#I was like no no you see the world is divided into real adults and fake adults who are just trying to pass as real adults

[whentherewerebicycles]

ears of the day :)

[mr-jack-letterman]

We need more young stan content out here.

And nah I ain't talking about 12 year old Stanley or 30 year old mullet Stan, I'm talking 17 year old, slicked back hair, acne riddled Stan pines.

Yeah that one.

I am so happy mullet Stan is so popular because his fit slaps ngl and the angst is so potent I can't not respect it. But teenage Stan has so much potential it's driving me insane.

There is a line dividing the 17 years of relative happiness Stan had with Ford and the 10+ years of depression and crime he had on the streets, and teenage Stan uses that line as a goddamn jump rope.

Seriously, depending on how you look at it dude is either living his best life or is fighting for said life in the trenches of homelessness and poverty.

I see a lot of content regarding Stan on the streets but it only ever focuses on 30ish Stan in his later years of homelessness where he's already a hardened adult after years of dealing with this bullshit. But Stan didn't just drive away and then magically turn 30. There were times in those first few months after Stan got kicked out where he was in his car, trying to sleep, probably starving, while still being fundamentally a child.

Hell, compared to the 30ish age of mullet Stan and the 60+ year old con man he'd later become, teenage Stan is damn near a baby. There's a certain brightness about him, a sort of warm naive optimism that still clings to him because he's straight up just too young to know any better.

He's still fully convinced he's gonna make it rich and go back to his family in a few years. He still believes wholeheartedly that even if shit sucks right now, eventually everything is gonna be okay. It has to be. But it's not gonna be okay. It's not gonna be okay for a long time. And some parts are just never gonna be okay.

Seeing a happy and oblivious teenage Stan feels like watching a baby lamb walk into a slaughter house.

The next 10-something years are going to tear him apart limb from limb. In 40 years he's going to wake up on a boat during a bout of amnesia thinking he's in Columbian prison, or he's locked in the trunk of a car and about to drown, or his shoulder is on fire and his brother is gone, or it's the end of the world and everyone he ever dared to give a shit about is about to die in front of him and it's all his fault because he was too weak to stop it.

At some point, a young Stanley is going to get into his first true life or death fight. He doesn't even have to be involved with crime yet for it to happen. He's probably bruised and bleeding, with not nearly enough money to afford a doctor. He's sitting in the driver's seat of his El Diablo having a complete and utter break down because he almost died and suddenly everything is real.

Nothing is okay, absolutely nothing is going to be okay and whatever is left of his teenage innocence, naivety, and warmth dies in that car and it never comes back.

The next 10+ years are going to fundamentally change Stanley as a person and he's never going to be the same ever again. But teenage Stan doesn't know that, he's still a kid trying to sleep in the back of his car, ignoring hunger pangs and finding comfort in the half baked business ideas his mind cooks up because he doesn't understand how utterly done for he is.

12 year old Stanley I believe is so appealing because of his bright rambunctious spirit. He's still just a kid playing on the beach with his brother, but so was teenage Stan. I just wish the wholesomeness that comes with that and the subsequent hurt that follows as that spirit is broken over and over again by the world was explored more.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

[joelalorian]

Fall Into Me - Chapter Six: And I Knew My Heart Wasn't Mine

dbf!Joel x f!reader

Summary: Joel is hanging on by a thread as a single father to a tenacious 10-year-old Sarah. Feeling like he's drowning, like the world is about to spit him out, he needs some help before he breaks in half. At your dad's insistence, you show up in his life and change everything.

Story is inspired by the song Fall Into Me by Forest Blakk. Chapter titles will be lyrics from the song.

Word Count: 3.8k

Chapter Warnings: Explicit, under 18 take a hike. No outbreak AU. Lots of feelings, confusion, and self doubt. Two idiots falling in love. Finally some smut-ish stuff. Dry humping on the couch. Joel is his own warning. Tommy keeping it real. Age gap of about 9 years (Reader 24/25, Joel 33/34). No use of y/n. Reader has a nickname used only by her dad.

Dividers by the wonderful @saradika-graphics

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Chapter Five | Main Masterlist

Sitting at the kitchen table on Sunday morning, you reviewed an email on your phone from the Texas Education Agency. Relief washed over you. The State Board finally approved your certification after jumping through a million hoops, just in time for your upcoming meeting at Sarah’s school.

Yet another step closer to finally feeling like an actual adult contributing to society.

“Morning, Spud,” your dad greeted as he walked into the kitchen in search of his morning coffee. “You’re up early. Did you have fun with Sarah yesterday?”

“I figured I’d seize the day and all that. I had a blast yesterday! Sarah is so smart, and Joel was really nice, as always,” you replied, playing down quite how much of a roll Joel had in making the day so enjoyable. You still couldn’t believe how things worked out.

Joel Miller, dead sexy single father, liked you, wanted to be with you. Little morsels of doubt tried to weasel their way into your mind, trying to make you question what was so special about you that a man like Joel would be interested in. You shook those thoughts away, resolving to believe that you deserved someone like him, someone who liked you for who you were and not who they wanted you to be.

“He comes from good stock, that Joel,” your dad interrupted you’re wandering thoughts. “Not sure what happened with Tommy, though. Musta been dropped on his head as a baby or somethin’.”

“Dad!” you laughed, shaking your head. “There’s nothing wrong with the guy. He’s young, single, and unburdened by responsibility. I imagine you were like that once upon a time.”

“Musta been so long ago I can’t remember,” he replied, hip checking you into the counter when you stood to place your glass in the sink. “Watch yourself there, Spud.”

“Jeez, thanks, Dad,” you replied with an amused eye roll. Your dad watched as you tidied up your little mess from breakfast and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge.

“You know, Spud. You’d do well to find a man like Joel. He’s a really good guy. Shame he doesn’t date. All the women go crazy over him.”

Your dad kept going on about Joel’s aversion to dating, but your mind froze on that one simple statement – you’d do well to find a man like Joel. You tuned back in just in time to hear him say, “He needs to settle down with a girl like you. Someone smart and responsible who’ll still give him a run for his money.”

Practically bursting with the urge to admit that you and Joel just officially started seeing each other, you curled your lips between your teeth and just nodded. You promised Joel you’d wait a bit before mentioning anything to your dad and you planned on keeping that promise. “He should be so lucky to find someone like me,” you sassed finally.

The day carried on as you spent some quality time with your dad watching TV and lounging around. It was refreshing and relaxing, reminding you of times past where the two of you spent a bunch of time together.

The urge to text you plagued Joel all day Sunday, distracting his attention from the football game until Tommy finally snatched the phone out of his hands and hid it.

“Enough, brother. You’re like a lovesick fool checking your phone every five fuckin’ seconds. You just spent the day together yesterday. Give her a little breathin’ room,” Tommy chastised. “Women like a little mystery after all.”

Flopping back into the couch cushions with a huff, Joel crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I don’t want to play games with her, Tommy. None of that aloof, hard to get bullshit.”

Shaking his head, Tommy waited until a commercial break to turn to his brother again. “I’m not sayin’ to play games. I’m just sayin’ you don’t need to be up her ass 24/7. You’ll see her every day this week. It’s ok to build up a little healthy anticipation today.”

Joel knew his brother had a point. He just couldn’t help himself. It’d been so long since he felt like this about someone – if he ever really did before – and it was messing with his head. Berating himself for not even kissing you yesterday, Joel wanted to at least text with you today. It felt somehow wrong to not talk to you.

Then again, you hadn’t texted him either.

Tommy made a valiant effort to distract Joel from his thoughts, talking statistics about the game and the players, anything to get the guy talking. It only worked for so long before Tommy couldn’t take it anymore.

“Alright, how ‘bout this. I’ll take Sarah for a dinner and ice cream date tomorrow so you two can spend some time alone. Get a little action in and maybe that’ll help you get your head out of the clouds.”

For the first time in hours, Joel’s face lit up. “You sure?”

“I wouldn’t offer otherwise,” Tommy replied. “You two need to figure out if there’s something there and you can’t do that with a ten-year-old hanging around all the time. Not unless you want to scar her for life.”

Joel nodded, reaching out to take his phone back. Before letting go of it, Tommy grinned. “I already texted her for you. You’re welcome.”

Ripping his phone out of his brother’s hand, Joel scrolled through his text messages to find what Tommy sent you.

JM: Hey sweetheart. Netflix and chill tomorrow?

He only knew what that meant because of Tommy and you had to know that wasn’t something Joel would say. “Jesus fucking Christ, Tommy!” Joel growled, his ears turning red from what you must think. He was about to really lay into his brother for overstepping when you responded.

You: Netflix and chill, huh? Sounds like my kinda date 😉

Not expecting that response, Joel chuckled. Maybe Tommy knew exactly what he was doing after all.

“Like I said, you’re welcome,” Tommy teased when he saw the goofy smile on his brother’s face.

Joel ignored him, proceeding to ask you about your day. The two of you texted back and forth well into the night until it was time for bed.

Climbing between the cold sheets of his large, empty bed, Joel wished you were there with him. He could already imagine you there, falling asleep together after a romp or two, waking up next to you in the morning. It sounded like heaven to him.

Hmm, maybe he could Netflix and chill his way to convincing you to spend the night tomorrow.

You didn’t know what to expect when you walked into Joel’s house Monday morning, but it certainly wasn’t a flustered Joel, knelt on the floor, staring down at a mess of pancake mix surrounding him and Sarah giggling her little heart out at the breakfast table.

“What happened here?” you asked, hands on your hips and eyes surveying the damage. “Did you have a fight with the boxed pancake mix.”

“He really did!” Sarah exclaimed, still laughing. “It went everywhere!”

“I see that,” you replied, grinning at her before turning back to Joel.

He stared up at you with wide, sad eyes and shoulders slumped. “I couldn’t get it open and then it just…” His arms spread wide, gesturing at the powdery mess on the tile in such an endearing way. You couldn’t stop your smile from growing wider.

“Go finish getting ready for work. I’ll get Sarah some cereal and clean this mess up,” you directed, gently pulling him to his feet and around the mess.

“You shouldn’t have to clean up my mess, sweetheart,” Joel replied, pulling you in for a hug. You could tell the warm press of your bodies together made him feel better and you basked in it as well, not minding the bit of pancake mix that transferred to your clothes.

“Don’t worry, I got it. Now git!” One hand swatted at his ass playfully as he rushed out of the room. “Now, what kind of cereal do you want, nugget?”

Fifteen minutes later, Joel returned to find the mess gone and you running a mop over the tile to wipe away any last remnants of the pancake mix disaster. Sarah already finished her cereal and was upstairs brushing her teeth before it was time to head to school. When you put the mop back into the bucket, Joel crept up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist. He pulled you close until your back was flush against his chest.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he breathed in your ear, sending a flood of goosebumps down your arms. Joel pressed his lips to the spot just below your ear and left a trail of kisses down your neck. The feel of his lips on your skin exceeded any expectations you had, and a contented sigh left your own lips.

With a hurried tenderness, he spun you around in his arms, the mop forgotten as it nearly fell out of the bucket. Faces close together now, your eyes drank in every detail of him from the richness of his dark brown eyes, the curve of his nose, the purposeful stubble of his beard, and, finally, to the fullness of his bottom lip. You could feel his eyes doing the same, drinking in every bit of your face before tilting his head impossibly closer.

“I’m going to kiss you now, ok?” Joel murmured; lips nearly pressed to yours already and you hummed in approval.

After all the weeks of mutual pining and self-doubt, Joel finally kissed you. It started as a soft press of lips and quickly morphed into an overwhelming need to devour each other when his tongue teased along the seam of your lips, begging entry to deepen the kiss. Teeth knocked together and tongues tangled as you tasted each other – somehow, the taste of coffee was suddenly appealing when it came from Joel’s mouth.

Hands wandered – his over your curves and yours into his luscious, dark curls. Joel’s hair felt as silky as it looked, and you had been itching to get your fingers in it from the moment you met him.

The sound of Sarah’s footsteps bouncing down the stairs broke the two of you apart, breathless, and dazed.

“Wow,” Joel murmured, struggling to remove his hands from your waist.

You smiled up at him, equally unwilling to remove your fingers from his hair. “Exactly,” you whispered, stepping back with your hands at your side just as Sarah entered the kitchen.

“I’m ready!” she declared excitedly and you both grinned at her cuteness.

“Okay, nugget. Let’s head out.”

Heart melting in your chest, you watched Joel and Sarah do their morning routine of saying goodbye. The love between the two of them was so strong it was like a tangible thing you could hold in your hands. Nostalgia washed over you as memories of your own childhood, moments like this with your dad, flooded your mind. What you had with your dad, what Joel and Sarah had together, was a connection that would never fade, only grow stronger with time.

Briefly, you wondered if your evolving relationship with Joel would affect that connection, interfere with it in anyway. You couldn’t move forward with him if that was the case. Some woman showing up and changing the dynamic between you and your dad would have upset you as a child and you refused to be the cause of any upset Sarah felt.

When the two of them stepped back from their hug and grinned at you, any question about your place in their dynamic washed down the drain. You felt nearly dizzy with relief when Sarah quickly said, “Give her a hug, too, Daddy,” and shoved him as hard as she could in your direction.

With a chuckle, Joel gave in to Sarah’s demand, wrapping his arms around you. The broadness of him surrounded you, enveloping you in warmth and a sense of security you’d not experienced before. Was that what love felt like?

“Have a good day, darlin’. I’ll see you later,” Joel’s deep voice was but a whisper in your ear, his lips just grazing your earlobe. “I’m looking forward to tonight.”

Warmth raced up your neck to your cheeks and you squeezed your thighs together in anticipation of what you hoped would happen later. “You have a good day too, Joel. Be careful, ok?”

“Always, darlin’.” He winked as you led Sarah out the front door to your car.

The journey to Sarah’s school started off quietly, Sarah bopping along to the music on the radio as you navigated the morning traffic. Your thoughts wandered to what you should wear later when Sarah startled you with a sudden question.

“Are you my dad’s girlfriend now?”

She asked the question so nonchalantly that you weren’t sure how to respond. Would she be upset with whatever answer you gave? Was there even a right or wrong answer? What did she want to hear? Mind racing, you settled on asking Sarah a question in return.

“Would you be upset if I was?”

Tilting her head side to side a few times, the little girl contemplated her answer while you held your breath. She turned to you with a smile so big it scrunched up her nose. “Nope! It’d make me really happy.”

“Really?” Your eyebrows were nearly at your hairline.

“Uh huh. You’re the coolest and prettiest. My dad would be lucky if you were his girlfriend,” Sarah admitted with all the confidence and knowledge of a ten-year-old. Another head tilt and she added, “So, are you?”

Equal parts amazed and grateful for Sarah’s acceptance of the idea, you opted for honesty. “I mean, I don’t know,” you shrugged. How could you explain what you had to a 10-year-old? “We haven’t talked about naming it yet, but we did decide to see how we like being together. Does that make sense?”

Sarah gave it a moment of thought. “Yeah, I think so. It’s kinda like how you’re a teacher, but not officially until you get the job, right?”

You laughed at the comparison with a nod. “Exactly. I’m as good as your dad’s girlfriend, we just haven’t made titles official yet.” You pulled up in front of the school and it was Sarah’s turn to get out. “Now get going, nugget. Have a good day!”

The little girl bounced out of the car, calling out to one of her friends. Just before you pulled away, you heard Sarah tell the other girl that you were her dad’s not-yet girlfriend.

The day absolutely dragged. Joel could swear that time went backwards every time he looked at a clock. It didn’t help that every single subcontractor gave him a hard time about something today.

The roof trusses arrived six weeks early and the sub refused to take them back even though the damn things would rot before they got to the roofing phase of construction. The company he rented the extra backhoe from wanted to raise their rates in the middle of his contract. The list went on and Joel ran out of patience three hours ago.

The only thing holding him together was the thought of you. Spending time with you. Kissing you. Touching you. Burying himself inside you… He adjusted himself with a sigh. Damn, he needed to put those particular thoughts on ice before he got himself riled up. The workday was shitty enough, he didn’t need the guys giving him a hard time about an untimely chub in his pants.

Finally, Joel had enough of everyone’s bullshit and called it a day, leaving his foreman in charge of the worksite.

“Off to doll yourself up, are ya?” Tommy teased as Joel headed for his truck. Gesturing in the general direction of Joel’s crotch, he added, “You remember how to use that thing? Make sure to clear out the cobwebs and use protection!”

“Jesus, Tommy,” Joel grumbled, climbing into his truck, and driving off. He knew his brother was only teasing, but Joel was nervous enough as it was. He didn’t need Tommy getting in his head. He did have a point about protection, though.

A quick stop at the convenience store to grab a box of condoms, Joel made it home before you and Sarah. Putting on some 90s rock, he jumped in the shower, putting in the extra effort to tidy himself up down there. He wondered if you preferred pubic hair or not. Fearing he was getting way ahead of himself, Joel opted to just trim his down and hoped for the best.

By the time he finished trimming his facial hair and tousling his curls, you and Sarah were downstairs, working on her homework. As he walked down the stairs, Joel could hear you encouraging his daughter to think the questions through and congratulating her when she got the answers right. His heart grew three sizes watching how you were with Sarah. You held his whole world in the palm of your hand and treasured it like the precious cargo it was.

Joel was falling so hard for you. You were quickly gaining the power to destroy him.

“Hi Daddy!” Sarah called out when she spotted him in the doorway. “We just finished my math homework. Can I play in the backyard?”

He set up a tire swing on the large live oak out back a week ago and it quickly became his little girl’s happy place. “Of course, nugget. Come give your old man a hug first.” Bending down, Joel swept Sarah up in his arms, biceps stretching his shirt sleeves as he swung her around in a circle. Sarah’s laughter echoed through the room, and you smiled sweetly at the pair of them.

“Uncle Tommy’s coming to take you out for dinner and ice cream in a bit. Ok?” Sarah nodded when he settled her back on her feet and raced for the sliding door. Once she was out of sight and earshot, Joel turned to you. “Come ‘ere, darlin’,” he said, voice deep and velvety.

Your body followed his command without conscious thought, so great the need to be in his arms. “I thought about you all day,” you admitted, staring up at him with wide eyes.

“Me, too. Could hardly focus on the job thinking about you and spending this evening together.” He tightened his arms around you, head bending to seal his lips to yours. When your lips parted at his prompting, Joel teased your plush bottom lip with his teeth. “It’s like a tasty little gummy worm,” he teased. “I could nibble on it all day.”

You moaned into his mouth, the little breathless sound music to his ears.

The kiss deepened until you were licking into each other’s mouths, hands wandering and grasping for purchase on any piece of real estate you could reach. Neither of you heard the front door open or the footsteps approaching the kitchen.

“Am I interrupting somethin’?” he asked cheekily as the two of you sprang apart, disheveled and gasping for breath.

Joel ran a hand down his face, closing his eyes for a moment to gather himself. “Excellent timing as always, brother.”

“Y’all just couldn’t wait five more minutes, could ya?” Tommy’s grin a mile wide as he teased. “Lemme get the nugget out of here before you two scar her for life.”

You tucked your face into Joel’s shoulder bashfully when Tommy slipped through the sliding door. Joel groaned and wrapped his arms around you. “Don’t mind him, darlin’. He just likes to bust my balls.”

Ten minutes later, after some hugs from Sarah and more teasing from Tommy, you and Joel were alone. Taking your hand, he led you to the couch. He hoped you didn’t notice that his rough palms were sweaty with nerves. You were abnormally quiet, and he wondered if you were nervous as well.

Seated a few inches apart, the tension became too much. “What are you in the mood for?” Joel asked, breaking the silence as he pulled up Netflix on the TV. He barely logged into his account when you suddenly straddled his lap.

“Hi,” you said when he stared at you in surprise. “You know what I’m in the mood for?”

“What?” He barely got his mouth to form the word, his brain short circuiting with you in his lap. His grip on the remote loosened, yet neither of you cared when it fell to the ground.

“You.”

There was a moment where you both froze, each waiting for the other to act first. Then the tension snapped, and Joel’s lips crashed against yours. His tongue danced along the seam of your lips until you opened them to let him in. Tongues tangled in a never-ending dance as your hips tilted, grinding down on him. Joel was uncomfortably hard in moments, pressing up against your warmth.

His hands were everywhere, fingers tenderly tracing the structure of your cheekbones, down the curve of your neck, along the swell of your breasts. They finally settled, grabbing handfuls of your ass to pull you impossibly closer. You moaned into his mouth, hips bucking in search of more friction.

Gasping for breath, Joel tore his mouth from yours, his hands urging your hips into a rhythm as you dry humped him. His mouth left a trail of scorching kisses down your neck, eliciting a wave of goosebumps to flow down your arms. Your hips rocked, gliding across his hardened length and Joel swore he could feel your wetness breaching through the layer of clothes separating you.

Fuck, how he wanted to taste you, get high on your sweet nectar. He knew, just knew in that primal way, that yours would be the best pussy he ever tasted. His cock swelled impossibly harder at the mere thought of burying his face between your legs.

“Jooooeeelllll.” His name coming from your luscious lips in a drawn-out moan caused his own hips to buck up into you, hitting just the right spot to make you both see stars from the friction alone. His mouth sucked little marks into your neck, leaving his left ear exposed to your mouth as crooned, “I’m gonna come, fuck. You’re gonna make me come in my panties, Joel.”

“Fuck, darlin’. Come all over me, pretty girl. I want to see you fall apart from grinding on me like this. Drench those panties.” Joel sat back a little, just enough to watch your face as your orgasm swept over you. It was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen, eyes rolled back in your head, mouth hanging open in a silent ‘o’ as you trembled above him, delicate hands clenching the meat of his shoulders for balance. A little sheen of sweat dusted your hairline. Fucking beautiful.

Joel was absolutely certain he could feel you drenching his pants as you came, your breath finally coming back in a sharp exhale. He had never been so turned on in his life. Watching you come apart for him, feeling it seep through the layers of clothing became too much. For the first time in his adult life, Joel Miller came in his pants with a desperate whimper.

tbc

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[monzamash]

it's impossible to win — daniel ricciardo

daniel ricciardo x you (femreader) | 2.5k summary – when you buy concert tickets with your ex but break up a couple of months before the gig, do you go or cut your losses? rating – mature (sexual references, coarse language) a/n – this was inspired by a lovely ask i received during my 2k celebration and based around the band alexisonfire x masterlist

just sent you the AOF tickets.

i told you to keep yours. you love them as much as i do. read

The glow of your phone was too bright, too harsh and so was the reality you didn’t want to face any time soon. You couldn’t keep them. How could you when the reputation of being the ‘notorious ex girlfriend of Daniel Ricciardo’ – man of the people, loved by millions shadowed you everywhere you went?

He was loved more than most and certainly more than you.

She was never good enough anyway; a parasite, they said when the news broke on the petty gossip pages, exposing that you and Daniel were no longer together, itemising every little detail of your downfall for the world to see. Those years of memories, years of loving privately disappeared and in its place were painful ones to heal. They were the best years of your life, or so you thought – blissfully unaware of the distance slowly growing between you and the man you loved more than most – but it wasn’t enough.

You weren't enough to fight for and especially not enough to love more than driving around a racetrack eight months out of the year. He was never there, out of sight and out of mind, leaving you battling for his attention. You weren’t cut out for it, simply put by him while on the other side of the world. It started as a late night phone call to ease the ache in your chest and to keep him close but he couldn’t have been further away. Physically and emotionally. Drifting.

“Babe, this is what you signed up for.”

“No, it’s what I tolerate – it’s what I sacrifice to love you.”

You broke down, knowing this was the end of your relationship and the only thing you could genuinely put your name to. You had lost yourself completely to his life, no longer something you could call your own. Abandoned dreams and forsaken friendships all so you could be there for him; drawn in to his world, naively consumed by his safety and the promise of a life lived together, not divided by oceans – lost to the fishes.

That was until you re-emerged from the lavish hotels and the private planes, sans Daniel – sans your soulmate. The day you ended that phone call, you knew he would be the hardest one to let go of; eternally the one that got away and the one relationship you would have to tell future boyfriends about. And they would probably gasp and ask, not the formula one driver? and you would have to nod and quash their insecurities because everyone loved Daniel.

But nobody loved him more than you do – did. Not even close.

“He said you should use the ticket and honestly, I don’t even think he’ll show up. He hasn’t come to anything we’ve organised since you two broke up – he’s not the kid we knew back in high school anymore… That’s why you dumped his arse, right?”

Right, but you couldn’t say that.

“I didn’t dump him. I just…” Just told him that he’s wasted the best years of my life chasing him around the world.

“… Said that if he couldn’t be there when I needed him or spent more than two seconds a year with me then I couldn’t do it anymore. And that’s it.” Well, not exactly.

“Sounds like a dumping to me and rightfully so. Look, I love Danny but he’s hard to be friends with, let alone pretending to be in domestic bliss with…”

Yes, but you respected Daniel too much to admit that. Hannah was his friend too, all of them were. You were kids all grown up, now adults wading their way through the treacherous seas of the real world, pretending like they had it all figured out. Ungracefully and riddled with anxiety but finally immune to bullshit and aware of what to expect out of an adult relationship.

The standards were higher now than when you were young and in love. Daniel was your childhood best friend, after all. Or more accurately, the boy you met on the first day of high school, all crooked teeth and bundles of frizzy brown curls. You were acne-ridden and shy, the weirdo girl, they called you until you became friends with Danny. He knew everyone and was loved by everyone – that was the one trait that had followed him through life.

He was the class clown and a cute distraction from the torture of high school but you weren’t the only one who thought so. Lunchtime quickly became your favourite part of every day because you got to sit beside him and eat your Vegemite sandwich, knowing all the other girls in your year seethed seeing you with him. 'That weird mole and Riccardo being friends doesn’t make sense' they’d whisper thinking you couldn’t hear them. But you could and they were right about one thing – you were only friends.

The slightest scent of a spring breeze reminded you of the hours you spent sat under the shady gum trees, watching him playing footy with the other boys while you fiddled with your walk-man and scratched the discs beyond repair as you changed them out, battling with the Sony aux chord that was hanging on for dear life by a slither of duct tape. You were fifteen when Daniel handed you a burnt CD with a hand-drawn skull in the shape of a heart and the letters AOF written in bold black sharpie, smudged from his impatience.

“What’s this?” You asked with squinted eyes, looking up at him and the blistering sun.

“The best fucking album you’ll ever hear.”

He told you years later that he was so proud of himself, thrilled that he was showing you new music. His competitive streak wasn’t exclusive to the karting track – no, it snuck its way into everything he did, specifically when it came to album recommendations and especially with you.

“It’s called Watch Out by Alexisonfire… you know, that punk band I said you would love. Give it a try. I promise it’s better than that fuckin’ Offspring album you won’t stop listenin’ to.”

“Well even if I do like it, I wont tell you now dickhead.”

But he was right. So infuriatingly right. You loved it, maybe because you loved him. He was your best friend, your closest confidante, your twin flame – all cheesy grin and beautiful brown eyes. Lips so full that whenever he spoke, you couldn’t look away. Dangerously entranced by your best friend. A label that haunted you every time it slipped from his tongue and one you desperately wanted to rip off like a band-aid.

You thought those feelings would be the kind of ones you'd painfully bury and take to your grave, heartbreakingly unrequited – until you found a hand-written note crumpled up at the bottom of the ripped CD sleeve. The blotchy blue pen and creases in the lined paper made it hard for you to read his distinctive, yet messy boyish cursive.

song 4 – side walk when she walks (made me think of you)

The sound of frantic clicking bounced off your lilac coloured walls as you skipped to track four; a spinning screech filled the anticipated silence before the sound of a melodic guitar filtered through the muffled headset.

Dressed to kill, you look so right I am drunk with lust tonight Your wounds are opening wide And they might be just my size

Warmth rushed to your chest, your neck and up to your cheeks when you realised what it all meant. And it wasn’t the last time Daniel made your body feel like it was on fire, sitting on his messy bedroom floor and kissing until you couldn’t breathe, the soft sounds of your new favourite band playing on his stereo – heart beating so fast you could’ve died, happily in his arms.

But you weren’t horny teenagers anymore and that memory was blurrier now than it had ever been. It had been muddied with all the sad ones, the fights and the tears – the irreversible emotional damage that you had done to each other. You weren’t a saint, god knows and you took full responsibility for your part and so did Daniel. But that was where it ended – in a seemingly amicable split.

No love lost, only misplaced for a while.

It felt like all eyes were watching you as you walked into the small club, ears already tingling with the reverberation bouncing off the blackened walls – if only they could talk. Musky bodies and the hint of cigarettes filled the air while your combat boots stuck to the floor with every step you took into the lion’s den, making your path to closure hard fought. Maybe it was a sign to turn back; anything could’ve convinced you to swing by the exit on your left until you saw him.

He was dressed head to toe in black with a cap securely pulled over his eyes, hiding away from the curious ones. In any other crowd it would’ve been a piss-poor disguise, so obviously him but he blended in with the dark walls and the growing crowd, all wearing the unofficial uniform of an elder emo – baggy sweater, ripped skinny jeans and torn up Vans. And you were no different.

"You made it!!", a friend greeted, pulling you into a rib-crushing hug while you took in the circling faces. There were a few you never thought you would see again, people who were only your friend by proxy and ones he’d picked up along the way. And it was clear by the way everyone greeted you that he hadn’t dragged your name through the mud, maybe he kept the details of the break up quiet like you.

But the reality for Daniel was that he was too broken to even process what had happened. He came home to an empty apartment after a double-header with no way to contact you, to make things right. Years and years of loving someone doesn’t disappear over night and he wasn’t entirely convinced that the couple of months you’d been apart was enough either. And he was right. The sharp pain in his chest and the way his hands shook when he saw you confirmed it. He was fucked.

“Fuck,” Daniel groaned and turned to his mate, “What am I doing here, man…” 

All he could do was let out a soft laugh and pat his friend on the shoulder, “You’re an idiot.”

Daniel readjusted his cap and let out a strangled, “I know.”

You promised your friend that you’d be fine, like water off a ducks back. All the side glances and murmurs meant nothing to you anymore, the insecurity you had now was nothing compared to when you were actually dating Daniel. Consumed in his bubble, unable to escape the crushing scrutiny. Another wag bites the dust, they said, gone with no explanation other than your obvious absence in the paddock.

It didn’t matter anymore; nothing could hurt more than losing him.

But you still felt it, bubbling away in the pit of your stomach. Years and years of loving someone doesn’t disappear over night, especially when you thought it would last forever. Nostalgia won the battle against the wound in your chest for a moment, still festering without treatment – knowing the only person who could heal it was miles away emotionally but was now in your line of vision. Seeing him in the flesh hurt more than you’d anticipated, more than you could’ve ever imagined. You still loved him, after everything.

The bubbles of excitement quickly dissipated and twisted into knots when you thought about what you had lost – a wave of anxiety washed over, churning away at any ounce of courage you’d mustered to even turn up to this stupid fucking show. You were cursing yourself, cursing your friend who had convinced you that he probably wouldn’t even turn up and that the odds were in your favour. She was so, so wrong.

“Ignore him and come dance.”

She was in damage control, dragging you away from the small gathering of friends and Daniel, who couldn’t tear his eyes away. His warm stare burned holes through your leather jacket as he watched you walk off into the crowd – and away from him again. It was becoming a habit of yours that he loathed. The house lights felt like a spotlight on your bruised ego but you pushed through the warm bodies, putting as much distance as you could between you and your past. The support band sounded great, mostly because it drowned out the soul-crushing thoughts swirling in your mind and brought you some much needed reprieve from your pity party.

You didn’t feel like yourself at all – you were the shell of the woman you used to be and you certainly weren’t the woman you wanted to show up as either. Strong, independent, single and thriving – you were none of those things, entirely the opposite in every way, so you had to dig deep and fake it. And you were a great actor but not tonight.

Not when you felt a gentle poke to your bicep. The lights rotating and strobing above made it impossible to see who was standing beside you, hand offering an icy bottle of Corona with a wedge of lime. It nearly slipped from your shaky fingers when you grasped it, whispering a soft thank you as the house lights went down and the swell of the surging crowd rumbled under foot.

“I wanted to have a chat but…” Daniel pointed to the stage, yelling over the drummer that had taken his rightful place behind his kit.

“Maybe later?” And you nodded yes, sending him a reassuring smile as the band began to play.

You could be diplomatic and hear him out – you owed yourself that at least and deserved closure from all the unanswered questions.

Daniel kept his distance, knowing he was in the wrong and that letting you go was the biggest mistake of his life. And it wasn’t long until his heart stalled in his chest when he heard that painfully recognisable guitar riff filter through the thick air, the one he couldn’t listen to without thinking of you and he could see the way your eyes glazed with tears when you heard it; the opening chords to the song he had dedicated to you all those years ago on that stupid burnt cd.

Maybe you missed him too.

“This ones called side walk when she walks.”

You reached down, without even looking and grasped his hand that was hanging loosely between your stiff bodies. Daniel interlocked his shaking fingers with yours and squeezed them as your head dropped to his shoulder, resting there while you both swayed to the music. You felt safe for the first time in months, comforted by his presence.

Of course you missed him. He was your person.

And this was your band; the band you shared together for over half your lives, their songs played while you fell in love with one another. They were the band you lost your virginity to, humming softly in the background and wishing that feeling would last forever. You remembered blasting ‘to a friend’ in the car on the way to your graduation and Daniel nearly getting pulled over by the cops, laughing until your sides hurt. And they were the band you would always save for your road trips along the coast, both there in Los Angeles and back home.

These were the songs that soundtracked your life with Daniel.

They were your band – and they’d brought you back together.

a//n – this was wildly self indulgent so if you hated it, let me know lol but also lmk if you liked it because i loved writing it x masterlist | askbox

[emmaxdelicate]

𐙚 Breakfast in bed | ts x gn!reader 𐙚

Summary: taylor surprises you with breakfast in bed.

Pairings: taylor swift x gn!reader

Warnings: none :)

a/n: someone requested something fluffy and this is just so cutesy and sweet and precious and i love it so muchhh!!

MASTERLIST

𐙚 dividers by: @bernardsbendystraws 𐙚

The soft morning light crept through the curtains, casting a golden glow around the room. You snuggled deeper into the covers, trying to hold onto sleep a little longer. But then, there was a gentle creak, and you heard the sound of footsteps.

“Hey, babe,” Taylor’s voice floated into the room, soft and warm, like she was trying not to wake you too abruptly. You blinked your eyes open, still sleepy, to see her standing there, a tray in her hands, that familiar playful grin on her face. “I made breakfast.”

You rubbed your eyes, sitting up a little. “What time is it?” Your voice was still groggy.

She laughed softly, setting the tray down on the bed next to you. “Who cares? We’re having a lazy morning. And I figured… breakfast in bed?”

You looked down at the tray—pancakes, fruit, and two steaming mugs of coffee. Simple, but perfect. “This is amazing,” you said, grabbing a fork. “You didn’t have to do all this, y’know.”

Taylor plopped down beside you, crossing her legs under her. “Please. I wanted to. Besides, when’s the last time we didn’t have somewhere to be? Like, no schedule, no plans? I kinda forgot what that feels like.”

You smiled, taking a bite of the pancake. “Okay, these are actually really good,” you said with your mouth full, and she nudged you with her shoulder.

“Duh, I’m a woman of many talents. Just wait till I make dinner tonight,” she joked, stealing a piece of fruit from the tray.

The two of you ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the sound of the city outside barely reaching your cozy little bubble. Every now and then, you’d catch her looking at you, a soft smile playing on her lips, like she was soaking up the moment as much as you were.

“So,” you said, leaning back against the pillows, “what’s the plan today?”

She shrugged, grabbing her coffee and leaning back beside you. “No plan. Just this. Us. Maybe we watch something later, or go for a walk… if we feel like it. But honestly, I’m good right here.”

You laughed. “Yeah, me too.” You took a sip of coffee, the warmth spreading through you. “It’s nice. Just… nothing for once.”

Taylor sighed contentedly. “Yeah. It’s like… I don’t get to do this stuff often. Just hang out. Be normal.”

You turned your head to look at her. “Normal, huh?”

She grinned. “Well, as normal as I can be, anyway.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her smile fading just a little. “But seriously, this feels… different. Good different. Like, it’s just us, y’know?”

You nodded, understanding what she meant. “Yeah, I get it. It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist for a while. Just you and me.”

She glanced over at you, her eyes soft, and for a moment, the weight of everything else just didn’t matter. “Exactly,” she murmured, reaching out to take your hand.

You sat there like that for a while, holding hands, not really needing to say much. The easy quiet between you spoke volumes on its own. After a bit, Taylor let out a small laugh, breaking the silence.

“Okay, so, real talk—do you want another pancake, or can I finish them off?”

You chuckled, shaking your head. “Nah, go for it. I’m stuffed.”

She grabbed the last pancake and tore into it with a grin. You laughed, watching her enjoy it. “You’re ridiculous.”

She winked. “You love it.”

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t stop smiling. After she polished off the last bite, she leaned back with a satisfied sigh. “Alright, that’s it. I’m officially done adulting for the day.”

You nudged her. “You barely adulted in the first place.”

She gasped, mock-offended. “Excuse you! I made breakfast, didn’t I?”

You giggled. “Okay, fine. You did good.”

Taylor grinned, then her expression softened as she shifted closer to you. “But seriously, best part of the morning? Right here,” she said, her voice a little quieter now. She leaned in, brushing her lips against your cheek in a sweet, lingering kiss.

You felt your heart flutter, leaning into her touch. “Yeah,” you whispered, “definitely the best part.”

She wrapped her arm around you, pulling you in closer. “We should do this more often.”

You rested your head on her shoulder, closing your eyes. “Agreed.”

For the next little while, you just stayed there, wrapped up in each other, the world outside forgotten. No rush, no plans—just the two of you, in your own perfect moment.

𐙚 dividers by: @bernardsbendystraws 𐙚

[cressidagrey]

Something good and right and real - Chapter 1

Summary:

Azriel had spent centuries believing that he of all people didn't deserve a mate. And if anything, the last three years had just galvinised that particular belief. And then he meets her.

The first time Oriana met Azriel, she thought that he reminded her of a skittish cat. Shy and a little bit broken. Good for him that she absolutely excelled in fixing the things around her.

Warnings:

Rhys Bashing, Azriel has a horrible time

Notes:

I put a lot of world building into this. If you don't recognise it from canon, I probably invented. Or I forgot that canon existed.

(thanks to @firefly-graphics for the super pretty dividers!)

To be quite frank, Oriana hadn’t expected Azriel to show up again. 

(She had fully expected to never see him again, to be honest. And that had resulted in her spending three days moping around before she had forced herself to act like an adult again.)

She had hoped he would. Of course, she had. He was her mate. 

She had spent two centuries waiting for him. And it made her feel half-grown, giddy to know that finally, there he was . He existed. He was alive. He was… right there. 

But…she also looked into these hazel eyes and saw…pain. So much pain and hesitance and….he had looked at her like he had expected her to turn him down any second. Like in her very hands, she held the key to lock away any chance of happiness he ever would have. 

It terrified her to see him like that.

She didn’t even know him. Not really. But he was the one fate thought she should have and she didn’t want to see him like this . 

He didn’t deserve that. Nobody did. 

Still, she hadn’t wanted to push. 

She didn’t ask him what was wrong, because she knew that she had the tendency to want to fix everything and that could be… overwhelming. And she didn’t think he was going to answer her questions anyway. So instead, she had offered him an open-ended invitation and then waited. 

She treated him like a skittish cat, putting out the milk. 

Her patience was rewarded a few days later. 

Much to her surprise. 

She was just getting ready to close up her shop for the day, cleaning up the displays of the jewellery she sold on a daily basis. She may no longer live in the mountain full time, but some things would always stay with her, and her love of jewellery was one of them. 

Mentally she was taking stock of the things that she had sold, of what she needed to make more and which was probably going to end up being remelted down because it hadn’t sold for so long. 

There were a few pieces that she never would melt down, even when it was going to take years for them to sell because she was too proud of the workmanship she had put in them. 

However, there were very few of these. Most things she did these days were easy enough to replicate if the mood struck her and if they didn’t sell… well then she had only lost some of her time and none of the materials that had gone into them. 

A dark winged shadow showed up at her doorstep and she smiled to herself as the door closed behind him. 

He didn’t look any less broody than he had the last time he showed up. Still looked like he didn’t quite know what he was even doing here. 

But Oriana could work with that. 

“You can put the closed sign on, I am done for the day,” Oriana said with a bright smile as she finished wiping down her counter. He did as she asked, silent as he crossed the room, the always present shadows skittering around his feet. 

One tendril immediately wrapped itself around her wrist, a soft touch, just like velvet, slightly cool. She patted it as greeting, holding back a laugh as it playfully tugged at her fingertips in response and then looked up to find Azriel standing before her, watching her play with the shadow, wiggling her fingertips at it enticingly. 

“I…Good evening,” he finally said hoarsely, like he didn’t quite know what to tell her and her smile widened. 

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” she asked him. “I was making stew, it’s upstairs, should be finished in an hour or so. You can serve yourself,” she suggested. “But I am gonna need to go into the forge for a moment and finish up my nephew’s birthday present,” she warned him. “Wanna come along?”

He seemed so taken aback by the invitation, just like the first time,  that Oriana just opened the door that kept her shop closed away from her forge and waited until he entered behind her.

Hopefully, it would be comfortable for him. Her mind was already whirling with ideas to make it more comfortable with him, some ideas of temperature control charms that she hadn’t used in decades coming to the forefront and then wondering where one could find a chair that was fashioned to allow for wings.

At least it wasn’t too hot.  It was cool there as she had already let the fire go out this time of the day, knowing that she could simply relight it if she needed and she probably wouldn’t. 

She never needed to worry about that, Oriana thought with some amusement. The heat was doing nothing to her, neither did fire. She could walk through it and she would come out without a scratch on her, even if her jewellery would have melted off her. 

“Welcome to the forge,” she welcomed him. Somehow…somehow this was more private to her than her apartment had been. Maybe because making jewellery, working on things right here was where…Oriana felt most like herself. She always had. She always would. 

“It doesn’t look like it does at the blacksmith’s,” he said suddenly and she watched out of the corner of her eye as he tucked his wings tight around himself, tucking himself into one corner like he was terrified that…she was going to throw him right back out. 

“No, most of the things I work with are a bit more delicate than broadswords,” she said drily. “Tartera excel at making jewelery. We make art, not war,” she said, recounting her grandmother’s words. 

He made a noise that she was quite sure was something between a laugh and a sigh, like he wished it was that easy, and she couldn’t help but agree with that. 

“I always wondered that if you take a stand for nothing, then what do you fall for?” she continued, as she sat down at her worktable. She pulled a rolling stool that she kept there out with a foot, pushing it in his direction, as she herself sat down and pulled out the bin that she used to keep together all the pieces for a project. 

She did her best not to stalk him like a wolf did it’s prey as he sat down across from her. 

Cat. Think about the cat, she warned himself. It won’t want to be pet immediately. Even if she thought that he could really use some pets. And some treats when she was already at it. And a warm, safe place to sleep. 

“But what do I know? I was always in the forge and never on a battle field.” Different than him probably. She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, taking in the black leather armour he wore, Different from the dark jacket of last time.  Blue stones were glinting off it. Siphons. She knew that. She had studied them decades back for a pet project of hers, though Illyrians seemed to play it close to their vest. Like they seemingly did everything . 

Her brain was itching to figure out how it all went together, how it worked around these wings that she was quite jealous of. Flying, who didn’t want to be able to do that, after all? 

Still, talking about battles and bloodshed was probably not such a good idea, if she wanted him to relax around her. And he still didn’t talk. 

So she wrecked her brain, trying to think of something else. 

“What are you making?” he asked her, Curiosity getting the better of him and she held back a grin. Oh, he wasn’t going to tell her anything but put him in the forge and he started to ask her questions... she filed that away for later. 

“My nephew’s birthday present. He’s turning two, so I thought I was gonna make him a toy,” she said, as she fiddled with the pieces until she finally put them together into the sphere she was making. “It’s pretty much a glowing ball that has an enchantment on it that makes it change colours. Puts on a pretty light show and not much else,” she explained, as she quickly fit the last piece into place and then pushed her magic into it slowly. It glowed brightly into her hands, until it turned off. 

She held it out for Azriel to take and he did, broad hands carefully holding it. It immediately lit up bright blue, nearly making him drop it. She grinned at him. 

“Don’t worry it’s safe. I would never hear the end of it otherwise,” she promised him. “Worst case scenario: It loses the ability to light up.” These days, she was very careful in always putting a dead switch in anything she was making. A sort of last-ditch attempt to fix things that she couldn’t fix anymore. 

Azriel turned the ball around in his hands, the ball changing colours to red and green and yellow, before cycling back to blue. 

“This is…” he didn’t seem to have the right words for it. “This is beautiful,” he finally said quietly as the ball glowed brightly. She watched him as he took in her work, even when it was just that stupid ball that she could have made before she was even an adult. 

It was ridiculous, wasn’t it? She had spent centuries studying and honing her craft, knew that she had been well on her way to be one of the foremost goldsmith her people had…and still, all the praise that she had received for her work, somehow paled in comparison to him playing with that stupid ball, turning it over and over again to see the engraved metal. Paled in comparison to these simple words. 

“I…Do you sell these?” he asked her and she couldn’t help but grin. 

“You can have that one if you want it,” she said instead. No, she didn’t sell them. Didn’t think there was much of a market for them, to be honest. She did jewellery these days. Nothing more. 

“No, I couldn’t…it’s your work. You put hours into that. It wouldn’t be right if I…” he disagreed. 

And now Oriana was charmed beyond belief. 

“Stay for dinner and you can keep the ball, Azriel,” she interrupted him and he swallowed. “It took me less than 2 hours to put it together. I have made dozens of them over the years,” she assured him.

If he kept looking at her like this, with this look of quiet wonder,  then she would gladly make him a dozen more. Even when, quite frankly, she didn’t like making them, because they were not a challenge for her in any way. But what was these days?

Well, he was. 

“That doesn’t seem fair to you,” Azriel protested. “You are giving me this and feeding me dinner. That’s not how bartering works,” he told her seriously, and she laughed with amusement. 

Oh, she was definitely the one that was winning here. 

“I get your company out of it. It’s fair to me,” she told him matter-of-factly, enjoying the way his ears seemed to redden once again. He stayed quiet for a moment clearly not knowing how to react to her flirting. Was it flirting? Mother knew Oriana hadn’t flirted in…centuries. Or ever really. She had been married just days after reaching the age of majority. 

“It’s my nephew’s 2nd birthday in a few days. I couldn’t come up with a gift for the life of me,” he finally said quietly and she filed that away, where she kept all the kernels of truth that she knew about him. 

“Then give it to him,” Oriana said easily. “He’ll enjoy it. I remember having one of these when I was a child,” she recounted as she started cleaning up her work surface. 

Seems like she would make another one of these tomorrow. 

“You do?” Azriel aksed and she hummed. 

“Yeah, I do. I used to take it apart and put it back together when I was older. Still do sometimes, when I need to think,” she said easily. Gave her hands something to do. She finished putting everything away. “All finished,” she proclaimed just seconds later. “Come on, we need to check on the stew if we want to eat today.”

She never had had a problem with filling the silence and had on more than one occasion been told that she could have a raucous conversation with a cave wall if the mood struck her. So she also had no problem whatsoever doing the same thing right now. 

If it bothered him, he could open his mouth and say another word to her. It wasn’t like he had told her more than 50 yet. And maybe a part of her was wondering if she would need to pull on his tail to get some sort of reaction from him…and for him to stop looking at her like she was either going to kill him or throw him out of her house. 

To her surprise, he actually did say something when they were in her apartment, as she stoked her fire and dragged a spoon through the stew that she had been making for the better part of a day. 

Granted it was two words. 

“You paint?” he asked her and she looked over to find him standing, bent over the table, which was currently covered with some of her designs. 

“I sketch ideas I have. It’s different,” she corrected him. 

“How?” he asked her, amusement lacing in his voice and Oriana smiled. She put her spoon down and then came around to stand next to him. She could feel the air move as one of his wings twitched like it wanted to move but he pushed it down. 

“Mostly because if you tell me to paint a horse, it’s not gonna look like a horse. But I can make you a very exact drawing of the necklace I am gonna make tomorrow,” she explained, shuffling through her papers until she found the one she was looking for, pulling a bright red garnet out of the bowl she kept the flawed ones in for design purposes. She placed it on the drawing, right in the middle of the sketch she had made of the necklace it would end up in. It matched perfectly, the scale right just as she had drawn it that morning over breakfast. 

He mustered it attentively, leaning nearer to investigate and she left him to it... “I just can’t ever get the colours right. There isn’t that much iridescent metallic paint around here,” she sighed. The reason why most of her drawings were made in pencil. 

“I…How long have you been doing this?” Azriel finally asked her. “They are beautiful.”

“Pretty much my whole life,” Oriana gave back drily. “I told you I grew up in the mountain. All of us learn the basics. And then it’s a question of what we want to do…where we are particularly skilled. I decided very early on that I was going to be a goldsmith. Not a silversmith, not one of the very rare blacksmiths that we do have…But a goldsmith. And that I was going to be an enchantress just like my father.”

“How does that work together?” Azriel asked her and she hummed. 

“Can you set the table?” she asked him. “I’ll show you in a moment,” she promised him, as she handed him two plates. 

They both served themselves and then she held out her wrist for him. 

“Try taking off my bracelet,” Oriana said. He stared at her. 

“Your bracelet,” Azriel repeated and she nodded. 

“Yes,” she agreed. “Try taking it off.” He reached out for her wrist, his broad, brutally scarred hands a sharp contrast to her own skin the colour of fireplace ashes, and tugged gently at her bracelet. It didn’t budge. He did it again. This time, he got a magical shock for his troubles that made him pull back his hands. 

“Doesn’t work, does it?” she asked him with some amusement. “

“Did you…” he asked her but she shook her head. 

“No, that was the bracelet,” she promised him easily. Slipping it over her hand to hand it to him. He took it, taking in the runes that were on the inside of it, painstakingly etched in, so that nobody would see them unless they were looking for it. 

“See the runes right at the beginning?” she asked him, waiting until he nodded.  “Anti Theft enchantment.  It’s locked onto me. Only I can remove it. It was a birthday present from my father. That’s one of the easier ones.”

Azriel looked at it for a moment, nearly calculating. “What other enchantments are there?” he asked her curiously. 

“Well, whatever else can you come up with?” She asked. “You can do anything you want…if you do the research and make the rune array for it to work…but for the more common ones…jewellery that returns to the family vault if they do get stolen after all, necklaces that automatically snap closed without you needing to do it yourself, anti-choking, things like that,” she explained. “They are timeconsuming but not particularly difficult. Still, the time investment drives up the price and the value, so it’s only done for stupidly expensive pieces,” she explained. “Of course, there is no limit of what you can do. Some enchantments are made for a more emotional reason. Fidelity enchantment on a wedding necklace for example, or anti potion detection…things like that,” she explained. 

“Fidelity?” Azriel wondered. 

“Yes. Tartera wear necklaces to signal that we are married…They are spelled that way. At least the traditional ones,” Oriana said. Her own had been spelled that way. The same as the arm cuff that was traditionally worn by the males. But of course…even that couldn’t help in some instances. It didn’t foster emotional intimacy at any rate. 

“Anti Potion detection?” Azriel asked and she grinned at him. 

“Pretty handy, isn’t it?” she said, mentally already wondering if she would be able to get him to wear a wrist cuff that she made. She could put Anti Potion Detection on that. She also could layer on every single protective enchantment she knew to keep him safe. 

“That’s what you do?” he asked her and she sighed. 

“That’s what I used to do,” she corrected him quietly. “These days, I am much more a goldsmith than an enchantress.” The ball had been the most enchanted thing she had made in months. Before that…a bracelet for her niece…and before that…she couldn’t even think about it anymore. 

“Why?” Azriel asked her. “You are obviously talented.” She was. She wasn’t even touting her own talents if she agreed with that. She always had been talented. 

But these days…it had been a long time since she had been itching underneath her skin to dive headfirst into a research project as she had used to be doing. 

“I used to be one of the researchers,” she told Azriel quietly.  “Which meant that I spent day in and day out in the forge. I made things. I did experiments. I had my own projects that I worked on.” She could still remember that. That was all she had wanted to do during the first few years of her marriage. And she had been so happy about it. 

And damnit, she had been good at her job. Great even. She had done more in a few decades than others had in centuries. Created and worked hard and every day she had found something new and it had been…And then…

“Enchantments can be…fickle. It has the potential to go awry very quickly. One wrong rune and you put half the mountain on fire,” she quipped, her mouth pulling half into a grimace as snapshots came to the forefront of her mind of exactly that happening. 

“Did you ever manage to do that?” Azriel asked her.”

“No. But I was caught in the sway.” She pushed the memories away sharply. They were still there. Even a century later. still as fresh as they had been that. Ruby red blood trickling down her body, as the inferno raged around her. The pain, the agony…the spearing pain. 

She shook herself out of it harshly. 

“After a while, I decided that I was going to…stop doing that. The more explosive things at least. Nowadays the worst thing I do is balls that glow,” she explained to Azriel and he mustered her attentively. 

“Do you miss it?” he asked quietly and she didn’t even need to think about it. 

“Yes.” Like a limb. 

“You could start again,” he suggested. She turned over the words in her mind. Cyrus had suggested it often over the years but it had never quite seemed right. But now as she looked at Azriel over her table, as she wondered about making something for him, of making something that would keep him safe…she wanted to do that. 

“Maybe I will,” she finally agreed with a soft smile. “It’s my turn now, by the way,” she told him drily. 

“Of what?” he wondered, his brows furrowing. 

“Questions,” Oriana agreed. She immediately took in how his fingers tightened nearly imperceptively around her cutlery and how she could feel a bleed off of…fear, hesitance over their tiny wiggling bond. She wanted to keep their bond safe, nurture it and make it grow strong and not be this hesitant little thing that…well. 

“What do you want to know?” Azriel asked her, sounding like she was going to stab him. 

“Mostly, I want you to stop looking like I am going to torture you,” Oriana said drily. “You know if you don’t want to tell me something, you can just say so,” she pointed out reasonably. 

What had happened to him to make him so hesitant to even trust his own mate? What did he think she was going to do to him? Hurt him?  

“And you are just going to accept that?” he asked her, sounding like he didn’t believe one word that she was saying. Oriana wanted to sigh. She didn’t. Instead, she tried to push as much acceptance and warm, happy feelings at him as she could. 

“Yes, of course,” she agreed. “It’s none of my business. You think I told you everything there is to know about me?” she asked him drily. 

“I think I know more about you than you do about me,” Azriel said, his voice thawing. “And that’s not fair either,” he murmured under his breath. She took that as an opening. 

“A truth for a truth,” she proposed. It was a gamble. But it paid off. 

He inclined his head.

“Siblings. I have Cyrus and then I have half-siblings, 2 sisters and 2 brothers,” she said easily.  

“Two brothers,” Azriel answered quietly. “Claimed. Not by blood. I have two half brothers, but I don’t…they are no brother of mine.” His hands clenched again. She wondered what that was about. 

“I am the youngest,” Oriana said instead.

“Oldest,” Azriel responded. 

“I always wanted to keep a couple of chickens, but I never had any room for them,” she told him, utterly serious, only for him to crack a smile as he stared at her hazel gold eyes warm and amused. 

“Why chickens?” he wondered. 

“I don’t know, I think they would be neat to have. Always fresh eggs!” Oriana said brightly, this time managing to shock an actual laugh out of him. “And don’t think I didn’t notice that these were two truths!”

“Alright,” Azriel agreed. “I never thought about keeping chickens,” he told her seriously and she rolled her eyes at him, making him smile even brighter. “I…I always expect you are going to be scared of me,” he said, growing serious and Oriana kept a smile on her face, even when she wanted nothing more than to envelope him into a hug. and keep him away from everything in the world that had ever hurt him. 

“Maybe you aren’t half as scary as you think you are,” she told him instead, the expression on his face that was half relieved and half scandalised made something flutter in her stomach. “Maybe I just really like you.”

“Is that a truth?” he asked her softly and she smiled at him. 

“Keep coming back and you’ll find out,” she quipped. 

And so they continued, trading tidbits of their lives between bits of food.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Azriel had tried keeping away from her. He had. 

He had tried everything to get his mind off his mate…and he had failed. 

Even when it had been a never-ending litany in his mind. She is better off without you. It’s safer if you keep away. 

It wasn’t helpful, that his shadows had absolutely no qualms of doing everything in their power to whisper enticingly to him. 

She’s your mate, Master. You have every right to see her. She isn’t scared of us, Master. When will we see her again, Master? 

And finally…he broke. 

He was too selfish to keep away from her for longer than a few days. 

And so he had showed up at her house. 

And Oriana had smiled at him. 

That smile, that beautiful, lovely thing had cut him to the quick. 

Azriel couldn’t even remember the last time anybody had been willing to…just be there with him. No expectations…Oriana seemed content to just go on about her evening when he did slink into her apartment and stayed for a few hours. Soaking up everything he could get away with. 

Squrielling away every word she told him,e very conversation they had, regardless of how mundane t was. He learned about her brother Cyrus and about running the shop, about the two females that she employed there…he learned about the few friends she had, mostly other shopkeepers in the rainbow…every new thing that he learned about her, he committed to memory. He wanted to know everything. 

Staying with Oriana…it was peace. He had never had that before. 

Not like that. 

She chattered on and on and while he normally relished the quiet, he found out that her talking…he could get used to it. It was a safe thing. As long as Oriana was talking, everything was alright. 

And so he listened when she chattered on about nothing in particular and came back the next evening to do it all over again. 

He hated himself for doing it but he loved it. Adored it . He wanted nothing more than to soak it all up, bottle it to take it with him whenever she decided that he wasn’t worth the hassle. 

Because she would think that eventually. He knew that. It was just a question of time. A question of time until he said something or did something that terrified her and she wanted nothing to do with him anymore. 

And so he went back, again and again, and…after a few times, he couldn’t help himself. Because even when it was taken from him, currently it was still there. She was still there. And she was wiling to cook dinner and talk to him..and so before the next time he went to visit her, he bought her flowers. 

He had no idea what made him do that. Why he bought her flowers of all things. He could have given her something else, he supposed, but he was on the way to her and he saw that flower card just packing up and…it hadn’t even been a conscious thought. 

That’s what faes did if they were courting after all right? Find something to gift to the other one. Why not let flowers be the first thing? He would never abe able to give her jewellery, because he had the feeling that whatever he picked, she would be able to make much better.

And he couldn’t very well buy her knives and be done with it, right? 

So flowers. Nobody could hate flowers, right? 

The smile on her face definitely made the few clipped coppers he had spent on them worth it. 

“Oh, these are beautiful,” she said quietly, reaching out to take them from him. 

He had absolutely no clue what he should have picked, so he had ended up with a bunch of bluish, nearly violet, jasmines. Azriel was quite certain that he never would be able to look at them and not think about Oriana ever again. 

“Do…Do you like them?” he managed to bring out because somehow she managed to make him feel like the luckiest idiot in Velaris. 

“I love them,” Oriana said and he could feel the fledgling happiness burning along their bond, how happy and glad she was to receive them. 

He would gladly find her flowery every damn day if that meant that he could get that smile from her. 

“I am glad,” he said softly and she grinned at him brighter, taking out a vase out of a cupboard, burnished gold, inlaid with some kind of brightly sparking blue stone and put it above her sink. 

He listened to her chatter on about his day, about taking out her nieces and nephew for a day out in the city soon. He thought about Nyx’s birthday party that had just been a few days before, about how happy he had been about the glowing ball and how Amren had mustered him with a look tath he hadn’t quite been able to place. Nobody else had said anything to him, not Rhys, not Feyre, so he was quite certain that his walls were holding. 

But then Amren had always seen more than she said. 

And if she did figure it out, there wasn’t much he could do against it. 

He could just accept that. 

The longer he would be able to keep Oriana a secret, the better. 

He liked having her to himself. Azriel didn’t allow himself to think about that for much longer. 

“I’ll be gone for a few days,” he told her finally. There was a mission coming up, a trip to Spring to figure out…a few things and Azriel didn’t doubt for one moment that it would take longer than a day. Maybe two or even three. 

“Alright. Be careful, will you?” Oriana said easily and he stared at her. 

He had no idea what he had expected, but the easy acceptance wasn’t it. 

“You aren't going too ask me where I am going?” he checked and she cocked her head to the side. 

“If I would, could you answer that question?” she asked him drily and he just shook his head. No. The further he could keep her away from his…job, the better. Oriana was bright and light and shouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. It wasn’t right. “Then I won’t ask.  Just…do your best to come back to me,” she requested softly and he swallowed. 

Then he nodded. 

And that was that.

There was this quiet embering of wonder in his chest at that. She didn’t fuss, she didn’t ry to stop him, just simple accepted that he must go and that was that. 

No fighting, not anything, just asking him to be safe and come back to her. 

And so that became his goal. Of course, he was still gathering the intelligence Rhys wanted. He still did what he needed to…but he wanted to come back to Oriana. And so if he was more careful than he usually was…well, that was good then. 

Still, even an abundance of caution resulted in him coming back home with numerous new bruises and a few shallow cuts. 

And two sets of metallic paints stashed away with his things, one of which he dropped off for Feyre after he debriefed with Rhys…and then he finally got to see Oriana. 

He landed on her doorstep, fighting leathers still damp with blood that definitely wasn’t his. Maybe he should have thought this through a little bit better. 

But he didn’t even have time to hesitate, because suddenly, there she was. 

“Are you alright?” where the first words from her mouth as she opened the door for him.

“Yeah. Just a few bruises,” he promised her, tiredness suddenly overcoming him and she pulled him into her home, without a second thought. He wanted to warn her of the blood that clung to him, not wanting to ruin whatever silky dress…gown, robe, whatever, she was wearing, but she ignored that too. 

Instead, she gently pulled him up the stairs and before he could protest, he was chivied into her kitchen and put onto one of her chair…and that was it then. 

The enchanted teapot that he had learned to tell what kind of tea he wanted waited for his command and he managed to bring out a wrecked “peppermint, please,” before it already depositing steaming tea into his cup. 

And then Oriana was there, depositing what he was quite certain was half an apothecary on her kitchen table and wetting a clean tea towel to gently blot at the scratch on his face. 

“You don’t need to do that,” he said softly. It was fine. It was already nearly closed. It would be alright. He had way worse. She held still for a moment, poised to stop. 

“Don’t I?” she finally asked him. “Do you want me to stop?” she asked him. He swallowed. Then shook his head. 

No, Azriel didn’t want her to stop. He was selfish enough that he wanted her hands on him in any way he could get away with. 

Master isn’t selfish. She’s Master’s Mate!, his shadows hissed comfortingly. 

“Thought so,” Oriana hummed thoughtfully as she kept cleaning up the scrapes. the towel was warm, her touch gentle and Azriel wanted to close his eyes and let her do to him whatever she wanted. 

He didn’t. 

“It’s nothing. It’s not even a scratch,” he tried to protest as she started smothering the cuts with healing salve. He didn’t need that. It wouldn’t do anything. The natural fast healing would take care of it. The only thing the salve would do would be to numb it while it was healing and he didn’t need that. 

“How about you let me be the judge of that?” Oriana said quietly. “Hands,” she requested, thought he realites ethat fighting her wasn’t going to be futile. 

He was amused beside himself as he held out his hands for her perusal. 

High Lords were terrified of him, people thought he was death incarnate, and Oriana…bosses him around and cleaned the blood from his hands without even flinching away from him once. 

“His scarred skin was less sensitive than the rest of him was, but that didn’t stop it from feeling like tiny electric shocks as she finished with the damp towel and then started rubbing salve into them. 

His heart constricted as he realised what she was doing. 

“That isn’t going to work,” he pressed out. “I tried everything to get rid of the scars.”

Her hands froze. 

“They are beautiful,” she told him, her voice even. “And I wasn’t trying to get rid of them. I am trying to get rid of the bruises that are covering your hands.”

He stared down at his hand, and for the first time, he realised the mottled bruises that covered where he had gripped Truth-Teller so tightly that the scabbard had bitten into his hand. 

“Oh,” he managed to bring out.

Oriana sighed. “You didn’t even notice, did you?” she asked him drily and he managed to shake his head, feeling slightly dazed. “These are beautiful,” she promised him, lifting one hand and he could just stare as she pressed full, rosy lips to his bruised knuckles, before she let go of his hand. 

“They really aren’t,” he whispered. 

“Agree to disagree,” Oriana said calmly. “One day in the future, I am going to show you mine.”

Her scars? He stared at her. 

There were no obvious scars to her that he could see, other than the few that were on her hands, thanks to her having one mishap or another in her forge. But they weren’t big or she wasn’t trying to hide them, nothing like his at least. 

“You have scars?” he asked her and she hummed. 

“Yes,” Oriana agreed. “Drink your tea.” 

He did as she asked, staring at his own hands.  

“Every time I look at them I remember…I remember how I got them,” he finally said as he stared at the violently mottled skin, now painted with bruises. “I spent…I spent most of my childhood in a cell. I was the result of my father’s affair and…and I think he hoped that I was finally going to die and get rid of all his problems.” It was the most he had told her about his childhood. He hadn’t yet touched how he had come to have these scars, but they were there, painted on his skin. And they always would be. 

Oriana turned from where was standing at her kitchen counter. 

“He put a child in a cell,” she said flatly and he just managed to lift one shoulder. 

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I got to see my mother one hour every week. He used me to torture her for daring to get pregnant. She never…quite got over that.”  And now he wondered if that was all he was good for. Inflicting pain on those surrounding him. 

“Is he still alive?” Oriana asked, her voice sharp and Azriel snorted. 

“No.” He had taken care of that . 

“Good,” Oriana agreed calmly and he stared at her. 

“Good?” he echoed. 

“Yes. Good,” Oriana said, turning back to the counter. “Children are…precious. To Tartera. We aren’t perfect. Of course we aren’t. We have our own problems in our society. But if anybody ever to put a child in a cell or use them to hurt their mother…Well, they wouldn’t be alive much longer,” Oriana said, her voice dripping with disdain. “Children are above…everything.” 

And still…“You make art, not war. That’s what you said,” Azriel recounted and then it was Oriana’s turn to shrug.

“And it was a hard-won achievement to get that far,” she quipped.  “Still, if anybody ever would have suggested putting any of us into a cell to my mother, I think there would have been a bloodbath…and she would have been the one walking out without a blemish,” she said with some amusement. “We get territorial if threatened. And not in a good way,” she said with a sigh. 

“You ever got territorial like that?” he wondered and Oriana hummed thoughtfully for a moment. 

“No,” she finally answered. “But then, I never really had a reason to before. I understand it now.”

“What changed?” Azriel asked her. Why did she…

“The mating bond, Azriel. That changed,” she told him with some amusement in her voice, putting a plate of…sandwiches? next to his elbow on the table. “Eat, sweetling,” she told him softly, a hand gently reaching out to smooth his hair away from his forehead. He couldn’t help but lean into it. 

“I brought you paint,” he mumbled, suddenly dead tired and Oriana hummed softly. 

“They are metallic…i thought you could…use them…” Why did talking suddenly take so much effort? “ You said there wasn’t any metallic paint around here.”

“That sounds lovely. Thank you so much,” Oriana assured him softly. “I am sure I am going to love them,” she promised him. “Come on, let’s get you on the couch. You can sleep, and I make dinner. I think you need to sleep first before I get you to eat anything,” she mumbled under her breath. He let her drag him up and the few steps into her small living room where he fell more than sat down onto her couch. 

“How about you just rest for a moment?” Oriana said quietly and he listened. The shadows seemingly covered him and he fell asleep, knowing that they would wake him if there was anything that he needed to be awake for. Any danger that would befall him. 

But for once in his life…he felt…safe. Surprisingly. Right there, with the quiet noises of Oriana moving around into the kitchen, he felt safe.

[minnaci]

sorry i know i am not a hellaverse blog but i just watched full moon and i felt so strongly about it that i got out of bed, opened my laptop, and logged into the tumblr website for the first time in months because i knew i would want a full keyboard for this.

disclaimers: i enjoy the show and especially this episode! i like all of the characters, including stolas. what i say is colored by my own experiences and perspectives (ie, i am biased and this is my opinion)

tldr; i find it hard to like stolas in full moon. i also find it hard to empathize with stolas, if i'm being honest, and especially when it comes to his relationship with blitz. warning for full moon spoilers and discussions of racism-adjacent classism.

within the hellaverse exists clear social and economic stratification between "royalty" and "imps", with stolas being the former and blitz being the latter. much like in real life, these social identities inform everything about these characters and the way they interact with the world and each other.

stolas, to put it bluntly, is rich, and blitz is not. stolas lives in a lavish palace with imps as servants. he is not shown to interact with other imps outside of this master-servant relationship. hell, even when they were children, blitz was quite literally purchased for stolas. blitz's first impression of stolas was being sold to him, while stolas was none the wiser.

this is not necessarily stolas's fault. he was sheltered as a child, and even as he grew into an adult, he remained sheltered, seemingly ignorant to the very real class divide between him and his newest paramour. from the very beginning of their reunion, blitz uses his body to provide a service to stolas in exchange for his livelihood, and stolas accepts it because that's the way stolas is used to interacting with imps. stolas continues to "hire" blitz, both as a bodyguard and as a sex worker, and while he understands that this relationship is transactional, he doesn't really see anything wrong with it until the shitshow at ozzie's.

there is no awareness of how uncomfortable this might be for blitz. there is no empathy for how blitz might react. stolas treats blitz as an object, a plaything, a living, breathing sex toy (at one point, stolas calls blitz his "impish plaything". can it get any more clear?). as long as stolas owns the grimoire, and blitz needs the grimoire to survive, stolas can leverage that for whatever he wants from blitz. it's coerced consent. it's been coerced consent from the beginning. there is no acknowledgement that stolas holds the only key to blitz's livelihood. not until ozzie's.

only after blitz says, to stolas's face, that their relationship is completely transactional, does stolas finally begin to scratch the surface of how large their difference in perspective is. where stolas has been playing at a fantasy of being in love, blitzo has been doing what he needs to do to survive. to keep his family afloat.

and full moon. god, full moon. one commenter on youtube described it as an "ambush", and i am inclined to agree.

blitz was prepared to do what he's had to do. sex for survival. he bought out nearly the entire lust district for it, because even then he could sense that something had changed, and that he'd need to really impress stolas for things to continue as they were-- for blitz to be abel to continue to make ends meet. what blitz had no way of knowing, though, was that stolas was re-writing the rules of the metaphorical game they were playing. sure, stolas gives blitz the asmodean crystal, thereby "freeing" blitz from stolas's service, but in the same breath, stolas lays down a new set of expectations. stolas is no longer willing to accept sex as a service. stolas now wants love.

it would be a lot for anyone to take in. imagine you enter your boss's office for your performance review. you think this boss is hot. you maybe have a big crush on this boss. but they tell you that you're being fired, effective today. but they're giving you a foot in the door at a different company because they care about you. also by the way they fell in love with you, which is why they fired you. honestly? i'd probably react pretty poorly to that.

and for blitz, who has gone his whole life being told, implicitly and explicitly, that he is unworthy of love and care, both as a product of his personal experiences and as a product of his socioeconomic class, that's a whole fuckton of shit to take in. it feels almost logical for blitz to treat it like a joke or some sort of performance, because what other explanation is there? stolas is royalty. and blitz... blitz is just blitz. blitz, whose parents cared more about fizzarolli than him. blitz, whose father sold him to some rich asshole. blitz, who, in his perspective, knows better than anyone else that his greatest assets are what he can provide for other people: sex, assassinations, and more sex. blitz, who, in his mind, has ruined every relationship he's ever touched, from his parents, to his friendship with fizzarolli, to his fathering of loona, to his disastrous fling with verosika.

blitz, who was given all of thirty seconds to process that stolas really does "care for him deeply" before stolas dismissed him and shoved blitz out of his life for good because blitz didn't respond (read: perform) to his satisfaction.

i am not saying that blitz is perfect or blameless, because hell knows he's not. he took advantage of stolas's naivete in a plethora of ways. he's a literal murderer. he does treat the people around him poorly. he has hurt stolas, and fizzarolli, and moxxie and millie and even loona. blitz is brash, rude, and emotionally stunted. but much of this can be at least in part attributed to his childhood and the scarcity mindset with which he was raised. when every interaction you have is transactional, even the ones you have with your parents, it takes a lot longer than the 30 seconds that stolas allowed blitz to process that someone genuinely cares about you in a way that is not contingent on you doing things for them or otherwise being useful to them.

all that to say, i feel for stolas, but feel for blitz more. i think this episode did a really great job of like... really digging into the crux of the problem in the stolitz relationship, which is their fundamentally different perspectives and life experiences, even if the finer points about class and socioeconomic status weren't explicitly discussed.

[unknownpisces002]

GREEN MILE.

“ Losing my mind, think I look good when I’m really just high. Scared of my life, can a bitch get by? Sick of listening to everyone else. Sick of my pride, sick of just saying shit, just to be nice. Sick of this world, how do I get by? Miles running wild in my head.”

Giovanna Ramos X Black Fem.

Summary

“Clarity is a state of mind. And freedom ain’t real either, so who’s sold you that lie?” A love story told in a therapy session, about two young girls that were once mad for one another. By a recovering drug addict, who’s life revolves entirely around the green mile of North Carolina.

That she so desperately wants to escape.

Word count: 2,259

Themes: friends to lovers, LGBT, derealization, coming out of the closet, growth, homophobia, substance abuse, summer, violence, mental health, religion, family problems and secrets, young adults, mature, self discovery, eventual fluff, eventual smut, therapy, North Carolina, countryside, poverty, trauma, urban romance, urban fiction, ghetto.

Divider by: @firefly-graphics

Author’s Note

hi everyone! this is a story that i decided to transfer over from my wattpad account. that i recently just started at the end of december. because i felt the need to share it here, over on this platform as well.

so that all of you guys would also be able to read/ give me feedback on how it is, and what you’d like to see occur? as the story progresses on. so i hope that you all like it, and also feel free to follow me on wattpad as well! my username is supersensitivepisces on there 🧚🏽

also, inspiration to create this story? came from my love for Giovanna. ( she’s so aesthetically pleasing flf me.) as well as a movie that i had been watching, the day that i decided to publish this onto my account back in december.

PROLOGUE.

" I'll never meet a girl like you again. Out of everything I lost, I lost a friend. Tryna get over you, tryna convince myself every night. It's just another night, even though deep down I'm traumatized."

HASSAN

4 hassan

U r the omega of my heart. The foundation 4 my concept of love, when I think of what a black woman should be. It's you that I first think of.

_____________________________________________

U will never fully understand how deeply my heart feels for you. I worry that we'll grow apart, and I'll end up losing you.

____________________________________________

U bring me to a climax without sex, and u do it all with regal grace. U r my heart in human form, a friend I could never replace.

____________________________________________

– from gio.

___________

11/7/18

Oak City Therapy

Lillington, NC

" When I was younger, around like five or six years old? I used to bug my mom and tell her about how I wanted to be a firefighter. So I could save lies and put out fires? Like the people who I'd watch on tv would do."

Tapping the tips of her fingertips onto the dark oak wood coffee table, that was located in the center of the dim lit office room. Giovanna kept her head facing downwards.

Finding that, refusing to make direct eye contact with her therapist of 3 years, who was named Marsha? Was far more comfortable and peaceful for her nerves, as well as her emotional state.

That had so desperately wanted to crumble and falter, into tiny small pieces of despair. But you see, that was the one thing on this fucked up planet, we call earth? That Giovanna was against.

Showing emotions and allowing herself to be vulnerable? Were just two things she'd rather die over, before she'd allow them to be seen by the entire world.

Or in this specific case? Her friends, along with her father. Who had played a humongous part, in why she chose to be nonchalant while acting unfazed? About majority of the things that would occur inside of her life.

".. I too? Used to dream of being a firefighter myself. When I was around that exact age, but I'm assuming that specific dream of yours must've gotten lost. Somewhere down the line as you aged up? If you aren't uncomfortable telling me about why or how? That occurred.."

Marsha eased her way into questioning the young woman who sat before her, slowly and hesitantly. Making sure that each of the words she'd spoken? Came out soft, in a calm and delicate manner.

As she leaned her backside up against her office chair, with eyes full of hope and wonder. That held a bit of gloominess inside them as well too. Once she noticed the way that Giovanna's breathing had begun to pick up a bit.

Just as her short, but not too short fingernails, that were painted a matte black color? Had begun to dig into the surface of the desk she sat at. Almost as if she were trying to dig a deep hole into the center of it, that would allow her to shield and hide herself away?

From having to answer the difficult question? That had been asked of her.

" ..I wouldn't say that my passion to accomplish that specific dream? Got lost. Because even after my mom had passed away, from having cancer? Apart of me still wanted to pursue that goal. But at the same time? Another part of me, like the part that held high hopes and expectations for things? Had diminished inside of me completely, after I lost my mom.."

" ..And I'm not really sure that if me being an only child, plays a part in that? Because don't get me wrong, I was loved wholeheartedly? By both of my parents equally when I was younger. But I don't know...sometimes now? Like when I'm alone or high from being off pills or something? I start to realize that really? It was only my mom that had loved me wholeheartedly back then.."

" Instead of it being my dad."

" And why is it, that you feel as if your father doesn't love you Giovanna?" Marsha continued to ask all the questions, that were written down onto her clipboard hesitantly.

Feeling an unsettling sensation begin to wash over her slowly. When Giovanna had taken it upon herself to shift around inside her seat. Which allowed the left sleeve of her oversized sweatshirt to rise. And give Marsha the opportunity, to catch a glimpse of all the fresh and faded scar markings that were present there.

From Giovanna, inflicting a significant amount of self harm unto herself.

" I know that he doesn't love me? Because he's voiced that statement every single day. Over the last twelve years? Repeatedly." Giovanna chuckled bitterly, all while gnawing on the inside of her jaw using her teeth.

" Me being a lesbian? Probably is another one of the reasons why he hates me too. But all in all? He just doesn't love or care for me period? In the way that a normal father would love their child."

And that fact alone? Was sadly true.

" Him not loving me or treating me properly? Doesn't bother me at all though. Because I'm used to it now, and I know that me saying that? Probably sounds stupid right? And it might also make you assume that I may or may not have Stockholm syndrome? Being that I'm okay with the fact that my father's been treating me like shit, while sometimes abusing me and more? For over twelve years."

" Yes, the way that you are going on about how his lack of love and affection, doesn't bother you? Does raise a few red flags for me. As far as you possibly being a victim of having Stockholm syndrome? But it also makes me worry more about your emotional and mental state? Even more. Being that when you really sit and sum up the timeframe, of you losing your mother? Down to your father's continuous abuse?"

" It seems that through all of that? You haven't been able to feel any of the proper care, love or attention? That a person who's endured losing a parent at a young age? Should get to feel. And that may also be another reason, as to why you feel the need to be so distant. While hiding away your true feelings, because honestly Giovanna? I'm gonna tell you something from my own personal experiences with life."

"..That have helped me find closure and peace? Within myself. After being a victim of my own? To some of the same exact problems that you've been having."

Sitting her clipboard aside, after grabbing a few tissues out of the box that was towards her right. Marsha had begun opening up about her past life, to Giovanna. As a way to encourage the younger woman and try to get through to her in a way, that talking and asking simple therapy questions? Couldn't do.

But of course? As always, Giovanna didn't care to hear any of it. Which allowed every word that left from out of Marsha's mouth, to enter inside of one ear, and come floating directly through the other.

Just as she found herself beginning to grow a bit offended, once Marsha had begun to talk about love and relationships. And how someone in Giovanna's state, didn't really need to engage in any form of romantic or sexual interactions? With another person.

Due to the lack of her father not showing her enough love or care properly? When she was a young age.

" I've been in love before." Were the first few words that left from out of Giovanna's mouth. As she cut into the middle of Marsha's speech, not really caring or giving a fuck if she had come off rude or not? After doing so.

" I'm actually in love right now? If you want me to be honest. I'm just not on speaking terms with the person? Who owns the other half of my heart right now."

" Really?" Marsha questioned slowly, sounding a bit shocked and caught off guard by Giovanna's statement.

" Mm-hm." Giovanna nodded her head slowly, feeling a small smile begin to form at the corners of her lips. Once the thought of her distant and angelic lover? Had begun to enter inside of her mind slowly.

" And why aren't the two of you on speaking terms? If you don't mind me asking."

" Because I'm..." Trailing off at the end of her sentence, Giovanna had begun to still her breathing. Just as her dark brown eyes started to glisten, and blur her vision up with tears.

" Because you're what, Giovanna?" Marsha pressed her for an answer, knowing almost immediately? What the younger girls response would've been like, once she re-opened up her mouth to speak.

" ..I'm damaged goods, Miss Marsha.."

" Like I have a heart, of course? And I know how to love and treat someone properly, even though I myself? Never got to receive that same exact treatment, from the people I deserved it from. I still know how to love and treat someone good? Despite that. But I just..."

" You're just a product of your environment. And even though treating someone kindly and loving them correctly? Doesn't come difficult. Sometimes accepting back that same love and energy? Can be a bit difficult. When all you've ever known was toxicity and dysfunction."

" But see, the thing about me accepting it back? Wasn't the problem Miss Marsha. The problem was my self esteem and my communication. Because there were times when I said things out of anger or out of being afraid? That had drove Hassan away from me too."

" Hassan?" Marsha repeated the name of Giovanna's lover slowly. " Hassan is such a pretty name, and I'm sure that she must be a pretty girl too? With how emotional and vulnerable you're getting while talking about her."

And that? She was indeed.

But of course, pretty? Wouldn't even be a suitable word to describe her at all. Because you see, Hassan? Was angelic. Just like everything else about her personality and character? Was too.

" Experiencing her love and even the attention she gave to me, before we ever became a thing? Was a privilege I wish that I never took for granted." Giovanna answered quietly, picking with the bracelet on her arm, that was giving to her by Hassan herself.

" And I know before, when I had first gotten here? I told you about how growing up as a child, with both of my parents while my mom was still alive? Was the time period where my want to do lots of things? Had been very strong."

" But even when she died and my dad became more hostile towards me? I still craved to be something or let alone somebody? Who'd be great. I just didn't know how or where to start first? For me to be able to accomplish any of those things period? Until I met Hassan.."

"..And she came into my world, allowing everything that once looked black and white? Turn colorful and vibrant. So that I could be guided out of my selfish, stuck up ways, and be the person who she swore up above to God and the heavens? That I was created to be."

" And what kind of person was that?" Marsha found herself growing a bit emotional as time passed, as she sat with her arms folded tightly. Trying not to make a fool out of herself, for crying and weeping over her client's newfound vulnerability and bravery.

That she had gained out of the blue, due to talking about her past. Or in this case? Still present lover. Who she wholeheartedly still loved very deeply, to this day.

" The kind of person who always showed patience and kindness, despite being robbed of all their goodness and purity? Far too early than I should've been. That's the kind of person? She saw me as. Even through the good, the bad and the ugly? She always looked at me, with eyes that held so much love and adoration. That at often times? I'd get scared."

" While wondering how a person like me? Could win over the heart of someone like her, you know? But even then after everything that's happened and changed over the years? I'd never stop loving her ever."

" And why is that Giovanna?"

" Because finding someone who'd love you through any and everything, despite the fact that you might not even deserve it at all? Is very fucking rare these days."

" And I have Hassan's heart? In the same exact way she has mine. So why would I ever let go or move onto someone else? When I know for certain that we'll find our way back to one another. Just like we always have? During the past."

" And you're willing to wait however long it may take, until that day ends up coming?"

" Oh? Absolutely." Giovanna's head nodded up and down quickly. " If I had to wait another year or even ten more? I'd do it without question."

" Because Hassan is worth the wait. And if I ended up having to grow old and wrinkly, just for that day to come back to me? I wouldn't have a problem with it at all."

" ..I'd just accept her back into my life fully, with open arms. Because that's all I've been wanting again and looking forward to? For the last two years."

if you’d like to be tagged in the next part? just comment below. & also feel free to leave thoughts down there as well too!

[otterskin]

Does you actllty like odin because I thought everyone hated him.

...Why would people hate him? I struggle to understand that, even now. I have my theories, which I've spoken off in other places.

I think, and I don't like to say this, because there are certainly takes that aren't, but in general, that opinion is very juvenile. There's a desire to want to 'defend and protect' people from him, which betrays a lack of understanding of the dynamics in the films, and a tendency to side with children over adults, even grown children, and to see older people as symbolic of institutional power, as well as parental power, over them, and therefore a yoke that needs throwing off. There's a childish 'shut up, DAD!' to the criticism. More seriously, the desire to paint him as abusive reminds me of the problem of people confusing conflict for abuse, something that's a major issue in online spaces and real life. Outrage and extremism are rewarded and sought after, so everything is heightened. In that lens, a father who tried to do right by his children but who was in a unique circumstance because of his desire to challenge the status quo and fated enmity of two warrring peoples, a king who can't put the needs of his children over the suffering of his people and risk to his kingdom, now becomes a monster who delights in playing favourites and abusing them for kicks. It's disheartening.

There's precious little sympathy for characters like him, especially in this genre. Superhero fare is pretty black and white, and even characters like Loki rest pretty firmly in the 'good' side of that. But Odin is that rare character who not only doesn't play by that simple dichotomy, he doesn't get to live in a world so neatly divided. It's part of his isolation from the others. So usually, people see the gray and decide he must not be 'good', and if he's not 'good', he must be 'bad'.

The films have little time to explore him or his motivations or how he chooses to navigate his murky situation, and it's all the worse because he's a secretive person who actively disguises his motivations and goals. He's a minor character in screen time, but looms large over the plot and other characters' motivations, so most of what we see of him is what other people tell us he is. Most of which is, of course, untrue. That's the Odin that lives in their heads, and not the actual man, who is the rare character in the MCU you actually have to watch and pay attention to to understand. In universe, no-one bothers to do that - they are content with the version they've created to hate. So the audience thinks that version is also the real one, because it's easier to understand and categorize.

I love Odin, in mythology, and in the MCU. He's a much kinder person in the MCU for sure! But I'm glad that, even in a fairly straightforward world, they gave Odin no clear answers. He remains contradictory and deeply flawed, a thoroughly miserable person but with something compelling him to try and change the destined end of the world. How could I not love someone like that? How could people who say they like Loki not like a character who is so similar?

I get depressed when I encounter Odin haters. I feel like they've completely misunderstood and missed out on a fundamental part of the story, and I worry that if their sentiments infect the actual MCU, it will besmirch the efforts of those who came before and the humane story I fell in love with. Odin was not intended to be a bad parent or a bad person, and I don't think he is. He is intended to be someone that people IN UNIVERSE see as a full villain or as a full hero, but he is neither. He is a person who was faced with difficult choices, and he chose to do some radical things that many others of his kind would never do. He paved the way for a better future and better choices for others by defying the prejudices and traditions of his people, but because he was a trailblazer, he did not have the benefit of learning from others' examples, like Thor and Loki have because of him.

Comparing him to Thanos or other actually abusive parents is repellant. Never once have I seen anyone who claims to hate him actually engage with the character as depicted, nor how they would cut through the Gordian Knot of compromises the character had to contend with. They handwave away the moral questions as 'actually super easy to solve', which is something I abhor in fiction (it's also why I deeply dislike Spider-Man: NWH, which handwaves away the motivations and tragedies of villains from previous series). No, nothing was easy to solve about the choices presented to Odin, and I think the character had both logical and emotional rationale for his choices. He actually made pretty bold and forward-thinking plans, they just all tend to suffer from his fatal flaw - he thinks about them as logical, but they're really motivated by emotion that he keeps at arm's length, which leads to him showing vulnerability and being punished for it.

This is something that goes by so fast in the films, but I loved it because it is such a fundamentally male experience. Odin is someone being crushed under pretty much every expectation of masculinity, from man to warrior to father to husband to king, and whenever he tries to show regret, fallibility or vulnerability, the other characters find it disturbing and swiftly reject him, forcing him back into the performance and the misery that comes with it.

Odin may ponder what is the correct decision, but does not mistake that for what is the most moral decision. He is someone who is both logical and emotional but who hasn't integrated those two halves of himself together very well.

If you hate the character, I'd be happy to talk about it. It is okay to just not like characters! Including gray ones. But for me, I can really think about Odin, and I like that he can't be easily written up for a bland Fandom page that requires everything be spelled out or it 'doesn't count'. He exists in the between spaces of the story, and it is a very sad and lonely tale.

TL;DR : He's a complicated man in a simple story. In the Squid Game of Sugar Cookie, he got the Umbrella. I am sad that such a fundamental character to the foundation of the THOR franchise's quality and themes is so misunderstood and unappreciated by this fandom. I don't think you can love this franchise and not have some care for Odin.

[shadowed-dancer]

I watched the Netflix atla and I have thoughts

I will break them down into positives, negatives, and assorted, but if you want the short version: it's better than the M Night Shyamalan film.

Positives

I like that Zuko's crew is the 41st division. It's a cute detail, and honestly I had always wondered how they chose soldiers to accompany an exiled prince

I actually liked Suki's characterization. Like yeah, I believe that girl has never had contact with outsiders. And I think her chemistry with Sokka is great! I can't wait for her to come back and see more of the world (her "thank you for bringing the world to me" line is cute when you consider he brought her an air, water, and fire bender... less cute that her village almost got destroyed but still)

Hot take: I don’t mind that they cut Sokka’s sexism arc. It was minimal in the original series to begin with, and with the pacing of the Netflix series it would have been pointless and rushed. I truthfully believe that if they hadn't mentioned the cut beforehand, 5 people at most would have noticed it was gone

Wow Koh the Face Stealer is SO MUCH WORSE in live action. So gross. His face BLINKS. 10/10 to whoever designed that, I hated it and recognize that it was perfect. I look forward to seeing it in my nightmares (also I don't mind the change of "don't show any expression". It still works)

Gyatso telling Aang that it wasn't his fault and that he wouldn't have been able to do anything was so sweet and important to me, especially with all the other adults in this series being turned into Grade-A assholes. It’s been a while since I watched the entire original series but were the adults THIS mean about it in the original? I know the occasional random townsperson would say "you abandoned us" but I don’t remember people like Bumi or THE OTHER AVATARS blaming him like that (I know this is the positive section but just to be clear, the positive is the Gyatso scene. Turning everyone else so mean will be touched upon in the negatives)

All of Gyatso's scenes were actually amazing. I cried. Also finding his body hit so much harder in live action.

Leaves from the Vine playing during Lu Ten's funeral and then again when Iroh chose to go with Zuko... I tearbended HARD at that one

I think they did a good job merging three story lines into Omashu. I know it may bother some fans, but for the time they had I thought combining all of those together within the city was clever. Plus, since we see the city get taken at the end of the season, we feel more invested since we spent more time there! (I'm also glad they didn't destroy the Northern Air Temple... that always bothered me)

The sets are lovely. They look so similar to the original show and it makes me happy to simply see these places come to life. I got so giddy seeing Omashu you don't even understand

I like the interpretation of Aang’s tattoo. That was actually the one thing I liked from the M Night Shyamalan film (intricate designs rather than a straight blue block) and I feel this is an even better interpretation (the designs are more subtle until he lights up)

The wink and nod to the great divide (and other episodes like the pirates) was cute. I do wish we got to see some adventures of the kids bonding, but boy am I glad they didn't feel the need to adapt the great divide

I liked that they sang secret tunnel a little early. The second the mechanist brought up the secret tunnels I burst into song on instinct, so it's only fair the characters do the same

I liked Zuko having a notebook on the avatars. Of course he would have made that. And I liked that Aang used it as a reference

I liked how they teased the "my cabbages!" line before giving us the real thing. Just a fun thing for fans of the original

Negatives

The first episode had so much exposition it actually felt exhausting. Also Zuko really came out of the gate swinging with his motivation, eh? No nuance or slowly unveiling why he wants to capture Aang? Ok...

Ozai confused me. After finishing the season I believe Ozai's motivation was "sacrifice the weak to become strong, use Zuko to fuel Azula to be better" but it felt so confusing to get there. There was a point where I thought he genuinely wanted to see Zuko grow and find the avatar, and while it's fine for Zuko to think that, it felt weird for us to be jerked around like that (especially the in-between point where it feels like he prefers his banished son to his spy-catching daughter).

I also don’t like the way he acts with Azula (again, I know it's an act, but it's a bothersome change). He calls her performance below average. What happened to "she’s a true prodigy, just like her grandfather for whom she was named"? When characters like Mai and Zhao have to tell us "he's just playing games" it feels like they are telling rather than showing. "She's a true prodigy" SHOWS US he has a very obvious favourite. "He's playing with you" TELLS US that he's lying, and we therefore need to just accept that Azula is actually his favourite even though nothing he has done supports that

I don’t like that Aang was heading North due to a premonition from Kyoshi. I always liked how "the avatar must travel the world and find their own teachers in order to care for the world". Why not let him look for teachers? It enforces the idea of the avatar needing to care for all nations in order to protect all nations. I feel like it was supposed to go for this new direction of “the avatar must do it alone” but unfortunately I don't like that message as much

I mentioned in the positive section, but so many of the characters are weirdly mean (specifically the adult characters). I feel like they are trying to go for a message like "childlike mentality isn’t bad and it’s this innocence that will succeed where adults failed" but it just comes across as every grownup but Gyatso being the worst. Why are Kyoshi and Kuruk yelling so much and blaming Aang for everything? I feel like the goal will ultimately be to prove them wrong, but I do not like this characterization

Zuko’s scar needed to be SO MUCH WORSE. Something I love about the original is that every time we look at Zuko, we get a horrific reminder of what kind of person the Fire Lord is. It didn't just make his skin a little red, his eye is stuck in a permanent squint. His ear is shrivelled. You can tell that it was BAD. Here? He could cover it with makeup if it bothers him that much. Where's the texture? Where's the ear and eye damage? Sometimes it looks more like a birthmark than a serious injury. At the very least, take away his eyebrow!

Sokka and Katara’s being trapped in the spirit world was lowkey a little dumb but I get what they were going for (it's more urgent than them needing to suck on frogs). It just makes it seem worse when Aang is sitting there chatting with Zuko about his brushes. Like I loved the conversation but the fact that Sokka and Katara's lives were in danger (along with the villagers) makes Aang seem weirdly dismissive in that moment

Also... I just realized while typing this, but did they give us an ending to Hei Bai being in pain? Did I completely forget the resolution to that or was it not shown?

I don't like that Zuko chose to fight in the Agni Kai. Seeing him on the ground begging forgiveness and THAT'S the kid Ozai scars and banishes is way more impactful than "he fought but didn't go all out"

This shit went off the rails in episode 7. Why is Yue a fox who just chills in the spirit world? What happened to Tui and La? Push and pull? Yin and Yang? I got confused somewhere along the way

Am I the only one who felt the Yue and Sokka kiss came out of nowhere? She literally said she called off her betrothal when she was 16 (before meeting Sokka) because that dude wasn't the right guy. But then the kiss immediately after implies Sokka is the right guy??? The guy you didn't know existed??? Or are we supposed to infer that she fell in love with him in the spirit world? Either one is so bad pleasssseee

I infinitely prefer Zuko trying to save Zhao and Zhao choosing to die out of sheer stubbornness, compared to Iroh killing Zhao to save Zuko. Like yeah, he'd do anything for Zuko, but I felt that crossed a line (and was less impactful)

Assorted Thoughts

They mentioned the mother of faces, are we gonna see Zuko’s mom get addressed at some point? Or was that just a wink and a nod for fans who know?

The kids are pretty good actors but Katara’s sometimes feels like she's… in a school play. For lack of a better description. She's not bad, it just doesn't always feel natural or as expressive as she could be

Yue's actress on the other hand... look I don't like insulting child actors but her performance was not my favourite

Meanwhile, I loved the casting for Zuko and Aang. I like this slightly-less-angry Zuko, and Aang's actor has such a sweet face that it hurt me to see him sad

I wish we got to see an Agni Kai between Zuko and Zhao. Simply because establishing it early helps introduce us to this idea. It makes it more impactful when Ozai declares Zuko must fight, since we now know what that entails

I feel like the series is at its best when it's doing it’s own thing (the Gyatso scenes, Suki's new characterization, Lu Ten's funeral) and is at its weakest when it's trying to copy the original

[chengfagshi]

one thing that i've been noticing with this recent-ish puritanism behaviour (in and outside of fandoms, about media perception in general), is that there's a big generational and cultural divide

while it's not only younger generations or USAmericans that are starting to think like this, they're the majority

and that got me thinking what other cultural differences there may be between southwestern European countries vs the USA, about this issue

I've yet to see someone mention fairy talkes/folk tales/fables. Europe has a long tradition of tales, USA not really. whatever native american tales existed have been erased from the average citizen’s cultural knowledge.

but my generation and older, we grew up with Aesop and La Fontaine Fables, Grimms Fairy Tales, Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen. They taught us how to engage with our imagination in a way that didn't make us lose ourselves in it.

it also taught us morals and about the real world, in a way that didn't feel "heavy" like inside a classroom.

these tales exist to help teach children what parents hope kid tv/youtube will do instead - and when it does badly, they blame the show/content creator instead of their own parenting.

I really think that's another big difference that only increases the divide between morally "better adjusted" and "lesser adjusted".

because it's not normal or moral for, currently, huge numbers of teens and young adults to not be able to understand that what you read in a book/watch in show isn't happening in real life; even if you're "seeing it" - that's just your imagination.

just take a peek at the shifting community - they genuinely believe that their daydreaming is them shifting into an alternative reality, where they exist alongside their favourite characters from their favourite series. that’s not just weird, it’s concerning too

That's honestly very interesting to think about. I'm actually worried about the future of these kids, because they have such a huge problem separating fiction from reality that it's very concerning.

[redwayfarers]

survivor - for the random word generator prompt!

hello! sorry for the wait, real life got the better of me and i didn't write, but i was reading gide and this came to me like an angel, so i had to write it! if it reads like les faux monnayeurs, i'm so sorry lmao, this is why they tell you not to write immediately after reading (affectionate)

a flickering light, or a tale of two survivors

Fandom: FFXIV Ship: Cassander/Stephanivien (implied), Nika/Minfilia Characters: Cassander Inteus (aka a Cass AU), Nika Perseis (WoL), Stephanivien de Haillenarte Rating: Gen Words: 1759 Spoilers: ARR patches, if you squint. dividers by @saradika

Set during early Heavensward.

The Skysteel Manufactory gets stupidly creepy at night. It’s not lit by torches or something, like some parts of the city - Stephanivien saw to that, he’s too avant-garde for torches, how dare the world not use every technological advancement ever! - and there’s a few of the lamps that go on and off, like a broken clock. Stephanivien is too busy to see that of all things, and we’re all far too enthralled by the creepiness to tell him. 

Some of us have weird tastes. 

The workshops on higher levels are a mess of metal parts, wires, cogs, magical devices and whatever the fuck machinists need. There’s a beauty in that too, in a way. It feels lived in, like a childhood bedroom you can’t yet leave even though you’re getting married tomorrow. Except that I was an adult when I first saw this room, and that I’d have no idea what a beloved childhood room would look, let alone feel like. My childhood bedroom - or the room where I spent a large part of what people call a childhood, anyways - is pristine, devoid of personality, rich, opulent. It’s a stage more than anything. Only thing remotely lived in in that whole fucking room - no, the whole shitty house - is the bright, orange pillow with Dzemael sigil sewn on it. 

It was embarrassing, packing your childhood pillow, the first time I left to spend the night in the Manufactory. But maybe I am embarrassing, deep down, so I get to keep my little pillow with me and go freeze in the messy, lived in workshops overnight. The more I got used to that, the less embarrassing it felt. 

One day, I might even go take it to Coerthas and drown in a river there. I’m sure my mother would be happier for it. She found the pillow rather tacky anyways. 

“It was very.. Kind of you to let me in,” I told Stephanivien one night, seated beside him to watch him work. His eyeshadow bore the signs of wearing, a little messy at the edges. His forehead gleamed with sweat. The lamp was dying, but he was too engrossed in his work to notice and I was too engrossed in him to tell him. 

“Kind? Cassander, your mother is an absolute bitch. Even if you weren’t as pretty as you are, I would have taken you in regardless. Between us, darling, you’re wasted in that house.” He smiled, widely. “You look much better with a gun in your hand, I will say.” 

“You will,” I laugh, looking at my hands. My cheeks were burning. “I think I like guns. Long ones in particular. Elegant. You may think I’m referring to something else, but no, I am referring to metal objects you use to shoot things with.”

“You’re funny,” Stephanivien shakes his head. “I can make you one, if you’d like. Golden, to match the pillow.” 

“My future gun has a bed now, who would’ve thought.” I reached out and grasped his gloved hand, dirty from the work. Stephanivien smiled, and it seemed brighter than the dying lamp above our heads. 

Maybe I’m also a little fond of that struggling, dying thing. I go up sometimes, when it’s cold, or rainy, or everyone’s simply too busy for me and my jobless ass, sit beneath it and look at the gun Stephanivien gave me. A nameday gift, engraved with a little dagger. It’s in pristine condition, but I clean it anyway, with all the care you afford a priceless, porcelain vase; the light flickers, on and off, but I don’t need it to see the little dagger engraving, the nooks and the crannies and the long barrel that feels like something my mother would hate. 

That, too, brings me joy. Theokleia de Dzemael hates machinists, on principle. The fact that I not only own a gun, but can shoot with it, is a kind of pleasure I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of some 5 years ago. 

This particular evening, I climb up the stairs to the workshop, coffee in hand, ready to clean it from the last practice from earlier. A curl that the goggles aren’t holding up tickles my temple, but I’ll be damned if I let my coffee spill just because of one stray piece of hair that refuses to sit still. I kick the door open. 

“I like your gun,” someone says before I can fully register them. A pair of mismatched eyes moves from the weapon to me and my coffee. “Did you also drink the last of the coffee?” 

“I’m not a coffee maniac,” I grumble, frowning. “I can’t drink all of it. What kind of question is that, for fuck’s everloving sake?” 

Nika looks at me with an equal furrow. However, that’s his MO, and mine is decidedly not. I have been known to grin maniacally once or twice. “One that needs answering.” 

The light flickers above our heads. It casts a sudden light onto his face, and shines a weak light onto the hazel eye and the scar on his nose and cheek. Ouch. His lips are pulled in a tight line, his short, black hair in disarray, a stark contrast to the finery of the clothes he’s wearing - courtesy of his hosts here in Ishgard. 

For a Warrior of Light, he is very gloomy and dark. An asshole, too. You’d think the Warrior of Light, of all people, would be a hero, but no, we’re stuck with a perpetually frowning asshole. What a joy. 

“What do you want? Move, I need that desk.” I place the overfilled cup down as roughly as I can. “There’s no fucking coffee here except the one on the table, and that’s mine.”

“I paid you a compliment,” he says, unmoving. “You could at least say thank you. You nobles should have manners.” 

“Je suis plein de gratitude. I know you paid me a compliment, but the question later made no sense so that had to be addressed first.” 

Nika looks at the gun again. He taps his fingers against the wood in a rhythm, three taps forward, one tap backward, three strong, one a glide, then in reverse. He then looks at his feet and takes a deep breath. “Minfilia is better at this sort of thing. She knows how to talk to you higher classes.” 

“Minfilia?” Who the fuck is this Minfilia woman? I readjust my goggles, and push the tickling curl away from my skin. Is she his lover, his sister? His friend? I can’t imagine him caring about anyone, including himself. From what little he’s been here in the Manufactory, a stray taken in by Stephanivien’s brightness much like me, all he did is make nonsense sentences and antagonize everyone. 

“Someone very dear to me. But she isn’t here, and neither is Alphinaud, so you’re stuck with me.” 

Alphinaud? Oh yeah, one of the other wards. The elezen kid. Whoever did his braid deserves to be fired because it’s needlessly messy and terrible. “Which would be fine, if you stopped speaking in riddles. Now can I sit, Warrior of Light, or will you clean my likeable gun for me? I’m not making you coffee.”

“In riddles? I’m not–” Nika frowns yet again. “Have your gun, whats-your-face.” 

“Cassander. Cassander de Dzemael.” 

“Cassander,” he says, like he’s testing the name. I look down at him. 

The light flickers. Something crosses his face, and his eyes look painfully vulnerable for a moment, and he’s tapping his fingers in the same rhythm again. 

“Why are you here, Nika?” I ask. I don’t know why my voice becomes so gentle. Maybe because I’m towering over him, and if I kept the hard edge, it would scare him off, not that I care about that. Maybe if I spoke gentler, he’d buck less under every question. Maybe he’d even start making sense. 

Or maybe the images of my mother’s hard voice echo in my head, like a hammer to the anvil. Now it is my turn to grip the table until my nail beds go a little pale. Her shouts and her yells, her derisive comments, her hard eyes and her pointed anger, and her looming, Halone’s ass, the looming! Do I sound like that? Do I sound as rough as she does? 

Nika’s quiet for a while. He keeps looking at his hands, rough and harsh. “That’s none of your business,” he rasps, but moves so that I could sit. “If someone needs me, they don’t know where to look.” 

I sit and take a long sip of my coffee. “Just mind the pillow, then. And try not to interrupt. This is something of a sacred ritual, you see. Halone-ordained. When you go to church, they tell you you must clean your gun or else she will smite you, or something.” 

He huffs. 

“Or so I hear,” I add with a shrug. “I’m not frequently in church.” 

The light flickers. 

“Minfilia would also laugh at that,” Nika says. I still have no idea who this Minfilia is, but she’s welcome to laugh at my jokes, wherever she is. “Will they fix the fucking thing?”

I take a sip of coffee. “Don’t think so. It’s rather cute. On and off. We all like weird things, I think, and my particular weird thing is this broken little lamp. Besides, I’m sure Stephanivien will notice at some point or another. When it dies, probably.”

“He’s the one making these guns, I’d rather he didn’t make me a faulty one,” Nika shrugs. “But if he sees, it’s whatever. It’s just annoying. You asked me earlier why I’m here. I was drawn to the gun. I think it has a nice shot.” He pauses. “I’m sure that the Fortemps family can pay for one of these.”

“Pretty sure they can, yeah. This one’s mine, though.” 

“I’m not in the habit of stealing people’s weapons.” 

I lift a brow. “Never said you were.” 

Nika shakes his head and heads for the door. The light flickers and he looks up. “Someone should really fix the damn thing,” he says, a little less angry than before. He’s then gone, tucking his waistcoat tighter for warmth, and I watch him go before he’s part of the shadows and I can take out my tools. 

We all like weird things. Some of us like long-barreled guns. Some of us like women named Minfilia, and speaking in riddles. And who knows? Maybe this broken little lamp refuses to die because it likes us, too. 

Halone works in weird fucking ways. 

[littleshopofchaos]

Writeblr Interview Tag!

Thank you to @dearunreliablenarrator for the tag

I tag @waltzshouldbewriting @violetcancerian @watermeezer @cherrybombfangirlwrites and anyone who wants to do this

Short stories, novels, or poems?

All of them. Its fun and good to practise having a variety

What genre do you prefer reading?

I love fantasy as my main, but my second favourite is crime/ true crime and things like Agatha Christie

Are you a planner or a write as I go kind of person?

Both. I like to have a variety so I can get stuff done and not stress about some fun projects whilst outlining the serious ones that need a lot of work

What music do you listen to while writing?

Mostly musicals, right now its Wait For Me/Reprise from Hadestown, and then there's things like Linkin Park New Divide and Numb

Favorite books/movies?

Favourite books: Any Agatha Christie, Skulduggery Pleasant or A Good Girls Guide To Murder the trilogy

Favourite movies: Lilo and Stitch, Monsters Inc, Pirates of the Carribbean, Inside Out 1 and 2, Shrek 1 and 2

Any current WIPs?

Keep The Peace is part of my series Amongst The Chaos, an adult fantasy slice-of-life supernatural series where its a bunch of characters living in the city of Nottingham, and meeting up at various places to get together and talk about events that have happened in their lives as they live amongst the supernatural - e.g Angels. Demons, Ghosts and the like and their reactions to the chaos.

If someone were to make a cartoon out of you what would your standard outfit be?

jogging bottoms and a lilo and stitch t-shirt or a game of thrones t-shirt, stich trainers, a stitch handbag and a sunflower lanyard.

Create a character description of yourself: 

Fat non-binary person really into eating and crafting and loves to dye hair different colours, cannot see for shit without glasses and cannot drive.

Do you like incorporating actual people you know into your writing?

Yes and no. All my characters are original, but sometimes my mother will suggest 'oh, write about our family, your nephews, the cats' ect and to be honest with you, ive never figured out how to fit them in, so i dont.

Are you kill happy with your characters?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I will kill whoever I want to, whenever I want to. I'm not afraid to get violent with the deaths, but I gotta do it justice

Coffee or Tea while writing?

Tea, Hot Chocolate or different juices, depending what's in my reach and i'm interested in.

Slow or fast writer?

It depends on how motivated i am, when im not in writers block i can write 2k within like 2 hours

Where/who/what do you draw inspiration from?

Everything - the books i read, the games i play, the music i listen to.Bad writing pisses me off real bad and I know I can do better

If you were in a fantasy world, what would you be?

A librarian or writer completely done wih the city being destroyed by the supernatural but being really intrigued and trying not to die.

Most fav book cliche:

I cannot answer.

Least favorite cliche:

curing disabilities. like fuck off with that shit, give them their aids back and we dont need to cure autism, we're fine the way we are

Favorite scene to write?

all of them, i just cannot pick one thing i love. Its just... the whole process of writing that I love and I wouldn't change it fot the world

Reason for writing?

Because its a part of what makes me, me and i wouldnt have it any other way. I am a writer, its in my blood. I enjoy the creation, the creativity, the uniqueness of my own voice

[tomorrowxtogether]

TOMORROW X TOGETHER makes magical moments in the real world

A look at the music and imagery of The Name Chapter: FREEFALL

2023.10.14

When dreams are thrust into reality 

Myeongseok Kang: In The Name Chapter concept trailer put out by TOMORROW X TOGETHER last year, HUENINGKAI jumps all alone out of a house in the sky. Now the next page of that chapter has been revealed: the new album, FREEFALL—falling as a result of one’s own free will. The opening track, “Growing Pain,” begins with the line, “Been free falling,” and goes into how it hurts to fall (“my whole body aches”). But, as the lyrics to the single “Chasing That Feeling” describe, to choose not to fall would be to just wait around for the world to crumble to pieces, turning away from reality to stay stuck in a mirage: “I turn my back on heaven and / Fall from the sky / Maybe I’ll miss it for good / The sweet mirage.” Like the boys of TOMORROW X TOGETHER acknowledge in the track “Dreamer,” the world is divided into “adults who don’t dream and boys who only have dreams.” In order to keep their dreams from disappearing like a daydream, they have to face reality before they become adults—people who no longer dream. It’s only during youth that something like this could ever be possible. It’s a period of life between boyhood and adulthood, when you can say, “in that typical fork in the road, I’m gray,” and it’s there that a boy’s dream ultimately becomes an existential force as he battles his way through real life (“I dream again / The name I retrieved”) allowing him to define who he is. The group declares in “Deep Down” that the “horn suddenly coming out of my head” that once left them “feeling ashamed” is now “a big crown on me / No longer a hideous horn / You’re my silver lining.” It’s a sentiment that anyone trying to make their dreams come true while surviving real life will recognize. By living life without running away from reality or giving up on their dreams, the boys learn to accept everything about themselves just the way they are. In spirit, then, The Name Chapter: FREEFALL is a comprehensive piece that plays out a lot like a road trip movie as the young boys navigate their way through the real world, and is also a pivotal moment in the journey TOMORROW X TOGETHER has taken together so far. Ever since debuting with the song “CROWN,” the boys have been up in the air somewhere between reality and fantasy. In “Run Away,” they even ask themselves, “Should we run away from reality?” Later, in the music video for “0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)” featuring Seori, they take off in a car instead, but they still can’t escape the real world. Now, in FREEFALL, they’re redefining what it means to be young by making a U-turn away from Neverland and straight toward reality—living there without hiding their horns or their dreams.

“Growing Pain” draws on the thrashing power of emocore for its particular sound, with the voices of the TOMORROW X TOGETHER members intentionally buried deep into the soundscape, adding a sense of depth and suggesting the feeling of pushing emotions down inside. They even sing the chorus in a restrained falsetto (“Into the pain / Throw it”), keeping any potentially explosive outbursts at bay. It’s once the album moves onto its seventh track, “Skipping Stones,” that the boys really break out with pure rock power. Earlier in the album, they see the horns on their heads as crowns and accept them as part of their identity in “Deep Down,” and the rest of reality, too, in “Happily Ever After” (“Even after closing the fairy tale book / Life still goes on … So what? I rather like it this way”). When they finally get to “Skipping Stones,” they reaffirm their determination to get on with the real world, bruises and all: “The water that swallowed the scars will become calm someday / And it will have a wide embrace.” In FREEFALL, the sound itself is the journey the group takes, with each track on the album finding its own way to leverage the music to match the message, the soundscape of each coming together to form one unified whole. Where the emocore sound of “Growing Pain” explores how much it hurts to fall back into reality, the synth-pop “Chasing That Feeling” tries to race fearlessly through that real world (“My fate, come and kiss me / I just keep on chasing that feeling”). The boys’ voices are full of sorrow but still dynamic as each sings about how they “turn my back on heaven.” Their vocals grow calmer and the beats in the album slow as it moves through the R&B-infused “Dreamer” and the synth-laden “Deep Down.” The progressive levelling out of emotions that flow through the album changes direction when the music briefly drops out during this track on the line, “Deep down I need you more,” acknowledging their horns as high-tempo EDM beats take over from the second verse. After an atmospheric free fall, the album rises again from “Happily Ever After,” the boys’ voices chipper right from the start. The track’s followed up by the rocker “Skipping Stones,” which then segues into “Blue Spring,” opening with the rousing words, “When we’re high / When we’re low / You’re always by my side / All my youth is filled with your warmth.” With no fear of the real world now, the boys are fully open to their identity and to love as the “once so chilly world / Blooms into spring at last.” Love has always been one of TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s core tenets, but they may find a different kind of value in it after crashing down into reality in free fall. The “gray” TOMORROOW X TOGETHER members’ vocals make good on the messages and music of every track in this journey to discover their youth, perfectly encapsulating what it’s like for someone to find their own path through life while they’re still young. Though each track off the album explores a different genre, they form one complete story solely through the music.

The Name Chapter: FREEFALL aims to flesh out a different musical genre on every one of its tracks, and the songs eschew variations of each of their themes in favor of repeating the choruses and verses to make for a series of tight, compact packages. Some might brush this approach off as following the current pop formula, but TOMORROW X TOGETHER makes the album their own by “Chasing That Feeling” through finely tuning their vocals to emphasize the message behind each song and the album’s journey as a whole. In other words, the group takes the trappings of pop and brings something magical to the story and the message—TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s own brand of pop music. Like dream-filled boys forge their own destinies in a world where adults have lost the ability to dream, the group finds their identity within the world of pop. That’s how these young men set up their own little space within the real world.

​Magic takes root in reality and flourishes 

Oh Minji: “Sometimes magical moments can be found in the most unmagical places.” Those are the words that close the concept teaser for TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s latest album, The Name Chapter: FREEFALL, as the boys say goodbye to their own personal Neverland and each tumbles down in an “endless fall” (“Growing Pain”) by choice (“I throw myself,” “Chasing That Feeling”) to land somewhere new—somewhere where magical moments can no longer be found. Unlike Peter Pan, they can’t fly, much less be boys forever. In the video, they’re like flowers that “turn my back on heaven and fall from the sky” (“Chasing That Feeling”), left to bloom in solitude along a barren asphalt road and next to a sewer where they’ll be washed away come even the slightest rain.

The place TOMORROW X TOGETHER has stumbled upon, however, is not entirely REALITY, as the name of their concept clip echoes, but rather one where buildings and umbrellas help protect them from the downpour. Unlike in the concept teaser, in the REALITY clip, they’re safe from being swept away by rain, and there’s no risk of “pain on my flesh” or having to be “prepared to die” (“Chasing That Feeling”). But it’s still clearly a set made for TOMORROW X TOGETHER, with it raining upwards, and words like “DOWN TO EARTH” and “FREEFALL” written on the ground and walls. They seem to have finally stopped falling and have their feet on the ground in the concept video for MELANCHOLY, the next in the series, but given that YEONJUN is in a cage and SOOBIN is behind bars, they’re not free, either. It could be that the wolfdog that’s with them in the fake reality—a place that’s neither completely real, nor where the boys are entirely free—is a symbolic mirror for the boys themselves. The animal—finally free from its simultaneously protective and restrictive cage (Neverland) but still barred from entering the real world—comes across as an analogy for Peter Pan-like characters in the real world: boys who want to become adults but can’t because they have never seen a real adult with their own eyes.

Even though they choose not to “run away and avoid” things and instead fall and deal with the accompanying agony, there’s no doubt that facing the wicked destiny that dooms them to “wander” comes with its fair share of growing pains (“Deep Down”). But there are times when you have to go through something painful in order to have something better at the end. For example, the TOMORROW X TOGETHER members wear pearls around their necks in the CLARITY concept clip. It’s only after an oyster’s shell is invaded by a foreign body and the creature endures the pain that a pearl is finally formed, so they act as an exclusive medal of bravery for those who have dealt with pain (“thought my blood spills and bones break … I throw myself into a dream that doesn’t lie,” “Growing Pain”). TOMORROW X TOGETHER are now standing on top of the true real world, having overcome their pains and earned their pearls and freedom. For them, reality is the roof that they thought had been there to protect them all along. It's somewhere they could fall from at any given moment and once again be left unprotected from the elements, but it’s also where they can turn down the “Devil by the Window” tempting them with whispers (“Dream on, dream on, good night!”) and finally say, “To a new sun every day, good morning” (“Happily Ever After”).

The noises that can be heard through the concept films feel like glitches that come about because TOMORROW X TOGETHER, once living in a fairy tale-like world, is entering the real one. The noises crack and sputter as the boys stand “in that typical fork in the road” where “adults who don’t dream and boys who only have dreams” exist. It’s at that fork—where they face reality without giving up their youth—that the “magical moments” bloom. Like this album, for one.

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

I don’t dislike SJ but I do dislike the watered down, woobie SJ that SJ apologists invented. Also it bothers me how SJ apologists hate SY for reasons out of his control (his judgement of SJ based on existing info that he later adjusts?) or are part of his character arc (prejudging people based on his knowledge of them rather than seeing them.) SJ is basically pure fanon at this point.

The thing is, that Shen Yuan, doesn't ever change his opinion of Shen Jiu. It's still the same that he had from the beginning, but with deeper context for why he still didn't like him, feel deeper sympathy or felt like he could be more.

Before yes, it was a shallow dislike due to having nothing deeper to analyze based on being unable for Airplane to mention because of fandom backlash saying it is just for pity, or because of fandom excusing the purpose of a villain. As it was said within the text itself:

However, now that the plot hole had been filled to this extent, Shen Qingqiu understood a little of why Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky had taken an axe to the outline.

When written within the bounds of the original genre, this kind of character was extremely difficult to handle. You could say he was scum, but he was also pitiful. But if you tried to acknowledge his pathos, his ruthlessness was real too. Characters that were both scummy and tragic always drew aggro, and they were a hotbed for wank, leading comments sections to devolve into massive flame wars. Better to hack him down into a formulaic asshole and let the protagonist step on him. Easier to write, and the readers would find it satisfying as well.

He understands more of this character and can feel sympathy, but in the confines of fandom, even saying that is conscientious and will divide between not being aggressive enough in your view, or, not sympathetic enough due to reader's personally identifying now with the villain's hardships in life. Humanity, is always going to be grounds for garnering sympathy and also, can be used for nurturing or to manipulate. This does not change the thematics or plot points that must be met for a villain's and antagonist's purpose. Villains are afterall, meant to be tragic towards humanity and the antithesis of love and care. No matter how sad their own situation may be, the still chose the worst outcomes for themselves and to harm others. There is no "what if" there, as we see Shen Yuan go through the entirety of Shen Jiu's life before he is changed as Shen Qingqiu.

Shen Qingqiu saw three things on the original flavor’s face: envy, envy, and more envy.

Envy that Luo Binghe had a mother who was “the kindest in all the world to him,” envy of Luo Binghe’s talent, envy that Luo Binghe would enter Cang Qiong Mountain Sect at the best age for cultivating. He was indeed the kind of person to brim with envy and resentment toward a young child.

Shen Jiu stood and walked over to Luo Binghe, his steps measured. Shen Qingqiu inadvertently moved to shield him, but how could he stop anything?

It is not Shen Jiu that needs further understanding, he had that in the form of Yue Qingyuan, who's guilt is used for further abuses against Luo Binghe. What is meant with these passages is the terror and vulnerability of a child that is caught in an adult's hate they can't get over. When you choose to harm a child, there is no sympathy or perhaps anymore that can save you and tell a reader "he had his reasons". Circumstance, no matter how sad and awful, does not change the present need of cruelty that is uncalled for. Shen Jiu, is a bitter, sad, unrepentant person until the end.

[sauntervaguelydown]

so obviously part of the problem with writing combat in Naruto fic is that a significant percentage of what happens is driven by Rule of Cool. And when we do get solid world building to structure the magic on, sometimes it doesn't line up with earlier things that were driven by Rule of Cool. Kishimono has a flawless sense of what the audience wants to see/what he can get away with. But, again, a not insignificant portion is sleight of hand.

Take for example: clone jutsu.

this is THE thing Naruto struggles with in his introductory episode. He can't do it, he makes shitty little clones that look like they are dying of the flu and then poof immediately. But, at the same time, what's his signature bullshit prank? He can transform himself into a sexy naked adult woman with absolutely no issue. (by the way, jesus christ. i'm taking him to a therapist.)

so, hey, what the fuck? How is henge less difficult for him than clone jutsu? You would think that the amount of juice it takes to transform your whole body, making it taller and shaped different, would be at least the amount of juice it takes to make a copy of yourself. Ah, but juice has never been Naruto's problem. he's got more juice than an OJ factory.

What do we know he's got trouble with, consistently? Precise, fine chakra control.

For the record, the other way you can look at this is as an ADHD issue. Maybe making clones is boring and hard to focus on, but making himself into a sexy adult woman got him in a hyperfixation grip. It's possible! The only issue here is that we know he can brute force his way through learning things when they matter to him, because he figures out shadow clone jutsu in a day. And there's just no way that graduating the academy wasn't important enough to him to focus on.

Anyway. Chakra control. How come Naruto is able to make Super Advanced Level shadow clones, but struggled so much to make one measly Basic Level Clone? Well. Rule of cool. But I want there to be a better reason, so I'm looking.

One thing we know canonically about shadow clones is that normally to make one, you divide your own chakra in half and distribute it evenly. Every time you make an additional clone, you're dividing your reserves equally among yourselves. Thus, shadow clones can do everything a real person can do, including cast their own spells. People who aren't Naruto generally only make one at a time, because it's costly. A regular clone, by contrast, most likely requires nothing. It's closer to an illusion, I think.

It's entirely possible that the mechanics of making a basic clone and the mechanics of making a shadow clone are different. As a student exercise for children, it can't be that resource intensive. I'd venture to suggest it probably involves more skill in precise manipulation to create an illusion, since early on genjutsu are associated with people like Sakura who have talent for fine chakra control. How this actually works is beyond me, but I can reasonably believe that there's an equation that looks something like "you can trade power expended for precise control to get similar results".

We never see anyone make a regular clone outside of the academy, I don't think. All the jonin adults use either shadow clones or an equivalent element-based clone that functions the same way. We DO see Naruto use transformation a few more times in combat. Like when he turns himself into a giant shuriken?? hey what the fuck. Can everybody do that??? I'm struggling to think of anyone but Naruto who uses henge like that.

If there's something Naruto can do that other people can't, it almost always comes down to chakra reserves. I'd venture to say that applies to transformation as well.

Okay that's all I got, I don't feel like I accomplished much but there it is.