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heartofether · 3 years ago

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Episode 16 - Lorelei TRANSCRIPT

[You can listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts, or go to our “Listen” page if you’re on desktop.]

VAL

Warning: This episode contains discussions and descriptions of child abuse, and may not be suitable for all audiences. For exact time stamps and a full list of content warnings, please check the show notes. We suggest you check the content warnings regardless, since this is a bit of an intense episode, and contains instances of panic attacks, screaming, and violence. Listener discretion is advised.

AUTOMATED VOICE

[VERY SLOWED DOWN] Please state your message.

[THEME SONG PLAYS.]

VAL

Three-eyed Frog Presents: The Heart of Ether.

[THEME SONG FADES TO A STOP.]

[PHONE BEEP.]

[INT./EXT. OUTSIDE OF LORELEI FOSTER’S HOUSE, DAYTIME.]

[THE SOUND OF A RAVEN CAWING IS HEARD IN THE BACKGROUND.]

AGENT JUNE

Jeez, this place smells like a zoo.

AGENT MAY

I need to introduce the recording. Interview with Lorelei Foster, at her home. Part of Operation Saturn, phase 1.2. Conducted by Agents May and June. All— [CUTTING HIMSELF OFF] June, hey, stay in the car!

[AS HE TALKS, AGENT JUNE IS HEARD OPENING THE CAR DOOR AND STARTING TO STEP OUT.]

AGENT JUNE

What? Come on, dude, I’m getting impatient.

AGENT MAY

We’ll go up to her door in a minute. There’s just—I need to ask you something first.

AGENT JUNE

Oh. Why didn’t you just say so?

[HE CLIMBS BACK INTO THE CAR, CLOSING THE DOOR. AGENT MAY SIGHS.]

AGENT MAY

[SLIGHTLY NERVOUS] You are aware of the case of Lorelei Foster, correct?

AGENT JUNE

Uh, obviously. She was a part of some coven and they all went missing except for her. She moved to this house way outside of town and refused to show her face.

AGENT MAY

Well, under the naming conventions of Valencia and Wood, the Foundation believes that Lorelei Foster is what is known as a “Beastly.” What she could be capable of—it’s not something to play around with. Okay? She could be dangerous. Not deadly, per say, but still potentially devastating in her power.

AGENT JUNE

[PANICKED SARCASM] Wow, that’s super comforting, Agent May.

AGENT MAY

Just don’t say or do anything stupid, alright? Also, if when we see her, she looks, you know, different, don’t comment on it. Act like you don’t even notice.

AGENT JUNE

That’s all? Well, don’t worry about it, then. I’ve never judged a book by its cover. I’ll just stand there and act as well-behaved as I always do.

AGENT MAY

[UNDER HIS BREATH] That’s what I feared.

[THEY BOTH GET OUT OF THE CAR AND WALK UP TO HER FRONT DOOR. IT'S A LOVELY DAY OUTSIDE, WITH BIRDS CHIRPING AS IF NOTHING IS WRONG. AGENT MAY KNOCKS.]

AGENT MAY

Ms. Foster? This is Agents May and June. We’re with the Harper Foundation. We’re here to ask you a few questions.

[A RAVEN CAWS AS THERE IS NO RESPONSE.]

AGENT JUNE

Maybe she’s not home?

AGENT MAY

I don’t believe she ever leaves her house. Look at her car. It’s untouched. I’m sure she even gets her groceries delivered, somehow.

[HE KNOCKS AGAIN.]

AGENT MAY

We do not wish to harm you or bring you into custody, Ms. Foster. We won’t tell anyone what you are or what you’re doing here. We simply believe you may have some helpful insight on Ether. Just let us ask a few things, and then we’ll be out of your way.

[THERE’S A LONG PAUSE.]

AGENT JUNE

Maybe it’s a lost cause. Well, at least we can say we tried. Guess we should just—

[AS HE’S TALKING, THE DOOR CREAKS OPEN JUST A CRACK.]

LORELEI

You do not plan on taking photographs, do you?

AGENT MAY

We’re recording this over audio. Nobody will see your face except for the two of us, we promise.

AGENT JUNE

Yeah, don’t sweat it. We’re not gonna—[STARTLED] Oh my god!

[AS HE SPEAKS, LORELEI OPENS THE DOOR THE REST OF THE WAY TO REVEAL HER TRUE FORM.]

LORELEI

Is there a problem?

AGENT MAY

Not at all, Ms. Foster. Apologizes for my colleague, he is—

AGENT JUNE

[NERVOUSLY BLUFFING] I have a fear of new people. Yup. Terrified of ‘em.

AGENT MAY

[PLAYING ALONG] It’s tragic, really. Makes our job incredibly difficult.

LORELEI

[SUSPICIOUS] Quite.

[A BEAT.] Well, you said you had questions?

AGENT MAY

That we do. May we come in?

LORELEI

I would advise against it. Terrance is a pacifist when around me, but I am unsure of how he would react to new people.

AGENT JUNE

And who is Terrance, exactly?

LORELEI

A bear. [SADLY] Used to be a friend.

[A BEAR GROWLS IN THE BACKGROUND. AGENT JUNE MAKES A WEAK NOISE OF FEAR.]

LORELEI

I am still unsure whether his calm nature is because he maintained his human consciousness, or if I have some level of control over him that makes him do as I wish. Perhaps a mix of both.

AGENT MAY

Did you make him this way?

LORELEI

That much should be obvious, don’t you think? Assuming you really know what you’re talking about, and you’re not just bluffing.

AGENT MAY

We are somewhat familiar with your kind, but we’re always looking to learn more.

LORELEI

[SHE SCOFFS.] Is that what this is? You view me as a learning opportunity? Like a sample dragged in by the biology teacher for lab day?

AGENT MAY

Of course not. We’re just trying to learn more about Ether.

AGENT JUNE

I am very curious about how you managed to do it, though, if you care to indulge us?

[THERE’S A PAUSE.]

LORELEI

[SOLEMN] I never asked for any of this. When we attempted the ritual, our hope was that by the end of it, all of us would obtain the same level of power. Valencia told me it would never work. I had quite the rebellious streak back then, though. I didn’t believe him. Perhaps I should have.

If I had known that all of that power would have been channeled into me, I never would have attempted it. Now that time has passed, I realize how useless of a power it even is. What made Ether decide to curse me with it, I’ll never know. Perhaps we didn’t speak clearly enough when we did the ritual.

I had no idea what my limits were, or how to use my abilities. The consequences, of course, were far greater than I could have ever imagined. Terrance and Abigail were both accidents. Clementine, I turned her into a spider in a fit of rage. Scott happened when I was sobbing my eyes out, and he made the mistake of trying to comfort me. I am unsure if I intended to turn him into a snake or not. By the time River was the only one left, they came to me and asked to be turned into a cat. They said they knew I was bound to do it eventually, and they wanted to choose what animal they became. I did as they wished.

[JUST AS SHE SAYS THAT, A RAVEN FLIES OVER AND SQUAWKS. AGENT JUNE STARTLES, YELPING AT THIS.]

LORELEI

[SHE GIVES A DRY CHUCKLE.] I don’t think Abigail likes you.

AGENT MAY

You mentioned the consequences were far greater than you could have imagined. Was that in reference to the loss of your friends?

LORELEI

Oh, don’t make me say it. It would have been one thing if I simply turned my entire coven into my own little petting zoo. Now, however, I can never escape my own errors, even if I were to leave them all behind. I am forever haunted by the marks my ability has left. The bear paw that has become of my left hand. The raven feathers in my hair. The spider eyes sprawled across my face. The venom that drips from my fangs and burns my lips. And oh, how disappointing having the tail of a cat is, despite how elegant I thought it would be when I was a little girl. Cats used to be my favorite animal. They aren’t anymore.

AGENT MAY

Don’t you think River would take offense to that?

LORELEI

Hm. Perhaps you’re right.

[A CAT MEOWS FROM INSIDE.]

AGENT MAY

How did you access Ether’s power?

LORELEI

The same way I’m sure most people have. We did a ritual. Just as most of them do, it went wrong.

AGENT MAY

Do you know where exactly it went wrong?

[A PAUSE.]

LORELEI

Can I be honest with you? I have had years to think long and hard about the events that transpired that night. I read through our plans over, and over again, hoping to find a way to undo it all. After all of that, I came to the conclusion that whatever fault it was—whatever slip of the tongue or missing ingredient it could have been—none of it would have mattered.

Ether chooses who to favor and who to damn by the luck of a draw. Flip of a coin. It knows no order. It will do what it pleases. It is not a person, or a sentient being—it is a random number generator that can grant unlimited power if you get lucky. It’s a lottery of stones, however. Nobody is ever really winning, even those as fortunate as the Forget-Me-Nots, or those well-off enough to never hear about Ether at all.

[A PAUSE, THEN] Do you have any other questions? I’m rather sure my pets are looking forward to their dinner.

AGENT MAY

Just one: where is the heart of Ether?

[A PAUSE.]

LORELEI

I would be careful, if I were you. I’ve heard things, rumors, about your little project. Though I doubt you fully understand the dangers, seeing as you’re just the worker bees, hm?

AGENT MAY

It’s not my place to question, I’m afraid.

LORELEI

Perhaps you should. Never does anyone any good, blindly following orders.

[AS THEY TALK, RIVER MEOWS, PURRING AS SHE RUBS AGAINST AGENT JUNE'S LEGS.]

AGENT JUNE

[WHISPERING TO THE CAT] Ah—hey! Go away! Shoo!

AGENT MAY

If you could answer the question, I promise we’ll be out of your hair.

LORELEI

Hm. I’m afraid I can’t be of much help. For years, people believed Ether resided in the sky, but that is untrue. Though, during the brief window Valencia was willing to speak to me, he did tell me he had a theory—

[AGENT JUNE CUTS HER OFF BY SNEEZING.]

AGENT JUNE

[MUTTERS] Stupid cat!

[RIVER HISSES.]

LORELEI

[OFFENDED] I would appreciate it if you did not insult my animals.

AGENT JUNE

[CONGESTED] Then tell River to leave me the hell alone. Can’t you control them, or whatever? At least use your freaky powers to—

AGENT MAY

[OVERLAPPING] Agent June—!

AGENT JUNE

I just want this damn—

[THERE’S A TENSE PAUSE AS HE REALIZES LORELEI IS GLARING INTENTLY AT HIM.]

AGENT JUNE

I mean, uh, this lovely cat, to uh…I’m so sorry, ma’am, this has been incredibly rude of me.

LORELEI

[A BEAT.] What was your name, again?

AGENT JUNE

Juh—uh, Agent June?

LORELEI

Agent June. [SHE SAYS THE NAME WITH DISDAIN.] Agent June, do you have a favorite animal, by chance?

AGENT MAY

[WHISPERING, PANICKED] Don’t say anything. Just thank her and let’s go before—

AGENT JUNE

[OVERLAPPING] I don’t know. Uh, have you ever heard of Sonic the Hedgehog?

LORELEI

[MIXED WITH CONFUSION AND DISGUST] Sonic. The Hedgehog.

AGENT JUNE

[NERVOUS RAMBLING] Yeah! I was obsessed with those games growing up, and so I went through this whole phase where I wanted a pet hedgehog really bad, but my parents never let me have one. Said I was too irresponsible, or whatever. That dream kinda, like, carried over into my adult life though?

LORELEI

[NODDING] So, hedgehogs.

AGENT JUNE

Um, sure.

LORELEI

I see.

[A PAUSE.]

LORELEI

I do hope you’re happy with that choice, Agent June.

[A HIGH-PITCHED RINGING IS HEARD AS SHE REACHES HER HAND OUT. AGENT JUNE STARTS SPUTTERING IN FEAR.]

[EERIE AND TENSE MUSIC BEGINS TO PLAY.]

AGENT JUNE

[TERRIFIED] What the—?

AGENT MAY

Shit.

[AGENT MAY IS HEARD PULLING OUT A DART GUN AND SHOOTING A TRANQUILIZER DART AT LORELEI. SHE CRIES OUT A BIT, BEFORE STUMBLING, AND THEN COLLAPSING.]

AGENT JUNE

Did you just tranquilize her?

AGENT MAY

I didn’t have a choice. Come on, get in the car. The full effect only lasts forty-five seconds.

[THEY BOTH FRANTICALLY CLIMB INTO THE CAR, SLAMMING THE DOORS AS THEY GET IN.]

AGENT MAY

Are you okay? Did she change you at all?

AGENT JUNE

[HYPERVENTILATING] No, no! But it—this really weird feeling washed over me, like, like my body was trying to fit into a smaller one, I—that was the worst thing I’ve ever felt, oh my god.

AGENT MAY

[ATTEMPTING TO SOOTHE] Agent June, calm down. You’re safe now, okay?

AGENT JUNE

Yeah, only because of you. You just saved my life. I mean, technically, I would have survived, but I would have had to live out the rest of my days as a hedgehog!

AGENT MAY

[FRUSTRATED] Maybe if you had been able to hold your damn tongue for thirty seconds, this wouldn’t have happened.

[AS HE TALKS, AGENT MAY STARTS THE CAR AND SPEEDS AWAY, THE TIRES SQUEALING.]

AGENT JUNE

I’m sorry I was having an allergic reaction!

AGENT MAY

That’s no excuse for you to have said the things you did. I told you to keep it together.

AGENT JUNE

Stop trying to blame all of this on me. I don’t care if it’s my fault, I almost just lost my humanity. Do you know how horrifying that was?

AGENT MAY

[HE INHALES SHARPLY.] No, you’re right. You’re not entirely to blame for what just happened.

If only she had at least finished her sentence about Valencia’s theory.

AGENT JUNE

[GUILTILY] Yeah, that was pretty poor timing, huh?

AGENT MAY

We’ll find out one way or another. Might have to go back to Irene Gray.

AGENT JUNE

Ah yes, the other enemy we’ve made in this town.

AGENT MAY

I guess we’re going to have to find a way to change that, then. [A BEAT.] Turn off the recording, please.

[SOME SHUFFLING AS AGENT JUNE MOVES TO TURN THE RECORDER OFF.]

[PHONE BEEP.]

[RECORDING ENDS.]

[ANOTHER BEEP.]

[EXT. LEMONGRASS PARK, NIGHT.]

[IRENE IS SITTING IN HER CAR. THERE ARE CRICKETS HEARD IN THE BACKGROUND.]

IRENE

I’m parked in front of Lemongrass Park. To be honest, I’ve never actually been here, even though it’s so close to my house. It’s small, but it’s a nice park. There’s a swing set, a seesaw, one of those metal slides that would always burn my skin during the summer. Some nice trees, too.

[REMINISCING] Do you remember when we would go to the park late at night? It was really stupid of us to go there after dark, honestly, it’s a miracle nothing ever happened. Well, I mean, you did hurt your leg that one time you fell off the swing, which I still feel bad about. It felt so serene, though. Like we were the only people in the world. We were still clinging onto our childhood innocence, and you, you were so fond of that park near your house, and I was so fond of the way you laughed. You’ll love this park, too, I think, if you ever get to see it. You always loved places where—

Wait, hold on, I think—I think Sadie’s waving at me. She’s sitting over on one of the swings. At least, I think it’s her? Not quite what I expected her to look like, but then again, I don’t know what I was expecting. She’s wearing all black, and has a striped shirt underneath her t-shirt, even though it’s hot as hell. Is this how emo kids dress these days? I think Aden said something about “e-girls” or something. [SHE SCOFFS.] Jeez, I need to start keeping track of these things. I feel so old.

She’s also wearing a black fabric surgical mask, with a white design? I’ve hardly seen people wear those outside of the medical profession—I mean, there was one time, but that was an outlier. [SHE SAYS THIS PART UNCOMFORTABLY BECAUSE THIS IS REFERRING BACK TO THE FIRST TRAILER.]

It must be her, though. Otherwise, why would she be waving at me? I have the box of film in the passenger’s seat. Avery and I talked today, and they were incredibly vocal about how bad of an idea this was, but they said I’m an adult and can make my own choices.

Avery is…well. I think they have good intentions at heart. They act indifferent all the time, and they’re incredibly mature, but they seem…I don’t know. Sometimes, there’s this, fear, maybe? That bleeds through when they speak. I think they try to hide it. Reminds me they’re still, technically, a kid.

Right, I feel kinda awkward sitting here while Sadie is staring at me. Guess I should get this over with.

[IRENE GRABS THE BOX OF FILM AND STEPS OUT OF HER CAR. SHE WALKS TOWARDS SADIE. WHENEVER SADIE TALKS, HER VOICE IS JUST SLIGHTLY MUFFLED.]

SADIE

[FROM AFAR] Irene, right?

IRENE

Yup!

SADIE

Wonderful!

[SADIE WALKS OVER TO IRENE.]

SADIE

I’ll take that.

[SHE'S HEARD TAKING THE CARDBOARD BOX FROM IRENE.]

SADIE

Looks heavy! How many photos did you take?

IRENE

[HANDING THE BOX OFF] Thank you, uh, I didn’t take these, though.

SADIE

I see. That’s a bummer. I thought I’d met a person of similar passions.

IRENE

Sorry to disappoint.

SADIE

Don’t stress it! Where did you get the film, then?

IRENE

[LYING] It’s from one of my dead relatives.

SADIE

Mm. Sorry to hear that.

IRENE

It was a while ago, so it's okay.

SADIE

They sure took lots of photos. Do you have any idea what they photographed?

IRENE

No clue.

SADIE

Well, I’ll do my best to get this developed. I’m staying with my uncle for part of the summer, and he never uses his dark room, so I have it all to myself. You know, he has this massive house, spends lots of money on rooms he never uses every time he gets a new hobby.

IRENE

Odd he chose Daughtler of all places to stick it.

SADIE

You know, that’s what I said! My professor went green with envy when I told her about it, though. She said this is a perfect town to take pictures.

IRENE

You’re a student, then?

SADIE

Yup! Majoring in photography, in case that wasn’t already clear. [SHE GIGGLES.]

Anyways, I’ll try to get this developed for you as quickly as possible. It may take a while, ‘cause there’s so much of it, so would you like me to give it to you in batches?

IRENE

That would be great, yeah. Um, thank you. Are you sure I can’t pay you?

SADIE

Oh, please, don’t worry about it. Like I said, I’m just thankful for the opportunity.

So, any other questions for me? I’m happy to answer them.

IRENE

Um, I have a bit of a weird one.

SADIE

Hm?

IRENE

Why are you wearing a surgical mask? Is it, like, a germ thing, or are you sick?

[THERE’S A PAUSE.]

SADIE

I should go get started on this.

IRENE

Um, you didn’t—

SADIE

[AGGRESSIVELY CUTTING HER OFF] Pleasure working with you, Irene! I’ll get back to you about your first batch ASAP!

IRENE

[TAKEN ABACK] Oh. Okay, then. Um, bye.

SADIE

Later!

[IRENE WALKS TO HER CAR AND CLIMBS BACK INSIDE. THERE'S A PAUSE.]

IRENE

Well, that was interesting, for lack of a better term. Sadie seems fine? I guess I just got a bit too personal with the mask thing. I mean, if it makes her feel comfortable, I don’t see why she can’t wear it. I’ll try not to worry about it. As long as she can develop the photos, that’s what matters.

Though I am kind of worried. I mean, Valencia could have taken, well, suspicious photos, assuming they’re connected to his research. I have no idea. I guess we just have to hope? Sadie seems pretty okay with minding her own business, it seems, so if I’m lucky, she won’t question it.

[HER PHONE STARTS VIBRATING.]

IRENE

Oh, hang on. Avery is calling me.

[A BEEP AS SHE ANSWERS.]

IRENE

Hello?

AVERY

Just making sure you didn’t get murdered.

[AS AVERY TALKS, THERE IS THE SOUND OF MASHING VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER BUTTONS AND JOYSTICKS.]

IRENE

[SHE SCOFFS.] Well, I didn’t. Sadie was fine. You really had nothing to be worried about.

AVERY

[DISTRACTED] I mean, it’s still a really bad idea to be meeting someone in the park this late. Daughtler is a small town, but even if we don’t have much of a problem with normal creeps, weird stuff is still kind of the norm, you know?

IRENE

Yeah, I’ve gathered that much, I—wait, hang on, are you playing video games right now?

AVERY

Dude, it’s just Stardew Valley. It’s not like I’m fighting anything.

[A RAVEN CAWS FROM THE GAME.]

IRENE

[AWKWARDLY] I don’t know what that is.

AVERY

That’s because you’re old.

IRENE

Hey.

AVERY

[OVEREXAGGERATED, FAKE] Ah no, I just got attacked! I gotta hang up, sorry Irene!

IRENE

You just said there’s no—

[AVERY HANGS UP.]

IRENE

[DEFEATED] …combat.

[SHE HUFFS.] Talk to you later, I guess.

[PHONE BEEP.]

[RECORDING ENDS.]

[ANOTHER BEEP.]

[INT. THE APARTMENT ABOVE THE OPEN EYES BOOKSTORE, NIGHT. A BUDGIE IS OCCASIONALLY HEARD CHIRPING OR FLAPPING ITS WINGS IN THE BACKGROUND THROUGHOUT THE SCENE.]

[HOLLY IS HEARD SORTING THROUGH A GROCERY BAG AND SETTING THINGS ON THE COUNTER.]

HOLLY

Is it recording?

PHOEBE

Yes, it is.

HOLLY

Cool, cool. I got eggs, by the way. I know you talked about wanting to try to make pie at some point, and you were running low, so.

PHOEBE

[SLIGHTLY OVERLAPPING] Oh, um, thank you! Um, why were you out so late, anyways?

HOLLY

Hm? Oh, just a nighttime stroll.

PHOEBE

[WARY] I see.

[HOLLY WALKS OVER, AND SITS ON THE COUCH NEXT TO PHOEBE.]

HOLLY

Alright, then. You have the next letter? I guess all that’s left to do is open it.

[THERE'S A PAUSE AS HOLLY HESITATES.]

HOLLY

You sure you’re okay with me being in the room for this? I know her letters to you were, well, personal.

PHOEBE

It’s okay, don’t worry. I—I trust you. I’m sure Grandma Doe would, too.

HOLLY

[TENDERLY] That…that means a lot.

[A BEAT.] Go ahead, then.

[PHOEBE OPENS THE LETTER.]

PHOEBE

Phoebe, If you are reading this, I assume you have successfully completed the ritual. If it was not a success, well, I have a separate envelope marked for you to read. I suggest you find it.

HOLLY

Almost want to read the other one just to see what it says.

PHOEBE

[UNSETTLED] I don’t think that’s a good idea. If the alternative was that bad, well. I don’t want to think about what could have happened to me.

HOLLY

Fair, yeah. Continue.

PHOEBE

[SHE CLEARS HER THROAT.] If everything worked as well as I hope, then you have now stepped into your role as a Forget-Me-Not. I could not be more proud of you, little wildflower. What a lovely Forget-Me-Not you will be.

I have already warned you of some of the dangers, but now that this is your reality, I am going to begin to describe it all in more detail in order to prepare you. It is nothing I have not already mentioned in previous letters, however.

Now, let us start from the beginning: why did I name them the Forget-Me-Nots? Valencia thought it to be a rotten name. Too flowery, he said it was, too delicate. I believe it to be a sophisticated name. Better than the Hungry, or whatever other titles he’s come up with.

HOLLY

The hell is the Hungry?

PHOEBE

Um, I’m not sure. I’m sure we’ll find out?

HOLLY

Let’s hope.

PHOEBE

It goes on: Anyways, I called them the Forget-Me-Nots because it is not just about their quest for new knowledge. It is about the knowledge they already have. Sure, they know where to find any and all information, but what about that which is already within them? A Forget-Me-Not cannot forget anything. Even the tiniest detail, they will cling onto for the rest of their life. I still remember what I ordered at an Italian restaurant twenty-seven years ago. It was some mediocre chicken parmesan. The sauce was a bit too bitter for my taste, but I went back there because they had delightful breadsticks.

However, this is a double-edged sword. It is not just new information you will begin to retain. If only it was that simple. A Forget-Me-Not also remembers all which has happened before. This includes all of your life up to this point, from your early childhood, to more recent events.

When I chose you to be my predecessor, this is what I dreaded most. Your mother and I always considered it to be a blessing in disguise that you did not remember much of your childhood. I know you are aware of what happened, but the specifics are far worse than I think you’ve ever processed. I would not wish memories of that horrid time upon anyone, especially you. Your poor mother, my dear Agnes, she lives through them every day.

You may be forced to confront some of the memories of your father. The sick, rotten, vile man he was. I am eternally grateful I was able to save you from some suffering when you were a child, though I am deeply remorseful for all your mother put herself through. I wish I could be there to walk you through it all, to comfort you as you remember, but the circumstances are not in my favor.

You are stronger than you give yourself credit for, however, and you do not have to do it alone. Please do not hesitate to reach out to your mother if you find yourself needing the support. You could also talk to a friend—I’m assuming you have an abundance of those, you’re far too charming and sweet to not have any. Like I’ve said, isolation will only drain you of all you are. Nothing about this process will be easy, but I would not put you through it if I did not believe you could handle it.

Take your work slowly. Do not rush into it. Allow your mind to process the—

[PHOEBE SUDDENLY STOPS TALKING. THERE’S A LONG PAUSE.]

HOLLY

[A MIX OF CONFUSED AND CONCERNED] Phoebe?

PHOEBE

I— [A PAUSE, THEN] Sorry, sorry. Sorry. It’s just. [SHE TRAILS OFF.]

HOLLY

Is something wrong?

PHOEBE

Th—the letter, it’s just, um, got me thinking, I guess. About my father.

HOLLY

[CAUTIOUS] How much do you remember of him?

PHOEBE

[SHE GIVES A SHAKY CHUCKLE.] Oh, I’m trying to avoid that train of thought. I’m scared it will all come flowing in at once.

HOLLY

Oh, right, yeah. Try not to focus too much on it, okay?

PHOEBE

No, I’m okay, I just—I remember bits of it. More vividly, now, than I did before.

[WHAT FOLLOWS IS THE AFOREMENTIONED DESCRIPTION OF CHILD ABUSE. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.]

PHOEBE

Have you seen the stuffed cow sitting on my bed? It’s so old and worn, but it’s one of the most precious things I own. Its name is Baby. It’s, um, a silly name, I know. I used to play pretend with it, though, and act like I was its mother. I cradled it, pretended to feed it. So I named it Baby. [A BEAT, THEN] I didn’t remember why I named it that until now.

My dad hated Baby, though. He hated that I was so attached to a stuffed cow, of all things. He would constantly use Baby to threaten me, holding his ability to take it away over my head, because he knew that was a quick way to make me upset. If it was his choice, I’m sure he would have destroyed it. Not sure why he never did.

One day, when he was in a bad mood, and my mom was at work, I hid Baby inside my closet. He stormed into my room, and demanded for me to give it to him. I lied and said I had no idea where Baby was, but of course he didn’t believe me. He tore through my room, ignoring my pleas for him to stop, until he found Baby and took it away. I was forced to clean up the mess he made before my mom got home.

When she did get home, I instantly went and hugged her legs tightly and sobbed. I told her that Daddy had taken Baby away, and ruined my room. She asked me to take her to my room, so I did, only to find Baby sitting on the bed, staring right back at me.

My dad came in. “Of course I didn’t take the stupid toy,” he said. “She probably just misplaced it.” My mom didn’t argue. I was outraged. How could she believe him? Looking back, however, she knew something was wrong. I know she did. Even as a kid, I could read it on her face. He didn’t give her a choice, though.

[A BEAT.] He let me keep Baby, at least. Though he warned me not to try to tell mom what he did ever again. Otherwise, he would be very upset with me.

[A WET CHUCKLE.] And I didn’t even face the worst of it. I would spend days, weeks even, here with Grandma Doe when my dad was especially bad. That’s why her and I were so close, and why I didn’t remember so much of what my dad did. My mom had to endure most of it, though. That is, until she was finally able to get a divorce. He was arrested for a few years, I never learned what for, but I hope it was for the right reasons. When he got out, my mom got a restraining order against him.

The last time I saw him was my eighth birthday. He didn’t get me anything.

[THERE'S A LONG PAUSE.]

HOLLY

I’m going to kill him.

PHOEBE

[NERVOUS CHUCKLE] I—I appreciate you caring, but—

HOLLY

[A BIT TOO ANGRY] No. I mean it. If he’s still alive, I’ll kill him.

PHOEBE

[SLIGHTLY STARTLED] I don’t know if he’s still alive. I mean, it’s not like I’ve made an effort to reach out to him, heh.

HOLLY

[A PAUSE, THEN, SINCERE AND EMOTIONAL] I’m so sorry.

PHOEBE

It—It’s okay! Really. I promise. It was a long time ago. It’s just…I’m not sure how much I’m going to remember. As time goes on. I mean, I’m sure I would have been forced to confront my childhood eventually, this is just kind of speeding up the process.

HOLLY

You can always come to me, you know. If it gets to be too much.

PHOEBE

I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Holly. Really.

HOLLY

Of course. Anything I can do. [A PAUSE.] Would a hug be okay?

PHOEBE

[SHE TAKES A SHAKY BREATH.] A hug would be nice.

[THERE ARE FABRIC RUSTLES AS THEY ARE HEARD EMBRACING.]

[PHONE BEEP.]

[RECORDING ENDS.]

AUTOMATED VOICE

Today's quote is: "In every couple there is one who is the historian of the relationship."

Susan Sontag in Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963.

[OUTRO MUSIC AND CREDITS PLAY.]

[AT THE END OF THE CREDITS, THERE IS A BRIEF, HIGH-PITCHED RINGING NOISE, THAT BEGINS TO BREAK UP BEFORE STOPPING ABRUPTLY.]

#heart of ether transcripts

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timetraveller29 · 4 years ago

Text

At Last

A Doctor Who fanfiction for #WhouffleWeek2020

Day 4 - Coat, outerwear / Food

Featuring the Thirteenth Doctor and Clara

The Doctor was working on a problem that had plagued her for not just days but weeks now. She danced around the console, from tweaking measurements one side to dials on the other, glanced at the displays, grimaced, then changed something yet again. It was proving difficult at the very least. She stopped and exhaled.

Maybe she should stop bothering about it.

But she couldn't help it.

It was so hard to be alone! And she adored her new TARDIS team, sure, but they didn’t know her. They didn't understand the darkness of her past, and if they knew, they'd probably leave her... just like so many companions had left her. And then there were others she had left behind...

The Doctor missed all of her friends with a burning constancy. Bill Potts, Missy, even Nardole! And she knew it was foolish to hope to find any of them, but there was a slight possibility that there was one person she could meet.

On second thought? Maybe it did make sense to give up.

She turned around slowly, boredly, expecting to see that same result she’d grown used to... null. Nothing. Zero. A blank space, and then she’d have to start all over again with a new plan...

Wait!

A wild, crazy grin grew on her entire face, a grin that popped at the eyes and wrinkled her nose.

“Yes,” she whispered. Then, louder and louder: “Yes, yesss, YESSS!”

And she prepared the TARDIS, pressing a number of buttons, turning dials, entering coordinates, until she finally gripped the lever in her hand. At last, long last! She felt the power course through her veins as she held off for a mere second, relishing what she was about to do. And down went the lever with a satisfying, resounding thrum from the engines...

She was off.

“So! Where to, next?” Ashildr said, in a distant and second-hand set of dimensions.

The room was white and blaring. They hadn’t been able to change the desktop theme yet. The manual hadn’t been particularly helpful, and it made Clara understand why most of the time the Doctor preferred to steer through trial and error...

“I don’t know,” she said to her, standing up and staring at the vision screens. One of them showed a rolling peach coloured ocean at a pearly white coast, one of the most gorgeous planets they’d visited in their travels. They didn’t get into nearly as much trouble as the Doctor would, though. That was heartening, what with her delicate... health... She placed a hand on her wrist, subconsciously looking for a pulse again. It had become a bad habit. She noticed, and scratched her ear instead. “Maybe we’ll just... Stay here for a while... We could just have a stroll, look at the view, and have a swim in the eveneing! Who knows what we'll find? And we could always leave the next adventure till tomorrow.”

Ashildr was unconcerned. “Sure, whatever you want.” She sat down on a chair and propped her feet on a footrest, both silver as the floor designs, with a journal on her lap.

Clara rolled her eyes. Her companion could be really unenthusiastic sometimes. Well, what she thought of as her companion.

“Right,” she said, “I’ll be out in reception if you need me... I’m gonna finish up some of that banana icecream from the pantry...”

“You know that eating is probably not recommended in your case, right?”

“It helps me think, okay? And so what if I don’t have a metabolism anymore, I still have senses!”

“Okay,” she said, holding up her hands in a concilliatory fashion, knowing it was a touchy subject. “Okay, go ahead.” And she went back to writing.

Clara glanced at the screen again. “What -?” She flipped her head around at Ashildr, then back again. “Do you –”

“I see it.”

“Should I -?”

“Go! Find out.”

She put her journal aside and stood to observe the second screen, the one that had changed. Her companion dashed inside to change into her waitress uniform. Well, what she thought of as her companion.

Meanwhile, the figure on the screen moved to the counter and sat down.

“Hey!” Clara said to her with a smile, entering the main hall of the diner at last.

It was like water bursting out of the ground in a barren desert. The Doctor looked at her, and everything came alive, fervently and insistently: the Ice Warrior in the submarine, the mummy on the Orient Express, the portrait of her in Time Lord Hell where it hung for billions of years, and the dazzling euphoria of bringing her back on Gallifrey... It filled her heart, and there was only one thing to be said...

“Doctor,” Clara said nodding at her confidently, interrupting her train of thought.

She raised her eyebrows, impressed.

“You recognised me! Clara Oswald, ever full of surprises.”

Clara grinned. “As are you!” she countered. “Where did you find your memories? Guess that Neural Block didn’t work on you for too long, eh?”

“Nah,” she said, broadening her shoulders. “It’ll take more than that to get you out of my head, Clara Oswald! Although I did have a lot of help... Tell me," she said, remembering her point, "how are you? I'm so sorry I couldn't help you more last time, that I –"

"Don't! Don't apologise," Clara shook her head, her ponytail bouncing with it. She looked serious. "You were so amazing, Doctor. This? Me being here, talking? That's all you! So don't ruin the effect by being humble. It doesn't suit you."

The Doctor closed her mouth. Oh, yeah. That's who she had been, after all: proud and entitled. And Clara was the same. Neither her past self nor Clara had ever dealt well with raw emotion. Good reminder; something she would have to work on this time around.

"No matter," she said. "So, go on," she added, raising her tempo to something more cheerful, "Clara, the Time Traveller! Have you travelled much? I see you've picked a scenic spot to park yourself. The vagabond life treatin’ you well?”

“I’ve had some okay adventures,” she shrugged. “Nothing too crazy, thanks to your esteemed absence.”

“Hah! Well, I’m glad you’re taking care...”

“And nice look, by the way!”

“Thank you! I was wondering if it suited me... Brand new face and all!”

“I love your new coat! Very Doctor-y.”

“Oh yeah? I thought you might approveñ”

“It’s gorgeous... On the other hand, the colours? Yellow suspenders? I can see there that you’ve started to call back the... ahem!... fez-like... fashion choices...” Clara read the growing offense on the Doctor's face and popped herself underneath the counter to hide –

“What's wrong with yellow? Plus! Fezzes! Are cool!”

She jumped out of her seat and began to lean across to get a glimpse of Clara and where she was hiding.

“No they’re not!” she teased. “Fezzes have never been cool, and neither are bowties! Come on, it's a new face isn't it, grow some new taste!”

“How dare you! You know I never criticised you for the way you –”

“Oh? Oh yeah?” She popped up from the opposite end of the long table, holding some plastic jars in her arms. “She’s got a face so wide she needs three mirrors!” she said trying to do a deep, gruff voice. The Doctor scrambled over the counter and raced to catch her, but Clara slipped open a door and locked her on the staff-only side. “Oh! Stay there,” she giggled, “stay there, or I’ll call in security!”

“Clara, let me out! – and I only said that because it’s true! What did you need three mirrors for?!”

“It helps to make sure my makeup is even! You know, the face colouring you never understood!”

“Well, I do now!” she lunged her arms forward to get at the latch and escape from her trap behind the counter but Clara slapped her away and raised up her hand, balancing jars dangerously with the other.

“Peace,” she called. “Peace offering! Doctor! Look, I’ve got banana icecream!”

The Doctor dropped her arms at that and rolled her eyes at Clara, who was comically supporting the jars between one arm and knee. Then she chuckled and gave her a warm smile, one that reminded Clara of the way the Doctor would look at her in a earlier, simpler times... “All right,” she said, leaning her elbows on the counter and raising her eyebrows. “Okay, we'll let it rest. Just for the banana icecream... Bananas are good.”

“That,” Clara said, settling herself on a stool and setting the ice cream between them, “That, we can agree on...”

The Doctor reached into a drawer to produce some spoons, her heart swelling. It was a strange thing, but it was so refreshing to be around Clara again, to be surprised, to be challenged, even criticised... to be known.

When the universe turns you upside down, there's nothing that can bring you back on your head like an old friend.

... All the while, Ashildr watched them and gave a heavy sigh.

She disabled the audio and stepped away.

It wouldn’t last, she knew. Even with her memories back, the Doctor would have to leave Clara once and for all. The girl was on the final thread of her life, maybe streached out a bit longer, but final nonetheless. There would have to be a goodbye, a difficult one, and simple comfort food wasn’t going to help either of them with that...

Still. At least it happened.

She turned a page of her journal, thinking.

Perhaps, in some cases, it’s better to focus on the good times you’ve had with someone, even the fleeting ones, instead of the pain they leave behind. Perhaps temporary happiness does beat permanent indifference.

Well... for mortals, at any rate.

She glanced up from her chair from time to time as they conversed, gesturing animatedly at each other, as the day wore on. Clara seemed to have forgotten about her plan to go swimming. She was so happy just talking to the Doctor, did she dare interrupt?

No. She smiled. This was what Clara had been waiting for. She'd let her have one day to herself, one day pretending to be alive and with the Doctor, at last.

#WhouffleWeek2020 #whouffle week 2020 #doctor who #thirteenth doctor #thirteen #Jodie Whittaker #Clara Oswald #Jenna Coleman #Ashildr #me #mine #writing #fanfic #fanfiction #whouffle #writingtimes29

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buoyantsaturn · 5 years ago

Text

I’m in Hell (9/?)

summary: it’s thanksgiving! plus some

word count: 8,359

read on ao3

Nico was so incredibly, unimaginably bored. During the evenings and on weekends, he had Will and Bianca to occupy his time, but when they were at work and school, what was Nico supposed to do? The house was clean, the laundry was done, and their wedding was planned, so Nico wandered around the house aimlessly in search of something to do. What did he even do with all his free time in the past? Did he really spend so much time on his homework every day?

At the thought of his classes, Nico brought out his laptop. He’d had to complete a manuscript for the final assignment in one of his classes, and what good was a manuscript that was just sitting in a folder on his desktop?

He started off with a simple reread, though once he got a few pages in, he decided to start over from the top of make some minor edits. By the time the front door opened and Will and Bianca returned home, Nico was about a quarter of the way through his manuscript.

Will came around the corner into the living room and leaned over the back of the couch to press a kiss to Nico’s cheek. “Hey, Babe,” he greeted, and Nico turned his head to meet him for another kiss, though Will held back and gasped. “You’re wearing your glasses again!”

Nico frowned, wondering why glasses would keep him from getting a kiss. “Yeah, and?”

Will darted forward and pecked at Nico’s lips. “You look good in glasses. What are you working on?”

“Manuscript,” Nico replied simply, turning his gaze back toward his laptop.

“A new one?”

Nico shook his head. “Same one as before. I’m going to edit it as much as I can and then send it off to a few publishers to see if anybody will take it.”

“That’s great!” Will wrapped both of his arms around Nico’s shoulders from behind and pressed kiss after kiss to any part of Nico he could reach. “I’m proud of you.”

Nico tensed, hiking up his shoulder in an attempt to bump Will away, though Will just held Nico tighter. Nico squirmed. “Get off of me,” he said, beginning to laugh when Will’s kisses on the side of his neck started to tickle.

“Alright, fine,” Will said, though he pressed one forceful kiss to Nico’s cheek before he pulled away completely. “I’m feeling pizza tonight, what do you think?”

“Yeah, sure,” Nico replied, and when Will stepped back, Nico stretched his arms over his head. “Does Bi have any homework she needs help with?”

“Yeah, but I’ll help her,” Will replied. “You go ahead and keep working on your book.”

Nico saved his document and shut his laptop, jumping up off the couch. “No, you should relax. You’ve been working all day, and I could use a break from editing anyway.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Go sit, and order the pizza or something.”

With a nod, Will turned and went back into the living room, while Nico made his way into the kitchen, where Bianca was sitting at the table, her homework already spread out in front of her.

Nico pressed a kiss to the top of her head as he sat down beside her. “Hey, Princess, how was school?”

After a week or so of editing and proofreading and editing some more, Nico decided that if he read through his manuscript one more time, then he was going to drive himself crazy. He took a day to find the submission requirements of a few different publishing companies, then mailed out an armload of manuscript-filled envelopes while he was on his way to pick Bianca up from school.

Then, the next day, he was bored again.

Luckily for him, he only had a few hours to lounge around without anything to do before Will came home from work, having taken an earlier shift than usual that morning to get him home just after lunch.

Will dropped himself onto the couch beside Nico, resting his head in Nico’s lap and throwing his legs up over the arm of the couch. “I could use a nap,” Will said.

“Nope.”

Will pouted up at him. “What do you mean, nope? I can take a nap if I want to!”

“Nope, I’ve been bored out of my mind for the last few hours, and if you take a nap, then I’ll be bored again,” Nico explained.

Will hummed. “What if I keep you entertained for a little while, and then I can take a nap?”

Nico raised an eyebrow. “What kind of entertainment are we talking about?”

Will grinned. “Did you have something in mind?”

Nico twisted a finger in one of Will’s curls and gave it a light tug. “No, but it sounds like you do.”

Will reached up and grabbed onto the collar of Nico’s shirt, pulling him down for a kiss. “I’m thinking… We get up, we go to the bedroom, close the door…and figure out what we’re wearing in our wedding.”

Nico snorted, knocking his head forward, and accidentally headbutted Will in the nose.

“Ow!” Will exclaimed, sitting up and holding his nose.

“Sorry!” Nico shouted, though it was difficult to sound sincere while he was laughing so hard. “Are you okay?”

Will frowned at him, and let go of his nose. “I think so.”

Nico took Will’s face in both hands and drew him in to place a kiss on the bridge of his nose. “Better?”

Will scrunched up his nose. “I guess.”

“So,” Nico said, “you don’t know what you’re wearing in the wedding yet?”

“No, why, do you?”

“I have a suit, if that’s what you’re asking. Don’t you?”

Will shook his head. “I mean, I have a suit, but… No, I’ll need to get a new suit, shoes, I’m thinking maybe I should get a bowtie--”

“Do you even know how to tie a bowtie?”

Will pouted. “I can learn!”

Nico’s hands slipped down from Will’s cheeks to lock loosely behind his neck. “Do you want to go buy something? We could at least go look around somewhere even if we’re not buying anything, and we could figure stuff out for Reyna and Cecil, too.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Lunch first, though? I haven’t eaten since I left here this morning,” Will told him.

“Of course. Want me to make you something?”

“You don’t have to,” Will replied. “I was probably just gonna throw a sandwich together.”

“Let me,” Nico said, already standing. “Hot or cold?”

“Cold’s fine.”

“Any special requests?”

“No,” Will said, his reply muffled by the pillow he’d fallen onto. “Surprise me.”

Nico entered the kitchen and gathered a few sandwich ingredients, taking his time as he made two sandwiches - one for Will and one for himself - though he didn’t get far before his phone started to ring. He set the device on the counter nearby, answering the call and setting it on speaker phone. “Hey, Annabeth, what’s up?”

He heard her let out a frustrated sigh. “The project I’m on just got canceled so I’ve got nothing to do for the rest of the day and I need to vent.”

“Huh,” Nico muttered, then hurried to say, “I mean, that sucks, and I’m happy to let you vent at me, but would you be interested in coming shopping with me and Will this afternoon? It’s for wedding stuff.”

“Oh!” Annabeth said in surprise. “Uh, sure! I was just gonna head home and stew in my anger but that sounds like a much better idea. Just let me know when and where, and I’ll meet you there.”

“Actually, do you have any stores in mind? You know, since you’ve done this before and I haven’t.”

Annabeth snorted. “Yeah, sure. I’ll text you the address, just let me know when you’re ready.”

“Sounds good. See you soon.”

Nico ended the call before he finished up the sandwiches and carried both plates back to the living room. Will was on the couch where he’d left him, but now he was sprawled out across the length of it, appearing asleep though Nico had a hard time believing he could fall asleep so quickly.

“Wake up, Sunshine,” Nico said gently, and Will cracked one eye open to look at him.

“Have I told you that I love you?” Will asked before he pushed himself upright to lean back against the arm of the couch.

“Not in the last...six hours or so,” Nico replied. He stepped closer to hand the plate over, but pulled it back at the last second and leaned down for a kiss.

“Well, I love you,” Will told him with a smile, and Nico handed over the plate. “Thank you, Darling.”

Nico lifted Will’s feet off the other end of the couch and set down, letting Will’s legs rest in his lap, and balanced his plate on Will’s shins. “Annabeth just called, by the way,” Nico said. “She’s gonna come shopping with us.”

“Oh, thank God,” Will said, “someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“Do you guys have any sort of color theme that we should be looking for?” Annabeth asked as she led them into some independent wedding boutique.

Nico and Will exchanged glances, and Nico shrugged. Will said, “I don’t think we do. Should we?”

“If you don’t have a lot of decorations, then it’s not a huge deal, but you should probably at least have something to give a little cohesion to the wedding party. So, any thoughts? Favorite colors maybe? Knowing Nico, I would normally say that classic black and white would be the way to go, but we don’t want your wedding to look like a funeral.”

“Well, you’re right about that,” Will said, and squeezed Nico’s hand as he looked down at him. “Any ideas?”

“Aside from black and white? No. You?”

Rather than answering, Will looked back at Annabeth. “Any suggestions?”

Annabeth looked between them like they were a complicated equation she was trying to solve in her head. “Show me your engagement rings.” Nico and Will held out their left hands without question, and allowed Annabeth to examine the rings. “Why not silver and gold?”

“That’s a great idea!” Will said with a grin, and grabbed Nico’s hand again. “What do you think?”

Nico smiled back up at him. “That sounds perfect.”

“Great, so now that we’ve got that figured out,” Annabeth started, “what are we here for?”

“Well, I need to get a suit, but I can do that on my own time. We were thinking...ties? Shoes, maybe?”

“Do you think they have flower girl dresses here?” Nico asked.

With a shrug, Annabeth replied, “I don’t see why not.”

“Oh, shit!” Will exclaimed suddenly, possibly too loud for the quiet store they were in, and startled the other two. “We don’t have a ring bearer! Do we need one of those?”

Nico turned to Annabeth for an answer.

“We didn’t have one, but if you want, I could see if Luke wants to do it.”

“Great! So we can look around for something for him, too, just in case,” Will said, and started leading them further into the store.

“I see ties over there,” Annabeth said, and pulled on Nico’s arm to guide them in the right direction. She stopped a few feet away from the wide array of ties on display. “We’re going with silver and gold, right?”

“I found silver,” Nico said, reaching for one of the ties, and on the other side of the display, Will selected another tie and announced, “I have gold!”

“Good. Now trade,” Annabeth said.

“What? Why?” Nico asked.

“If you trade, it’ll match your rings,” she explained, her eyes still scanning the display until she seemed to find what she was looking for and selected another tie. “You don’t have to, of course, it’s just a suggestion.”

“No, I think we should,” Nico agreed, and held the tie in his hands out to Will. “It feels, like, symbolic, somehow.”

Will smiled at him, and swapped ties. He turned toward Annabeth and asked, “What do you have there?”

Annabeth held up a silver and gold striped tie. “I’m going to ask if they have something like this for kids. Actually, you need a dress for Bianca, too, right? Let’s go find a kid’s section.”

They wandered the store for a short while - not too long because the store wasn’t actually all that large - until they found the children’s section. As Nico and Will wandered toward the area marked for flower girls, Annabeth went toward another display of ties.

Nico and Will meandered between the rows of clothes, ending up on opposite sides of a single rack as they sifted through dresses. “Do you ever feel like you have no idea what you’re doing?” Nico asked over the rack.

“You know, it’s not like I’ve planned a wedding before either,” Will teased. “I’m just really good at pretending to know what’s going on.”

Nico searched through a few more dresses before he continued, softer than before, “I’m glad I have you to pretend with.”

Will grinned, and there was a sparkle in his eye. “Yeah, I’m really glad I get to plan this wedding with you, it would really suck to have to get married by myself.”

“Don’t make me call this wedding off,” Nico threatened, but couldn’t keep the smile off his face even as he said it.

“You wouldn’t. You love me too much!”

“I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Okay, well, since our wedding is still on because you love me more than anyone has ever loved anything on the planet, what do you think of this one?” Will pulled a dress off the rack and held it up for Nico to see. It was primarily made of a shimmering silver material, and had a gold sash tied into a bow in the back, which separated the simple top of the dress from its poofy tulle skirt.

“That looks perfect,” Nico told him, “except I hope you know what size will fit her, because I have no idea how children’s clothes are sized.”

Will had a late start later in the week, so he volunteered to take Bianca to school before heading out to find himself a suit for the wedding, but before he left he asked Nico, “Are you sure you have a suit to wear?”

“Yes, I promise you, I have a suit,” Nico told him for what felt like the tenth time.

“‘Cause you know I’m going out to get one for myself right now if you want to join me, and you can get one for yourself.”

Nico stepped up to him and held Will’s face in his hands. “I’m going to try to say this clear enough that it gets into your head and finally sticks: I have a suit. I don’t need another one. Now, I love you, but please leave so Bianca isn’t late for school.”

Will hummed, eyes narrowing. “Alright, if you say so.” He darted forward for a kiss, and when he pulled back he said, “Love you, too.”

Once Will and Bianca had left, Nico made his way to his bedroom and threw open the closet doors. He searched through the clothes, though he wasn’t able to find his suit after a few minutes. He tried to think back to when he packed up his room at Hazel’s apartment, but couldn’t remember packing or unpacking his suit, so he decided it must still be over there.

Nico got dressed and headed over to Hazel and Frank’s place, not bothering with a warning text since he still had a key and he was just going to pop in for a few minutes at most. He wasn’t expecting, however, that when he opened the door, Frank would be sitting on the couch in his pajamas and eating a bowl of cereal.

“Uh, hi?” Frank said, his voice expressing confusion but no surprise at all, as Nico froze in the doorway. “Did Hazel leave the door unlocked for you?”

“Um, yep, she must have,” Nico said awkwardly, hoping that he wasn’t being too obvious as he stuffed his keys back into his pocket. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to be here, or I would’ve texted first. I just need to grab something from my old room.”

“Sure, no problem,” Frank said, and he turned back to his cereal and whatever was playing on the TV.

Nico hurried through the apartment, heading straight for his old room, which was almost entirely bare aside from the few furniture pieces he’d left behind. He walked up to the closet and slid open the pocket door, though there wasn’t even a single empty hanger inside.

He dropped his head against the doorframe and groaned. “Shit,” he whispered, then called out of the room, “Hey, Frank, did you guys empty out my closet?”

“No, that was you,” Frank replied.

Nico stepped out into the hallway so that he didn’t have to shout as he continued, “I could’ve sworn I had a suit in there! I wore that suit on my first date with Will, but I can’t find it anywhere! I was going to wear it for my wedding!”

Frank tipped his head back on the couch and shot Nico a frown. “You were just going to wear some regular old suit for your wedding? Neeks, you have to get a new one.”

“Well, yeah, I do now, because I have no idea what happened to my other one,” Nico complained, walking back into the living room. He leaned his forearms on the back of the couch beside Frank’s head and hesitated for a moment before asking, “So, uh, are you doing anything today?”

“Are you about to ask me to go tux shopping with you?”

“Maybe.”

Frank shrugged. “Sure, I don’t have any plans. Besides, I’m gonna need my own suit one of these days, so better sooner than later, right?” He glanced up at Nico. “It’s not weird to get a suit before even talking about the wedding, right?”

“I think you’re in the clear.”

“Cool. Just let me finish eating and, you know, get dressed, and we can head out.”

“Alright.” Nico made his way around the couch and sat down to wait. “Oh, and we can’t let Will know we’re doing this, because I promised him that I already had a suit.”

Frank raised an eyebrow at him, then looked back to his cereal, nodding. “Alright, very cool, start your marriage off on a lie, that’s fun. That’s fresh.”

For another week, Nico felt like all he did was sit around. There was cooking and cleaning to do every so often, but still, when Bianca was at school and Will was at work, Nico had a hard time figuring out what he should do with himself.

His phone started ringing one afternoon, though he didn’t recognize the number. Normally, Nico would ignore a call from a number he didn’t know, but with nothing else to entertain him that day, he figured he could make himself some fun by screwing with whatever telemarketer was on the other end.

He picked up the phone with a simple hello, and heard in response, “Hello, this is Malcolm Pace from Wise Owl Publishing, can I speak with Nico di Angelo please?”

Nico straightened up in his seat despite the fact that Malcolm couldn’t see him, and stuttered out, “This is me-- That’s me, I’m Nico.”

“Hi there, Nico, how are you doing today?” Malcolm asked politely.

“I’m fine, how are you?” Nico answered automatically, his body completely frozen in shock, though one knee slowly started bouncing in place until the movement became rapid and practically shook Nico’s entire body.

“I’m doing great, thanks for asking. I’m calling about a manuscript you sent in recently; Wise Owl Publishing is very interested in what you’ve sent us. I’d like to schedule a time to meet with you here in the offices so that I can talk you through all of the technical aspects of getting your book published, and have you sign a few things. Would you be available sometime soon for a meeting?”

“Yeah, yes! I have, uh, my mornings are free all this week, so is there any time then that would work for you?”

“Let me just check on that…” Through the phone, Nico could hear the sound of Malcolm typing rapidly on his keyboard until he continued, “Yes, it looks like I’m free tomorrow morning at ten-thirty. How does that sound?”

“That’s perfect.”

“Great! It looks like I already have your email, so I’ll be sending you a follow-up shortly just as a reminder, and I’ll include the building’s address and directions on how to find my office once you arrive. And I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“See you tomorrow.”

As soon as Nico hung up, all he wanted to do was scream, but instead he stared down at his phone in disbelief. He debated texting his friends to share the good news, and thought about calling Will, but he couldn’t manage to make his thumbs work, so for about ten minutes all he could do was sit there in silence. It was the email notification from Malcolm that finally allowed him to move again.

He read the email a few times, as if needed reassurance that this was real, and put the address into Maps to figure out where he needed to go. And maybe this was preparing too early, but as soon as Nico managed to get on his feet, the first thing he did was run to his bedroom to pick out an outfit for the next day - it wasn’t a job interview, but it wasn’t like he could just show up in jeans and a t-shirt either...right?

Oh God, he had no idea what he was doing.

He got on his laptop and started down a Google spiral as he tried to figure out what was supposed to happen at this meeting tomorrow - what Malcolm would say, what he would have to sign, and even how long it would be before he could actually have a hardcover in his hands. All the research was just giving him more and more anxiety, but as soon as the front door opened when Will came home with Bianca, all of the excitement immediately returned.

Nico leapt off the couch and ran for the kitchen, throwing his arms around Will and nearly knocking him off his feet in surprise.

“Hey, Babe, I missed you, too,” Will said around a laugh, catching himself on the counter with one hand while the other patted Nico softly on the back.

Nico pulled back so that he could see the look on Will’s face as he said, “My book’s getting published!”

The smile dropped off of Will’s face, replaced by a slack-jawed look of surprise. “Seriously?”

“I have a meeting with a publisher tomorrow!”

Will’s smile returned full-force, beaming as he wrapping his arms around Nico’s waist and hugged him so tight he lifted him off the ground for a second. “That’s amazing! I’m so proud of you!”

“What’s going on?” Bianca asked as she stepped into the kitchen, having taken her time hanging up her coat and taking off her shoes.

Nico released his fiance and turned to Bianca, kneeling down in front of her and explaining, “I wrote a story, and now a publishing company wants to help me make it into a book!”

“Woah, really?” Nico nodded. “That’s so cool!” Bianca jumped forward and wrapped her arms around Nico’s neck, and he returned the hug with the same amount of enthusiasm.

After they broke the hug and Nico stood up once again, Will looked at him with a more muted smile, and a concerned arch to his eyebrows. He grabbed Nico’s hands in his and said, “I don’t want to diminish how amazing this is - because, don’t get me wrong, I’m unbelievably happy for you - but… This won’t interfere with the wedding, will it?”

Nico squeezed his hands. “No, don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure nothing happens until after the wedding. Besides, I’m sure I’ll need to do some editing, and at least one of their editors will have to read over everything. It’ll take time. But I promise, I’ll make sure they know about the wedding.”

Nico dropped Bianca off at school the next morning before driving into the city. Even with the time it took to locate the right building and find parking that wasn’t incredibly far away, Nico found himself navigating himself through the Wise Owl Publishing house with about half an hour to spare before his meeting with Malcolm. Better to be early than late, he supposed.

He waited around outside Malcolm’s office for a while before the door finally opened and a man with blond hair and glasses greeted Nico with a smile. “Hey there, Nico di Angelo, right?”

“Yeah, hi. Malcolm? It’s great to meet you.” They shook hands, then Malcolm welcomed Nico into his office.

As Malcolm sat behind his desk, and Nico took a seat on the other side, Malcolm said, “So, just to reiterate: We’d like to publish your book, and I’m sure you’re interested, otherwise I don’t know why you would be here. Right?”

“Right.”

“Great. So,” Malcolm reached into a drawer in his desk and brought out a folder which he placed on the desk between them. “I’ve already had one of my editors read your manuscript and make notes on a few things that need editing - mostly minor things, because, seriously, you’ve done a fantastic job with this story. I’ll make sure you get into contact with Julia in case you have questions about any of her notes. Now, normally we give writers about two months to incorporate any notes, but considering the state your manuscript is in right now, I don’t think you should need more than a couple of weeks, so I’d like to have your edited manuscript back here by the first.”

“Oh, uh--”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“Well, I’m getting married on the third. I’m going to be pretty busy with, you know, wedding stuff, for a little while.”

“Oh! Congratulations!” Malcolm told him. “That’s totally fine! As long as we can get things rolling on our end before Christmas, there shouldn’t be an issue, so… Let’s make it December twenty-first. Now, let me just print out a copy of the contract I’ll need you to sign with an updated schedule…” Malcolm typed furiously on his keyboard for a few moments before the printer in the corner whirred to life and spat out a few ink-covered pages. He handed the contract to Nico and said, “I’ll give you a few moments to read this over and sign it, unless you have any questions. It has all of the information you should need, like the projected schedule for the publishing process, compensation, and a few promotional things. We do require that our authors go on a book tour to promote the new releases, but we will cover your housing and transportation for the duration of the tour. Any questions?”

Nico did his best to listen to everything Malcolm said while reading through everything on the contract, though it was all a bit too much to handle all at once. “No, I think we’re good.” He probably should have tried to read through it all until he completely understood what he was signing, but really, Nico was too excited to bother. He figured that if they tried to screw him over, it would only be in the compensation, but he wasn’t really doing this for the money.

“Fantastic.” Malcolm handed him a pen. “If I could just have you sign and date on this line here, we’ll be all set.”

Nico signed, and slid the contract back across the desk.

“Let me make a copy of this for you, and then I’ll walk you through everything I have for you here.” Malcolm moved back toward the printer and copied the contract, keeping the original for himself and giving Nico the copy. “That’s for you to hold on to, and everything in this folder is yours as well - I already have my own copies of everything. This has your manuscript with Julia’s notes, Julia’s card so that you can get into contact with her, and the typical publishing schedule.” Malcolm took out the schedule, and started writing on it. “Going by this schedule, if you have everything submitted by the twenty-first, and if we’re able to get to work before the holidays, then you can expect the release date to fall sometime around the end of April, and we’ll start on the book tours about a month beforehand.”

“How much control do I have over the specific dates of the book tour?” Nico asked. “My fiance’s birthday is in March, and our daughter’s is in April, so I’d like to be home for those, if possible.”

“We can figure things out once we determine the actual publishing date. Now, if you don’t have any more questions, I’ll let you be on your way to finalize those wedding plans of yours.”

Nico went through Julia’s notes as soon as he got home, and got so into his editing that he almost forgot to pick Bianca up from school. Luckily, he was only a few minutes late, and Bianca hardly seemed to notice. As soon as she saw him, Bianca ran up to him and demanded, “Nico! Do you have your book yet? Can I see it?”

“No, Princess, not yet,” Nico told her. “It’s gonna take a few months before it’s ready.”

“Oh,” Bianca said, visibly disappointed, “okay. Let’s go home. I’m hungry.”

Nico smiled and led Bianca out to his car.

When they got home, Nico portioned out a small bowl of Goldfish crackers for Bianca to snack on while she did her homework, and he sat down next to her just in case she needed any help. They remained there until Will came home about half an hour later.

Will pressed a kiss to the top of Bianca’s head and said, “Hey, Bi, how was school?”

“Good,” she answered simply.

Will moved toward Nico next, pressing a kiss to his lips first, then said, “Hey, Babe, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Yeah, sure,” Nico replied as he stood, and said to Bianca, “Just shout for us if you need any help, okay, Bi?”

“Okay.”

Nico followed Will into the hall, just far enough away that Bianca wouldn’t be able to hear.

Will leaned back against one wall and pulled Nico close, resting his forearms on Nico’s shoulders. “So,” he whispered, “how would you feel about my mom coming up for Thanksgiving and staying here through the wedding?”

“Oh,” Nico said, his eyes widening slightly in surprise. “Yeah, sure. You know, I hadn’t even thought about Thanksgiving. I’ve been too focused on the wedding. I’ve always gone to Sally’s for holidays, so I kind of assumed that’s what we’d do.”

“I’m sure we can figure something out,” Will told him, twisting a finger in Nico’s hair. “I don’t want you to have to give up seeing your family just so I can see mine.”

Nico sighed, leaning into Will’s touch as he thought. “What do you think about having everybody over here? Like, anyone who’s planning on going to Sally’s can come over here instead. I’m sure Sally wouldn’t mind a break from hosting.”

Will smiled softly. “That sounds completely crazy, but I’m sure it’ll be fun. I don’t know how many people we’ll be able to fit in this house, though, considering it’s only ever been the three of us.”

“So, I’ll text Sally and see what she thinks?”

“And I’ll see what I can do about getting Thanksgiving day off. If not, I’ll just go in early so I can get back here to help host,” Will agreed. “I mean, whether we end up hosting or not, I’ll try to get the day off, of course.”

TO: Sally; i have what is possibly a once in a lifetime offer

FROM: Sally; Should I be worried?

TO: Sally; will and i are thinking about hosting thanksgiving, thoughts?

FROM: Sally; And give me a break from hosting? I’ll gladly take that offer.

TO: one big dysfunctional family; thanksgiving at my place

TO: one big dysfunctional family; everybody bring something, no freeloaders allowed

TO: RARA; you should try to get your flight moved up so you can come over for thanksgiving

TO: RARA; also so you can keep me sane between then and the wedding

With a final guest list of nearly twenty people, Nico’s anxiety was through the roof. Reyna and Naomi had arrived the day before, and Sally had shown up that morning to help with the turkey. Gradually, his friends had started to arrive, starting with his sister and Frank, then Percy, Annabeth and Luke, Jason and Piper, and Leo arrived on his own. Will’s siblings, Austin and Kayla, come somewhere in the mix of Nico’s friends, and he worried for a moment that they would feel out of place without Will there to talk to, but Kayla and Hazel instantly hit it off - something about a commonality between the two involving their idiot brothers.

Paul showed up late with Estelle, and Bianca was instantly fascinated by the baby. Lou Ellen arrived not long after them, also falling in love with Estelle immediately, and between her and Bianca, Paul and Sally hardly had to pay any attention to their own daughter.

The turkey still had about half an hour to cook, and the counters were littered with side dishes - unfortunately, communication between the many parties was difficult, so there were multiples of a few different dishes, but at least there wasn’t anything missing as far as Nico could tell.

He was slowly slipping into a panic as he realized that there were hardly enough seats for even half of them, and he couldn’t expect them to eat in shifts. He started scratching at his arm, his eyes darting around the room. He was struggling to count chairs and people - and plates, did he even have enough plates? - in his head, when the front door opened and Cecil stepped inside. Oh God, not another person.

Nico was too busy recalculating things to realize that Cecil hadn’t walked in alone, and soon there were arms around Nico’s waist and a chin resting on his shoulder.

“How’s it going, Darling?” Will whispered in Nico’s ear.

Nico spun around in Will’s arms, staring up at him in a panic, his hand now latched on to the other arm, gripping the skin with his nails. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know how to host! The last time anybody got together in my apartment was for New Year’s last year when I was really out of it, so Hazel hosted. I don’t know what to do.”

Will set his hands on Nico’s arms and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Let go,” he whispered, his hands sliding down to pull Nico’s part. “Don’t worry about it, okay, Darling? I’ll take care of it. Can you hold on for just a minute while I change out of my scrubs? I promise I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Nico nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Thank you, Will.”

Will smiled at him, then pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

Nico watched his fiance walk down the hall, he saw Will smile and greet a few people on his way to the bedroom.

“Nico,” Naomi said from behind him, and Nico jumped at the sound of her voice.

“Yeah? Can I get you something?” he asked, his heart rate speeding up once again as his anxiety spiked.

Naomi took Nico’s hands in hers and squeezed them. “I just wanted to let you know how happy I am that Will found you. I know I’ve said this all before, but I really am overjoyed that he was able to build a family here, and I don’t think he could have done that without you.”

“I can’t take the credit for that,” Nico tried to argue. “He has his siblings and his job--”

“But he has you at the center of it all. I know you might not believe me, honey, but I know my son, and if it weren’t for you, Will and Bianca would probably be having another Thanksgiving on their own. I truly am grateful for you, Nico, and I can never express that enough.”

Nico didn’t know what to say to that, but luckily he didn’t have to try.

“Mama, are you trying to embarrass me again?” Will’s voice came from behind him as an arm slipped around his waist once more.

Naomi scoffed, and released Nico’s hands to cross her arms over her chest. “What good would it do me to try to embarrass you when you aren’t even in the room?”

“If I’m remembering correctly, the last time I found you alone with my fiance, you had him convinced that I would have starved without him,” Will pointed out.

“Okay, but she was right,” Nico said, shooting Will a smile over his shoulder.

Will pinched Nico’s side. “Don’t you start with me now.”

“Boys, please, keep your flirting to yourselves,” Naomi said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to start setting out dishes, if that’s alright with you.”

“Mama, you’re a guest here, you don’t need to do that,” Will insisted.

Naomi waved him off. “I’m happy to help.”

Will seemed like he was ready to follow his mother around until she agreed to step out of the kitchen, but Nico grabbed his arm before he could even twitch.

“Hey, I need to talk to you,” Nico said.

“What is it?” Will asked, all of his attention snapping to Nico in an instant. “Is something wrong?”

“We don’t have enough room for everybody,” Nico pointed out. “Where’s everybody supposed to sit?”

“Is that what’s got you so worried?” Will asked gently. “We can figure it out as we go. Whoever doesn’t fit around the table can sit around the coffee table in the living room, or something.”

“That’s not...rude? To make people sit on the floor?”

Will set his palm against Nico’s cheek. “Honestly, Babe? I don’t think anybody will care all that much. They all look pretty happy just hanging out, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Once the turkey was taken out of the oven and carved, Will announced that it was time to eat, and everyone lined up to grab a plate. Nico and Will hung around until everyone else had their food, though Will did put together a plate for Bianca so that she could get a seat at the table before all the chairs were taken. By the time Nico had gotten his food, there wasn’t anywhere to sit in the dining room or living room, so he and Will stood at the island, overlooking the gathering in front of them. Nico was happy to see that there wasn’t much segregation between Will’s friends and his own.

Will leaned toward Nico and asked, “Are you feeling better now?”

Nico tipped his head toward Will and smiled. “I always feel better when you’re around, Babe.”

Will snorted and elbowed Nico in the side.

Sally, Paul and Estelle were the first to leave when Estelle fell asleep, and next were Percy, Annabeth and Luke for the same reason. Either one by one or pair by pair, friends and family started to head out, until Jason and Piper were the only couple that remained. Somehow during the night, Jason and Nico had gotten caught up in a video game argument - then competition - and lost track of time until it was nearly midnight. Jason and Piper already lived over an hour away, so Will offered them the couch for the night.

“Uh, Babe?” Nico started. “I’ve slept on that couch, and it’s hardly a decent bed for one person.”

“Sure, the couch part isn’t great, but the bed isn’t half bad,” Will replied, already dragging the coffee table across the carpet until it was out of the way of the couch. He pulled the cushions off the couch, and brought the bed out from inside, revealing a full double bed. “There you go! Let me just get you some pillows and blankets,” Will said to Jason and Piper.

As Will started toward the linen closet at the end of the hall, Nico ran after him. “Hey, hang on a second! That couch has been a bed this entire time? I slept on that thing for, like, two months! Why didn’t you ever tell me it was a bed?”

Will shrugged. “I dunno, I just… I thought you liked the couch?”

In order to make up for leaving so early the day before, Will had to be to work before the sun rose on Friday, which meant that he wasn’t able to have breakfast with everyone that morning.

It was nice to have so many people together that morning, but Nico didn’t think he’d ever had to make such a big breakfast in his life. He’d practically emptied out the fridge in order to make sure everyone had enough to eat, yet he hardly remembered to eat something himself until Jason reminded him to take a seat at the table.

“Thanks again for letting us stay here last night,” Jason said as he started clearing the table after everyone had finished eating, “and for breakfast.”

Piper stepped up behind Nico, and in a single quick motion, pulled the elastic out of his hair to release the bun that sat on top of his head. “Maybe to repay you, you’ll let me give you a haircut.”

Nico spun around and reached for the hair tie, but Piper held it over her head - Nico had never more hated being one of the shortest in the group. “What if I don’t want a haircut?”

Piper grinned and ruffled his hair. “C’mon, you don’t want to look shaggy in your wedding, do you?”

Nico crossed his arms with a huff. “Fine. But just a trim, okay? I like my hair long.”

“If you like it long, then why do you only ever wear it up?” Reyna asked from the sink where she’d started washing the dishes.

“I like it like that!”

Piper patted him on the head. “Sure you do. Get me a towel and some scissors, would you?”

Nico batted her hand away, and pointed toward the counter next to the stove. “Scissors are in there.”

“Oh, get a hairbrush, too!”

He started down the hall toward the linen closet to find a towel, but as he passed by the living room, Bianca called out to him, “Nico, will you come play Mario with me?”

Nico stopped and poked his head into the room. “I can’t right now, Princess. Why don’t you ask your grandma? I bet she’d love to play with you.”

“But Grandma doesn’t know how to play video games,” Bianca argued. “I’m sure you could teach her.”

“Okay.”

Nico continued down the hall, passing Naomi as she came out of the bathroom, and heard Bianca shout, “Grandma, can I teach you how to play Mario?”

Nico took a towel out of the closet, then stepped into his bedroom for a second to grab his hairbrush before he returned to the kitchen.

Reyna and Jason were washing and drying dishes respectively, and Piper grinned at Nico as soon as she saw him. She pulled a chair out from the table and patted the back of it. “Ready, Neeks?”

Nico dropped into the chair and held out the brush for Piper to take, then draped the towel around his shoulders like a cape. This wasn’t the first time Piper had cut his hair for him, so he knew the drill.

As Piper started brushing the knots out of his hair, she said, “So. Will. Is he good in bed?”

Nico hoped his face wasn’t bright red. “I’m not answering that.”

“Oh, come on! It’s just some classic beauty shop gossip!”

“Yeah, but this isn’t a beauty shop, it’s my kitchen,” Nico pointed out, “and his mother and daughter are in the next room. So, no, I’m not talking about that.”

“You’re no fun,” Piper said, her pout clear in her voice. “Just for that, I’m going to shave your head.”

“No you’re not!” Nico exclaimed, and tried to jump out of his seat, but Piper must have anticipated the move, and held him down with her hands on his shoulders.

“Relax, I’m kidding!” Piper set the brush aside and used her hands to angle Nico’s head down so she could start trimming. “We can’t just sit here in silence, though. There’s gotta be some gossip you can share.”

Nico sighed as he tried to think. Eventually, he said, “Frank bought a suit for his wedding, even though they haven’t set a date or anything.”

“That’s hardly gossip,” Piper told him. “Everybody knew they were going to get married from day one. You’re going to have to try harder than that.”

After another few seconds, Nico started, “I got my ears pierced again, like, six months ago. Because, well…” He trailed off, and when he tried again, he spoke quiet enough that only Piper would be able to hear him. “Bianca kind of...sorta...caught Will and I having sex. She didn’t see anything!”

“Oh, you have to elaborate on that,” Piper insisted.

“Yeah,” Jason said from the sink, “and speak up, so you won’t have to say it all again to me.”

Nico groaned and buried his face in his hands, but Piper grabbed his shoulders and sat him up again.

Will’s shift kept getting extended as critical patients were brought into the ER, so even though he was supposed to by home in time for lunch, it wasn’t until the early evening that he was finally pulling into the driveway, utterly exhausted. He kind of wanted to sneak inside and head straight to bed, but as soon as he stepped into the kitchen and saw Nico standing at the stove, he froze.

At first glance, when Will saw the back of Nico’s neck, his tired brain supplied the image of Nico’s hair being pulled back into a ponytail, but after Will blinked his eyes a few times, he realized that Nico’s hair was shorter. It was still long on the top of his head, four or five inches that still allowed Nico’s hair to curl and wave, but the sides and back of his head were cropped closer, an inch in length at most. Will suddenly felt much more awake than before.

“You got a haircut.”

Nico reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck, as though he needed to remind himself that the hair was gone. He cleared his throat and said, “Uh, yeah, Piper did it before they left this morning. It ended up much shorter than I wanted it to be, but… It doesn’t look bad, right?”

Will moved toward him and pulled Nico close with an arm around his waist. “It looks so good,” he said, his voice low, and he brought his other hand up to card through the short hairs at the back of Nico’s neck. He closed the distance between them and kissed Nico in a way that he hoped expressed just how good he looked.

Nico pushed Will back, but Will simply moved his lips to Nico’s neck instead. “You realize there’s other people in this house, right?” he asked, but Will just hummed in response. “Specifically, our daughter, your mother, and my best friend, who are all people that I would prefer not walk in on this.”

Will finally pulled back, running his hand through the longer hair on the top of Nico’s head. So soft. “Sorry, Darling, I’m just trying to admire you.”

“I don’t know how you expect to admire me with your eyes closed,” Nico replied.

“You know what I mean,” Will said with a pout. He brushed his fingers through Nico’s hair once again, his eyes catching on a certain spot that seemed bare. He couldn’t have a bald spot developing on the side of his head, could he? “What’s this?”

Nico snatched Will’s hand away. “It’s nothing.”

“It looked like a scar,” Will said, his pout curling down with worry.

Nico dropped his gaze. “My dad...when he was still drinking, I got pissed and dumped out a bottle of some expensive old whiskey, or something, and when he found out, he… He hit me with the bottle. That was the last straw - I moved out right after that.”

Will’s hand moved out of Nico’s hair as he spoke, his palm resting against Nico’s cheek instead as his thumb stroked Nico’s skin gently. “Is that why you’ve kept your hair so long?” Nico nodded, a just barely-there twitch of his head that didn’t dislodge Will’s hand from his cheek. “I’m sorry for pointing it out. It wasn’t even noticeable until I started messing around, I promise.”

“Thanks,” Nico whispered, finally allowing his eyes to meet Will’s once more.

“You really do look amazing, you know,” Will continued, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I mean, I loved the long hair, too, but this is a pretty welcome change.” He kissed the tip of Nico’s nose next, then his lips once, then twice.

“Will,” Nico complained as he pulled away, but Will could see that he was smiling.

Will dropped his forehead against Nico’s with another pout. “You’re going to make me wait to express my appreciation for this haircut until everyone goes to bed tonight? That’s just cruel.”

“Nope,” Nico said, popping the p and turning Will’s pout into a confused frown. “I’m making you wait until our wedding night, since Bianca’s sleeping in our room until your mom leaves.”

Will buried his face against Nico’s neck and groaned.

thanks for reading!!

buy me a coffee

#solangelo #will solace #nico di angelo #i'm in hell #mine #my writing

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chibigissy · 6 years ago

Text

This was Too Annoying for a Video so here’s a Tumblr Post that’s a Ted Talk. (PLEASE READ THO)

Okay, let's start out by saying, I had originally had a recording for this type of subject, which is a bit of a response to Evan's podcast "Animation Hour", or at least part of it. It's was mainly about works that in a style of a motion comic and works that in a style of a Visual Novel. It was before I talked with a good friend of mine about this and he coined a term that is more broad terms for the type of content we do, which started out as a semi-joke before I'm actually starting to legit like the term. So recording and video I originally had is useless no longer relevant in my eyes. But hey, it's better to start over from the ground up when doing these types of discussions. If you have not seen Animation Hour and have read the comments, I recommend you do so. Cuz, I'm sure this shit is gonna get confusing.

youtube

With all that said, let's get started.

So I know that Evan's First Animation Hour, where he talks about fanime, and already, there has been plenty feedback. Alot them are fairly good. Some positive and some fairly critical with reasoning behind it. There is a bit of a discussion. Yeah, 25 comments is not a whole lot compared to other types of YouTube videos that got like a million comments per day but compared to some videos those in our community get, I'd say that is a fairly decent amount, if I do say so myself. One thing that has been brought up in some comments of the video, is the term the Evan coined, which is OAS. OAS stands for Original Animated Series. And it's good term. It's a abbreviated like AMV, PMV, MAP, and MEP. It's short, sweet and to the point. AND It's more board so anyone can join and we can refer to our fanimes as such when promoting them to those outside of the fanime community. However, I do feel there is a bit of a miscalculation Evan might have.... well, unless he'll explain what he means in the next animation hour. I do feel OAS might exclude those that don't animate much for there series, such as doing things in a style of a motion comic or a visual novel (The latter being more of my concern, since initially, what the fuck can you call that besides fanime.) See, I said my original discussion video, you can easily refer to your motion comic style series as motion comic, as it is an established genre. With a visual novel style series, I did tried to coin the term "VNS" which stands for "Visual Novel Series" but it has it's ups and downs. The downside is that it's a little to vague of a term and it could apply to a series of visual novel games, say like Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, and Higurashi. The upside is that acronyms can have more that one meaning. There are two meanings for PMV. My friend, TenshiHanka, told me it could mean either "Picture Music Video" or "Pony Music Video". Speaking of which, I had a conversation with Tenshi and UniversalFiction about OAS. Universal was asking if we're going to change the name of the Fanime World Server to something like OAS, which I was not sure if the mods would agree to that idea. And least not yet. Might be too soon at this point in time. As for Tenshi, he is basically, like "Yo. I got it! OWS. Which stands for "Original Web Series". And OWE , which stands for "Original Web Episode!" Now, like I said at the beginning of the video, this was a bit of a semi-joke. It was a semi-joke in a sense that we both pronounced them as "ow's" and "ow" and saying shit like "Cuz making art is an ow", which in all fairness, it is. Art can be a pain sometimes. And so, he posted his comment about on his TenshiHankaTR account, which compared to his Otaku Krap account, it's is smol! Like, with the other comments (especially mine), you would need 15 semi-trucks to carry them! With the smol comment, it's straight into the point! Then Universal's comment came a long and she brought up legit good point about how OWS is more inclusive than OAS and I'm like "Oh..... what's feeling in my heart. I think I'm starting to legit like term OWS and OWE" And that's what I feel actually, OWS is good for a series that episodes on YouTube or just the internet in general and OWE is good for one-shot story that is in a video format. It's open for animators and those who don't animate but still like to portray their stories through art and a video format! I'd say it's down right genius Now, I have a bit of hot take, You can have your series under the OWS and OAS labels. After all, as Evan said, you can use as many tags as possible to promote yourself out there. And another hot take, you can also have the fanime label for your OWS in the tags. I feel you can have a community within a community. Now I know what ya'll thinking "Gissy, what the angling fuck are you going on about? And what are you smoking and can I have some of it?". Well, I've seen communities outside of the art community that have their own little sub communities. An example I can bring up is with Twitch. Twitch, while it's a big ass community, has like a shit tone of communities that surrounds a Twitch streamer. There are two I'm in are related to Doodletones and KisakaToriama. And sure, there are times when it's just a chill streams, sometimes it can have a shit ton of overs of... 20 something views. (In the case with Kisa, might be around 30 or more, if she is like playing a popular game) Now I can got into other community types but if I do, we'd be here all day. So yeah, with that example in mind, I'd say, you can have the fanime community with an OAS and OWS/OWE community community! Checkmate, Atheists!! Now, there is one more thing I wanna bring up and that is that what would be a good main hub to post our work, besides YouTube and other Social Medias. Because face it, YouTube is dun mcfucked right now and if you don't have a big following and/or not using your tags properly, your work is gonna get buried by other tweets about some fuckward doing something stupid or illegal for like the millionth time. I know some of you are gonna be like, “Why not a Discord Server as the Main Hub.” And I'd say that is a fairly decent idea. Just don't let me be the moderator for it. Cuz I have the Fanime World Discord to deal with and trying to moderate that server alone is freakin difficult at points. I don't even WANT to imagine how moderating a OWS server would be like, if it has more people than with Fanime World. But there are other options as well. There's creating an amimo for OWS's. There is a problem however, Amino is kinda hard to keep up with. Trying to look at your mobile is tedious at points and the desktop version of Amino kinda sucks, if I'm honest. But here, something like an OWS Amino can work for mobile users that like said app. There's also a creating a forum for OWS's. It's just.... Forums are kinda going extincted, sadly. Like, unless it’s for something popular, it's hard to make forum of something not to popular. "But wait, what about Creative Studio Forum?" you may ask. I know that was popular back in the day but it's currently in the dead zone and none of the moderators of that forum probably don't care about anymore to a point that unless you already have an account on CSF, you get the freakin' #Hashbrown theme since that's currently the default theme. Tho who knows, maybe there will be a "Creative Studio Forum 2: Electric Boogaloo" one of these day. After all, there are other types of projects the tell a story and don't involve video editing exists. I mean hell, Penalty All About was originally a web novel, my duudes! There would just be an OWS sub-section in the of the Visual Project Section of that forum There were other options, such as mastodon or even creating a website from the ground up. The latter might get too confusing, if you don't know any coding. Not to mentioned, both of them cost money. (Even tho, the former claimed to be open source. Don't think I'm not salty that false advertisement, Mastodon....) Anyways, this has gotten a little all over the place but to summarize: 1. OAS is a good public name but it might exclude those that 2. OWS/OWE is a more inclusive those that animate and those that don't but still wanna make episodes. 3. The Fanime Comminity can be within the OAS community and OWS/OWE Communities, change my mind. 4. WE NEED A MAIN HUB CUZ YOUTUBE SUCKS, DAMNIT 5. ????? 6. Profit Okay the last two points are a joke but I hope you get my drift. That is all I gotta say, hope you have a good day, and thank you for coming to my ted talk.

#Animation #Fanime #OAS #OWS

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moonlight-moogle · 6 years ago

Text

BTS as Daddies

warnings: dd/lg, slight sexual themes.

Kim Namjoon/RM

ok first thing first

WE ALL KNOW THIS BOI HAS A DADDY KINK

like excUSE ME

king daddy™

anygay

I think Namjoon would be a semi-strict daddy

have a list of rules you have to follow

and lord knows if you break them you’re gonna get punished

Namjoon values trust and would feel as a daddy it's his job to punish you, if he didn’t, he’d feel like he had broken your trust a little

he has great self-control

the minute you use your safe word, he’s already getting you cleaned up and the bath’s already running and he is ready for snuggles

cuz don’t get me wrong

Namjoon isn’t all rules

he would be the biggest cuddle bug.

loves to have you sit on his lap

plays with your hair all the time

kisses your temple a lot cuz he’s tol

low key high key whipped for you

constantly checking up on you to see if you’re okay, even if its just a hand on your shoulder

he’s so patient with you

never raises his voice

prolly calls you ‘little one’

reads you bedtime stories

I'm sorry I'm just

uwu

in conclusion

Namjoon is a very good daddy. you are in safe hands, little one

Kim Seokjin/Jin

Kim Seokjin

where do I start with this boi

I picture him as a very soft daddy

kinda protective

like if anyone ever were to judge you for being a little and living the life you lead...

boi he’d be ready to throw hands

not really

Jin takes shit from no-one and would know when to cut people out

he’s a shady bitch

if someone judged his little girl/boy for being their cute innocent self, it’s their loss for not seeing how wonderful they are

thinks the world is too cruel for your little heart

is afraid people will judge you so prefers if you keep little space in the home

knows from looking at you when you’re in little space

calls you something cute like ‘little puff’

showers you with kisses

constantly taking pictures of you

lives for his time with you

you want daddy to dress as a prince?

done

you want to play tea party?

daddy will bake cupcakes

hates to see you cry

literally swOOPS you up in his arms if you ever hurt yourself and cry

tuts at you and calls you silly when you have a tantrum

less strict than Namjoon

only a few basic rules

“no swearing” and stuff

less enthusiastic about punishments

most you’ll get in terms of physical punishment is spanking

and that’s if you’ve been really bad

Jin opts more for timeouts and no TV time

occasionally will opt for orgasm denial if he’s feeling particularly satanic

best in the game at aftercare.

has set treats, candles, bubble bath, blankets, stuffies, pacifiers - ANYTHING his baby needs

I'm realizing only two members in that this is gonna make so soft uwu

Min Yoongi/Suga

this boi is my bias so um

strap in

I think Yoongi would be more like Namjoon in terms of how daddy he is

he’s highkey whipped for you

doesn’t show it in public

prefers to spoil you with the gummy smiles in private

definition of patient

you could be having the mother of all bitchfits, screaming bloody murder and this boy would sit there and watch until you’ve tired yourself out

just sighs “are you done, kitten?” and wipes the tears from your face

yes he calls you kitten

he always makes time for you, no matter how tired he is

lives for naps with you

loves it when you curl yourself into him

buries his face into your hair because he loves your smell

rests his hand on your neck

he doesn’t mind bringing you outside when you’re little as long as your hand stays locked in his

kisses your forehead cuz it makes him feel taller

he’s more laidback than Namjoon in term of rules but will go all the way with punishment if he needs to

owns a remote control vibrator

boy don't play around

will buy you the cutest onesies and pacifiers

lives for that cute smile on your face when he puts it on you

I'm just imagining him smiling with his whole mouth at you

then kneeling down and taking the pacifier out of your mouth to kiss you

U W U

watches Disney movies with you

loves it when you straddle his lap and lay across his chest so he can wrap his arms around you

you’re literally the only person he’ll allow in his studio with him.

the walls and desks are littered with little drawings that you do for him while you’re with him

speaks more with actions than words

little fleeting touches to check your okay

such a sweetheart during aftercare

has you sit between his legs and massages your arms

hums to you softly and plays with your hair

makes you feel like you re the only thing in the world that has ever mattered to him

cuz sometimes he believes that

Jung Hoseok/J-Hope

OK SO

I think everyone knows that Hobi is quite literally a ball of sunshine

this reflects a lot into his daddy-ness

his little will never

repeat

NEVER

be bored

almost Yoongi level sugar daddy

actually, screw that he’s probably more of a sugar daddy

you literally have any toy you want

half your wardrobe is all supreme and bucket hats cuz he likes it when his baby dresses like their daddy

dances with you all the time

this boy has so much energy oh my god

he’d love to bring you to the park and push you on the swings

shows you off to everyone

especially bangtan

fairly laid back

doesn’t like having a lot of rules cuz he just wants you to live

can be stern if he needs to be tho

punishments are probably limited like Jin’s

timeouts are as painful for him as they are for you cuz he just wants to hug you

this boy would very sadistic in the bedroom

did I hear

edging??

perhaps some orgasm denial?

overstimulation

high key satan

really hates to raise his voice at you

has had a few slip ups here and there when you’ve been particularly difficult

rights his wrongs almost immediately

definitely is not above saying sorry just cause of the power a daddy has

daddy/little relationships are all about trust, communication, and understanding that everyone is equal

Hobi would value these immensely

Hobi seems like the type of person that if you were to bring up littles to him, he might think it was weird at first

but then he’d see how happy it would make you

and he’d be whipped

I picture Yoongi and Namjoon as naturals at being a daddy

I feel Jin and Hobi would have to learn

the fact that you put that much trust in them would melt their heart

Hobi would strive to be the best daddy you could ever ask for

you best believe this boy would braid your hair.

kiss your cheek and giggle into your skin like a lovesick fool

calls you his little angel or ‘cherub’

the type to make you chocolate chip pancakes for aftercare

Hobi would never really have considered being a daddy until he met you

and lord is he thankful he did

you are quite literally the moon, sun, and stars to that boy

frick im soft

Park Jimin

this boy is my ultimate bias wrecker so

strap

the fuck

THIS BOI

THE SOFTEST BOI

whipped™

buys you pretty clothes and takes Polaroid pictures of you to keep in his wallet

you’re his phone background and his desktop background

gives!you!so!much!praise!

calls you his doll

literally just doesn’t say your name

just calls you by complimenting you

“gorgeous, come over here.”

“how are you, pretty?”

is so soft for you

kisses your nose and pinches your cheeks

thinks you’re so cute he could eat you like a muffin

playfully nibbles on your skin to hear you giggle

sits with you and lets you braid his hair

loves!to!see!you!in!stockings!

spins you around when you dance to hear you scream laugh

you literally make him cry from laughter

he has rules for you but not as much as Joon.

has been known to get quite frustrated with you if you have tantrums

Jimin has quite the temper on him and does slip up and yell when he’s stressed sometimes

almost immediately regrets it and feels so bad

god forbid if he makes you cry

literally would never let go of you

c u d d l e s

punishments are like a mix between Hobi and Jin’s

he’ll have no problem putting you in time out if you’re being a little shit

he will use punishments like orgasm denial and edging but he wouldn’t be as satanic as Hobi and Yoongi to use overstimulation

the softest thing in aftercare

cleans you up, puts on your favorite movie and cuddles you in bed

gives you stuffies and a pacifier and kisses your forehead

watches you fall asleep to make sure that you’re okay

will check up on you for days afterward

I literally had to stop like three times writing this part cuz of all my uwus

Kim Taehyung/V

my fuckin boi

Kim Taehyung

is a literal puppy

so playful

you are literally this boys entire world

brings you outside to take aesthetic candid shots of you he later posts on Instagram

a lot of them are pictures of you with Yeontan

or in pink frilly outfits, he bought for you

calls you his precious little babygirl/boy

puts flowers in your hair

loves when you wear his clothes

literally will purposefully give them to you to wear around the house

brings you for drives - usually to go get ice cream

sings to you ALL THE TIME

does that cute thing where he laughs and claps his hands when you sing with him

gets really into it so he’s dancing around the kitchen, belting out Disney bops with a whisk in his hand

your lips are his favorite thing

but has a kink for kissing your hands

just loves to have your hand in his

Tae is literally the most understanding, caring person so if he ever felt the need to punish you for breaking rules he’d have like a proper talk with you about it

“why didn’t you listen to daddy, precious?”

would always be worried that he had done something wrong

it’s his life goal to make you happy

would never raise his voice but he does get frustrated if you’re misbehaving and he doesn't know what to do

Tae!would!be!so!into!begging!

literally, if he was ever punishing you he would make you beg and scream for so long before he let you cum.

might not even let you cum if he’s feeling particularly sadistic

if it’s too much for you, he’s so soft with aftercare

makes you hot chocolate, lays you across his chest and sings you to sleep

will remind you of how much he truly adores you and how good you are

he sings your praises to the rooftops

plays with your hair and rubs your hips

wakes you up in the morning to cuddles and TV

aftercare is one of his favorite things

he’s honestly so content being a daddy

you are literally the most precious thing in the worl to him

once again

U W U

Jeon Jungkook

this boi ruins me holy hell

I feel like at first, Kookie would be slightly out of his comfort zone knowing that he has to care for someone

yano

cuz he da maknae

everyone babies him

but after a while, I think he’d really enjoy the change

you’re his princess/prince

and you rule his house

you are spoiled, let me tell you

we all know that this boy strong

he would carry you everywhere in the house

he’s gotten used to the constant cries of “daddy, up!” when he’s in a room

loves to cook for you

has you sit on the counter with him while he makes dinner

you’re his little assistant chef

sneaks little nose kisses between giggles

loves to kiss your shoulders and your neck

sits with you at the table and colors

always puts yours on the fridge

bounces you on his lap all the time

gave you a bunny plushie to remind you of him

needless to say, it's your favorite

gets frustrated quite easily if you’re being difficult

timeouts are his punishment of choice

usually leaves you there for five minutes

always comes over and kneels down to you

makes sure you say that you’re sorry and then scoops you up in his arms for cuddles

isn’t fond of orgasm denial

prefers overstimulation

this boi top of his game on this

carries you to the bath for aftercare

is so kind and gentle when he takes care of you

dresses you in the softest PJ’s

literally carries you around and bounces you gently in his arms

gets you a bottle and lays in bed with you

loves your butt

taps it gently to help you sleep

sings to you

you are literally his favorite thing

in the world

I AM

SO SOFT

AHH

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baconpal · 7 years ago

Text

so heres the long super paper mario post

strap in for why super paper mario is fucking bizarre and why that’s pretty much awesome

gonna be a good amounts of spoilers, so if you’re on desktop then hit that read more, and if your on mobile, then here’s your punishment for using this god awful app

super paper mario is a game that is incredibly difficult to put into words, but it leaves such a powerful, lasting impression on me and i can’t come to say anything first other than I love it so much, and if you havent played the game, please just go do it now, even if you have to pirate or emulate or something, just let yourself play this game. It’s one of those games that I really feel I can just recommend to anybody

it’s difficult to think of where to start with dissecting this thing so i’ll just start with the art since lookin at things is pretty easy

ART/WORLD DESIGN

every world in SPM is completely unique, not just in what type of environment, but it’s art style, and this is premised with the fact that none of these worlds are capable of existing together and are completely separate, and NOT part of a cohesive universe (LOOKIN AT YOU ODYSSEY I STILL THINK YOU LOOK STUPID)

The hub and the first 2 worlds are mostly just slight variants on the same general style of simplistic shapes and colors, with world 1 delving into more linework type aesthetics, and 2 focusing more on impressions and silhouettes,

world 3 changes this completely with what is obviously an 8 bit kind of style, but instead of jarring over sized pixels, the world is composed of detailed tiles arranged to look like pixel art that imply a more real world, and not a gamey one,

world 4 focuses on patterns and big patches of color to give the impression of the vast emptiness of both space and the surface of a barren planet, before giving you the “Whoa Zone”, with a striking mix of wire frame and futuristic UI style to it

world 5 takes the idea of nature being crude and simplistic and humanity being sharp, angular, and extreme and flips that on its head, with humanity and the space they occupy being these absolute memes with no sense of depth, and the plant life existing in a system of clean cut caves with futuristic technology and elegant historic values

world 6 simplifies a kind of colored Japanese painting aesthetic, down to the funny cylindrical cloud clusters and brushstroke trees

world 7 depicts what is essentially hell (yes there’s hell in this game keep your pants on) as a squarish blur of bright greens and warm reds and purples, and depicts heaven as fluffy land of clouds and Greek temples

and lastly, world 8 is inverted greyscale, where light is black and darkness is white, its simplistic and striking and i couldn’t think of a better style for the final area of a game so focused on the concept of light and dark

MUSIC

I’ll just try and keep it simple, the musics fucking cash money

The game makes great use of motifs when it needs to, where specific themes and instruments are used in other songs to suggest relationships and put battles and travels into perspective

And when it ISNT doing that, it’s just fucking funky stuff, with a weird trend of BOING and PLOP and SPLISH noises in the percussion because fuck you i guess

There’s a lot of good songs that do lots of interesting things, any of the like 5 final battle songs are great things to point to, but i’ll just go ahead and say the main theme of world 8 “Castle Bleck” is one of my favorites that isn’t super highly rated. It brings in the types of instruments that have been associated with the villain the entire game, but also throws in 2 very important things; a sudden triumphant burst of almost JRPG styled chiptune that pushes away the constantly building tension, which is then followed by the sound of a clock ticking, which is a musical motif only present in the songs “Memory” and “Promise” which is played whenever the memories of the player’s little guide thing and the main villain’s past lives together are alluded to. This one song holds a lot of weight, as well as simply being a fucking cool song.

GAMEPLAY

This is, sadly, the one place I’ll not mince any words and say the gameplay is not amazing by any standard, it’s pretty much a classic mario game if it had RPG stats, items, and random abilities granted through the character and partner systems. The 3D flipping mechanic is nothing astounding, though it is very interesting to see how worlds are constructed

One of the biggest flaws people will mark the game for in its gameplay is that it’s tedious, and while I have to agree, that’s because I’ve already played the game before, and the tedium only comes from not being completely invested in the experience anymore. I’ll get some specific examples in a bit, but there’s a few cases of “tedium” that i believe are 100% intentional and drive the story in an interesting way

STORY/WRITING/GAME DESIGN

Thats a fuckin broad section, but its pretty much everything else i have to say on the game, and where the most spoilers and random praise is gonna be

I’m not actually gonna talk about the whole story, more just the strong parts of it, under the assumption you’ve already played it or understand a story as simple as “villain wants to destroy world, hero wants that to not happen”

The writing and characters are just flawless, everyone is fun to be around, especially the bad guys, who you see more antics of than your own party. There’s goofy running plotlines about O’chunks and mimi essentially getting grounded and being forced to write essays about why they fucked up at beating mario, and big stinky brother dimentio teasting and bullying them and sneaking them out to do his bidding when The big Count Bleck is away

The game is full of referential humor to not just mario itself but all kinds of games, there’s skeletons in hell who are clearly just Marios from the mainline games who died in stupid ways, there’s an actual dragon quest turn based boss battle in hell too, and chapter 3 has an otaku villain who tried to get with peach in a simulated visual novel

but the humor exists not just in references, but in simple good scenarios, with things like “Having a game show in a bathroom when everyone's life is at stake” and “locating an ancient manuscript to use as toilet paper” or “flying through black holes to find a convenience store” and things of that nature

It also interacts with the players emotions in many interesting ways, one of the more lauded being chapter 2-3, where mario is forced into working off a massive debt of fictional money, and is required to do hard, boring labor. There isn’t anyway to avoid doing both the hitting a block 100 times and the running on a treadmill for a few minutes thing, but the constant feeling of “there has to be a faster way to do this” drives the player to prod around, find the secrets, and slowly discover how to break the system wide open and get to the end, and i love it for that

This entire game is some sort of bait and switch, to put it simply, while it’s already a bit of a departure from both mario itself and the paper series, the first 5 worlds are pretty fucking tame stuff, other than the void, which is a giant black and purple spot that sits in the sky, always, every single world has the void growing in its sky, and it does grow, every chapter it gets bigger and bigger and takes up the sky, but where this truly culminates into the “switch” part is chapter 6, which starts itself by presenting you with the most TEDIUS sounding chapter possible, fight 100 enemies in a row, and nothing else, and for 25 straight fights, that is all it is, so you’ve locked yourself into it at this point, you know whats up, but the void in the background begins to grow to the point of being the entire fucking background, and every enemy you face speaks as if they know they’re all going to die, and by the 30th fight, one of the villains comes to stall for time as the void completely swallows the world, and the party is sent back to the hub. When they decide to go back in to world 6, its empty, the entire world is a white void with a single black line making up the ground, and colorless destroyed structures occasionally peaking out of the ground.

and you walk on this white void for so long and you just feel nothing but regret and fear and no matter how fast you make yourself go you feel like you’ll never find anything, but you do eventually get your plot item and escape

then, Dimentio, one of the villains you’ve seen the least of, appears in the hub world, the safest place in the universe, and kills mario

he just fucking kills him

he puts mario in a box and fills the box with explosions and mario fucking dies and goes to hell because fuck you mario

then you go through all of chapter 7 just to escape hell (called the Underwhere cus how could we possibly be allowed to take hell seriously) and join up with your full party before confronting the final world, which i’ve already stated i just love the design off

the game just takes the comfortable ride you’re on and throws it into the fucking sun and burns you alive and i love it so much, even the very end of the game doesnt let up, where the main villain is overtaken by that absolute madman Dimentio (Whose name is a play on both Dimension and dementia), who clearly was powerful enough to have done the whole “ending of the world” himself, but did it this way for the theatrics of it

there’s a lot i could still say about the game, but this post is absolute rambling and its 2 in the morning but as usual, i just wanted to shit my thoughts onto the internet to people could maybe learn somethin about either the game or me and how i think and look at and respond to stuff, and as always, anybody who read this whole thing is cool and i love you a whole heck of a lot

#long ass post #Super Paper Mario

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iamanartichoke · 7 years ago

Text

It’s almost 4am, I can’t sleep because of Reasons, and my brain isn’t functioning enough to be productive, so I’m just gonna fill out this writing meme. So, yeah, if you’re interested in some very long, self-indulgent writing babble, keep reading, and if you’re on mobile, I’m sorry the cut doesn’t work.

1. What are your favourite genres and/or styles to write in?

Contemporary lit has always been my thing. I was never really into reading or writing much action/adventure or fantasy, which is weird because I was very into shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and LOST - but, I was mostly into those shows for the very rich character dynamics and developments, so. Anyway, Sanctuary is the first thing I’ve written in my life that isn’t in the contemporary, real-world genre and I’m doing okay with it, but I do sometimes get a little paranoid that it’s too character focused with not enough action/comic-genre stuff going on. This is really stepping outside of the box for me, to be honest.

(I just remembered that I did write some Batman fanfic when I was maybe 16 or so, but I’m not sure it counts bc it was terrible and I pretty much just wrote a Buffy-esque character to be Batman’s sappy love interest. God, how embarrassing.)

2. What was the last writing project you finished and felt successful with?

Okay, so, when I was finishing grad school, I had to complete a “publishable” thesis project and mine is/was this collection of linked short stories that I spent probably a good year and a half (including my thesis semester) working on. Technically, I did finish it enough that it passed the graduation requirements, and I have been chipping away at it on and off since then, but after I graduated, I just ... stopped writing, in general. Depression and real life are a shitty combination for writers with very little internal motivation. But, despite that, this collection holds a very dear place in my heart. There are seven stories total, all young adult, coming-of-age themed, and they’re linked by character in that they all take place in a small town and the characters from each story sort of know each other in passing, as happens in a small town. There’s room for ten stories, because it’s a nice, even number. I love all of the characters and I think it could be something really great and could be published successfully - just, it needs a lot more work to get to that point. Eventually it will. Anyway, yes, that’s my last “finished” writing project and I do feel a modicum of success toward it, for what it’s worth.

3. If you have a WiP how do you feel it’s going? What stage are you in?

I am actually 85% pleased with how Sanctuary is going. I started writing the fic without any real idea of what I wanted to do with it or where it would go - I was just having a lot of Loki feels during a difficult time in my life. Prior to this, I would handle my Character Feels by indulging in a lot of watches and re-watches and occasionally making music videos and sometimes fan art (graphics, I can’t draw for shit), but these methods just weren’t cutting it this time ... and hence, fic was born.

It’s not a perfect story, of course - there are some inconsistencies and errors and the writing can always be more polished, but I’m just happy that I’ve stuck with it for this long and allowed it to develop the way that it has. I’m able to flex my writing muscles and get back into the practice of it while having fun at the same time. The story is four chapters away from completion, but I have plans for a sequel and also a couple of one-shots from Thor’s POV that I want to play around with. Overall, I’m pretty pleased with where I am in my little fic-verse right now.

When it comes to original fiction, aside from the aforementioned short story collection, I am in the plotting stages of a novel involving reincarnation, because I am tropey trash, but it has potential. So, there’s that.

4. What are your favourite places to write?

I actually feel like I write more productively when I am away from my apartment, which is a conundrum because I pretty much only leave my apartment to go to work or, like, the grocery store. I have a job that allows me to be at a computer for most of the day, so when I’m not busy, I like to write at work. I weirdly feel more productive and clear-headed at desktop computers, but I don’t have one of my own, so when I’m not at work or at the library, I write on my laptop in places like Barnes and Noble or laying in bed like a lazy bum. I do have a desk at home, but it is woefully neglected, I’m sad to say.

5. Do you prefer to write with long hand or type? Or some other method?

9 times out of 10, I type. However, when I am struggling particularly hard with writer’s block, I’ll write long hand because, for whatever reason, switching methods jolts my brain a little bit and gets the juices flowing again. I wrote the entirety of the Kree battle and Val/Loki in the infirmary (I forget what chapter that was) long hand, among other scenes.

6. Do you remember your first character? If so can we meet them?

My childhood is filled to the brim with embarrassing fiction. I don’t remember my first character, to be honest - I remember being in fourth grade and writing some kind of story for Young Author’s Day at school, and that’s the first thing I remember even writing, but I couldn’t tell you what the story was or who the characters were to save my life. When I was in sixth grade, I discovered S.E. Hinton’s books, and from that point on, I spiraled down into the genre of coming-of-age, tortured, sad protagonists (God, Ponyboy Curtis was my first spirit animal, talk about tragic) and I’ve never quite looked back.

7. Where do you get your inspiration?

Where don’t I get my inspiration, would be a better question. Music is a big inspiration - sometimes I’ll hear a lyric that I want to put to a story, or a song will have a storyline that I like and that’ll get the creative juices flowing. I do get some inspiration from real life, but I shy away from writing anything too closely related to my own life - things that I pull from my life are incredibly fictionalized, but the roots are sometimes there, if that makes sense. Movies and TV shows, of course, especially with character types that I’m drawn to. Other people’s literature is a big inspiration, too. Idk, I think inspiration just comes from everywhere. Everyone and everything has a story that can be told.

8. Do you outline a story before writing it, or does it all live in your head until the first draft gets put down?

I’m kind of 75/25 on this - 75% lives in my head and 25% is outlined, but the outline is always kind of a loose guideline that may end up completely changing by the time the words are actually on the page. I mostly use outlines to put things down tangibly when they get too cluttered in my head and I start confusing myself. I also use outlines to keep track of plot threads, to try to keep things consistent. For Sanctuary, my outline is a mixture of what I want to accomplish in each chapter and an extensive notes section on various canon I’m using, so that I can keep things straight.

9. Where do you go/ What do you do when you’re feeling stuck?

Writing long-hand is a thing I already talked about. Other things I find helpful: going for a long drive to just sort of let myself zone out and think about the story without the pressure of sitting at the computer, listening to music ... sometimes I just put the story away completely and let it sit while I do/focus on other things, and I come back to it refreshed and ready to try again.

10. What got you starting writing/doing Art? (Because I always love origin stories)

I don’t know - writing has just always been a part of who I am. The urge to write was something that came very naturally to me. I’m sure being a voracious reader was part of it, too - I grew up reading books like there was no tomorrow, and I was a very introverted, shy child, so I read more than I talked to people, and that just sort of naturally translated into writing stories of my own. I’ve never been a people-person in that I don’t like interacting with people much (in real life, anyway) but I like to examine and think about how people work, and it’s a strange thing but so it goes. But yeah - there’s no real “origin story” with me, just a long history of being a reclusive nerd.

I guess this is a tagging meme but I wasn’t tagged, so if anyone out there wants to do it, feel free, I’d love to read other people’s responses if you feel like sharing them. :)

#sorry for the babbling #and any mistakes #it's very late/early #i'm just kind of stream-of-consciousness-ing #charlotte writes #the real life of charlotte lennox #writing meme #writing #fiction #fanfic

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anaceinthecrowd · 7 years ago

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Let’s get personal. 100 Questions!

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

"I'm Only Sleeping" by The Beatles

"No Exit" by Childish Gambino

"Friend" by C418

"Beauty" by Tim Minchin

The old NBC Olympics closing credits mix by various artists

"Rey's Theme" by John Williams

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

Damn! I was hoping to meet someone from another Earth. Well I guess if I have to meet someone from THIS Earth it would have to be Stephen Colbert. He seems like a super nice guy. He's also smart and hilarious.

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

“him.” How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere by Larry King

4: What do you think about most?

If I'm wasting my life doing what I'm doing.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

"Ask Alexa to play Valentine music. It's good and grandma will love it" from my mom.

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

With

7: What's your strangest talent?

Idk if this is a talent but I have a near-encyclopedic of all things Disney World.

8: Girls... (finish the sentence); Boys... (finish the sentence)

Boys are good but some are assholes. Girls are good but some are assholes.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

Idk but I don't wanna say no just in case someone did and I just forgot xD.

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

Today

11: Do you have any strange phobias?

I have an immense fear of missing out.

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

Yes

13: What's your religion?

Not religious, nor spiritual.

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

Going for long walks

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

Behind

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

The Beatles. Almost every song they ever put out was great. They became the biggest influencers on music in the last century and they did it in just a few years. Most musicians work their whole lives to have an ounce of the influence and raw talent each of them had. Plus they had an incredible effect on culture, notably helping facilitate the change that came from youth for the first time having enough money to buy what they wanted, not what they got from older people. The youth got to decide what they wanted and they wanted the Beatles. Not just the music but their fashion, art, movies and so on.

17: What was the last lie you told?

I've never told a lie! (He says as his nose doubles in length)

18: Do you believe in karma?

I used to.

19: What does your URL mean?

It's a pun on "a face in the crowd" which is a saying about being unknown and hidden in plain sight and I felt like this applied to my experience with being asexual. Also I typed "ace" into a pun generating website.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

My greatest weakness is fast food. My greatest strength is n/a I'm weak as hell.

21: Who is your celebrity crush?

I like some famous people but I don't really have crushes on any.

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

Yeah but I didn't like it.

23: How do you vent your anger?

Complaining to friends (still not sure why they put up with it)

24: Do you have a collection of anything?

Mistakes? XD I used to collect snow globes but they started to brake and get green water so I stopped.

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

I'm so damn lonely I'll take anything. I wish that were a joke.

26: Are you happy with the person you've become?

I hope to be one day.

27: What's a sound you hate; sound you love?

A sound I hate is the smoke detector going off when I'm cooking and a sound I love is that sound (like I think only Disney world fans will get this) when you're out in front of test track and the cars go by on the track above.

28: What's your biggest "what if"?

What if I'm actually the villain of my story?

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

No and yes

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

Right: fan. Left: laptop.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

Pine scented candle. I love scented candles.

32: What's the worst place you have ever been to?

My middle School. It was the border between two gang territories. We'd have gun and bomb threats every day.

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

I live on the east coast but I gotta go with West coast just because I've been to more of it.

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

Idk

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

To find what you live to do and do it as much as you can.

36: Define Art.

If someone makes anything and calls it art, it's art. I think that's how it works now.

37: Do you believe in luck?

I believe I don't have it.

38: What's the weather like right now?

Sunny and in the 80s. Way too hot for winter.

39: What time is it?

9:33pm EST

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

Yes and no

41: What was the last book you read?

Steve jobs by Walter Isaacson

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

I shouldn't but yeah xD

43: Do you have any nicknames?

Drew

44: What was the last film you saw?

I saw Chris Rock's new stand-up special this morning. It was really good!

45: What's the worst injury you've ever had?

I ran on the top of some bleachers, tripped, and fell all the way down, breaking my collarbone along the way.

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

I can't remember

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

My most recent obsession has been with anything made by Donald Glover/Childish Gambino

48: What's your sexual orientation?

Ace. I mean... It's in the name.

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

Many

50: Do you believe in magic?

Depends on what you mean by "believe" and "magic". I like magicians xD

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

Yes

52: What is your astrological sign?

Idk and I'm sick of googling it every time I'm asked about it.

53: Do you save money or spend it?

A bit of both

54: What's the last thing you purchased?

10 piece chicken nugget meal and a vanilla Coke from Wendy's.

55: Love or lust?

Love

56: In a relationship?

No. Happy Valentine's day!

57: How many relationships have you had?

0 58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

59: Where were you yesterday?

Home Depot

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

A strawberry scented candle.

61: Are you wearing socks right now?

62: What's your favourite animal?

Cotton-Top Tamarin

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

The Scarab Gun from Halo 2 is a pretty good secret weapon I guess. JK just be yourself.

64: Where is your best friend?

Oregon

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

As of writing this I don't follow anyone yet so let me get back to you on that.

66: What is your heritage?

A little bit of native American but primarily white eruopean as far back in history as you can go.

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

Sleeping

68: What do you think is Satan's last name?

Trump

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

I'm not answering that question.

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

Idk.

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

Save the dog.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

Honestly this question is so fucking depressing I'm skipping it.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

What is love without trust?

74: What's a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

(Once again only people who've been to Disney World will get it) the music at Soarin' (over California (it's just better))

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

Like I'm gonna put my phone number on here. Ha.

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

For me... Having one would be just fantastic.

77: How can I win your heart?

Tell me something I Don't know. I love learning.

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

I'm not sure it brings on more creativity, but any change in mental state in a creative person will bring on a different kind of creativity.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Picking the high school I went to.

80: What size shoes do you wear?

10.5

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

I want it to be blank just to fuck with people.

82: What is your favourite word?

Actually...

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

Barracuda

84: What is a saying you say a lot?

Here's the thing...

85: What's the last song you listened to?

"Me and your mama" by Childish Gambino

86: Basic question; what's your favourite colour/colours?

Black, silver and light blue are a few favorites.

87: What is your current desktop picture?

Artists rendering of Epcot.

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

Satan Trump. #callback #comedy

89: What would be a question you'd be afraid to tell the truth on?

When my family asks me why I don't have a girlfriend yet I'm always afraid to come out and tell the truth to them... That I'm asexual and have no interest in dating anyone except another ace, and because of the rarity of aces its really difficult to find someone. I have no interest in coming out though. It wouldn't change anything.

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren't really doing anything, they're just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Laugh my head off because I'm obviously being punk'd. Where's Ashton?!?

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what's even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

I mean the obvious superpower I now have is the ability to digest radioactive material. But if I could have any power I'd want to be able to travel through space and time.

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

See now this is why that superpower would come in handy! You wouldn't have to choose! (See how I dodged that question. That's my real superpower!)

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

Idk but if I could live my life just as it happened but without being overweight, that would be great.

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

If I say John Lennon will it bring him back to life? Cause if so then yes, John Lennon. Final answer.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

My mind says south Korea because the Olympics but my heart says to go to Oregon to see my friends.

96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

Not that I know of.

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

Yes

98: Ever been on a plane?

Many

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

"Can't we all just get along?"

100. Age?

101. What’s a good way to spend a Valentine’s Day when you’re single, lonely and bored?

This.

#100 questions #asexual #ace #disney world #the beatles #childish gambino #scented candles #valentinesday #valentines day #punk'd #john lennon #tim minchin #c418 #test track #larry king #wendy's #cotton-top tamarin

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surveyjunkie · 8 years ago

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1. First of all, what do you prefer to be called? Tasha. 2. What is your favorite form of creative expression? For me, it’s either blogging or painting. If I had any musical talent, it would be that. 3. How do you like your coffee OR if you don’t like it, why?: I take it with loads of flavored cream. 4. What is the least desirable thing, in your opinion, to put on a pizza that you have heard of people actually eating?: I guess anchovies...fish and pizza just don’t sound appetizing together. I’m also not big on putting chicken on pizza unless it’s chicken bacon ranch. 5. Would you rather witness the beginning or the end of the universe?: The beginning.

6. Describe your favourite pair of socks: They have the sailor moon bow on them.

7. What is the current or last song you are listening/listened to, and does it have any special significance to you?: I don’t even remember what it was. I can’t find my headphones :( 8. Do you prefer rainbows or stars?: Stars 9. Describe the best day of your life NOT in terms of events, but in terms of your feelings: Elation. 10. Would you rather go to a planetarium or an aquarium?: Aquarium. 11. Do you know the reason that 11:11 is considered to be auspicious?: No idea. 12. What decorations are hanging on your walls?: At home? There’s a couple of paintings I made, a framed Margarita recipe, and my Bachelor’s degree. 13. What is your favourite planet in our solar system?: Earth 14. How do you express love?: More through actions than words because I suck at talking about emotions. << 15. Do you consider yourself to be more spiritual or scientific?: Spiritual I guess. 16. If you had a lava lamp, what color would you want it to be?: Teal 17. Would you rather be able to revisit your past to simply re-experience a positive moment or revisit your past in order to change things and risk the consequences?: Maybe just re-experience a positive moment. I’m weird about the idea of changing things that have happened in the past, even though I have strong regrets. I feel like things wouldn’t be how they are now if I hadn’t had the unique experiences of the past. Idk. 18. Have you ever had a past-life regression or memory?: I remember when I first got braces, I told my mom that the feeling of having them felt familiar, even though I’d never had them before in my life. That’s the only indication I’ve had so far that I may have led a past life. 19. What is your favourite holiday and why?: Christmas. Family and food. << And eggnog/booze 20. Are you better with remembering dates or names?: Dates. I’m terrible with names. 21. What was your favourite book that you had to read for a class?: 1984. 22. What is your favourite number and why is it significant to you?: 7. It signifies my 7th year of life and the 7th grade, which were both great times for me.

23. Would you rather explore space or the ocean?: Space. 24. What prompted you to call the last person you called?: I missed her call so was calling her back. 25. Star Trek or Star Wars?: Wars. 26. Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter?: LOTR. 27. What is your favourite band and why?: I have lots of favourites, because I can’t choose just one. << 28. What colour best resonates with your best friend(s)?: Navy blue or white. 29. Where do you work and why do you work there?: I work in the research office at the local hospital because they offered me a position that is relevant to my bachelor’s degree and will look extremely good on grad school applications.

30. Have you ever gone to a public karaoke facility, and what did you sing?: I’ve been to one, but I didn’t sing 31. What animal do you feel most connected with?: My dog. 32. Have you ever had “special brownies” or any other kind of “special” treat?: Yep, I didn’t care for them. I just prefer to smoke it. 33. What book are you reading at the moment?: None. 34. What is the funniest thing that you have done at a fast food restaurant? Probably when I fell asleep on my food when I was drunk. 35. Do you enjoy listening to music that is sung in another language?:

Yes, especially Spanish 36. Quote the last movie you watched: “Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Beauty and the Beast” 37. Do you know more than just your sun sign (like your ascending sign or moon sign etc.)?: I’m not sure what that is 38. Do you have any jewelery on you that holds significance, and if so, what is it and why is it significant?: I have a couple of rings my mom bought for me on my birthday. One is a ruby ring which is my birthstone and the other has two small diamonds in it. 39. What is your favorite kind of cheesecake?: Peanut butter fudge 40. Why did you last feel warm and fuzzy inside?: Just cuddling with Josh.

41. What band that no longer performs together do you wish would have a reunion tour?: Pink Floyd.<< Yes. They came to my city back when I was in college and I was hoping my dad would take me, but he never did. I’m still salty as hell about it. 42. What band that IS still together do you wish would perform in your area?: Alt-J 43. Have you ever been in a band, and what role did you play in it?: Nope 44. What has been the single most frightening experience of your life?: I haven’t had anything too terrible. Most of them just involve minor car accidents, my car breaking down in the middle of the highway, or locking myself out of my apartment. They’re stressful scary things but I haven’t had anything that has caused trauma, which I’m thankful for. 45. Who is/was your favourite Spice Girl?: Baby Spice. 46. Do you prefer free verse or poetry set in a form?: It doesn’t matter to me 47. In a hotel, would you choose to go in the hot tub, the sauna, the workout room, or the pool?: The hot tub. 48. Imagine that you are exploring space. Who would you want with you and what would you want to explore, assuming you are not limited in any way?: I would want a bunch of trained astronauts with me. The idea of space freaks me out. << 49. Have you ever astral projected?: Say what? 50. What is your favourite song by the group t.A.T.u?: Probably “All The Things She Said” because that’s the only other one I know besides “They’re Not Gonna Get Us”.

51. Describe what you envision as “paradise”: Being on a boat in the middle of a lake with beer, a fishing pole, and good music. I think I may have been a redneck in another life, but I’m okay with that. 52. What element do you feel most connected to?: Water. 53. What is a cause that you feel very strongly about and why?: Keeping Planned Parenthood around. I just think low income women should have the same access to gynecological exams and life-saving procedures that rich women do. Defunding them is not going to stop abortion. 54. What was your favourite class from the last year that you were in school?: I really enjoyed Diversity and Health. I learned a lot about other cultures and how difficult access to healthcare is in other countries. I really think everybody should take that class. 55. What is a topic that you study independently for your own interest?: Politics or psychology, when I’m in the mood. 56. Describe what you would want to wear if you were getting married, handfasted, or having some kind of “love celebration” or “commitment” ceremony between yourself and another? A long white dress, probably lace with belled sleeves. 57. What song do you want played at your funeral?: "Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba. 58. Would you rather alphabetize or put things in order according to numbers?: Alphabetize 59. What medication do you dislike the most?: Antibiotics, they ruin my stomach. 60. Would you rather write a story or a poem?: Story. 61. Do you believe in non-physical entities, and if so have you ever communicated with one?: I don’t know if I do. I mean, I used to pray to God, but I’m not sure if that’s what you’re referring to. 62. What invention or discovery do you think that the scientific community should focus on?: I think they’re already focus on a lot of important priorities, like medical care, disease cure and treatment, etc. << Yeah. I work in medical research and I can tell you that we are extremely well funded.

63. If you could go anywhere, where would you go and why?: Anywhere? I’d go explore the west coast because I’ve never been there in my 24 years as a U.S. citizen. 64. What skill do people often compliment you on?: I don’t know. I don’t have any skills.<< 65. What are three facets of your personality or thinking patterns that you want to improve?: Social anxiety, self-doubt, hastiness 66. What is your favourite symbol?: $$$ 67. Name an unusual shortcut or file that’s on your desktop: There’s nothing unusual on my desktop, unless you think my Doge background is unusual, which if you do, FUCK YOU! Lol, just kidding. I don’t know. 68. What do you smell like right now?: Burberry Weekend 69. You get to have a theme party of your choice, just for fun. What theme do you choose?: 80′s! Even though it’s been done fifty billion times. I don’t care. 70. Have you ever been in the depths of a cave?: No 71. How do you deal with the dark side of yourself?: I listen to depressing music or watch fucked up movies. 72. Name something that you can’t help but save: Receipts. 73. What is your addiction?: Fries, pizza, online shopping 74. If you could wish something for three people, but not for yourself, who would the wishes be for and what would they be?: Health, happiness and money for everyone I love. << 75. Would you rather send a message in a bottle or on a balloon?: Balloon. 76. What did you dream last night?: I had a nightmare I was stabbed in the ghetto and ran to a guy in his car for help. I asked him to drive me to the hospital because I was bleeding a lot but he ended up taking me to the grocery store instead and made me wait for him to spend 10 minutes picking out fruit before he finally took me to the hospital. 77. What is one of your most frequent daydreams?: Quitting my job 78. What is your favourite stuffed animal?: My squirtle. 79. If you could have a conversation with any well-known figure of the past or present, who would it be and what would you want to talk about?: I really don’t know. 80. If you could bring anyone back to life, who would it be?: My uncle 81. Are you affectionate?: Yes 82. Name one thing that each of your best friends is really good at: Smoking pot. 83. What are you a perfectionist with?: Certain things at work. 84. Could you see yourself being able to carry on a long distance relationship?: I did it for 6 months. Granted, we were within driving distance, but it was still hard. 85. If you could be anything but human, including anything mythical, what would you be?: A unicorn. 86. Have you ever meditated? If so, what is your method, and if not, what do you do to relax?: I’ve done it a couple of times, it doesn’t really help. Usually breathing exercises and hot tea help. 87. What is something about yourself that you feel no one else understands?: I’m over analytical

#survey

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