too weak to keep up their human disguise for much longer.”

▲ “Disguise? Wait... Were they always like… this?”

✸ “Indeed! Since as far back as they can remember! Their face and name is borrowed from before they swore off their more… Disastrous tendencies.”

◆ “Disastrous? Compared to this?!...How bad was it?!”

✸ “Well, Their old home was a certain Island north of Vaugarde~”

You all take a moment. Hunting your memory for anything… Wait. You. DON’T remember it. But. You remember that’s a thing, isn’t it? That everyone forgot?!...Were they-?

✸ “I see it just clicked~ They didn’t make people forget, probably! I'd guess that was the survivors doing~ ...But what we do know is that, from what little they remember..."

Loop turns towards you all. Eyes grim. Voice cold.

✸ "Everyone there is dead. Every. Last. One.”

T-that... no way!!!

◉ “Change!”

▲ “Crab!”

◆ “Gems!”

✿ "...h-huh?"

No wonder Siffrin hid this! They're a walking Calamity! An entire COUNTRY wiped out overnight?!?!!

✸ “They don’t remember why they did it. But they’ve held that guilt ever since. Trying to make up for it.”

...None of you know how to respond to that. It’s terrifying, thinking little Siffrin is capable of that. Would ever do something like that. You'd suspected they had SOME kind of bloodied past but. Gems, this is something else.

You remember your mother. How when you were younger, you sometimes felt it was your fault they left. Your fault you lost those roots. You can’t imagine how that must feel for them…

✿ “...But Frin wouldn’t hurt anyone now, right?”

✸ “Not willingly, no~ And it would take a LOT to push them past that point!"

You figured not, but it's still a relief to hear.

✸ "Again, over a hundred loops, and only NOW are they even willing to do anything like this, even to the KING! They’d rather just be human… Which gets to the issue we’re dealing with now.”

◉ “O-Oh, right. You said… they were weak, after the king? What happened then?”

✸ “Stardust’s own wish kicked in! I can’t remember quite what it was! It wouldn’t be my place to say even if I did~ But they believe they’d need to be human after this all in order to do it. And because that wasn’t an option, The wish forced Siffrin back, to try again~”

'Believe' they would? Worth looking into. But you can see how that turned out.

◆ “I see. Since they only ended up like that because of going back so much…”

✸ “You catch on quick, Researcher! For the past two days, Stardust has been in an unending loop of the same two days, slowly starving to death~ We only recently figured out the cause!"

Just recently? Not a lot of time to test options then. Meaning you have a chance to help.

✸ "And now? ...Stardust is desperate. So they're making a last ditch effort to end things.”

▲ “Does it have something to do with the king? Is that why they came here?”

✸ “Correct! The king can stop time, prevent it from going forwards. And potentially, backwards! What would happen if Stardust stole the King’s wish, and shoved it into their own?”

Hm. There’s a certain logic to that. You aren't sure how this works, but colliding opposing crafts CAN cancel each other out, if done correctly. Though it's more likely to just blow up in your face.

◉ “Can that even work?!?”

✸ “Maybe! It could also permanently kill them, since they're doing it by force! Which I suppose solves it either way~”

What!?!… So that’s what they meant by their final act! They aren’t planning to live through this!... Gems, your head is running a mile a minute.

◆ “… This is a lot to take at once. And we barely know you…”

Loops cheerful demeanor gives way to dead seriousness.

✸ “I was based on stardust. I showed you my face. I have a share of their memories. I was sent to help them through this mess, and I’ll happily die to get them out... But I also understand these actions. The alternative is far worse…”

✿ “No it’s not! Nothin would be worse then Frin getting themselves killed! That’s dumb!”

You’d like to agree. Everything aside, Siffrin shouldn’t have to die for this. Not when they've tried so hard for your sakes.

✸ “You sure? Because if they kept going, eventually there’s only one food source left. Like I said, sadnesses won’t cut it, and there are no animals. Normal food isn’t enough, not unless supplemented with something bigger. Tell me, what do you think that leaves?”

You think. It’s a given it needs to be a living creature, given what you know of their diet and how meat based it is. But the only unfrozen things living at this point are…

◆ “… People.”

The others stare at you. Not knowing what to say. You know who would have been on the menu eventually. And the very idea of that...

✸ “...You get the desperation now, don’t you?”

None of you know how to respond to that…

...They’ve been looking at you all this whole time, their body telling them to kill you all. Fighting it every second. For hundreds of versions of today. Yet..

◆ “… They never did it though, did they? The way you talk about it, they’ve had ample opportunity. Not like we would remember.”

✸ “But They would remember. They'd know. They’d happily die before that. Before ever losing someone again.”

You look over the twisted house… Siffrin is willing to die to protect you from this…

You would do horrible things for your allies here. But. It seems you're not the only one. This twisted horror show that you stand in, it’s always been there, this entire journey. But Siffrin threw themselves through this hell for you all. And kept it all bottled up inside them, so you would never see.

...If they’ve taken things this far… What can you do at this point?… They understand it far more then you do. Even if you stop this timecraft, this will still be there. And… They’ve already accepted death...

◉ “… We won’t let it come to that.”

You look at Mirabelle.

✿ “Yeah! Frin don’t gotta get hurt for this! T-They aren’t a bad person!”

▲ “Yeah! We aren’t letting anything happen to Sif!”

...Heh. Gems, despite everything... You believe them.

◆ “I daresay we can think of SOMETHING.”

You look at Loop... Hm? Are they… Crying?

✸ “… Stars, I half believe you when you say that... Well then~ First we have to go save them from the king!”

Right. Best pick up the pace! No idea how much time you have left. You start searching through your notes as you move, for any crafts that might help.

◆▲✿◉◆▲✿◉◆▲✿◉◆▲✿◉◆▲✿◉◆▲✿◉◆▲✿◉◆▲✿◉◆▲✿◉

You'll get Siffrin out of this! You WILL save them!

[hermionesslut]

RABBIT HOLE 🐰

(natasha romanoff x fem!reader)

꒰ synopsis ꒱ just straight smut, no plot just😭😭

꒰ content warning ꒱ smut!!!! smut!!!! g!p nat, daddy kink, overstim, praise kink

꒰ author’s note ♡ ꒱ hello, i haven’t written in a while, that whole thing iykyk set me off a bit😭, but i’m like totally over it lol anywaysssss, this ain’t that good

when nat got home from her exhausting digressive day, much to her dismay you were already fast asleep. with an exasperated sigh, she falls on your shared bed, her eyes linger on you as long as they can, and she notices how your chest rises and falls with every breath. natasha thinks of how beautiful you look even in the moments you are unaware. she loves every part of your body but struggles to remember what it was like ruining it. in this instant, she wants to so badly. she undresses, simply because she still has her clothes on from outside. you, however, are barely wearing anything, the intense coldness outside is having trouble translating in. (probably due to the heater). you lay with nothing but a tank and your underwear.

again, natasha lays beside you and gives you a soft kiss on your cheek, soon she moves her way down, she whispers, “fuck, you have no idea what you do to me,” she swiftly reaches into her boxers, her breath is hitching, you’ve got her so worked up. she moans as she feels precum coating her cock, she thinks of you making her feel good like this. it would feel so much better for her hands to be your tight pussy. her moans are getting more laborious to mask. she feels herself getting closer, that is until she sees you turn around and mumble “natty…”.

“baby, i-fuck, please help me finish,” she pleads.

“nat, i can’t i have to wake up early tomorrow, you know..” you reply. you’re unsure if she’s willing to listen to reason, you’re answered when she grabs your breast through your thin top, she pinched your nipple while biting on your neck. “too much nat,” you breathed. you’re still half asleep. you struggle to hold back your whines.

“just make me cum, i promise i’ll let you sleep,” she asks. you hesitantly hum, with that she moves your panties to the side, she slowly, with intent glides her large hard cock inside your aching hole. “i knew you wanted this, look how wet you are, fucking slut.” natasha makes her way inside you entirely too fast and rough. “fuck, daddy!” you make her feel so good, her cock throbs inside you and her deep, staggering moans. she roughly grabs your throat, her other hand holds your waist. you’re no longer worried about the morning, you don’t want this to end.

“i’m gonna cum, natty, please.”

“what, already? be a good girl for daddy and hold it. i wanna cum inside this needy pussy so bad.” her movements don’t slow down, you can’t hold it much longer. you plead, “can i cum, please?”

“beg for it, and then i’ll let you, baby.”

“daddy, please, i need you so badly, i wanna cum i can’t do it without you, fuck me, please.” you comply.

“okay, cum for daddy, bunny, you’re doing so well.” after coming down from your intense high, she starts to rub your clit, she starts off soft and grows stronger. “i-stop-please, it’s too much. i can’t, i can’t.”

“cmon, you can give me another right? sit there and take it. be a good slut, bunny. i haven’t even came yet, you promised.” she said, she rubbed your clit harder and she noticed tears glistened from your cheeks and it made her harder. you melted beneath her touch once she moved closer to you for a moment and her moans in your ear became more infectious and intense. “you’re gonna make me cum, fuck fuck fuck.” she cried. you came the second time this night but with her. once you were calm again, she kissed you softly, and tonight you finally fell asleep in her arms.

[egcdeath]

a bundle of nerves

pairing: joel miller x reader (technically part of the soccer parents au, but can 100% be read as a stand alone)

summary: when anxiety paralyzes you in the morning, joel lends you a helping hand.

word count: 1.1k

warnings: au: no apocalypse, kinda hurt/comfort, mostly comfort, fluff, joel is a big softie, kinda body worship later on, reader is very anxious and stressed, run on sentences, established relationship, no use of y/n

author’s note: i can’t believe i’m finally breaking my hiatus!! huge shoutout to @pedges who has listened to the 1000000 thoughts i’ve had over the past few days.

You were so stressed that you thought your heart might burst—but really, that was your fault. Because as stressed as you were, as much as your heart pounded so hard you could feel it in your throat, or how your hands were sweating so hard you had practically created a waterfall—you were still laying in bed, nowhere near ready to take on the day.

Joel had volunteered to take care of the majority of your shared morning duties; waking up early to make breakfast for the kids, bringing them to school, he even packed your work bag so you had one less thing to worry about that morning.

Yet, the head start he’d given you had essentially amounted to zero, as from the time he pressed a kiss to your forehead and wished you good luck, and now, as he came back into the room to grab his watch before dropping the girls off at school, you still laid in bed—wildly sprawled out across the mattress, forehead damp with sweat forcing your undone hair to stick to spots of it, and still in last night’s pajamas.

“Honey, what’s going on?” Joel asked, clearly concerned with your lack of movement and general disarray. Thinking back on your relationship, you weren’t sure that he’d ever seen you stressed to the point of you being strung out.

“I don’t think I can do it,” you confessed, barely budging from where you were laid out, not even shifting your eyes from the ceiling to your boyfriend.

“Yes, you can,” his voice changed a little bit as he sat down next to you. You finally looked over at Joel, into his soft and sympathetic eyes, and felt just a smidge of your stress fade away. “What’s got you feeling this way?”

“I don’t know…” you trailed off, finally managing to sit up so that you could lean against Joel’s steady body. “I’m scared that I’ll fuck up in front of everybody. All of my peers… all of my superiors. After everything I’ve done to get here, I don’t know if I can handle that kind of humiliation.”

Joel wrapped an arm around you as you confessed your fears to him, which only made you feel more secure in telling him your predicament. He obviously cared about what you were worried about, and seemed dead set on genuinely listening to your fears and making you feel heard.

“It’s normal to be scared, honey. But you’ve practiced in front of me more times than I can remember, and you’ve fuckin’ killed it every time,” Joel attempted to console you, giving you a gentle, yet reassuring squeeze.

“But that’s different. I’m comfortable with you, and you probably only said I was good because you have to say I’m good.”

“No, I’d be honest with you if you weren’t. I just didn’t have to be, because you impressed me every time,” he gently nudged you in a way that forced you to look him right in the eye. “You are a force to be reckoned with. They wouldn’t have asked you to do this presentation if you weren’t. You’re one of the smartest, strongest, and most charismatic people I know. You’re gonna go out there, and blow off everyone’s socks, the same way you blew off mine. Now can I help you get ready so you can look as good as you’re gonna do?”

You weren’t even sure how to respond to the praise, so you opted into awkwardly half-chuckling instead. Joel did seem to have a point though, and he said all of the right things with just enough conviction to convince you that maybe getting ready was the right thing to do.

Finally getting out of bed, you freshened yourself up in the bathroom while Joel picked out your freshly dry cleaned skirtsuit from the closet. Once he’d finally found the piece, he’d found you at the vanity, now working on touching up your hair as fast as you could. Being the sweetheart he was, Joel helped you put on your clothes while you multitasked in getting yourself more presentable.

He pressed soft kisses to your ribcage as he helped you get a bra on, peppered kisses on your neck while buttoning your blouse, and trailed his fingers on your thighs while helping you into your skirt. Not only did he make you feel good about your appearance, but made you feel thoroughly loved in the process of doing so.

With your teamwork and multitasking, you had managed to pull yourself together surprisingly quickly, with Joel on his knees helping you slip into heels to complete your outfit just as the sound of his truck’s horn honking began to ring out, a sure sign that the girls were ready to go and tired of waiting for Joel to come down.

“You’re gonna kill it today, honey. And when you get home, we’ll all do something to celebrate, yeah?” he suggested, pressing one last kiss to your knee before standing up.

“Sounds good,” you smiled to yourself, still feeling nervous about your presentation and the risks associated with messing it all up, but feeling infinitely better after Joel helped to prepare you for it, both physically and mentally. “Thank you, Joel. I don’t know if you realized the actual miracle you performed on me this morning, but I really appreciate it. I appreciate you.”

He simply smiled and bashfully shrugged, never a fan of receiving praise for the work he did. He grabbed your hand, and you followed his lead as he took you downstairs, then into the garage where he prepared to say farewell.

What you weren’t expecting was for Joel to pull you into a tight hug, pressing one last kiss into your hair as he held you.

“You’re gonna do great. Just remember that you are the fucking best. I love you,” he informed you, as if he hadn’t made it abundantly clear in every single way that morning.

“Thank you, Joel. I love you too. As much as I would love to stand here and have you tell me how great I’m gonna do, if we don’t get out of here soon, the girls are gonna be late and so will I,” you laughed softly, a warm feeling of love and adoration running through your veins.

“You have a point there,” he chuckled, finally and reluctantly pulling away from you. “Go crush it, honey.”

With him bidding you farewell, and a quick wave to the girls in the backseat of Joel’s truck, you were off to work. While your nerves were still there, you couldn’t deny that Joel’s little routine had made a huge difference on your outlook on the day.

With a smile on your face as you practiced your speech aloud to yourself in the rearview mirror, and far-less shaky hands gripping your steering wheel, you realized that maybe Joel was right.

You were going to do great.

[clickerflight]

Joseph: Part 5 - A Friend

Masterlist

Part 4

Had something happen today that made me lose a bit of steam for this story, but we're going to keep trucking. I probably got too caught up in looking for validation with my writing, but I think we'll be okay. I have plans for it and I'm going to keep going, I just might have to take a short break.

Content: Vampire whumpee, human caretaker, hospital setting, panic attack, grief, detailed memories of a character death

..................................................

Joseph enjoyed his music for most of the day, his eyesight coming back enough for him to see the small device where he could search for music and play it. He didn’t recognize the app, but he was glad for the music. 

He was bobbing his head to ‘Eye of the Tiger’ when he smelled someone familiar. He looked over into the hall, waiting until a man came into view. The man that had to be Joshua Muir looked to be of Mexican descent, clean shaven and wearing his hair just long enough he could pull some of it back into a little wolf tail. 

He wasn’t wearing a police uniform, instead wearing well worn jeans and a t-shirt. 

Muir opened his mouth in greeting and Joseph realized he was still wearing his headphones. He pulled them down, the sounds of the hospital greeting him again, but he could focus attention on Muir and it wouldn’t bother him. 

“Hi,” Joseph said, feeling once again safe as Muir sat down in the chair by the bed. 

“How are you feeling?” Muir asked.

Joseph shrugged. “I’m completely regenerated. The nurses said they were going to get some more blood into me overnight and then get me set up to go to a rehab center.”

“Nice. That was pretty quick,” Muir commented. 

Joseph nodded as the situation dawned on him for the first time since waking up. “Oh, stars, you, I….. Sorry. I shouldn’t have forced you to ride in the ambulance with me. You didn’t get in trouble, did you?”

Muir laughed. “No, not at all. Well, maybe a little but it wasn’t a problem. You needed someone to be there for you, man. It happens.”

He nodded a little. “Thanks for coming back. I hope I’m not keeping you from anything.”

Muir shook his head, a hint of sadness entering his expression as he said, “No, you’re good. I, ah, I moved to the city pretty recently. I don’t have many friends yet outside of some coworkers… but I guess we don’t really hang outside of work. This is…. Kind of nice, actually.”

“Oh,” Joseph said, surprised. “Alright then.”

There was a moment of awkward silence before Muir asked, “So, got any questions? 3 years is a lot of time.”

Joseph shrugged. “Haven’t really seen enough to have questions, I guess…. Have the fledgling laws passed?”

“Not yet,” Muir replied, looking slightly annoyed. “Well, parts of it have. People with terminal illnesses can apply to become a fledgling, but the stuff around people with chronic illnesses and terminally ill children got tied up in the courts last year.”

“Well, I guess it’s good there’s been some movement on that,” Joseph said.

“Yeah,” Muir said. “So, what do you like to do?”

“I like reading,” Joseph said with a shrug. “And D- my bondmate was teaching me how to play the piano. I used to work at a tech shop. I guess I was kind of, I dunno, stuck in a rut. Wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with my life…..”

“Well, there’s plenty of time to figure it out,” Muir said with a shrug. 

Joseph nodded. “And you? What do you like to do?”

“My job takes up most of my time. I’m working my way up to being a detective. I’ve been a cop for a few years now and I’ve been studying to pass the tests they’ll need me to do. I’m pretty excited. The Chief has been pretty hard on me, which makes me think it’s going well.”

“How’s that?” Joseph asked, curious.

“Well, she’s a tough love kind of lady,” Muir said with a mischievous smile. “She’s been criticizing my work a lot lately, which tells me some big guns are watching me, trying to decide if they should try me out. It’s a bit early in my career for it, but I’ve been proving myself and I think they see it.”

“Oh,” Joseph said, intrigued. “That’s awesome, then! I hope it all works out for you!”

“Of course! And you’ll be the first to know if it does!” Muir said, his grin splitting his face. It drooped and he hesitated. “Er, if you want to be friends, that is. Maybe I can help you figure out what you want to do with your life.”

“Oh yes,” Joseph said eagerly. “I could definitely use a friend.”

“Good,” Muir said with a grin. “I wonder…. I want to talk to the nurses real quick. I’ll be back.”

Muir hopped up and left, the smell of his excitement still hanging in the air. Joseph slipped the headphones back on, not really paying attention to the music as he waited for Muir to come back. 

Muri came back after another 20 minutes, a bag in his hand. Joseph pulled the headphones off and Muir said, “Alright. The nurses said you can check out tonight.”

“Check out? Where am I going? With you?”

“Yup! I had some extra clothes in my car so you can put these on and we can get out of here. I thought you’d probably like to sleep somewhere quiet tonight.”

“Oh, I certainly do,” Joseph said, pushing the blankets off his lap and turning to sit on the edge of the bed as a nurse, the same one who brought him the noise canceling headphones, came to unplug him from the drips. 

Once that was over and the small holes in his skin healed, Joseph stood up, taking the clothes and heading into the bathroom to change. 

The clothing was a bit big on him, but after rolling the top of the pants down inside once they held just fine. He stepped out, shifting the shirt to sit properly on his shoulders before taking the shoes Muir held out for him. 

“We’ll get you some better shoes later,” Muir said with a smile. 

Joseph nodded, grinning. The two walked out, Joseph shuffling a little to keep the shoes on his feet. Muir had already registered his address with the lady at the desk and they were set to go. 

“I think the rehab people will come to meet you around 2 tomorrow? I’ll be at work, but the hospital will let them know to go to my house.”

“Cool,” Joseph said, his shuffling steps feeling strange. They were smoother than he thought they would be, as though there hadn’t been three years and a regeneration in between the last time he walked and now. 

“And then we can get you clothes and stuff tomorrow night,” Muir said as he got into his car. Joseph entered on the passenger’s side and buckled his seat belt, relaxing as heard the familiar sound of a car starting. 

They soon left the hospital parking lot and drove down roads as the sun to the left of them as they hit the highway. Joseph watched the world pass by in awe, the rumble of the car soothing to his fragile mind. 

Maybe he’d be fine. Maybe one day he’d be healed and forget about what happened and he could move on. Maybe when he had something good to do with his life and-

But who would he share it with? His bond with David was empty. It was gnawing on him, crushing his soul and begging to be fed. He had been without a pairbond for three years and his body and mind were beginning to realize it. David was gone and he could still remember feeling his pain through the bond, could still hear his screams. He remembered when the blade had entered David’s heart and killed him. The pain and fear had been unlike anything Joseph had ever felt. His and David’s mingle fear, the pain, David reaching through the bond searching for comfort, searching to be sure Joseph was still okay, and then the knife had come down. 

It was like losing a limb. Crushed in a combine’s mechanics, shattered and torn and shredded and bloodied and violently taken in a moment that could never be changed and never be reversed. The emptiness had consumed Joseph’s mind entirely. Going from all that noise to dead silence where his own fear and pain echoed down and back again through broken links. 

He would never get David back and the pain would last forever. It felt like it would last forever. How was he supposed to deal with it all? How was he meant to survive this?

He grabbed on tightly to whatever was pressed against him. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t hear, he couldn’t feel. All he knew were the memories of David’s gargled screams and the broken bond as his sire and bondmate died. 

He knew he would need to pairbond again eventually, and that sent a new wave of sorrow through him. Was it not enough to be on his own? To always remember David and cherish his memory? He was Demijeoa. He would have to pairbond again to heal, but he couldn’t imagine it. He couldn’t imagine pairing with anyone after that. 

He pressed his face into soft fabric, sobbing desperately, unable to alleviate the pain. He realized someone was running a hand through his hair, untangling it and running down his back in strokes, and then he recognized the smell. 

He lifted his head to find Miur looking out a window, though Joseph’s stirring brought his attention back down. “Hey, are you back?”

Joseph felt a wave of sorrow and embarrassment so strong it sent him to hiding in Muir’s shoulder again. 

“Hey, man. It’s going to be alright. Promise. Do you want to talk about it?”

“”S not gonna be alright,” he mumbled. “He’s dead.”

He felt Muir tense up, but he didn’t stop rubbing Joseph’s back. “I know, I’m really sorry.”

Joseph let out a shuddering sigh, simply letting Muir quietly comfort him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“You don’t have to. Not right now. Right now, it’s enough to just grieve. I know losing a bondmate is painful, even if I can’t really understand it.”

Joseph nodded before peeling himself away from Muir, scrubbing his face. 

“Are you going to be okay?” Muir asked.

Joseph just nodded so Muir turned off the hazard lights, signaled, and got back on the road. It was dark now, and Joseph was so tired he just laid his head against the window and let the rattle of the road bruise his head repeatedly. 

Joseph was asleep by the time Muir pulled into his driveway. He got out and went to the passenger seat, opening the door quickly and propping up Joseph to keep him from falling on the pavement. The vampire slept like a dead thing as Muir closed the car door with his hip and walked up the steps to the house. 

After some awkward shuffling, he managed to unlock the door and step inside. He walked through the house to his bedroom where he set the vampire on his bed. He coaxed the blankets over him and went back to the front door to lock it. 

After a quick snack and a shower, he got ready for bed and slept on the couch in the living room. 

………………………………………………..

Joseph woke in a comfortable bed wrapped in blankets that smelled enough like Muir to tell him that Muir had given his bed up to Joseph. He sighed, pressing his face into the pillow for a moment before rolling over and out of the bed. 

He poked his head out into the hall, looking around. There was another room set up with a desk and walls lined with cork board, though only one was in use. He soon found the bathroom and cleaned up before going to the living room. 

Muri laid on the couch, bundled in blankets and snoring very softly. Joseph hummed and decided to make breakfast. 

There wasn’t much in the kitchen and he ended up just improvising with some quick oats and eggs, as well as getting some coffee ready. 

He heard Muir wake up and smiled when he heard Muir’s small confused noise when he smelled food. 

He stumbled in, wearing sweatpants and a blanket cape as Joseph turned, scooting a plate of food across the island to him. 

“Got the coffee started a bit late but it should be done in a mo.”

“Thanks,” Muir said, surprised. 

“You're welcome. And no offense, but do you live on oatmeal, eggs, and canned chili?”

“Er, no. I tend to grab food while I’m working,” he said, fishing a fork out of the dishwasher and sitting on one of the stools to eat. 

Joseph rolled his eyes and sat down next to him once the coffee was done. Muir took the coffee eagerly, taking a sip and closing his eyes in delight. They ate in silence for a minute before Muir said, “So I guess this means you want me to buy more food.”

Joseph snorted. “Yes. You’ll end up with kidney stones if you keep eating like you are.”

Muir shook his head and downed his coffee. “Alrighty, then. I’d better go get ready.”

“Kay,” Joseph said, enjoying his breakfast a bit more slowly. 

When Muir came back, he was dressed in his uniform and ready to go. “I left a note on the computer with the password. Feel free to surf the web while I’m gone. Just remember-”

“The meeting at 2:00. I got it,” Joseph said, putting the dishes in the sink while he unloaded the dishwasher. 

“Yup. I might stop by on one of my breaks, but we’ll see.”

“Alright. See ya.”

“Bye.”

The door closed, the key scraped in the lock, and Joseph was alone. 

Joseph stood in the kitchen, his heart pounding in his throat as the silence pressed in on him. Silence like silver. 

He shook his head. He was not interested in having another breakdown today. Not right now. He was going to hold it together and if he needed to cry himself to sleep that night, then by the stars he would cry himself to sleep. 

He rifled through the kitchen, putting things away as he went along until he’d taken care of the dishes. He loaded the new ones into the dishwasher and closed it. 

He supposed the next thing he could do would be to catch up on what he’d missed. 

He went to the room with the cork board walls, glancing at the images and notes tacked there. It was a missing person’s case about a little girl. He hummed, looking at the little girl’s face. Did anyone look for him and David like this? Did someone in the world string up their names and faces, staring at them in the hopes that it would provide some clue?

Joseph shrugged off the image and sat at the computer, typing in the string of letters and numbers from the sticky note and opening up the search engine. 

He stared at the blinking bar for a moment, uncertain of what he should do before he started pulling up the social media accounts he’d had and opening them up to see what there was to see. 

Joseph: @not-a-space-alien @why-not-ask-me-a-better-question

From Dust to Ashes: @writereleaserepeat @currentlyinthespiral

Part 6

Let me know if you want to be on the taglist

[dokidokitsuna]

Working on Magical Friends: Doki’s animation “pipeline”

��Since this is still an incredibly basic 1.5-man operation, it’s not much of a pipeline. ^^; But I wanted to put together a little thing to show the public how I do what I do, and if this sounds doable or interesting to you, I’m always on the lookout for more volunteers! dokianimara@gmail.com is my official ‘art business’ email, just FYI~

So let’s start by taking a look at this GIF preview of a finished scene:

I chose this sequence because it’s probably the longest and most complex one I’ve done so far. The character rotates, the scene pans up, I got some spinny light effects in there, lots of weird stuff I’ve never done before. (●u●;;) But it came out alright in the end, so let’s examine it.

So before I start thinking about animating, I refer to the work of my storyboard volunteer, Greytan. They actually gave me just one simple shot:

Which I extrapolated into…what I did. ^^; I don’t mean to ‘ignore’ their boards, and I hope they don’t feel slighted when I do things like this, it’s just that they are genuinely a much more skilled and more professional animator than I am, and our brains just don’t work the same way so sometimes I have to diverge a bit. :P Or, y’know, sometimes I come up with a great idea of my own that I really wanna try, which is probably what happened here.

Anyway, my first step after looking at boards is to grab a pencil and paper and draw the shot: a picture that lays out what the scene will look like, with either the starting frame or a key frame, and the background included. As you can see, I doodled some of my ideas for how the sequence would progress, which is good, because after drawing this I wouldn’t return to this shot for like 6 weeks. ^^;

When I finally did get back to it, I grabbed a second piece of paper for Step 2, which is the actual ‘animation’: using the shot as a base to draw the rest of the frames that will go into the sequence. This is where my lightbox comes in handy, although usually I can see through the paper well enough to just draw wherever. ^^ [Fun fact: in my early days, I would just scan the original shot, erase it, and replace it with the next frame, drawing each new frame on the exact same piece of paper. I am…very glad I don’t do this anymore]

Now, animation is mostly guesswork for me. ^^ I mean, my guesses are pretty good, but they’re still guesses, which is why I call myself an amateur. It’s not me downplaying my skills, it’s just me admitting that they aren’t based on solid expertise or experience (yet).

When I animate a shot, I try to make sure each frame looks like it has movement in it all by itself. Gesture drawing, dynamic posing; those are things I’m already good at, so when I animate I make ‘em work hard for me. >:3c

The end result comes out looking kind of like a sprite sheet:

And I do use these drawings kind of like assets; Step 3 is to scan them (along with the initial shot) and use them to ‘construct’ the frames that go into the video editor. This is the step that takes the longest, where I clean up the sketches and color them and paint the backgrounds (separately, if necessary). It’s not as difficult as Steps 1 and 2, but it’s a lot more tedious.

So naturally, sometimes I like to make sure my sprites actually work before I start all that…work. ^^ So I throw together a test animation based on what I have:

And this did help-- it assured me that the first half with Mago would probably look fine, although the second half with the magic light-thing probably needed to have a cleaner sense of direction and more frantic movement as it ascended. When you’re working with a low frame-rate, you generally want things to move a LOT or hardly at all; you don’t want any of that in-between stuff. So I took that into account when preparing the “finished” product. I put “finished” in quotes because I’ll probably adjust the timing of the frames a little when I move to the video editor (Step 4, which I’m not going to talk about here). But yeah, that’s pretty much it. ^^

Generally when I think about adding artists to the team, I’m thinking about them doing Step 1, Step 2, Steps 1 and 2, or Steps 1-3 (so basically, completing a full sequence of frames that I can just add in). For me to hand sketches to someone and expect them to do Step 3 alone would require a level of trust that I’ve never had in any fellow artist before…but idk, anything can happen in the future. ^^;

[jonathankatwhatever]

Watching Singin in the Rain. I have trouble getting past the plagiarism of Make ‘em Laugh, but I still find things to see. Like tonight, I was focused on how stil Gene’s head is. Never a waver from how it’s positioned on and relative to the shoulders. Or that Donald’s hip twist is lightning, and is what I see in Irish step dancing. I never realized how thick Gene’s back upper shoulders were. It’s like he has a hunch of muscle.

I’m putting together a much more complete understanding. Probably can’t get into words now. I think we can generate Bell states. Or rather, I know we do and I’m pretty sure I see why. Rather than try to explain, let’s try to keep going from where I was, which was figuring out how the 2root2 maps. That is, we know it’s across an IC along the szK, and we can see that it’s 4 of these if you count across from each direction. But that is the issue: to count from each corner, you need to be at each corner. The Bip solves that how? Each step to a corner and back is root2, so 2root2 is across the diagonal of a grid square. You can do that in each direction on the same diagonal, so that’s 4.

If Cyd Charisse was 5’6”, then Gene was not 2” taller. There’s a certain annoying quality to the choreography. I think it’s that some of it isn’t or doesn’t feel sincere as dance. Like a shimmy put in because the storyline says make it a bit cheaper looking, when that’s not the true dance choice. And the fantasy dance sequence really needed to feature Cyd more. I’d let the drapery cover Gene’s face at times so the camera could really focus on her. Egotism, I’d say. The fascination with her could have been so much more. And the ending of that would have been more about dance and gotta dance if it hadn’t literally been Gene front and center in every shot until it’s just his face on screen. That’s criticism.

They really abuse Jean Hagen in the movie. It’s not her fault they use her character to make jokes about their own inability to record sound (after a musical number in which they obviously could). I gather she drank herself to an early grave. She could really play smart stupid//stupid smart. I admire Debbie Reynolds.

Okay, so we can build the bound across a gs. That invokes a bunch of interesting nSquare spaces. Like aross a diagonal maps as a 2Square in each direction along with the ‘reverberating’ 2Squares.

What about the outside perspectives, meaning the corner Ends? In 1Space counting, the Bip is halfway. So that counts 1 on each diagonal.

I’m exhausted. I was able to walk outside today. And I’ve hit new levels in movement. But this virus is not done with me yet. And getting used to this space, with all the connections appearing suddenly, makes me dizzy. Puts me in a Tizzy. Oh no, but that’s exactly what I’ve been describing as the interaction space in which the maps of these states occur. What’s the difference between the simplistic model that generates 2root2 and this kind of confusing complexity? Well, we could talk about Hilbert spaces but I think it’s just me going through the switching inherent in I//I in which a yes must be followed by a not yes or even a no.

[tennessoui]

no see like this:

(2k)

When Anakin opens the door to the apartment, the first thing he hears is Obi-Wan Kenobi’s voice.

He toes off his running shoes and leaves them by the door, pulling his headphones down to his neck as he enters the living room. 

Ahsoka has crashed on the couch, it looks like, one arm thrown above her head and the other still stuck halfway in a bag of chips. Her mouth is open in a snore, head tilted back at such an uncomfortable looking angle that Anakin doesn’t even feel a little bad for reaching down to grab her ankle and give it a vicious shake. As he knew she would, she lurches awake with a curse.

“You’re cleaning that up,” he tells her, moving backward before the spray of chip crumbs and her flailing limbs can strike him.

“Fuck you,” she mutters with a sleepy glare, sitting upright to toss the bag onto the coffee table. The movement turns into a languid stretch that reminds Anakin of a spoiled house cat. “Some of us had early morning class.”

“Some of us had an early morning shift,” Anakin points out, swinging himself over the edge of the couch and sitting on the other end. “You’re not better than me just because you’re not a college drop out yet.”

“Gross,” Ahsoka decides, wrinkling her nose at Anakin’s sweat-soaked clothes. “Go shower. I can’t talk to you like this.”

Obligingly, Anakin leans forward and shakes the ends of his sweaty hair in her direction. It makes her yell out in disgust, striking out with the heel of her foot to keep him away.

“You’re too disgusting to be as famous as you are,” she says, upper lip curled up. “What if your fans knew you were just a disgusting boy?”

It makes Anakin bark out a laugh, chest expanding with the sort of brightness he only ever feels when someone—even a member of the band herself—mentions their success. They’ve been having success.

“They’re all Padmé’s fans, and you know it,” Anakin says instead, and Ahsoka throws a cushion at him in faux-outrage.

Before she can say anything else, the flickering image on the television screen captures Anakin’s attention just as Obi-Wan Kenobi lets out a breathy laugh.

“I’m glad it’s been such a success among your family,” the rockstar says. His eyes are crinkled, ear piece dangling onto his chest, and hair an artful mess ontop of his head. He and the interviewer are sat on a makeshift stage, in the middle of a crowd. He must have just performed then. 

Anakin immediately wonders which songs. The lead off the new album, most likely. 

It’s an earworm and something Anakin’d actually just been listening to on his run, though it’s far from his favorite song on the record.

“Of course,” the interviewer says. She’s smiling too, though it’s a smile with too many teeth. Like that of a shark. “It’s the album we’ve all been waiting for. Each track is a downright masterpiece really.”

“You know he’s not going to announce his opening acts via Today Show interview,” Anakin tells Ahsoka, lolling his head to the side to glance at her. She’s picked up her phone from the floor, attention half-focused on the screen and half on him.

“Singers do weird things,” she says. “Who knows.”

It’s a dig at Anakin, because most things out of her mouth are digs at Anakin. Anakin reaches out with his foot and kicks her. “If his management was going to ask us to tour with them for the North America leg, they’d have reached out weeks ago. Hell, did they even confirm receipt?” This makes Ahsoka raise her eyes from her phone, eyebrows cocked skeptically. “I think his management may be a bit too busy with Obi-Wan Kenobi’s divorce settlement to confirm receipt on our audition email.”

Anakin scowls and crosses his arms over his chest, eyes drawn back to the figure on television.

It’s probably true. 

After all, Obi-Wan Kenobi divorcing his wife of fifteen years has almost definitely caused a shit ton of work for his management team, especially as they fight against Satine Kryze’s team to have Kenobi come out on top in the public perception. It sounds both incredibly easy and incredibly hard.

On one hand, it’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. He’s been America’s darling since he was a child-actor. News headlines usually fall in his favor, despite all the nasty rumors that have dogged his music career. He’s charming. He’s handsome. There’s something about him that’s magnetic. Something besides his vocal talent and stage presence that sells out his shows, no matter the size of the arena, no matter the place.

On the other hand, the cause for the divorce has not fully been released. On the other hand, half the news outlets are running with a rumor that Kenobi cheated. That while Kryze was filming for a few months out of the country, Kenobi had had an affair.

Anakin isn’t sure why it’s anyone’s business but theirs, Kenobi and Kryze’s, but he’s mature enough to admit that may just be because he’s been a fan of Kenobi’s work—and the man himself—before he was ever even married. He’s biased.

He’s also biased because Kenobi came out with an album—his first in years—and the announcement of a world tour shortly after the announcement of the divorce. And Anakin’s band had answered a call for an opening act for that tour.

And that had been weeks ago.

And the tour started in five months. 

And Anakin has never wanted anything more badly in his life. It’s not even because he’d be opening for Obi-Wan Kenobi either. It would be—shit, the band is small. Bigger online, sure, but nowhere near as big as he wants them to be. As he knows they can be. He and Ahsoka had started Helical in his bedroom when they were still in fucking middle school, all of thirteen and fourteen, and Padmé had joined a few years later. 

In the long scheme of things, they’re young and stupid, and they’d have gone nowhere fast if it weren’t for the fact that the Internet had a place for all kinds of music, all kinds of bands, and Padmé’s parents had endless wells of patience—and funds—for extracurricular activities they thought looked good on university applications.

But Ahsoka is about to enter her second year of school, Padmé is about to graduate, Anakin’s a college dropout, and every day it feels like they’re running out of time. That the band has an end-date they’re running full-tilt towards.

“You’ve been nicer than most interviewers,” Obi-Wan Kenobi says on the television, charming half-smirk on his face. “Thank you for not asking me yet who—or what—the album is about.”

“I think it’s a bit obvious,” the interviewer replies, holding up the album cover. Avalanche is printed over the top of it in big, unignorable letters. “Given there’s several…particularly famous quotes floating around of you calling your ex your rock.”

“Quite,” Obi-Wan Kenobi says. He laughs again, but something in his eyes has shuttered. His laughter is off, hollow. “Well. I suppose thank you for not asking if I’m going on a world tour because my ex-wife got the house in the divorce.”“Or the continent,” the interviewer points out, and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s smile goes hard and flinty.

“Right,” he says and then says nothing more.

“They’re really gonna have to give him a refresher on media training,” Ahsoka says, tugging at the end of one of her braids. “This is just sad.”

Anakin scoffs and runs a hand through his sweat-stiff hair. “He’s just divorced, come on, Ahsoka. He’s probably sick of the questions.”

“Then maybe he shouldn’t have written an entire album about the divorce,” Ahsoka points out. “While asking everyone to respect his privacy during this trying time.”

“It’s not all about his divorce,” Anakin snaps, “Track nine is about losing his grandfather to—”

“Whoa, okay, okay,” his step-sister says, raising her hands in false compliance. “I forgot you were Obi-Wan Kenobi’s biggest fan.”

“I’m not,” Anakin mutters, but he can feel a flush working its way over his cheeks. He’s not. He just—he has a healthy respect for Obi-Wan Kenobi, one musician to another.

“So are you excited for the tour?” the interviewer asks. The question is practically spat out, an attempt to override the dead air of the last several seconds. “It’s been four years since you’ve toured.”

“I really am,” Obi-Wan replies, and he gifts her with another smile now that the topic has moved onto something he deems more acceptable. It makes Anakin snort. Ahsoka’s probably right—they will have to give the man more media training. He’s acting woefully unprepared and a thousand times too obvious. The media’s gonna eat him alive. “I’ve missed touring the entire time I’ve been away—I’ve found nothing quite like it, nothing that gives me the same thrill as touring. I sing my songs rather…ad nauseum, honestly. Literally all the time. But when I’m singing them with the fans, it feels like I’m the one singing along. Like they’re the ones that have written it. And it feels amazing.” He laughs, and this one is honest and closer to happy than Anakin has heard so far this interview. “I feel like, ‘Alright, take them! They’re yours, please. Always have been.’

“We’re gonna be like that one day,” Anakin tells Ahsoka absentmindedly, rubbing at the corner of his jaw. “They’re gonna know all the words to all our songs. They’re gonna sing along.”

“Anakin,” Ahsoka says. Slowly, distractedly. Obi-Wan Kenobi smiles at something the interviewer says though, and Anakin is distracted. 

“Yes, it’s something I love as well—giving that platform to new artists, getting to tour with people who may have never performed in venues the size of these, in front of crowds like these. It’s like doing it for the first time myself.”

“You’ve kept the opening acts close to your chest,” the interviewer says. “But do you know who you’re going to be touring with?”“Oh yes,” Obi-Wan nods. His hand falls to his wrist, turns the thread bracelet there around a few times. “We’ve reached out to everyone, and we’re expecting to make an announcement soon.”

“Anakin!” Ahsoka snaps, loud enough that Anakin’s attention is torn from the screen even as his heart drops into his stomach.

Oh. Obi-Wan’s team has contacted everyone.

Obi-Wan’s team hasn’t contacted them.

Obi-Wan doesn’t want them. Him. The band.

It’s to be expected. Really, it is. There must have been thousands of bands who applied. Thousands of hopefuls with more of platform, more of a discography, more of everything than Helical can offer. 

And yet the blow feels crushing.

“Anakin, why the fuck have you not been checking the band’s email?” Ahsoka asks, scrambling up and towards him. He catches her hands. They’re shaking as if she is about to collapse, and her movements are frenzied as if she doesn’t know whether to hit him or hug him. “Anakin! Fuck!”

“It wasn’t my week!” Anakin protests, “what do you mean? You were supposed to be monitoring the account!” “Like fuck I was supposed to be monitoring the account!” Ahsoka shouts in his face. “What the fuck, Anakin!” “What? What?” he asks when she definitely succeeds in hitting him across the face. 

“Look!” she wriggles more, this time in an attempt to free herself from his grasp. When he lets her go, she thrusts a phone in his face. “Look!” It takes several moments for the words to emerge from the bright light of her screen. Then it takes several more moments for Anakin to read them. Then it takes him even longer to make sense of them.

“What.” Dear Helical,

It is with great enthusiasm that we write to ask if you would be available to audition in person for the Obi-Wan Kenobi On The Rocks Tour. The audition would be just a formal process—we would like to offer you the position of second opener during the North American leg regardless. We think your sound matches the tour and are—-

“Holy shit,” Anakin yells, rocketing up onto his feet and dropping his step-sister halfway to the ground in the process. “Holy shit, Ahsoka! When did they send this?”

“Why weren’t you checking the fucking emails!” She screams back, leaping onto her feet as well. “It wasn’t my week!” “Like fuck it wasn’t, fuck you!” Ahsoka says, but her voice is high and excited and she’s still shaking and Anakin’s shaking too and holy shit. Holy shit.

Obi-Wan Kenobi wants them.

Him.

Them.

His band.

Holy shit.

so i've been thinking about this premise for so long but it wasn't working for obikin (which of course i took as a challenge) and i think i finally got it where i want it so

au where 35 yo obi-wan is a music sensation across the world but he's recently divorced and going on tour again after releasing a very cutting, personal, and well-received album

and 19 yo anakin joins his tour with his very small band of two other people (ahsoka, padmé) to be his opening act - they have a small but loyal following, a pretty big social media presence, and there are even people who ship anakin and padmé which you know means these are die-hard fans

anakin has definitely looked up to obi-wan and his music for a good portion of his life and he's like. beyond excited that he's going to tour with The Obi-Wan Kenobi - this is big, not just for his music career but also for himself and the little boy he was listening to obi-wan's music for the first time!!

i'm just imagining like....obi-wan and anakin meeting after a few days of rehearsal for opening night, and it's not the most auspicious start because obi-wan's going through like 20 different emotions at any given moment (he's on tour, he's divorced, he's tired, he loves the music, he can't be the person he was in his twenties when he was first on tour but that's a whole different matter, he has all the media training and charismatic instinct to cover up these less than savory emotions with flirtatious empty words) and anakin is just like. sorta starstruck sorta shy sorta eager sorta awkward so:

"i'm uh, i'm a singer it's nice to meet you. hi yeah. hello. i'm on tour. as well. with you. actually." "ah no, are you one of my backing vocal artists? we can't have that - you're much too gorgeous and my ego is much too dependent on the audience focusing on me." "um 😳"

so it's a relationship that begins with a lot of flirting and being flustered and progresses through moments of vulnerability and honest emotion which turns into mutual affection which turns into anakin's celebrity crush becoming very real....meanwhile obi-wan googled anakin and the opening band after the first show/introduction and finds all the stuff about him and padmé being together and that's. that's fine. young love. how sweet. any sort of disappointment obi-wan feels is because he's recently divorced and bitter about it and he's going to have to spend at least half his tour watching the lovebirds snuggling up together.

and even when all the misunderstandings about relationship statuses have been addressed and the pretense has fallen away to leave just attraction, both have to think about their careers - it's all well and good for obi-wan to date someone sixteen years his junior, post divorce, but that's an image he's never wanted to deal with or be associated with. and this is the biggest shot of anakin's career - his best chance to make it in the music industry. in the words of his bandmate, is he really, honestly thinking about risking it for a chance to sleep with The Obi-Wan Kenobi?

but what his bandmate doesn't seem to really understand is that for anakin, obi-wan hasn't been The Obi-Wan Kenobi in a long time. he's just been obi-wan. and that makes a world of difference.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Next Fest 2023, Pt 3

Well, okay, the bacon cheeseburgers have to wait because apparently it’s cold enough that my beef hasn’t defrosted adequately yet. So onward to more demos!

Interior Worlds: This is a walking simulator with a bit of a difference. It promises no jump scares ... but apparently underestimates how much jump scare you can actually get when you’re walking in a tense creepy environment and there’s anything like a sudden noise when they promise that. Anyway, point is it’s a “walk around through creepy liminal spaces taking pictures at specific points” kind of game. I don’t know if the full game will be more in-depth, but either way, I think I like it. It’s not a Zen game, though. It’s a “I will play this with the lights off at 3am because I apparently just need to be terrified and tense in a way that doesn’t involve the current mess the world’s in” kind of game.

Cynthia: Hidden in the Moonshadow: I don’t get a lot of feel about what this game’s about from the demo, but it definitely gives a feel for the mechanics. Character has a weapon but has so far only used it to solve puzzles and access areas; the only enemies we see get stealthed past in a way that gave me some Horizon: Zero Dawn feels, for all the setting is very, very different. There’s some hints at Shit About To Go Down, but the tutorial (which was the extent of the demo) doesn’t indicate what or how, exactly, and honestly I’m mostly seeing this thing waving a big Standard Hero’s Journey sign. Plus the controls weren’t the best (intuitive to a point, but movement was a bit sticky) and the colours were so bright. So it’ll stay on the wishlist but I think I want to see more about what this one’s about first.

Right. Now I will take my meds, have an early bath, make my cheeseburgers (I think the stupid beef is defrosted now) and then probably more demos. Or maybe something I can metaphorically sink my teeth into. I did actually pick up Dragon Age: Inquisition again the other day, dragging my Meep!Herald a little more through Jaws of Hakkon at least partly so I can get it finished, move on to The Descent, then finish the base game and finally do Trespasser on a Cullenmancer, and on an elven mage. I’ve only seen the endgame romance with Sera so far, that on a human rogue, so there’s stuff surrounding travelling through the eluvians I haven’t got to see yet. Still ... Jaws of Hakkon, for all its good moments, is cataclysmically annoying sometimes.

[2kverrr]

ᖴOOᒪ ᖴOᖇ ᕼEᖇ

Rachel Amber x Reader

Summary: Y/n being an absolute lovesick idiot for Rachel.

Warnings: Swearing

I never thought I'd stoop this low. I'd promised myself to not fall in love in high school. Well, I promised myself I'd go on a 5-mile run every day, but look how that's gone. But this promise was simple, such a facile task.

And then she became part of my life.

I can't go a day without thinking of her and her stupid smile. Her stupid hyper-fixations every week or so. Just her stupid fucking self.

And the fact I love it, being around her, knowing she probably thinks of me in her spare time, though she definitely doesn't have to worry about me returning the favour.

The fact she knows it as well, she knows how I feel, and I know how she feels, yet we still play around with the subject. My friends think I'm so insane to be fighting these feelings, thoughts that simply cannot erase and won't erase not putting me at any ease.

Ever since we met I knew something was there, softly killing my promise whilst I steadily denied the truth.

"Give me another lemon one."

"But you don't like those ones," I point out.

"Yeah, well you hate them." She argues, noticing my stare, "Just pass me the stupid skittles."

I sigh, passing her a few yellow skittles, her hand slowly accepting them.

We're sat in a booth in the diner, waiting for our drinks to be served, sharing a small packet of skittles.

I look around the room, a mix of students and working adults on their break. A few couples holding hands in the booths, smitten smiles plastered on their faces. Everybody seems to have someone just for them, having a good time with somebody they enjoy spending their time with.

It's not like I envy them or anything, I don't mind at all. Rachel and I have a good time being friends, best friends. Well, I say I don't mind but, being a little bit more than friends wouldn't hurt.

I know she knows, I know she does. Well, I think she does. There's a possibility. Does she know? Tell me, Rachel Amber, do you know?

"Do I know what?" The blonde hums still sloppily chewing on the sweets in her mouth, not making eye contact until she's finished her sentence.

"Huh, oh. I forgot." I answer, getting a pair of rolled eyes off of her in return.

I didn't even realise I said that out loud. Maybe I should ask her, verbally this time, rather than mentally (and somehow accidentally verbally, the mind works in marvellous ways). But, maybe she doesn't want to cross the line and- well, I totally get that. Because that is exactly what I'm doing right now.

She feels the same, she's got to. I mean, I am pretty smokin' hot, as she would say, and when we're alone it's like, so, ugh- I can't put it into words. It's like my heart is on fire and she's the chip pan that's caused that fire.

God, it confuses me.

"Here you go girls, one cherry coke, one orange juice." Joyce smiles as she places down the drinks.

"Hey, give me a sip!" Rachel orders me.

"You can get off it, you've got your own drink."

"Settle down you two," Joyce chuckles, pausing the Amber girl frozen in her reaching for my drink movement, "You two remind me just of how me and my best friend were back in our teen years."

Best friend, of course. It's like the universe has to constantly remind me.

The blonde smiles at Joyce as she walks off,  once she left, Rachel reaches for my drink and takes a massive gulp.

"Ah, refreshing." She sighs, "Why did you get that?"

"Maybe because it is 10:30 AM, and I'm not in the mood for diabetes this early in the morning." I roll my eyes, taking a sip of the juice.

Okay, so maybe I'm not making it clear as day that I'm hopelessly in love with her, but what can a gal do, really?

I watch her take hold of the straw in her glass and place it between her lips, taking numerous large sips of the drink before looking back up at me. "Stop gazing at me, weirdo." She giggles with a playful smile.

"I wasn't gazing at you, I was taking notice of how you don't see the need for air between sips."

Yeah, not clear as day at all.

"Come one, we'll finish these up and get back to Blackwell. Unless you totally think we should ditch and go do acrobatics." She grins.

"Acrobati-"

"Yes, come one." She takes my hand, leading me out of the diner.

Time Skip

"So, if you just stay like that until I figure out how this is going to work." She suggests, a thumb on her chin as she thinks hard about how to make this 'awesome acrobatic move' work.

"Rachel, I can't stay like this forever," I say in a strained voice, caused largely by the fact I'm trying to hold a handstand while this girl takes her sweet time to think about purely nothing.

"Okay, one arm out, palm up."

"No fucking way," I argue.

"Just do it."

I centre my left hand and stick out my right arm, I feel a small weight placing itself onto my hand whilst hearing, "I'm just gonna-"

And collapse.

We tumble flat onto our backs and I'm sure every bone in my hand is shattered. The both of us pant until we break into laughter. We face each other, smiler growing wider the more we laugh together, hands linking together as our cheeks begin to cramp up.

"Sorry, I thought that'd work." She apologises, once the two of us had calmed down.

"Rachel, you're a straight-A student, how do you not understand the basics of gravity?"

"I thought it was a hella cool idea!"

"Well, you're hella stupid." I mock, gaining a shove of my shoulder off of the blonde.

I roll back onto my back dramatically, Rachel hovering over my face. "Us Leos don't tend to take insults very well." She smirks.

I roll my eyes at her antics, a humorous huff leaving my lips. Like I said, our time together is fun, without being an item. I'm sure it wouldn't make a difference, but maybe it would. Maybe instead of lying on the floor in this uncomfortable silence, she'd be kissing my face off or something couple-y like that. I'm not complaining, but I'm not definitely against her kissing my face off.

It could be so simple, but she's just making it hard, why can't she see I'm an absolute fool for her, why can't she show some a sign? What do I have to do, who do I have to be to get some reciprocation?

"You're doing it again."

My eyebrows raise slightly, "Hm? Doing what?"

"The staring thing." She examines my face, "Tell me what's on your mind."

This is the last thing I need, "No, it's fine." I look down at the non-existent watch on my wrist, "We should get back."

I lift my upper back off of the ground but it's immediately pushed back down, "Stop avoiding the topic."

"But there's nothing on my mind." I lie.

"Stop lying." She scoffs, her hand remaining on my chest.

I stay silent for a few seconds, mentally debating whether I should give a hint, a confession or just lie.

"Well, I guess I've just been thinking a lot."

"About what?" Rachel questions in her best therapist voice.

"Things..." I drag.

"Specify 'things' for me, Y/n." She speaks, losing her patience.

"I'm just all up in my feels, y'know. Like, I can't put it into words."

"Is it a person, an event, a memory?" She suggests I open up further.

"A person," I answer truthfully, ", and they won't leave my mind."

"Is this out of hatred, friendship, jealousy, love? Anything like that."

I pause, giving myself time to think over the numerous outcomes of this talk. It could end many ways, maybe she'll freak out, maybe she's disgusted by me if I'm lucky she'll be fine with it, even luckier if she feels the same.

"She's just so kickass, and I can't help but feel... things, about her. Everything about her. Literally everything. She's really funny, so caring, and I don't think I've met a more interesting person. Plus, she's absolutely gorgeous, like a Goddess, can rock any outfit, could wear a trash bag and look hot as hell."

I begin to smile to myself getting lost in the thought of the girl. And finally putting it into words? It's bigger than Kim and Ye's split. I never thought I could speak to somebody about it wholeheartedly without feeling I could say something wrong.

"Whenever I see her I find myself hypnotized, and I hate it. I hate all of this. Because in reality, I'm clueless, she leaves me fishing without a rod. I'm totally fine with just being friends, well, that's kind of a lie, but I do enjoy being friends. Though, I don't think being friends includes wanting to hold the other's hand and looking at the other's lips and wanting to kiss them and take them on dates and treat them like royalty. I love her but I fucking hate what she does to me..."

I sigh, the confession to myself over, finally opening my eyes again. Just to see who I had actually been confessing to.

Her face remains how it had been when I had last looked at her, a small smile hiding behind her lips. Those same lips I'd been talking about kissing. I watch her slow breaths raise her shoulders up and down as she leans on my arm, the two of us still on the ground.

"So who's the lucky girl?" She asks, the sly grin contrasting the desperate and hopeful glint in her eyes.

I stare at the love of my life in front of me, our breathing the only noise emitting from the both of us. "Isn't it obvious?" I scoff with an awkward smile. The pit of my stomach filled with butterflies, a full-on prison break going on down there.

"Hm, but I want you to tell me." She smirks, slowly inching her face closer to me.

I close my eyes, releasing a deep breath, opening my eyes to Rachel closer than before. I look her in the eyes.

"It's... Victoria Chase."

"Oh my fucking God." She shoves me further into the ground while we laugh together, Rachel falling on top of me in giggles. "I hate you."

She leans in, "Now tell me." She commands, pinning my shoulders to the floor.

"It's you, Rachel Amber, I'm so fucking in love wi-" And before I knew it she was kissing me.

Her soft lips meet my own passionately, her hands placed on each side of my face, our smiles uncontrollable against each other. We pull away, her nose mere millimetres away from mine, flashing the widest grin I've ever seen, "I think I'm in love with you too, Y/n L/n."

[musiccomplete]

Tumblr glitched and when had like 4 paragraphs up in this reblog OK. Let me just summarize what I think I said.

This is the biggest New Order thing since Music Complete. I feel like Complete Music was to be expected with how New Order is trying to present itself now. Entertainment Education Recreation was. unnecessary (how many live albums are we gonna release buddy) and So It Goes: Live at MIF was fucking. AMAZING but it had its obvious restraints with just being one show and everything, still maybe this is the biggest New Order thing since So It Goes. we got some nice reprints of Murder, the Blue Monday merch was nice, Be A Rebel and Riptide brought us the idea that New Order could possibly do something new again, the shirts were also nice i like the new shirts. Taras Shevchenko shirts and it being fully officially on YouTube. It’s all really nice. I’m telling this a bit out of order just to get the point across. The last biggest thing we had for New Order was a live album with a gimmick, which released 5 years ago.

“What about the definitive releases?” I hear you asking! (hopefully, hopefully someone is really reading this) those are great! Remastered stuff and a bunch of cute little demos. Hopefully now that the pandemic is *somewhat* over they can get back to releasing them yearly, which is probably what they intended to do. I love Movement’s! Homage got completely remastered (for the first time I believe?) which is beautiful and early versions of Cries & Whispers and Mesh with different lyrics too. We’d only heard about that in passing when Morris said “I wrote the lyrics for “Cries & Whispers” mk II (mark two)”! Although some stuff is weird like the total absence of Hour and Haystack and stuff like that but what we got there was great. Also the real lyrics to all the songs. That was good. PCL’s came with “Transmissions” if memory serves. I think that was to supplement material since Be A Rebel was still getting remixed and I’m not too sure people were excited about the whole thing. I dunno. Maybe Transmissions was Movement. I’ll check later. Anyways. Early versions of Theives Like Us and general “hear us play around with the synths!” stuff (plus the entirety of Peels 2) was good. Oh yeah and V586 being digital! Carried me through my math finals. Though I think it’s the weakest edition in the series by far. Low-Life’s was this year in January. I remember flying in a plane back home listening to the definitive songs… I could barely hear them from the altitude but it was very exciting to hear new New Order material even if it was old. Yet another version of Let’s Go, and what’s presumed to be an early Bizarre Love Triangle… It’s good. Okay. But I just don’t think it tops MIF or Music Complete. I have other stuff to say about the Definitive editions but I’ve already talked to long in a post that’s supposed to be about Electronic.

If you hadn’t heard, Electronic’s 2006 compilation album Get The Message - The Best of Electronic is getting rereleased. And not only that, it is getting sold through New Order’s website. Electronic’s previous release was in 2022 for record store day, a mini album called 1989 Remixes 1992 which was so undersold when I went to a local record store the other week, they had two copies of it! That mini album was not announced by Electronic’s social media (which I think was brought up when the music videos were getting posted to YouTube). And the release before that was, as mentioned in the original post, the 2013 rerelease of Self Titled. Which I need to stress. WAS GOOD! It was very good.

Electronic do not exist anymore. The group has been gone since arouuunndd 2002 it’s hard to say they never really broke up they just kinda stopped. Marr still loves it, he still plays Electronic songs in some of his sets and Sumner has joined him a few times. (New Order has never played any Electronic song live by the way if you were curious). Electronic were also seemingly forgotten! Almost completely wiped. Never brought up in interviews unless absolutely necessary, never brought up in the band blog posts I believe (gotta. look through those again it’s been awhile). Their social media didn’t even post about the anniversaries of any albums. And like… that’s fine. I’m fine with that. Sure I’m a bit upset that there’s no box set and Raise The Pressure and Twisted Tenderness have almost no vinyl presence and that they’re way out of print but like… this is common with literally everything, these things happen. However. How fucking ever.

Paragraph break because of how fucking important this is,

This is huge.

Like. Holy shit.

This is the first time ever that New Order’s website sells something not directly New Order or Joy Division related. This is probably one of the best ways to truly differentiate today’s New Order from the Hook New Order (okay that’s exaggerating). The fact that they get their own separate tab on the website is also like… that to me means that there is more stuff to sell, why wouldn’t they just bury it in their own “music” selling tab?! If you want my opinion, I don’t think the next thing they’re gonna release will be this year. I think it will be like. A shirt in February or something. A new shirt, they’re not gonna reprint the original Get The Message (single) shirts until like. many many years from now.

Now granted, this isn’t the biggest it could be. The biggest it could be would be rereleasing Raise The Pressure with bonus tracks. Get The Message is the most accessible one. However, as the website banner says right there, this is the first time that this album is released on vinyl. So, Warner is rereleasing this right, that makes sense, Rhino released the original, Warner own Rhino. The willingness to print this to a new format is genuinely blowing me away. We have an Electronic rerelease. in 2023. On the New Order store website. Who changed their html (just the desktop one the mobile one still needs changing) just to show it off. And it’s in a new format! Oh my god! How are you not freaking out!

i had this whole post drafted up about how there was no electronic box set and how upset i was that the last electronic rerelease was in April 2013. Oh my fucking GODDDD

[phoenixyfriend]

Okay so a bit ago @atagotiak (Tia) proposed the following on discord:

I do not remember where I have seen this but it hasn’t come out of my brain. But I’m thinking about it now: AU where Korkie isn’t an Obitine baby. Bo-Katan is I tend to think of the Kryze sisters as relatively close in age but they’re animated so it’s not like you can really tell

Which like. Obviously I am on board. This is hilarious, and there is so much potential for shenanigans.

(First part is from a group brainstorm, second part is me outlining a fic concept based on this.)

Bo-Katan has so many issues based around THE LIES, MOM

Tia:

Let’s say Satine had her at 16-17 and so Bo is now 19ish by tcw and this is how she does teen rebellion

Ahsoka and Bo-Katan meet early, and Ahsoka receives some Bitching about how Obi-Wan is being more of a dad to his grandpadawan than to his actual daughter.

Ahsoka: ...does he, like, know? That you're his?

Gel (@gelpenss):

Bo-Katan may be operating under some uh. Some Ideas about what exactly the force lets people sense. She is CONVINCED obi-wan knows and has known since the minute she was born.

Ahsoka asks if she can comm her grandmaster--she wonders if she should bring up that Bo-Katan is Anakin's age--and just goes "So like did you know you have a biological daughter?"

Liz (@lizasweetling):

Anakin is going to feel disproportionately threatened by this news isn't he it's so unnnecessary- she doesn't even like him! they don't know each other!!

Redirect the teenage rebellion into sibling rivalry

Gel:

Anakin is either gonna feel threatened or SMUG in like a horrible goose “that’s not how that works” way Like, if anakin found out bo-katan was convinced obi-wan knew, I think he could be convinced that obi-wan Knew and then he’d be like “HAH HE LIKES ME BETTER HE COULD’VE HAD HIS DAUGHTER BUT HE TOOK CARE OF ME.” simultaneously combined with raging insecurity of “oh god his own blood daughter wasn’t enough for him maybe someday he will just drop me like a hot potato”

Ahsoka and Korkie just eating chips on the side like "wow I don't. Want to be involved in this."

God it would be really funny if Korkie was ANOTHER oops baby that Satine just never fucking told him about.

And Korkie's just like. Awkwardly pretending not to know Bo-Katan because she's so embarrassing.

Tia:

Obi-Wan, once he gets over the shock: and you ran away from home to join Death Watch? You need better taste in guerrilla movements, young lady.

(Anakin has mixed feelings about someone else getting an Obi lecture lbr.)

Tia:

Obi-Wan lectures other people regularly, probably. This is different though. For reasons. No Anakin will not explain the reasons

Gel:

Anakin is just SO allergic to introspection.

Doc (@thisarenotarealblog):

Bo-Katan: oh like you would know anything about guerilla movements... Obi-Wan: I would, as a matter of fact. He then refuses to elaborate

Tia:

Ahsoka & Korkie have 'I'm the relatively well-adjusted one, despite being the baby' solidarity Really it's partly just that the galaxy hasn't had enough time to fuck them up yet I just realized, while definitely not like, the most well behaved or obedient of the kids & young adults. There's still a bit of like. Anakin gets to experience being the good sibling here.

He's such a MESS but he's not a terrorist yet, so...

ANYWAY here's the ficlet I brainstormed last night.

We kick off with a slightly different order of events. Bo-Katan is known to be alive and Out There Somewhere, Causing Problems, but has not yet run into any of the Jedi, and hasn't seen Satine since she ran away from home. There are rumors on Mandalore proper about her being Satine's daughter, not sister, everyone dismisses it.

Except Anakin. He wants to know if he has a sister (Obi-Wan basically adopted him, right, so that means this Bo-Katan would be his adopted sister, and that's... something). He's paranoid about her taking his place, but also he's Anakin and a little mucky in the head about family, and so he decides he has to know The Truth! of Obi-Wan's possible lovechild with this Mandalorian lady.

Because there are so many rumors and he's. You know. He's Obi-Wan's kid. He doesn't need competition. Ahsoka's fine, he already adores her, and literally everyone said Korkie had taken a DNA test years earlier for the same rumors reason and he's not Satine's.

He hears the rumors and, as one does, steals some of Obi-Wan's DNA (well, he says 'hey, can I borrow your hairbrush' and walks out with it while Obi-Wan is lecturing him for not packing according to the excel sheet Obi-Wan gave him).

He hunts down Bo-Katan, almost gets murdered by her while trying to steal some of her hair, and then fast-talks his way into explaining what he was trying to do.

Bo-Katan is annoyed but like. She's curious. This is the first person she's met that has Kenobi DNA on hand for the test.

Unfortunately for everyone's sanity, the paternity test comes back positive.

Bo-Katan is overcome with rage and shows up back on Mandalore--shocking a number of people who all thought she was dead--and yelling at her apparently mother about lying to her for her entire life and how DARE YOU, WHAT THE FUCK--

Anakin is like. Cheering her on. He agrees that never sharing the truth was a sketch move. Satine's just standing there, waiting for Bo-Katan to wind down, wincing every little bit. Obi-Wan is uncomfortable and a little horrified, and also getting so ready to ream Anakin out for whatever the hell he did. "Why do you assume I did something?" "Did you?" "...yeah."

Satine manages to explain that she had done it first to protect Bo-Katan, and since she'd ended up just as involved in her life as she would have been with the truth, it hadn't seemed particularly important to change the wording around from sibling to parent (Anakin is crying and unsubtly edging closer to Obi-Wan and Ahsoka really wants to not be here) and also Bo-Katan ran away before the birthday where Satine was going to tell her things, to join a terrorist group that wanted to kill the very sister-actually-mother she was so mad about lying to her and also what do you think you are wearing young lady--

"I thought you were mom-ing me because you had that stupid 'eldest daughter syndrome' and our parents were dead and you were old already, not that you were actually my mom!" "Excuse you, I'm barely in early middle age, thank you." "...yeah, no, you're old." "You're grounded." "You can't ground me!" "You're in my house again, I most certainly can!" "For calling you old?" "FOR JOINING A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION THAT'S TRYING TO KILL ME, BO."

There were definitely jokes about Bo being way small and a little slow for her age when she was a kid, because they backdated her actual birth to before Satine's mom died, which means claiming Bo is like. A solid year and a half younger than they claim, which they can't pull off without raising her in secret first, claiming she's an ill child, and then introducing her to people when she's like. Five. Officially six and a half.

Anakin is DELIGHTED to learn that she's younger than him by more than he thought.

If he's getting a sister out of this (shut up, Obi-Wan) then he's going to be a Real Older Brother.

Ahsoka can get the fun and coddling. Bo gets the Vicious Mockery. Anakin wants to ROUGHHOUSE.

(He's just. The worst. It's great.)

Anakin, grinning: you're like. petite. Bo: no, YOU'RE just STUPIDLY TALL Anakin: lol

He carries her under his arm like a really big cat and she wants to FIGHT HIM about it but then Obi-Wan and Ahsoka will get involved, and she can't take three Jedi in combat, which means she'll lose, and then she'll be confined to her room by her Bitch Of A Mom again (she doesn't say that out loud, because Anakin has Feelings about loving and respecting mothers, and can lecture just as long as Obi-Wan can, which Bo was unfortunate enough to find out), so she just to just HANG THERE

She can't even get her ARMOR because she's a "threat to public safety" and "known menace with a history of violence" and "loyal to a fringe extremist group meaning to kill many government officials" it whatever and it's just like SO rude

Doc:

Tangential comment: I love the idea that when Anakin feels like it he can lecture like obiwan "I learned from the best"