#Redacted is a joke. What's redacted is this is exactly how I feel today. Oh the chittering laughter bubbles and thrives in the dawning Abyss

[blackvahana]

I don't generally click on dark ambient videos with these kinds of titles because they're never what I'm looking for, I will gladly admit I only really care for self-serious non-soundtrack-based dark ambient, but man. First of all, I recognise this is made partly with Mysteria my fucking beloved, second... [Redacted]

[churchyardgrim]

Character ask meme:

1 and 3 for Theo, 12 and 16 for Magpie, 14 and 19 for Savra :3c (you don't have to answer all of them if you don't want)

yeeeessssssss

Theo!

1. What was the original thought that led to the creation of this character?

ehehee well i read the dread possibility in [REDACTED] about [REDACTED] and thought "oh i know exactly what needs to happen here" >:3

and then i went to my DM and they said "i'll allow it, if you're ok with this character getting absolutely tormented" and i said "literally would not have it any other way"

3. What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality, or their role in the story?

appearance and personality were easy, and definitely informed the rest. he's a menace of a twink with crippling paranoia and a dangerous streak of ambition; everything else follows from there. name took me a while, i'll admit, but i'm unreasonably happy with the end result

Magpie!!

12. Do you have a playlist for the character? What songs do you associate with them and why?

oh i've got playlists for all of these fuckers, it's a necessary part of cementing them in my brain. Magpie's is very fast and energetic and full of movement. she's a very simple character really, not a lot of emotional depth and almost no angst whatsoever, so the songs that stick to her are about freedom and joy and kicking something's face in with ur fuckig hooves

16. Is there any memes or running jokes associated with the character, both in- and out of universe?

that campaign was 90% jokes by volume hghdf, but i think the most noteworthy one was the fact that this is just. a feral child. she's four and a half feet tall. she's got two brain cells bouncing around in there like the dvd screensaver, and whenever they collide a thought happens. her primary method of interacting with the world is by punching and/or biting it. she's behind on her rabies shots and was a werewolf for three days and didn't even notice.

Savra!!!

14. Do you have any quotes tied to the character, either from the story itself or from another source that fit them?

oh god i don't usually collect quotes hghdf, and the thing about Savra is that she'd sooner eat nails than say what she really wants to say out loud BUT. song lyrics is close enough :>

"That old crow came back today Sitting in my window like a prophet Out on the fire escape to say 'Anger is just love, left out, and gone to vinegar'."

19. What is your general favorite thing about the character? What is your least favorite?

honest to god the themes this kid is working with are very close to my heart. she's that terrible moment of adolescence where the truths of childhood have been revealed to be the lies of adulthood, stuck in that wrenching betrayal of finding out that your parents are fallible and flawed and not worthy of the love you had for them, except that love hasn't gone away and you're trapped with the contradiction and trying to live up to an impossible ideal that really no one but you expects from yourself, and everything is so, so important and confusing and you're just here fumbling around trying to figure out how to be a person and feeling so deeply wrong in your own skin because you kind of really want to eat people and that's the worst sin you've ever been told of and the guilt is burning you alive--

and somehow this isn't a combination i've ever seen done with any justice anywhere else so i just had to make it myself hghdfg

[late-nite-scholar]

WIP Whenever! (Thursday)

I was tagged by @mareenavee ! Leaving tags open for whoever would like to participate!

I'm actually posting something different today! This is original stuff, a little scene I've been working on for a project I want to expand from a shorter piece that I've kind of mentioned before. Now that it has a happier, non-horror ending, the characters keep wanting to do more stuff. So I'm tinkering with ideas for expansion.

It's about 500 words. Names are redacted for the most part (and I took out some spoilery bits) just cause I'm not quite ready to put that out there (but there is at least one person on this webbed site that may recognize them!).

cute picrews are the best! Look at these two!

***

The woman pushed up her glasses and smoothed her hair before bringing her hands in front of her and squeezing them tightly together.

L stepped forward, reaching his hand out. “I suppose you already know if’n you're [redacted], but I’m L and it’s real fine to meet ya.”

The woman’s bottom lip trembled. “You have to be. Your profile matches exactly. But your name is (L). Your father didn’t care for that, I see.” 

“Pappy never did tell me that. I only ever been L that I know of.” He paused. “If’n Pappy done come from this city, then how come he ain’t never talked like it? Cause he always talked like I do, but none of y’all do.” 

She sighed. “I assume he was using it as some sort of disguise. When he left, he didn’t want to be found.”

“Why not? Was he… was Pappy a criminal?”

“No. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you everything I know, I promise. But your father was not a criminal, I promise you that. Even if I did hate him for taking you away.” But she looked beyond him. “But where are my manners? We shouldn’t leave your friend just standing there.”   

“This do be M.” As M shook the woman’s hand, L smiled softly. "She’s my wife." 

"Wife? Oh, that's lovely! I’m so glad to meet you! I’m Beryl.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Where are you from, M?”

“I’m Fleet Folk. Formerly Mid-Atlantic Fleet, but L and I run solo, now.”

“Oh, that is brave! I’ve heard of Fleets, that is a tough life, especially by yourselves.”

“We do well at it.” M shrugged, but her hand slipped back into L’s. Something about this put her on edge, and she needed the safe feel of him right now.   

“Do you two have children yet?" 

"Gosh, mama, we ain't had ‘nuff time for all that! You done gotta give us a bit!" He laughed nervously, holding tighter to M's hand. 

"Have you two done panels yet? What's your compatibility? Any problematic markers? Because we have a lot of great options here in the city. Things have come a long way in the last decade or so." 

"Panels?" M's voice rose. "Do you think just because I'm Fleet I'm some kind of inbred?" 

"What?" She blinked, before smacking her forehead. "Wait, panels aren't common up top! Of course. I'm so sorry! They're so normalized in the city people usually do them before a first date. To ask is no stranger than asking where you met or what color you're thinking of painting your nursery." 

She looked a bit lost as her words ended, and M swallowed her irritation. "I know you didn't realize. But there are… stereotypes about Fleet Folk. The joke is you get a panel for your Fleet partner to see if their father is their uncle once or twice over. Or some variety of that." 

"But… but Fleet genetic diversity is almost negligibly different from the general surface population… and that difference is only from an extremely small number of outliers… it's statistically zero… But I'm sorry, M. I never intended to imply something so cruel."

She smiled wanly. “You didn’t know. But we shouldn’t spoil things with a little misunderstanding. And you two should be talking, not me!”

“Ah, of course!” Beryl flustered. “It’s all just a bit overwhelming, I guess. But yes, I would like to start off on a good foot. Let’s start again.”   

[frostfloweragainlol-alias-juno]

This is part 2

Dex belongs to @leech-twinz

Warning: slight Emetophobia and sickness (flu), cussing

Ship present: Cain x oc (Dex), Abel x Larry

5.30 p.m.

Abel’s phone rang

“Yes?”

“I got your text, is Cain ok?!”

“He is not dead so-“

“I’m serious brother-!”

“Ok, jeeze “ 076 sighed “ He’s not doing great, but last time I checked his fever went down a little” he paused “ Where are you anyway?”

“Me and Alto are substituting for you in the mission, don’t you remember? You texted me asking me to “

“Really ?” Abel checked his phone “huh, you’re right “

“You really are worried huh ?”

“Fuck you”

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, you know? I’m worried too “

“Whatever “

“Jeeze, Ok Mr Grumpy” she said jokingly

“Stop calling me that”

“Hahaaha!”

“Ugh, why must you be so anno-“

Abel suddenly paused

“Aby?”

“Sorry, I got to go, I’ll call you back” 076 quickly said before hanging up

“Wtf?” Frost wondered staring at the phone’s pitch black screen

~

“Well at least you made it to the bathroom ?” tried to joke Abel

“not... funny...” Cain managed to say

“ I’m just saying that puking here is better than throwing up on the floor “ he replied patting his back

“Oh now you’re an optimist?!” Cain wrapped his arms around his abdomen.

He seemed even more exhausted now.

“You’re pale as fuck, you should really eat something “

“ I would probably throw that up as well “

“At least drink something?!”

Cain was about to reply when Abel phone rang again

“Yeah?”

“Hey, it's Larry. So it’s tonight at 6 right?”

-Oh fuck-

“Uh-“

“Don’t tell me you forgot about our date “

“No no no, it's not that!” he tried to explain “It’s just... something came up-“

Cain looked at the ground, feeling guilty

“Oh? What happened?”

“I’ll send you a text explaining everything. I promise I didn’t forgot”

“Wait you’re serious then”

Both of them stayed silent

“Ok, I’ll call back later”

“Thank you”

“No problem. I love you !!“

��I love you too” Abel whispered

106 smiled, then hung up

“Back at what i was saying-“ pause

“Cain? Is something wrong?”

“I’m sorry, about the date”

“Huh? What do you..?” “WAIT- do you really think that was your fault ?”

073 Nodded in response

“How on earth could that be your fault?! I quite literally forgot about it in the first place !”

“You still could have gone! But you can’t because you are taking care of me-“

“You know I can reschedule a date right ?!” He hugged his brother

Cain hugged Abel back “i’m sorry...for everything” he tear up, both from guilt and tiredness

“Uh- bro is all this for the date? Or is still about that thing-”

073 broke down crying

“Aaand it’s about that...“

“For the 100th time, I already forgave you for that 2 YEARS ago”

“Stop fucking crying or you’ll make me cry too!”

.

.

.

Surely enough, minutes later both of them were sobbing uncontrollably , with the only interruption being a few “I’m sorry “ and “shut the fuck up”

~

8.00 p.m

Frost knocked at the door

“Hey du-“ she stopped immediately as she saw Abel face

“Have you been crying? Are you ok?!! What happened?!?” she shut the door behind her

“I’m fine” he wiped his eyes

“Seriously, why were you crying?!”

“Cause Cain started crying “ he explained “ and I honestly have no idea of why I started crying too but eh-“ he paused “Man, was today weird “

Frost looked at him confused

“How was the mission btw?” 076 tried to break the silence

“No one died so I guess good “ she stopped “Well, actually 2 class Ds died”

“What scp escaped again?”

“It was ... what was it?! Uhh- I don’t remember the number??”

“[redacted]?“ tried to guess Abel

“Exactly that one ! I always forget its number omg “

“ It’s strange how they literally could contain me almost without any breaches but it’s the fourth time this week that that thing escapes. And It’s only fucking Thursday “

Frost shrugged her shoulders in response

“Cain?” She asked

“He’s sleeping. His fever went down to 100,4 °F. Before it was like 104 °F“

“Well that’s a good sign” she said relieved

Abel nodded

“ Dex?*

“He said he was coming. I tried to tell him it wasn’t a good idea because he could get sick too, but he insisted “

“I don’t think Cain is even contagious, I’m not sick “

“Abel, you basically never get sick remember?”

Abel stared at her , and then replied with an “Oh. Right “

Frost crossed her arms

“Go take a nap”

“Uh?”

“Go to sleep, you’re clearly tired”

“But-”

“Go take a fucking nap dumbass “

“What are you? My mother ?”

“No, but I care about you and therefore I’d advise you to go and rest cause you look exhausted. And probably your brother would think too that you should rest “

“I’m not leaving this place until Cain is better“

“Fine, you can stay” 9108 sighed “But take a nap”

Abel crouched down

“NOT on the floor. The couch exists for a reason “

076 got up staring at her annoyed

“Oh! And take this” she handed him a pillow and a blanket “I know cold it’s not that much of a deal for you but still”

“Thanks” he mumbled

“Wait- did you keep those in your pockets or some shit?! Cause I’m sure you weren’t holding these five minutes ago “

“I have a backpack “ she snorted

“Ah”

Frost giggled

“DON’T LAUGH”

“I’m not” she tried to say without bursting into laughter

“Fuck you”

“I’m really trying not to I swear “ she snorted

“Yeah yeah” he rolled his eyes

~

9.00 p.m

Frost checked on both of her brothers , both deeply asleep. Then sighed relieved and headed to the small kitchen of the chamber. -whoa, this site’s chambers are so cool! Is much better here - she thought while walking . She sat down on a chair, ignoring the flashbacks of site 19. She was still lost in her thoughts when there was a knock on the door. She quietly unlocked

“Hey Dex”

“Hi. Sorry I’m late but an mtf got in the way”

“I swear those bitches” Frost rolled her eyes

“Why are you whispering?”

“Cain and Abel are sleeping”

“ Is Abel on the couch?”

“Yep” 9108 replied shutting very slowly the door

“Is Cain alright?” He then asked. His voice sounded worried

“He’s getting better don’t worry “ Frost reply

“Oh, thank god” he whispered

9108 smiled

“Anyway, since you’re here, would you like something to drink? Tea or coffee?”

“Either it’s ok”

“Tea then?”

Dex nodded then proceeded to seat down to one of the chairs next to the table

“Man, how many kinds of tea does my brother have?! There are like 30 boxes here!”

“I didn’t know Cain liked it so much, I always see him drink coffee ?”

“He does. It’s the only natural thing he can consume as the herbs inside of the tea bags are already dried out”

“Really?”

“Yep” “uhh, would you like vanilla tea?”

Dex nodded again

“Cool”

In a few minutes two hot tea cups were ready.

“Thank you” he smiled

“No prob “

They stayed silent for a few minutes

“Hey Frost?”

“Hm?”

“Remember when you told me you also were on site 19 around the time I also was contained there ?”

“Mh?”

“You never actually told me what happened back there”

Frost placed the cup on the table “Yeaahh- i don’t really… want to talk about it- you know-? it’s one of those experiences that are just meant to be forgotten “

Dex stared at her in silence

“And chambers are orribile“ she smirked

“Seriously the site reaaally should hire an interior decorator. I mean gray walls?” She then joked

“Oh yes I remember those haha-gray? I would of opted for another color ” Dex added

Both quietly giggled

~

10.30 p.m

Frost and Dex were still talking

“Btw did you see my twin by any chance today?

“Nope. Didn’t he have a date with Abel tho?”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me. Well he was supposed to have one but Cain got sick and Abel probably forgot “

“Weird, I never saw him forget about anything”

“Yes, except when he’s worried about something or tired. He forgets everything “

“Oh? Really?”

“Mhm” Frost paused “Don’t tell him I told you this tho”

“My lips are sealed “ he reassured

“Sealed? How will you talk then? '' a sleepy voice jokingly replied

Frost and Dex simultaneously turned their heads and stared at the man in the white pajamas behind them. Cain smiled. Dex stood up and hugged him, so quickly that they both lost their balance and fell on the floor.

“Happy to see you too” Cain smiled again, hugging his husband back. Dex held him tight , relieved to see he was ok

“I’m happy to see you’re feeling better brother ” Frost smiled

She was about to say something else when her phone rang

“Excuse me a sec”

She brought the phone to her ear “Hello?” Pause “Oh. Wait again?! —- him too?! ” She stopped again for a few seconds then glanced at Abel, who was still asleep “No he’s busy at the moment. Yes I understand. Listen, I'll come alone ok?” Frost sighed, annoyed “Again: no, he can’t be there right now , but I can. How many times do I have to repeat myself?” Silence once again until scp 9108 finally replied with “Good “ and “I’ll be there asap” and then hung up.

“Who was that ?” asked Cain, still hugging Mo

“Ugh, the mtf squad omega 8. Scp[redacted] has once again escaped and someone well decided to look at a photograph of Lanky apparently.“

“But you and Clef just stopped it?!”

“Yes but there was an accident during the transport and [redacted] escaped again”

Cain glanced at his sister “ who were you talking about? Abel?”

“Huh?”

“When you glanced at him and said ‘no he’s busy’ ?”

“Oh ? Oh yeah!” Frost crossed her arms “They wanted me and Aby’s help” another sigh “But he is resting and I don’t wanna wake him, so I just told the guy he was busy”

“If you want I can-“

“Absolutely fucking not, you’re still feverish“

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Besides I’ve already fought that oversized lizard twice and survived , this will certainly be easier “

“You almost died!!”

“And I survived”

“At least bring someone with you during at least one of the missions? For safety? Please?”

Frost sighed “Fine. I’ll ask Zack to help me with [redacted] while I try to find Lanky. Happy now?”

“Very “

“Good” She paused “Welp- i better go. See y’all later” she then proceeded to open the door and then closing it with a “byeeeee!”

~

6.00 a.m

Cain glanced at his brother, still sleeping on the couch, and Dex, who had fallen asleep on the little armchair next to the table. He smiled, then grabbed a blanket and proceeded to gently place it around his husband’s shoulders, careful not to wake him. He then kissed him on the forehead. Dex smiled in his sleep.

“Mh- shit... ughh- dammit ”

“Good morning. Slept well?” Cain turned around and smiled

“Ehhh- somewhat- and bet I overslept” Abel rubbed his eyes

“It’s 6.00 am, it’s still pretty early actually” reassured him 073

“Huh” he sat up and yawned “Usually I’m up for 5 am tho”

“I know. But at least you got a full-night sleep and not the usual 5-4 hours per night”

“How did you even know my sleep schedule?”

“I’m your older brother. I know everything “

“Omg, You’re creepy “

“No, I just know you” Cain raised an eyebrow

“Ok. Whatever “ he rolled his eyes

He looked around, then again at his brother

“Frost is in mission if that’s what you wanted to ask”

“Damn you could at least let me ask “

073 shrugged “Hey, about yesterday-“

“?”

“Thank you. For taking care of me“

Abel started at his brother, then nodded

“But next time you go to work sick, I’ll straight up be kicking your ass“ he smirked

[ejzah]

A/N: And now for the comfort aspect of this story. And some more angst.

***

Where It Hurts Most, Part 6

“Kensi, is everyone alright? Did you find Deeks?” Fatima asked in Kensi’s ear, bringing her back to the present.

“Yeah, we found, found him and we’re all fine,” she told Fatima, gently releasing Deeks to take a step away. “But Deeks does need to see a doctor. He, uh, he has some facial trauma and possibly other injuries.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” Fatima let out a hefty sigh. “Ok, I’ll call ahead and let the the ER to expect you guys. Paramedics should also be on the seen in about five minutes too.”

“Thanks, Fatima,” Kensi said gratefully. When she turned around again, Deeks was halfway across the room.

Several additional agents and police were starting to arrive and she could only guess how overwhelmed he felt. Although he didn’t have any obviously severe injuries, Kensi noticed he moved slowly.

As she headed towards Deeks, she noticed Kessler was stirring. He lifted his head just enough to catch her eye. She let her gaze sweep over him as a paramedic examined his knee.

“Have fun learning to walk on that again,” she said coldly. It was a harsh, cruel comment, but she didn’t feel a hint of guilt. Kessler growled something unintelligible, which she ignored in favor of hurrying to Deeks, and slipping her arm around his back.

There were more paramedics waiting and when Deeks noticed them, he held back, his hand tightening on Kensi’s arm.

“I don’t want them to touch me,” he said adamantly.

“You don’t have to.” She’d make sure no one objected.

“Kens,” Callen called out, quickly walking towards them. “I need a statement before you leave the scene. Deeks can give his after he gets checked out the hospital.”

Kensi gave the barest description she could, using as clinical of terminology as she could, conscious of Deeks’ presence. When she was finished, Callen let her go without question.

Deeks slumped in his seat a few minutes after Kensi started driving, exhaustion clear in his face. Every time he would begin to doze off, he’d jerk awake after a few seconds.

The third time it happened, Kensi reached across the console to take his hand. She squeezed it tightly and Deeks glanced over with a grateful look.

***

When they reached the ER, Kensi had Deeks sit while she checked him in at the front desk. As promised, they had a cubicle waiting for Deeks and Kensi silently thanked Fatima again. For her own peace of mind, she needed to know that he was alright, and she could tell that Deeks’ anxiety was increasing with every second.

By the time he was safely ensconced in the tiny cubicle, his legs were vibrating, right foot silently tapping against the linoleum.

His face looked significantly worse under the bright lights, each bruise, cut, and abrasion highlighted. His chin was blood, reminding Kensi of that horrible day years ago. A shudder ran through her and she reached for Deeks, this time for her own comfort.

She touched his temple, the unbloodied side, carding her fingers through his hair. It was tangled with blood and dirt, but she didn’t care.

“That feels nice,” Deeks whispered, leaning into her touch. He covered her hand for a moment, then shook his bangs out of his eyes, glancing up at her with a tired smile that was tinged with sadness.

The curtain to the cubicle slid open then, revealing a familiar face.

“Dr. Bartholomew,” Deeks said, quickly straightening with a wince.

“Mr. Deeks, Agent Blye,” he greeted them, nodding to Kensi.

Kensi felt Deeks relieve ever so slightly, some of the tension leaving his body. Dr. Charles Bartholomew had treated Deeks a few times over the years so knew some of Deeks’ medial history, if a highly redacted version.

“I wish I could say it’s good to see you…” Deeks shrugged and trailed off, giving his best attempt at a joke at the moment. Dr. Bartholomew allowed a half smirk, nodding in understanding.

“Same here. Now, you want to give me a rundown?” He addressed the question to Deeks, but glanced at Kensi as well.

“I, uh, might have some bruised ribs, my left shoulder is kind of sore, and then there’s this,” Deeks answered, gesturing to his face and head as a whole.

“And your wrists,” Kensi added quietly. “He was bound with restraints and zip ties for several hours.

“Uh-huh. Somebody certainly had it out for you Deeks,” Bartholomew observed quietly as he pulled on gloves and gently began pressing his fingers along Deeks’ hairline. His tone was non-judgments, only sympathetic.

“You could say that,” Deeks agreed darkly. He was silent for most of the examination unless asked a direct question. He flinched again when Bartholomew rolled his sleeves back to check his wrists.

After giving Deeks a couple of liquid stitches for the larger gash in his temple, Dr. Bartholomew slid his rolling stool back a few feet, and scrawled a few things down on a script pad.

“I’m going to prescribe an antibiotic and some pain medication. I know you’re probably not going to fill the second, but it’s there if you need it.” His brow rose a tad sardonically as he held out the prescription orders. Kensi accepted them, tucking both into her pocket.

“I didn’t see any signs of damage to your teeth or jaw, but I’d still like you to see your dentist or a orthodontic specialist,” he continued. Kensi noticed how careful he was to avoid the word trauma this entire time. “Given your history, I just want to make sure everything’s still in place.”

“Got it,” Deeks agreed, clenching his jaw. He’d handled the oral examination well, though he’d held Kensi’s hand the entire time, grip so tight her fingers ached.

“Good. I’m going to have a nurse bandage your wrists and give you a shot of antibiotics, then you should be good to go.”

“Thanks, Doctor.”

“No problem. Take care, Deeks. I hope I don’t see you for a while.”

A nurse came along a few minutes after Dr. Bartholomew left. She set up a tray of implements and bandages without looking at Deeks. She abruptly grabbed Deeks wrist and he jerked out of her grasp, much like he had with Kensi.

“Sir, I need to bandage your wrists,” she told him sharply. “Hold still.”

“No,” Deeks said, shaking his head as he pushed himself off the hospital bed.

“Deeks,” Kensi murmured, stepping between him and the nurse. “It’s ok.”

“Don’t touch me,” he snapped, nearly pressing himself against the wall as the nurse descended on him. She could see instinct and fear were taking over.

“If you don’t cooperate, I’ll be forced to call security,” the nurse threatened.

“Lisa, is everything alright?” A soft voice inquired as the curtain around Deeks’ bed was pushed aside yet again. Lisa spun around to face the young woman, dressed in light blue scrubs and a headscarf, who entered the room. “Would like me to take over, Lisa?” I think Dr. Favor needs assistance in room 8.”

Nurse Lisa gave the second woman a glare, but left without comment.

“My name is Ifrah,” the younger nurse introduced herself in that same soft tone. “Is it alright if I take care of you, Mr. Deeks?”

After a moment, Deeks reluctantly nodded and sat back down. His body was fully tense again and Kensi could tell it was taking all of his willpower stay out.

Ifrah seemed well aware of this and made sure to tell Deeks exactly what she planned to do before she touched him. As Kensi held his other hand again, Ifrah began to clean his left wrist.

She talked about her teenage daughter who was starting driving lessons in a few weeks and the garden she was planting. It was mindless, but Deeks calmed under the soothing rhythm of her voice. Kensi felt his breathing slow as Ifrah carefully bandaged his wrists.

When she was done, she gave him a pat, and nodded to Kensi.

“You can check out when you’re ready,” she told Kensi.

“Thank you,” Kensi said fervently, gratefully. Ifrah just nodded and left as quietly as she’d come.

“Sorry about that,” Deeks apologized, rubbing a hand over his face and then eyeing the think bandages with distaste. “I don’t know what happened.”

“Baby, you don’t have anything to be sorry for. What you went through…we understand,” she finished simply.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.” Deeks hesitated a moment and then slid his hand across the bed until he could twine his fingers through hers.

“Why didn’t you kill Kessler?” he murmured. “I mean, I’m not saying you should have, but I thought you’d want him gone permanently.”

Kensi drew in a long breath.

“I wanted to,” she admitted. “I think I planned to. Up until the moment I shot him, I wanted to kill Kessler more than anything.” She shrugged, avoiding Deeks eyes for a moment. “But as I was standing there and I saw what he’d done to you, what he planned to do to you, and everything else he’s done to us, I decided killing him was too easy.”

She heard Deeks inhale sharply and she purposely met his gaze.

“He doesn’t deserve to get off that easy. Kessler deserves every moment of pain and punishment from now on and I want to be there to make sure it happens.”

“What if he gets out again sometime?” He shook his head slowly, eyes filled with worry. “I don’t think I could take this again.”

“It won’t,” Kensi assured him. “We’ll make sure it doesn’t. After what he did today, everyone on this team will use all their power to make sure Kessler never has the chance to hurt us again.”

“Ok,” Deeks said, his voice barely more than a whisper. Kensi ran her fingers through his hair again and pulled him towards her.

“We’re free, Deeks,” she said, pressing their foreheads together. He made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob and tilted her chin up to kiss her. It was a kiss filled with relief, the remnants of pain, and more hope than Kensi had felt in months. “We’re free,” she repeated, holding Deeks closer.

***

A/N: And I think that’s it, guys! I hope this was a satisfying ending for you all. Thanks so much for your enthusiastic and lovely response to this story, which was somewhat outside my normal range.

[shananigans402]

1-65 will do, please. Thanks fuck face :)

I knew exactly who this was and I was so tempted to not reply, but your punishment is having to read through all my answers and remember them forever or you fail the friend test. To everyone else, please do not click unless you want to be very bored, my answers are not interesting lol

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you? Nope

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you? Assuming 5 is the most, 1. Maybe 2. 

3. The person you would never want to meet? The person who sent me this (jk I’m excited for our eventual meet up where we hit up a strip club first thing 🙏)

4. What is your favorite word? I answered with ‘conniption’ the other day and still have not found a word I like more.

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be? Already answered this, fruit tree! I also like palm trees, maple trees, and willow trees. I know that’s not the question, I’m just saying random shit now.

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought? It took me a long while to remember where I was this morning. I honestly don’t remember, I was rushing to get ready for an early morning meeting.

7. What shirt are you wearing? My Orlando Strong shirt 

8. What do you label yourself as? Lesbian

9. Bright room or dark room? Bright room

10. What were you doing at midnight last night? Sleeping? Possibly checking on a feverish little beeb who was going through it with her second dose of the vaccine.

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far? No idea. I like various ages for different reasons, but this age so far is not bad. 

12. Who told you they loved you last? Probably my sister 🤷‍♀️

13. Your worst enemy? The person who sent this ask.

14. What is your current desktop picture? The apple pic of Catalina island that changes based on time of day (yes it’s the default, don’t judge me)

15. Do you like someone? Lol yeah I hope so 😂

16. The last song you listened to? Pretty Girl by Hayley Kiyoko 

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up? Definitely @raginage

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face? I feel like I can only attack Raginage so many times. Can I pick a fictional character? This week I was real mad at Dave in The Darkness. BaBe!​

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do? Lol no one, you’re talking to a person who feels very uncomfortable with anyone doing anything nice for them.

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional) Not this again. Last time I said eyes? Still no pics, sorry

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do? What would I look like? Do I get to design myself like a sim? I honestly don’t know what I’d do because I doubt the world needs another clueless white man walking around, so maybe just stay at home. 

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it? Nope. And my last answer to this was awful. I do think I have a fantastic ability to annoy my friends but in a way that’s just amusing/endearing enough to make them still want to talk to me 😌

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of? Unique? Uhm well my two big fears are confined spaces and deep water so a submarine is like my worst nightmare.

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal. Oh this is going to sound so odd. To be clear, I’ve had better sandwiches, but my go-to is provolone, turkey, roast beef, and spicy brown mustard or whole grain mustard. Please don’t judge me.

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it? Travel budget for future trips to visit my buds and get into trouble and eat food. I know $100 won’t go far, but it’s something.

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go? Well, after my last answer I want to visit my friends! But there are too many people to visit and I only have one ticket. So change of plans. I’m going on a solo trip to Greece. Or Argentina. Or Iceland. Or Bali. Damn, I’m indecisive. 

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be? Rabble red blend. Just a solid red wine. Also because @viola-lloyds stole my answer the other day (Juneshine; to be fair I asked her this question but whatever) and I don’t want to copy her.

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? Oh I answered this one, something about respecting others. Yeah, a nice rule like that. Want to establish some healthy communication on this island.

29. What is your favorite expletive? It’s still fuck

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno? But what about my PLANTS. Can they count as loved ones? Probably my laptop, I know that’s lame but like...I have a lot of stuff on here. Or the collection of cards I have that my granddad drew little drawings in, I want to get them all framed.

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? To be honest, I don’t know if I’d change big life events in case it altered the trajectory of where I ended up. So idk maybe the ending of Bly, let’s give those lesbians have a happy ending!

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world! Italy! But wait, let’s get back to this sleeping with celebrities and super-powers bit...

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back? Oh that’s a really tough question. I always wanted to meet my great-grandma Olga because she seemed like a really awesome lady. 

34. What was your last dream about? I can’t remember, this is bothering me because I wish I could! I’m sorry. My gf recently had a dream where I kissed a dude right in front of her. It made us both very uncomfy lol

35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]? I hate this question because I can only think of one thing.

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital? For surgery, yeah

37. Have you ever built a snowman? But of course!

38. What is the color of your socks? Not wearing any? I was wearing blue ones earlier. Jfc my answers are so boring.

39. What type of music do you like? Lots! I tend to listen to indie, classic rock, and some pop

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets? Sunsets!

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Chocolate or a variant (chocolate peanut butter, chocolate caramel)

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer) LA Rams or Seattle Seahawks. I know they’re in the same division. It’s tough. (Please don’t ask me why these teams)

43. Do you have any scars? Yep, mostly from burning myself on ovens. I simply get too excited for my food.

44. What do you want to be when you graduate? I...have graduated? 

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Well bestie recently said I have “lesbian hands” and I think that’s code for man hands so maybe that hahaha

46. Are you reliable? I try to be!

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be? How many more times will I watch The Darkness before I learn my lesson? (Related: When does other bestie finally admit to her fetish?)

48. Do you hold grudges? Not typically, no

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create? A dog and an otter? Can we domesticate otters? No, a horse and a large bird, create a pegasus and then free travel.

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had? Oh god. I don’t even know where to start today tbh. Damie and pokemon and cosycon and looming and feet and [redacted] and developing apps for VP. So many fantastic conversations. 

In real life, probably the time I was at a laundromat in Italy and this guy wandered in with a beer, sat next to me and my male roommate, assumed we were a couple, and proceeded to give us bizarre life advice. I wish I could remember more of it, but it was so odd.

51. Are you a good liar? Hmm I’m okay at it I think, that is, I can convince people I’m serious when I’m actually joking. But I don’t like actually lying if it’s not just teasing someone. 

52. How long could you go without talking? Probably a few days if I had to.

53. What has been you worst haircut/style? The haircut I got before studying abroad! It was too short and I was so sad.

54. Have you ever baked your own cake? For a birthday? No. For fun? Absolutely.

55. Can you do any accents other than your own? Not well, no

56. What do you like on your toast? Butter and/or honey and/or jam

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of? My beautiful depiction of a scene of chapter one of Private Dancer. 

58. What would be you dream car? An electric car of some sort. I don’t know enough about cars tbh

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain. Nope but sometimes I’ll play music and dance and maybe softly sing.

60. Do you believe in aliens? Yep! Definitely 

61. Do you often read your horoscope? Almost never unless someone sends it to me.

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet? Already answered, A

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons? Dinosaurs! 🦕

64. What do you think about babies? What do I think about them? They’re pretty cool. Just tiny little humans. 

65. Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of. I was very nice and let you correct your mistake and submit one after the fact:

In your opinion what is the best thing you can cook, like your speciality? My favorite thing to make is pasta, I started making my own sauce and I’d love to make pasta from scratch sometime.

[cobythinks]

‘Might As Well’ AU

HEYY so I this is a bullet-fic kinda thing for an AU I’ve created, and unlike my other AUs I’m not going to make a story for it and if I write anything it’ll all be one-shots of certain bits. It's mainly Roloceit with like tiny bits of Moxiety as well.

Feel free to send in asks or request one-shots for this AU! I’m very happy abt it and I loved writing this so any questions for the characters or requests for scenes would be amazing!!!

Most of it under the cut because... I got carried away and it's very long

Roman Guerra is a YouTuber/actor

Horace (Dee) McMullin is a drama teacher

Logan Wright is a science teacher at the same school that Dee works at

Roman and Dee are roommates, and though their relationship has progressed FAR past what anyone would call a friendship, they really don’t care enough to label it or even talk about what they are to each other. They both know they care about the other, and that’s all that really matters.

Roman also tends to rant in Spanish when he gets passionate, and Dee responds by saying the names of ‘Mexican food’ as a reply.

Roman: *talks in spanish*

Dee: *nods* burrito. Quesadilla. Mama Mia.

Roman: that’s not even a food, shut up.

Logan meets Dee through work, obviously, and they quickly become friends

Something about the tall, dramatic, elegant man just drives Logan insane because he’s a little shit once you get to know him and it makes no SENSE

The adorable little science teacher shouldn’t scare Dee as much as he does, but he can’t help it. Something about the way Logan is always composed makes Dee feel like he’s a serial killer or something.

Despite this, they become friends when they discover they both have a passion for psychology and have long discussions about it during lunch and when they hang out on weekends

Dee - as much as he hates it - starts to fall hopelessly in love with the other teacher. He can’t help it, just like he couldn't help but to fall in love with Roman a year and a half earlier when they met. 

Not that he’d told Roman that yet, god no. They’d both dated other people on and off while knowing each other, even if they did end up fucking after every breakup and swearing to each other they were done with the whole relationship thing. 

Roman always found someone else to sweep off their feet, and Dee always found himself hopelessly pining for someone else to make the first move

So, that’s what was happening here, and it was torture.

Logan wasn’t much better, furious that this dramatic drama teacher of all people made him feel so flustered and confused.

Then the day came that Dee brought Logan over for dinner, and he met Roman

Roman greeted him dramatically, filling the entire apartment with his electric energy as he spoke.

Oh god, there’s two of them. Logan realized in terror as the two bickered playfully back and forth, eventually challenging each other to a duel despite the fact they had a guest over.

And like most of their duels, Roman ended up kissing Dee

“Oh,” Logan said, feeling like a complete idiot

“Fuck,” Dee said, realizing that Logan now had the wrong idea

“Maybe later,” Roman said with a wink because he’s a little shit.

Dee just freaking makes a mess of everything and accidentally confesses his feelings for both of them at once and then faceplants on the couch

Roman offers Logan some lasagna because it’s getting cold

Dee feels betrayed 

but joins them for lasagna in a few minutes

Logan is utterly confused and doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything

Dee is mortified and wants to jump off the balcony

He and Roman proceed to do the titanic thing and Logan is still very confused but he agrees to take their picture

He’s Like: Sure??? I guess so??? Are we not going to address what just happened??? DOn’T FaLL yOU IDiOTs

Roman thinks it is all hilarious but he must agree that Logan is stunning

He helps to re-explain his and Dee’s relationship because Dee honestly did an awful job

And Logan is like okay

Because it makes sense now even though Roman used many slang words he did NOT understand

Oh my god these two are literally the most chaotic duo he’s ever met and usually Logan HATES chaos but he LOVES this

And so Roman - of course, it’s Roman - is the one to suggest they just go with the flow like he and Dee have been doing for the past year already, if Logan wants to

Logan has no idea what to expect but agrees that he wouldn’t mind

Horace.exe has crashed again

So they start doing whatever the hell it is that they’re doing

And if Roman is a chaos slut with Dee he is a chaos gentleman with Logan and it is BAFFLING he’s still dramatic but he’s overly chivalrous and polite and Dee is annoyed why can’t Roman hold the door open for him instead of holding it closed like a jerk after opening it for Logan

Dee and Logan just keep up their psychology discussions almost constantly and regularly have to ask Roman to finish a debate even though Roman knows NOTHING about psychology

Roman always finds an excuse not to support Dee (in a loving way)

“Roman! Tell Logan that Max Stirner-”

“I’M BUSY MAKING ALFREDO SORRY”

This doesn’t stop Dee from continuing to ask him to back him up

Roman always supports Logan in the debates despite being completely oblivious

“Roman, don’t you agree that-”

“Yes, my love. My darling. Genius whom I would die for. I agree.”

This always causes Logan distress in two ways

One: Roman didn’t listen to what he was agreeing with

Two: he is now super flustered because Roman is continuing to ramble on about how much he loves Logan

Logan turns out to know some Spanish

So now he and Roman have conversations in Spanish and Roman teaches him more and Dee just doesn’t really care

He keeps contributing using food or random words he’s picked up on and it drives Logan and Roman INSANE

And so they start dropping his proper name in conversation to either

One: make Dee think they’re mad because they used ‘Horace’

Two: make Dee think they’re gossiping about him

When really they’re talking about how much they love him OR just saying ‘Horace’ in the middle of a completely unrelated sentence

They stop doing this after they accidentally make Dee legitimately sad

It surprises both of them when they realize he’s crying after they don’t tell him what they were saying

So no more pretending to gossip about each other in Spanish

Roman offers to teach him Spanish

Dee responds to the offer by screaming ‘TORTILLA’ at the top of his lungs

Dee does not learn Spanish

Roman calls them his boyfriends first

In a youtube video title

Without warning them that they were being featured

Because he’s a little shit

Dee freaks out and tries to ask him about it but they just end up making out like they usually do when they try to have a serious conversation

Logan is okay with it and very amused at Dee’s reaction

Dee calls them his boyfriends next when he gets sick

When Dee gets sick he gets freaking delirious

Logan didn’t believe that it was the same person the first time he saw Dee when he was sick

Dee also only responds to Horace, his given name, when he’s sick and it's so hard to talk to him because they never seriously call him that

but Dee is so fucking sappy when he’s like that

And it's just pure and cute and he calls them his boyfriends

Logan calls them his boyfriends last

When introducing him to some other friends when they moved back into town

Patton Foster, a veterinarian

Virgil Storm, a weatherman (shut up he knows it's stupid his boyfriend (Patton) makes enough jokes about it as it is)

Both are baffled at how Logan managed to be dating two completely batshit crazy drama geeks

Once this happens they finally sit down and decide that yeah, they are dating

None of them say it’s exclusive, but none of them really want to date anyone else anymore anyway

Having Logan there to balance out the chaos is exactly what they needed

“I NEED A SNAKE FOR A VIDEO”

“Doesn’t Dee have a pet snake?”

“DEE YOU HAVE A PET SNAKE??”

“You’ve lived together for two years, how do you not know he has a snake in a terrarium in his room?”

“Logan I trusted you.”

“CAN I USE YOUR SNAKE”

“Only if I get to be in the video too, she gets nervous around cameras and she needs me.”

“Snakes don’t know what cameras-”

“DEAL!”

So it's just chaos and thriving in their little apartment

Roman has them in his videos sometimes, which is hugely popular among his viewers

“Hey, youtube! Today we’re throwing wet sponges at my tall boyfriend!”

“Roma- ROMAN GET AWAY FROM ME YOU SAID YOU WOULD WARN ME NEXT TIME”

“If you get water on the floor I’m not cleaning it up also watch out for the outlets you don’t want to get electrocuted.”

“That was my nerd boyfriend. I’d never throw a wet sponge at him, he doesn’t deserve it. Only my tall one deserves it.”

“I HATE YOU BOTH”

Logan and Dee both try to embarrass the other more whilst at work, which only caused a problem one or two times

“I need your help”

“With what”

“...a surprise”

“I told you I won’t help you teach them how to stage kiss anymore you always just kiss me for real and that’s not how it works.”

“But I love you.”

“fine.”

Roman and Dee regularly compete to see who can make Logan more embarrassed from compliments and it usually ends up in a cuddle pile or [REDACTED]

Dee is still positive that Logan is either a serial killer or a robot and that is one reason he enjoys making Logan embarrassed because it's hilarious to see the usually stoic teacher not know what to say

Roman, when he hears this theory, claims that Dee is the actual serial killer and he knows because he’s a ghost that’s just been haunting Dee since he killed him

Logan pretends to believe Roman’s claim and Dee wants to destroy them both.

He does… in a way *cough*

People who met Roman and Dee before Logan got there are baffled when they see either of them or both interacting with Logan

Because Roman and Dee are just CHAOS and DRAMATIC declarations of love (Roman) SCREAMING and sexual jokes (Dee)

Roman and Logan, though, that’s Roman at his most chivalrous. He opens doors, speaks eloquently, bows dramatically and is basically an over the top perfect gentleman

Deceit and Logan, well, no one understands that either because Deceit makes ZERO sexual jokes and he’s quiet and gentle and finally FINALLY he matches the elegant aesthetic he has going on 

And as soon as all three of them are seen together? The dynamic makes sense again

Roman and Dee are gremlins. Logan is the god they worship.

 Logan treats them both equally, as much as he can that is, and Roman and Dee would probably fight to the death for his hand and then end up making out like they always do when they fight to ‘the death’

Even Logan’s friends have only ever seen him express real emotion when he is with one or both of his boyfriends

The rest of the time he is in his robot/serial killer mode

Both Roman and Dee take great pride in this

Logan calls Dee Horace when he wants to make a point and it's usually why he ends up winning debates when Roman isn’t around because it makes Dee frustrated and annoyed so he stops talking

Apologies are made with kisses though

After the three get together, Roman learns a lot more about Dee as a person because believe it or not Dee is good at pretending and keeping secrets

Also they always just used to… sleep… in Roman’s room and not Dee’s but Roman didn’t even notice that and that’s how Dee got away with having a snake in secret for two years until Logan stayed the night in his room.

Roman falls more in love with Dee as a result and visa versa

Logan is awfully amused at this and they know it

Basically, the entire relationship is a HOT MESS

And that’s all I’ve got

[simmonsofshield]

Reassignment

Part 1/1

Pairing: none Characters: Kate Beckett, Kevin Ryan, Javier Esposito, Jemma Simmons, Philip Coulson

Summary: Amidst clean up after the Battle of New York, things happen and Officer Y/N ends up in the quinjet’s medical bay.

Words: 1900+

A/N:  Unplanned, but I guess in honor of my url change, Jemma has a small feature in this fic! This was originally gonna be a copy-paste of one of my fics from wattpad, but then I wanted to make it more accurate to New York so 98% of this is new writing. So much for trying to cut corners. 🤷😂 Loose tie-ins of Agents of SHIELD and Castle. (Characters, not really the shows..) Canonically, Skye (Daisy) wouldn’t have her powers yet, but my story my rules lol. So she does. Three weeks late (I was suppose to post this on the 1st), but at least I got it done, right? This is for @fanfictionaries​‘s classic trope challenge. I chose police au. Takes place after Avengers.

Police codes key: 12-David-19 [Precinct # - city section - police car id] used 9th precinct as reference 10-50 Disorderly (group, person, noise) non-crime 10-10 Possible crime (many tags, the one i use is P, suspicious person/prowler)

“Here’s what’s going on today,” Captain Beckett begins, “it’s been almost six months since the Battle of New York. Midtown South is still asking for help with crowd control and patrol of the area, as most of their officers are helping with clean up. I told them the 12th Precinct is happy to help as long as it doesn’t interfere with our daily patrols. Today they’re only asking for two, so Ryan and Esposito, it’s on you today. Just make sure no weirdos or teens with sticky fingers try to get in the rubble.”

“Yes Captain.”

“L/N, my office, please.”

You look at her with surprise, then over to the boys. Ryan is the first to speak, rolling his eyes, “Of course. Little Y/N getting special treatment once again. I bet you’re getting put on a really cool case. You know, she’s basically training you to be a mini her.”

You roll your eyes back at him, “Sounds like you’re just jealous because I rose to this rank in half the time it took you.”

“Ooooo...” Esposito calls from his desk, “want some ice for that burn?”

“Shut up,” he mumbles as he slumps back in his chair.

You laugh as you walk to Beckett’s office, the door being closed behind you. You start to get worried when she starts shutting the blinds too. “Captain?”

She sets a file in front of you and begins explaining. “Though Kevin was joking, he wasn’t wrong. You have impressed me since you came here from the academy. You were the youngest to be promoted to detective, and your persistence hasn’t gone unnoticed. Which is why I think you’re perfect for this particular assignment.”

She nods to the file, and you pick it up, opening it. Your brows furrow at the first page and you look back up at her, “I don’t understand. Philip Coulson died on a helicarrier before the attack on New York even happened. Didn’t Loki kill him or whatever?”

“Originally, yes.”

“Originally?”

“Most if it is redacted and classified, but what was released - specifically for you in this file, turn the page - was that some experimental tech was used and more or less brought him back to life.”

You read exactly that as she says it, but you’re left with more questions than answers with every page turn. “What do you mean specifically for me? How many people know he’s alive?”

She blows out some air, sitting down at her desk to look you in the eye, “Only SHIELD level 7 and above. We are of only a few civilians that know. This cannot leave this room. The only others that know are ones that will be a part of this team that Agent Coulson is putting together alongside Agent Maria Hill and Director Fury.”

Again, more questions. “But...I’m a homicide detective...not SHIELD...” You pause for a moment as you try to form a question with all the information that is now in your mind, “Why me?” is what you come up with.

She shrugs, “That’s a question for Coulson or Hill. I can’t answer it. You’ll work today but after that you’ll be with SHIELD and Coulson,” she nods back to the file, “I suggest you finish reading through that tonight.” She stands up and walks toward the door.

“I’m sorry, Captain, one last question,” she lets go of the door handle and turns around, “what does all this mean for this job? Am I like fired or something?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” she says with a smile, “Agent Hill and I already discussed the technicalities, but basically what will be said is that you’re going undercover with SHIELD for a big operation and you’ll be gone for a few weeks. Which, really, isn’t that much of a lie.”

You nodded, somewhat understanding, “Yes, ma’am. See you in a few weeks, I guess.”

She also nods, smiling, “Likewise, detective.”

Nearing the end of your shift, you’re about to head back to the station when there’s an aggravated call on the scanner. “10-50. These crowds are getting out of hand. More officers needed in Midtown near Grand Central.”

You go back and forth in your head for a moment before deciding to respond, “Dispatch, add 12-David-19 to that 10-50 call. En route from East Village. ETA about 20 minutes.” You turn on your lights and try to get there as fast as you can.

Arriving on scene, you park about four blocks away, at Park and 38th, which is as close as you can get with all the rubble and destroyed buildings. This is the main drag of where most of the Avenger’s fight happened. It’s no surprise that half of New York is here to see the damage, even six months later.

Now on foot, you’re about halfway to Grand Central Station when you hear the breaking of glass and catch some suspicious activity out of the corner of your eye. You follow, talking into your radio, “This is 12-David-19. I’ve got a 10-10P. Kids breaking windows of businesses. It doesn’t look like they’ve stolen anything yet. I’m going to keep an eye on them. Requesting one or two officers for backup if anyone can leave Grand Central Station. 40th street, headed NorthEast.”

You casually follow at a distance until all of a sudden, “Whoa, dudes, check this out!” One of the kids picks up a weapon of some sort. Clearly not of this world and from the Battle, you’re 99% sure. He poses with it and one of his friends takes a picture of him with their phone. “I wonder what this button does.”

“Ahh!” Whatever came out of the weapon hits you directly in the shoulder and you fall to the ground. This is the first time the group of kids notice your presence. They fight for a moment, deciding whether to run or help. A groan from you cuts their argument short and most leave, while two stay.

By what you can tell with your blurry vision, they seem to be brothers. The one walking towards you is clearly friends with the ones that fled, while the other is younger. If you had to guess, you’d say early high school, 14-16, and 12ish for their ages.

You grab your radio and talk into it softly. Hopefully someone will be able to hear you. “Ambulance needed at location of 10-10. Officer down, shot with some sort of alien weapon.”

The older one kneels beside you and takes off his shirt, wrapping it around your wound, attempting to make a tourniquet. You let out a raspy laugh. It’s not quite right, but you appreciate the attempt. “You seem to know what you’re doing.”

You can see the fear still on his face but he smiles nonetheless, “I’ve seen a few medical shows. I think this is right.”

“Anything to slow the bleeding. You’re doing good. What’s your name?”

“Derek Saunders. Am I going to jail?”

“N-no, why would you think that?”

“My friend shot you. Aren’t I an accessory or whatever?”

You shake your head, “You watch cop shows too?” you joke.

“My dad’s a cop. He’s helping at Grand Central right now.”

You cough out another laugh. How convenient. You’re about to tell him to call his dad on your radio when you hear another blast. It feels like it happens in slow motion. You watch as the burst of energy goes up at an angle and hits the building next to where you’re laying. You hear the boy yell something in the opposite direction, you’re assuming at his brother, who most likely got curious and picked up the alien weapon. You see the huge pieces of building falling towards you and Derek.

You let out a scream, though you’re not sure how loud it is due to your blood loss and how tired you’re getting. You close your eyes, knowing the inevitable is going to happen, and just waiting for it. You feel the ground rumble and try to open your eyes to understand what's going on, but you can’t.

Your world goes black.

You wake up to the sound of steady beeping. It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to the brightness of the fluorescent lights, but once you do you begin to panic. You know this is medical equipment and you’re in a room of some sort, but you’re not sure, something doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t seem like a hospital room.

You hear the whooshing of an automatic door sliding open. “It’s okay, officer. No need to panic. You are in great hands.” A pleasant British voice says to you. It does put you at ease a little.

The brunette seems to be taking your vitals or something at the moment, writing on a clipboard. You clear your throat, “Uh..where am I?”

“Oh of course,” she smiles embarrassedly, “welcome to the Bus. We’re with SHIELD. You’re safe.” she reassures.

“The Bus?” you raise an eyebrow.

“Yes,” your eyes shoot to the new voice, “welcome aboard.”

“Agent Coulson.” You try to sit up, but the pain in your shoulder stops you. You wince and lay back down.

“I assumed our meeting would be under better circumstances, but this’ll have to do.” he says with a smile. “Thank you, Simmons.” he nods at the girl and she leaves.

“What happened?”

“We heard your call on 40th.”

“Were you tracking me?”

“No,” he scoffs, “just making sure you didn’t get hurt before we got to meet you. Kinda failed at that, huh?”

You can’t help but chuckle a little, “Okay, but how the heck did I....” you trailed off, trying to think of how to word your question.

“Not die?” he looks at you, finishing your sentence.

“Uh, yeah.”

“You have Skye to thank for that. To avoid a lengthy explanation, she has the ability to ‘quake’ things apart and stopped the piece of building from falling on you and the young man helping you.”

“What happened to Derek and his brother?”

“They’re safe. And the weapon has been confiscated, now SHIELD property.”

You nodded, content with his explanations. There’s a lull in the conversation and you take the time to actually take in your surroundings. The room you’re in is glass on three sides, the fourth being a wall of shelves for medical items. You look down at yourself, not in a gown like a hospital, but someone’s tank top and shorts. You’d have to ask about that later. You focus on your shoulder, eyes going wide. It still hurts, but looks completely healed. 

“Pretty cool, huh?” you look at Agent Coulson, who is smiling like a proud dad, “you’d lost a lot of blood by the time we found you. We immediately put you in the tissue regeneration pod and got it going on your shoulder. It looks healed, but you’ll have to stay in here for a couple more days and be monitored.”

“Tissue regeneration? How long was I out?”

“From when we found you to getting you to the pod, only a few minutes, but we had to anesthetize you so you wouldn’t wake up during the regeneration, so you've been out for about 16 hours.”

“Oh.” is all you’re able to say, still taking it in. Tissue regeneration. How are you supposed to comprehend that? “Thanks, I guess.”

He nods, “So are you ready to discuss your new position with SHIELD?”

Besides the man being in front of you, you had completely forgotten about your transition from NYPD detective to possibly SHIELD agent? The two of you certainly had a lot to talk about. “Yes, sir.”

[kdtheghostwriter]

New Blade Runner Fic

And I mean Brand New!

Yes, this is one of the ideas I’ve had slamming around in my head lately. And before we go further I must must MUST give a shoutout to the righteous @future-geometries for being a source of inspiration.

You see, we both have an on-off, intermittent fascination with the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049. It has a tiny but passionate fandom that still produces content to this day. (That includes a great fic written by J.)

We were in the midst of one of our convos about this flick when they pointed out how tragic K’s arc was and how disappointed they were that we haven’t had a “satisfying, low-stakes AU” yet. Now, this was over a year ago at least and perhaps I underestimated how much people love putting K on the Whump Train because we still haven’t seen it. So, what else is the guy who rewrote Dawn of Justice to do?

This is a rare look into my process as you get to see a very skeletal first draft. The final version will be three chapters with much more detail about the characters and the issues they face in a modern-adjacent setting.

I had to get this out into the Ether because I know it will be ages before I can get back to finishing this. I still have to finish The Batman. I still have to write JL3. Between those I’ll be writing my [REDACTED] rework. And a neat idea I have for Atomic Blonde. Then maybe I can finish this.

Until that fateful day, join me under the cut if you will...

Title: Dead Slow Ahead Word Count: 2415 Category: Gen Fandom: Blade Runner Characters: K, Rick Deckard, Ana Stelline Rating: T+ (some thematic elements and Deckard’s salty language) Summary: A tragedy in the life of Officer K begins a slow spiral that leads to his resignation from the LAPD. He now finds himself in the home of another former officer named Deckard, as he begins the slow march back to stability. A snapshot of a recovery in progress.

He drops the badge and gun on her desk without a word. She doesn’t look up at first, until she notices him still standing there. He stands there in silence for several seconds longer before he takes the seat in front of her. He’s looking down and away, then up and to the left. Anywhere but ahead into her sight.

“Is that it?”

“I think so.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Think what? I don’t read minds.”

“I think I’m done.”

She pauses at that. Not out of surprise.

“Kinda figured. Life’s put you through the shit stain recently.”

“…Yeah.”

Another pause and she opens up a drawer to drop the badge and gun into. She snaps twice to get his attention. He maintains eye contact for the first time.

“I don’t have to tell you but…this isn’t normal protocol. It’s usually a two-week notice. Two weeks that you’re still expected to show up and do your job. But I like you. We’re not friends but I like you. You’ve done good work for this department. So, I’m going to do you a favor.”

She holds up two fingers. One from each hand.

“Two days. Forty-eight hours. However you wanna think of it, I don’t care. You get two days leave to figure out whatever this is. You come back in two days and I give you your gear back. If you don’t, I clear out your desk and I don’t see you in this building again. That’s fair, right?”

“Very fair. Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiles very slightly. “You were always so polite. I know I’m a smartass constantly but I do appreciate that.”

“I know.”

“Hey.” She sits up straighter to cross her legs. “Before you go.”

“My baseline?”

“If it’s not any trouble.”

“Not at all.”

He’s been in her office for meetings before. He doesn’t have to see behind her desk to know her finger is hovering above a silent call button. Whether he left the precinct under his own power or under restraint depended on his performance.

He closes his eyes, swallows the emotion and looks forward to recite the words.

“And a blood-black nothingness began to spin. A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem. And dreadfully distinct, against the dark, a tall white fountain played. But in the case of my white fountain what it did replace? Perceptually was something that, I felt, could be grasped only by whoever dwelt in the strange world where I was a mere stray.”

She places both of her hands flat on her desk. She visibly relaxes. He does not.

“Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Constant K like always.”

“Always a pleasure, Madam.”

 -------------------------

 K jolts awake to slam on his brake, throwing his arm out to the seat space next to him. He expects the paper grocery bags to go flying. What he finds instead is his front bumper flush against the garage door. Asleep in the driveway. Embarrassing but not dangerous. He backs up slightly and kills the engine.

Almost a year removed from his last day finds him in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. He’s staying in a house for the first time since finishing high school. It shows as he drops his keys while fishing from his pockets. He grumbles as he bends down to retrieve them, hearing the door open.

“Deckard,” he says. “I know I’m late but I got some extra-“

The face in front of him isn’t who he expects. It’s much younger and the smile is still visible from behind the clinical mask.

“I suppose you aren’t wrong.”

“Ana. Hello.”

She answers with a wave. “I’m making my weekly visit. May I?”

K without protest hands over one bag and pockets his keys. Once inside, he slips both shoes off and drops into the near recliner with the bag still in his lap.

“About time, boy.” Deckard speaks gruffly while scrolling his phone.

“Kept you waiting, huh?”

“Not me.”

A scruffy Shepard mix brushes up against K’s leg and he repositions the bag to give it a petting.

“Ten years I’ve had Bo, he’s hardly ever that friendly. Good-looking stranger walks in and he acts brand new.” Deckard places his phone down and takes the bag Ana is holding. “You get everything?”

K answers non-verbally through a yawn.

“Feels that way. Oh! Look at this. Four whole bell peppers? I think Miss Consuela likes you, Joe. Joe?”

The latter man is asleep with the second bag still upright in his hold.

Deckard claps once. “Joe! Huh. New gig is doing a number on him.”

Ana pads quietly across the room and stops near the chair before reaching out to touch his shoulder.

“K?”

This perks him up. He looks back at Ana and down to the dog.

“Was I asleep just now?”

“Out cold,” Deckard responds. “You’ve got a bed, you know.”

K hands the bag to Ana. “You don’t need help with dinner?”

“I do, but that can wait until you’re rested. A stiff in the kitchen won’t do me any good. Get.”

K gives Bo another head pat, then shuffles down the hall to his room. While holding the bag, Ana joins Deckard on the sofa to help him with the groceries.

“What’s that you called him?”

“K.”

“Like the letter?”

“Like his badge number. KD6-3.7.”

Deckard scoffs, putting his reading glasses on. “The hell kind of serial is that?”

“It’s his.” Ana says this while inspecting a pack of tomato seeds. “Was his.”

“I’m not calling him by his damn serial.”

“You don’t have to, Deckard.”

“Oh yeah?” Deckard is out of his chair and she follows him into the kitchen. “Why do you?”

“He asked. And I feel like K is a bit more interesting than Joe. Don’t you?”

“Eh. Seems like a lateral move, to me.”

Deckard sits at the table with both bags before him. Ana remains standing, drawing her hands into the sleeves of her pullover.

“Will he be alright?”

“You’ve got three degrees. You tell me.”

This is meant to be a joke, but if the frown outlined by her mask is an indication, Ana does not find this funny. Deckard frowns back to remind her where she got it from.

“Don’t give me that. Physically he’s fine. Beat up maybe but fine. Mentally? Emotionally?” Deckard removes his glasses and his gaze softens slightly. “He won’t be ‘alright’ for a long time. You know that like I do.”

Ana circles the chair to embrace her father. She isn’t taller than him but while he’s sitting, she can rest her temple on his.

“It was nice of you to help him.”

“It was necessary. Kid has no family and I know what the force does to people. Wasn’t gonna let him go back there.”

Ana stands up straight when her phone sounds from the other room. She’s reading the message silently as she walks back in. Deckard is busy separating the canned goods from the perishables.

“Oh,” she says.

“Gotta go?”

“I do.”

“Fair enough. Scoot, then.”

“Very well, Detective.”

“I told you I’m not-”

Deckard is cut off by a quick peck to his cheek. He fights a smirk as she slips away.

“Hey! Mask on, you hear?”

 -------------------------

 When K wakes up his room is dark. Several hours have passed since he left Ana and Deckard in the living room. This is about when dinner gets prepped, but Deckard hasn’t come looking for him. K walks past a napping Bo in the hallway to see what the status is. Deckard is at the table, peeling potatoes.

“You started.”

“You were sleep.”

“Could have woke me up.”

“Could have. But that would be rude. You’re here now, so get started.”

He tosses a peeler in his direction that K catches easily.

“Yes, sir.”

They stay like this for several minutes, peeling in silence. K is a great help with menial tasks like this. He doesn’t complain, nor does he get distracted. After a time, though, even Deckard gets a bit antsy.

“Talked with Ana earlier today. Before you got here.”

“How is she? She usually stays to eat with us.”

“Busy, Joe. It’s always around springtime her workload gets heavy. She can manage but for a few weeks it’ll be tough.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, she told me you had your eye on a place?”

“Found one, actually. Studio in Los Feliz. I move in next month.”

“Not bad, kid. You know there wasn’t a cutoff date on this arrangement.”

“I know.”

“I mean I get it. Shacking up with an old man ain’t exactly exhilarating.”

Deckard’s teasing works as K holds up his peeler in protest.

“No, no! It’s not you. I like being here. I’ve…honestly needed to talk to you about this for a while.”

“I got nothing but time, Joe. Just keep peeling, huh?”

“Right.”

K doesn’t speak again until he’s finished peeling his current potato. He also doesn’t see Deckard roll his eyes.

“I never lost the place. I put all my stuff in storage. Been subletting for months. I just couldn’t stay there any longer. I only went back today because the office called me.”

“Is that what this is about?” Deckard reaches into the seat of a neighboring chair and pulls out a copy of the Vladimir Nabokov novel Pale Fire. “Found this under the eggs.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“You mentioned this before. Your girlfriend. What was her name?”

“Joy.”

“She was a reader, huh?”

“No, she hated that book. She liked to hear me read.”

“How long you stay after?”

“Too long but it’s not like I was ever there.”

K closes his eyes and counts before he continues.

“After Joy died… You’d think my work would suffer while I was bereaved but it was the opposite. I was more driven than I’d ever been. I was sleeping in the station barracks. I found a lot of people that didn’t wanna be found. Destroyed them. Got destroyed myself. In my storage unit, there’s a box of awards with my name on them that I got for running and fighting and kicking ass.”

K grabs another potato. He isn’t done and Deckard knows so he doesn’t interject.

“This sounds crazy now but I didn’t even consider leaving.” K drops his peeler and wipes his hand to pull out his phone. “Not until I found this up on my door.”

He passes the phone as Deckard slips on his glasses. Once he sees, he whips them off and returns the device.

“Fucking hell,” he spits out.

“Didn’t matter that my life partner was dead,” K started. “Didn’t matter to them that she was Spanish and not Mexican. It didn’t matter that she was a legal US citizen. Only thing that mattered to them was my badge and my gun, when I knocked on their door and told them exactly what would happen if they bothered me again. That is when I knew.”

“This sounds familiar.”

K exhales. “Bet it is.”

“Well, you were nice enough to share so I’ll do the same. I was with LAPD way longer than I was supposed to be.”

“I thought you quit.”

“I did! Life has a funny way of happening.”

“You too?”

“Rachel was her name. I was already one foot out the door when I met her, so there wasn’t really a decision to be made. And with the ink dry on the previous marriage I felt like the stars were lining up for once.”

“What happened?”

Deckard lays down his peeler to ruffle the fur of Bo who has joined the pair at the table.

“The good news, if you can call it that, is that we weren’t taken by surprise. I was never interested in kids. Rachel wanted one so I wanted one for her. We tried and failed and on the way to failing, we were told in fairly explicit terms that a pregnancy, should we succeed, would likely be fatal. We traveled the country after that. Maybe it was my youth but I was damn prepared to live in that RV in Vegas forever.”

“Until you weren’t.”

“She was with child, Joe. It was every fucking emotion all at once. The happiness, the relief, the fear. I took her home and was back working full time within the week. I took as many cases as I could. Maybe deep down I knew, but I never stopped long enough to think about it.”

There are three potatoes left to peel at this point. K will finish the job, of course; before that, there’s something hanging in the air between them. K goes ahead without looking up from his work.

“Did Rachel get to see her?”

If Deckard doesn’t appreciate this question, he doesn’t let it show. “You never know with that kind of thing. The nurse said she did. Could you blame her? You’re facing down a widower holding a newborn in his arms. You’d say the sky was turning pink.”

K isn’t sure how he should react to this, so he stays quiet for a long time.

“Feel better?” Deckard asks.

“Sorta.”

“Did any of that make sense?”

“Some of it.”

“Good, cause I’m not repeating it.”

The older man rises from his seat and lifts a harness off the wall. Bo takes this as the cue to follow his lead.

“Taking Bo for his night walk. When you’re done there you can get dinner started.”

“Are these for dinner?”

“Nope. They’re for tomorrow. Dinner’s in the oven. All you gotta do is press the ‘Start’ button, big guy.”

K is alone again. He had been rather sluggish and heavy for days up to that point. Moving into his own place once again obviously wouldn’t be the end of his relationship with Deckard or Ana. What it would be is the first extended time he’s had alone with his thoughts. Is he ready for that? Does he have a choice? What is his relationship with these people exactly? He feels better than he was, but there are still more questions than he’d like.

K picks up one last potato from the container. With no one to hear him, he begins to recite the lines he knows so well.

“And a blood-black nothingness began to spin. A system of cells. Interlinked within cells. Interlinked within cells. Interlinked within one stem. And dreadfully distinct, against the dark, a tall white fountain played…”

[sikereviewdotcom]

wilfred (2011) - season 1 ep1 “happiness” review

ok so today were reviewing fucking "wilfred" basically its a story about a depressed guy who tried to kill himself but he failed because hes a pushover in life and even suicide is mocking him yea jk actually his sis prescribed him placebo so the meds he used in his suicide attempt were useless yada yada

then he sees his neighbours (on who he tots have the hots for) dog as a man and hes like lol wtf why is there a furry standing in my yard? im not into dogplay dudette, please dont do this to me ah-

unfortunately for him the chick, on the next day asks to take care of her dog meanwhile because idk shit happens in her house? and she has to work? yea something like that so anyway he accepts because hes into her and out of it aswell more out of it than anything tho

our man, ryan is pretty disturbed but it happens anyway he has NO control over his life so why would he have control on  a dog fursuit wearing 40 yo man? yea exactly wouldnt make sense

wilfred enters his house and smoke a damn bong thats right, a very efficient way to introduce what kind of character were up against see, jason gann has the perfect face for such character looking all dirty in that suit with a big ass black painted dog nose you gotta think "that dawgs up to no good" and youd be damn right keep reading to discover why so basically nm happens in this episode if it isnt the setting of all the shit because well ryan has a lot of issues and its gonna get worse you cant believe this dog is gonna make things better for ryan not really hes just scamming the loser with cheap tricks and drugs

btw after (trying) to vape or w/e with wilfred, the man falls asleep, wakes up because his sis whos a bitch, remember her

its important to spot whos a bitch in each show ill be reviewing its pretty easy to balance whos the antagonist and who isnt although it often is much more complexe than that which is why im here making it all very easy and very interesting, aside from lost cases like the magic school bus i cant make that shit any worse nor TOO better like i have limited power my reviews are sike but some shows are just nah back to our whipped cream: ryans depression: he is jobless ok? so his sis is mad that he doesnt make the effort to come work and do what he has to also he used to be a lawyer btw because his father wanted him to be and then his father died and he lost his job and he hated being a lawyer so w/e but he also seemingly lost all reasons to live and redacted more than one suicide letter so im not sure what to think about it he was really eager to die yknow his sis couldnt care less tho its like "yo stop ruining my image im trynna get you a job in my hospital fuckface" yea see that why shes an inconsiderate bitch

so instead of going to work because of wilfred, ryan takes him for a while btw that vermin also tries to get elijah (the actor playing ryan is elijah wood obvs btw so this series already gets 5 points to begin with i dont make the rules) to throw a tennis ball and dont forget this ball ok? its gonna come back and start a whole drama its the beginning of our adventure a ball

next theyre in a restauration thing eating chips and drinking a beer together dog and his friend then the waitress comes and

happens the tiddies eating, it almost one fucking minute im sure we could all feel the embarassement of having your animal rubbing its balls and penis against your friend whos over for the nights leg in the middle of spring and youre just trying to get it back but wow the hormones are hitting it hard its like a cleaning robot vibrating on a grandma whos cardiacs chest and you trynna take that little asshole away but for some reason its rubbed in olive oil so not only does it reeks of olive, its also slippery as heck and you can see your grandma spasmming on her soon-to-be deathbed, she has spasms for god sake no the robot no someone stop it from stimulating the old ladys torso ah shit marguerite died after drowning in her drooling 

not even died of an heart attack nah, it was such a messy death she suffered so much no one could do anything its like the robot was sentient yknow and well same goes for wilfred hes making it on purpose but uses the excuse : he likes the boobs it nothing personal, ryan

w/e they leave after paying (not for the side tits tho, it was a freebie for dogs) after that shit happens (i wont spoil you EVERYTHING, im just painting a pic here ok?) at this point you could wonder "is wilfred being a dick on purpose or its just about said instincts? how much percentage of his behavior is actually dog and how much is ryans mind (the guy is deranged  there is no denying that but how much? )) whats sure is that his owner likes her dog vm and hes maining that chick

good for him? but it also happens that before that, elijah just threw the ball above the gate and into his much less friendly neighbour because he was sick of the dog asking to throw it and so yea, there is a tension between ryan and wilfred not any kind of tension, exactly the kind of elija x reader fanfic i wanted to read except pov: im a canine furry and i smoke weed on a daily basis and im a jackass

theyre almost breaking up someone does something about it i was seriously getting into it wow oh no fuck look at me tearing one or two here

rip their new born bromance? or... is it all there is to it? well see no obviously its the problem we were waiting for because when our fella enters back home and idk whatever else happens its night and his sister comes home and she goes all "lol actually i gave you placebo itd be dangerous otherwise you numbfuck" but shes quickly muted once our man notices his dog friend in his yard... its time for a reunion a heart to heart conversation to proceed so he has to ditch his sis which he casually does bros before hoes

its again about the ball which HE WILL go and fetch by passing over the fence to get in neighbours yard but damn it cant be just that? wouldnt it make a lame crappy story? we need some actions, we got the tits, the beer, no job, delinquency has no limit so fuck it says the dog as he smashes the window and enters the bikers house because he SMELLS (like he smells the shit streaks you have on your pants) the weed, ryan is like "no fuck bro no shit fuck ah-" then sees the damn weed which they steal ok? hes really a pushover he has not got the right idea of stopping being one because thats what his new friends supposed to be here for yknow trynna get his loser into a winner, that lil camper gotta level up his game, go get into the business of life barging in kicking the door to enter, no shame nor hesitation were trying to make him STEP UP for HIMSELF but guess what? ill tell you later or itd be a spoil in a spoil surely a bad paradoxal medium w/e business going on blablabla theyre up to no good thats for sure as sure as how much ryans actually enjoy this the mans into this pee slash poop affair:

spoiler alert: he does it and

im just quoting him here : he never felt more alive nor glad to be so i guess thats whats life about shitting in peoples affair, stealing weed plants and quitting your job on your first day (you havent showed up tho so w/e you never really worked in that place no one knows you its all good you can get back in that place looking innocent and smiling with your broken ribs "yea nah i never had a job here and ditched yall huh" thats foxy of him kinda but not really since he had no intention back then to do anything for himself it was all strings pulled by a fucking dog hilarious really im having a kick haha no

so what next? theyre best friends? man and dog, a wonderful friendship happens he has no more family to support him but HE HAS A DOG guys he was so into it im feeling sorry for this hobot-to-be schizophrenic man

i wont spoil you but trust me when i say not to trust a furry who eats tits on your first date

in conclusion: it was a pretty decent first episode ill update my final thoughts on the first season once im done watching it but so far its recommandable the camera work is pretty cool like its not just thoughtless filming we actually have a nice feel to it, the setting of the series is esthetically pleasing you get nice colors and it aint boring, its not like a FRIENDS episode yknow? dawg i dislike how boring it looks filming wise for start but damn i aint reviewing FRIENDS rn so next, the comedy? after all its a comedy genre series not a drama, idk if id review an actual depressive show on here thatd bum the vibe out ok? i know im making all my revs awesome w/e it is that i choose to rate and comment but still im serving you a plate of my finest sheez not any fizzle in the mizzle ok?

anyway yea the humor aint bad, i havent laughed my ass of but i did find it amusing to watch the jokes may actually kick in in the second episode ill have to update this rev alright? just hang on to your balls peeps this fam will serve in due time

rating: 7,5/10 scenery/camera work 7/10 comedy 8/10 interest/entertaining points total: 7,5/10 for a first episode is fine enough to be recommanded, like a "give it a chance" sorta case yknow isnt the most hilarious show youll watch but its fine especially if youre into homoromantic tension between a furry and elijah wood 

jk 

tg, out

[uniformbravo]

me trying to make a gif part 2 (thrilling finale, buildup ver.)

ok good news and bad news: good news being withheld for Spoilers (not that it’s that hard to guess anyway lol), bad news explained first bc, chronologically, it is first

so yesterday i mentioned in the tags of that post that i had seen that krita has an animation feature so i was gonna try importing the frames into that and then exporting it as a gif. easier said than done, as it turns out

i started by opening the file i made yesterday with 62 layers as the frames and importing that into krita, which worked fine (i didn’t know you could actually open .psd files in clip stuido ((this typo is so fucking stupid it made me laugh so im leaving it)) and krita, so that’s pretty neat, i wonder if it works the other way around too) but i ran into problems when i tried to convert those layers into frames in an animation. because, like, the layout of the program has the layers displayed in one tab, and the animation timeline in another, like so:

(do u like how im using pictures now, i thought of that yesterday after i published the other post and realized hey, visual reference would probably make my plight a lot easier to understand!! so enjoy these educational diagrams from now on)

so my goal was to get the frames from the layers into the timeline, and i still don’t know if i did it right bc lbr krita is not very intuitive at all,,.,, i mean i watched a video tutorial abt how to animate in krita which was v helpful (it’s the one by jesse j james on yt fuckin SHout out) but it was about animating from scratch, not importing an animation you’ve already done elsewhere

so like, the way krita’s animation thing works, from what i could piece together as i bumbled my way around w/ it, is that each layer in the layers tab is a separate timeline in the,,, timeline tab

i want them all to be in the same timeline, not separate ones, and there’s no way to combine them in the timeline tab bc doing that just overwrites whatever layer you’re pasting it down onto, and also if you define the number of frames for that timeline (62 for this project) it just puts the single image of that layer for all of the frames instead of just one of them, so you’d have to go through and delete all the other frames you don’t want it to be, which would be such a fuckin pain

so i found a workaround, which is so tedious that it can’t be the right way to do it, but basically i started w/ layer 1 and defined 62 frames & then emptied frames 2-62, like this

(that blue box is the frame, btw, even tho it says 0, which actually kind of annoys me like why doesn’t it start the first frame on 1????)

from there i went up to layer two and selected that in the timeline, but for some reason the frame doesn’t show up automatically?

& i couldnt fuckin figure out how to make it into like, an Official Timeline Layer or whatever tf bc like, u see on layer 1 how theres that little lightbulb-looking icon on the right? that’s for turning on onion skin which only applies when you actually have frames with things drawn on them, so basically layer 2 in the layers tab has a drawing but in the timeline it doesn’t?

i didn’t find out what the actual reason for this is or how you’re /supposed/ to make the frame appear in the timeline, but what i did was right click on layer 2′s timeline & select “create blank frame” which magically made the frame i want appear

but it’s on top of the layer 1 frame, and i want it to be the frame after. also it’s still in a different timeline. this is the only easy fix in this whole damn process, u can literally just click & drag the frame from layer 2 to layer 1 and put it wherever u want on the timeline

and then u just delete layer 2 and that’s it, frame transferred!! then i just had to do that for 60 more layers and after [unspecified amount of time but it was a fuckin while ok] my timeline looked like this!

(the gaps near the end are held frames, to save me time so i didn’t have to copy a bunch of frames that were exactly the same)

krita is great because as far as i know ur animation can have an unlimited number of frames, at the risk of your own pc’s processing power, which is a definite upside to SOME expensive art programs i know (clip studio, i’m talking abt csp) and u can pick the frame rate too (cough photoshop elements 5.0 even tho u dont technically have an animation feature & it’s a miracle u can even make gifs at all) so once i finally got all the frames situated all nice and in order like on the same timeline, playing it was great! played at the right speed, looped perfectly, it was a dream come true right

well, time to export it as a gif

ha

haha

hoooo oo  o

so u got 2 options for exporting ur animation, u can either hit “export,” which lets u save it as different file types, one of which being gif, or you can hit “render,” which gives you gif and video options

well

i tried export first, bc that seemed like a good idea, but the “””gif””” it made was distinctly not a gif, despite its claim to be one?? this is what i got:

notice: 1. it is not moving, and 2. the black bars to the sides?? those are supposed to be transparent. they’re transparent in the file i made so why didn’t they register as transparent in the export, when gifs have transparency capabilities??

so That was some real live bullshit but i still had the “render” option, right? export was wrong, so rrender must be the correct option to go to that will produce the results i am wanting to see produced in front of me like a silver dinner platter with a correctly functioning gif under the lid, that’s what i want to see and “Render Animation...” is gonna Give me that silver platter righWRONG ok look at this shit rn ok Look

it says GIF it says it RIGHT THERE right??? right?????? then WHY

?????????????

and it also gave me all This bullshit

like did i ask?? did i fucking ask???? i already have all the individual frames why do i need even M o re i mfjgjgk

((rationally ok yea thats v useful for if ur making the animation in krita and want to export the frames to use elsewhere, but like uhhh 1. again, they’re not transparent & 2. i should have the option of saying i don’t want these??? bc *meme voice* i don’t want these)

so in the end i could find NO correct method of exporting animations as a gif in krita bc every ooption that says gif is fuckign LYING to ur face there are NO gifs in krita, aliens made the progam who looked at gifs and went “hmm i thikng this is how a gif works “ and just made jpegs instead but somehow got on the computers good side and got it to lie for them about it being a gif so thats why it says gif on the file still even tho its not a gif illimati confinr

so what is the conclusion to this? well i said there was good news too, and this is the portion where i divulge that sweet nectar (i type dthis 2 seconds ago and @ me what the fuck)

so after wasting a good 2 hours trying to figure out krita i gave up and watched some good old [youtuber name redacted bc what if it shows up in search & ppl see this dumbass post in there but it rhymes with fjackfsepticfeye] to relax into accepting my fate that i’ll never be able to upload my animations to tungle except in poor quality loopless video form, making me into a laughing stock on my own art blog, but THEN i had a stroke of genius, in my Brain

so if u read yesterday’s post u might remember that flipnote studio, the animation program i use on my ds, to animate, has the option to export files as gifs, both animated and sequential (meaning either as one fully animated gif or each individual frame separately), which is super convenient, but as i mentioned yesterday, any time i tried to open the folder with those files on my laptop, it crashed immediately

WELL today i thought “hey, how about instead of opening the folder in the sd card when it’s plugged in, how about i copy that folder from the sd card to my flash drive, and try to open it there, in case it’s the card’s hardware that’s causing the problem, not corrupted files”

so i tried that and it FUCKING WORKED THANK GOD GLORY HALLELUJAH

so now instead of spedning A THOUSAND YEARS trying and failing to force art programs to bend to my will i can just export the animations straight from my ds and drag them onto my computer Just As God Intended oh GOD im so fucking happy

here’s the gif in the end, i’m gonna post it to my art blog too but this is the Green Version bc i animate in green bc of some default settings in flipnote that i got used to, plus it makes me feel like i’m just sketching so nothing really has to be finalized so i’m comfortable while i work, and also it’s just nice ok it’s a Nice Green

(there’s a few frames at the end that are like the extra scraps from while i was working dw i got rid of those in the final version that i’m posting to my art blog later. also i added my blog url to that one too it’s aaaaaall good)

the only downside to this method is that i can’t change the canvas size to be 540px wide to fit with tumbrl s image dimensions but whatever i can just post them in a text post and fix the html to display it at its original size instead of the resizing bullshit tmurbl pulls constantly ugh. anyway it works great on desktop but it’s inevitably gonna look like shit on mobile no matter what i do *Big Ass Shrug*

anyway thats the end of my success story uhh i can’t make the like comment & subscribe joke again bc i already did that in the last post so like bye i guess thanks 4 watchign & have a great day i’ll see u in my next fvideo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYob4uDjEKI&t=0s

(^that’s my outro music)

[winchester-with-wings]

Black Eyes & Red Leather (Part 11)

~ The Flash / Supernatural Crossover Series ~

Request by @none-of-this-makes-any-sense : Okay so could you do a crossover where the reader is Barry’s gf who is really shy but then gets possessed by a demon… [I have redacted the rest of the request cuz of spoilers hehe]

Read Part 10 — SERIES MASTERLIST

Summary: The Winchester Brothers reveal to Team Flash what is wrong with you and how to expel Roxanne and end this all!

Pairing: Reader x Barry Allen, Demon!Reader x Barry Allen

Word Count: 2600ish

A/N:  Barry’s POV! This is the finale! Afterwards, I will post an epilogue but here we are! The climax!!

Mobile Masterlist Ko-Fi (buy me a coffee to support me & my writing) Ask Box

“Is anyone else even slightly concerned about the fact that these Feds knew we were here?” Iris questions as everyone makes their way to the S.T.A.R. Labs lobby from the cortex.

Cisco had instructed the federal agents to meet them at the public lobby doors which had been closed to the public for more than a year.

“Well maybe they were able to ping someone’s cell phone. I mean, we’re all here on a regular basis…” Caitlin suggests.

“Just everyone play it cool,” Cisco mutters under his breath, sounding more than a little paranoid. He unlocks the doors and everyone gives the two F.B.I. agents a once over look as they step inside. Cisco and Barry were not oblivious to the way Iris and Caitlin seem to look them over a little more than necessary. The insecurities in Barry couldn’t help but notice that these men were tall, well-built, and more than likely very familiar with attracting swooning women.

“So what was this about again?” Harry starts the questions, leveling them with his smart and stubborn stare. Being from Earth 2 and having the face of Dr. Harrison Wells, the murderer, had put up his defenses right away.

The men flash their badges once more and Cisco snatches one of them to inspect it for authenticity. Team Flash isn’t about to let just anyone into their base of operations. Introductions are passed around.

“Do any of you happen to know Y/N L/N?” The man with shorter hair asks. The other looks around the abandoned lobby.

“Yeah, she’s my girlfriend. Why do you ask?” Barry steps forward.

“What are you guys doing here?” The tallest one asks, disregarding Barry’s response.

“I inherited the building. Again...why are you asking about Y/N?” Barry crosses his arms over his chest, defensive...as if the team hadn’t just been speculating about Y/N only moments ago.

“We’re investigating a series of crimes that started in Nebraska and New York and we just want to know if she has any useful information for us. Is she here?”

“Well, Agent Cobain,” Caitlin starts.

“Please call me Sam,” he interjects. He flashes a charming smile and Cait definitely starts blushing.

“Sam...she’s actually at work right now but maybe we can help you? We’re all close friends and Barry actually works at CCPD too.”

“Sure, and is there any way we could possibly get a tour, Mr. Allen? I remember reading about this place before and after the accident,” Sam asks and his partner rolls his eyes.

Barry agrees to a bare minimum tour, sending Harry off to the Cortex to lock away the flash suit and anything else that could give them away.

“Have you noticed anything strange about Y/N?” Agent Grohl asks. “Did she happen to mention anything out of the ordinary on her recent trips out of town?”

“Well...she did go there to investigate a strange police matter…” Barry starts.

“Has she been acting...unusual since her return?” Sam repeats.

“Look,” Cisco interjects, “I don’t know if you’ve heard of Central City, but we’re not strangers to unusual stuff. Everyone's a little unusual. She’s not a metahuman, if that’s what you’re implying.” Barry appreciates his friends dedication to protecting Y/N, even if something is wrong.

“Well look, ComicCon,” Agent Grohl starts in on Cisco, staring him down and taking note of his superhero shirt. “This isn’t some science fair experiment gone wrong. Something has happened to your friend.”

Iris forgoes any act of surprise and looks at the agents. Everyone is now standing just outside of the cortex. “Let’s say we know something is wrong. Do you know exactly what it is…?”

“Dean,” Agent Grohl finishes her question with his introduction. Sam and Dean exchange glances. Sam takes a deep breath and his brow furrows into a look of compassion.

“We realize this may sound crazy… but we believe Y/N Y/L/N is possessed,” Sam offers.

“By what?” Caitlin asks curiously and obviously suspending her disbelief. They’d likely say a metahuman and then everyone would be on the same page.

“A demon,” Dean answers curtly. Cisco snorts.

“No freaking way,” he smirks and starts walking into the Cortex; everyone follows him. Sam and Dean look around the room and seem impressed by the tech and their own investigation notes on the walls.

“Are you crazy? Demons don’t exist,” Barry argues. But then Caitlin catches Barry’s eyes and squints.

“Barry…” she murmurs. “Ra’s al Ghul? Vandal Savage? Damien Darhk?”

“Well that definitely sounds like a real Legion of Doom,” Dean snarks.

“Not exactly…” Cisco rolls his eyes and smirks like he’s just told an inside joke.

“The--uh--The Flash and The Green Arrow have had their share of villains that claimed mystical powers…” Iris explains for the benefit of the FBI agents.

“Okay, so maybe it’s possible but how can we be sure?” Barry admits.

“What makes the FBI even qualified to deal with this situation?” Harry tosses in his speculation.

“How about the next time you have dinner with your girlfriend,” Dean offers Barry a silver flask, “splash here with a little of this. Then you’ll know.” Barry opens the flask and sniffs it.

“Or…” Sam glares at his partner, disapproving of his technique. “You can just say...Christo. If she flinches then you’ll know.”

“And then what do we do? I don’t know if we can wait much longer to find out.”

“You don’t have to do anything. We’ll take care of it.”

--

It doesn’t sit well with Barry, tricking Y/N. He doesn’t want to do it, but the entire team convinced him that afternoon that something was definitely wrong and steps had to be taken.

Caitlin analyzed the contents of the flask during the discussion.

“It’s just water,” she’d explained while Cisco had a field day looking up signs of demon possession. By the end of that research, he’d convinced himself that several people he knew were possessed, including his second grade teacher.

“It’s Holy Water,” Sam explains. By now, everyone has been informed that they’re obviously not FBI and they’re actually monster hunting brothers.

“This all sounds so crazy,” Caitlin comments as Dean offers up a drawing.

“Any crazier that a city with a superhero?” Dean smirks, winking at Caitlin. The Winchester brothers still don’t know exactly who they’re talking to, or just how right they are.

“It’s a sigil. A Demon Trap. The second she walks into it, she won’t be able to leave it. Won’t hurt her,” Sam reassures them all. “You guys don’t exactly have a rug to cover up the drawing so we’ll have to get creative.” Sam looks around the room for solutions but Barry takes the drawing from Caitlin.

“I’ll take care of it. Won’t be a problem,” Barry shrugs.

“She’s going to be strong. And clever,” Dean warns him.

“Well I’m stronger than I look,” Barry replies. “Once she’s trapped, then what happens?”

“Exorcism,” the brothers say together.

Iris comes up with the idea to lure her in by ordering take out and having dinner at S.T.A.R. Labs and then going out for drinks later. It’s a routine gathering that shouldn’t seem suspicious. Y/N agrees to it over the phone without protest or suspicion. Before Y/N arrives, Barry mixes some of the water into her usual tumbler.

Sam and Dean leave the Cortex, choosing to take cover in one of the rooms off to the side.

When Y/N arrives, Iris and Harry are unloading the take out and distributing the orders.

“Hey Baby,” Y/N greets Barry. She kisses him and prolongs it with her hand clasped on the back of his neck. “I thought about you a lot today,” she whispers near his ear. It feels like her tongue darts out to tease his earlobe and Barry flinches.

“Sorry, it just tickled,” Barry half-smiled. “Here.” Barry offers her the water but she doesn’t drink it right away.

“You know what I’d love…? To take you home, finish off a bottle of tequila and a box of chocolates, and then fuck in the shower,” Y/N speaks under her breath and close to Barry so that no one else overhears. Barry’s cock betrays him by reacting but he pushes that arousal off.

“Babe, you know I can’t get drunk.” Well isn’t that a red flag, Barry thinks to himself. She knew better. She plays it off and just kisses him quickly before greeting everyone else. They’re all watching her...eyeballing the drink in her hand.

Everyone exchanges pleasantries and discuss their days. Y/N seems to be acting normal...although Barry can’t help checking her out. He loves how she’s dressed and there’s an air of confidence around her.

He’s starting to wonder if everyone has been wrong and Y/N has simply made some personal changes…

But then she takes a sip of her water…

Hissssss!

“Ahhh! What the fuck!” Y/N lurches out of her chair, shooting the piece of furniture far behind her and across the room.

Everyone jumps out of their chair in alarm. Barry’s heart falls to the pit of his stomach, weighed heavily with guilt and devastation.

The smell of smoke is in the air and appears to be coming from Y/N’s mouth. She’s crouching and has spilled the water on the ground.

“Y/N? Are you okay?” Harry feigns ignorance as the person closest to her. Before looking up, she reaches out and touches a few drops of the water. The liquid sizzles on her skin. “Christo,” he dares to speak. As promised, she flinches.

“Oh...I think you know the answer to that.” Y/N’s gaze rises from the floor. Everyone takes a step back.

Her eyes are pitch black. She raises a hand.

Harry suddenly tenses, gasping as if his throat is constricted.

“Whoa! Hey! What are you doing?!” Cisco shouts. “She’s force-choking him! Like Darth Vader! Let him go!”

“Y/N, stop!” Barry steps in-between her and Harry and holds up his hands in defense. Her invisible chokehold doesn’t relent.

“Y/N’s not here at the moment,” she sneers, her voice overlapped by another. Cisco takes a step towards her. She waves her other hand and Cisco flies across the room; Caitlin cries out and runs to his aid. “Not another step!” Her voice is normal again.

With her eyes trained on Cisco, Barry seizes the moment. Lightning encircles Y/N, sweeps around her and under her. She stumbles and her hold on Harry is lost. When Barry is back at Harry’s side, Y/N is standing within a Devil’s Trap.

She looks around her and curses under her breath, shaking her head.

“What’s going on? What’s happened to you?” Iris asks, trying to control the situation.

“Bitch, you know exactly what happened.” She rolls her eyes and smirks at Iris. “Who told you? Fucking Winchesters, huh?” Rather than giving her the satisfaction, Barry sighs.

“I should’ve known something was wrong.”

“Yeah...Duh! You think little ol’ Y/N can rock your world in the sack like that? No. But I did you two a favor, huh?” Barry can’t maintain eye contact for a moment.

“What have you done with Y/N?” Caitlin asks, her voice quivering.

“She’s still in here. Her personality still shines through, doesn’t it? I know her every secret...granted there aren’t many...” Y/N shrugs. Sam and Dean enter the room. Barry notices that Dean is eyeing him warily. They’d seen him draw the trap. Y/N notices the exchange of looks. “Oops, secret’s out Barry. Now two more people know you’re the Flash. Way to go,” she snarks. Barry grimaces. He’s getting tired of the demon’s attitude and her dead black eyes.

“So which demon are we dealing with?” Dean asks. He brandishes a serrated knife with etchings in the blade.

“What are you doing with that?” Barry asks, panicking. Y/N struts to the very edge of the Demon Trap. She stops when Dean holds the blade to her throat.

“No!” Barry stands between them in half a second, pushing Dean backwards. The hunter looks both confused and frustrated at the interference.

Y/N peeks over Barry’s shoulder. “The Flash isn’t going to let you use that witchy demon knife on me. You’d kill us both,” she giggles. “I like to go by Roxanne nowadays,” Y/N trains her eyes on Dean and Sam. She’s flirting with them, even putting away the black eyes. “Are you a fan of my work?”

“You could say that,” Dean comments. “Crowley’s been looking for you too.”

“Oh? Are you his errand boys?” Dean’s smirk disappears. He gestures to Sam.

“Exorcizamus, te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanic potestas…”

“Oh fuck. Come on boys, there’s gotta be a way around this…” Barry can finally hear a hint of fear in her voice. He starts to back away from her. She tries to take a step forward but can’t leave the Devil’s Trap. “Y/N and I are really good together! Let us show you a good time,” she offers, starting to unbutton her blouse. She rolls her head from side to side though like she’s in pain and trying to fix a crick in her neck.

“Hurry up,” Barry whispers. Sam continues the exorcism, reciting from memory.

“Barry, you’re not going to let them do this to me, are you? We’ve had fun!” He voice shakes and her face twists with agony. “I...I love you!”

She starts to plead but when she gets no reaction from him, she grimaces.

“Fine,” she barks; her eyes are black again. “I’ll leave but I can’t make any promises about Y/N.” Barry freezes and his eyes go wide. “For all you know, she’s got some fatal wounds and I’m the only thing keeping her alive. You sure you wanna risk that Barry?”

“Barry, don’t listen to her. Demons lie to get what they want,” Dean cautions.

“Are you sure though? How can you be sure?” Barry asks as Y/N’s body starts to shake and fall to her knees. Her head falls back.

“Just have to trust us!” he shouts over Y/N’s screams.

“Ut ecclesiam tuam secus, tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos!” Sam finishes and a dark cloud of smoke expels from Y/N’s mouth. She crumbles to the floor just as the demon smoke spirals downward to the floor and disappears.

When Dean gives the all clear, Barry rushes into the Devil’s Trap to cradle Y/N’s limp form. She appears to be breathing. In the background, he hears Sam explain to Iris and Caitlin that the demon was sent back to Hell.

“Y/N? Y/N, baby, please...wake up...please answer me...open your eyes, sweetheart,” Barry pleads, brushing her hair away from her face. She doesn’t appear to be injured.

Caitlin is standing by, ready to check on her as well. Iris is beside Harry and Cisco, covering her mouth and holding back tears. Cisco’s hands are tangled in his hair and Harry is frozen like a statue, a bruise on his throat is already developing.

Barry wraps his arms around Y/N, holding her close and rocking her back and forth.

“Please, baby, it’s me, come back to me,” he whispers, tears falling from his eyes and landing on her cheeks.

She stirs suddenly, gasping for breath as if she’d been held under water.

“Barry? Barry?” she gasps. “Where is she? Where’s Roxanne? We can’t let her get away!” she speaks frantically. Barry grabs one of her hands to stop her flailing.

“I’m right here. Right here. We’re all here for you. And she’s gone. Roxanne is gone.”

“Roxy’s gone?” she repeats.

“Yes, she’s gone.”

The entire room breathes a sigh of relief.

Epilogue coming soon!

Ask Box

Tagging: @faithtrustandpixiedust95​ @thinkwritexpress-official​ @autoblocked​ @talesoftheimpala​ @book-loving--anime-chick​ @overlyobsethed​ @abbessolute​ @bookworm4ever99​ @whoopxd​ @geeksareunique​ @therealcap​ @potterwolf16​ @ravenhaviland​ @maia11lucero​ @nochillscientist​ @fastmanallen​ @mrsbarry-allen-1031​ @gryffindorable713​ @team-barry​ @shadowpriestess6​ @none-of-this-makes-any-sense​ ​ @beautiful-and-strange​ @gracehappyfeet​ @havingfunenjoyinglife​ @beautifulfound​ @super-slick-fanfic-chick​ @explosive-cabbage​ @new-york3​ @voidmendes-24​ @deanskitten​ @odr-dc​

[polyamradiotranscripts]

Ep. 1 New relationship Energy

polyAM Radio espisode one: New Relationship Energy

[Begin transcript]

[Sophie]: Hello everybody and welcome to polyam radio. I'm Sophie Last-name-redacted

[Mara]: And I'm Mara Fake-last-name

[Sophie]: Welcome to the first episode of our brand new podcast about polyamory that weird relationship thing you do with lots of other people.

["Crazy little thing called love" by Queen plays]

[Sophie]: as i mentioned my name is Sophie, I'm a trans womam my pronouns are she her hers

[Mara]: I'm mara, I use them them theirs pronouns

[Sophie]: we're engaged

[Mara]: pretty cool, no big deal, whatever

[Sophie]: yeah, little bit, ya know, fiancees, plural

[Mara]: cool

[Sophie]: yeah and we've been doing poly for about four or five years now, depending on when you start counting

[Mara]: yeah yeah I'd say do

[Sophie]: yeah yeah cuz we've been together for almost six years this is our new show and we just wanted to tell you a little about it before we jump right in to this weeks topic. Basically this show is going to be about queer, trans, modern polyamory, we're not really going to be talking about swinging a whole lot we're not relly going to be talking about open relationships, or strict heirarchical structures very much, we're going to be talking about very egalitarian very feminist oriented polyamory

[Mara]: well and and, and not that those things are awful or horrible or bad or wrong it's just uh, this is this is what our experience is, this is what works well for us this is what works well for a lot of other people

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely the goal of this podcast is not to rip on those things

[Mara]: well and and I think it's like worth mentioning when you and I started polyamory like we had a tiered open relationship and like that just that didn't work for us that was a bad time uh

[Sophie]: yeah I mean we were also like literal kids and, dumb, and stuff

[Mara]:  oh yeah, no, we were dumb high schoolers

[Sophie]: yeah, so

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: uh, yeah, high school sweethearts, lets talk a little bit about the structure of the show basically we're gonna try to drop episodes every other week. We're just starting so if we mess up a little bit, really sorry, there's not much we can do about it

[Mara]: we're humans

[Sophie]: yeah we're both students, uh, which is like a subcategory of humans uh that we someday hope to become humans, someday we hope to become humans, not inhumans like the x-men or whatever

[Mara]: well we're alreay inhumans, sike

[Sophie]: yeah I suppose

[Mara]: human, inhumans

[Sophie]: cuz I've got all these special powers, um

[Mara]: like weeping

[Sophie]: yeah, like lots of crying. Like i said we're going to try to drop shows every other week we're going to have a different topic on every show there's a small chance that if sometime we feel like there's new information out or something like that or our perscpectives have changed we'll drop an episode on a topic and revisit it, uh but generally speaking we're going to try to keep it fresh. How this is going to work is that me, Sophie, so you'll learn my name Sophie Sophie Sophie. I'm going to be the main host of this show, and Mara is going to be one of a couple co-hosts that help me out all the time so Mara is a voice you'll be hearing from a lot but probably not on every single episode. Got some other partners that wanna get in the rotation get in the mix, partly just to keep the perscpective fresh and everone's an expert on different things which is actually where I'm going next which is we're going to have occasional guest speakers on the show that are really knowledgable about specific things, because personally me, I don't consider myself an expert on poly or polyamory

[Mara]: Oh, god and I know I'm not and expert

[Sophie]: Yeah, absolutely I've only been doing it for four or five years, there's no way I could be and expert in something in that little amount of time. Ya know your undergrad takes four or five years and you barely know anything after that

[Mara]: well and and some people just have like different experiences too

[Sophie]: right exactly there are ascpects of polyamory that I can't speak to because I haven't had those experiences I think it would be really cool at some point to do a program or ya know uh and episode about having polyamorous parents and being a child raised in that. I was not in that situation so I can't really speak to it. So, we're going to try to mix it up, you're always going to have to deal with me unfortunately, uh, just to kind of keep some moderate level of consistency in how the show works, we're going to roate out the guest speakers based on ya know just kind of what information and experiences they have and can speak to

[Mara]: If this was a heirarchical relationship Sophie would be like your primary and I would be like a secondary [laughs]

[Sophie]: we don't do that bull shit here because, well  in my opinion it's inherently unhealthy and it makes people feel like they're less worthy and our beloved co-host is not less worthy so we also wanna talk about us some of  the other sections so we're gonna have some people talk about the main topic but we're also gonna have an advice section, hopefully and a lot of that is depedent on you the listener ya know if you want us to have a really cool advice section you have to send us really cool quetsions

[Mara]: I mean because the only thing I can give advice on is Oh my god both of my partners leave their dishes in the sink and don't do their dishes so how do I get my partners to do the dishes so like it can be goofy things like that or it can be, help, my partner is moving across the country how do I cope with this

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely and how do I tell them I'm that I'm running off or being scared or stuff like that, so it can be silly or serious if you want a sill or serious answer depending I mean you'll kind of get out of this what you put into it. basically what we're gonna try to do is if we get a lot of quetsions on a certain topic that'll inform what topics we cover in main episodes to try to hit couple of those with one stone and then address those quetsions directly, uh, or if ya know we may if we get a ton a ton a quetsions we may just do an episode at some point that is just ya know no cohesive structure just answering quetsions because y'all loved em and it was really popular

[Mara]: that would be a lot of fun

[Sophie]: that would be a lot of fun I would really dig that like ya know once every couple months just do an advice show, so the best way to reach us then would be either on twitter uh its polyam_radio uh you can tweet at us or you can send us and email with your quetsion and if you don't want it in public but you want it answered in a public medium, which would be weird, but you're certainly free to do that if it's longer than [Sophie]:40 character or however long they give you on twitter and our email is polyamradio@gmail.com and I believe that's right I'm going to check it and vamp for time until I do

[Mara]: [vamp with 'do do do']

[Sophie]: [vamp with 'do do do']

[Sophie]: Oh no I typed in fmail on my computer not gmail

[Mara]: uh while sophie looks that up actually I could probably

[Sophie]: polyamradio all underscrore no, uh all lowercase no underscore anything at gmail.com so poly a m radio, it's a joke ya get it? cuz AM radio is a medium where you talk to people on the radio and we call it polyam cuz polyamory. Alright so lets jump right in to talking about what this is actually supposed to be about now that we've waste about ten minutes of your time we're going to talk about new relationship energy today, we figured it would be good because this podcast is shiny and new and we're relly excited about it and we hope you're really excited about it and a lot of times when relationships are new they are bright and shiny and sometimes you do dumb shit because of it

[Mara]: sometimes?

[Sophie]: sometimes, yeah, uh

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: yeah sometimes uh

[Mara]: speaking only for myself here I do really dumb shit

[Sophie]: yeah and it's really interesting because the times you where you haven't done dumb shit uh because you're in a new relationship generally speaking that just means that it hasn't been the appropriate amount of months since you've done that dumb shit and you're not ready to really own up to it yet so if you're like that's not me I'm not doing dumb shit cuz of my new relationship tweet at me in like six months or whatever and then we'll talk

[Mara]: sophie is the queen of doing that

[Sophie]: okay I mean you say that but like saying that is kind of I think is reductionist because like I do dumb shit all the time anyways

[Mara]: okay true but like you're you're new relationship dumb shit is like [wooshing noise]

[Sophie]: yeah well part of it is that um like, we talk about, we're going to be talking about disability and a lot of stuff on this show uh I'm bipolar so I have to deal with mania on top of new relationship energy sometimes and ya know I mean, I've taken psychology clases and we learned about mania as running naked through the shopping mall ya know in this extreeme cases and that's not at all what mania is in most people's lives I have had some, relationship equivalents of running naked through the shopping mall uh ya know I've definitley um ya know called a partner like 80 times or something like that, in a matter of, however long, ya know or at least it felt like 80 times

[Mara]: let me just pull up my phone records

[Sophie]: yeah, honestly,

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]:yeah well you live with me so you get the worst of it

[Mara]: middle of the night, cuddle me[sustained]

[Sophie]: okay, thats not even, well yeah um, that was mania lat night but normally that's just cuz I'm a huge cuddle bug

[Mara]: that's true

[Sophie]: anyways, um, new relationship energy uh it feels weird and it can makes us do dumb shit and sometimes it can even make our partners insecure so we want to have a discussion about it because as people who have started a lot of new relationships recently it's been something that's been very prevalent in our lives and it's been something that we've had to deal with ya know I I kind of alluded to this before but we don't neccecarliy consider ourselves experts on poly, we consider ourselves and I consider myself someone who has made a lot of poly mistakes and who has done a lot of things wrong, and I've also done a lot of things right because just by rote of doing this for a long enough ya know you, you make lots of decisions and choices and actions and some of thema are great and some of them are not so great and we wanna talk about that so I wanna preface all of this with, we do not consider ourselves experts on it, this is our experience, what we think, if you think we're totally wrong I'm not gonna say that you're wrong and that we're totally right, uh I do think that ya know I think that no matter who you are or where you're coming from even if you're a monogamous you'll be able to get something out of this cuz a lot of these feelings and experiences and what not aren't neccecarliy unique to polyamory in my mind  

[Mara]: yeah uh so now that we've been like babbling at you about new relationship energy new relationship energy we should probably like talk about what it is so people are sitting there like horrifically confused so it's kind of almost exactly what it sounds like

[Sophie]: Webster's Dictionary defines it as

[Mara]: yeah okay [laughs] so Webster Dictionary definition probably more like, urban dictionary definition

[Sophie]: ooh that was a good goof I like that

[Mara]: you could proba- like so you know how you feel so happy like you're gonna puke in the begining of a relationship just like constantly just like the butterlies in you're stomach and this person can do no wrong, and oh my god how is everybody not in love with this person maybe, mabye that's just me but like I oh my gosh I like I feel like I'm gonna puke I'm so happy when when I start a new relationship, it's pretty dumb

[Sophie]: yeah well with me a lot of times it manifests itself in uh a manner similar to ya know I'm always wanting to talk to this person always wanting to be around this person and even there are times when I'm kind of saturated with them where it's like wow, I could really use a moment alone to myself to like clean my glasses and wipe my ass and just ya know someth- like time where it's like a little isolated little quality time alone, that's good sometimes uh you want to hermit a little bit and that is normally what happens with partners with me at least just because you can't be around people constantly, problem is, is that a lot of times with new relationship energy that feeling of wanting to isolate yourself just a little bit every now and then isn't there, at least for me uh and that can cause some problems either just because you're around people all the time or you're neglecting your other relationships or responsibilities, it's like we're both students who have like homework and shit, so it can cause you to, in some cases neglect other areas of your life because you're, ya know, hopping into bed with this perosn when you have other shit to do or you just wanna, ya know , you're planning your day around getting dinner with them even though you've seen them every day this week and just kind of going to uh sometimes like comical levels of effort just to spend time with this person and kind of shoe horn-ing it in, for me a lot of times that's what it ends up looking like and a lot like Mara said that it feels like butterlies it feels like this person is amazing and oh my god I can't believe they're into me and, ya know, sometimes even just being insecure and being like maybe the're not into me so, uh, for me a lot of times that's how it manifests

[Mara]: um, yeah, for me I'm like oh I don't know I just I I get super super into people and I'm like not not neccecarliy like I wanna be around you every second of every day uh like Sophie gets I I very much value my alone time and my hermitage time and I will like totally straight up interrupt dates with partners to be like, ya, no I need to be alone, I need to take a bath with a bath bomb and just like chillax that's that's who I am as a person but like I'll be constantly thinking about them, I'll be wanting to spend all of my time with them, I'll like, I don't shut up about people when I get new relationship energy like I will just talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, to anyone who will listen to me uh which that's it's not great

[Sophie]: yeah Mara really like ya know how um the kind of the romance dime novel that I'm not actually convinced anybody reads

[Mara]: speak for yourself

[Sophie]: woah wow okay

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: that's a guilty pleasure you should feel bad about [laughs] wow okay yeah learning new things learning new things about my fiance gonna have to like process that later but you know like the shitty fantasy dime novels where it's like ya know, she swooned or whatever an like then like Ma- Mara gets very swoony over new partners and it's really cute and it's endearing

[Mara]: well I'm glad you think so

[Sophie]: well they think so to typically at least in my experience ya know everyone thinks you're super cute

[Mara]: that's alright I just kinda want to die uhh [laughs]

[Sophie]: well it's also really funny because you're really shy

[Mara]: [quietly] yeahhh

[Sophie]: so you're swooning but a lot of times you're to nervous to talk to people

[Mara]: they must'nt know, they must'nt know I swooned over them Sophie

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely

[Mara]: they'll think me a harlot

[Sophie]: well you are

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: ya know, so [laughs] sorry I'm just imagining you as the kind of person who's concerned with being a harlot or not and it's I'm not handling it

[Mara]: I I don't know what you're talking about I don't know what you're trying to imply about me

[Sophie]: yeah well I mean [pause] okay

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: yeah right now I am stammering worse than Mara does when talking to a new partner, ba dum cha oh with the look I'm getting right now folks

[Mara]: your intent was to shoot an arrow through my heart

[Sophie]: yeah yeah

[Mara]: fuckin bullseye

[Sophie]:  like this is an audio only medium but like I hope you can hear like the fear in my voice from the look I'm getting right now is, it is not great folks

[Mara]: yes clearly I am a very terrifying person

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely

[Mara]: [laughs] but so, so like the dumb stuff it can make you do, uh, that's what it is, that's how it feels

[Sophie]: so, so let me ask you a question then, basically it feels good generally right?

[Mara]: um, yes but

[Sophie]: yeah good but weird, ya know

[Mara]: well and and there are times where I don't know, speaking of like disability I'm, I've been like horrifically depressed my entire life so like when I'm really happy I'm just like alright when's the other shoe gonna drop what's gonna happen, but ya know

[Sophie]: yeah, I'm not saying it can go on for, indefinitely like if we're talking about ice cream like ya know I'm very lactose intolerant I shouldn't be eating ice cream at all but like, ya know the fact that we say ice cream tastes good doesn't mean that we always and only ever want to eat ice cream

[Mara]: oh yeah, no, no

[Sophie]: so so like this is a feeling that's generally good right like it's not a bad feeling

[Mara]: sometimes it's like being strapped to an emotional comet or at least for me ya know it's just kind of like this person has has tied like something around my heart and has just kind of sent it off into space and like I can't think straight and I don't like it all the time

[Sophie]: that's fair I uh a lot of times I get annoyed that I'm always thinking about this person cuz ya know I'm a I'm mean I've frequently got other stuff I'm trying to focus on like come on y'all I'm trying to do this calculus here like I can't be thinking about sucking on this persons face right now like ya know, derivatives they're sexy and they're important and  I should be doing them

[Mara]: that's cute

[Sophie]: yeah

[Mara]: uh

[Sophie]: that's my life

[Mara]: and I think I think for me um part of why I don't always neccecarliy like enjoy the the uh intense excitement is I I think that like I can kind of feel like I'm like neglecting my partners sometimes like oh oh I'm just so excited that it's kind of like negatively affecting this relationship I think that ya know it can feel really nice and really really exiting but I think sometimes why I don't neccecarliy enjoy uh that that strapped to an emotional comet feeling is um being like with other partners I talk and talk and talk and talk and talk right and I'm constantly talking about my new partner and like oh what if they're getting annoyed what if they're feeling left out like what if I'm neglecting my partner for this other person and that's a really horrible feeling for me personally

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely and that's actually what I kinda wanted to get into here, ya know, we talk about this and it's, ya know again like I said it's it's like a roller coaster or ice cream or whatever it's not neccecarliy bad it's not always what you're in the mood for and there is a tim- there is a point where it becomes too much but like what are some of the negative effects of new relationship energy because ya know we chose this to be the first episode of our podcast and at least in my mind it would be weird to have picked that and have it just be something that we talk about where it's like oh it's this vaugley inconvinient little thing that doesn't really affect you or your other relationships at all like cuz in my experience it does have, ya know for lack of a better term some deleterious, some bad uh effects, some drawbacks so what are some ways that uh in your experience uh new relationship energy can be a bad thing

[Mara]: [laughs] le- let let me think of a couple examples here

[Sophie]: I think I think for one at the very least is ya know all the dumb shit it makes you do

[Mara]: Oh yeah no for sure

[Sophie]: like we talked about that briefly but like ya know it's worth bringing up again like uh it can make you make an ass of yourself ya know I had a relationship a while back where ya know it was making me kind of blin- the new relationship energy was kinda making me blind to how this how this other partner was treating and interacting with some of my other partners and, ya know, not to say that ya know this person wasn't the devil by any means but there were lots of like little like slights and everything going on and it was causing my partner a lot of well well you it was causing you a lot of anxiety

[Mara]: yeah it was

[Sophie]: and it was making, ya know, the fact that I wasn't seeing this was making you feel gaslit when it was something that ya know I was having a hard time validating because I ya know I wasn't noticing and I wasn't picking up on these frankly very subtle signals and and and whatnot

[Mara]: well and I think the hardest thing too was that um like even if you weren't picking up on it like you weren't listening ya ya know and that was the really hard thing for me

[Sophie]: yeah I think new relationship energy makes communication harder and I and I think that's the reality of it, ya know

[Mara]: well and I think especially like something, uh, dumb shit that you do when when you're um when you're experiencing new relationship energy is, ya know , it's the problem isn't you, right and the problem isn't this new person like it's, what could be wrong like you know this relationship is so great it can be really hard to to listen to what this other person is trying to say to you like hey here's how your attidute towards this is kind of hurting me

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely and I think that ya know to a big degree it's not like this person couldn't possibly be doing anything wrong it just feels like, get off their back ya know it just feels like what do they do that's so bad

[Mara]: well and you don't know them like I do, and

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely it's like you're not spending all this time with them and everything and ya know and you're trying to make the new relationship work, you're always worried that you're gonna scare someone off or whatever and that's pretty standard stuff that we all ya know deal with and what not I mean I don't I don't think that  doesn't make you the devil because you're having this new relationship energy

[Mara]: oh god no no

[Sophie]: it can just kind of make you blind to certain things that are going on, not even saying this new partner ya know this isn't a problem that only occurs if your new partner happens to be someone who is secretly totally toxic ya know this is a problem that occurs ya know like lots of people have like little things about them that make them ya know not a hundred percent positive influences on your life like there's no way anybody's a hundred percent positive influence on your life unless they're totally bullshitting you putting a ton of effort into it that's why being a parent is hard that's why your parents don't talk to you the same fucking way they do their friends is because they're trying to be a hundred percent positive, well, most parents I think are ya know are at least trying to be a hundred percent positive influence, I think a lot of them fall way short but that's an entirely different conversation ya know the fact of the matter is, is that when you're trying to be a good influence for someone you behave differently then when you're just, like, chilling around them and spending time with them doing all this other shit ya know so like, it can make you blind to, to some of things your partners are bringing up I think is the big thing for me ya know I, what are some other ways that new relationship energy can kind of, hurt other relationships or or that relationship itself

[Mara]: um, I I think sometimes like I've personally made some pretty like rash decisions about a partner before ya know in the new relationship energy phase and ya know all of the sudden the new relationship energy is dissapated and like you're hanging out with them and you're like oh, oh no like

[Sophie]: [laughs]

[Mara]: what have I done here, ya know I uh, I don't think I want this with this person anymore how, how do I talk to this person about it I think that's something that can be like for me it's a very big concern it's like am I making this decision about this partner because it's genuinley what I feel and what I want or am I making this with uh, ya know, the dopamine and they oxytocin and all those fun brain chemicals are kinda like they got you going and they, this person can do no wrong like let's move in and live together and have babies together and and all the sudden, oh shit, I don't wanna have babies I don't even wanna like with this person let alone even have babies ya know

[Sophie]: yeah well and I also think that ya know realistically I know we've both been in situations where new relationship energy has made us get into more commited relationships then we had time for and we were ready for uh, that's happened a couple times realistically and it's been really hard to back pedal uh because that's not a fun conversation to have with someone and be like yeah listen I'm still interested in you but ya know how we were gonna be ya know this really committed really serious thing, that's not actually something I'm ready for and I was just being really foolish and foolhardy and I'm sorry that was a shitty thing I did like that is not a conversation that is fun to have for anybody and it's really hard to come back from there, ya know it's kind of like you can't un-fuck someone, you can't, ya know, you can stop sleeping with someone you can can, ya know you can choose to not continue to do it but you can't undo the fact that you did it and that can be really hard to do

[Mara]: right, well you can't take back the the words that you said and the feelings that it caused like  I think that's something that ya know this is this is a relationship and I've kind of made this bond to you, I can't I can't really get un-engaged from you at this point like we can't just say ohh nevermind like we don't wanna be engaged anymore we we kind of have to say like alright like what does what does this

[Sophie]: well I wanna put out there ya know we could but it would be messy

[Mara]: oh yeah [laughs]

[Sophie]: we would have to like re-structure our whole relationship and focus for probably years on returning to whatever point that we wanted to get to with a lesser commitment I mean and ya know whether or not the relationship would survive that I honestly can't say I, just like, not that I would want to leave you if you did that or whatever, just that's a really tricky thing to learn how to navigate

[Mara]: yeah for sure well and I think like ya know even even on the flip side of like ya ya know, I think sometimes when I'm ha- with a partner who's experiencing a lot of new relationship energy like this is this is a personal flaw uh I can feel like kind of left out or like oh, this partner doesn't actually love me they love this person way more they're just with me because I'm familiar and ya know I've I've been with them for a while and I'm just, ya know they're gonna get sick of me and they're gonna get tired of me and they don't actually like me like that is that is something that I have concerns about and like part of that is like acutal emotional trauma from my past, but, like part of that too is just kind of, we're, we're kind of surrounded by this society that thinks oh monogamy is the one true way and all you polyamorous people are gonna settle down and, umm, which is that's just dumb

[Sophie]: yeah it's foolish

[Mara]: like you know it's not doing this because I don't want commitment, I have several commitments like I want commitment it's not I don't want commitment uh,

[Sophie]: yeah I more commitment in one of my relationships, this one in particular than most monogamous people do in theirs and then if you add up all the commitments from all of my relationships into one gigantic scary comittment monster, ya know it becomes

[Mara]: [gasp] is this what I've been hearing about? The commitment monster

[Sophie]: the commitment monster yeah

[Mara]: is this why people get cold feet?

[Sophie]: I guess, yeah

[Mara]: is the comittment monster coming for them?

[Sophie]: we have our first celebirty appearance on our show it's the commitment monster

[Mara]: [growling a la commitment monster]

[Sophie]: wow yeah

[Mara]: [growling] I do [growling]

[Sophie]: [laughs]

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: hello commitment monster how are you doing today

[Mara]: I'm, I don't know will I wanna be with you forever and ever

[Sophie]: oh no how do I get out of this now

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: see that's how they get ya folks ya konw commitment monster I gotta say you sound a lot like uh like a t-rex but you look a lot like if cookie monster and animal had a baby and I'm just really curious about that

[Mara]: I am the product of their commitment

[Sophie]: [laughs]  well you heard it here first folks cookie monster and animal the muppets are in a triad with a t-rex and they're very committed and they're presumeably very happy a well maybe not becuase that's why a monster grew out of it they're in an unhappy triad

[Mara]: [normal voice] no it's their baby

[Sophie]: ohh, oh it's like spwan thing

[Mara]: yeah

[Sophie]: oh I thought this was like a metaphysical I though this was like a metaphysical being that arose out of like ya know just like the spirit of commitment

[Mara]: I mean I think everybody has their own commitment monster, some of those are acutal tangible babies

[Sophie]: fuck that's deep

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: ya know you say like you're ripping on babies a lot for someone who like ya know was the one who convinced me to have kids

[Mara]: oh god I love babies like don't get me wrong I love babies, I'm not ripping on babies I I think but you know for some people, they're afraid of having kids and for them like that comittment monster is kind of realized in like I don't wanna have kids, I'm scared of having kids with this person I'm scared of like ya know

[Sophie]: that's fair

[Mara]: like I'm scared of being saddled to this tiny little life for eighteen years that's a long time folks

[Sophie]: yeah that's fair well and, well really forever, like basically until you die because like at eighteen years ya know like they don't stop being your kid like you just like

[Mara]: the relationship changed

[Sophie]: yeah like that is the best case scenario for when you no longer have to deal with them in your house anymore

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: like that is the shortest commitment for like okay how much longer until this little fuck isn't eating my food anymore like that's what eighteen is

[Mara]: and even they come back from college and uh hi mom sorry for eating all your food

[Sophie]: I didn't but my parents don't keep food in the house they

[Mara]: right well that's a different story

[Sophie]: yeah they subsist on like saltines, apples, and Fox News alone, yeah it's pretty rough

[Mara]: well the racism is enough to kind of sustain any white American I suppose

[Sophie]: any good red blooded American can be sustained on racism alone

[Mara]: [laughs] but, I digress or we digress

[Sophie]: yeah, yeah that got kind of off there but I liked it

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: I like where it went

[Mara]:  but it can really kinda feel like um ya know it it you're old and you're boring and your partner is just going to get rid of you right that's like the ultimate goal of your partner ge- they're interested in somebody else so they must be more interested in them than you like thats just the very monogamous attidute towards it, right? but like we personally practice relationship anarchy all of our relationships just are what they are and they don't really have effects on ya know what another relationship looks like like my relationship to Sophie does not uh affect my relationship with another partner or anybody else really just like ya know having, being friends with one individual doesn't affect your friendship with somebody else I think that's pretty silly when you think about you're you're friendships that way so why would you think about like you're re- romantic relationships, sorry folks, there is there is a squirrel

[Sophie]: yeah there

[Mara]: stealing an apple out of our compost

[Sophie]: a whole apple that got just too rotten to eat so I threw it out

[Mara]: oh that squirrel is going to have the greatest day of its life folks

[Sophie]: litterally like I'm just watching a squirrel just jizz its pants over how much food it found

[Mara]: it's having new relationship energy over this apple

[Sophie]: my biggest concern is that it's gonna hop down from our deck, which is on the second floor of our, so it's an apartment it's on the second floor, my biggest fear right now is that the squirrel is gonna try to jump down from here with the apple in its mouth instead of just knocking it down and retreiving it and that the extra weight is gonna make it hit the ground real real hard and just kill it

[Mara]: and that is why new relationship energy is dangerous folks

[Sophie]: yeah I guess

[Mara]: it uh that apple, that apple will get ya every time

[Sophie]: yeah well, apple a day, well ya know keep the doctor away cuz you are a squirrel and it will kill you

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: [laughs] okay, uh

[Mara]: goodness gracious

[Sophie]: yeah yeah we're great at this we're really good podcasters folks this is just like people are like tuning in for their auditory experience of the day and just just having a blasty blast

[Mara]: they're getting, a squirrel

[Sophie]: yeah

[Mara]: oh no

[Sophie]: oh he'll be back

[Mara]: I hope so

[Sophie]: the apple is still there he not

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: god I swear to god all of this is making it through post, so anyways going back to things feeling like maybe your partner is only with you because it's, ya know, familiar and and it can start to feel like maybe you're just there as a saftey net for your partner uh and ya know maybe they're not just into you maybe they're just into the stability of you and I gotta say folks, if you're feeling that way about your partner, I don't know you, I don't know your partner, ya brain's lyin to ya, it just is, I I got that feeling all the time about a lot of different partners and I gotta tell you like I'm really fortunate my partners got they're so fucking into me they're it's it's rediculous

[Mara]: it's pretty dumb

[Sophie]: it's like they don't even know who I am

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: it's real bad folks

[Mara]: I uh well yeah it's it's ya know

[Sophie]: well but but my point is like this isn't something that, ya know y'all aren't just with me cuz it's easy to be because I'm not always the easiest person to be with and y'all aren't just in this for stability or whatever cuz, here's the thing when people are in relationships just for the stability they get out of those relationships because that's not something that they probably want to continue to be in, if there's someone else they'd rather be with and they no longer want to be with you they do this thing called a break-up or a divorce or whatever we  have a word for that folks, so, ya know, that's a little message from me to you, that's not what's happening, but it can feel that way and if you are feeling that way it's super important to communicate that to your partner, and it's okay to just say hey, ya know I know you've got a lot of new relationship energy and I I'm supporting that, that's great ya know that's real real good

[Mara]: right like I'm excited for you too

[Sophie]: yeah I'm feelin compersion, I'm happy for your happiness and I'm happy because of your happiness even though it doesn't directly impact me it's called compersion ya know that that like I said that's all good good stuff, and it's also okay to be like ya know I'm just, I'm feeling a little insecure and I'm feeling like maybe you're just with me because this is familiar and, ya know, I just need reasurance, do you still wanna be with me and everything and probably they'll say yes because you're a real real cool person uh and they'll just put their arm around you and say hey listen it's familiar, but not too familiar

[Mara]: but not too not familiar

[Sophie]: it's a new craze, something something "mbmbam" and then you'll go have sex because your problems will be solved, if you're into having sex when your problems are solved

[Mara]: [gasp] sorry, the squirrel wants to come in

[Sophie]: he can't

[Mara]: I know he can't, sorry folks, you were getting into this for they polyamory and it's just squi- it's all squirrels now

[Sophie]: yeah you can tell your friends about it if they're into squirrels and shit, so that's basically our take on new relationship energy uh if there's anything you felt we left out or anything you want to add to the conversation feel to take that to our twitter or to our email, preferably twitter because it's public and then other people can benefit from what you have to say because I'm sure it's genius, if you wanna holler at us because we did everything wrong that's fine too, ya know, just try to be nice about it we're both, ya know, pretty new to podcasting this might now be the best, ya know the most deligh-, this might not be the most delectable audio experience you've ever had but we're working hard to make it better and any tips you have about that would also be appriciated, I do wanna mention quick that we were welcomed into the trans podcaster visibility initiative so we are part of that network, and I just wanna thank them for their help and guidence while we were getting started it's been a huge huge help and actually before I even made this first episode ya know I had just sent someone a message to ask them a question and, ya know, one thing let to another and we were invited to join this good good network where all these trans, queer podcasters are uh, ya know, making their art, and making their stuff and I just think it's really cool and we're really fortunate to be a part of that and I think we're gonna have some real good guest speakers because of that network also I doubt they'll ever hear this but I just want, I think we both kinda want to thank, the entire Mcelroy family especially Griffin, Travis, Justin, and Clint for just being real real bad at Dungeons and Dragons and for getting us into podcasting through "Mbmbam" and "The Adventure Zone" they're not paying us to say that, just real big fans and you should go watch their stuff, uh

[Mara]: or listen

[Sophie]: er, listen to their stuff, yeah because this is an audio medium and I know that because I'm looking at a microphone and no camera, so anyways this has been polyAM radio and just a reminder before you go, don't date your best friends dad and don't date your dad's best friend, see ya next time folks

["Good old fashioned lover boy" by Queen plays]

[Announcer]: This show was part of the trans podcaster visibility initiative

[End transcript]

[cispicious]

JUNE 2, 2011

Hey there. I doubt (people will read this) that journals are supposed to be used for advertising, or propoganda about oneself. I'm guessing it's what normal journals are used for: to document the day to day trials of human life. Yea, but I'm not human. So I guess my definition of a journal shall be, "Trials of a Nephal" If you don't know what a Nephal is, ask God. Oh, and in case you're far too lazy - or just don't care about my looks - to go check my pictures, I can give you a short description right here: * I'm the same height as Taylor Momsen, my favorite celebrity. <3 * [redacted because holy shit this was bad] * I'm Jamacain and Scottish, and my hair is a sort of red-brown-blonde color. * [redacted because holy shit this was bad] So, are you looking for a biography of my life? I'm not sure I want to type that much. I guess I'll summarize it and make it even less of a biography by telling you things about myself:

I was born on January 2nd, 1996 in New York. I moved down to Florida with my family when I was 12, and have been here fro three years. (Can you calculate my age?) I'm bisexual, but I lean more towards girls. I may [redacted because holy shit this was bad]. My life revolves around music and sarcasm. My English 2 Honors teacher wrote in my yearbook to never forget the essence of my spark. Lol, no. My teacher's not Taylor Swift. She actually told me to never lose my sarcasm, and who am I to defy a teacher? .... I like to think that I'm humorous enough to start a YouTube webshow, but even though I have an HD Camcorder, I can never find the willpower to do such things. Maybe because I'm really sensitive and insecure, and I doubt I can take the hate comments....right. Anyway. People think I'm a player because of the rather extensive list of people I've been with. Honestly, I used to be a player. I've only been turned down once in my life, and only God knows why. Because it can't be my dashing good looks or humble personality, right? Oh my, looks like I've hit the irony button again. I'm actually in love right now, and I can't tell you who, just in case you jealous bitches go on a rampage.

Anyway, shall I post about my day? I'm in 7th period - Speech and Debate - right now. My friend Barbara and I are the only girls on this side of the room. It's not like we ever do anything in here. We're too effing smart, so we just keep quiet while the bumbling idiots around us try to keep up with the teacher, and stumble over words like oppression. I just showed her that. She laughed. x) Oh, um, the rest of the class is either playing games or watching The Great Debaters. I saw it in 8th grade. I don't need to see it again. The boy, Junior, isn't exactly eye candy. Finals begin tomorrow. Me and my science project parter don't have to take a Biology final, because we won the science project competition. (We - I - made an action movie about the project, pretending to be spies who had to solve the Problem, or else the White House would blow up.) Let's call her Erica. I'm scared to be alone with her, if we have to go to a different room, because she has a crush on me. And she doesn't even know I'm bisexual. She makes people move so she can sit next to me, touches me innapropriately, and told me that she knows that we're supposed to be soulmates. Save me. So here's my question of the day - supposing I write everyday and that any of you care - : What do you do when you want to make someone stop loving you, but you don't want to stop being their friend or hurt their feelings?

JUNE 3RD 2011

I'm only making this 'cause someone's making me. Let's have a recap of my day, shall we? 6:33 - woke up over an hour late. I didn't shower and merely tussled my hair, and I ate breakfast in the car. Got to school on time, despite what my dad thought. Realized I didn't have my Biology textbook which was due today. Panicked for a second, then decided not to give a shutzpah. In Latin 2, I spent like, ten minutes on my final. I had my AE do it for me, then I went to sleep in the chair on the other side of the room. It smelled funkeh. In Biology, I didn't have to take a final so I went to the Media Center with Jackie, and not Erica. Fank chu, Lawd for making her not come. So I sat down in the back, and Jackie - constant bully that she is - made me sit on the floor so that she could read comfortably on the place where I was lounging. It was cold in there. Um, nothing exciting really happened. My sister is annoying the hellzpah out me and I'm gonna kill her. Question of the day: Why isn't it possible to go back in time yet?

JUNE 6TH 2011

Hello, ladies and gents. So, today is the second day of finals and the beginning of the end. That's right. IT'S THE LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL!!!11!!111!! I took my English 2 Honors and Algebra 2 exams earlier today (actually I just finished my Algebra) and I have to say I was dissapointed by the lack of imagination by my teachers. I mean, these tests were a bit too easy- not that anything's wrong with that. But you ever get that feeling that once you believe something to be incredibly easy, turns out you got every damn thing wrong? Yeah. That's how I feel. Anywho, this guy I think is adorkable (and he's a skater, swoon!) opened the door for me and made a cute joke. Now before you say "oh dear Lord is this just another hopeless romantic?" let me tell you that he only does it for me. When anyone else is at the door, he just stares at it like it's the door to Armagaddeon or something. I have a question: Do any of you believe in alter ego's? Do you believe it's possible to seperate your body from yours? (Google!) I have one. My friend named her Cali, don't ask. But if any of you have had encounters with your AE's, PM me. We need to discuss something. But that wasn't my question of the day. The real question is: Is it possible for your Alter Ego to become their own person?

JUNE 7TH 2011

But I set fire to the rain Watched it pour as I touched your face Well, it burned while I cried 'Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name When laying with you I could stay there Close my eyes, feel you here forever You and me together, nothing is better 'Cause there's a side to you that I never knew, never knew All the things you'd say, they were never true, never true And the games you's play, you would always win, always win I'm in love with this song. I cried hearing this girl sing it. I think I'm in love with her now. WHY CAN'T i HAVE A VOICE LIKE HERS, GOD??????? I'm gonna cry. This song makes me cry. Her voice. So damn angelic. Anyway, about my day: IT SUCKED. The only fun part was during homeroom when we were playing Scrabble, [redacted because holy shit this was bad]. Oh, and I talked to my friend Ella for the first time in months. I swear, I'm just going to keep promoting this girl. I wonder if I can get her number....sigh. If only she had red hair. LAWL. I'm just joking guys. My heart belongs to Caraquel. Yanno, when she wants it. Anywhom Question of the Day: What makes you laugh?

JUNE 8TH 2011

Tomorrow's the last day of school. I finished my Speech and Debate class early, so I'm coming here. I'm about to pour out my feelings here. I'm about to get deep. Like, 6 feet underground deep, brah. So, I think I'm in love. With the fucking world. I have this problem where I love too much. I suppose there's a gap in my heart from not getting enough love when I was a kid, or maybe my brain is just fucked up. I've fallen two feet, I've been dropped, I've had a glass cup of coffee fall on my head all before I finished kindergarten. Maybe that's why my brain is fucked up. There's a lump in my head, and I'm not sure if that's normal. I think it messed up my mouth-brain connection, where I don't say what I think. Like, if I think "Mr. John's class is nice." I'll end up saying. "Mr. John has a nice ass." or something, when the guy is like 1,000 years old and looks like Santa Claus. And the sad thing is- I can never remember saying it. Sometimes I think it's Cali saying these things, and other times I think I'm just special. I love my girlfriend, my ex, and my two best friends. (But I love Cara the most.) I get jealous beyond belief when they so much as mention another person. The thing is, I should only love my girlfriend. 'Cause she's the only one that (I think) even wants to marry me. And that's the only reason I'd ever be interested in a person- because I think they're worth it for the long haul. I really should get over all the others, because they're taken and they don't want me for the long run. They want me for the here and now, I guess. Or maybe they want me for the here and now so they can see what they'd be getting in the long run. I'm so confused and I'm hurting, but I just can't stop loving. My girlfriend's favorites on Twitter are chock full of gay boys telling her they love her. And I get jelly because I'm the first - and only - girl she's ever liked ('cause I'm just that rockin') but she could probably change their sexualities. My best friend, Cara, I just...I just love her. I'm crying right now IN EFFING PUBLIC because of how much it would kill me to not have her in my life, to not have her love. And if you are reading this Caraquel, I love you. I love you. I know Cali said she was helping me get over you, but I don't think it's possible. Every time I think about you...it's not possible to live without you. But yeah. I need to get my cranium checked. This just ain't realistic. I mean, whenever my friends come to me about their relationship problems, I think "Oi, if only it were possible for me to love you all." but mostly because I hate it when they cry over some chick who doesn't give two flying shits about anyone but herself. So, my questions of the day are: Is it possible to have fucked up the love gland in your brain? Is it possible to love more than one person? Is it possible to die from heartbreak?

[rueur]

Morning Pages No. 63

Wednesday 26th August - 11:57am

There’s three minutes left of the morning, and I consider that to be a victory! Also, just have to add that I’m weirdly excited that tomorrow is going to be my 23rd and a half birthday AND #64 in the morning pages, which is the square root of 8, and the answer to the equation 16 x 4 =. I’m not a maths-oriented person, so I forgot what a square root number is. It’s like the opposite of a prime number, but it’s mathematically gorgeous. Evan found us an exercise bike on Marketplace for $250! And it looks insanely nice. It’s in a superb condition, it’s exactly what we were looking for, and it’s WELL within our price range. What a freaking steal, and I also just have to add: what immensely good karma. I feel like we’re deserving of this, and it also definitely feels like such a positive sign that this was a great idea on our part. I’m feeling infinitely more keen to get rid of the futon and streamline the room we’re both currently in into being a lot more health-conscious and thus, a far better room suited to entertainment. The futon is also keeping me from doing Ringfit on a regular basis, so we’ll see once we get the bike how much easier it’ll be for me to work out at home and get myself to a more tolerable level of fit. 

I’m keen to play Breath of the Wild again today because it’s been a couple of days since we last played and Evan ordered another copy from [REDACTED] this morning, so we’ll just be waiting for that to arrive today. I also want to do a bit more work on the site, because my meeting with Julie will be a week from today and I need to get it to a level that I’ll be happy to present it at, even though I know Julie will want to make some adjustments. I feel like her main gripes will be with the colour scheme, which is perfectly fine with me. That should be more than easy to adjust. And the fonts...the fonts are doing my head in. I’m still not sure how to add extra font packs. And to also connect this Squarespace website up with cPanel and VentraIP, but again, that’s not a high priority issue. We’ll need to get the website to a place where we both feel it’s good enough to publish before we even think about moving it over to VentraIP. 

I’m always thinking about work. And because it’s lockdown, I’ve been thinking about when orders we’ve placed will be arriving. We’ve been ordering a fair amount of stuff, and I’m not sure if it’s out of boredom or necessity. Perhaps both? We want to break up the monotony of the day, but doing that with retail therapy seems a little reckless. We have the internet, gas, and electricity bills due and water is also most definitely on its way. And RENT, because it’s the end of the month. September 1st is going to be a Tuesday, so we’ll need to pay before my next payday, which is a touch depressing. But also I suppose it’ll be nice to know that I can retain 100% of the pay that I’ll be receiving next week! That is unless I make an online purchase. 

It’s 12:06pm. I like the idea that it takes me about ten minutes to write out a page of stream of consciousness, so three pages should take around a half an hour. That’s ideal, but usually what happens is I get distracted from this process by Evan or by the animals or just generally by things that I need to do (base biological urges), OR I forgot a word, like what just happened when I was typing out ‘base biological urges’ as a gentle code for having to take a dump. So graceless, always. That’s my style, eh?

Sarah wants to have another phone call at some point today, and I think it’s mostly to chat about the way the group has been heading. People have been leaving and apparently she received her first bit of negative feedback. I’d be curious to hear what it is. I’m curious to know why Nichole left. I know she wasn’t really keeping up with the days so I suppose it makes sense? But Amy’s also not overtly keeping up with the days, which is genuinely surprising to me. I feel like Amy would be all over some well-intentioned mindfulness challenges. Sam just sent me a message that contained a painful pun. We were joking about the ethereal science that is the healing properties of cats. So cat purrs can actually heal human beings because the vibration or the frequency of the vibration has been known to promote feelings of peace in human beings. It relaxes our minds and bodies and heals our cells. 

EDDIE DROPPED OFF OUR GAME! IT WAS SO GOOD TO SEE HIM and it was also just a real treat, man. He was sick last week so up until this lovely afternoon, I hadn’t seen him for like two weeks. So now Evan is playing the game AGAIN finally! Oh my fucking lord I have waited so long for him to pick up this game, he’s an idiot. And I am speaking all this out loud as I type because he’s in the room and he can hear me and I love terrorising him. AND HE DOESN’T GIVE A FLYING FUCK BECAUSE HE ON HIS PHONE THA DUMB. What a stupid smug grin. What a cute face. Aww.

He’s distracting me from this chore. No, this is all a part of my morning pages for today. You can’t say this isn’t properly a part of it, it’s STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS, fool. Do you know what stream of consciousness entails? It’s literally typing/writing as you think. So anything that I’m thinking, belongs in these pages. Get out of the room. I have to finish this first and you are distracting myself from my own mind, you dumb bass. Yes, I meant to type out ‘dumb bass’, because I want to imply that you are a mute fish. I am so distracted from this task, it is infuriating. Also, please be at least a little bit impressed by my touch-typing abilities. Aww. He just said he’s always impressed by everything I do. How sweet. Man, this is going to be so chaotic to read a year or so from now! All I need to remember, future self, is that Evan was in the same room as I in 847 flying high (but he was sober this morn), playing Breath of the Wild for the second time, standing up and leaning against the wall because Kelley Starrett says that we should consider sitting to be a cancer. And that for each hour of sitting you need to do however many minutes of physical activity. 

Fuck, I just remembered that I told the boy that I would make pancakes for breakfast this morning, and I haven’t done that yet. And also it isn’t the morning anymore. Whoops. I am so happy that I got to see Eddie today though. I’m also just glad that he’s okay, I was worried that he had the ‘rona. Can you put the switch on the TV? I want to see you play. That’s the whole point of getting both games. Give me a second. Okay, he grabbed the remote. This isn’t actually promoting mindfulness too much, because of all the activity around me. But look. I’ve maintained this practice pretty damn well for the past week. I’ve written around 2000 words each day for ten or so days straight now. That’s pretty neat. I’m happy with this. I also kind of hope that I can make time to take Lonzo out again today, hopefully well before 5:30pm, so I can talk to Sarah without feeling too fatigued.

I’m fighting the urge to end this third page here. I just want to go on with my day! And I don’t know how many epiphanies I’ll be having in these pages today. I mean, I wrote my last three pages so dang recently, this entry just feels quite arbitrary. But I suppose that’s my own fault. I shouldn’t have done yesterday’s pages at 10pm last night, that’s just basic. Morning pages 101: do them in the morning. Otherwise they’re not as fresh, and your next entries are going to be incredibly close together. I honestly just feel like Saturday has thrown me off so much. I can’t believe it’s Wednesday and I’m still trying to play catch-up because being at work on Saturday and typing out that day’s entry over hours and hours was just...bleh. I have no words other than ‘bleh’. I’m tapped out. 

The soundtrack for this game is actually so soothing. I don’t mind how minimalistic it is. In fact, the minimalistic soundscape kind of just enhances the game’s natural atmosphere and built environment! Evan just found a boomerang! Those are quite rare. Not a lizal boomerang, like an actual boomerang. I feel like I shouldn’t be watching him play or even listening or even in the same room as I finish these pages off. It seems like a major distraction. You found the Duelling Peaks stable! He’s trying to climb a shrine. Lord help me. Oooh. That must’ve been painful. Sorry, Link. Ma man a dumb bass. 

Ooh these pages have just completely gone to shit. But I’m still going to finish them. I’m at around 1600 words, well just over. That means that I have about 400 to go. I’m about or over 75% of the way through! Huzzah! Ew. I don’t even like saying that sarcastically. But it makes me think of ‘Dungeons and Dragons’, and I think I’d like to play that at least once. Maybe some time after lockdown ends I can go to a game with Malith. Gale does them, so that may be a great opportunity to hang out with that gang again. I also want to do pub trivia again! I can’t believe how many innocuous events and happenings this lockdown has had me missing. It’s absurd that there was ever a time where I had the opportunity to do all these activities whenever I liked, and I just never took them, or at the very least seldom took them. But if I’m going to be completely honest with myself, I still see myself being somewhat of a recluse even after lockdown ends. I will indulge in all the newfound freedom once we do find it again, as all Melbournians will, but I won’t be going crazy. I won’t be going out every weekend. If the world opens up again, then that will mean the responsibilities of the world will be opening up again too, which is a contributing factor to my wanting to stay home and be on my own. That, and there’s always Lonzo. I don’t want to leave HIM on his own, because he never wants that, and he never gets to have a say.

This shrine looks difficult. I want to be attentive, but it looks as though I have about 100 words left, which is nothing. I’ll need to start my website for uni soon, I haven’t even thought about that at all. I’d like to pen an online essay, that’s a new experience. And Wordpress should be easy enough to master. I mean, I’ve done it before, for one. Squarespace is just so clean, though! Definitely will be using this to start up BROKEN media. I’m looking forward to that. 

I’m on the fourth page now, but only at 1970 words. I feel like I’m cheating if I don’t at least get to 2000. I used a lot of paragraphs for this entry, because I mean I had a lot of distractions. 2003 words. I’m going to sign off here then. 2012. 2013. 2014. I need to stop. 2020!