#The perfume dex made her

[winterfireice]

Chapter 3!

taglist: @tiana4evahh @doodle-do-wop @amandayetagain

Full chapter under cut

“There is no reason that you should have more cologne than I do perfume,” Biana says to her brother Fitz,  

“It’s not my fault I like to smell nice,” he responds,

Sophie and the rest of her friends were hanging out at Havenfield after a particularly long day at school. Keefe and Fitz had gotten to hear about the lecture regarding safety precautions in case of a Neverseen attack on the school even though, one, the majority of the Neverseen were in a top security prison, two, all of them had more than enough experience dealing with and attacks and of course three, Fitz and Keefe had already graduated. That hadn't stopped their friends from talking about it for over half an hour though,

“How did we get to this topic again?” Marella asks, 

“I don’t know, we went from school, to dessert, to their cosmetics apparently,” Sophie responds,

“That cake in the cafeteria today was delicious though, I hope they have it tomorrow,” Dex mentions,

“When has our school ever had two edible sides in a row?” Stina asks from next to Dex, lying on one of the colorful blankets Sophie had found inside the house,

“Good point, we're never seeing that cake again until the rest of us graduate,” Dex sighs dramatically and falls to the ground, but when he does he brushes against Stina, his cheeks bursting with red hues.

Sophie also noticed the way Stina brushed her hair in front of her face but left the hand that was resting against Dex’s leg, 

“Do you see what I see?” Sophie transmits to Keefe,

“I do! It is taking everything in me not to start screaming,” Keefe’s mind squeals after he lightly nods to Sophie so she can enter his mind, “They are so adorable, they need to confess already,” 

“Is it possible we are too excited about their so far non-existent relationship?” Sophie asks hesitantly,

Keefe’s mind hesitated for a moment, “Maybe, but do we have to deal with that?” 

“Not yet, this is way too much fun. It’s like watching a TV show,” 

“So are we all going to ignore the Sokeefest happening right now?” Marella asks while twirling Linh’s silver hair around her fingers, “they both are staring off into the distance like none of us are here and I have known you telepaths long enough to know that means they are having a conversion none of us can hear,”

“Plus Keefe is starting to look like a tomato and only looks that way when he’s trying to keep something a secret,” Biana adds,

“Nope, nuh-uh. No secrets here just good old friend time,” Keefe says super unconvincingly as he swings an arm around Sophie and rests his head against her shoulder,

“Yeah, that was super believable bud,” Fitz laughs, “And that looks super comfortable, not like your straining your neck at all,” 

“Yup, really comfy. Fos-Boss isn't too close to the ground or anything,” Keefe mumbles,

 Sophie laughs at the feeling of his breath blowing against her skin “You’re tickling me! And you’re going to be in pain later, we should switch,” she gently pushes him off of her side and rests against him. She brings her hand up to his stomach and tickles him in return, making his body thrash,

“You two were made for each other,” Stina says in a tone Sophie can't tell is complimentary or not,

“Thank you?” She responds, “At least I think,” 

“Hey sometimes two people just work well together and there is nothing you can do about it,” Keefe grins in Stina and Dex’s direction, causing Dex to blush even more,

“I want that one day,” Dex almost whispers, 

“I have to say something, I can’t hide how amazing they would be together,” Keefe’s mind almost shouts,

“Don’t you dare,” Sophie tells him, “This is way too important and if we push them they will never admit it, especially Stina we need to let them figure it out on their own. Remember how long it took us to get together? Every time someone teased us about our possible feelings it pushed me farther and farther away from accepting it,” 

“You’re right, I know. But they better figure out their feelings soon because I need to be able to obsess over them because they are perfect for each other,” 

“If you keep it together for a couple of more hours I’ll ask my mom to bake something,” Sophie bribes,

“I know what you’re doing and it’s working,” Keefe playfully sighs,

“Hello, earth to either of you,” manicured hands wave in front of their faces, “What are you guys thinking about?” Biana says,

“Dessert,” Both Keefe and Sophie say at the same time, causing the rest of their friends to laugh,

~~~

“Edaline is the best,” Keefe says while stuffing Custerbursts into his mouth,

Sophie had kept her word and after everyone had gone home she asked her mom to make Custerbursts. Edaline quickly agreed and the three of them started trying to bake them, it mostly went well except for Sophie spilling hot water over her arm and Keefe spilling a bag of flour,

Now they were lying on her bed eating and discussing what Elvin foods tasted like human ones, 

“The purple root thing tastes just like cheeseburgers, ugh I miss cheeseburgers I know we stuff that tastes the same but I miss the textures the Forbbiden cities have,” Sophie says,

“Makes sense, I had the opposite feeling when I lived there, it must be nostalgia or something,” Keefe says as lushberry juice drips down his chin, 

 Sophie nods,  “You need a napkin love, you are going to get juice everywhere,”  

“Better?” Keefe asks after he wipes his mouth,

“You still have some on your nose Love,” Sophie tells him, grabbing a napkin and wiping it off herself,

Keefe takes advantage of Sophie leaning towards him and surprises her by wrapping his arms around her and tickling her until she is laughing so much she falls back onto her pillows,

“Ok stop, stop!” Sophie giggles, 

“That is payback for earlier by the way,” Keefe laughs and he lays beside her, 

“That was overkill Keefe,” Sophie says, “I think you just wanted an excuse to lay down,”

“How could you accuse me of such crimes?” Keefe says sarcastically,

“Because,” the rest of Sophie’s sentence gets interrupted by her imparter ringing suddenly next to her,

“Je crois que je meurs” Stina’s voice comes through the screen,

“You're not dying, breathe and then talk. What's going on?” Sophie responds, staying in French,

“Are you sure that you're not going to use this against me in the future,” Stina asks skeptically,

“I will not use it against you maliciously but one day if this conversation becomes funny I will jokingly make fun of you like friends do, is that ok?” 

“Fine, I guess you’re my best option right now,” Stina sighs, “After we all started to leave your place almost everyone had leaped away but Dex and I, and the wind was blowing my hair everywhere so I was complaining and you want to know what he said?” Stina says like she’s mad at him, “He said, he thought it looked really nice like that,”

“And were angry about that?” Sophie asks, causing Keefe to chuckle,

“Yeah isn't that a compliment?” Keefe asks also in French,

“Wait, he can understand me?” Stina asks confused,

“You didn't know he was here? Sorry, I thought you could see him,” Sophie apologizes,

“No I could see him but he speaks French?”

“Of course I do,” He shifts a little so he is more in the frame of the imparters camera

“What do you mean by of course?” 

“Stina,” Sophie says confused, “You know he’s a polyglot too right?” 

Sophie watches realization dawn on her face, “I need to stop forgetting polygots exist,” 

“Yeah, why does this keep happening to you?” Sophie asks her, “This is the second time,”

“I don’t know! Maybe because me and my family learn languages like normal people instead of just knowing everything,” 

“Wait until you find out we both have photographic memories too,” Keefe teases,

“Shut up, this isn't why I called. You two really double how annoying you are when you guys are together,” 

Sophie cuts Stina off, “Ok go back to what you were talking about, if you want I can kick Keefe out but go back to Dex,” 

“No I guess it’s fine he already knows at this point,” Stina grumbles, “The hair thing was mostly it, I just want to know what he meant by it. You people are all so sickeningly positive all the time even when you’re in the middle of dying that I don’t know if he meant it in a friendly or… in a not just friendly way,” 

“It's impressive how you can insult and compliment us in the same sentence,” Sophie starts, “Do you want what Dex said to be in a friendly way?

“I don't know! Clearly I am out of my depth here Sophie. He probably meant nothing by it and I should ignore it and bury myself under one of the stables until everyone forgets about it,” Stina seems to throw her head into a pillow next to her and Sophie tries to muffle a laugh which only makes it come out as a loud snort,

“Reminder that we can’t forget, with our whole photographic memories,” Keefe mentions,

“Ok, I’m reconsidering your offer to kick him out,” Stina says deadpanned, “Better yet, I’m going to go,”

“You sure? I feel like I didn't help much,” Sophie responds,

“I don’t need advice or anything I think at this point I’m too stubborn for that but thanks for listening,” Stina tells her, “You should go back to your annoying boyfriend,” 

“Aww thanks, Hexie, since you are already impressed by my stunning personality I should tell you I’m on team ‘tell him you're falling for him’,” Keefe peeps up,

Stina makes a face at his comment like she’s disgusted by the implication, “I don’t fall, good night you two,” with that she clicks away leaving Sophie and Keefe alone in her room again,

“I don’t care what she says, she’s falling,” Keefe says switching back to the enlighted language, his arms still lying over Sophie, he snuggles closer moving his face to the crook of his neck,

A buzzing comes from Kefes pocket and he groans in annoyance, 

“Doesn't everyone know it’s snuggle and sleep time?” Keefe mumbles, as he does the bare minimum of moving to answer his imparter,

“Oh it’s Dex,” Keefe seems to perk up only slightly,

“Hi, are you with Sophie?” Dex asks,

“No I just have a really realistic life-sized pillow of her,” Keefe says,

“Don’t mind him, he gets cranky when he’s sleepy,” Sophie laughs, “What’s up?” 

“Well… did Keefe already tell you what I was talking to him about earlier?” 

“Kind of,” Sophie pauses, “I more guessed,” 

“How did you possibly do that?” Dex questions,

“It doesn't matter, I’m assuming you're calling about Stina,” 

“Yeah I am, something happened today when we were leaving your place,”

“Oh really?” Keefe says, his tone slightly elevated for a reason only Sophie knows,

“I told her that her hair was pretty, I’m freaking out because she got really quiet and then made some excuse to go home,” Dex sighs, “I feel like I’m messing it all up, I just want her to like me,” he wines, causing Keefe to laugh and disguise it as a cough, 

“I’m sure it will be fine Mickey Mouse,” Keefe says including the nickname that hasn't gone away since Sophie told him what human Disney was,

“But what if I ruin our friendship and then she never wants to see me again?” Dex continues, “That would be awful,” Dex is looking past the camera lost in thought,

“You should talk to her Dex,” Sophie hints, “It may turn out better than you expect,” 

“She’s right, I mean she usually is but yeah you should tell her,” Keefe mumbles,

“Wow he really is tired,” Dex says as Keefe yawns,

“Yeah, I should probably let you go before he starts snoring,” Sophie only half-jokes,

“Good plan, I’ll see you tomorrow at the team meeting,” 

“Good night, oh, and Dex? You really should talk to Stina,” at Sophie’s comment Dex only shakes his head before hanging up,

“They’re oblivious,” Keefe says with his eyes closed,

“So were we and look at us now,” Sophie whispers, to the blonde boy in her arms,

“Fair point,” Keefe whispers back, “Can we sleep now? You’re too comfy not to fall asleep on,” 

“Of course love,” Sophie reaches to turn off the light and settles into bed falling asleep next to the oblivious idiot that stole her heart,

[lindyloosims]

OC Questions Tag

I was tagged by @stargazer-sims, thank you.

I'm going to choose Dexter William Maloney and Evelyn Dawn Robertson, my OC's from my Love Drunk universe. I completed their story in TS3 and I started to do TS4 version but different and I got distracted (as I do) then I did Washed Ashore, which was an alternate universe story that I really need to finish. Anyway I did both of them because they are twin souls.

__________

NAME: Dexter William Maloney

NICKNAME: Dexy or Pretty Boy by his Lainie, Dex by everyone else.

GENDER: Male

STAR SIGN: Capricorn

HEIGHT: 5ft 11in

ORIENTATION: Heterosexual

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: Irish/White

FAVOURITE FRUIT: Pineapple

FAVOURITE SEASON: Summer

FAVOURITE FLOWER: Tulips, because they're his mum's favourite.

FAVOURITE SCENT: Lainie's perfume, Kylie Minogue: Darling

COFFEE, TEA, or HOT CHOCOLATE: Coffee, he has a machine that his best friend Drew made for him and he likes to experiment with flavour. His favourite is caramel syrup in his coffee.

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP: He suffers from headaches now and again after an accident so it can vary. When it's really bad, he's nigh on an insomniac but Lainie forces him to drink chamomile tea before bed as she knows all about sleep problems.

DOGS or CATS: Dogs, he had one as a boy called Rosco and he was a Rhodesian Ridgeback. He has two dogs with Lainie, Trixie the yellow Labrador and Kizzy the Husky.

DREAM TRIP: Hawaii with Lainie, a lazy beach holiday walking by the ocean and collecting seashells. No kids, just him and his Freckles!

NUMBER OF BLANKETS: He's rarely ever cold, so I'd say one?

RANDOM FACT: Out of all of the numerous tattoos he has, only one is sentimental and that is his daughter Keira's name on his wrist in Irish Gaelic. The rest were a rebellion when his father suddenly passed away of a heart attack when Dexter was 24 years old.

__________

NAME: Evelyn Dawn Robertson Maloney

NICKNAME: She prefers Lainie and hates her name, Dexter calls her Freckles and her mother calls her Evie. Her father calls her monkey but that's a whole other story!

GENDER: Female

STAR SIGN: Leo

HEIGHT: 5ft 3in

ORIENTATION: Heterosexual

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: Irish/White

FAVOURITE FRUIT: Watermelon

FAVOURITE SEASON: Autumn for Halloween

FAVOURITE FLOWER: Roses

FAVOURITE SCENT: Dexter, he doesn't wear any scent it's just his natural aroma and it makes her feel giddy.

COFFEE, TEA, or HOT CHOCOLATE: Tea, all kinds but her favourite is plain old green tea, or cat's piss as Dex calls it.

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP: She has bouts of insomnia so knows all the tricks for trying to get sleepy, however they rarely work with her. She suffers from severe anxiety.

DOGS or CATS: Dogs, she's not a great fan of cats but she did have one when she was a teenager but her older sister left the back gate open and she never saw little Socks again. She had two Labradors growing up, her favourite dog breed. She and Dex have a Labrador named Trixie and a Husky named Kizzy, they pretended to adopt them for the kids, but really they were for them.

DREAM TRIP: Anywhere with Dexy, although she would love to go to New Orleans during Mardi Gras, visit the cemeteries and wander around the French Quarter. She's a fan of The Originals and that's where her love for New Orleans began.

NUMBER OF BLANKETS: It depends, some nights it can be just the duvet, other nights it could be two extra blankets. She's inconsistent.

RANDOM FACT: She is a secret fan of The Prodigy, it's something only Dex and her best friend Roxy know about. They're not her usual taste of music but for some reason she gets so much housework done with their tunes in her ears.

—————

I tag @zosa95, @simmersofia, @babolat85, @silverspringsimmer, @akitasimblr and anyone else who would like to do it, feel free to ignore if you don't.

[foodfightnovelization]

Chapter 8: Analysis and Discussion

We're back again for Chapter 8, and this scene starts out more or less the same as it does in the movie- Dex makes his way back home to the cereal aisle, looks at his bulletin board full of newspaper clippings about Sunshine's disappearance, and is filled with guilt over never finding her. It's at this point that Lady X enters the scene to tell Dex she has a hot case for him. Now, in the MOVIE, she walks in dressed in an astoundingly revealing schoolgirl outfit with heels and plaid gloves, and does a seductive dance throughout her entire conversation with Dex. No, I'm not kidding:

This is another of Foodfight's numerous outrageously sexual moments, and once again the novelization omits it entirely. Here, we're simply told she steps in, closes the door and takes off her coat. This is a lot more appropriate for something that again, is intended for children, as well as fitting the whole "noir detective" type of story Foodfight is trying to tell a lot better. Another win for the novelization! Unless you're really into schoolgirl outfits, in which case you must be devastated right about now.

Dex and Lady X continue talking, and for once all the dialogue here is exactly the same as it is in the movie. There aren't ANY changes at all here, save for the continued absence of Lady X's schoolgirl outfit and erotic dancing. Lady X mentions the sugars and salts are out in the streets fighting, but Dex suspects Lady X is hiding something from him, and it's noted that her perfume has a strange hypnotic quality to it that leaves the dogtective dazed.

She has Dex under her spell and is about to kiss him, only for him to hear a scream from the aisles and head outside. There are dead Ikes all over the sidewalk- everyone Dex threw out of the club in the previous chapter. Hairy Hold is panicking and suspects the sugars and salts had an all-out war (The supermarket world has its own brand of bigotry-motivated violence, it seems). This goes down the same as it does in the movie, with the only addition being that this is explicitly noted as a crime scene, with yellow price tags cordoning off the area. In the movie this scene just happens in the middle of the street, with nothing blocking the area off despite it being filled with dead bodies.

We're told investigators are using baby powder to dust for prints, which doesn't happen in the movie, and Hairy freaks out when he notices they're bringing in body bags. Neither of these things happen in the movie, and they do a lot in terms of adding to the atmosphere of the scene- it makes it actually feel like a crime's been committed here, and how shocking the situation is for the other Ikes. Once again, another win for the novelization.

It's explained that if an Ike dies, the grocery product they represent in the real world spoils and goes bad. The Roma Extra-Salty Pepperoni Pizza Sauce Ike is carried away, and it's noted sauce is already oozing out of his building. (This happens in the movie as well, but the novelization has the benefit of being able to use narration to explain who this character is and what he's the Ike for)

There's some additional dialogue here not present in the movie where Lady X says she's never seen anything like this before, but Hairy Hold says the same thing happened when Sunshine disappeared- her boxes faded and her raisins soured. He cuts himself off just before saying they never found the body, but it's made clear Hairy personally believes Sunshine is dead. This is a really good piece of additional characterization and it fills us in more on what happened after Sunshine's disappearance, so I'm not sure why this was left out of the film.

Dex scrapes a thin layer of ice from an ice cream sandwich mascot and notes the Ike has freezer burn, concluding these Ikes were bumped off a while ago and someone is just trying to make it LOOK like they killed each other in a brawl. The same scene is in the movie, only with Dex looking at Kaptain Krispy's body instead and saying "Rigamoldis has set in" (Personally I think the "freezer burn" line works far better). Lady X accuses Dan of killing the Ikes since he's the only one not present and accounted for, and Dex immediately defends his friend and makes it clear he'd never do anything like this. An additional point of note here is it's mentioned there's a crowd of Ikes surrounding the scene who start yelling and believing Lady X's accusation- in the movie, it's just the main characters at the scene and the streets are otherwise empty. There being a crowd surrounding the area (and mention once again of it being a crime scene) goes a long way toward giving this scene the weight it needs. Another win for the novelization- giving the aftermath of a violent massacre the appropriate gravitas!

Hairy says he can't handle the situation on his own, and begs Dex to help him before he goes bald. It's mentioned Hairy then sees a bald cleaning Ike from, and hastily adds "Not that bald isn't beautiful". In the movie this is Mr Clean, so this is just once again the novelization not being allowed to mention real-world brands by name. (But really, how many other bald cleaning product mascots are there?) There's an additional line of dialogue here that's not in the movie where Lady X accuses Dex of running away with his tail between his legs, and Dex simply states he doesn't get involved anymore.

Maximilius points out Dan has been there for him ever since Sunshine went missing, and he owes it to his best friend to find out what happened and clear his name. We end the chapter on our hero clenching his jaw and realizing Maximilius is right- is Dex Dogtective back in the game? Find out next time in Chapter 9!

[camelspit]

I am incredibly in love with the new art, but what is that elf on the shelf lookin fucker in the corner? /lh

[thecreaturecodex]

Xtabay

“Corrupted dryad” © Linda Lithen, accessed at her ArtStation here

[Earlier in this project, I said that the most egregious gap between actual folklore and Pathfinder’s folklore monsters was the delgeth/teelgeet. That was because I forgot about the xtabay. Pathfinder’s version are small flowers that smell sweet and put victims to sleep before eating them. The real version is a Maya succubus figure, one of many seduce and destroy monsters in Latin American folklore. Flowers are involved in the story, but the sweet smell is a direct misreading of the original.]

Xtabay CR 8 CE Undead This skeletal figure appears to be made of bones, vines and branches woven into a humanoid shape. Colorful but stinking flowers grow along its body.

A xtabay is an undead creature formed from the souls of hypocrites, people who were morally reprehensible but who maintained an outward appearance of virtue in order to impress or exploit others. Many of these even manage to deceive themselves, convinced of their righteousness until it came time to account for their deeds before the judges of the dead. Rather than accept damnation, these souls escape back into the Material Plane, animating their bones in combination with the vegetation growing on their graves.

Xtabay are hideous in sight and smell, the flowers growing along their bodies emitting a carrion stink. They can conceal their appearance with illusions, usually appearing as a beautiful woman and disguising their stench with phantasmal perfumes. In this guise, they lure travelers to their death. A xtabay may toy with a victim for some time, as their gaze addles the mind and charms its victims. Most victims do not even realize they are in danger until the xtabay drops its beautiful façade and grasps them in its thorny embrace.

Although most xtabay take the form of lovely women as a habit, they can disguise themselves as any creature. Sexual temptation is a favorite ruse, but they also can appear as a valuable horse, exotic animal or missing child. They have the ability to control plant life, creating spikes and vines that entangle victims while moving through these obstacles with supernatural ease. Most xtabay value their existence, as they do not want to suffer the consequence of their cruelty in life. Thus, they usually flee when outmatched or badly damaged.

Xtabay  CR 8 XP 4,800 CE Medium undead Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +14 Aura stench (10 ft., Fort DC 19) Defense AC 23, touch 15, flat-footed 17 (+4 Dex, +1 dodge, +7 natural) hp 90 (12d8+36) Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +11; channel resistance +2 DR 10/bludgeoning and magic Defensive Abilities freedom of movement, thorny body Offense Speed 30 ft. Melee 2 claws +13 (1d6+3 plus grab) Special Attacks charming gaze, sneak attack +2d6, thorny embrace Spell-like Abilities CL 12th, concentration +15 Constant—freedom of movement At will—veil (self only, DC 19) 3/day—speak with plants, thorny entanglement (DC 16) 1/day—command plants (DC 17), spike growth (DC 16), wall of thorns Statistics Str 16, Dex 19, Con -, Int 13, Wis 12, Cha 17 Base Atk +9; CMB +12 (+16 grapple); CMD 30 Feats Defensive Combat Training, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (claw) Skills Bluff +13, Disguise +16, Knowledge (nature) +11, Perception +14, Stealth +17, Survival +11 Languages Common, Sylvan Ecology Environment any forests Organization solitary Treasure standard Special Abilities Charming Gaze (Su) Range—30 ft.; effect charmed (as charm person); duration 1 hour; save Will DC 19. The save DC is Charisma based. This only effects humanoids. Thorny Body (Ex) A creature that strikes a xtabay with a melee weapon, natural weapon, unarmed strike or touch attack must succeed a DC 20 Reflex save or take 1d6+3 points of piercing damage. The save DC is Dexterity based. Thorny Embrace (Ex) A creature grappled by a xtabay takes damage from its thorny body each round (no save).

[bookwyrminspiration]

Has sophie ever used the panakes perfume that dex made her

oh i'd forgotten about that--probably because it's not ever really mentioned after he gives it to her.

i think the only time i remember her using it was right after she opened the gift and she spritzed it around her. but sophie isn't really a perfume kind of person, so i'm not surprised she doesn't use it

i could imagine it being mentioned as part of the scenery later on, like how the flowered carpet keeps getting brought up. a moment where she just looks around her room in thought and sees it on her dresser or something.

also, from a writer's perspective, the detail was more meant ot show how attentive Dex was in the moment, and wasn't as essential long term. she could use it again to show how sophie is always thinking of her friends and how they're always part of her, but compared to some of the other ways she could do that I don't think the perfume is high on the list of priorities.

but i would personally love some panakes perfume, so Dex if you're you there--

[sawyersscribbles]

trace elements - january 3, 2021

~

“I don’t get you sometimes,” Kestrel mumbled, nudging a root with her foot as she walked past, “You’re like this emotionless… nothing, on TV. I see how you pose in pictures with Cal, with his arm behind his back like you force him to do. I watched how you two interacted at his party. You treat him like shit.”

Dextera felt her breath hitch. “I don’t…”

“Well, you act like it. You look like you couldn’t care less about him sometimes. And then other times, like now, I see you on the verge of getting emotional about him. So here I am like, okay, so what is it? Do you even love him at all or not?”

Dextera stopped short and allowed Kestrel to pass her for a couple steps before she turned around. Dextera’s head was bowed, her straight blonde hair covering her eyes and forehead. When she looked up, Kestrel expected there to be tears in her eyes, but she found none.

“What do you remember about mother?” Dextera asked her softly.

Kestrel blinked. “Mom...? I don’t know, the last time I saw her, I was five.”

“I know, but what do you remember?”

Kestrel bit her lip and shut her eyes before opening them again. “She was tall. As she had this red hair that everybody loved. And she smelled like vanilla from this perfume she kept in a fancy glass bottle. And she didn’t smile a lot, but she did when she saw airplanes fly. I don’t know.” Kestrel held her face between her two hands and rested her elbows on her chin and looked over at Dextera, who had yet to look up from the fire.

“Well, I remember. She died when I was nineteen and left everything to me, so she made sure I would remember her. She loved me... a lot. But she was also mean.”

Kestrel shuttered at the way Dextera said “mean”. There was more to it than that, she could tell, but she kept her mouth shut. “I tried to be a good daughter for her. I know that’s what she wanted. I played violin and I wore her dresses and her painful back brace to sleep so my posture would be better and I ate what she wanted me to so I wouldn’t bulge in photo shoots.”

“But every two weeks, we would wait at the pod station for this kid to show up, this little boy with reddish hair and these big brown eyes, and he was tiny compared to me, who was seven years older, and I used to count down the days before I could see him again...” Dextera smiled but quickly wiped it off. “And he would live with us for two weeks. And for two weeks, I had... a friend, someone who understood who Scarlett Brandshaw was, up close in person. She would berate me about how violin lessons were going, she would berate him about hiding his wrist in front of cameras, but at the end of the day, we both loved each other, and that’s what got me through it.” A tear escaped Dextera’s eye and made a slow journey down her face and onto the forest flood. “Cal is the only person who has ever loved me without wanting anything in return. And sometimes I don’t know how to repay him, because my mother taught me to never need anything from anyone. But I need him.”

“Dex...” Kestrel couldn’t hold herself anymore. Dextera shook her head and held up a hand.

“Don’t worry. I know. I don’t know how to love my brother like you love him, but I do love him. In my own, fucked up way. Do you think... do you think you can forgive me for that?”

Kestrel swallowed a knot at the back of her throat and nodded. “Yeah. I think I can.”

~

tag list: @katabasiss @frey-rambles @sonya-is-confused @nightskywriter @harkaherald @semblanche @honeywharf @sunnydwrites @goldbonne @idreamonpaper @beobread @aurumni-writes @haleliwia-blog @eponinemylove @storelmykva @ahusaka @maskedlady @omgbrekkerkaz @literary-lavender @vandorens @rcvolutions-blog @sautrns @leftover-starlight @sleepingatlast @lovebenders @godserene @rcvolution @thebadasssass @ccorpsidious

[sexyrasputin]

“Rome,” Dex said, her voice trying to be flat and desperately failing. V didn’t even know what Rome had gotten for her, but it clearly was embarrassing if Dex was reacting with such red cheeks and a loss of her composure.

“Yes?” Rome asked from her spot on Luca’s lap. She’d already given him a bag of Hershey’s kisses with a whisper that there was more where that came from. Except everyone had werewolf hearing so everyone heard it. Regrettably.

Dex groaned, falling against Frankie, who had yet to see the package. V watched as he opened it up to look inside and he went even more red than his mate.

Okay. Rome had given Dex lingerie. She could tell that much. It had to be something about their relationship for Frankie to react so fiercely. Plus, this was Rome. V knew her best friend all too well.

“Do you like the lingerie, Dex?” Rome asked with her devious smile. Dex glared fiercely at Rome, who was giggling by now. Frankie looked statue still, and his mind had probably gone elsewhere. V didn’t want to know where. Luca laughed, his arms wrapped tight around Rome. V sat between Dex and Luca.

Then there was Matteo, who sat in the corner, nursing a glass of tequila and ignoring everyone. V did her best to ignore him right back, but with her heart sitting in the corner, drinking and ignoring her, that made it pretty difficult.

“Frankie sure likes it,” Luca remarked, studying his face that was definitely not focused on the conversation. Dex only went more red, burying her face in his shoulder.

At last, Frankie snapped back to attention. “I don’t know what you said, Archer, but you should shut up.”

“Okay, moving on.” V clapped her hands together. Christmas had always been her favorite holiday in the past. She loved exchanging presents, spreading joy, cooking a big feast, and laughing with friends until they passed out from being drunk on wine.

This Christmas was not nearly as pleasant. Matteo rejecting her had made sure of that much.

Presents continued exchanging. Luca had given V a Molotov cocktail kit featuring cheap vodka, a rag from his kitchen, and a silver lighter with the phrase “V is for Violetta” engraved on the side. To say she’d been delighted was an understatement. In return, V gave Luca a hot pink throw blanket. What could she say? It was about time Rome officially moved in with Luca, and V didn’t like subtlety. To be fair, she’d given Rome black throw pillows. Their opposite decor styles would combine sooner rather than later if V had her way.

Dex and V and exchanged personal gifts. V received a giant teddy bear and a long knife that would be wonderful for both cooking and fighting. V had given her two necklaces for sisters, one with bright and childlike designs and the other elegant and simple. That and a karaoke mic and Dex’s favorite perfume.

Rome had given V some clothes, and Dex had given her some beauty products that Rome raved about.

Frankie had, as he did with every gift for V, given his sister a beautiful knife meant for fighting and also killing. The emeralds in the hilt were flawlessly cut. Frankie also received the most personal gifts.

“I’m a grown man; I don’t need a book about puberty, Luca!”

Rome tittered while Luca’s grin grew. “Notice how he has nothing to say about the other book.” The other book was an illustrated sex guide.

V wished she could wipe her mind. She did not need to think about Frankie and anything remotely sexual. Disgusting.

“Tell that to your virginity, Bellandi,” Luca snarked. Yet again, Frankie was impossibly red. Any more embarrassment and V was certain his head would explode. At least that would be funny.

“That’s not rele—“

“Frankie, shut up before you dig a deeper hole. You’re just giving Luca more fodder.” Dex laid a hand on his shoulder, giving him that endearing “you’re an idiot and I love you but you need to shut up for your own good” look. V had a feeling this wouldn’t be the first or last time he received that look.

At least it worked; Frankie shut up.

“I still don’t need this,” he grumbled after being silent for two seconds.

“No, but you will need the other book.” Luca’s smirk was as annoying as his words.

V sank lower in her chair, holding the teddy bear over her face. She did not want to be anywhere near this situation.

“Can we please stop talking about my brother’s sex life?”

“You mean his lack of one?” Rome said.

V shot her a glare. “Literally, both of you are virgins. You have no room to talk.”

At long last, the group fell into silence. Nobody moved for several long moments. Most of the presents had been exchanged. V was about to grab her present for Matteo, but his loud voice interrupted her. He swore a second time, storming over to Luca’s bar cart.

“I want more, Archer. I know you have more. Where is it?” Matteo snarled, turning to face Luca. V didn’t look behind her; she knew Matteo was only a few feet away, directly behind her, and hearing his drunken words and angry words made her skin crawl. It also broke her heart even further. Matteo was gone. Matteo was on the road to transforming into Mark.

Luca tightened his arms around Rome. “You need to stop and sit down,” he said calmly. Matteo swore, throwing his empty glass against the ground. It shattered and V winced. Now was not the time to have another panic attack. It was Christmas. It was supposed to be happy. So much for happy.

“Matteo,” Frankie said, slowly pulling away from Dex and standing up. He stepped towards Matteo, who turned on him with a fierce glare.

“Get away from me,” Matteo hissed. V squeezed her eyes shut and plugged her ears. She didn’t want to deal with this. She shouldn’t have to deal with this.

“Matteo, you need to calm down,” Frankie said, his voice steady and even. Stupid werewolf hearing. Frankie was being quiet and V could still hear him.

Matteo scoffed sharply, storming past V’s end of the couch and towards the door. Frankie chased after, doing his best to pull Matteo into a chokehold. He must have known that even that wouldn’t stop his friend, because Frankie didn’t succeed. If he wanted to, he could have easily taken drunk Matteo. Frankie was the Alpha! He had superhero strength. But he knew Matteo couldn’t be stopped.

V heard the shocking sound of skin against skin, of bones snapping like the #2 pencils she used to snap in high school when she got angry. Matteo had punched Frankie. She kept her eyes shut, trying to ignore her surroundings, until the door slammed shut.

Silence filled the room.

“Uh, you guys probably should head home,” Luca said uncertainly. He looked at Dex and Frankie and V, forgetting the fact that Dex was his roommate. Or just expecting her to keep staying with Frankie despite the fact that her leg had mostly healed.

“You coming with us, V?” Dex asked, her voice soft as she laid a hand on her friend’s knee. V nodded, letting her eyes focus after being squeezed shut.

“Yeah.” It wasn’t like she had many other places to go. V had been crashing at Rome’s place while Rome stayed with Luca and Dex stayed with Frankie. But V didn’t want to sleep in an empty apartment for the night. She didn’t want to be left alone. She couldn’t go to her home, either. Matteo had made it clear that it wasn’t hers anymore.

Frankie came over and helped V to her feet before grabbing Dex’s hand. They led the way, her boot protecting her leg, and V trailed behind.

Matteo was officially lost.

[renaer-is-allegedly-hot]

session 11 notes (i’ll fix them one day but i’m agro this was tea hate this)

Two minute one shot while dom pees

Adam has a floaty tube

Asyna can't turn into a hippo

Giant seahorse

Jane austen

Elizabethh and darcy my hands are shaking

Dom has 4e books

Dom was pretty out of it last session

It's afternoon

Dom is toasty

In jacob's other campaign a goat bit off his penis so the goat's name is richard byter

"at first the goat was reluctant"

"what a goat"

Last week on dragon heist

We were meandering through the city

"one of you met with an old friend, briefly"

Zoo time

Aerana knows where the zoo is in the sea ward

Raised brick gate w high walls; on top are intricate metal railing spiked stuff

Entrance is v wide, not too many people going in bc it's raining a lot

Maybe

Apparently the weather is super important and I still don't know why the weather is so important

It is currently raining

Pouring

Ticket booth in the front

Gold piece per person

Botanic repository

We walk up to the booth covering ourselves w the hoods we have

Velvet rope line but we just navigate through it like in shrek

Adam goes first

Walks in and see smiling figure, human male middle-aged, heavyset, festive outfit, "thank you for visiting - oH how's it going?!" it's volo

He's doing research for his newest obok

Hi jacob's dad

Jacob's gonna go fishing

Volo under impression he would be one of zoological experts but no

"recommendations?"

They brought monsters in from the isle of chault

Points us off to the exhibit to go

Originally zoo was not a zoo as we think of but like throwing them in a pit and being like look at them think httyd

Now it's closer to what we'd consider a modern day zoo

Lots of foliage

It's a big zoo

Like the San diego zoo

Or disneyland

Dom talks abt his brother's haircut

We can run through it

Can asyna just sprint

Aerana and asyna r gonna run

Adam cel and theo r gonna not run

Most of the zoo taken up by exhibits devoted to the island

Looking in the entryway a lot of ppl r carrying pamphlets n papers and speaking in foreign tongues like tourists or smth ig

Adam casts disguise self to make him look as fancy as everyone else

Has feathered cloak

Three major pathways

Chault exhibits for weird stuff r left

Marine stuff and some chault r forward

To the right r monsters from the interior continent

Adam cel and theo (?) go to the right

Most ppl r in pairs

A lot of biologist-type ppl; ppl who look like they're used to handling animals

First real exhibit on the right is a human woman inside the exhibit throwing down pieces of meat to lions

Is asyna a moon druid ? Yes

How did the human woman get there ? But she doesn’t notice

"does this zoo have dippin dots" - lillian 2020

Perception check, 15

There r ppl selling stuff, sees dejected gnome sitting under a pedal cart w a dingy umbrella and he's grumpy n angry

Adam walks over to him

Selling diff snacks n refreshments

He's mostly selling a fizzle pop

Strawberry flavor, blueberry, butterfly flavor

"are ur fizzle pops made w organic butterflies ? Bc I'm kinda on a diet rn"

Adam says it's disgusting

"I'll have a blueberry thank you"

Cel is gonna try the butterfly one

It's sweet; doesn't taste like blood but does taste almost nutty

So like what I would think pistachio tastes like

Fun size popsicle

Theo gets strawberry

They go to the next exhibit

A really vertical exhibit

 Oneshot

Cel is gonna try and ride seahorse asyna but rolls a nat 1 for acrobatics and then a nat 1 for dex save

Smashes head on rim of the pool, bleeding out and unconscious

Healing words from adam

Climbs out of the pool

The water is now red

Three children on the other side of the pool

One of them gets really excited and pees when adam tells them that there's a chemical that turns pool water red

Asyna left the pool when the kid peed

Asyna leads everyone over to the hospital

Adam is gonna try and healing words fix cel

Cel is back to full health

One of the kids is crying scared when she finds out the water is blood

Theo is gonna go get the kids ?

Ok back to the zoo

There's a hippo exhibit

We go check it out

On the way there run into different typical zoo stuff

Apes

Monkeys

The younger ppl r around these exhibits

A lot of closed sections bc of weather like "don't worry next winter this animal will be back"

Alligators

Ringtails that r lemurs ringtail lemurs

Birds

Carefully curated trees that r uber high

Hawks and giant eagles

Oops my phone froze

Tap on the glass to say hi to the what now

Theo wants it to come say hi to her

Animal handling check, 10

Can't attract their attention but

The hippos

Asyna has speak with animals LMAO

Basically can't talk to worms

No more tapeworm talk :/

"Theo says hi . This is theo"

"everybody gangsta until they find out jacob thinks barney is a hippo" - dom 2020

Colombian drug lord one time built private zoos and the hippos broke out but now there's a hippo problem in colombia

Pablo escovar

Speak with animals is ten minutes

We're also probably fighting later

We're gonna talk to the hippos

Theo waves

One of them paddles over and tries to sniff

"hm . Can you eat it ?"

"pleaes don't"

 I just remembered seaweed is not a plant it's an algae

This hippo does not have a name

Calls sister sister

"ask about juicy hippo gossip" - adam

"no but if I did I would share it"

Originally zoo was place for research

Anything else to ask hippos before we check out rare animals ?

The hippo floats away and we say bye

To the chault exhibits

Getting late but there r a lot more researchers

First exhibit has a lot of strange, unfamiliar trees

Monkeys w really big fluffy sideburns clustering around overhanging branches bc it's raining

Some of them r taking leaves and using them to keep the rain off

One of the monkeys hops off the branch

The sideburns actually extend into wings and it goes to another branch

"it's like the wizard of oz"

"adam what's the wizard of oz"

Flying monkeys

Adam walks over to a researcher and asks the most must-see

Woman who is probably from chault bc wearing strange woven beret w branches n stuff

Alien to anything they've seen

"I would point you in the direction of the behemoths"

"what are behemoths"

Adam rolls nature check

9, he doesn't know what a behemoth is

She is from chault

Behemoths r considered friends there

Asyna and aerana know where chault is

Everyone else just knows chault is v far away, almost like a nightmare story told to children

Described as a hellscape

"I'd sooner go to chault than-"

Asyna and aerana know chault is a massive island to the sw of the sword coast, home to v tropical, intensely humid climate w lots of rain + some invasions in the past but now things r opening up

We're gonna check out the behemoths

From a distance, this exhibit much larger than others, much more heavily excavated

Not so much walls as railing looking into a deep cavern

All manner of plant life brought in to accommodate the creatures

Huge lizard of some kind

Huge size category

Irl a horse is large

Humans and dwarves are medium

Exhibit says it's a macetail behemoth

Ground trembles w each step of the behemoth

Slow, ponderous

Gigantic armored lizard w tough plating on its back and spikes on the sides of its head w bony, protective coverings all over it

Massive swinging tail protruding bone swinging back and forth as it walks

Looks like that one dinosaur

We would call it an ankylosaurus

Things that go over my head : see description bullet points before this

Tail end of speak with animals

Asyna can turn into dinosaurs

"you look really cool do you have a name"

One of them looks up but doesn't really respond

Doesn't answer

Look for velociraptors

Gonna look at all the exhibits

Spirehorn behemoths

Faces almost look like shields

Triceratops

Alien to us tho

I can't believe that like as dom's explaining these everyone else can like ,, imagine it

Like that's crazy they see pictures inside their heads

Feathered behemoths

Occasionally jump around

Claws and walk around on two legs

Bloodspike behemoth

Stegosaurus, baby and two parents

Asyna can turn into a deinonychus

We have enough time for one more exhibit

We see a creature alone in its pen save for two researchers dropping treats in front of it, other has a pickaxe and is tapping the ground and scooping smth up trailing the creature and brushing it into a bin

Creature reflects rainbow of colors ? I think

Huge snail, has three eyestalks but they kind of droop down and have heavy spikes off each individual one

Cel reads description

Flail snail?

It's a big boi

Described not as a beast but as something that comes from a realm of earth

As it moves it excretes glass

Generally docile but if prodded r really dangerous bc the things it has r more weapons than eyes

Adam asks if it's a petting exhibit

The flail snail is just as slow as a regular snail

"that is the most disgusting magic resistance I've ever seen in my entire life" - jacob 2020

Everything starting to shut down

We realize we should probs skedaddle

Time to find loser boy

Rain has not stopped but has kinda calmed down

Heading straight to the wig shop

Lamps in the trades ward r lit

Brighter than what we've seen recently

Adam peers into the shop

Perception check

6, tries to get water off the window, looks empty

Theo's gonna pick the lock

25, it's a simple lock and theo gets it open easily

Shop is empty

Somewhat eerie for those without darkvision bc the mannequins

Cel will go and investigate the back room, door is locked

Theo tries opening again

23, opens easily

Immediately smells weird powder

A lot of the perfumes for preserving dyes n stuff kept back here

Cel makes a perception check

16

V organized, neat and tidy

Manhole cover in the back

Sewer system v advanced in waterdeep but also means there's a lot of it

A lot of ppl will build over sewer openings bc cheaper real estate

"sewer access authorized city officials only"

Adam rolls nat20 for boxes

Looking for anything necromancy related, licking things, doing all manners of investigation

Feels a small leather sack, pulls it out, kinda heavy

Opens it up, sees coins that are kind of heavier and thicker; not silver, 5 platinum pieces

Platinum is 10 gp each

Could take the platinums

Scry the money and sack

There are cupboards at the front desk

Necromancy considered suspicious, looked down upon

"ah . It's like watching anime ." - jacob 2020

"no, it's not like watching anime" - dom 2020

The art itself is not a crime but the things that occur in tandem w it r usually crimes

Discussing what to do in character

Cel insight check, 16

Earlier dom mentioned we're aware many ppl in waterdeep use the sewers to traverse unseen in the city; kinda suss the building was built on top of a sewer

Adam is borrowing aerana's warhammer

Adam hits the floor, leaves big dent and a v loud sound

Cel makes strength check w advantage w crowbar

Rolls a 12, can't get it open

Can sort of shift it up

Adam smashes a jar over the floor

Dex check, 5

Cloud of neon yellow sprays out like a cloud of dust and smoke, just the color

Covered in bright yellow dye

Theo tries lockpicking

23, lock is more difficult and takes a little longer, but eventually it opens

Once it's opened, the chains undo themselves and snake out on their own accord

It's just a dark hole

Can see a short drop that leads to a staircase

Adam holds lantern

Cel's just gonna go w adam at the front, pitch dark

Darkvision lets us see to some extent; everything is in grayscale

Lantern beam does help us see a little

Asyna closer to front as well

Leads to a room, 10' x 20'

Descending down short flight of stairs, room totally bare save for a barred door that u can see out of, also locked

Hear faintly some water

Theo rolls 23 for lockpicking

Door opens

Adam investigating room for secret door, tunnel, anything

Investigation check, 10 and 5 for investigation checks

Look around but room is barren

Nothing stashed anywhere, nothing to indicate a secret door or anything

Adam and cel step out, to immediate right extends for 10ish feet before merging into wall

Directly in front is water and like a sewer river flowing to the right

"are there any rats" "make a perception check" "nat 1"

To left, passage curves so hard to see but for at least 40 or so feet the pathway continues

Adam rolls another 5 for investigation check

We eventually get to a small stone bridge

I FORGOT I RESEARCHED THE SEWER SYSTEMS idk if I should bring it up I brought it up

A 15 intelligence check

Waterdeep's sewers are a subject of fascination for the city

You know the passageway like the one ur in often has arteries or iron doors set in them leading to different areas

Also know sometimes due to poor planning or smth some areas without walkways also have access tunnels

There's a bridge ? Nasty water under it

Over the bridge we go

Cel rolls a 22, plenty of damp areas around ,, no light in the passage, walking for a minute or so and w each step just hear a wet squelching noise; we're leaving behind wet, muddy footprints

No sign of recent mud in front of us

10 minutes go by and every once in a while pass side arteries w more sewage flowing in

This part seems relatively well planned

Can only go straight ? No other curvature in the path

Traveling south

"I'm gonna try and get that rat" - adam 2020

Adam picks up the rat for sleight of hand check

22

"you're able to grab up that rat pretty good" - dom 2020

Adam holds rat out to asyna and tells her to do her thing

"hey buddy"

"uh you have to cast your spell first"

"hey pal how's it going"

"let me go"

"uh we'll let you go if you answer some of our questions"

"don't even"

"no he's saying don't eat him"

"my friend here holding you is gonna take a big chomp of you if you don't answer our questions"

"have you seen anyone"

"don't know"

"I open my mouth"

"I kind of want to squeak" - marguerite 2020

Rat points north

Adam wants a piece of string to tie onto the rat like a leash

Adam is starting to feel short of breath after 10 minutes of walking

"that's either from the powder . Or the key"

Adam doesn't feel indigestion right now just that it's difficult to get air

Adam tries to tie a leash to the rat

Dex check

Nat1

Rat runs away

We go back the way we came, another 10 minutes, we pass three of those stone bridges

Cel investigation checks the dead end again, adam will give bardic inspiration

"Open sesame" - song

18, nothing there

It's a maze, we'll try naya

Adam takes out sack of platinum

Naya appears, looks around and shudders and bounds away

Following the deer

Naya is guiding back to where we originally where

Moving south again

Looks at passage back again passage then vanishes

Naya was standing on one of the bridges

First artery

It's a passage

We gotta wade through the sewer

Aerana readies weapon

Wading through, halflings get disgusting smth in their boots

Passage goes 20 ft before turning on a diagonal, turn onto passageway then it extends v far into distance

"adam's adding to the sewage right now probably" - jacob 2020

Adam's feeling lightheaded

Cel makes medicine check on adam

Rolls a 6, don't know what's wrong bud

Adam rolls around in the sewer water to get the powder off ??

I guess he is

Adam makes a constitution save, a 3

OH? OH NO

The yellow stuff is off but adam is smeared in shit

Did I make a good or bad decision

We keep going but adam feels better like fine like nothing's wrong

Oh no adam's gonna die it's like hypothermia where u feel super hot at first then u die

Passageway stretches on for awhile until coming across a rusty ironed door raised so that we'd have to step up to access it

Aerana makes perception check on the door, 20 not a nat

Hears people shouting and what appears to be a cat

Can't tell if the shouting is bad or not

Theo wrings out cape

Go up to the door, realize there's no lock; the entire lock has fallen out bc the door is so rusty

Adam checks door for traps, 12 investigation

Does not appear to be trapped, looks p old

Adam is in middle, cel towards back, aerana at front

About 25' ahead is a wider chamber and a door set into the wall, the areas are lit

We already walked through the rusty door

Massive screeching sound that came from the door when u opened it

Gotta b stealthy

Door to the right is unlocked

Adam opens the door open, looks like a storage room w different crates and sacks; bland

Some water barrels, adam pours it on himself; the rest of us also do it

Moving into room adjacent to passageway; triangle things in the wall has arrow stuff to make it easier to fire from but the room looks abandoned

Deeper in we go

Don't go that far but hit a wider room extending out 40'

Center of the room; at one point looks like there was a wall covering the room but has since collapsed; several ppl looking at us

Far corner opposite to us is an old halfling man in dark robes, clutching wound at chest, long gray braid down back staring at us as if he heard we were coming

In front of him are two smiling skeletons

It's the necromancer

The skeletons r also looking at us

They appear to be guarding him

In front of skeletons are three kenku looking at us

Bingbong is not one of the kenku

"I can explain" - adam

"we came down here and I was covered in shit and" adam casts pyrotechnics centered in between skeletons and kenku

Initiative

Aerana, 19

Cel, 17

Asyna, 15

Adam, 15

Theo, 9

Aerana

Holds attack, if kenku move within 5 ft of her she'll attack

Cel

Skeletons have bows and shortswords

Kenkus have shortswords

Will hold an action if attacked

Skeletons

Appear to b human skeletons, medium size

Lash out at kenku

One kenku able to parry away an attack, other skeleton slashes another kenku

Asyna

Attacks kenku closest to her, the one not hit

15, "what are you attacking with" "iiiiiiiii don't knowwwwwwwwwww"

Asyna turns into ape

Runs up to terrified kenku

Swings both times but it gets out of the way and hisses like a cat

Adam

Casts pyrotechnics on kenku

One passes, one fails

Failed one is blinded for next turn

Cutting words on the kenku by asyna

Kenku

Blind

Tries to escape, skeleton misses and kenku staggers away and starts feeling way along wall and runs into room west of where we are

Other one

Makes attack on skeleton, half of ribcage slashed but it's still standing

Other other one

Tries to attack ape, misses

Halfling

Stands up, tries to flee

Theo

Hits kenku that tried to get asyna, 5 damage

Has sneak attack, deals 12 damage

Arrow shot into neck, still alive but not for long

Aerana

13 damage to other kenku

"how do you want to do this"

Kenku drops dead

Skeleton turns smiling to aerana

Cel

15 to hit, 6 damage, dead

"how do you want to do this"

Pulls arrow back as far as she can "and I don't know if it's bingbong, but I'm gonna pretend it's bingbong and shoot it right through his eye socket"

"I want to keep bingbong as a pet" - jacob 2020

"kenku are sentient beings, that would be slavery" - dom 2020

Looking around we see the bodies of three other kenku and remains of two other skeletons

The skeletons attack aerana

One hits, 3 damage

Asyna

Goes into the room to follow the halfling and the kenku

Some kind of exit around

The blinded kenku is in here

Can reach halfling or kenku

Marguerite wants to hug the halfling

Athletics check to do it

21

Old man screams but asyna can hold him, unable to escape

Kenku still feeling around on the floor

Adam

Follows asyna

Gonna cast sleep

Kenku falls asleep

Yells over at the halfling

"can you call off your skeletons please"

Halfling

Loser boy's turn

I don't remember how to spell losser unless it's losser

Tries to escape asyna's grasp

"he does not escape your grasp"

Asyna rolls another athletics check

17, he does not escape

Theo

14 to hit, 16 damage

"how do you want to do this"

Arrow to the skull just goes really far in and the skull falls off as do misc bones

Aerana

Misses hit

Tries to thrust forward w sword but it drops and contracts, sword slipping through ribcage

Cel

19 to hit

8 damage, hits shoulder and arm falls off

Skeleton

Misses

Asyna

Waddles the halfling over to adam

Gives him a little squeeze

Adam

baned halfling

And cutting words

No cutting words nvm

Halfling

Asyna rolls a 25

Can't squirm out

"unhand me there are more of them there are more kenku"

Theo

"ok. Bye bye skeleton boy"

22 to hit

12 damage

"how do you want to do this"

Hits him in the smile; teeth knocked out and all of it collapses like a xylophone type noise as the bones hit the floor

Out of combat

Aerana ties up sleeping kenku

Adam casts charm person

Cel is gonna loot

Investigation check, 7

10 gold combined on the kenku; takes

Halfling is charmed to consider adam a dear old friend

Says he just finished work on his new purse; his fanny pack (basically)

Not sure we recognize the material

Adam says he knows who sent the kenku

"you have the stone"

"they stole it from me"

Says he randomly found a nice stone from a rat

Adam puts his hand on loser boy's shoulder and asks if he wants to work from home

Trying to convince loser boy to come with us

Declines

The purse is made out of elf skin

Bc it's supple

Adam trying to get a magical weapon out of loser boy

Has a potion that protects from necromancers

Persuasion check, 24

Goes into side closet

Damage resist potion

Aerana kills him

Wow are you ?? Desensitized ?? Are you desensitized or does it help not being able to see anything ever

Adam rummages through loser boy's desk

Investigation check, 15

False bottom to one of the desk drawers w 100 gold inside

Cel investigation checks loser boy, 13

Finds a little wand w a skull tip

Adam is gonna look at the purse

This bag is a faint gold

Adam shakes the kenku awake, wisdom 13 saving throw

Fails

Charm person

Making dog noises

"you want to take us to your friends"

"I don't know where they are"

"then let's just go back to your base"

"get back to base ? No one knows where that is"

Adam introduces himself, mentions bingbong

Gets theo and cel's names, mimics sound of a hammer hitting metal when asked his name

His name is bonk now

Asks asyna's name, asyna is still an ape

Big hairy git

Aerana says she'll trade information for her name

Adam swings warhammer into ground to threaten kinda

Adam makes 12 insight check

We don't recognize any of the voices he uses

Asks if we live in a hole

Asks if the house is nice

Copies adam's voice for the house boom

Adam asks if he knows about the puppet

"couldn't tell you if I knew"

Nat20 adam runs insight check across entire conversation

He's lying abt not knowing where his friends are

I DFJGSLGJS THAT'S WHAT I WAS SAYING ABT US STILL GIVING UP INFORMATION ASFKJAFD

Adam asks him why he was lying

Hear a voice we've never heard before

But this one in particular is bizarre and warped as if it's through some filter

"do you know what happens when you lie to me"

Adam

Anyone w passive perception over 9 hears a bottle break and a door slam in one of the rooms to the south

Cel hits his brain basically

Some of you starting to piece together that smth strange is happening

Pattering of footsteps from room to the south

Session over for the night

[garglyswoof]

At the Seams

Happy holidays Kamille / @songof-thelark​! I hope you enjoy this fic. I lightly used your prompt of her telling him about her brother, but i definitely used it as more of a connection between them than a deliberate scene. I hope you still like it!

She feels guilty that she’s not fully bought in to Nelson, Murdock and Page. Don’t get her wrong, the concept is there in spades, and every once in a while when Foggy’s talking on the phone to a new client in that jocular way of his that still manages to be professional, or the office is quiet as Matt listens to legal briefs on the joke pair of Beats Karen had picked up for him, she is content. Moments of an almost aching joy she wants to trap in amber; fossilize Foggy’s laugh, Matt’s intoxicating smile.

But there’s so much in the way of these moments. Read here or on AO3

Karen stands and stretches, needing a break from the glare of the screen she’s been glued to since 10 am. Foggy looks up from his desk with a soft smile and her heart clenches at the easy acceptance in it. That’s Foggy, Champion of Good, way moreso than Matt if she’s being honest.

“Your eyes crossing?” Foggy teases, winging a pen back and forth between his fingers.

“Just a bit,” she responds with her own smile. They have a surprising caseload, though it really shouldn’t be considering Foggy’s fifteen minutes of DA fame. She’s just thankful their payment is in both casseroles and cash these days, the terrifying financial noose of the original firm’s run just a memory.

“Karen,” Foggy says, his eyes serious, and the suddenness of the change points to a thought long harbored. “What’s up with you and Matt?”

She grabs an elbow, continuing her stretch. Foggy’s pen is still. “Fog,” she mutters with a sigh, “we’re fine. As we can be.”

“Can I get more than that? You know I don’t like butting in, but something feels wrong. We’re a team, Karen. I’ve wanted this my whole life, and when you came into the picture it’s like you were there all along. So please spare me the ‘we’re fine’s. Can I help? What can I do?”

Karen rounds her desk and perches on the edge of his, the glow of the banker’s light Foggy had stolen from his old office pooling on his desk. “I honestly meant it- we’re fine. Look, Matt and I, what we were starting, that’s never going to happen.” She looks down, staring fixedly at the blotter on his desk where he’s adorably doodled ‘Marcy’ in six different fonts. “I really, really liked him, Foggy. So there are times now where I remember that feeling and I get pissed off at what he did. It’s just going to take time, time and a bit of awkwardness when we look at each other and forget.” She laughs. “Or remember.” She reaches over and squeezes his hand, sliding off the desk, cocking her head at Foggy’s sad smile. “It’s ok, really.”

“I guess I’m still stuck on the dream of it all. My best friend in love with my new best friend. But I get it. Just-” Foggy searches her eyes, “you would tell me if it was more than just that, right?”

She responds with a nod because vocalizing a lie seems so much worse. Because the “more than just that” is wrapped up in both Murdock and Nelson. And her brother. And Frank Castle, if she lets herself open that door. She pulls her lips in, brushes her hands over her skirt, and heads back to her desk, wondering when this dream will shatter too.

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

He’s not fully bought into the rural lifestyle, but it does have its perks. The crisp snap in the air, the quiet disturbed only by the susurrus of the wind through the pines, the community in this space where the land seems to stretch out beyond normal confines. He’s made a deliberate choice to get to know his neighbors, to try to begin to gain a sense of normalcy. God, it was like the transition of military to civilian life but thousands of times worse.

Because how do you become human again when you’ve lost your ties to it? He’d tried living with his demons, waking up with sweat beaded at his temples, his hands bloody from the slide of the sledgehammer’s grip, the smell of Maria’s perfume somehow still in his nose.  It hadn’t worked.

So that’s why he’s here talking to Marjorie, who lives across the way in a tiny cabin with the most carefully tended garden he’s ever seen. The tract of land has houses built from stone and timber in the early part of the century, and no electricity lines mar the sky, only unbroken towers of spruce, the occasional maple tree flashing its bright fall plumage. His eyes crinkle at the corners at something Marjorie says, and he takes the casserole from her age-spotted hands with care.

“Thank you, ma’am. You set on firewood?” He says this with a tease - last time he’d chopped wood it seemed that Marjorie’s entire female friend circle just so happened to come by to chat.

“Young man, don’t begrudge them their simple pleasures,” Marjorie says, her voice a rasp to match his own, smiling and waving her hand idly at him as she turns to head back inside. “You going into town anytime soon?”

It had been weeks since he had. Despite Marjorie forcing him to kick his eating-out-of-the-can habit, there wasn’t much he needed out here. Time and books and the sweet company of an elderly woman telling tales from her past, the occasional visit from the taciturn old homesteader who brought his battery-powered stereo and blasted Springsteen to the skies. The guitar he stole from Lieberman. He shakes his head.

“Well, I’ll be heading up tomorrow. Need to keep up to date on what’s going on in the world since it’s all going to hell,” she says, the screen door slamming though she pauses for his response after, and he laughs, ducking his head.

“Yeh,” he mutters through the flash of his grin, that vocalization that’s more out of habit than an actual response. “Yeh, it sure is.” The smile drops and he can see Marjorie’s face soften through the screen.

She invites him for dinner and tells more of her stories. He finds himself returning the favor, stories of Frank Jr. and Lisa in trade for her own grandkids’ tales, and he heads back to his cabin with his heart a little bit lighter. It’s comfortable and safe and he knows it’s a respite, but holds on to his time here all the same. He hasn’t read papers or watched the news or even listened. It would just be fodder for a new list of takedowns, and he’s not ready for that. What he is ready for is realizing that his fight isn’t over. Just how he does it is. He’s always toed the line that is the brutality of death, but the emotion powering his vendetta confused things.

He is not like Red. He is fine with being judge, jury, and executioner. He doesn’t see it as playing god, if he even believed. It’s making a choice, and it is a deliberate one, and it doesn’t come without penalty.

He is just willing to do it.

Will there always be some criminal to fill the gap, come up the ranks? Of course. Thousands of years of human nature and the shit associated with it say a resounding yes. But he sees it like he saw all military work - to support a cause you believe, others may need to die. And he believes in getting the deep rooted conspiracy of scum out of their holes and into the streets.

He thinks of Lewis then. Thinks of the military and what it produces. Billy and Curtis and Lewis and him. Each with their own sense of order, instilled through military. He thinks how he shouldn’t have been there in that hotel, that it made no sense for him to be there, but he had been. Because talking with Lieberman, hell even Sarah, cemented it. Karen’s a sort of family now.  He thinks of her, wonders how she is. Wonders if she’s safe. It’s ok to just wonder.

He dreams less often.

----------

She wonders if he’s ok. Today’s daily thought devoted to Frank Castle comes as her hand grips her keys, eyes tracking her surroundings in the mall’s meager parking lot. She hates driving in the city, but had needed a new desk, and schlepping that on the subway all the way to Queens had not been on her list of fun things to do.

She hasn’t seen nor heard from him since the elevator, the memory of it foggy and displaced from the adrenaline and her injuries at the time. She sometimes touches her forehead unconsciously when she thinks about it, sees his eyes and the confused openness in them, the pain and adrenaline stripping everything away.

Where the hell is he? Where had he been when Fisk was raining terror on her and everyone she loved? It’s not like she waited for him to rescue her, she hadn’t expected that with Lewis either, but part of her...yeah part of her is still surprised he wasn’t there. That he didn’t show up, pumping a shotgun and unloading it in Dex’s heart.

It would have saved a lot of trouble. An agent’s life. Having to hear those desperately frustrated words from Matt’s mouth - god - that still hurt. She unlocks the car door with a flinch of remembrance, slides into the cracked pleather that needs a new layer of duct tape. There’s an old Jeep Cherokee staring at her accusedly from a space in front of her, a mirror image to the one she wrecked. She sighs and lowers her head and breathes, trying to remember what her thankfully-sliding-scale-therapist told her to do to quell the anxiety.

She remembers the look in both Foggy and Matt’s eyes when she’d told them. It had been what she expected, that mix of pity and incredulity and that judgment from Matt and an earnest attempt to understand from Foggy. She also remembers how it felt to tell Frank without saying a word. Because isn’t that it? Isn’t that why she’s held on to Frank, forgiven him with two hands clasped around his back in that hug she didn’t even know she wanted until he’d turned to leave?

All those unspoken conversations.

God, where the fuck is he? Her phone buzzes an interruption, juddering in the console where she’d stashed it.

“Karen Page,” she says, old habits from the paper dying hard.

“Ms. Page, free for dinner tonight? I know it’s a bit last minute but Lily’s been asking you to come visit for ages and I’m making Chicken Parmigiano and the kitchen smells fantastic and I thought of you.” A pause. “And that sounded incredibly wrong. But the offer stands.”

Karen smiles at Ellison’s awkward delivery. He’s really trying to regain her friendship, and the warmth of that realization suffuses from her heart through her chest.

“I would love to smell like Chicken parm,” she teases and checks the console’s clock. “What time?”

“An hou-”

She interrupts him. “And no matchmaking this time, right? I want to make that perfectly clear.”

Ellison laughs without a hint of embarrassment. “I promise I’ll give you fair warning if I try to set you up again. Though I have to say Karen, I thought you and Jason were gr-”

“OK yep, see you in an hour. Gotta go!” She cuts him off brightly and shifts the now-warm car into gear. It’ll take her most of the hour to get through Manhattan’s tangled streets, and she turns on her radio, grateful she has control courtesy of the free stereo repair from one of their lower-income clients.

Ellison greets her at the door with searching eyes and she pastes on the most sincere smile she can manage. It’s exhausting having people care, she thinks, then lets out a real laugh at the thought. It seems to appease Ellison as he takes her coat, the sound of Sinatra floating through the hall.

It’s just as comfortable as last time. She tells them about Nelson, Murdock & Page while Lily browbeats Ellison for letting her go, Ellison pulls a serious face as Lily brings out the dessert, “Tiramisu, from Geno’s. Mitchell can’t make desserts worth a damn.”

“What’s that face for,” Karen says suspiciously and Ellison leans over, fingers steepled below his chin. He stares at her for a moment as if composing what to say, so when he barks the words out, Karen jumps with their suddenness.

“Freelance. You up for it?”

She freezes and cants her eyes down, folds in on herself, hunched over her dessert. “I won’t tell you who he is.”

“I will never ask you that, not anymore.” His voice is warm, understanding, and she lifts her head to catch the softness in his eyes. Lily pushes back from the table and busies herself in the kitchen.

“I won’t give you Frank Castle either,” Karen says, steel in her voice, emboldened by his reaction.

“Karen, the attack on the bulletin messed with me hard. He attacked my family, in my home. A home as real as this one,” Ellison says, spreading his arms wide. “It put my trust in you to the test, because I know what I saw and heard and I know your tendency to-”

“To what?”

His mouth is open, lips moving to find the words. He knows he’s said the wrong thing and looks away to compose himself. “Karen, you’ve got a heart bigger than any I’ve known, and courage in spades, and you put yourself on the line for a story.” He shakes his head with a scoff. “That sounds like a hallmark card. Let me frame it another way. You are ruthless.”

Her eyes widen and her head shifts back, the words a blow. “Wh-what?”

“You’re ruthless in pursuit of a story. In protection of a source. In trusting in someone that’s earned it in your eyes despite evidence that would send someone else running.” Sinatra croons about flying to the moon as Ellison’s eyes catch hers. From the kitchen comes the smell of brewing coffee and Karen closes her eyes. “It’s a good thing. But it’s also a terrifying thing. It’s high stakes to trust you.” He holds up his hands in defense at her expression. “But I do, and I’m sorry that I didn’t show that. I’m showing it now. No Daredevil, no Frank Castle, no whomever comes next because apparently you’re a superhero slash villain magnet. Not unless it’s on your terms.”

Her whole body sags with relief and Ellison’s lip twitches in a half-smile hidden by his beard. Lily comes back to the table with freshly-brewed decaf, Karen smiling over her mug and trying hard not to think of diners and busted faces and what came after.

Where the hell is he?

It’s close to eleven when she finally heads up the stairs to her apartment, fishing out her keys from her purse as she sings Sinatra in a soft, out-of-key lilt. She’s at the stairs, the faint sound of music filtering down from her floor, which is a bit of a surprise. It’s usually pretty quiet, the building mainly full of retirees. She’d inherited the rent-controlled apartment from her grand aunt - there was no way in hell she could’ve paid Matt’s rent on top of a normal New York rent, even living out in Queens.

♫No matter who you are♫

Her step stutters and she dives a hand in her bag despite what the song playing must mean. Has to mean, right? She rounds the stairs and it’s there, sifting out from her apartment.

♫ Shining bright to see ♫

It feels a dream, and her steps are measured, one in front of the other as she approaches the door like it’s going to warp her to another dimension. Her hand lifts as if to knock before she shakes her head at the ridiculousness and places the key in the lock, the scrape of it echoing down to her toes. She pushes the door open, eyes scanning, her view of the living room frustratingly blocked by all her bookcases, but she doesn’t have to wait.

Her name is a rumble in his throat and her heart quakes.

“Karen.”

“Hi Frank,” she says in a clipped voice. “Drink? Oh, you’ve brought your own.” There’s a bottle of domestic she’d never buy in his grip. His hair is longer, not quite as full as his hipster ‘do, but definitely not the close shave she associates with The Punisher. His beard has made a return, close-cropped this time, and she knows these things are a conscious choice on his part, a way to separate himself.

“So what brings you by? I don’t work for the paper anymore so can’t help you as much these days.” She pulls her lips in, tucks an errant lock of hair behind her ear. Turns off the stereo god that song. Fidgeting. Pissed.

“I’m sorry.” It’s unexpected, this apology, and it breaks the floodgates of her thoughts.

“Where were you? Fisk fucked up so many lives. A good agent died. Many good agents. Blackmail and death. I thought this would be prime Punisher territory or is it because it doesn’t connect with your fam-” She stops. Too late.

He stands, his hurt and anger propelling him out of the seat. His voice is an open wound. “Guess you missed the memo when you became family, Karen.”

“I’m sorry, i had no right to say that. It’s not even-” she pauses, closes her eyes, her mouth stuttering as she tries to form her thoughts. What did he mean? “It’s not what I really think. I’m just angry, and I have no right to be. I have no claim on you.”

“But you do, Karen. You’re family. And I should have left some way to get in touch. I went off the grid, trying to figure it out, trying to change, trying to put that past behind me.” He’s at her bookshelves, scanning the titles. The window Matt uses to break in is to his side, the lights of the city bright and crisp in the fall air.

Her voice still holds tension, her question tight. “And did you?”

“No.” It’s as long of an answer as he’s willing to give right now, and she shakes her head in response, breath blowing out her nose.  He abandons the shelves, scrubs a hand over his face. “I- I’m glad you’re safe Karen.”

She’s staring at him, her eyes hard with the weight of emotion, and she launches herself at him. He’s prepared this time, his arms circling around her, hand up to touch the silk of her hair, feeling the rabbit pulse of her heart against his chest.

She pulls back first and he’s reluctant to release her. She turns and sits on the edge of the couch, fiddling with something on the coffee table’s burled wood. Her laugh is self-deprecating. “My old boss called me ruthless tonight. And I thought, ‘you don’t even know the half of it’.”

He crosses the room, avoiding the spot that always trips her, where the rug curls up. He always knows where he is, moving with a grace that belies his bulk. “Maria used to call me that.” He laughs. “Ruthless. Said I focused on one thing so hard I forgot what else was around.”

“Do you think she was right?”

“Depends on what you define ‘one thing’ as. What she meant it as? Nah. I disagreed, didn’t tell her that though.” His face is in shadow and she reaches to turn on the light. He squints until his eyes adjust. “Things were rocky those last couple tours. I was taking it home with me. So I just kinda took whatever she said. She was a real ballbuster, she was.” His smile is far away and he shakes his head like he’s shaking off a blow. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Just reminded me.”

“It’s ok.” Her voice is soft. She spins her bottle on its edge, studying the condensation ring on the table. She’d forgot to put coasters out.

“What is it, Karen?”

She laughs once, an unhumorous huff, and then the words scratch out of a warring throat. “When I was nineteen, I killed my brother.”

--------

Frank had missed the city, the sounds and horrid fucking smells and the people and the sheer controlled chaos of the streets. So he feels at home in this weekly cash-up-front rental, his police scanner a low murmur in the background, the sirens and accented shouts are the background to his thoughts.

He’d swung by Curtis’ place, the man’s face still bearing the scars of Lewis’ brutality, and Curtis had tried to pry in that subtle, vet-meeting, questioning way which Frank had mostly dodged. He was getting soft, all these deep conversations and heart-to-hearts, swear to god. But Karen, she-

He’d known there was something, a darkness in her that called to his own, however goddamned sparkly vampire that sounded in his head. Just something off, then. Simple as like calls to like. He’d been wrong about her and Red. He wouldn’t be able to hold on to her, not with the pedestal he’d put her on.

Sometimes you’ve gotta recognize the darkness in others so you can understand it. It was something he’d started to teach Lisa, when that asshole bully at school tried to make her life miserable. He’d taught her how to recognize it, and at the right time, to use that understanding to make the bully stop. Her face as she ran off the bus that first day she’d stood up to him, running up into Frank’s arms with that grin so much like Maria’s it hurt, god.

So many things in that smile. A darkness in its own right.

He shook his head, picked up the book Karen had let him borrow, a gesture that made him smile himself, now, because it spoke of tomorrow. She’d joked that she’d put flowers in her window when she wanted the book back.

He hadn’t been sure if he was fooling himself with her friendship, not with the deaths on his hands, but she’d all but screamed her acceptance at him, and who was he to argue when it felt so good to feel connected to someone?

He isn’t stupid. She is a beautiful woman and they are clearly attracted to one another. But it isn’t why she’s family.

She’s family because she is ruthless, and so is he.

------

The new modus operandi of Nelson, Murdock and Page isn’t much different than the old one, they’re just more obvious about it. They still help those who aren’t getting a fair legal shake, and with that comes the inevitable investigation that uncovers the seedy underbelly of Hell’s Kitchen and beyond.

It’s a system that works surprisingly well. A dream scrawled on a napkin come to life. She looks into the cases, digging deep on the angles and motives. Matt does nighttime reconnaissance and rules the jurists’ box with compelling arguments. Foggy quotes legal precedent like it’s a Jeopardy category he’s just won.

And while they’re doing good work, a part of her wonders if they could do more, especially when they begin to realize something’s horning in on Fisk’s old territory. Something big. There’s whispers of it in the Kitchen, talk of a crime family with deep pockets and an even deeper streak of violence. She takes her work home with her, files she’s pulled from legal records, info from The Bulletin’s database. There’s a whiteboard in her kitchen that looks like a conspiracy theorist’s dream.

She brings it into the office, expecting Foggy to laugh, but he just calls them Team Awesome and moves a pushpin around.

“Seriously Karen, I’ve dreamed about this moment. You-” he points at her, “are helping Foggy Nelson realize a life’s dream.” He puts his hands in his pockets and leans back, observing. “Wow. It really does make things clear. I resolve we have this at all future Nelson, Murdock and Page meetings. By the way - we’ve got enough petty cash to pay for your investigator’s license. We should make this legal, huh?”

Matt smiles at her pleased surprise. “You’re part of our dream now, Karen. You didn’t think you’d escape did you?”

And despite all the bs between them, the shadow of his lies and those months where they’d presumed him dead and that desperate hopeful act of paying his rent, her smile at Matt is real, and the gleam in her eyes is too.

“Yeah, so,” she brushes the front of her skirt, motions to Matt, “when you got that name a few weeks ago, Blackwing, that broke things open.” She points to an article pinned in the upper right. “We’re dealing with the Maggias. An international crime organization that saw an opportunity in a Fisk-less New York. But look here,” she points to a picture with two strands of yarn leading from it. “This girl. If we get to her…” She trails off at their expressions. “What?”

“You are not going to directly involve yourself in this, Karen.” Matt’s the first to say it, but Foggy’s looking at her with the same stern face.

“Wait, what?”

“You can’t pull a Fisk on us again, we have to let law and research and Matt’s reflexes build our case for it.”

She’s pissed her actions have become a noun and says so.

“Look Karen, it’s hard enough to let a guy with supernatural reflexes out there and not worry to death,” Foggy’s saying, but she’s tuning him out. Because it’s what she expected from them, this overprotectiveness that will result in saving her life and hurting others. But she nods, they deserve her at least making the effort.

And so she does, tries to work on another angle for a few days, but the dangling possibility of investigating the crime lords’ mistress holds too much promise. She leaves work early, feigning cramps, a sadly still relevant way to avoid any questions from the boys.

She’s home in forty minutes, and is a whirlwind of activity, grabbing a notebook, pulling out some spare ammo from a drawer. When he speaks, her heart leaves her body.

“Going somewhere?”

She explains.

“Do you have a death wish Karen?” He asks as if he already knows the answer.

“No. Yes. Not really,” she answers and he nods, because it’s the truth. The question is the wrong one. It’s not about having a death wish. It’s something tangled up in a lack of self-preservation and her own sense of self-worth. Add a dash of genuine rage. Stir.

“Matt sees it as selfish,” she says suddenly. “I know he does. He said the same to me when he had to rescue me at the church. I blew his chance at Fisk because of my own bravado. God Frank, he was so mad.”

Frank stands during this, stalking towards her with an angry set to his jaw. “It sounds like me and Red need to have a talk.” He grabs her hands, holds them up so her palms are facing the ground, fingers pointing down in his grip. “You don’t have a death wish. And you’re not selfish. You follow your gut. You’re ruthless.”

Her eyes shine at this reminder of their talk, but she’s not ready to let go of her thoughts just yet. “But part of me thinks he’s right. When I go with my gut, people die. My brother. Ben. Father Lantom. So maybe I go, and i don’t involve anyone.”

“Is that what this is?” He lets go of a hand, circles his own in the air in reference to her frenetic packing. “You going off on your own? It didn’t work with Lewis, it’s not gonna work here.” She pulls from his grip, and he’s surprised at the anger on her face.

“So I just sit here, while the Maggias slip into Fisk’s shoes?”

He holds her gaze while shaking his head slowly. “Never said that, Karen. Wouldn’t say that.” The groove between his brows deepens and he cocks his head to the side, considering. He starts to say something, but his thoughts haven’t caught up to his voice and it comes out a low murmured rasp.  “You...Karen.” He pauses, his eyes darting around the room as he thinks. “You’ve got this thing about you. Like a pitbull. You don’t let go. And yeah, maybe it’s like Ellison says, you’re ruthless. You’ve got the killer instinct.”

She watches him without expression, her arms clasped across her body. A door creaks and slams closed nearby and she wonders at how normal it feels, Frank in her apartment. She stays silent, unsure if it’s more because she’s afraid of what he’ll say or that she needs it so much.

“Could your law friends dismantle this in a few years? Sure. Could Red beat up and threaten folks in the Kitchen until he gets lucky? Sure. But waiting means more people die. And you get that.”

Karen looks up sharply and Frank’s gaze narrows on her own. “Sometimes you gotta do something crazy to get results and you-” he breaks the stare, his teeth flashing in a smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes, “you don’t even pause to think about it. You just do, Karen.” He turns back to her, his brow clear, his stare piercing. “Now how’s somebody gonna say that’s selfish? Here’s the thing. You’re always left with the aftermath, but what if you hadn’t made your choices?”

“My brother would still be alive. Ben.”

“Bullshit. Your brother would be dead at your boyfriend’s hands, from what you told me. Ben might be alive but Fisk would’ve killed someone else. You uncover stuff, you worry it between your teeth. Pitbull, Karen.”

She smiles at this. “I’ve always loved dogs.”

“Heh.” Frank walks back to the couch, takes a pull off the beer sitting there. “So what’s this plan that’s got your lawyer friends in a tizzy?” He says the last word mockingly and circles the bottle in the air, an encouragement to speak.

She relaxes into another sort of tension, borne of facts and research. Turns towards the kitchen, grabs a Fat Tire from the fridge and sits down next to Frank. She watches his profile as he takes a drink, his throat working beneath the sharp cut of his jawline.

“The Maggias are divided right now. A bunch of hot-heads scrambling for power left in the void Fisk’s arrest made. And-” she says this last word like it’s a revelation, “two of them are after the same girl.”

Frank is nodding. “The mistress angle. Nice. She’s gotta be under a helluva lot of protection then.”

“Maybe,” Karen concedes, “but she’s not part of the family. From what I can tell she has no idea what they’re into, so if she has protection it’s well hidden. I want to talk to her. I want her to start asking questions. I want her questions to scare them into making a false move.”

“Is she...with both of them?”

“No. Neither. I think she senses something. But they’re obsessed.”

“That makes it easier to convince her. But what’s after that? Let’s assume she tells them, and they spook. So what?” He turns his body towards her, raises his bottle and ducks his head. “You acting as bait? That’s not gonna work with these guys.”

Karen looks down, her hands tangled in her lap. “Do -” she pauses, takes a sip of beer, “do you want to help?”

He stares at her and the silence stretches. She ventures a glance at him, and his eyes are tracing the planes of her face, his mouth open, his head nodding in a rhythm that speaks less of an acknowledgment than a means to think.

Frank breaks the silence with a croak of laughter, his head ducked down and that flash of teeth shining and it surprises her into her own laugh, though she’s unsure why she is.

“Just thinking last year I’d tell you hell no, I work alone. But maybe this is the new me. The new Frank.” His eyes dim for a moment. “I don’t pull punches Karen. If I help you, people will die. That part of me isn’t gone, never will be. But you know this. Right?” He looks up at her and there’s a vulnerability there that he’d deny if she pointed it out.

And that’s part of both of their stories, she thinks. Reaching out unconsciously to someone who just might understand. It’s human nature to want connection despite what terrors your own mind commits. And Frank may think his are on a different level - maybe they are - but she doesn’t see it that way. And she tells him so.

His face hardens for a moment in that inexplicable instinct to deny acceptance freely given, but his brow clears at her fierce expression. “Shit, Karen, you’re a firebrand,” there’s a smile in his voice. “So then,” he sets his beer down, holds his hand out. His fingers slide up her wrist when they shake and she shivers, unbidden.

“Partners?” He says and darts his eyes away, and her mouth curls up in the lightest of smiles as she responds.

“Sounds like a plan.”

[darksilvania]

113-WICCANDY [Wicca-Candy] -Psychic/Poison -The Candy Apple pokemon -Ability: Sweet Veil/Gooey - Liquid Ooze(HA) -Dex: "This Pokemons body is covered of a sweet gooey sludge that many people claim looks and taste like caramel, however it is too strong and can cause a small intoxication if eaten straight from the pokemon. If this pokemon{s caramel is watered down properly it can be used to prepare a sweet confection that legends claim, if given to the loved one, will make their love last forever " -Moveset:     -Sludge     -Confusion     -Sweet Kiss     -Heart Swap -->Evolves at lv. 20<-- 242-LOLLICRONE [Lollipop-Crone] -Psychic/Poison -The Lollipop Pokemon -Ability: Sweet Veil/Gooey - Liquid Ooze(HA) -Dex: "The sweet smell of this pokemons body is so strong a single one of them can perfume a whole house just by standing in a corner, and many claim this aroma was used by witches to attract small children into their woods. A legend says that if you prepare a perfume with this pokemon's caramel, and wear it around, it will attract your true love." -Moveset:     -Sludge Bomb     -Extrasensory     -Lovely Kiss     -Aromatherapy -->Evolves at lv. 40 at night<-- 440-HECARAMELT [Hecate-Caramel-Melt] -Psychic/Poison -The Taffy Pokemon -Ability: Sweet Veil/Gooey - Steelworker(HA) -Dex: "And old fairy tale claims that this pokemon came to exist when a witch was thrown inside her own cauldron by a couple of kids, and became one with its own sweet concoction. Its body is made of a sweet taffy-like sludge that smells and tastes of candy apples, but if someone gets stuck in the goo, it is almost impossible to get free, being pulled in inside the cauldron to be eaten." -Moveset: -Moveset:     -Sludge Wave     -Psychic     -Scald     -Gyro Ball/Heavy Slam

[aldmerii-blog]

hey guess what do all of the numbers for the most recent one you reblogged w best girl ily thank you for humoring me all the time

wtf thank u for letting me ramble about my beloved girl all the time,,

1. Their physical weak spots

a.all of em? she’s not very strong or hearty or anything. i was thinking of playing some kind of nightblade when i made her so she’s got good dex, but boy is that it. she’s a regular wet noodle. 

2. Their emotional/moral weak spots

her family, mostly. i don’t... like, she doesn’t really love her parents but she does have a duty to them and would do anything for them. she also really feels for children, like she has to protect them from the bad in the world.

3. Scars or painful spots

she has some sort of discolored, rippled skin on her left hand/wrist/forearm from a burn she sustained there. it has faded with time and careful healing magic but it’s definitely still there. 

also i don’t remember how the zombies knocked her unconscious in the first adventure we had but i’m going to make it up and say they snapped a few of her ribs and even though it’s healed over it still hurts sometimes if she breathes too hard and twists wrong. 

4. Best places to kiss on their body

heh. heh heh. uhhhh. hands and shoulders are always good. also tiddies she got nice tiddies. 

5. Guilty pleasures

high/courtly romance stories and the kind of cake the cook always made her for her birthday (a very very light white cake with frosting made from fresh strawberries)

6. Their vices (physical or emotional)

she isn’t an addict but she very easily could be -- it runs in her family. i imagine it would also be very easy to make her jealous. 

7. Their tickle spots

ribs/hips!!

8. Bad memories/experiences

that time she misinterpreted an arcana check and got a kid killed

uhhh her first time having sex sucked and she probably cried during/after

again, she did get her brother arrested and sentenced to life in prison

her worst fight with her father, when there was a plague in one of the lower districts and he planned to urge the queen to just quarantine the place and let people die and she threatened to get word out before the edict could be passed, so he put her under house arrest. 

9. Humiliating memories

being a pre-teen half-elf in an elf boarding school ain’t easy, lemme tell ya. 

the other girls on her floor used to be so fascinated with her body and how she was shaped different -- look at her thighs! look at her shoulders! why does she have hair there? it was never done explicitly to make fun of her but there was always the undercurrent of her body being wrong. 

10. Fears/phobias

zombies and failure, man. zombies and failure. 

11. Bad or petty habits

she’s kind of just a judgy person. anything outside her realm of experience is worthy of extreme scrutiny. so she’s shitty to oisin and borem at first, what with their MORALLY DEGENERATE lifestyles,, drinking and gambling and whatnot. 

12. Grudges and vendettas

she just. she hate humans. she thinks they’re brash and unrefined and boorish and she doesn’t like them one bit. 

she doesn’t take betrayal lightly and she does not forgive or forget. but no one who has betrayed her is alive for her to be angry at. 

13. What gets them flustered

praise/compliments sometimes. in equal measure being corrected or insulted. 

14. Ingrained habits/forces of habit

she’s very prim and clean. she carries perfume with her and reapplies it almost like clockwork. if she can’t put on her moisturizer at night she has trouble sleeping. dirt under her nails? torture. 

15. What it takes to make them cry

not much! she’s pretty bad at articulating emotions and gets overwhelmed easily, and when she gets overwhelmed she cries. so she cries a lot. she’s a big crybaby. 

16. Dark secrets/’skeletons in the closet’

sundemar, kind of? he’s more or less not allowed to tell anyone his surname because it would shame the family if people knew who he was. 

17. Regrets

at this point, she regrets her relationship w/ her shithead boyf. she regrets not taking her mentor up on his offer to leave the city with him, because she wouldn’t have to deal with everything currently going on. 

18. Things they’ll never admit

smaller things, like having failed exams. bigger things, like how she got the burns on her wrist. i don’t feel like she goes into great detail about most things in her life. 

19. People they’ve hurt or indirectly killed, and how it affected them

ahHAH listen shaelle is basically catholic with the amount of guilt she feels over just about everything, ever. her whole ass family. every mean thing she’s ever said to her friends. she probably like counts them as she’s trying to go to sleep and wonders why anyone still talks to her. 

20. What-ifs/Alternate Timelines

what if sylvar had gotten out of his sentence? what if she’d never said anything at all? she’d have left the city to study magic elsewhere. in her head she’d have married some other scholar and they’d be traveling the world together. and her parents would send her money and she’d never have to worry about anything. 

21. Turning points in their life

when her parents legally recognized her as heir, i guess. that’s when things set in, when the weight of her family’s name and reputation and survival was placed on her shoulders. she’s was about seventeen. 

22. People who’ve influenced them greatly

her mother, when she was younger. she wanted to be just like her -- look like her, talk like her, act like her. a few professors at school, including the man who would become her mentor. i think the slorp party has had an influence on her, too. 

[spectral-musette]

Late night homecoming during the Clone Wars

(he’s kneeling beside the bed after waking her up Sleeping Beauty-style, as the half-assedness of the environment probably did not make clear)

(ficlet below the cut)

           “Briefing with the Council in the morning,” Obi-Wan told him. “Don’t be late.”

           “Never,” Anakin replied, rolling his eyes.

           “You should get that blaster burn looked at with the Healers.”

           “Don’t fuss, Obi-Wan. Kix took care of it.”

           “Still…”

           “It’s fine.” He flexed his arm and rubbed at the injury to demonstrate its fitness.

           Obi-Wan paused as Anakin turned from the hangar to the speeder bay.

           “Anakin, it’s the middle of the night.”

           “I’m not on Coruscant time yet,” Anakin argued. “I think I’ll go out for something decent to eat. At this hour, all the commissary will have is instant porridge and yesterday’s bread.”

           Obi-Wan smiled slightly. “Do you want some company? We could go to Dex’s.”

           Anakin couldn’t help smiling too. Since he’d come to the Temple, a trip to Dex’s diner was Obi-Wan’s default treat and balm for disappointments and ruffled feelings. When you were nine, out of your depth and miserably homesick, the world did look a little brighter after a bowl of spicy chili and a tall muja slush.

           “No offense, but we’ve been under each other’s feet on this last campaign for weeks. I think I need some time…”

           “Of course,” Obi-Wan interrupted briskly, clearly somewhat offended.

           Anakin regretted it a little – he hadn’t meant to hurt Obi-Wan’s feelings (which his old friend would undoubtedly vehemently deny). And a nostalgic trip to the diner would’ve been nice.

           But only a little. After all, he had another engagement.

           “Let’s take Ahsoka tomorrow after the briefing,” he suggested. “Nerf roast and gravy is the weekend special - she’ll love that.”

           “Good idea,” Obi-Wan agreed. “Get some rest, Anakin,” he recommended, his tone gentler than the commanding words.

           “I’m wound up,” Anakin confessed honestly. “But I will, later.” He waved Obi-Wan off, turning into the speeder bay, eyes scanning the rows of vehicles for his favorite.

           A stop off at a quick-service sandwich shop soothed his conscience. He hadn’t lied to his friend, but eating real, fresh food rather than GAR rations for the first time in weeks just wasn’t his only objective.

           There were two reasons this speeder was his favorite.

           One, he’d fine-tuned the engine to hum as smoothly as a sandfly and reach speeds that were technically illegal.

           Two, he could switch off the tracker that displayed its location in the city on the monitor back in the Temple.

           He parked it in its usual spot, set the alarm, and headed down a few twisting alleyways. This close, it was all he could do not to run.

           A lift, and then a force-aided jump landed him on a terrace, surrounded by decorative pots holding an array of hardy flowering plants native to Naboo. At the door, he put a security code into the lock pad. It clicked open softly, and he slipped inside.

           He leaned back against the door for a moment. Sneaking in was always a little bit of an adrenaline rush. Getting caught lurking around this particular high rent district by holocamera drones wouldn’t do anybody any good, nor would having to make awkward excuses to Padmé’s security staff for what he was doing on her terrace in the wee hours.

           It was worth it though, to be able to come home, unplanned and unannounced, to find his wife peacefully asleep in their bed. Dreaming, he hoped, of him.

           She’d rolled over to his side of the large bed, covers in disarray, her mass of dark curls spread across the pillow.

           Quietly, he knelt down beside the bed, torn between the soft, protective desire to let her sleep and other, more urgent needs. It had been long weeks since he’d seen more than a dim, blurry holo of her. He bent and kissed her lightly on the mouth, and then straightened to watch her wake.

           Her dark eyes fluttered open, focusing on him and lighting with joy.

           “Anakin!” She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh Ani, you’re here…”

           He buried his face against her neck, breathing in the scent of her hair and leaving a few hot kisses against her throat. “Padmé,” he whispered.

           “You didn’t comm…. I would’ve waited up.”

           “I didn’t want you to,” he told her as she pushed him back, running her hands tenderly over his face and through his hair. “You don’t mind the surprise, do you?”

           “Mind? I thought I was dreaming,” she murmured, pulling him into a long, deep kiss. He put one arm around her waist, pulling her closer, his pulse pounding in his ears.

           “You’re even more beautiful than you are in my dreams,” he whispered breathlessly against her lips.

           “And I know it’s not a dream, or you wouldn’t be wearing this,” she said wryly, tapping her knuckles against the plastisteel armor over his chest and shoulders.

           He chuckled, reaching for the fasteners.

           “Let me.”

           He did, gratefully, holding his breath as she carefully removed armor, belt, tabards, gloves, tunics, letting her gentleness and love wash over him, pushing away the pain and weariness of the battlefield. When he finally took a breath, the scent of her perfume made him forget, for the moment, the acrid stink of blaster fire mingled with sweat and fear and worse.

           “Oh Ani, what…?” She paused in the midst of undressing him, hand hovering over the bandage on his bicep.

           “It’s nothing,” he reassured her, “it’s not bad.” He took a slow breath, trying to forget again, to lose himself in the happiness and relief of being with her.

           She continued with even gentler hands, stroking his bare shoulders, and then skimming the backs of her fingers down his stomach. He pulled back slightly as she deftly worked at the fastening of his trousers.

           “Don’t you have … meetings… Senate… tomorrow?” he managed to say, with effort, between fast, uneven breaths.

           “Anakin, that’s what caf is for.” She gave him a playfully sultry look, which broke into concern in an instant. “Are you all right? Do you want to talk or just… rest?” She stroked his hair again, eyes searching his face.

           “Yes, but… After,” he told her, pushing himself up to kick off his boots.

           “After,” she agreed, leaning back against the pillows and smiling at him before he fell into her waiting arms.

[thecreaturecodex]

Expanded Devilbound Creature

Contract Devil by Lindsey Wakefield, © Paizo Publishing. Accessed at her deviantArt page here

The hosts of Hell are diverse, and many devils are capable of making contracts and deals with mortals. The following are modifications made to the devilbound creature template, representing the devils in the Creature Codex. In addition to the ability score adjustments and spell-like abilities bestowed by the template, cosmetic effects of the devilbound template are suggested for each devil represented.

Advespa-bound A devilbound creature that is bound to an advespa devil may have a mask-like sheen to their face or hair and fingernails made of chitin.

Ability Score Modifiers Str +2, Dex +2, Con +2; Spell-like Abilities 3/day—alter self, poison

Aminzu-bound A devilbound creature that is bound to an aminzu devil may have beady eyes or a pug nose, or their fingers and toes may grow slightly too long.

Ability Score Modifiers Dex +2, Int +2, Cha +2; Spell-like Abilities 3/day—dispel magic, enervation

Draconopides-bound A devilbound creature that is bound to a draconopides devil may have a forked tongue or not blink as often as they should.

Ability Score Modifiers Dex +2, Con +2, Cha +2; Spell-like Abilities 3/day—suggestion; 1/day—improved invisibility

Narzugon-bound A devilbound creature that is bound to a narzugon devil may grow gaunt or its eyes may appear white and cloudy.

Ability Score Modifiers Str +2, Con +2, Cha +2; Spell-like Abilities 3/day—phantom steed, scorching ray

Paeliryon-bound A devilbound creature that is bound to a paeliryon devil may exude a perfume-like odor or always appear as if they are wearing makeup.

Ability Score Modifiers Str +2, Wis +2, Cha +2; Spell-like Abilities 3/day—charm monster, see invisibility

[geniusorinsanity]

streets a little kinder (when you’re home)

for @nurseyweek day 7: memories

Even as Derek hits the call button, he hears Dex’s voice in his head, telling him how privileged he is to be able to do this.

And full disclosure: like, he gets it. For all the baggage that’s written on his skin, that he carries on his body, he knows what his family’s money gives him. He’s never once not been grateful for it, especially not on days like this, when the quiet of Samwell gets under his nails, when he thinks he might literally kill for a burrito that wasn’t made by a white kid in the dining hall, when somehow even the fresh air coming off the lake feels so stifling he feels like he might choke on it.

He calls his mom, and when she picks up on the second ring, concern in her voice (because he hates phone calls, prefers either texting or FaceTime--would rather have simple typed letters or full contact, not voices without faces, where he has to read too much into tone without expression), he blurts out, “Can I come home for the weekend?”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line, and Derek holds his breath. “Sweetheart,” his mother says. And then, “Are you okay?”

Derek hears what she isn’t asking. “I’m okay,” he says. “I just.” He swallows. “I don’t have a game this weekend, and I only have one class on Fridays and I can get out of that, and I just need--”

I miss you, he doesn’t say, but he knows she can hear it in his voice. She always does.

Sure enough, she says, “Oh, hayiti,” softly, in the same voice she’s used since he was small. “Of course, love. Of course you can.”

Less than five minutes later, he has an email from his mama, confirmation of a train ticket leaving South Station on Thursday night.

Derek closes his eyes, and feels something loosen in his chest.

…

The express Acela from South Station to Penn takes three and a half hours. Derek leans back in his seat and leans his forehead against the cool glass of the window, watching the scenery flash by, fast enough that it makes him dizzy, a little. He closes his eyes and dozes for part of the time, writes for a little more of it--small, half-formed lines of poetry that don’t really go anywhere, that tumble between languages even as they scrawl across the page of his notebook.

Around eight, just as he can start to see the lights of Manhattan in the distance, his phone buzzes. He shakes himself out of his reverie a little, and opens the message.

Mamaiiiiiiiii: will meet u in pennsy! :)

Mamaiiiiiiiii: text when ur train gets in <3

Derek laughs despite himself. Mama has a PhD from NYU. He’s read her dissertation; it’s a work of art. And yet, given an iPhone, she texts like a twelve-year-old.

Me: will do. Love you mama

Mamaiiiiiiiii: <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 !!!

He smiles, slipping his phone back into his pocket, and leans head back against the window again.

The skyline draws closer, bright and glittering. It’s a clear night, and this far out, it looks like a photograph.

Hello, beautiful, he thinks, and smiles.

To his surprise, the train gets in on time, and he shoulders his backpack--he packed light; it’s just a weekend, and he’s got clothes at home--and heads off the platform. He slides through the crowds with an ease born of long years of practice, moving half on autopilot, headphones in and music on.

The Pennsy is about as full as it usually is on a given weeknight, that weird mix of commuters, travelers, and late-night office workers. He takes advantage of his height, scanning the food court for--there.

It only takes a glance for him to realize that she must have come from the gallery tonight, not her studio. She’s head to toe in black, heels-tights-dress-coat, stopped by the pop of violet of the scarf around her neck and the turquoise of her earrings. Her curls are swept into a loose knot at the back of her head, her eyes fixed on her phone, lips pursed in the way she does when she’s composing an email to someone she doesn’t want to be dealing with.

Derek grins, adjusts the strap of his backpack, and creeps closer.

“Don’t even think it, quapito,” she says, not looking up from her phone, when he’s about a foot away.

He falters, caught. “How did you--”

She slips her phone into her handbag. “Tienes dos metros de altura, mijito,” she says, but she’s smiling. “Come here, baby.”

He has to bend down to hug her--and fair, she’s right, he is too tall to sneak, though he’s not quite two meters tall, Jesus--and he takes a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scent of her jasmine perfume. “Hi,” he mumbles.

“Hi, honey.” Mama squeezes him tight, firm, deceptively strong. She pulls back after a moment, studying him with dark, calculating eyes. “You look tired. Are you sleeping?” He shrugs, and she flicks his ear. “Mijo.”

“Mama,” he whines. “I’m in college. I’m not supposed to sleep.”

She snorts. “You don’t get that line of bullshit from your mother,” she says. “Oh, I almost forgot. Here.” She reaches behind her to the table she’s leaning against, and hands him a warm bag. He raises his eyes and peers into it, and is immediately hit with the hot, sweet smells of coffee, chocolate and salt.

“Fuuuuuuck, yes, Mama,” he says, reaching in. “Sea salt espresso cookie?”

“Like I’d forget your favorite,” she says fondly, reaching up to pat his cheek with a manicured hand. “Come. Eat and walk, Ammi’s making dinner. Do you want to get a cab, or--oh, Derek, honestly.”

Shameless, he swallows around the mouthful of cookie in his mouth--Mario by Mary gets him, okay, they get him in his soul--and shrugs. “We can take the train if you don’t mind swiping me, my card’s super expired.”

Mama hums. She reaches into her bag and pulls out her wallet, flipping through the card pockets and pulling out a Metro card. “Here,” she says. “Should have about forty on it, I got it when I left mine in my other purse last week. That should last you the weekend.”

He slips it into his back pocket and leans down to kiss her cheek, careful of the cookie crumbs. “Gracias, Mama.”

She takes half of his remaining cookie, eyes sparkling, and says, “Alright, let’s go.”

…

They take the 1 uptown because the C looks like a crowded mess, and have a brief staring contest over which of them should sit down in the open seat on the train. Derek wins because Mama’s wearing three-inch heels, and then has to deal with her gloating from 59th to 66th when he stumbles exactly once when the train hits a bump.

“This is homophobic,” he tells her.

“Try me, my baby,” she says dryly, blowing him a kiss. A teenager a few seats away who has Upper West Side baby queer written all over him giggles, and Derek winks at him. The kid blushes. Mama rolls her eyes at Derek, and he sticks his tongue out at her. She beckons him down for a kiss, and flicks his ear again. Business as usual.

They get off at 86th and walk from there, Mama’s arm looped through his. He keeps his steps even to match hers, but what she lacks in height she makes up for in working in Midtown, so their paces end up pretty similar.

Compared to the rush of downtown outside of Penn, their neighborhood feels almost like the suburbs, quiet and relaxed. They pass a few neighbors Derek’s known since he was little and stop for passing greetings. Mrs. Gomez’s aging pitt mix, Lupe, remembers him, and slobbers happily all over his face. Derek finds himself on his ass on the sidewalk with sixty pounds of dog in his lap while Mama snickers above him, and hears the click of her phone camera. He’s sure this will be on her Facebook later.

Finally, with a last scratch to Lupe’s ears, they say their goodbyes and walk the last half-block to the brownstone. Mama fishes the key out of her purse and unlocks the door while Derek bounces slightly on his heels, suddenly full of a slightly nervous energy.

He hasn’t been home in weeks--in months, not since the summer. What if everything’s different; Ammi’s been saying for years that she’s going to redo the kitchen, what if all his favorite things are gone, what if they painted, what if they turned his room into a yoga studio or something like Mama used to tease him about, what if--

“Mijito?”

Mama’s hands are firm on his arm, and he realizes with a jolt that his breathing is coming faster. He forces himself to take a long, slow inhale, and meets her sharp, worried eyes. She takes one hand off his arm and puts it against his cheek instead, gentle. “¿Estás bien, baby?”

Derek swallows. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “Si, Mama, estoy bien.”

She studies his face for a long moment, and then smiles softly, inclining her head toward the door. “Come see your mother, love. She’s missed you.”

Her cool fingertips pat his cheekbone, once, and then she gives him a firm push into the house.

And it’s home.

It smells the same, looks the same, feels the same. The walls of the entryway are still the same soft sage that Mama’s been threatening to repaint since Derek was twelve; the pair of Vans he left by the door in July are still sitting on the shoe rack; Ammi’s familiar pocketbook is carelessly tossed onto the entry table.

“Hang up your jacket,” Mama calls to him, but Derek’s moving on autopilot, towards the sound of singing in the kitchen.

Ammi’s sweet, easy alto is lifted along with an LP of jazz standards, drifting in from the old record player in the living room. Her back is to him as she stands at the stove, moving something in a pan. Derek inhales deeply, smells saffron and garlic and ginger, and grins.

His mother turns absently to open the spice cabinet, and when she closes it again, she catches sight of him leaning against the wall and yelps, nearly dropping the bottle of what he thinks might be paprika before turning the heat down on the stove. “Derek,” she exclaims, face lighting up. “Marhabaan bik fi albayt, baby, hi!”

She pulls him into a close hug, and he grins, letting her fold him into her arms. He’s been bigger than her since he was fourteen, but her hugs never fail to feel like safety to him. In her arms, the world isn’t terrifying; he doesn’t have to be afraid of anything, not even his own head.

It feels like a long time before she pulls away, and her eyes are bright and glistening at the corners. Derek clears his throat and brushes at her eyelashes carefully, more for his own benefit than for hers, really. “’ant aldhdhahab alatakhat alttarkib alkhass bik,” he says, a little hoarsely.

She clicks her tongue dismissively. “Nahyk ean ’ann,” she says. She switches abruptly to English. “How was your trip?”

“It was good. Fine.” He glances over his shoulder at Mama, who’s come in behind him, rolling her eyes when she sees he’s still wearing his jacket. “Thanks for sending the ticket so fast.”

“Of course, hayiti.” She tiptoes up to kiss his cheek--she’s five-three without heels, and unlike Mama, who doesn’t mind keeping hers on for the extra height for a little while, kicks hers off the millisecond she can--and then turns the pan on the stove back on. “You’re always welcome to come, baby. This is your home, too.”

“I know, I just…” He shrugs, and goes for false lightness, draping himself into one of the stools at the breakfast bar and drawling, “that anxiety, doooe.”

Ammi glances over her shoulder at him, frowning slightly. “Are you taking your medicine?”

He rolls his eyes. “Nem, Ammi.”

Mama takes his hat off his head, ruffles his hair a little firmly, and smushes his beanie back on. “Don’t use that voice,” she says. “She’s allowed to worry.” She leans over and kisses Ammi’s cheek. “Did you tell him about his surprise, cariña?”

Derek perks up, because he’s got a depressive, insecure streak a mile wide, but he’s still a youngest kid. “Surprise?”

Ammi chuckles. “In your room, habibi,” she says.

Derek shoulders his backpack, and barely catches her yell of “dinner in ten minutes!” before he’s halfway up the stairs.

The door to his room is closed, and he opens it without thinking, figuring that Filipa, the housekeeper, probably just shut it after the last time she dusted. He flicks the light on and tosses his backpack onto the bed, just as something solid and human flings itself into him from his closet.

“¡Qué demonios mierda!” Derek yelps, staying on his feet because he regularly takes hits from people way bigger than whoever just jumped out at him, but then the person starts cackling in his ear in the way a burglar or axe murderer definitely Would Not, and it clicks. “I--Farah?”

“Sup, baby brother?” She climbs off his back and he turns around to face her, reeling slightly. Farah grins up at him, her hair falling loose around her face in its short, curly bob, their shared green eyes sharper and a little more mischievous in her narrower face.

“What the fuck,” he says, and then pulls her into a proper hug. Farah laughs, hugging him back. “What the fuck, what are you doing here?”

“Ammi texted and said you were coming home for the weekend, of course I came home, tonto!” She pulls his beanie down over his eyes, and he pulls her hair in retaliation.

They grapple for a few minutes--he pulls his punches, because he’s 6’2” and an NCAA athlete; she does not, because she never has, and he’s pretty sure she’s learned a few dirty tricks since they last did this. They end up on the floor, him on his stomach, her perched cross-legged on the small of his back. “She also said you were having a rough time,” she adds, conversationally, like they never stopped talking. “What’s up, papi, is everything okay?”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Everything’s fine,” he says. “I was just, like--” He squirms. “Will you get off?”

“No,” she says.

“Ammi,” he yells.

“Farah,” Ammi yells back. “Get off your brother!”

“Baby,” Farah says, but climbs off and plops down on the floor. “You’re telling me later.”

He sits up. “You totally only came home for the free laundry,” he says.

She smiles, showing very white teeth. “Tal vez,” she purrs, and gets to her feet. “C’mon, Ammi’s making saffron chicken and couscous and I’m literally gonna die if I don’t get some, I’ve been inhaling the fumes for like an hour.”

Derek snorts. “Until you were hiding in my closet.”

“Yeah, where I was inhaling the fumes of your old hockey gear, which, gross.”

He adores her.

...

Dinner tastes like all the best parts of his childhood, sweet and spicy and savory, hot in the ways that build soft and subtle and warm, not in the ways that burn at the back of his eyes and throat. Ammi gives him firsts and seconds and hovers like she’s worried he won’t want thirds, and Mama finally pushes her into her seat and says “he’s a grown boy, Amali, he can serve himself.” The conversation flows in a mix of English and French, since those are the only languages all four of them speak, and there’s always been a house rule about speaking languages that anyone isn’t fluent in at the dinner table. Farah tells them about her thesis research--she’s in her last year at NYU, getting her degree in Media, Culture, and Communication, writing her research in depictions of psychotropic medications in mass market media.

Derek’s pretty sure he could write that for her, but he’ll read her version. Hers will probably be more nuanced.

They’re halfway through clearing the dishes when someone’s phone starts buzzing. Ammi and Mami both check theirs, and Farah, blinking, looks at hers and shrugs.

Then everyone looks at Derek.

He blinks. “Oh, shit, me?” he says, confused, because pretty much the only people who ever call him are in this room. His phone is on the breakfast bar, and he picks it up, flipping it over and startling when he sees Dex’s name on the display. “Uh,” he says, and gestures to the hallway. “I’m just gonna. Uh.”

Farah smiles like a shark. “Oh, don’t let us stop you,” she says, picking up Derek’s plate.

He beats a hasty retreat to the stairs, picking up the call right before it would go to voicemail. “Dex?”

“Nursey?” Dex’s voice comes through tinny and confused. “Dude, where the fuck are you?”

“I’m at home?” Derek sits down on the stairs. He has no idea what’s going on. Dex sounds worried, which makes exactly zero sense.

“What? I went by your room, you weren’t--”

“No, like--Like, I’m home home. In the city. New York.” It feels weird having to clarify that.

There’s a beat of silence. “You’re...what? Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

Why does everyone keep asking him that? Derek rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he says. “I just--We didn’t have a game, I just, I needed to get off campus for a little bit, you know?”

A thought occurs to him, and his anxiety spikes. “Is everything okay there? Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah, man, we’re all fine, just, like--no one knew where you were.”

Derek feels a guilty twinge. He’d emailed the coaches to let them know he’d be gone over the weekend, but yeah, he hadn’t told anyone on the team. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry, I...I didn’t think you’d miss me.”

“I didn’t say I missed you,” Dex says, but he doesn’t sound pissed. More...fond. Exasperated. “When’re you coming back?”

“Sunday,” Derek says. “Seriously, dude, I’m sorry. I’ll let you know next time.”

“Yeah, yeah. Have fun in the city, Nurse.”

He says it dryly, but with a laugh curling around the edges of the words, and Derek’s smiling despite himself as he hangs up.

Both his mothers and Farah are lingering in the doorway to the stairwell when he comes back, clearly eavesdropping. “Wow,” he says. “Subtle.”

“Who was that?” Farah asks, linking her arm through his as he squeezes past them to get to the living room.

Derek flushes. “No one,” he says.

“It sounded like a boy,” she chirps.

“It was a guy from the team,” he corrects. “So like, you know, technically.” Farah arches her eyebrows. “Like,” Derek backpedals. “Like, he’s a boy, but he’s not a boy, he’s--oh, fuck you, Farah.”

“Ammi,” Farah says, “Derek’s swearing.”

“You hear worse on the subway,” Ammi says dryly, flicking both of them on the back of the head as she motions them towards the couch. “Come. You can come help me beat Mama at scrabble.”

Farah sticks her tongue out at him. Derek considers pulling her hair again.

Instead, he plays JUKEBOX on a triple-word score and dominates the game, which he figures is just as good.

…

His moms have an early morning, like always, so they say goodnight after the game, pressing kisses to his head and Farah’s. “I’m glad you’re home, baby,” Ammi murmurs to him, holding him close enough that he can smell her shampoo through the folds of her hijab, and he closes his eyes and hugs her back.

“Me too,” he says, his throat suddenly thick. “Thanks, Ammi. I love you.”

“I love you too, habibi.” She kisses his forehead again, and then takes Mama’s hand, and the two of them head upstairs together, leaving him and Farah in the living room alone.

“So,” Farah says, after a moment. “Roof?”

“Roof,” he agrees. “Meet you in ten?”

She nods. They high-five, and head up the stairs.

In his room, he pulls a pair of Andover sweatpants a worn henley out of his dresser. The shirt’s a little tight across the shoulders now--he’s put on more muscle in his arms since starting Samwell--but he’d packed his SMH hoodie, so he tugs that on to compensate. He grabs the strawberry-patterned pencil case from his backpack and then, as an afterthought, the comforter from his bed, and meets Farah in the hallway, and they head up to the roof garden together.

It’s a cold night for October, but clear, or as clear as it gets, for Manhattan. Not that they can see stars, really, but the dark sky is inky and smooth. Farah has the blanket from her bed as well, and they both wrap themselves up and sit down in the adirondack chairs by the roof garden, stretching out the long legs they’d both inherited from their dad, along with the strength of their facial features and a tendency to bottle up their emotions and drink too much.

“Alright,” Derek says after a minute. “I’ve got weed, what do you have?”

Farah laughs, a soft, startled sound. “Liquor,” she says, producing a flask from inside her pajamas, which he’s pretty sure are actually a onesie. “Wasn’t sure if I should actually offer you any. What are you taking now?”

He makes a face at her. “Zoloft,” he says. “And it’s fine.” He elects not to tell her that he regularly throws caution to the wind and gets bitch-ass shitfaced, mostly because he’s not in the mood for a lecture. “I’m literally a giant, and there’s not enough in there split between the two of us to cause a problem.”

She shrugs. “I trust you.” She nods to his pencil case. “Packing us a vape, then?”

“Bowl, if your delicate lungs can handle it.”

“Querido,” she drawls. “I was smoking weed before your innocent ass even arrived at dear Phillips Academy.”

“It’s adorable that you think I never did drugs before I got my ass dragged out to Andover,” he says, but unzips the case. He starts picking apart buds with practiced hands, setting them into the grinder, and then packs the bowl easily.

As a courtesy, he offers her the first hit. She laughs, and extends the flask to him. They spend a few minutes exchanging substances in easy, companionable silence.

“So,” Farah says finally, soft and calm, comfortable. “Why are you really home, papi? Out of nowhere?”

Derek exhales smoke, tilting his head back. Samwell’s silence makes him crazy, but damn, the stars are fucking pretty. “Do you ever,” he says, and then pauses, trying to think of the right words. Farah’s been back in the city for for four years, so she may have forgotten. “When you were at Andover, like. Did you ever feel this--just this itch, under your skin? Like the quiet was too much, like there was too much open space? That the smells were wrong?”

“Mm.” Farah closes her eyes. She looks soft, her features visible in the city lights. It’s never dark here, Derek thinks. He’d missed that. He’d never had to learn to sleep in the dark until he was fourteen, in his dorm room at Andover. It’s still strange to him, sleeping in darkness, in silence.

“All the time,” she says finally. “You might have been too young to remember, but I used to call home. Like, I’d--I’d beg, and beg, and ask to come back. But Dad got sway in schooling, remember?” Derek makes a disgruntled noise, the one that means yeah, and she huffs. “Yeah, of course you do.”

He trades her the bowl for the flask, and takes a sip of the whiskey. “Have you talked to him lately?”

It’s false lightness in the question. Her shoulders move in a shrug. “No,” she says. “You?”

“No.”

That’ll be the last they talk of it, he’s sure, until Father’s Day rolls around and Ammi makes them call. Farah hits the bowl and then says, “So, your boy.”

Shit. “He’s not,” he says, and then, “I don’t have a boy, Farah.”

“You were blushing when you hung up the phone.”

“I’m black, I don’t blush.”

“Bullshit,” she sing-songs at him, sweetly intoxicated, and then she laughs. “You sounded like you like him.

“He’s on my team,” he whines, and she laughs again.

“Okay,” she says. “Does your heart know that?”

“Yes,” he insists.

“Does your dick know that?”

Derek chokes on whiskey. “Farah!”

She cackles. “I’m just saying,” she says.

“You’re the worst,” he grumbles.

“Me amas,” she teases, sugar sweet, reaching out to slip one hand under his beanie and scritch at his curls.

He sighs. “I do,” he says. “I really do.” He leans his head back again, looking up.

Something feels loose in his chest, being here. He’ll have to go inside soon, he knows, but for now, he’s happy just being here, listening to the sounds around him. He can hear a siren--there are always sirens--a train, farther off, a dog barking. Someone laughing, down on the street. Someone singing. Music playing.

“Hey,” Farah murmurs. Her hand, cool and slim, slips into his. “Are you okay?”

Derek takes a deep breath. “I am,” he says. He smiles, a soft, easy thing that comes to his lips gently and without force. “I really, really am.”

She squeezes her fingers around his. “Good,” she says.

They finish the bowl and the flask, and then, long after both are gone, sit together in silence, watching the starless sky, and listening to the city breathe.

[maplemarcher]

Rules: Answer the 20 questions and tag 20 amazing followers you would like to get to know better.

Name: Adreanna! (please call me Addy though)

Nicknames: I go by Addy, which is actually a nickname. Others include Addsabelle (my grandma), Sir Stinksalot (my step-dad, he’s weird), Princess (my girlfriend), and...so fucking many weird ones my mom has given me. She used to call me Apple Jane a lot

Zodiac Sign: Taurus yo

Height: 5′ 5′ (I think?)

Orientation: Bisexual, with a heavy, HEAVY preference for girls. Like if you had a pie chart of how much I like girls vs how much I like boys, it would be like 90% to 10%. Idk why exactly. Probably has something to do with every guy I’ve ever had a crush on being a douche in one way or another (and rejecting me every time lol) But girls are soft and pretty and wonderful I love them so much. I love my girlfriend more than anything in the world. I wouldn’t trade her for anything.

Ethnicity: I am very white. Scottish, Polish, and German, though none of that really holds any significance in my life. I don’t have any family traditions except for unhappy marriages

Favorite Fruit: Pineapple probably. I really like grapes though and Pink Lady apples too. Oh and cantaloupe and clementines!

Favorite season: Autumn. All the way autumn.

crunchy leaves

sweaters

beautiful leaf colors!!! like!!! where I live has a lot of trees on a lot of hills, so looking out the window at a hill full of red and orange and yellow and brown makes my heart go “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

brisk weather

fall fashion is the best (I don’t participate in fashion as I am a whale with legs but everyone else looks beautiful)

perfect weather for hot drinks

APPLE CIDER

Thanksgiving!!!!

Halloween!!!!

bugs start to fuck off right back to hell where they belong

summer is ending. summer can fuck off I HATE summer

no longer sweating and dying

overcast skies, gloomy days, rain!!!!!

gray, cloudy, rainy days are,,, my reason for living

Funny thing is I actually don’t like pumpkin spice anything except for pumpkin pie guess I’ve gotta up my white girl game

Favorite Book: What the fuck kind of question is this. You come into my house. And you ask me to pick between my children.

This answer is really, really complicated. I love so many books for so many different reasons. I love Harry Potter because it’s what got me into reading longer series. I love Binge by Tyler Oakley because it helped me be more open-minded and was a big part in helping me discover what my sexuality was and that I was okay. I love The Hobbit because it was a book that helped me escape life and that taught me that caring about home and hearth is a good thing to do. I love the Warrior cats series because I fucking love cats and it was one of my first introductions to more adult situations (in terms of violence, death, grief, and loss). I love The Giver because it made me cry my eyes out. I love The Martian because it made me laugh. I love every Shel Silverstein book ever written because they made me feel like a kid again and that being a child at heart is okay. I love Journal 3 because Stanford Pines is a character I love with all my heart. I love the Percy Jackson series and most of its spin offs because I love mythology and modern aus. I love the Septimus Heap series because it was such a different, wonderful, beautiful approach to magic and wizardry that made me feel warm inside. I loved Entwined because...I just loved Entwined. (It’s a twisted fairy tale kind of deal with The 12 Dancing Princesses and one of the best things I’ve ever, ever read, hands down). I love A Series of Unfortunate Events because I have a dark sense of humor and because it makes me feel better about my life.

Books were basically my only friends growing up. People didn’t like me because I was fat, or because I didn’t want to play outside very much, or because I had only ever really talked to and hung out with my mom and my step-dad, so I had a more mature sense of humor and personality overall.. Friends came and went, but books never went anywhere. Books stayed. Junie B Jones always stayed with me. Jack and Annie always went on magical adventures that let me learn about history. Every character I met along the way stayed with me, even if they died, because I could pick them up off of a shelf and read their adventures again. I don’t read as much as I used to, because I spend a lot of time on the computer, but I’m working to change that. Books have always been an escape for me, and I’ll continue to love their stories until I die.

Favorite Flower: Roses! It’s a tie between red and pink roses. I also really like tulips!

Favorite scent: My girlfriend’s perfume. I think it’s sweetpea or something? Idk, but it always smells really nice. And I just like the way my clothes smell after I come home from spending the night at her house. It’s like her perfume, laundry detergent, and something that’s either wood or stale cigarette smoke.

Favorite color: Pink. Soft, pastel pinks.

Favorite animal: cats, red pandas, owls, wolves, penguins, cats, dogs (pugs in particular, I LOVE pugs!!!!), foxes, moose, narwhals, dolphins, orcas, eagles, hummingbirds, blue jays, orioles, lions, tigers, basically any big cats...I just love animals. If it’s soft, fluffy, or cute? Fuck yeah I love it

Coffee, Tea, or Hot Chocolate: As much as I love coffee...tea, probably. It’s just so relaxing to sit curled up under a blanket with a cup of tea and relaxing. Plus my girlfriend and I make tea whenever I go over to her house, so it holds a special place in my heart :)

Average Sleep Hours: Okay, so...if I ever got up on time, I’d be getting like five hours of sleep a night, which is fine. But I oversleep. Every. Fucking. Day. So usually seven or eight.

Cat or Dog person?: Cats. I love dogs with all my heart and I want one someday, but if I had to choose between a cat and a dog I’d choose a cat because

1.  TOE BEANS

2. purring

3. the kneading thing they do?

4. I love love LOVE the sound of a cat meowing. so cute. so gentle.

5. cat loaf

6. smaller and easier to manage

7. don’t have to walk them

8. if they need to pee in the middle of the night they just. use the litter box. you don’t need to get up and let them out

Favorite Fictional Character: 

Star vs the Forces of Evil: Star Butterfly, Marco Diaz, River Johansen Butterfly, Moon Butterfly, Ludo, Toffee, Buff Frog (I don’t know how to spell his real name :( )

Steven Universe: Pearl, Amethyst, Peridot, Greg Universe, Connie, Steven

Gravity Falls: Dipper Pines, Mabel Pines, Stanley Pines, Stanford Pines, Soos, Wendy Corduroy

Yuuri!!! On Ice: Yuuri Katsuki, Viktor Nikiforov, Yuri Plisetsky, Phichit Chualont

Check Please!: Eric “Bitty” Bittle, Shitty Knight, Adam “Holster” Birkholtz, Wlliam “Dex” Poindexter, Derek “Nursey” Nurse, Chris “Chowder” Chow, Jack Zimmermann, Alexi “Tater” Mashkov, Justin “Ransom” Olransi

Harry Potter: Luna Lovegood, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasely, Ron Weasely, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Minerva McGonagall, Neville Longbottom, Molly Weasely, Fred and George

Sailor Moon: Sailor Jupiter, Sailor Moon, Sailor Chibi Moon, Luna

Fullmetal Alchemsit: Brotherhood: Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric, Riza Hawkeye, Roy Mustang, Ling, Greed (when he’s in Ling), Olivier Mira Armstrong

Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit: Bilbo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Pippin Took, Eowyn, Aragorn, Thorin Oakenshield, Fili and Kili, Aragorn

Disney princesses: Ariel, Moana, Rapunzel, Anna, Elsa, Belle

Homestuck: Terezi Pyrope, Dave Strider, Jade Harley, Jake English, John Eggbert, Vriska Serket, Roxy Lalonde, Karkat Vantas, Jane Crocker

Percy Jackson (among other Rick Riordan things): Annabeth Chase, Grover Underwood, Sally Jackson, Percy Jackson, Nico DiAngelo, Leo Valdez

Winnie the Pooh: Winnie, Eeyore, Tigger (I know this one seems silly but Winnie the Pooh is such an important thing to me you don’t understand)

Voltron: Allora, Shiro, Pidge, Kieth, Lance, Coran, Hunk (basically the paladins and Allora and Coran I love them all)

Avatar: the Last Airbender: Katara, Zuko, Sokka

Miraculous Ladybug: Ladybug, Chat Noir, Adrien Agreste (don’t fuckin hate on me they’re the same person but different characters)

A Series of Unfortunate Events: Violet Baudelaire, Klaus Baudelaire, Sunny Baudelaire, Lemony Snicket, Uncle Monty

Hamilton: Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, John Laurens, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton

Stranger Things: Mike Wheeler, Eleven, Barb

i just,,,, have a lot of love for fictional characters,,,, there are more I’m sure, but I can’t think of any

I connected with a lot of these guys on a deep personal level. Like with Amethyst, I understand why she feels the way she does because I’ve gone through struggles of self-hatred and thinking I was a mistake. I love them all, but there are those few who I just feel like they were...made for me I guess.

Number of Blankets you sleep with: Just my comforter, but before I got my space heater in my room I’d sleep with two blankets, an electric blanket, and my comforter. My room used to be an attic, so it has like no insulation. Plus the heating ducts that go to my room are SUPER shitty, so barely any heat comes out of my vents. Now I’m just used to being cold XD But I don’t like sheets D: Even in the summer, I have to have my big comforter...sheets are too flimsy. Idk, I find the weight of a comforter or heavy blanket comforting.

When I was little though, I remember taking every blanket I owned and piling them on my bed in the winter...and I slept in a sleeping bag, on my bed, under those blankets! XD I miss that sleeping bag. It was a really pretty blue and was really warm...

Ideal Trip: going to New Zealand or England or the French countryside or somewhere with a lot of greenery. Staying somewhere where I can relax and stay in bed all day if I want to or go find things to do in the city or town or wherever is close by. My girlfriend being with me and being able to relax somewhere quiet with her where I can watch the sunlight stream across her face every morning and kiss her all over her face until she wakes up. Somewhere I can relax and not worry about what tomorrow brings; somewhere I can let my troubles float away.

Blog created: December 2014. I can’t believe I’ve been dicking around on here for almost three years.

Number of followers: 396. That may not seem like a lot to some people but??? That’s basically my graduating class??? And you’re all just here watching me shitpost about whichever one of my fandoms is relevant and cry about shit and post really fucking awful art and???? Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or just joined, thank you for hanging out with me through the internet! And if you’ve read all of this, thanks! You now know a lot more about me than I’ve ever said on here =w=

Okay now I have to tag people!

@97thebaluga @all-aboard-the-scream-train @ruled-by-jupiter @4899slayer @squirtlethosejigglypuffs @personalposting @universesinhermind @goddamnit-ross @awkward-fangirl-artist @youaremyrock-mydwayne-myjohnson @epic-leprachaun @save-me-grunkle-ford @civilizedhomosexuals @ninja-sparkle-party @assbutt-novak @howstrangeeveryonewas @not-what-everyone-seems @owlbear-dont-care @psychokumachan @2-many-fandoms-2-count

If I tagged you, don’t feel obligated! I realize some of you are mutuals and I like, never talk to y’all. I’m sorry :( I’m just bad at initiating conversations. Feel free to send me a message if you want to though! I love getting asks and IMs, it makes me feel good inside UwU

Thank you for reading! (and sorry this is so long jfc)