#I wonder if it will glitch out or post the whole length

[justdrawingcatsandotherstuff]

AU of an AU: BaTIM

(There's a lot to read, guys) I haven't got much sleep, so this is my justification for making mistakes in text, if there's any. (The short summary: When server has a terrible admin, so some random cheater overthrows him and takes control👌. But I didn't write where it happens yet)

(I mention violence/murder btw and I will say a spoiler for Abomination comic ending) …

The AU of an AU starts as a changed Abomination comic ending. Like more people were alive (just like in my old batim rp). So, Magenta is an Ink Demon now, and after he became him - first yet alive person who found it out was Alice and got damaged or killed, then Sammy who didn't die before also found it out or I forgot what I wrote in here. Then everyone in this timeline is dead, Ink Demon laughs and suddenly the ink server resets itself. Demon doesn't understand wth is going on and looks up. Sees Joey the original one and tries to get his attention by yelling. Joey looks at him, surprised that he can see him for he never did that before, and explains that this timeline was crap and they gotta reset it. Ink Demon doesn't get it and boom, he's Magenta again. Alive. Get's a deja vu. For a while everything looks like abomination canon, but then Magenta tries to get Joeys attention from above again. And tries to ask what he expects from this scenario anyway. But Joey replies with "I don't fcking know, it just wasn't perfect" so Magenta doesn't have a clear scenario and fcks up everything again. (I'm not the type of person who swears a lot, but judging by what texts I saw in tumblr this is the way I should write it like?) Then another reset and another correction by "God" happens, and this time Magenta argues more — "it's not my fault timeline isn't perfect, it's yours, you don't even know what you want!" This argument comes to nothing. And a few more timelines keep appearing and resetting, with very slight changes. Except for Magenta tries to argue with Joey more and more, and more while the timeline goes by, probably making anyone who sees it think that he's a bit more insane than usual 👌. Then there appears such corruption thingy as cartoonifying the timeline (or how to write this word). When he noticed that this universe it pretty much drawn he started making it more cartoony by behaving like a cartoon, which twisted the reality and caused a much earlier reset. Magenta saw it as a very funny thing while Joey said that it was even worse than usual stop it. Then they were bullying or trolling each other for 10 minutes until Joey gave up and reset the timeline again. Magenta didn't get the memo and corrupted the timeline so much that it had reset itself and wiped his memories out. Memories about such timeline. This could 50/50 either cause him to stop cartoonifying timelines or make him repeat his tricks again. … Another thing - he wrote diaries and things on walls sometimes, in some secret locations only he could normally enter, bc usually the resets didn't save all the memories and just gave deja vu or flashbacks that it happened before. So he wrote himself hints while he still tried to do what Joey asked - "create a good timeline". But nothing worked, so he just wrote the outcomes of his arguments with Joey and insults in his address. Also things for those who would find out he had diaries. … Another thing - obviously clone would eventually annoy Joey so much that he would reset even the clone himself. So kinda deleted or threw away and spawned a new and clean one. And communicated with him right away bc all clones were finding out the author exists, it's not something to reset. Also that meant he .. could give them the actual steps to follow? .. Nothing worked anyway-

Also back to cartoony timelines: when Magenta broke the timeline this much he could leave the map. Find a breach. He also had a motif - he wanted to get away from Joeys foolish control. This man doesn't even know what he wants, what's the point to follow his lead? So once he did find a breach and left the map. He wandered into a place I called "behind the fourth wall", but it's actually the black backrooms. Joey saw nothing in here, it's out of bounds, so he just assumed his clone deleted himself somehow and created a new one. While the old one was wandering this place. At first it was like an interesting adventure and finally freedom. .. But then he never found an exit and was locked in the void for eternity. Being in the void also made him lose his old looks and he looked more like a lost one than Joey. Also got a shape shifter ability. Also I will say what I forgot to mention, the main point of the AU: after many resets Magenta started to think of his identity, why tf he looks and even thinks like Joey while being not him and .. probably why he likes cartoony things that much? So he once randomly remembers that he was Bendy once, before turning into Joey to do his bidding. That makes him hate Joey on a new level and argue 3 times more. After which he probably got reset once, but regained memories again. …

And now back to our lost in the backrooms guy: He was wandering there for eternity, thinking what could he do to prevent or fix anything. And he saw that another Joey clone entered this realm, and to not repeat the story came to him and showed the way out 👌. … It did change the fate of the second clone, but didn't change the fate of the main one. So he wandered again and even entered the other timelines. It made him know the entire story and he was thinking of a plan to change everything. Again. Then was traveling the timelines and his inky out of bounds realm again, and this how he collected an army of 5 other inky creatures (btw I call this guy "Formless Inky Creature", FIC for short👌) and once again met a clone who tried to enter the backrooms. But this time he told him what happens in other timelines and that he should do something else, not what Joey said. And that he was Bendy once👌. And that he should kill both Henry and Joey somehow. …

Phew, this story is long, yes. I will also mention that these timelines can go not only as far as abomination goes, but to Henry's arrival too. And I initially started to write it since the moment he tried to get "the secret ending" and ran into the backrooms away from Ink Demon, who followed him and found out he looks like Magenta again when he's in here. And tried to find Henry, but got lost here and found a place that .. idk, works off fantasy? It gives you anything you think about, but literally anything and constantly, also it has invisible walls, you will get trapped in here and all your thoughts will materialize forever. Or there's actually a chance to get out, but then you'll meet FIC's fate. But in the first story Henry and Joey clone actually found each other, talked and Henry went to another timeline. But in the second story, which is this one: Henry got the idea he got away from the ink demon and was looking for an exit. And was noticed by FIC. FIC was angry at him bc he's the reason Joey clones even exist and suffer for idiot's sake, so he approached and pushed him to some random timeline to break the fourth wall in. And went to find the second clone to tell him to start the plan. And here I got tired of typing, so for now that's all. Oof. Also the backrooms probably give them the knowledge of everything, but I don't remember the exact amount.

[bluedogxl]

holy fucking shit i just got done with doctor4t’s latest content smp video. now i thought i’d never get invested enough in any sort of minecraft smp to feel the need to post about it but my god. i get it. i sat down to a 3-and-a-half hour minecraft smp slash modmaking video and it handed me my ass and a box of tissues.

(uhh. spoilers under the cut. also a lot of rambling i just have a lot to say about silly block game guy #8247247)

r4t usually being casual and jokey about the lore and story of the server is kind of what made him fun to watch, to me? like it’s obvious he cares about it, but he’s just detached enough to make him, well… approachable? i guess, as a casual viewer. a good on-ramp. i mean, his grudge with arathain (the thing tying him to basically everything in the story) started over netherite spawn rates of all things. it never felt too dense. and it’s fun to see him scheme over his revenge plots and code mods to facilitate them, but it was obvious it was all a game to him. he has fun with the lore (see the anchorblade video) but it feels like an excuse to make cool mods and play some good minecraft.

at the end of this one? holy fucking shit. i was actually about to start crying in empathy.

r4t lost basically his best friend. she sacrificed her life to save his, the same way he sold his soul to save her, and she’s gone. her anchorblade, too, easily the most significant symbol of their friendship and the tool that she used to save him, was taken or erased by a glitch or something, and the whole time he’s processing it and snapping at arathain (who’s here again? somehow?) and dragging her skull back to the cabin and building her grave and mourning her, he just… felt like he stopped doing a bit and became fully immersed in his world. the way he says how he didn’t really take the other deaths seriously, and then calls himself a monster? killed me. pronounced me goddamn stone dead. this man has acting chops. this man, for a whole like ten minutes, truly had me mourning someone who was banned from a minecraft server like she was actually six feet in the ground.

and just. the way it’s put together. so beautiful. the man’s a master of editing. i kept noticing throughout the whole thing that the portal transitions were getting so smooth. and i mean, it’s nothing super flashy or anything. it’s just… good, and solid.

to be honest, i think the video’s length helped sell it all for me. time and time again, dramatic turn after dramatic turn, we see these low points, and yeah they suck, but then you check the bar and there’s still like an hour left and you go ‘aw man i wonder how they’re gonna get out of this one!’ and then you get to lux dying, and you see r4t build her grave and bawl his eyes out and you check the bar and there’s minutes. this is the end of the book. this is the note we’re leaving off on. like, there’s still more to do. blake’s out there still, arathain’s back(?), asai is apparently in on this (i just remembered r4t offhandedly mentioning asai being on with winsweep what the fuuuuckkkkk), and so on and so forth. but that’s for next time. today’s chapter is over. get out of the theater. for some reason that just made it all hit harder.

god at the end of the day i just love this insane goddamn soap opera of a minecraft server. how did this happen to me i just wanted to see funny maid rat guy make silly mods to blow up his friends

[shelbazoidz]

Okay, I think I posted this on accident last night or there was some kinda glitch, either way I panic deleted it so... mama mia here we go again?? Its literally just based off a stupid joke I made last week about Lena calling Kara hot and everyone hears her say it over the comms.

Happy Accident.

A normal mission. Everyone was thankful for the break from the absolute chaos of the last few weeks. Nyxly hadn’t shown up in days since the last totem and the team was currently at a loss. When the emergency call came in they had all prepared for more magic nonsense, but that wasn’t what this was. This was something they knew how to handle.

Kara supports the crumbling side of the building as the rest of the team evacuates the few workers that weren’t able to get out on their own. The partially constructed office building had structural issues that had been conveniently covered up. That was until part of the building started to collapse. A piece of concrete thumps Kara on the head as she pushes the support beam into a more upright position.

“As long as the rest of you doesn’t come down, I’m fine with that.” She says to herself as she waits for everyone to get out safely.

“You’re clear, Supergirl.” J’onn calls out over the comms after another ten minutes. Slowly Kara let go of the bending support beam. It groans and creaks before slumping to the left but doesn't budge any further. Kara lets out a relieved breath, walking out from underneath the building.

“You’ve got some rubble in your hair, Supergirl.” The sound of Lena’s voice in her ear makes her smile.

“I do?” Kara brushes some of the dust out of her hair. “Wait, how can you see me?”

“Local news is there and there is a camera pointed right at you.” Lena hums back. She'd been watching the whole ordeal as Kara held up the building, her strong muscles flexing under the suit. Seeing the raw power Kara possesses is still absurdly impressive and if she were honest with herself its also absurdly attractive.

Kara searches the crowd of people, seeing a reporter and his cameraman make their way over to her. “And it looks like I’m in for an interview.” Kara flashes a smile at the camera as she puts her hands on her hips, hoping Lena is still watching. The look in Lena's eyes whenever she takes this stance always makes her run a little hotter.

“Have fun.” Lena jokes, seeing Kara smile a bit harder on the screen at her words. She watches as the reporter starts bombarding Kara with questions. That same easy smile remains on her face as she answers the first question in that tone of voice she only reserves for Supergirl.

“God she’s hot.” Lena mutters into the empty room. As soon as the words are out her mouth, Kara falters over the question she had been answering.

Weird?

Lena tilts her head a little, wondering what went wrong until Kelly’s voice comes through.

"Lena...your comm is still on." She replies hesitantly. Lena’s hands freeze over the books she was about to grab.

"What?" She must have heard her wrong.

"We can all still hear you." Nia says, feeling mortified for her.

"Oh my god." She rips the damn thing out of her ear, staring down at it in horror. “Oh my god.” It's the only phrase her mind can really come up with right now. Maybe they didn’t know who she was talking about. But she had JUST been speaking with Kara before she said that. Her hand runs through her hair in a panicked motion. “Well maybe I can just catch a flight to the nearest uninhabited island and stay there...forever.” She groans as she paces the length of the room. Her brain quickly tries to think of a way to cover her own ass but nothing useful comes for long drawn out minutes.

Apparently she’d been pacing for a while because the elevator chimes, announcing the team's return. Lena stills as they all walk in, noticing that Kara is not present. Somehow she is both hurt and relieved by her absence. Nia makes eye contact with her but quickly pretends to busy herself around the room. Everyone had apparently decided to not bring it up to save her the embarrassment. But the pretending was equally bad, if not worse. Lena tries to stay in the room for as long as possible, trying to keep the casual conversation going but every passing second is eating away at her.

"I have...some things in the lab I need to do." She blurts out and before anyone could stop her she quickly takes the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator. A heavy silence in the room follows after.

"Sooo…" Brainy starts but the sentence doesn't have a destination. This was out of his depth.

“Are we going to touch that or let them work it out?” Nia asks for him and everyone debates the question for a few moments.

“Maybe just let them work it out. I think that might be for the best. Although do you know where Kara went?” Kelly asks, looking at Alex.

“No clue but I’ll call her.” It had been nearly an hour since Kara said she would be back.

The sun sits low in the sky, lights from the city begin to sparkle under the approaching nightfall. Everything looks so peaceful from up here. Kara’s eyes follow a sailboat that is out on the water, miles away. She tracks it as it rocks and sways over the calm water. It had been nearly twenty minutes since she moved from her spot high above National City. Her initial lie to herself was that she was patrolling and totally was not avoiding going back to the tower. After doing her millionth lap around the city she’d stopped and just floated, getting more and more lost in her thoughts.

Each time she tried to process what had happened, her brain would freeze. The mere thought that Lena Luthor thought she was...hot made her bury her face in her hands. Maybe she heard it wrong or they were having some kind of communication issue. Neither of the lies sounded convincing to her. Another idea comes to her mind and it fills her with a flash of hot jealousy.

Maybe Lena had been talking about someone else?

It's possible and her jealousy only grows further at the thought. Kara tries to shake the emotion from her mind to no avail. Lena was allowed to be interested in other people, it's not like they are dating or anything. Yet, an extremely large part of her hoped that she was wrong. But that just circled her back to not knowing how to talk to Lena again. She lets out another frustrated noise, floating backwards so she could look up at the sky.

The swirling emotions freeze when her cell phone rings. Hesitant hands reach down and pull it out. The sight of Alex’s contact picture makes her let out a relieved breath. She wasn’t sure she could talk to Lena just yet. How the hell would she word what she wanted to say? She clicks the answer button before her mind could drag her back to over thinking. “Hey.”

“Hey Kara. You okay? You’ve been gone for a while.” ” Alex asks as she leans over the railing of the balcony.

“I don’t know.” She trails off, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Are you hiding?” Alex hears Kara groan on the other end of the line.

“Yes...am I a jerk for doing that?”

“I mean, taking time to gather your thoughts is fine, but you will be a jerk if you avoid her for the rest of the day. I don’t want to push you into anything. I just think she’s pretty embarrassed that we all heard.”

“I'd be too.” Kara says low enough that Alex doesn't hear. The thought of anyone knowing about the many times she'd been completely entranced by Lena's beauty was beyond embarrassing. “I’ll be back in a bit.” She replies finally.

“Okay, I’m sure you guys will work it out like you always do.”

“Wait!” She says before they hang up. “What do I say Alex?”

“I can’t tell you that. You know how you feel better than I do.”

“Do you think she was talking about someone else?” Kara can’t help but voice her concern.

“Kara, get your butt here and ask the person that said it.” Alex's reply makes her let out a sigh. She was right and playing twenty questions with her was not going to go anywhere.

“Right right. See you in a bit.”

“See ya.” Alex clicks off and Kara looks towards the tower.

“Well, here we go.” She says to herself before flying back.

---

Lena stared down at the book in front of her, not really reading the words. Practicing magic was not on the list of things she could focus on right now. That list was occupied by one thing currently.

Kara.

She heard her. Everyone heard what she said and she wished the ground would have just opened up and swallowed her. There was no way in hell she was going to be able to look any of them in the eye again. How in god's name would she ever talk to Kara again without dumping all her feelings out. She and Kara had just gotten back to a good spot in their relationship and she had to go and throw a wrench in it. Their friendship meant the world to her. Kara was her world.

"Fuck." She mutters under her breath. If this slip up cost having Kara in her life, she wasn't sure what she'd do. A soft knock on the door frame drew her out of her thoughts. As soon as she saw who it was, she stilled.

"Hey." Kara says. Her eyes are glued to the floor as she takes a single step into the room.

"Hello." It feels difficult to get the single word out.

"So umm...I won't beat around the bush because that'll just be painful for both of us." She starts and Lena nods in agreement. Her fingers fiddle on top of the table as she waits for what Kara has to say, mentally trying to prepare for the worst.

Kara takes a few more steps into the room, her boots tapping soundly on the floor. She slowly lowers into the seat and finally brings her eyes up to look at Lena. Neither of them spoke for a few moments. Lena won’t meet her eyes as she looks at her. She lets her eyes trail down to where Lena’s fingers are fiddling nervously. She watches for a few seconds and then hesitantly reaches out, her hand gently stopping the nervous movement. “Can you look at me?” She asks softly.

Slowly Lena looks up, connecting their eyes. Even in her stressed state, the look Kara is giving her manages to make her relax. Kara gives her a gentle smile before clearing her throat.

"I heard what you said and I um-...I guess I just have one question before I say what I need to. Okay?”

“Okay?”

It takes all of her to not look away as she asks, “Were you talking about me?”

The single question makes Lena remove her hand from under Kara’s so they can start tapping on the table again.

“Yes.” It comes out barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I wasn’t paying attention and I didn’t know everyone could still hear me. I’m so sorry.” Her voice wavers as if she might cry and Kara feels her heart ache.

“No no, Lena, you don’t have to apologize. I’m not offended.” Lena immediately looks up at her and Kara lets out a nervous laugh, running a hand through her hair.

“You’re not?” Lena tries to fight off the hopefulness that immediately comes rushing in.

“No I’m not. It's the opposite if anything. And umm... if it makes you feel any better, I thought the exact same thing when I first saw you." Kara forces herself to hold eye contact even though she knows her face is probably reddening.

Lena blinks a few times. "You’re serious?"

"I am. When I first met you, I think my brain stopped for a second because all I could think was ‘oh my god this is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life’." Kara flushes harder but continues. "And I still think that...every day I get to see you." The admission is like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. This conversation had played a million different ways in both of their heads but this was not how they thought it would go.

“So we’ve both been feeling like this since day one?” Lena can’t help but laugh.

“I guess.” Kara gives her a shy smile, doing the little head duck thing that Lena loves so much. She reaches up and takes Kara’s hand again.

“As happy and relieved I am that you feel the same, I’m not sure I can look the team in the eyes again.” She jokes and Kara laughs, squeezing her hand tighter.

"I could make us even if that helps?" She raises a brow.

"How so?" Suspicion is etched across Lena’s face.

"You trust me?"

"Of course." The answer comes easily, making Kara beam. She watches as Kara clicks on her comm again so everyone can hear her.

"Hey guys?"

"What's up?" Alex answers. Lena realizes what Kara might be up to and puts a hand over her mouth to not laugh. Kara looks at her with adoration as she starts speaking.

"Lena Luthor is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life and I'm so deeply in love with her." She smiled when Lena stopped laughing, her eyes going wide. She’d expected Kara to say something silly...but not that second half.

"What?" Nia practically yells, as Kara takes the comm out of her ear.

"There. Even." She smiles as Lena shakes out of her stupor.

"You love me?"

"Yes. I love you, Lena. It's not just that beautiful face I fell for, it's all of you." Her nerves came back as those green eyes stare into hers. Wordlessly Lena stands and rounds the table, swiveling Kara’s chair so she is facing her.

She takes Kara’s hands in her own again. "I love you too. I swear I’ve been planning this conversation in my head for years but right now I can’t really find the right words to express how much I truly, deeply love you Kara."

“Then show me.” Kara leans forward in the chair, hoping she isn’t over stepping. A warm hand slides up her arm to cup her cheek as she lets her own settle on Lena’s hips. Just when their lips are about to touch Kara starts chuckling.

"What?" Lena hums against her lips.

"I can still hear them freaking out upstairs." They both laugh softly before pressing their lips together.

[7spaceace7]

Ego Holiday Headcanons- The Return!

So last year I made a post about a bunch of ego headcanons for the holidays that got VERY popular (I don’t know how but I love you all, and I still read all the tags that get reblogged!!) and I wanted to make some more! This list is not as long as the other, but here’s just some random tidbits I thought of today! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and have a good rest of your Dec. 25th to those who don’t celebrate!!

-Out of the Septic Egos, Chase singlehandedly carries the tradition of Santa Claus for the whole house

-He’s doing a lot better these recent years :)

-Jackie, Robbie, and JJ all genuinely believe that he exists the most, followed by the reluctant Marvin who says he doesn’t believe, but does “just in case”

-Anti pretends he doesn’t and calls it stupid, but secretly he still wants to believe

-(he doesn’t wanna admit it because he knows if he does, he’d just coal in his stocking, poor guy doesn’t think he deserves presents)

-Chase goes through GREAT lengths to keep this alive tho!

-This includes a very detailed Santa costume for Christmas Eve, the mandatory cookies for Santa and carrot for the reindeer, and CONSTANT reminders to be on the best behavior

-Surprisingly, this is more for Marvin than the glitch

-Chase is a huge help to Schneep because if anyone starts fighting or getting huffy (or bringing knives to the disagreement) Chase just has to give a stern look and a quiet “Guess I’ll just have to tell Santa about this” and BAM instant cooperation

-Henrik is forever grateful

-Speaking of the German man, he tries to include some German holiday traditions and is a wonderful cook when it comes to his traditional foods

-JJ especially loves learning more about his culture and how their holidays differ from his own

-(on that note, the egos still don’t understand the oranges in their stockings from the mute man, but he looks happy about it)

-Once Shawn Flynn joined the ego household, he was instantly recruited by Chase for his Santa mission

-They decide that Chase will do all the preparations and getting people into holiday spirit while Shawn is Santa

-Shawn may have gotten a lil emotional because it reminded him of when he used to secretly “mess up” toys to give the disadvantaged kids back in his day

-He is a wonderful Santa

-Christmas morning comes and EVERYONE goes nuts

-Henrik is woken up to Robbie jumping on his bed because they can’t open presents until everyone is awake

-*several mutterings in German*

-Pretends he can’t speak English until he has his coffee

-Everything is going great, all of the egos got something from ‘Santa’ and it’s the best thing ever, everyone’s laughing and just having a ball

-Cue Chase teaching Shawn to fistbump in the background

-However, Anti’s off to the side, looking down with a scowl

-Chase notices when he looks over and sees him discreetly rubbing his eyes

-Dad Mode(tm) Activates

-but before he can get over there, Robbie comes up to him with a present and a big ol grin

-It’s from Santa to Anti, and the poor glitchy boy nearly breaks down

-Well, he does, but the others promise never to tell a soul

-(ESPECIALLY not that fucker Dark!)

-All in all, it’s just a very sweet, emotional, and rambunctious Christmas Day with the Septics, as it always should be

[rhaenyratargeryn]

A few weeks ago I wrote slutty, slutty Kent x Button fic and then didn’t post it-- but now I’m gonna and reveal myself as a thirsty ho.

title: reciprocity rated: explicit fandom/pairing: Mind Blind (IF) Kent Zarneki x f!Button Wiseman summary: One photo leads to another leads to another... Button could open a gallery with the sheer volume of nudes she possesses of one Kent Zarneki.

It had started innocently enough. At least, that was the lie I was telling myself because in all honesty, what was innocent about sending your boyfriend a selfie— when that selfie was really just a strategically cut close up of the new strappy bralette you’d bought, peaking out from the unbuttoned V of your Aeon uniform top? Nothing. Absolutely god damn nothing.

The text I sent: new! shockingly comfortable. didn’t want to rip it off as soon as I got home

Kent’s message bubbles were silent, but the “read” notification had gone off. I grinned slyly to myself, getting comfortable back up against my bed pillows. Kent blushed so infrequently, I had made a game of it as much as Glitch, though I had had unprecedented success. Glitch had given me a withering look at the boast.

I mean. It was obvious why I did.

My phone dinged, the notification image showing that in lieu of a text, Kent had sent an image of his own. I clicked the tiny preview and was awarded with a picture much like my own, Kent’s tie loose around his neck, the buttons of his shirt undone to show the pale expanse of skin beneath. I could just barely see the line of his jaw, the smirk ticking up the corner of his lips.

I responded by undoing my own shirt down to my waist, pushing the fabric down around my shoulders and using my arms to help my cleavage look fuller. This was dangerous. Very dangerous, but I shook my head to let my hair cascade down across me, took a few shots and sent the best one.

Are you in bed?

Kent’s reply. Followed shortly by another photo. He had put aside ceremony and fully removed his shirt, revealing he was in bed himself. The dark sheets contrasted against him. All that Aeon training had sculpted and carved him into a lean, but strong figure. He was not bulky, like Grayson, cut more narrowly at his waist which gave his shoulders an even fuller illusion of broadness that made my hands ache to run over them.

Kent Zarneki, in short, was too fucking hot for his own good.

I am

Im taking my clothes off

I assume that is what we are doing?

I sent the three texts in quick succession. The message bubbles in reply were brief.

yes

The image that followed was enough to send a hot pang right down into my stomach. He’d unbuttoned his trousers, using the thumb of his free hand to hold down the band far enough I could see the line of his pelvis and the dark hair that dusted across.

If you want to

I want to

I took off my shirt, throwing it aside without care. I had chosen to wear a high-waisted black skirt that day, which was all the better. I very carefully slid my hand up the cup of my bralette, letting the fabric rise up to show the under curve of my breast, appearing fuller when pressed up into my palm.

I sent it and in a second got a reply.

Off

I smirked. Kent had already been naked from the waist up for some time now. I received a sequence of three images, all of which where very flattering shots of Kent’s own torso and abs.

Seems only fair

I pulled the lacy fabric up and over my head as easily as my shirt, looking down at my own pale breasts, my nipples already hardened in the cool air and in anticipation. Shyness fell over me like a cold shower. Kent had never seen me naked before. What if I was too small? What if I was too big? Was my right breast always that much different from my left? Anxiety panged in my stomach as intense as arousal and despite my delay, Kent’s messages remained silent.

Patient. Waiting.

I could cheat. Brushing my hair over my shoulders, the strands lay perfectly over the tops of my breasts, hiding them from clear view, but not as much as my bralette did. I let the photo catch just the bottom half of my face, my tongue stuck out to the side. Teasing. Taunting. Like it was on purpose, not because I was nervous.

Kent didn’t respond for several minutes. The next image, I felt my mouth go dry. I could very clearly see the outline of his erection, pressing against the groin of his pants and going down the leg.

He wasn’t wearing boxers. Of course he wasn’t. This was Kent Zarneki, a man who was one bad day away from leaving everything and joining a nudist colony.

Is this okay?

It was more than okay. It was super okay. It was, please-send-me-more-now okay.

I relayed as much through the text message and got a photo that sent my heart racing. It was just him. His cheeks flushed, his gray eyes dark and storming, a smug smile half formed on his lips. His dark hair was messy and I nearly groaned with frustration at how badly I wanted to run my fingers through it, tug on it, pull that smirk against my own and kiss it off his face.

The next photo I sent him I hid nothing, cupping my breast in my hand and making as if I was drawing my thumb over my nipple. I showed my face, trying my best to look as effortlessly sexy as him— though no matter what I did, my smile was always more playful than sultry. My cheeks flushed with more than just wanting.

Cute

High praise

I replied, trying to remind myself his short responses were normal and not to read into it.

You want praise?

You’re driving me crazy

His words hit me like a sucker punch. His next photo is the second one I didn’t see coming.

No man this gorgeous should ever be blessed in such a way. There were really no words other than “pretty” to describe the flushed skin of his length, not overly long, but definitely blessed where it counted. Or at least where I had heard it counted. It’s all about the girth. My mind supplied in its best Cosmo magazine voice.

The tip was, in all honesty, a very pretty shade of darkened pink, and curved with a sort of perfection that should have been reserved to— I don’t know. Porn stars? Dick models? Do dick models exist? Hand models sure do, and the way his hand was wrapped around himself was enough to make me think he could easily be one of those too.

Cute

I snap back and I can practically hear him laugh in my mind.

High praise

More?

Is that an offer or a request?

Both

How could I say no? I definitely didn’t want to. I found the zipper at the top of my skirt and slid it down. I was left in just my panties and hose. I rolled the hose down low on my thighs, sitting up on my knees to take a photo. Hesitating for just a moment, I flicked the camera over to video and let my hand run down over my thigh and then across my hips. I drew my finger over my center, my breath hitching and my hips moving forward as I rolled against my own touch.

I sent it.

And after a moment I got a video in turn. I watched Kent’s hand glide up over his length in slow, languid motions, pausing to rub his palm against the tip of his head. Teasing himself with the lightest touch. His cock flexed and jumped, a tiny gruff sound escaping his lips and reminding me that even though I couldn’t see his face this was Kent. My Kent.

I nearly dropped my cellphone as it began to vibrate, an incoming call displaying on the screen. I laid back, pushing my hose off the rest of the way as I answered. The line was silent before I finally broke it with a breathy- “hey.”

“Are you naked?” Kent’s voice was low, strained, but somehow eager.

I took a quick moment to slide my panties off, kicking them away.

“Now I am.”

Kent took in a deep breath. I let my hand trail between my legs, touching myself in the familiar way I did when I was alone. I traced my index and middle finger up my labia, spreading the soft warm skin, dipping my fingers into the center where I was slick and hot.

“I’m touching myself.” I said, my voice a broken whisper. Kent made a gruff sound of acknowledgement.

“Kent...” I said, “You made me so wet.”

He moaned.

“Is that okay?” I said, teasing him. I appreciated his caution, his check ins, making sure I was enjoying myself.

“Yes. Yes, it’s okay. Tell me.”

“Wow. Six whole words? Be careful, you’ll make me come.”

“That’s the idea.” Kent said, a breathless laugh filtering through his words.

“What about you? Having fun yet, Zarneki?”

Kent made a sound and I heard the rustling of sheets and the faint click of the phone camera shutter. My phone chimed, an image appearing of the head of his cock, wet with pre-cum he was smearing around the tip.

My tongue slid out against my bottom lip.

“Kent, don’t take this the wrong way— but you have such a pretty penis.”

He snorted.

“I’m serious. I want to put it in my mouth, which is not something I thought I’d ever say to any guy. But like? It just looks so appealing.”

“You’re killing me.” Kent said, a groan that sounded almost exasperated coming from his throat. It was hard to tell.

“With my witty charm or because I put a very naughty image in your head?”

I slipped two fingers into my mouth, pursed my lips, made a show of how wet and soft they looked and sent it to Kent.

“Shit—“

I felt a burst of pride at his expletive and found my clit with my fingertips, circling in a quicker pace.

“I like listening to you.” I said, thoughtless. I sighed, feeling my whole body warming, “Wish it was closer.”

“...I’m just down the street.” Kent said, trying to play it off like it was a fact and not a very tempting invitation.

“But this is fun. And naughty. And I get a keepsake.”

I heard the question in his voice, almost masked by a small groan. I wondered what his hands were up to.

“The photos. Speaking of which... I wouldn’t mind an after shot.”

“After?”

“After I make you come all over yourself, Zarneki.”

I heard his breath hitch.

“Only if I get one too.”

“You got it.”

Talking became a non-priority then. The only thing I strained to hear was his breaths, his soft moans, the faint wet sound I sometime thought I heard over the receive— or maybe that was me. I felt flooded, with heat and wanting and need. I pressed harder, worked my palm flat against my clit and stroked my fingers inside, imaging how much further Kent’s slender fingers could reach. Imaging his tongue. That pretty cock.

“Kent.” I whimpered, the involuntary clutch of my walls around my fingers my bodies way of telling me it wanted all of that and more.

“Good?” Kent murmured, a faint reply.

“Yes— I... I just keep imaging if it were you.” I don’t need to explain. I can tell by the way his breathing has fallen into faint rhythmic pants that he got my full meaning and he liked it.

“...me too. I want... I want you.” Kent paused, his next words coming out with earnest sweetness, “I’ll wait as long as you need...  but I’m ready. I want it. This. With you.”

Whatever I was thinking, whatever I wanted to say fuzzed out around the edges as a prickling sensation spread out from where my fingers were rolling and pressing in tandem. I coaxed my climax out, the peak hanging on the edge for a wonderful few tense moments before it fell. I whimpered, the sound coming out louder than I intended.

I heard Kent swear, or say my name or some combination of the two and then his voice pitched up for just a moment, a gasping moan aching from his throat.

I was hot, messy and completely boneless, laying back on my bed and feeling like I could fall asleep right then and there.

But I owed Kent a picture.

I spread myself open, the puffiness, the redness and slickness hopefully all the evidence he needed to see I had most definitely orgasmed. The moment I opened the chat to send it I received his in turn. His cock lolled back against his stomach, a line of cum connecting to the opaque white puddle settled there. There were drops across his chest and a few splatter across his hand.

My walls clutched hard as I thought what it would feel like to lick him clean.

I sent my own photo, the two of us quiet now, content with just listening to the sound of the other breathing through the phone speaker.

“So. Shower photo shoot next?” I said, unable to hide a nervous giggle.

“Give me just a second to get a towel.”

I had been kidding, but the eagerness in Kent’s voice was enough to make me decide to not correct him.

[gohyuck]

5+9+23 ? With Jaemin.

originally requested by @heyyyun ! my tumblr kept glitching so i copy/pasted your ask into my askbox lol.

based on this post

this was a fun combo of requests lol... and the freaky friday things definitely threw me for a loop. it got lowkey nsfw really fast, too, so there’s that. outright female reader

ft. a horny jeno lmfao

5) roommates

9) freaky friday

23) i thought you hated me but i just accidentally sent you a booty text and you accepted and i am seriously considering it

you aren’t living with jaemin because you want to.

it’s something you make very clear to any and everyone you know - jaemin is your roommate out of your necessity, not out of your choice. he was the first and only person to answer the desperate ad you’d placed in the newspaper when you’d realized you wouldn’t make rent without a roommate, and, before you could find any other option, you were stuck with him.

now, you refuse to be gotten wrong: it isn’t like he’s the worst roommate ever. he can cook, and he cleans up well enough, and he’s never made a late payment. hell, he’s even courteous and about as well-mannered as any guy in his early twenties can get, so you can’t really complain on that front. he’s nice to your friends and always lets you know before having company over, and he doesn’t hesitate to ask if you need anything before he goes shopping for himself. he isn’t a bad guy, by any means.

what he is is an incorrigible and unstoppable flirt.

for his part, he isn’t too thrilled with you either - ‘my little prude’ seems to be his favorite go to nickname for you as of late, and you’d be lying if it didn’t bother you. still, you suppose, you aren’t too gentle in calling him a manwhore to his face. he only ever laughs, seemingly delighted to wear the title like a badge.

even now, you can hear the girl in your living room giggling at something your roommate has said, his own voice just a little too low for you to hear from the confines of your bedroom. he’d texted you during lunch to tell you he’d have a date over, and you’d sent him back four successive eyeroll emojis. he’d taken your annoyance as a ‘yes, please eyefuck your newest fling for two hours while sitting on the couch i paid for’ and now you’re stuck, crosslegged on your bed with your laptop at half mast and one earphone in, other ear listening to jaemin turn his charisma up to the highest it can go for what will culminate in, at most, yet another one night stand that’ll have you wishing for soundproof walls.

you sigh as she laughs again, followed by jaemin saying something along the lines of ‘let me pour you some more’. there’s a faint clink of glasses and a sudden lowering of their voices, and you decide it’s best if you put your other earphone in.

some things aren’t worth the mental scarring.

it’s almost two hours later when you finish with the essay you’re working on, pull your earphones out of your ears and place the case gingerly on your nightstand, and shut your laptop down for the night. you can’t hear anything from out in the living room, and, surprisingly, there’s no unsavory sounds coming in from jaemin’s room down the hall, either. maybe they’ve already had their fun, you ponder.

she’ll slink out of your apartment in the morning, you guess. maybe you’ll be nice and offer her pancakes on her way out.

you grab your phone from where you’d thrown it haphazardly onto your bed earlier. there’s plenty of text messages lighting up your screen, most of which you ignore. one catches your eye immediately, though.

from: jeno ;)

i’ve been thinking about you.

his text has you quirking an eyebrow, but as you scroll up to find the picture that accompanies it, you take a sharp breath, your teeth sinking into your lower lip on impulse.

you’ve been fucking jeno for weeks, but even now the sight of his prominent bulge covered only by thin gray sweatpants has your mouth watering. the two of you are good friends - surprising, considering he’s jaemin’s best friend - and you know what you have will never amount to a real relationship. it’s the healthiest you can imagine a friends-with-benefits relationship to be, and you’re grateful for it.

and for the sex. god, are you grateful for the sex.

you rush to change out of the ratty old band shirt and boy shorts you’re wearing, opting to switch them out for a lace set you’d bought recently that you’ve been dying to show off. you clasp the bra easily before you pull on the matching light pink underwear.

as you settle in front of the floor length mirror that leans against your closet door, you can’t help but let your thoughts wander to jaemin. his little prude, huh? you laugh to yourself, wondering how he’d react if he knew you got dicked down semi-regularly by jeno. just because you aren’t as obvious as he is doesn’t mean you aren’t getting any.

you switch positions until you find a pose that’s just right, capturing your bitten bottom lip, the swell of your breasts, and how the lace hugs your hips. before you can second guess yourself, you snap a picture. 

if only jaemin could see you now.

you type out a short message - see something you like? maybe you should come over and look closer - and hit send, staring at your reflection for a bit longer before pushing yourself off the floor and back up onto your bed. it’s late, far too late for jeno to take you up on your offer, but it can’t hurt to ask. hell, maybe he’ll come over anyways. maybe you can make jaemin wish his walls were soundproof for once.

your phone vibrates in your hand, pulling you out of your thoughts of revenge against your roommate. you glance down, ready to respond cheekily to whatever jeno has said, and -

oh.

from: jaemin :/

fuck

yes

i wouldn’t mind, sweetheart. still, you could’ve asked in person. i’m only a door away, you know

your eyes widen in panic as you realize that, because you’d been thinking of jaemin earlier, you’d typed his name in and not jeno’s, resulting in you sending your honest-to-god nudes to your roommate. you rush to rectify your mistake, your fingers flying as you type a frantic response.

even as you hurry to tell him not to show up to your room naked, which you’re very afraid of him doing whether he has a girl over or not, a voice in the back of your mind can’t help but perk up.

i mean, jaemin is kind of hot, it says, actively laughing at your predicament. you wouldn’t mind being underneath him as he-

"shit!” you hiss out loud, acting as if swearing will distract you for your own thoughts. you press send, cursing the universe for causing your life to lead up to this moment as you do. 

to: jaemin :/

FUCK they weren’t meant for you 

please delete and pretend this never happened

+ don’t you have someone over????

his response comes quickly, and you brace yourself to read them. 

from: jaemin

lol PLEASE as if you have someone to sends nudes to

but yes i’ll delete :(

she left like an hour ago, not really my type

for the sake of your sanity you choose not to respond, only liking his message about deleting the picture you’d sent. you switch out your lace set for the clothes you’d had on earlier, not even bothering to respond to jeno as you’d meant to earlier. as you put your phone on charge and turn out your light for the night, you do your best to force yourself to sleep. 

hopefully, this whole ordeal will have blown over in the morning. 

♕ ♕ ♕

the first thing you notice when you wake up is how insanely bright the sun is. the white curtains on your window do nothing to stop the light from pouring into the room, and you - wait.

white curtains?

you look around, taking in the beat up ryan plushie on top of the bookshelf in the corner of the room and the gaming chair at the desk. as you become more and more awake, your setting makes itself obvious. 

once you realize it, you bolt upright, wondering what the hell you’re doing in jaemin’s room, especially when jaemin is nowhere to be found. you know you don’t sleepwalk, and you know for a fact that you’d fallen asleep in your own bed. 

it’s only as you swing your legs out of bed and happen to glance down at them that you realize what has happened.

before you can say anything, however, you hear a voice - your own voice exclaim a loud ‘what the hell?’ from down the hall. you rush out of your - jaemin’s - room, only to immediately run into what looks to be your own body.

“(name)?” it says, and you gulp before nodding.

“jaemin?”

♕ ♕ ♕

“look,” you say, pinching your - jaemin’s - nose bridge. “we’ve been arguing for like an hour, now. it’s obvious that neither of us know why this happened, so we might as well try to figure out what we can do to make it un-happen!”

“it’s because you sent me that nude,” he says, running a hand through his - your - hair. “the universe reset itself out of shock at seeing you do something remotely sexual.”

“if i was in my own body, i’d kick your ass right now,” you swear, pushing yourself up off of the dining table which you’d been leaning against. you take a threatening step towards jaemin. he laughs. 

“if i was in my own body, i’d... i’d probably be jerking off right now, to be honest. i miss my dick.”

you wince in disgust, staring down at his - your - face. “better not be to my picture.”

he shakes his - your - head at this, though not without raising his eyebrow at you. “i’m not a complete asshole - i deleted when you asked me to.”

“thank you,” you respond, not sure what else is to say. jaemin nods sagely before a grin starts spreading across his face.

“you know, maybe we have to recreate last night to fix it. do the same things, you know? who was the message meant for last night? maybe i’ll send them another one today.”

the thought of jaemin taking nudes of your body makes you feel dizzy in both bad and good ways. you realize he actually expects you to tell him, and you find yourself shaking your head no in response.

he quirks an eyebrow of yours. 

“what, don’t want me to know? it’s not like i’ll tell anyone, you know. i mean-”

“it’s not that,” you hurry to tell him, and he smirks at you in return. 

“no? then what is it?”

before you can respond, jaemin continues speaking, and you realize his question had been rhetorical. “oh, i know!” he says, sounding as if he’s had the realization of a lifetime. “you meant to send it to me, didn’t you? you just lied and got cold feet, after. i knew it! there’s no way you’re actually-”

in your haste to get jaemin to shut the hell up and your current inability to think straight, you cross the space between you two in one stride before pressing your mouth against his (or, you guess, his mouth against yours), desperate to get him to stop talking. your eyes are screwed shut anyways, so you don’t see his slide shut. 

the two of you stay like that for what feels like an eternity before you pull away.  

“i’m so sorry-” you start, opening your eyes to peer sheepishly up at jaemin. 

wait. 

up?

you blink once, twice, before bursting out into laughter. jaemin, after overcoming his own befuddlement does the same. 

“oh my god, i can’t believe that fixed it,” you say once you get over the shock of being back in your own body. “holy shit.”

“i can’t believe any of that happened in the first place,” jaemin says, and you nod in agreement. a silence falls between the two of you almost immediately as you both try to figure out what to say to each other now. 

you glance around the room, searching for something to fixate your gaze on. you know jaemin is doing the same beside you. before you can say something embarrassing - you’re seriously considering patting him on the back and going ‘good work out there’ - jaemin rests his hands lightly against your waist, forcing you to meet his eyes with yours. 

“i kind of wish i’d experienced our kiss from inside my own body,” he says, and you search his face for an iota of a joke, something that says he’s messing with you. 

there’s none to be found. you reach a hand up to rest against the back of his neck and, before you know it, you’re cupping the back of his head and pulling his lips to yours once again, though this one is much more passionate than the last. his hands tighten their grips on your waist as he pulls you flush against him, and you tangle your fingers in his hair.

once you pull away, you can’t bring yourself to leave his grasp. instead, you ask him the question that’s burning on your mind. 

“do you want to see the lace set in person?”

your roommate nods, his excited actions directly contrasting his dark, hooded gaze. he lets you take his hand in yours, allowing you to drag him to your room. just as you shove open your bedroom door, however, jaemin speaks again. 

“out of curiosity, who was the picture meant for?”

you stare at him for one, two beats before sighing, wincing right after. he gazes back at you both steadily and expectantly, and you figure you may as well say it. 

“it ... it was meant for jeno.” 

"what?”

[newmusickarl]

Album & EP Recommendations

An Evening With Silk Sonic by Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars & Anderson .Paak)

2021 has already felt like the unofficial year of the collaboration album, but perhaps there have been none as highly anticipated, or as talked about, as this one between R&B sensations Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak. Ever since they dropped their 70s Motown inspired debut single Leave The Door Open under the guise of Silk Sonic back in March, fans have been clamouring for a full-length release from the duo. Now that it has finally arrived, it’s safe to say that the project delivers on that early promise, with a fun, whistle-stop tour through a vintage sound.

With an introduction and cameo from 70s Funk legend Bootsy Collins, the album acts as a 30-minute homage to music from the likes of James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis and Stevie Wonder, whilst also delivering something that feels entirely fresh and new at the same time. By magically walking the line between timeless and modern classic without overstaying their welcome, the pair have delivered a record in which you can’t help but get enraptured.

There’s the funky bass and dazzling wordplay of Fly As Me, the soulful sway of Put On A Smile and the smooth evening balladry of About Last Night, which also boasts a guest appearance from none other than Thundercat. Recent single Smokin Out The Window also remains a favourite too, with its playful tongue-in-cheek lyrics and infectious melody. Skate probably feels the most like its pulled from another time, with its wonderful Chic & Nile Rodgers style guitars and shimmering 70s dancehall groove. The whole thing is then brought to a perfect climax with Blast Off, which erupts into a mesmerising guitar solo and cosmic imagery to bring it all to a close.

This really is one of those albums that it’s impossible not to love, as the charismatic duo and warm nostalgic sounds will leave you dancing away with just the biggest smile on your face. Here’s hoping there’s more collaborations from these two again in the future but for now, An Evening With Silk Sonic will do just nicely.

Listen here

CRAWLER by IDLES

Another big release but from the other end of the spectrum now, as post-punk rockers Idles released their mighty fourth album CRAWLER this week. Having come to prominence off the back of their highly acclaimed first two albums Brutalism and Joy As An Act of Resistance, the band’s last album Ultra Mono had more of a lukewarm reception by their standards, as some criticised them for class appropriation and more preachy political lyrics. It seems they have taken this criticism on board as CRAWLER is a noticeable return to form, with frontman Joe Talbot taking a more introspective approach this time around.

This new approach is evident from the get-go, as ominous, synth-driven opener MTT 420 RR sees Talbot recount the dark tale of a near-fatal motorcycle accident, whilst correlating this to his own struggles with drug addiction. It’s an engaging opener that immediately hooks you in, ending in the foreboding refrain of “Are you ready for the storm?” to nicely set up the full-throttle nature of the rest of the record.

From there, Idles mostly stick to the aggressive punk sound that brought them to the dance, with the pounding drums of The Wheel, the catchy beat of The New Sensation and the jittering guitar riffs of Crawl! standing out as some of the best moments. That said, Idles are arguably at their best here when they push the boat out a little, such as the waltzing melody of recent single The Beachland Ballroom or the distorted electronic glitches of Progress. The latter is undoubtedly one of the album’s best moments, with Talbot overtly expressing his struggles with addiction through repeating the words “I don’t wanna feel myself get high...I don’t wanna feel myself come down” amidst the crackle of synths.

Although CRAWLER ultimately doesn’t topple their best work, this is importantly Idles getting back to what their best at, whilst also expanding their horizons for the future. Not only are they looking inward for their song stories but they’re also experimenting more with their sound, which makes for a grimy but always fascinating listen.

Listen here

Music for Psychedelic Therapy by Jon Hopkins

Electronic music pioneer Jon Hopkins also released his sixth studio album this week, inspired by the growing exploration of psychedelic-assisted therapy and an expedition into Ecuador’s ancient caves. As you can imagine the results are quite a trip, with Hopkins crafting some truly immersive ambient soundscapes. With this being the case, this is definitely an album where you have to be in the right frame of mind before you dive into listen, as an hour of these kind of instrumentals can be quite daunting otherwise. That said, given the time and concentration this one will reveal a glorious tapestry of colour and sound to you.

Although it ultimately lacks the more euphoric moments of Immunity and Singularity to put it alongside those records for me, I still found this one to be an enchanting record with which to destress and relax.

Listen here

Donda (Deluxe) by Kanye West

After several launch events and many, many delays, Kanye West finally released his long-awaited tenth studio album Donda earlier this year and…it massively disappointed. Clocking in at almost 2 hours long, it was excessive and bloated with West balancing moments of brilliance with plenty of tracks that left me completely underwhelmed.

However, for some reason I dove back in this week to the new deluxe version of the record and whilst the same issues of length and inconsistency remain, this does seem overall a better version of the album. There’s an additional track with Andre 3000 to enjoy which is always a plus, and the talented pair of Kid Cudi and Tyler, The Creator also get additional guest spots on several tracks too.

Most importantly though the track listing and mixing has been adjusted, helping the album to both flow and sound better than it ever did before. This is most notable on a track like Off The Grid, which seemed subpar previously but the added bass and refined mix nearly blew my headphones off this time around. So whilst this new version by no means fixes everything wrong with Donda, it is most definitely an improvement on the previous offering.

Listen here

The Walls Are Way Too Thin by Holly Humberstone

And finally on the Albums & EPs front, up-and-coming singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone released her brilliant second EP this week. Opening on Haunted House, a gorgeous stripped-back piano ballad offering up an ode to her childhood home, the short release then moves into more upbeat territory with her excellent singles The Walls Are Way Too Thin and Scarlett.

Thursday then ends up leaving the biggest impression, with Humberstone singing out to a friend going through a rough break-up against a wonderfully understated guitar backing. If her debut EP didn’t mark her out as one to watch for you, then this new EP should certainly do the trick.

Listen here

Also out, also great: Things Take Time, Take Time by Courtney Barnett, Joy by Dusky

Tracks of the Week

Measure of a Man by FKA Twigs

On the singles front this week then, FKA Twigs made her triumphant return with this cinematic new track, which is unsurprisingly off the soundtrack to the latest film in the Kingsmen franchise. With rapper Central Cee also turning in a fire guest spot, it’s like a lost alternative Bond theme you never knew you needed to hear. Superb as always from Twigs!

Listen here

A Drug From God by Chris Lake & NPC

Another fun collaboration, Grimes and Chris Lake finally dropped their much-teased techno track this week. With an addictive central beat and Grimes’ typically hypnotic vocals, it plays out like a futuristic, dystopian take on Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction - which is obviously a good thing!

Listen here

Over Right Now by Post Malone & The Weeknd

Yet another star-studded collaboration! Superstars Post Malone and The Weeknd team up for what ends up being a fairly standard pop track, however its elevated when enjoyed alongside the pulpy action of the music video, which you can watch below.

Watch the video here

Everything I Love Is Going To Die by The Wombats

And finally this week, Liverpudlian indie rockers The Wombats released the fourth single from their upcoming new album, Fix Yourself, Not The World. With an infectious guitar groove, catchy chorus and typically sharp, lockdown-inspired lyrics from frontman Matt Murphy, The Wombats continue their winning run-up to their next record.

Listen here

[marvelousbirthdays]

Happy Birthday, wintershadowkat!

July 16 - A TaserBones with the"Soulmate identifying mark" trope for @wintershadowkat

Written by @backwardsandinhighheels

Darcy was in her freshman year at Culver when word spread around the campus that the feds were taking apart the science department.

Like every other bored student, Darcy joined the crowd of people pretending to walk past while jostling for a better look at the men in black carrying computers, files, and various bits of machinery to waiting vans. Through judicious use of elbows, she squeezed her way close to the entrance at the front, craning her neck to see into the building. 

Her interest must have been too obvious because a guy in a black bulletproof vest focused in on her as he ushered students away. “Nothing to see here, miss. Move along, now.”

At those words, Darcy stared up at the guy in shock for a good ten seconds, before finding her voice. “Are you serious? That is such a lie. That’s like the biggest, most blatant lie I’ve ever heard and like, I knew it was probably going to be a lie but I didn’t think it was going to be that bad.”

It was at the end of her rambling that Darcy realised three things:

1. They were in public, surrounded by hordes of students with nothing better to do than gawk at whatever entertainment came along,

2. Whatever qualms she had about having a lie curving around her waist, her soulmate had her rant about lying somewhere on him and that kinda made up for it, and

3. Her soulmate was tall, dark, and seriously hot

Also, he was looking at her with an unreadable expression that somehow made the rest of the world quieten away.

“You’re too young,” he said finally, and she felt her stomach drop.

“What do you mean? Are you rejecting me?” She’d heard the stories, but never imagined it could happen to her.

Thankfully, he shook his head. “I’m not saying no, I’m saying not yet. You need to grow into yourself first.”

“That’s… fair.” Well, it wasn’t ideal, but she was sure that once she’d gotten over the shock, she’d be grateful he hadn’t proposed on the spot. Her cousin swore up and down that had happened to an old classmate of his. “You want my number?”

His eyes sharpened. “You got an email? It’s probably more reliable.”

Darcy nodded and went to write it down. Halfway through the first email she’d made when she was twelve - and her mom was right, she really needed to get a more ‘professional’ one - she scribbled it out and wrote in her college email instead. There was no way she was introducing herself to her soulmate with hula_h00p_gurl@hotmail.com (listen, underscores used to be cool, all right?) which reminded her - “I’m Darcy,” she said. “In case you were wondering.”

“Brock,” he replied.

“Like from - “

He sighed. “Yes, like from Pokemon.”

She pressed her email into his hand. “Nice to meet you, Brock.”

~~~

Their communication was sporadic, interrupted as it was by exams (Darcy) and super-secret overseas assignments (Brock), but over the next little while, Darcy discovered her soulmate was kind of a dork.

Sure, he’d mastered martial arts she’d never even heard of, refused to listen to music past the year 2000, and admitted he’d never actually played Pokemon. But when she sent a Nintendo DS to the post box he’d finally admitted to having, he kept her up to date on his progress through Pokemon Pearl and argued with her on her choice of starters.

Best of all, however, he asked about her. He quizzed her at length on her childhood, on her family and friends, and in return, she heard about the life of an army brat who never really saw himself doing anything else. She told him all about her degree, bouncing essay ideas off him when he was in the country long enough to reply in time. He was especially interested in her own ideas on the sliding scale from freedom to security, positing hypotheticals that ranged from the silly to the downright chilling.

As time passed, she began to hint about meeting up, but he would deflect, telling her it wasn’t the right time. Eventually, she gave up. The first email after she stopped hinting had a distinct note of relief, so Darcy resigned herself to a platonic bond. 

Brock was not impressed when she landed an internship in the middle of New Mexico, but then, his emails had a rather overprotective streak, so Darcy wasn’t fussed. She decided against giving too many details after the whole ‘Loki and the Destroyer’ thing, but he somehow found out anyway.

Boy, that was a fun set of emails.

After that, their first real fight, conversation sort of… tailed off. Brock didn’t stop emailing, exactly, but he was more distant, less interested. By the time Jane landed a job at Stark Industries, Darcy in tow, she’d whittled him down to a penpal in her mind. A friend. Someone she’d met once, a long time ago. When a server glitch at Culver disconnected Darcy's email address, she barely noticed. It didn’t hurt at all. Really.

~~~

"Who is Crossbones?" Darcy asked, running her finger down the list of guests for Tony's event for superhuman, enhanced, or otherwise heroic individuals. 

"Hmm?" Pepper glanced over from where she was doing final detail checks on the schedule. "Someone Steve knows from Washington. Ex-SHIELD, possibly ex-Hydra. I think Steve said something about him being a double agent, but until we know his reasons for turning, Tony is hesitant to have him on the team."

"Fair enough," Darcy agreed. "I won't seat him with the rest of the ex-SHIELD crew then. Oh, have you taken a look at your speech? I emailed the revised version to you this morning."

"No, I haven't. Thanks for reminding me." Pepper made a note on her tablet. "Will Jane be coming, do you know?" 

Darcy shook her head. "When I checked this morning, she said she was done with superheroes and promised not to blow a hole in the time-space continuum if I brought her canapes afterwards." She looked down at her list again. "I still think we should have nametags. What am I supposed to call this guy? Mr Bones?"

“You could just ask him,” Pepper suggested.

“Doubt it.”

~~~

Darcy was making the rounds, clipboard in hand and desperately wishing for nametags, when Steve caught her eye. Once he had her attention, he beckoned her over to where he stood with another man. 

“Rumlow, this is Darcy, our coordinator and facilitator. Darcy, this is -”

Darcy’s jaw dropped. Also her clipboard, but she barely noticed. “Brock?”

The man next to Steve caught the clipboard, his own stunned gaze meeting hers. “Darcy?”

“How - what - what are you doing here?”

“Could ask you the same question.”

“Do you two know each other?” Steve asked, looking between them, bemused.

Darcy plucked the clipboard from Brock’s hand and passed it to Steve, her eyes never leaving Brock’s face. “Be a dear and sign people in, would you?” Taking Brock’s hand, she dragged him through one of the staff entrances and into a storeroom she’d inspected earlier.

“You’re Crossbones?” she demanded, as soon as they were alone. “You’re the ex-Hydra guy?”

“How did you know about that?” Instead of letting her answer, he cupped her cheek with his hand. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

She pushed his hand off her face. “You can’t just - it’s been six years!”

He dropped his gaze and his hand. “I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t think. Are you - is there someone else?”

“No,” she responded immediately, and his drooping shoulders straightened. “But I thought you didn’t want me!”

“Darcy, you were too young.”

She paused. “I’m not in college any more.”

“No, you’re certainly not.”

“Oh good,” Darcy said, before dragging his mouth down to hers.

It was a few minutes before they broke apart, Darcy’s fancy updo in curls around her face and both of them breathing heavily. 

Brock shook his head. “I had a whole speech, you know. For if I ever saw you again. I was going to explain everything that went down at SHIELD.”

Darcy waved a hand in dismissal. “I already know most of that. I need to know if you’re going to stick around.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Of course!”

He didn’t even have to think about it. “Then I will.”

“Oh good.” She began to pin her hair back up. “We should probably go out and rejoin the party. Oh! Did you know there’s another Pokemon game out?”

Brock snorted. ‘You’re going to ruin my image with Rogers.”

“Is that a yes, though?”

“Yes.”

Giggling, she slipped her arm into his and snuggled against his side. “Let’s go.”

[amosbrittany]

Shattered Chapter 1

Disclaimer : I don’t own Transformers Animated or any characters for that matter.

Notes : I haven’t done fanfiction, let alone TF based, in ages. And never for TFA, So I don’t really know what the hell I’m doing but what the hell, I’m going for it. lol I took quite a few liberties, pulling bits from various continuities to build this sucker.

Warnings : I have a tendency to put characters through hell. Violence and character death this chapter. Eventual Optimus/Sentinel, Megatron/Ultra Magnus, Bumblebee/Blitzwing, Jazz/Prowl and Ratchet/Pharma.

Summary : The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but Sentinel’s latest stunt might just kill them all...or worse.

The Fringes had to be the worst possible place to put a space bridge. On the very edge of Autobot territory, it took a regular beating from the Decepticons and even anti-Cybertronian organics. Crews came and went during its construction and maintenance, at times never making it back to Cybertron at all. For the most part, the disappearances were blamed on the Cons. It was a dangerous assignment that wasn't helped in the slightest if the crew assigned were full of incompetent or delinquent workers,  which was typically the case as no one with a whole procoessor would settle for the post.

Sentinel Prime knew Alpha Trion  sent him out here in particular as punishment, pure and simple. After the unmitigated fiasco Megatron's trial had been, he'd not only lost his position as Magnus but as second-in-command as well. He was bumped all the way down to repair duty with a group of fools and sent off to the Fringes. Naturally, he was angry. He was angry with the Decepticons for living up to their cursed name, at Alpha Trion, and at Optimus for not only upstaging him with the Powermaster armor but for taking his job afterward. He was humiliated and bitter. His team didn't help make the situation much better.

There were four other bots on the large rockbound base with him. Broadside was one of few triple changers in their ranks who could turn into a plane and a sea craft...but he was deathly afraid of both heights and water. Sentinel had no idea how that was feasibly possible, but he imagined the bot would have a spark attack on Earth when the rain came. Second was Landfill, and despite being a decent soldier and overall nice guy, he lived up to his name. Quite literally. Sentinel had no idea where the stench was emanating from on the mech's person and it was almost insulting that the mech couldn't pick it up himself. The whole team kept a wide distance from him at all times. Sentinel knew he could be whiny at times himself, but Huffer took the oil cake. He took the oil cake and complained the whole time he ate it at that. He avoided literally everything difficult, whining about it for good measure and he was the most likely bot Sentinel was going to throttle one day.

The only member of the team worth anything was the medic and truth be told, Sentinel had major concerns about the mech. Dark rumors from Delphi on Messatine followed this bot after his experimental jet upgrades following the success of the twins. Pharma had apparently glitched in the processor and hard from the procedures, not only setting a plague loose on the facility, but sawing a Decepticon defector that recently joined their ranks in half. Length ways. After some orbital cycles under intensive therapy, the doctor was cleared for limited duty and shipped off with him out to the Fringes, away from the good people of Cybertron in case he lost it again. There were a few times the Prime caught his medic giggling in an alarming manner and even talking to himself, so Sentinel wasn't entirely comfortable with his presence. But Pharma was the best in the field, so he prayed it panned out well for them.

"Can you not figure out why Landfill stinks so bad? What kind of doctor are you?" Huffer whined, shaking Sentinel out of his thoughts rudely. They stood gathered at the base of the space bridge, surveying the damage recently wrought by an agitated Deception that had attacked in passing.

"Last time I checked, it was my job to make sure you don't offline and continue to function optimally...Not help you smell like fragging rosewood." Pharma hissed, brandishing an inactive saw in place of his left hand at the minibot. "And if you don't shut up, I will ram this up your tail pipe and turn it on!"

Sentinel snorted. At least he didn't have to babysit the doctor.  He glanced up at the patchwork space bridge, the south pole smoking the hit and run. It happened frequently and it was damned annoying. "Could you all just pipe down so we can fix this and get it over with?" He scowled at the rest of the team.

"But...But that's so high up..." Broadside frowned.

"Oh for frag's sake..." Pharma rolled his optics, hands thrown in the air. "You have a plane alt-mode. What is your malfunction?!"

"At least it isn't as bad as yours-" Sentinel could appreciate Huffer's brave attempt at snark, but the screaming that followed it as the jet transformed and proceeded to run the minibot down in retaliation just ground further on his nerves.

Landfill called from a few yards away. "Permission to come closer?"

"Permission denied." Sentinel grumbled. "Go, I don't know...Scout the area or something, make sure the Cons don't set anything unwelcome up."

"SIR YES SIR!" Obviously happy to have his orders, the truck changed forms and drove off to scout around. The asteroid was sizable, so it would almost be a mega cycle before he swung back their way.

After knocking Huffer violently into a hole that would likely take him a few cycles to climb out of, Pharma returned to the pair, gracefully transforming as he dropped down. If the slagger wasn't so crazy, Sentinel would be tempted to talk him into a casual frag or two. He was quite the piece of optic candy, the only piece available really. But the jet prattled on in the worst way about Ratchet of all people, so he doubted he would have much luck. "Enjoy yourself? Because we have work to do." Sentinel grumbled.

"I'm a medic, not a mechanic." Pharma groused back, examining his fingertips.

"It's the same damn thing." The Prime held up his hand as his comment almost earned him a scathing lecture about the differences. "I don't want to hear it. Get this scaredy-bot up there somehow and take care of it while I get Huffer! And that's an order if you need clarification!"

He ignored as Pharma acted like he asked him to move the moon, turning away in favor of fishing Huffer out of his hole so they could get to work at the base of the structure. Beyond the upkeep of the space bridge, which would be their way home in case things went south where they were, he couldn't be bothered with improvements to the troops. They were good soldiers, for the most part, but personality flaws were a pain in the aft to try and work over. Besides, he didn't necessarily mind so long as the work got done, his mind was elsewhere anyway. All he could think about were his recent failures and how he was going to get back up in the ranks, at least enough to get positioned back on Cybertron. It was glaringly obvious Optimus would be following in Ultra Magnus's footsteps and he doubted the golden mech was going anywhere any time soon.

Sentinel sighed to himself, crouching at the edge of the hole for a moment. He was finding it hard to stay angry at Optimus, at least a little. Of course, the business with Elita-1 was always at the heart of his ire, but somehow seeing what she had become and the horrible things she was out there doing like what happened to Wasp had tempered it. When Optimus had taken Megatron down and brought the remaining Decepticons back to Cybertron, he had to admit his old friend looked like he had been dragged through the slag pits. He found it hard to imagine what it was like in that battle and he sometimes wondered if he would have had as much mettle to duke it out with the tyrant in the fragging air as he had. The disgraced Prime wasn't exactly a slouch in combat simulations, but he wasn't nearly as battle-hardened as Optimus. His optics flickered thoughtfully, coming out of his musings when he realized he wasn't absently listening to Huffer complain. "Huffer?"

The hole was empty. Turning on his headlights to examine the small pit better, it looked to turn into a tunnel that dipped down after a solid foothold. He could even see where Huffed had hit the edge and likely slid his way deeper into the asteroid. Sentinel let out a long, suffering sigh. Now he had to go searching for the little pest.

<Good job, Pharma. You knocked him Primus knows where.> Sentinel scowled as he climbed down into the hole.

<Well, I say good riddance.>

<That tower better be patched by the time I drag him out.> His threat was answered with some mild grumbling. After reaching the foothold, he slid down into the tunnel, sliding for several yards before he was struck by an odd sense of vertigo. His HUD exploded with warnings on a somewhat muffled and unknown energy reading that was turning his systems on their head. Sentinel grimaces, digging his fingers into the rock to stop himself. 'Woah, that's not right...' His knees shook as he tried to collect himself. He noticed there were spidery veins of glowing violet embers visible in the cracks and further down, there were large chunks of what reminded him of raw crystallized energon that grew in abundance deeper in. Tank churning, Sentinel hurriedly climbed his way back out, thankful that getting topside cleared up his readings.

"Ugh..." Sentinel shook his head, glancing back. <Pharma, what the hell is underground in this rock?>

<How am I supposed to know? I'm a doctor. DOC-TOR. Not a digger. Landfill is the geologist specialist. Why?>  After Sentinel explained what he ran into, Pharma sounded far too fascinated for his taste. <Odd. I don't suppose you brought a sample back out with you, did you?>

<Frag no. You think I want to touch that stuff?> Sentinel made a face. Of course, now they had a new problem. <Huffer, come in.> There was silence from the minibot. <We can't leave him down there...Whatever is down there.>

<Well, I'm not going down there and getting my circuits fried. They're already bad enough as it is...>

The Prime ran a servo over his face, sighing. No, he didn't need Pharma going postal on them. Resting his elbow into his servo, he gently tapped the knuckles of his free servo against his chin as he considered what to do. There weren't many reports on the innards of the large asteroid they were on, the ones there were mostly belonged to the teams who never survived their assignment and even then, there wasn't much to them. The reports got progressively more erratic prior to their stopping completely. Given what he felt when he was down there, Sentinel mused whether the energy from the crystals had been a bigger problem than realized. It was a suspicion he was going to have to put in his report.

Pharma and Broadside returned to him. "...Well?" The medic crossed his arms, head tilted.

"...I guess we're leaving him down there." Sentinel frowned. It wasn't a great call, but he didn't want the whole team to be the next crew to go MIA. That wouldn't look good for him. "If he's all right, he'll find his way out."

"And if he's not...?" Broadside didn't look pleased.

"Then...we'll...send a report he went missing. If we find him, we find him...But I'm not sending anyone down there and don't even think about arguing with me about it. I don't know what the frag is down there and I don't really want to. It felt all kinds of wrong."

"But you're just going to leave Huffer down there?" The triple changer pressed before he glowered at Pharma. "And what about him? This psychopath was the one who knocked him in there in the first place!"

"In my defense, I thought it was a simple hole." Pharma sniffed.

Sentinel shook his head. "No one is going down there till we have more information, now let's deal with the rest of these repairs. And Primus willing, the Cons will let us call it a solar cycle."

~+~

Sentinel returned to the Axalon after sending Broadside and Pharma out to hunt for Landfill when the truck never returned to the post. They'd never had an issue with someone patrolling around alone until now. It left the Prime uncertain if it was at all connected with Huffer's disappearance...or those of past crews. It was possible the bot could have been picked off by the Decepticons, but then Sentinel was sure Landfill would have called for backup if that were the case. He went digging into the base's old files as he compiled his own report, pausing when it sounded like company had joined him. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Pharma.

And only Pharma.

"...Please tell me you didn't kill Broadside." Sentinel muttered flatly.

The medic gave him an offended look. "No. I did not. He ran off on his own, thank you very much."

"And why did you not stay with him?" He demanded in exasperation.

"Because the daft fragger decided to take a cave tunnel down to go look for that idiot Huffer. That's why." Pharma scowled back at him. "I started to follow him in, when I started to feel what you described and heard voices so I decided to backtrack and report in. This infernal rock is probably layered with particular metals and stone that keep the underground contained below because he wasn't responding to his infernal comm-link after I backed out of the cave."

Well, that explained why Huffer hadn't answered him. But something was bothering him about this situation. Something was putting a bad twist in his tank. "...Lock down the Axalon." Pharma gave him a perplexed look before he shrugged and the two of them set about doing so. Once the ship was sealed off, he felt only somewhat better.

"What is with you...?"

"Not sure...I just have this feeling there is something weird going on and it's bugging the hell out of me."

Pharma frowned, scratching his chin thoughtfully. He supposed his Prime had a point. There was something unsettling about their team's disappearances. He had a feeling even a brief exposure to whatever was below ground had helped unnerve them. "You know..." Pharma began thoughtfully, looking out the bridge window. "The Decepticons never really touch down here or properly engage. It's always passing aerial strikes. Do you suppose they are wary of the asteroid?"

Sentinel's optics flickered with surprise at how he had never considered that. "That...would make sense. I mean if anyone would know these parts...It would be the Decepticons. But..." He frowned. He didn't want to try and communicate with a Con again. It would look bad, especially after the last time he had struck a deal with one. Of course, losing three of his four team members was pretty bad too. But maybe he could get answers without completely damning himself. He pulled up the communications array and started to ring up Cybertron. Pharma gave him a curious look but stayed quiet as the line was opened with high command. Sentinel sighed as he found Optimus staring back at him.

"Sentinel...?" The SIC seemed a little surprised to be hearing from him since all of his reports were in file format and he generally let Pharma deal with the talking. It was hard enough just looking at him and seeing just a bit of the Elite Guard badge on his shoulder.

"I'm going to cut to the chase, Optimus." Sentinel completely skipped over pleasantries. He hadn't wanted to make this call but he had little choice. "Earlier this solar cycle, one of my men took a tumble down a tunnel. When I attempted to retrieve him, my systems were assaulted by a strange energy source, so the retrieval was aborted. Landfill who was sent out on a scouting assignment has not returned. I sent Broadside and Pharma to look for him, but they found nothing and Broadside decided to venture underground to find Huffer. Pharma attempted to go with him, but was assaulted by the same queer energy and reported back. We can't contact them and they've-"

"Oh look, there's Huffer!" Pharma piped up cheerfully.

"Uhh..." The Prime's faceplate heated up as he glowered at the jet, paying the amused look Optimus gave him no mind. He stood to look over the console, seeing the minibot. But his gait was...off and he had an odd, distinct violet glow emanating from his biolights. Pharma took his pedes off the console and leaned forward for a better look himself.

The SIC called to them. "Sentinel? Is it Huffer? Is he all right?"

"Well, he looks kind of funny-" Not that he wasn't built funny for a minibot to begin with but something was quite off now. But neither of the bots had much time to contemplate the differences as the short mech launched himself into the air and threw himself into the windshield. Pharma shrieked, falling back out of his seat and Sentinel staggered back in shock. Huffer's faceplate was twisted in a ghoulish visage of hateful rage as he proceeded to pound on the thick glass, quickly causing the material to crack under his blows. The Prime cursed as he accidentally dented his leg on his chair to get back, drawing his shield and lance out while engaging his face visor. "Pharma, behind me!"

"SENTINEL! What's going on?!" Optimus looked alarmed, unable to see anything but their panicked faceplates and their defensive positioning.

Pharma scrambled to get behind him as he backed further along the bridge. The windshield gave out under the minibot's assault. Sentinel tensed as the small fragger charged them, faster than he thought Huffer capable, if that even was Huffer. As the minibot lunged at him, mouth open wide with gnarled denta, the Prime struck out, driving his lance straight in. The smaller bot went rigid and twitched, speared through on the energy lance, momentarily stunned. Sentinel relaxed slightly before tensing anew as Huffer tried to drag himself towards him along the lance, as if it was a mere inconvenience at worst. The roar of a chainsaw made him jump as Pharma darted forward and pressed the saw into the minibots's head, tearing the helm apart. Violet goo spattered everywhere as the body finally went still, limbs dropping. Sentinel threw his lance down, stepping back from the speared body in horror.

"Good lord..." The medic murmured, his plates shaking. He turned off the saw, shaking off the foreign fluids. They looked over at the communication array where Optimus was just gaping at them in shock. Pharma turned to Sentinel. "He broke through the bloody window..."

That blatant observation jarred him out of his stupified state. "YA THINK?!" Sentinel sqawked back at him.

"What the hell did I just see..." Optimus's optics flickered.

Pharma crouched by Huffer, nudging him onto his back for a better look. Shards of violet were embedded under several cables, his denta were shattered as if he had been chewing on something hard and volatile, and violet goo oozed from the wounds they had inflicted to his frame. He could, however faintly, pick up on that same wrong energy they had felt from the caverns below. That feel of unease returned anew. "I don't know, Optimus Prime...But I think you should send us back-up. Immediately. Because I have a feeling Broadside and Landfill might be returning much the same way very soon."

It looked for a moment that he had lost his ability to process let alone vocalize, but Optimus regained his wits as he nodded grimly. "Understood. We'll be there asap!"

[lady-divine-writes]

Klaine one-shot “Cats and Dogs, Strawberries and Chocolate” (Rated PG13)

Summary: A power outage. A horrible rainstorm. A long day of work and school. They're all trying their best to ruin Kurt and Blaine's Valentine's Day. But the moment they remember what's actually important, nothing in the world can ruin what they have together. (1855 words)

Notes: Written for the Klaine/CC Valentine's Day Challenge 2019 prompt 'This Is the Time' by Billy Joel.

Read on AO3.

“Ugh …” Kurt grumbles when he races into his building, blown inside by the wind and rain, and sees the lights overhead fizzle out. “Flippin’ Con Ed … still haven’t gotten the power fixed …”

Surprise, surprise.

Kurt had expected this when he’d found out a transformer had blown in Manhattan last night, but he’d also hoped he’d be proven wrong.

No such luck.

The lights in their building are dim as it is on a normal day. The power company had the whole day to work on it. Why did Kurt assume it would be fixed? Then again, what does he know? He can’t even replace a fuse in their heater. Repairing the power grids for the entire city? That has to be a little more complicated, right?

Luckily, he didn’t have too many issues with the power at work. Vogue is a magical wonderland, it seems, run entirely on dreams, fashion, and utter fabulousness. But at NYADA, it was a pain in the butt seeing as the actual building is older than a Vaudeville stage mom and just as temperamental. He got through dance class fine since they’re held on the upper levels, with huge windows where outside light can flood in. Intro to Musical Theater was a bit more challenging, being held in a downstairs auditorium with no windows and thus no help from the outside.

His costume design class, taught in the basement, was canceled entirely.

He’d hoped that living in Bushwick, their loft would be safe, but no. Apparently what’s going on isn’t a Manhattan thing, but a 5 Boroughs thing, ergo they’re going to have to suffer through intermittent hours of cold and dark until things get fixed.

What sucks worse is that it’s Valentine’s Day, and a power outage of this magnitude definitely ruins Kurt’s plans for the evening.

Looks like they’re home for good.

Kurt takes the stairs up slowly, mentally punching himself in the gut for not having the forethought to plan anything for Blaine before now. It’s not like he didn’t put in any effort. He had every intention of buying Blaine roses, but when the subway glitched out while he was trying to make it to work, he opted to bypass the small florist on the corner on his sprint to the bus thinking he’d pick up flowers on the way home. Little did he know that a sudden rainstorm would make the man who owns the kiosk pack up early. Kurt took for granted that he would. Aren’t street-side florists like the post office on candy and flower themed holidays? Neither rain, nor sleet, nor black of night, or whatever?

When that backfired, Kurt considered picking up a box of chocolates. Two Targets and three drugstores later, he discovered that every box of chocolates had been sold out, and the lines for the boutique candy stores were wrapped around the corners. But Kurt wasn’t out of the running just yet. He hedged the rest of his bets on dressing them both up in their finest and going out to dinner. But if the electricity wasn’t a factor, the weather is. It flares up outside when he thinks about it, dropping rain in buckets on the snow and ice covered sidewalks.

Kurt never did like Valentine’s Day. And even though he’d once decided (for the space of about a week) that it was his new favorite holiday, it still rubbed him wrong. But that doesn’t mean Blaine doesn’t love it. (And, yes, Blaine once said it sucked, but that didn’t last long, either.)

It’s just one day – one stupid, made-up day. Kurt has no excuse not to make one day special for Blaine’s sake.

But on this Valentine’s Day in particular, the universe is trying him.

He reaches his floor and stops, glaring down the hallway at his loft door. With the wind howling outside and the lights sputtering overhead, it’s like a scene from a B-rated horror movie.

Yup, Kurt thinks. That sounds about right.

He pads gently down the hall, trying his best not to make too much noise and alert Blaine to his presence.

No reason to disappoint the man he loves so soon.

He turns his key in the lock, slides the door open, and is greeted by a sea of black, the only light visible coming from the glow of emergency candles in the kitchen.

“Hey, honey,” Kurt calls out unenthusiastically as he unwinds his drenched scarf. He’s wrung it out twice already, but it’s somehow still extremely wet. “Are you home?”

“Yes,” Blaine replies, sounding just as thrilled as Kurt.

Kurt slides the loft door shut. “How’ve you been?”

“Uh … fine?”

“Have you been stuck in the dark all afternoon?” Kurt asks, making small talk while he peels off his sopping wet coat. He’s going to have to hang every stitch of his clothing in the bathroom. If he leaves it to drip by the front door, they’re going to have a moat by morning.

“Yes and no,” Blaine says, accompanied by a scuffling sound, like pots sliding across the stovetop. Kurt hears a crash, and more scuffling ensues, along with a quietly muttered, “Shoot, shoot, shoot!” All thoughts of wet clothes and eventual moats aside, a curious Kurt leaves the rest of his belongings by the front door and creeps into the kitchen.

“Honey?” Kurt hears another crash! followed by another defeated ‘Shoot!’ “Is everything …?” The lights flicker on and stay on, and Kurt sees Blaine, holding a strawberry that has seen better days, staring at him like a deer about to be flattened by a Chevy Malibu. Thick, brown goop drips from Blaine’s fingertips, from his wrist, and from his palm. It’s on the stovetop, the floor, the counter, the wall, pouring over the lips of two pots, and it’s even in Blaine’s hair. Kurt deduces that the brown goop is chocolate – badly melted chocolate - and it seems to have gotten everywhere … except on the strawberry “… all right?”

“I … uh …” Blaine mutters, licking his lips and looking around at a kitchen he probably hasn’t seen in decent light for the past hour. He looks at the uncovered strawberry clenched in his hand and sighs. “Uh … no. I’m sorry.” Blaine wipes at a drop of melted chocolate on his cheek with the back of his hand, but that only smears it up to his eyebrows. “I think I messed up.”

“What were you trying to do?” Kurt grabs a hand towel off the handle of the oven and rescues Blaine from his strawberry.

“Well, I had the day off, and you didn’t,” Blaine starts, reluctantly releasing his berry and allowing his exhausted-looking fiancé to help him clean up, “and with the electricity and the rain … I didn’t want you to think that the second you came home I’d expect you to rush out again and do something. So I thought, you know, I’d make you a special Valentine’s Day dinner, with chocolate-dipped strawberries for desert. But the electricity kept going out, so the oven wouldn’t turn on for the roast, and the chocolate refused to melt right, and now …” Blaine looks up at Kurt, his face dotted with chocolate that Kurt couldn’t originally see, traveling in a line across his forehead “… I’m a little bit … covered.”

“Yes.” Kurt leans in and licks the smear on Blaine’s cheek. “You are.”

“I should have just called DoorDash and had someone deliver a perfect dinner for you, but I felt so guilty expecting someone to come out in this weather to bring us food.”

“Well, it is their job,” Kurt says, carefully picking dried chocolate out of Blaine’s curls. “They’re getting paid for it. If you felt guilty, you could have given them a big tip.” It strikes Kurt at that moment that he could have done the same thing – fired up the old DoorDash app and ordered dinner, flowers, chocolates, better candles. It would have arrived before he did and the night would have been saved.

“You’re right,” Blaine agrees. “I should have just done that. I wrecked Valentine’s Day.”

Kurt stops picking at chocolate when Blaine drops his head, and he wraps his arms around him. In the quiet of their kitchen and underneath the blinking overhead lights, Kurt tries to think of a way of letting Blaine know that this isn’t that big a deal. It’s one day. It’s one dinner. It’s a situation entirely out of their control. At least Blaine tried to make their evening special. Kurt, racing across the city and bypassing every store on every block, is the one who really messed up. He works at Vogue! He could have had one of the staff photographers whip up some tastefully NC17 photos of him that he could have slid into a portfolio folder, wrapped in newspaper, and brought home.

He just didn’t think of it.

Because everyday living in New Yok City is as stressful as it is wonderful. Everything’s so chaotic, so expensive, and no matter what time of the day it is, it always seems like they’re working – homework and Vogue and their jobs at the diner. Yes, this was one night, but it was a night they were both fighting to make memorable.

But regardless of what they wanted, Mother Nature and Con Ed had other plans. So they’re going to have to make do.

It won’t be the first time. Nor the last.

There are going to be trying times ahead for them, things bigger than a ruined holiday. It’s inevitable. That’s part of getting older. And when those days come, as trying as tonight is, this will be a day they look back on, smile wistfully at one another, and remember when Kurt came home looking like a drowned rat and Blaine tried to dip strawberries in the dark.

There’s nothing wrong with ‘making do’ as long as they’re doing it together.

“Excuse me for saying so,” Kurt says, “but I don’t see this as you wrecking Valentine’s Day.”

Kurt feels Blaine’s head move as he peeks up at him. “You don’t?”

“Nope. I don’t see this as you wrecking it at all. In fact …” Kurt holds his fiancé at arm’s length so that he can get a better look at the damage he’s done – chocolate on his face, chocolate on his jaw, chocolate on his hands. He’s messy all right, but not enough for what Kurt has planned. He reaches over to the stovetop, to the pot of quickly cooling chocolate, and dips a finger inside “… I think that you have given me the greatest Valentine’s Day present in the whole world.”

Blaine raises a puzzled eyebrow. “And that is …?”

“An excuse …” Kurt takes the chocolate on his finger and begins to spread it on the clean areas of Blaine – a swipe across his lips, one down the bridge of his nose, trailing down over his Adam’s Apple to the hollow of his neck “… to spend a rainy Valentine’s Day here at home … licking chocolate off my sexy fiancé.”

[platonic-with-mothman]

Reactivation

Summary: an honest mistake ends up reactivating the squip. and the squip has some plans for jeremy which might include a certain tiny arsonist.\

warnings: Swears, vore, panic, digestion mention (none occur), unwilling pred, unwilling prey.

Note: This is Post!Squip times. Rich is gonna seem a little more timid and shy, and not as loud as normal

Bold italics= Squip

Regular italics= Jeremy’s thoughts

“Thanks for inviting me over, dude.” Jeremy turned back to his new found friend, Jake, and smiled. They never really got along before, but recently, they’ve been hanging out at school, and jeremy decided to finally seal the deal of absolute friendship…

playing Apocalypse of the Damned.

“No problem, man” Jeremy replied, sitting on one of the cushions on the floor, pointing to the other one. “When do you think Rich will get here?” he had hoped soon, the last time they had spoken was in the hospital, and he really wanted to get to know the real Rich. but Jake shrugged, grabbing one of the controllers and flopping down on the other cushion, so he was laying on it.

“Eh. rich is always late. He’s probably outside wondering if he really wants to come in” Jake laughed, turning on his controller. Jeremy gave Jake a look, and he continued “Well whatever happened with you and him really must have made him uncomfortable around you.” jake playfully pushed jeremy “what, did you try and eat him or something?”

This was something normally joked about by other Giants, talking about eating Humans was strange if it wasn’t mentioned, but jeremy couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable hearing about it, because it really happens, and usually the human doesn’t come back. He sputtered, stammering out a no, which makes jake laugh

“I’m playing Heere.” he said between laughs “I know you.if anything, You’d try to deny that it was possible” which was true, he would try and say that only some giants could, but that was a lie. He was perfectly capable of eating anyone physically, but if he wanted to, no way. Somehow that instinct wasn’t inside of him.

“S-should we go back to the game” jeremy said, changing the subject. Jake nodded, smirking. They played only a few rounds before the doorbell rang. Must be Rich. the boys paused the game

“Since he’s cool with me, I’ll go.” Jake picked up his Gatorade squeeze bottle, taking a drink and handed it to jeremy “Have some.” jeremy took the bottle, and took a drink, expecting it to be water, but coughed when he felt the carbonation hit his throat. He barely recognized the taste.

“What is that” he said through his coughing fit.  When jake replied, all the colour drained from his face.

“Uh, Mountain Dew? The only soda i can actually stand.” he said, running up the stairs, “I’ll talk to rich for a bit to make sure he’s cool” and just like that, he was gone. Jeremy covered his mouth, horrified. ‘Okay maybe...maaaaybe its okay. Maybe its not so bad after all. Nothing has happened so far so maybe’

That's when his whole body was shocked. He dropped the bottle and curled up. No no no this can’t be happening again.

Target inaccessible

No…

Calibration required, please excuse some minor discomfort

Another long zap made him yelp in pain, he could see in front of him a glitchy figure, getting more and more lifelike by the second

Calibration Complete

Access procedure not needed.

Welcome back Jeremy Heere. We knew you wouldn’t leave forever.

Jeremy let out the breath he was holding, all the pain going away. He sat up, backing away, he didn’t even realize he had tears falling from his face, which he promptly wiped away, the squip was turned facing away from him, white suit, slicked back hair, how he remembered him. He spun to face jeremy, and looked almost surprised to be there. The Squip smiled at him, sending a chill down jeremy’s spine. He felt like he was about to have a panic attack.

“Jeremy! I knew you wouldn’t give up on yourself!” the squip sounded genuinely happy to see him, which was weird on more levels than one. “What made you change your mind?”

“Nothing! you monster!” jeremy yelled, covering his mouth right after, he didn’t want to alert anyone that something was wrong, especially Rich, he’d been through too much anyways.

The squip laughed “don’t forget I’m in your mind Jeremy”  jeremy scowled. He couldn’t wait to get this parasite out of his head again.

“jeremy! “ he heard Jake running down the stairs, someone in his hands. Jeremy stood up, pretending everything was fine. ‘Guess who finally decided to show up!” jake opened his hands. And there sat rich, he was wearing a sweater and black jeans, probably trying to hide his burn scars, and looked down. This was not the rich he remembered, and why did he look so… appitizi--WHAT?

‘Get of my head.” he thought to the squip. The squip shrugged

“Its a normal thing to be thinking about that jeremy, with you’re kind, you shouldn’t shy away from true feelings.”

‘Well I didn’t think about this before you showed up’ jeremy pushed himself out of his thoughts, waving at rich. The human looked up at jake, probably for reassurance, and the giant nodded. Rich waved back.

“Wanna keep playing?” Jeremy asked. Jake nodded, placing rich on the table. For the most part, jeremy did a damn good job of ignoring the squip…only a few times did he actually reply, telling it to shut up.

After a few more rounds, Jake got a call from his parents, and it got a bit heated, and he ended up leaving. Then Rich and Jeremy were alone together.

“So…” jeremy broke the silence. “How’ve you been? Recovery going...well?” he didn’t really know what to say. What do you say to the person who you haven’t spoken to since a catastrophic incident that happened a year ago?

“Good… the doc has said i’ve been doing really well.” he replied, jeremy couldn’t help but love rich’s lisp. It reminded him that he wasn’t the same bully he was before

Wasn’t he the one who got you in this mess the first place”

‘Go away”

“He’s the reason why I’m here right now. Why you and michael fought, why you got a squip in the first place.”

“He’s different now”

“Of course he is. He’s weak now. You’re the one with the upper hand now. You can do what you want.”

“Not what I want, what YOU want.”

“uh … jeremy?” Rich asked, nervously. “You’ve been pretty quiet, are you okay?” Jeremy and the squip looked back at rich, and jeremy couldn’t help but see what the squip was talking about. Last year rich was strong, loud, bold, even for his size. Now he’s quiet and shy. Kinda embarrassing.

Jeremy shook himself out of these thoughts, knowing his Squip was planting them. Jeremy nodded quietly. And rich seemed to realize something, jeremy could see it in his eyes.

“You still have it. Don’t you?” the squip looked impressed with his discovery, while jeremy felt mortified, and in a moment. Rich was in jeremy’s hand. The squip was controlling him again. This. was. Bad.

“Let me go!” Rich yelled, pushing against jeremy’s flesh, panic rising.

“I- want to b-But.. Why should I?” he was cut off by… himself? The squip was using as a puppet again. He looked back at the computer, with fear, it just smiled.

“This is for your own good jeremy, show whos dominant.” the squip placed his hands on jeremy’s shoulders, and instantly jeremy began speaking again.

“If you were in my position, would you put me down?” jeremy asked, and rich frantically nodded, trying to make jeremy let go, but jeremy held his hand closed. “What if you were squipped.” rich stopped, almost looking shameful. They both knew the answer. “Exactly”

“I’m different now! I promi-- Wait! Please!” the squip made jeremy bring rich closer to his face. He knew what the squip was going to do, and he was dying on the inside, wanting it to stop. Not only for his sake, but for the human’s in his grip.

“I-I’m s-sorry” he muttered before the squip made him shove rich into his mouth. As predicted, rich screamed, trying to pry jeremy’s mouth back open, but it was no use. He screamed for help. And jeremy hated to say this, but rich actually tasted...good. he didn’t know if It was the squip messing with him or how he actually felt. Maybe he didn’t want to know

“Jeremy! P-Please let me out!” Rich pleaded with the giant. Jeremy just kept rolling him around in his mouth. Jeremy began fighting back, trying to open his mouth, but the supercomputer had other plans.

“Swallow.”

And just like that, rich was inside of jeremy’s throat, it hurt. A lot. Rich stretched his throat to lengths he had never felt before. He groaned in pain, and he winced. Jeremy turned to the squip, glaring, but the squip just looked proud.

Once Rich was past his throat, and he could speak, jeremy screamed out in pain, running upstairs, which oddly caught the squip off guard. He raced towards his father's liquor cabinet, opened a bottle of random alcohol. The squip appeared, holding a hand out

“don't you dare jeremy! you will--Ichido watashi wa futatabi akutibu ni shite kōkai!” while the squip spoke, he chugged a huge gulp, silently apologizing to rich, who had just landed in his stomach and began squirming around. He cringed at the taste, wanting to immediately spit it out, but he knew it was for the best. And almost instantly, the squip began glitching out. Then it shut off completely.

He held a hand to his stomach, horrified at what he had done to rich. The human squirmed, panicked out of his mind.

“R-Rich oh god…” rich froze at jeremy acknowledging him, and began squirming again. He cringed, feeling every move that rich had made, it was so so wrong.

“Jeremy! Please I-” jeremy hushed him frantically

“I know! I’ll get you out as soon as I can.” he whipped out his phone, going to message michael.

‘Code red’ he sent. It took a few seconds for a reply

‘Fuck. coming’ he sighed, dropping his phone and holding his belly, rich really did a number on him, the squip must have dulled the pain a bit, because it hurt like a bitch.

“Let me out” rich quietly pleaded once again. “Before….before”

“Its okay… Its a giant thing… you’re gonna be fine” he was surprised that Jake hadn’t told rich that yet. Rich fell silent, he stopped fighting. Jeremy wondered what he was doing in there, but before he could ask, his front door swung open.

“Jeremy! I got it!” it was michael, holding a whole bottle of homemade mountain dew red. Works just the same… just tastes worse.

“Michael!” he yelled from the living room, but quieted his voice when he felt rich cover his ears...weird “I’m in here”

Michael ran into the room “hey. Got your text… why are you…?” michael slowly gave jeremy the bottle, which he quickly opened and downed a bunch of the drink. He held his head as the zapping began again. Michael dashed towards him holding his best friend and trying to calm him. Luckily no hospital trip, the squip hadn’t been in THAT long.

Jeremy took deep breaths as the pain died down. Looking up at michael, who was smiling at his friends wellbeing. He immediately pushed away remembering rich. He must’ve been horrified at being drowned in two different types of liquid. Jeremy placed a hand on his stomach. And michael gave him a weird look.

“Everything okay jere?” michael knew it was a silly question, but he had to make sure.

“Its… rich…” he breathed out. Michaels eyes widened, and a grin formed on his face. He began laughing.

“Are you serious?” jeremy shot him a look that told him to stop. “It was an accident. The…. the squip..”

“Don’t worry man. I can help you get him out... just let me..” michael ducked his head down, placing it on jeremy’s stomach. “Rich?! You good?”

The giants heard rich squeak in surprise, making michael laugh and jeremy blush. “M-michael?” the human called out, pressing against the stomach. Michael began lifting jeremy’s shirt, ignoring the other giants protest. They both watched the little bulge in his body move around, while it freaked jeremy out, it fascinated michael.

“Yeah Rich its me!” he turned his attention back to jeremy. “Here's what you need to do. You can feel him, right” jeremy nodded. “Good, focus on him, clench your stomach muscles and push him upwards, your body will be able to do the rest.”

Jeremy nodded, taking a deep breath and doing what michael had told him, it took a few tries to actually get michael back up his esophagus, but once he did, his body just pulled him back up into his mouth,he coughed, bringing his hand up to his mouth, spitting rich out on to it. He brought his hand down, revealing a terrified rich.

He was covered in saliva and shaking to no end, but not because he was cold. Jeremy brought rich closer to his chest, holding him in a strange hug. The giant and human were both breathing deeply. And jeremy apologized. Surprisingly, rich accepted it.

“It...it wasn’t you. I realize that” jeremy smiled, and rich returned it. “How about we...not mention this to jake next time we hang out?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice”

----------------

and we’re done! 

[a-little-international]

The Height of Summer (8)

Summary: She’s a whirling dervish, and he’s trying his best to keep up.

Warnings: some kissy kissy action and maybe a swear here and there but that’s about it I think

Words: 3,424

A/N: just survived my first two days at my new job and have concluded that I am not ready for the adult world, thanks.

The Series: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9

Chapter 8 – Shawn

He’d woken up groggy after an unsettled night of sleep, the memory of the previous night continuing to dance on the periphery of his mind. Watching Summer and her ex hug and sway like nothing had changed between them made his stomach twist uncomfortably, and the worry about losing what they had built had nagged at his dreams like the persistently annoying buzz of a mosquito you can’t quite locate and snuff out.

So, when he descended the stairs, his mind was focused on the various scenarios playing out in his head, and not on the words of frustration being thrown around the kitchen. In fact, it wasn’t until he was on the last step of the stairs that he registered the scene before him: Summer and Jesse locked in what at the very best seemed like an extremely tense conversation. But he’d come too far to head back upstairs again, and his hope of slipping unnoticed through the front door was shattered the second he stepped off the last stair and onto a creaking floorboard.

In the split second it happened, Shawn hoped desperately that they were too wrapped up in their words to hear the creak, but as soon as that thought entered his mind, Jesse’s head was already whipping around to look at him. Their eyes connected and Shawn had to hold back from gulping, running a nervous hand through his messy hair instead, just so he had something to do with it.

Where Shawn was tall and lean, Jesse was tall and big. The classic farm boy big – shoulders that could probably carry the weight of the world and a neck as thick as a tree trunk. But his eyes seemed to be trying to figure something out, almost like he was trying to read his mind.

When Shawn couldn’t hold his gaze anymore, he finally looked at Summer, and it almost broke his heart. She looked like she was going to cry at any moment, her eyebrows pulled up in worry, her dark eyes visibly swimming even from across the room. She was white-knuckling her mug and for a moment he worried she’d shatter it between her palms. On that same train of thought he wondered how far the next hospital was.

The moment between them went on for much too long to be comfortable, his intrusion obvious and painful and becoming worse with every additional passing second.

“I’m just, um, I’m just going to go outside to…look at the, um…trees,” Shawn stuttered, grasping at straws to get out from under Jesse’s gaze and the tension that he had undoubtedly made much worse through his unwelcome arrival. All he’d wanted was a coffee and maybe a slice of toast, but he knew he’d walked into something far less pleasant.

Once he’d made his swift exit and closed the door behind him, he stood on the porch and released the breath he hadn’t known he was holding in. He didn’t want to process the final words that he had overheard before the fateful creak of the floorboard, so he started walking. He wasn’t even paying attention to where his feet were taking him, and he certainly wasn’t looking at any trees, he was just walking and trying desperately to clear his mind, but it wasn’t working particularly well.

And then he realised his legs has brought him to the pier, and he approved. The water looked like a pale mirror, completely untouched by winds and swimmers and motorboats as of yet, the reflection of the surrounding trees being the only thing gently rippling across the surface.

The air held that slightly blurry, bright post-dawn haze that made it seem like a sleepy film was still blanketed over the world, with the birds chirping their salutations for the brand-new world unfolding before them.

Despite the tension he’d just walked out from, this was one of the most peaceful moments Shawn could recall in a long time and he was weirdly glad that he had been forced out of the cabin and out into the quiet morning. He didn’t get a lot of proper alone time with what he did and who he was, there was never an opportunity to just sit on a pier in the middle of nowhere and let his feet dangle.

“Remember when you promised we’d always be together? Because I remember when I thought you meant it.” The only words he had overheard, and the only words he wished he could forget. It wasn’t even necessarily what they were, it was how they were said. Summer’s voice had cracked to the point that he wasn’t even sure she would be able to finish the sentence, it was like you could hear her gut physically wrenching from the pain of what had happened between them and the potential that they had lost.

Hearing about what had happened between Jesse and Summer from her friends had been one thing, but being there to overhear the consequences, the pain, the hurt that seemed so fresh in that moment, was an entirely different thing altogether. It was another reminder that she had really loved someone else – Jesse – so deeply and if what happened hadn’t happened, they would probably still be together. And now Jesse was here and in the kitchen with her at five in the morning and Shawn didn’t know what to think of that either.

The cool water of the lake, not yet warmed by the sun, lapped at his ankles as he considered what this would mean for him and Summer. He liked her, he liked her a whole lot and he had been getting his hopes up about things which was not something he allowed himself to do much anymore. But now it seemed like the Jenga Tower of their fragile relationship was having some pretty big blocks pulled out and it felt like they could topple over at any second. If Jesse and Summer got back together, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. It would be weird to stay, but maybe it would be even weirder to pack up and leave.

“Hey.”

Shawn looked up and there she was, like a vision having emerged from the morning haze, appearing next to him with a simple greeting. Her hair, all messy and curly, caught the sunlight and not for the first time did he think she looked like an angel with a halo. This angel was hanging onto the mug in her hands like her life depended on it, and his skin prickled from the nervous energy coming off her.

“Hey,” he breathed finally, willing his heart to please slow down for two seconds so he could try to think clearly.

There was another long pause as she lowered herself down next to him, her hip just barely touching his, her feet waving around in the water. It made him think of ducks, and how they seem all quiet and serene on the outside but are paddling anxiously for their life just below the waterline.

He heard her draw in a breath as she considered what to say. He wanted to jump ahead and start assuring her, but he was too scared about what her next words would be.

“I’m really sorry about everything,” she said finally, but Shawn wasn’t reassured at all. Before his mind could get too carried away, she continued, “I had no idea he was going to show up here.”

“That’s alright,” Shawn replied quietly, eyes fixed on how her hands were clutching her mug, unable to look right at her for fear of giving his anxieties away.

“It’s really not. And it’s not alright that I didn’t tell you about him.”

“You didn’t have to tell me about him,” he said, and he wanted to reach out and take one of her hands, but he thought better of it. He still had no idea what direction this conversation was headed, and he didn’t want to ruin things any more.

“No, I definitely should have, especially before coming here because everyone else…knows, I guess, and I would rather you have found out about him properly, on my terms, than have him emerge from the forest like some creature of mystery.”

Shawn didn’t know what to say to that. He had to agree though, that maybe a little forewarning about her last serious relationship might have been good, if only to know to tread more carefully. He just nodded, daring a chaste glance at her before returning his gaze to her hands.

“And I’m sorry for what you walked in on this morning, I’m not sure what you overheard –“

“Nothing,” Shawn said quickly, not wanting to refresh her previous upset at the words she had said and that he had heard. “Nothing, really, I was so out of it.”

“Well, I want to apologise anyway,” she said, a firmness holding up her words as she looked over at him, and he couldn’t resist meeting her eyes. They were resolute and challenging, and in that moment, he knew that she knew he was lying when he told her he hadn’t overhead anything. “I never wanted to be in a situation like that, and I most definitely never wanted for you to be dragged into it.”

Shawn couldn’t stop himself from asking the burning question on the forefront of his mind, “So what now?” he asked quietly, shifting his gaze at their gently dangling feet, the water distorting the shapes and colours ever so slightly and it was mesmerising enough to distract from what he’d just uttered out loud.

There was a pause so long that Shawn thought there might have been a glitch in the matrix, even the birdsong faded entirely into oblivion as his heart raced and the seconds ticked by.

Out of the corner of his eye, Shawn could see she was looking at him and a shiver ran down the length of his spine in anticipation. He wanted to look at her properly so badly but was too scared of what he would see in her eyes.

“Whatever you want,” Summer whispered, and whether it was a coincidence or not, Shawn felt her lean into his side ever so lightly, her shoulder barely touching his.  

His heart felt like it was trying to climb up his throat and burst into the world, the skin on his arm where it met with hers burning and throbbing and itching for more contact. He finally looked at her properly, her dark eyes no longer filling up with tears, his filling up with hope. “Whatever I want?” He wanted her to clarify, to make sure he hadn’t just imagined those words coming from her.

Summer nodded, her eyes never leaving his. “Yeah,” she breathed it out almost like a sigh of relief, “Jesse and I are over. We’ve been over for long enough, he just needed reminding of it. So, yes, whatever you want.”

“I want to kiss you.” The words had fallen past his lips before he could stop himself, another case of that stupid, cavalier bravery that seemed to overcome him in bouts any time he was around her and which always took him by surprise.

Summer let out a surprised laugh herself, but it was the wide smile that spread across her face that assured him of his bold statement. Before she could beat him to it again, Shawn leaned down and kissed her with every good and warm intention that he held within him, their lips connecting, their breath mixing and their soft smiles pushing against each other.

Although dawn had passed and the sun had risen, Shawn felt like this moment was the true start of the day, and he realised that this was how he wanted to start every day. His face and body felt basked in a rising glow, and although he would always attribute it to the kiss, it was actually the first proper ray of sunshine breaking through the tops of the surrounding trees and flooding them with warm morning light.

She tasted like coffee and smelled like sleep, all comforting and warm and familiar. Shawn reached up to hold her head against his, her golden curls so soft he couldn’t stop himself from pushing his fingers in deeper. That elicited a sigh from Summer and all he could do was kiss her harder, barely breathing and heart on the verge of exploding.

And then, most gloriously, he felt her hand come up to hold his cheek, cradling it gently in her palm, which was unexpectedly warm from having held her mug so firmly for so long. He slowly pulled away from the kiss, his lips still hovering against hers, to look at her. He wanted to say it was like looking at the sun, but nothing hurt, and it felt exactly right; it was more like standing in a field of sunflowers and admiring the golden ocean surrounding you. He leaned his head further into her hand, his heart swelling at how softly she supported him, and smiled gently.

“Good morning,” she smiled back, her cheeks flushed and breathing just as heavy as his.

Shawn leaned forward again and stole another short kiss, his mind rushing to all the open possibilities of kissing her wherever and whenever. “Good morning,” he grinned back, and it felt like the best morning.

-

It was meant to be a big picnic, but it looked more like a circus. Pretty much everyone that had already arrived at the cabins had come out to the big clearing in the forest; a summer meadow covered in lush grass and buttercups; to eat and drink and chat and laugh.

But two hours in, it had split up and devolved into a vast array of secondary activities. There was a group – including Jesse and Summer’s brother Riley – throwing a football around, mostly with their shirts off and loud yelling. There was another group doing drunken wheelbarrow races, and another slacklining by the tree line.

Shawn was sitting on the big picnic blanket next to Eli and Maya, as they watched Summer and her high school gang, including Molly, Paige, Jackson and Lewis perform their senior class choreography. Shawn didn’t think he’d ever laughed so hard in his life.

The music was blasting from a little Bluetooth speaker that Maya was holding, but they could hardly hear it over the sounds of everyone’s laughter and erratic shouting of instructions. Molly and Jackson definitely seemed like the two that remembered the majority of the steps, with Summer, Paige and Lewis practically falling over themselves, limbs waving around furiously.

Despite her being about three seconds behind the music, her eyes fixed on whatever movement Molly was doing, Shawn was mesmerised by Summer. Her hair, which she’d thrown into a high pony tail to dance, was totally falling out of the elastic – curls were flying everywhere, falling into her face and sticking to the sheen of sweat on her forehead. Her feet were bare, and her knees covered in grass stains and Shawn thought she looked like some kind of feral fairy, all that was missing was a ring of mushrooms for her to dance around badly.

“Terrible form!” Maya laughed loudly next to him, rolling onto her side as she stuck her tongue out at her boyfriend.

The sun was beating down on them and Shawn could feel the bridge of his nose starting to fry, but he didn’t mind. Sitting in that idyllic clearing, watching the girl that he thought maybe was his girlfriend mess around with her best friends, surrounded by birdsong and laughter, made him feel like he was living in a post card. Cell service was so bad out here, and the experience of being with Summer was so distracting, that he hadn’t bothered or felt the need to check his emails or oversee any twitter drama. He had no idea if Andrew had texted him, or if his upcoming recording schedule had collapsed. The modern world could have burnt to the ground and nobody would have been the wiser, or cared, to be honest.

Despite the hiccup with Jesse and all the confusion and weird feelings that had stirred up, Shawn could see how this was Summer’s happy place. Screw Disneyland, this had got to be the happiest place on earth.

“I’ve got a stitch,” Summer panted, half grinning, half grimacing as she clutched her side.

“You’re just trying to get out of it!” Paige exclaimed, shoving Summer lightly, everyone reduced to giggles.

“I’m too old for this shit,” Summer laughed back, collapsing on the picnic blanket next to Shawn. “I could barely do it back then, doing it now is asking too much!”

“You don’t want to relive our high school glory days?” Lewis asked sarcastically, as he sat down behind Maya, pulling her into his chest. Shawn wondered if Summer would let him do the same, but he didn’t want to push his luck.

Summer scoffed, pulling a face, “God no!”

“I’ve got to agree,” Paige added, cracking open a can of soda, “like, it’s not like high school was shit or anything, but I don’t feel particularly nostalgic about it either.”

“I reckon that whole thing about it being the best time of your life is some kind of bullshit propaganda. It sucked not having a driver’s licence and putting up with curfews,” Molly ranted, pulling up a tuft of grass and scattering it over her legs.

“Don’t forget the homework,” Jackson interjected, “and the standardised testing.”

“Miss McCarthy.” Summer said solemnly, closing her eyes as if to recall a distant memory. The whole group of high school friends groaned, and that seemed to put a final plug in the conversation. Miss McCarthy must have really been something, that something being nothing good, Shawn was sure.

The following hour was spent making flower crowns and daisy chains, music drifting from the speaker and mixing through their happy chatter.

Shawn had poked half a field’s worth of buttercups into what seemed to be every one of Summer’s curls, turning her wild mane into a full burst of yellow sunshine. She had placed a bunch of daisy-chain crowns on his curls, all haphazardly strung together and half falling off his head, but he loved it.

Eli was lying next to him on his back, going on about the shapes in the clouds above, but Shawn was barely listening. His eyes were fixed on Summer, as hard as he tried not to stare. She was sitting behind Paige and braiding flowers into her long red hair and she reminded him so much of Rapunzel from that Disney movie; her hair looking like a cloud of buttercups, nose slightly burnt and pink, the freckles scattered on her cheekbones becoming more prominent with every second in the sun, and giggles soft and warm.

Every so often she would glance over at him, catch him looking at her, and offer a smile. He was stretched out on his stomach, elbows propping him up, and every time she did that he wanted to reach out and touch her. Her knee was only half an arm’s length away and he wondered if he could get away with placing his hand over it without anyone making a comment.

“Oh my god!” Molly suddenly laughed loudly, her face totally lighting up. Everyone turned their attention to her, as she held up the speaker and turned the volume up. The distinctive sound of Shawn’s own voice started pumping from the small device in her hands, as There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back hit its first chorus. Shawn groaned bashfully, dropping his head to hide his grin, as everyone else started laughing loudly and singing along as best they could.

Shawn looked up, cheeks flushed, and found Summer’s lit up face just as she sang “I know we’d be alright, I know we would be alright,” right at him. His heart swelled to triple its size in that moment, and he couldn’t contain the grin cracking across his face.

Although he’d only met the majority of the group surrounding him yesterday, he felt supported and embraced, and when he looked at Summer, he felt secure.

The weather was warm, the food was good, and the laughter true. Summer was sunshine, a field of buttercups, and a jar of fresh honey and he found himself agreeing with the words she was singing at him, his words – things really did feel like they’d be alright.

-

TAGLIST (let me know if you want to be added!)

@crownedbyluke @24kcalum @divergentseagreengirl @carlaimberlain @5sosle @vnv21 @sayingloveat2am @tougherinrain  

[voicesfromthelight]

Some Experiential Examples of How Clairaudience Works

I was a teenager when I had my first clairaudient experience. I was in my hometown, walking alone, at night, in a quiet, empty park. All of a sudden, by my left ear, I heard a soft, kind voice. “Look up, and you’ll see a shooting star.” The vaguely masculine-sounding voice, I knew, was not my own, nor was it exactly that of another person, either. It felt like it was coming from an external source, but at the same time, I knew it wasn’t that of a flesh-and-blood person. Still, it felt completely natural and reassuring. I looked up, and at that very moment, a beautiful shooting star streaked across the sky.

Apart from lucid dreams, that was one of the few times I’ve ever had an unplanned clairaudient experience, and one of only two times in which the voice seemed to be coming from an external source. Let me make this clear: Healthy clairaudience is not the same thing as the kinds of uncontrolled hallucinations that plague people with schizophrenia. (Some psychics do feel that there is some overlap between this kind of mental illness and being clairaudiently susceptible to interference from lower-vibration entities, but as I, luckily, have no experience of such disturbing phenomena, I cannot say for sure.) While this isn't always the case, the most common form of clairaudience feels almost exactly the same as thinking verbally, in your head. You will hear your own voice articulating a word or a sentence that can be verified as objectively true, or meaningful in some other way. However, instead of actively formulating a thought, you are passively allowing the thought to come to you. If you are practicing your psychic skills with a solid foundation of well-grounded discipline, you should be able to switch it on and off at will through consciously tuning in and out. Everyone can do this with practice.

My clairaudience picked up in a more structured way quite recently, and has, for now, become my strongest, most reliable clair-sense. I realized that I had been activated in this way one evening when I was attending a psychic development circle, fairly early on in my studies of evidential mediumship. We were sitting in meditation, seeing if we could pass on any messages to the people who were present. A gifted woman sitting across from me in the circle had communicated a message, from a male presence, to a man sitting next to me. The man suspected that the spirit coming through was his neighbor from a previous home, but wasn’t quite convinced. “He says you own some plaid shirts you inherited from him,” she said. Yes, this was correct. As this conversation was happening, within my meditative state, my thoughts suddenly formed the name “Katie,” and then, what I thought was “Karate-Katie.” Then, I saw a woman with her hair in a brown bob, wearing the uniform of a flight attendant. My inner eye wandered through the plane in which she worked, like she was giving me a tour. I felt the energy of a person who was very playful and fun to be around. “Is there a Katie?” I asked. “Because I’m seeing a woman with a brown bob, named Katie, possibly nicknamed Karate-Katie, with a playful personality, who works as a flight attendant.” The man sitting next to me perked up. “Wait, is she alive or dead?” “I don’t know, but since she’s coming through, it would make sense that she would be dead, no?” “I’m asking because that’s my neighbor’s wife. But her name is Kristie, not Katie, and she’s still alive.” I had picked up on additional information the neighbor in question had been sending through to identify himself.

At the time this happened, I felt somewhat frustrated that what could have been such specific evidence had gotten garbled in transit. I had had experiences before, in lucid dreams, in which I had precognitively heard snippets of the names of people I would encounter for the first time the following day, along with claircognizant impressions pertaining to them. (An example of this was knowing that a taxi driver whose cab I would ride in had the name of a Roman emperor ending in -“ius.” It turned out to be Julius.) I wanted to get full names! I wanted hard proof! My instructor told me to relax. Why get frustrated with this one little glitch, when I had also been able to bring forth an occupation, a personality and an appearance? I still wanted to do better.

Sometime later, I was experiencing a psychic growth spurt after having figured out how to do clairaudient dictation (which I’ve written about at length in a previous post.) One day, while on my lunch break from working on a film set, I was sitting in a quiet corner, practicing my writing. My thoughts drifted back to the seance in which I had brought through Kristie’s garbled name. I thought to myself: “Next time, I’ll just ask outright: Can I get a name?” Now, I didn’t mean to actually ask the question at that moment, but immediately, my thoughts responded clairaudiently, as if answering it: “Alvarez.” Taken aback, I tuned back into my inner voice. I guessed my guides were still on the line. “OK. Alvarez who?” I asked. “Lou. Pilot.” I wrote it all down. It all seemed to come so out of the blue. How could I know if it had anything to do with an actual person?

Since I had no other way of verifying anything, still on my lunch break, I decided to google the information that had come through. I discovered that there existed a man by the name of Luis Alvarez, who had won the Nobel prize in physics. He had been an avid pilot, and among many other things, had developed breakthrough innovations in aircraft navigation. (Again with the airplanes!) He had also made use of cosmic rays to search for hidden chambers in an Egyptian pyramid, and was famous for his theory about an asteroid collision leading to the extinction of dinosaurs. This guy was certainly extraordinary, but, I thought to myself, all this could certainly be chalked up to confirmation bias. There was no way to know for sure. It might just be a coincidence.

I turned my thoughts back to the mediumistic process and clairaudience. Somewhat randomly, I thought to myself: “I wonder if answers ever come in the form of questions?” Again, the answer, unsolicitedly, instantly formed itself in my head: “How are we doing?” I smiled to myself. My guides seemed to be having fun treating my inner monologue as dialogue.

Thirty minutes later, my lunch break had ended, and my foreman walked up to me with a new prop he was preparing for a scene. We were working on a period piece set in 80s New York City, and the prop was an old newspaper with a picture of Mayor Ed Koch on the front page. My foreman said: “What’s that thing this guy was so famous for saying all the time? How am I doing? Yeah, that’s it!” He shifted his voice into a throaty imitation of the politician: “How am I doing? How am I doing? How am I doing?” he repeated. I had to take a moment to stop my jaw from dropping on the floor.

Since these experiences, my track record with bringing through complete names on a first try has gotten better. When they do come across garbled, it’s usually the middle letters that are swapped out, or the pronunciations that are slightly off. (”Tom” can sound like “Tim,” and “Marie” can sound like “Mary.”) The whole process is fascinating to me. As I’ve written before, learning to tune in clairaudiently is like learning to tune a radio to a specific frequency and tune out the interference. When what we hear is getting slightly broken up or scrambled, it is good to be able to back it up with other psychic impressions that are claircognizant, clairvoyant, clairsentient, etc.. But the key thing I have learned is to be patient with my development and appreciate every bit of information that comes through. Every little step of progress adds up in the long term.

Have you ever had a precognitive or clairaudient experience that seemed irrefutable? Did it change the way you thought about intuition, and the precision of the information we have the ability to bring through?

[meriibrittane]

Donna and Harvey AU in Paris

A/N: Hi! This is an idea I had while reading one of the fics and I thought I could write one based in Paris since I visited Paris a couple of times and I have just the right idea of where Harvey were to take Donna on a romantic trip.

Hope you enjoy!

Donna felt strange when she saw the note on her desk. Why is Harvey being so mysterious leaving her a post-it? She took the little square paper, pink, rose scented and all - it was from her office no doubt- carefully folding it in two as she made her way to the elevator, prepared to join him at the rendez-vous point.

Harvey felt his chest popping open. He grabbed his phone to check one more time that he didn’t forget anything. Everything must be perfect for the next few days. He saw his reminder for like the dozen times to not forget the flowers when they arrive and he was just trying to remember the name of the lady he should be calling for this when a beautiful redheaded made her appearance around the corner, walking the short distance to him like she was modeling at the NY Fashion Week.

She was wearing a black dress, knee-length with a chic, dark blue hem, making her look elegant and office at the same time. On top she had a faux-fur coat in the color of teal that leaned carefully to the sides.

“Hello stranger” she said with a smile, “I assume we are taking the weekend off to go to the mysterious location?” she accentuated the last couple of syllables while one of her fingers was seductively drawing circles on his tie.

“More like the whole week” Harvey added while popping out two plane tickets from his inner pocket.

“We really are going to Paris?!” Donna couldn’t believe her eyes. Usually she is one step ahead of every surprise he tries to pull on her but this time he really took the effort to make sure she stayed out of it.

“You didn’t see that coming, now I can say I have one on you.“ and as he said this words he opened the door for her before they both got in the car and set off to the airport.

...

Paris was just what Donna had hoped for. Of course Harvey chose the luxurious suite at the Ritz hotel in Place Vendôme. From their balcony they could see the Eiffel tower in its whole splendor and had it not been the brinks of winter they would have easily eaten breakfast lunch and dinner on the terrace.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me?! We are in Paris and you think we are not going to see the famous Printemps? Boulevard Haussmann is a must see, I am telling you, besides..”

Harvey was carelessly leaning on his elbow in bed next to his girlfriend and he said not a word preferring to smile as he watched her being silly but at the same time enormously happy. Seeing her like this made him feel like the luckiest man in the entire world. “...besides, I really feel like I need to upgrade my purse collection. A classical Louis Vuitton feels like everything i need right now.”

“Everything?”

“Well not really” she leaned to give him a peck “this is perfect, Harvey, really, I feel this is the happiest I’ve ever been”

“Then how about tonight we celebrate our happiness with a dinner at Le Jules Vernes at the top of the Eiffel Tower?”

“Whaat?! I thought it’s nearly impossible to get a decent reservation there and it must cost like crazy..”

“Have you met me? I’m Harvey Specter” he added with his famous smirk

“Well aren’t you a fine brag”

The weather at the top of the Eiffel Tower was perfect. Even though the weather was cold, the sunset skies showed unbelievable colours brought together to form the most romantic view. The wind was still.

The concierge showed them their table, with Donna happily holding Harvey’s arm. She was wearing her faux-fur again, this time over a red laced dress that screamed sexy from top to bottom. The cleavage was in a V-shape with the red lace carefully setting on both her breasts like it belonged there. Going down she had this beautiful motive on her side that complimented her curves yet so naturally. Her hair was like never before brought up in a loose but elegant bun, with strands of auburn hair that left her face so sit on her pale shoulders.

Harvey was beginning to feel nervous. He had planned this moment for a long time now. He knew he was gonna propose to her almost from the very first day he met her. How he was gonna do it he only figured these past months but once he decided that Paris was the best way to do it he never for a minute felt like it could go wrong. Until now.

Apparently, the table he required was no longer available, they were escorted to a more private one, but with less a view. When he objected to these decisions apologies flowed but Donna managed to calm him down with her easy-going composure like she always does.

When she talks it’s like all the gas on his fire suddenly dissipates and all of a sudden the weight on his heart lessens by the pound.

“This feels like quite the date. I didn’t know I needed this so much until now” she looked around trying to take everything in.

“You look like quite the date really. I think Paris suits you very well.” As he said those words her doe eyes were glitching in the dim light and he thought she looked more beautiful than ever.

The entrés arrived just as the Eiffel Tower was lighting up and seen from inside its sparkles made it feel like they were surrounded by stars. The main course was exquisite, duck sautée with a touch of pomegranate sauce but now it was time for dessert and Harvey’s heart rate enhanced dramatically.

“This was so good but I really don’t know how I’m gonna fit in the dessert” Donna said with a nod.

“Neither do I” Harvey said more to himself as apprehension about what was about to happen hit him.

“What did you say we were having for dessert?” Donna asked while taking a sip of her champagne glass.

“Uh, I..” he struggled to come up with words for this one but he was saved just in time by the waiter that pushed a silver plateau with a round cover on their table.

“This is the specialty for today in France as it is the epiphany. La Galette des Rois. Voilà!” with this he lifted the heavy lid to uncover a really simple pie decorated with beautiful floral striations on top. Harvey’s eyes looked confused as he tried to get a sense of everything. He remembered saying to them before that he wanted the ring to be included neatly into their final course but he did not expect this, he was puzzled. Where was the ring.

“There is a tradition” he explained as he cut the cake in two and settled each one with a piece “that says that whoever finds the féve-the charm inside the cake will be lucky all year long. Bon appetit!”

“Oh dear, now I have to eat it to see if I’m gonna get even more lucky than this” Donna smiled cheerfully and without any clue she firmly plunged her fork into the piece of cake but alas something shiny was revealed. She looked at it with disbelief and then she looked at Harvey  who was barely managing sitting down. Lifting up he pushed his chair in the other direction making room for him to kneel just in front of a perplexed Donna.

She could not believe her eyes. This charming but yet troubled man was really going to ask her to marry, her best friend and lover has made their already romantic trip to Paris even more perfect.

“Donna, I.. I know that sometimes I can be a pain in the ass but I also know that without you I’d be lost and I love you more than anything, like I never loved anyone and..”

“Harvey”

“Please let me finish or I might never really come to say everything I want to tell you tonight”

“Okay” she conceded as her hazel, perplexed eyes now became more glassy and full of love for the man in front of her.

“You know, I think I knew it from the first time we met, that you were different, you were something special and I was not gonna mess it up. Maybe this is why it took me 13 years to finally end up here and I’m sorry for all the times I’ve caused you pain. I will try to make up for it every day in the future because I want to spend the rest of it next to you. Donna...will you marry me?”

Donna’s features were lightening up at his words “Yes Harvey I will” she said as she was tearing up a bit. He gently put the ring onto her finger, at the same time getting up with Donna’s hands in his arms. Their faces now inches apart, looking into each other’s eyes it felt like time and space were dilating, they forgot where they were or for how long they remained there. The look of pure happiness Donna could see in his eyes was making her stomach fall and she could hear his heart beats like his chest was popping out.

I actually wrote this in January close to Epiphany Day, thus the twist with the Galette. For those of you wondering, it’s a tradition in France to eat a pie with a lucky charm hidden inside. Whoever finds it will be lucky the whole year long.

Hope you liked it, actually this is my first time writing something of the sort ^^

Feedback is well appreciated

[savannahspeaking-blog]

Why start the blog now?

To be honest, dedicating myself to this blog right now is a very awkward time for me. My endless to-do list just keeps growing as deadlines and graduation creep up on me. However, the fact that I am able to have an outlet that I can be completely open about my faith and walk with Christ that can reach anyone across the world has me--embarrassingly-- squealing of joy in my bed. I cannot wait to see what could happen with this, whether it’s making a difference in one person or one thousand, it will be worth it. The final push God gave me to create this was my experience with Him at the high school winter retreat this past weekend. After coming home I wanted to tell everyone how God impacted me but, that wasn’t enough. So here I am telling the world! Funny how that works. 

So what happened at winter retreat Savannah? Well, I’ll tell ya exactly what happened, friend! After school last Friday I rushed home and packed all my things in the span of fifteen minutes, (which is a record), and prayed over the weekend. I have been debating on going the summer church camp or to Haiti lately so I prayed for God to show me where He wants me to go. After that, I headed off to run errands with a friend of mine before getting to the church to leave! The moment I arrived at the church I knew immediately this retreat was going to be different than all the other ones. Not only did all my close friends graduate last year so it was just me but, I was drenched in anxiety when I got there. Being anxious is not a stranger to me, however, being anxious at my home church is. Usually, I am at my happiest there. So, in that moment, I knew two things; the enemy did not want me going and God was going to speak wonders into my life. The enemy knows when God is going to influence you, and he’s scared of His power, so he tries everything in his power to get you not to go. For example, earlier in the week there was a glitch in the registration system so technically I wasn’t signed up--luckily things worked out and I was able to go. Then the enemy would whisper in my ear all the reasons why I shouldn’t go, reminded me of how exhausted I have been recently. Finally, the day came to leave and once he realized I was still going he believed making my anxiety 10x stronger than before would stop me--HA! Once I was on the bus heading to the retreat, anxiety flooded over me the whole two-hour drive to Indiana. He even went to the lengths of using my PTSD against me with having the bus gets stuck in a ditch for ten minutes--which lead me to have a crazy panic attack after I got off, ugly tears and all, oops. I called my mom after it happened and she was almost in her car to come get me but I told her to stay home. I was not about to miss out on what God had in store for me. 

Man oh man did God move mountains. Even though I was pretty independent the whole trip, I made so many connections with many different people. The two most prominent ones were with the leaders at the camp. The first leader is who is in charge of the Haiti trip I want to go on this summer! My church has multiple different campuses that all go to the same retreat at once. So, it just so happens that she is a leader on my campus! If that isn’t a sign I don’t know what is. 

The second leader leans more on the deeper level. My first post explains how I want to get real with other teens about common problems we all face in this generation. So, I’m going to get real right off the bat. I confided in this leader about the lustful sins I have committed. Now, having lust and being a girl isn’t a popular duo in the Christian faith. However, it is totally there. If you haven’t seen a cute boy and thought “wow he’s cute I want to kiss him” you’re a dirty liar! Hahahah, jokes aside, it is a common sin, just not talked about a lot. I confessed to her everything I have done and there is freedom in confession. Right after I told her, my chains were broken. I was set free of that burden in my life. That sin that took pride in the darkness is now blinded by the light! I encourage you to tell someone who you trust and is mature enough to handle those type of confessions! 

After that moment, the rest of the weekend was a game changer. I saw everything in a new light. The Holy Spirit began to speak loud and clear to me. I began to lose myself in worship. During worship, I felt for the first time that the war with sin is over. That it. is. finished. Once that clicked with me I became that person jumping up and down when everyone else was swaying-- it got that real. 

Refreshed is an understatement for me. I finally feel that I can pour out to others again without becoming exhausted. So now, I am trying to think of fundraiser ideas for Haiti and becoming more of an open book with others. I’m allowing the Holy Spirit to mold me into who He wants me to be and what to do. Trying to take full control of my life is overrated anyway, so I am giving it all to God. He is my shepherd, my peacemaker, my Father. He will do everything in my best interest at heart. He is Lord.  

“He chases me down, fights till I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine”

[mooberg]

Moo do day off headcanons!