#What is Penn in that world? A Green Person?

[the-zapped-part-timer]

[burnwater13]

The Mandalorian in the cockpit of the Razor Crest looking out the window at another Mandalorian using a flight pack. Image is concept art by Doug Chiang and John Park. From, The Mandalorian, Season 1, Episode 3, The Sin.

Grogu hadn’t known any of the Mandalorians who’d helped them escape from Nevarro. The Mandalorian hadn’t formally introduced him to any of them. Of course that made sense. The Mandalorian had come back to get Grogu after some other Mandalorian had turned that camtono of  beskar into new armor. Shiny new armor. Pretty new armor. 

That had given Grogu some things to think about. Where had those extra Mandalorians come from? Why did they come out and help the bounty hunter Mandalorian then? Why wait so long? Why take an interest at all? He didn’t understand. It is not how the Jedi would have done things. 

It could be argued that Jedi would never have found themselves in a similar circumstance. It was a sensible argument. The Jedi, as a rule, were not bounty hunters. They didn’t accept pay for services… mostly. Sure, they made and sold a very fine collection of drab fabrics to Outer Rim planets for a variety of reasons and some extremely fine vintage spirits within the Core Worlds, but other than that, the Order made do, somehow. 

But Grogu was willing to pretend, hypothesize, if he used words that Master Kenobi preferred, that if the Jedi had needed to deal with that situation it would have been very different. Because Jedi and Mandalorians were nothing like each other. Everyone who knew anything about the two groups knew that. It was canon. Basic. Core. 

Mandalorians conquered worlds and forced those people to follow a Mandalorian Creed and act like Mandalorians or die trying to fight them. That was not the Jedi way. Nope. The Jedi were peace keepers. They were diplomats. They were the calm voice in the storm that lead everyone to safety. That’s what the histories said and who was Grogu to argue with them? He was a youngling, not a master. He hadn’t really been given a vote. 

Now picture the scene. Nevarro, late afternoon, heading toward dusk. Grogu is being held by Imps and they are trying to drain the very life out of him. Suddenly he senses something… no, not something, someone. Another Jedi. Grogu relaxes and reaches out with the Force to let that Jedi know exactly where he was. He feels the calm, cool, authority of an expert negotiator. A diplomat who has prevented wars and stitched back together systems in conflict. 

With his ears twitching just the slightest bit he follows along with the simple, direct, clear actions that a Jedi Knight is trained, conditioned really, to use when addressing such a problem. A knock at a door. A simple request. A few words when the request is denied. A door whooshes open. Doctor Pershing is surprised. 

The stormtroopers are no where to be seen, but a person stands in front of them. They are wearing a hooded cloak in a drab, mushroomy, brown/grey. A dull silver lightsaber hangs at their hip. Their leggings are unusual, in that they are forest green. For some reason they aren’t wearing shoes. Grogu laughs at that, but just within his mind. It’s just funny to him. 

“The young one will be coming with me. Now.” The voice is steady, strong, and authoritative. 

Huh? Using persuasion right off the bat? Well, okay. They are draining Grogu of vital fluids and no one should be subject to that. You can’t just waste time with a long lecture about the course of galactic events and that things always curve back to justice. 

“No, no, no, no, please. Please, no, no, no.”

Doctor Pershing is begging them, because that’s who he is.

“Doctor Pershing, your time with the Child is at an end. You may leave with your life or not. That is your choice. Chose wisely.”

The hooded figure waits a moment and then Penn Pershing falls to the floor. 

Grogu is astonished!

Jedi don’t hurt people!

“He’s asleep little one. He will be fine, if he choses better friends. It’s time to take you somewhere safe, where you can heal.”

Now the voice is soft. It’s still authoritative. It still means business. But it is not the voice of violence or impatience or anger. He smiles at them. 

The Jedi picks Grogu up and carefully secures him with their robes and belts. Grogu sets his hands carefully and helps them, help him. Then they are on their way of the building. Quietly. Almost invisibly. Grogu is a little surprised, but he knew that the Masters and Knights did not tell the younglings everything that happened when they went into the field. Not every exit from an enemy stronghold required the use of a lightsaber and the Force. He suspected that was just an embellishment for story telling purposes based on what was happening right then. 

Soon, he felt the cool air of dusk on Nevarro tickling his feet and soothing his brow. He found himself relaxing again and was glad of it. It took a lot of energy to remain wide awake and focused on defeating a stubborn enemy. But where was their speeder bike or eopie or bantha? How the heck were they going to get away fast enough. Someone was bound to notice that he was gone!

And as if thinking about it made it occur, a voice echoed in the dark stillness of the street. 

“What are you doing with the Child? I came to rescue him.”

The Mandalorian! 

Grogu giggled. The Mandalorian of course would still follow his path and try to save him. The Jedi would just be there sooner. They would get in and out quicker and quieter. 

“I am bringing him to your ship, Din Djarin. You may stand here and argue with me or you may go with us. The choice is yours.”

“Who are you?”

The Mandalorian clearly didn’t believe that you shouldn’t look a gift gundark in the mouth, but that wasn’t really surprising. 

“I am a friend. We have met now. We can’t unmeet. You need to choose before I choose for you.”

The voice didn’t sound angry exactly, but annoyed. Like this had happened before. Grogu wondered why his hypothetical exploration of Jedi and Mandalorians was giving him this sort of result. He really expected the Jedi to brandish their lightsaber and overwhelm the Mandalorian. This was different.

“Are you a Jedi?”

“No. I am a your friend.”

To be continued...

[fancoloredglasses]

The Buffyverse (An awesome pair of shows based on a dumb premise)

[All images are owned by 20th Century Fox Disney and Mutant Enemy Productions. Please don't sue, bite, or stake me]

I know these days Joss Whedon is known more for his toxicity than his works, but in the 90s and early 2K he had two (it should've been three) of the hottest series on television.

(Thanks to Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

The premise is simple enough...

a cheerleader named Buffy Summers (played by Sarah Michelle Geller) finds out she's the latest "Chosen One" known as the Slayer, who is born to kill vampires (hey, if the 16th President of the United States can do it, why not a high school student?). A Slayer's power is awakened when the previous one dies (quick note: Buffy died, but was revived, at the end of Season 1. This caused a second Slayer to be awakened!)

This was actually the premise of a film (produced by Whedon and starring Kristy Swanson as Buffy, though it was much more comedic than he intended) and the series picks up where the movie left off (with Buffy being forced to move to Sunnydale California after the events of the movie)

(Thanks to Buffy and Angel Clips)

(A quick note on how vampires work in the Buffyverse (yes, it's important): When a vampire drains a human of their blood, a demon inhabits their body, replacing their soul. Said demon gains the human's memory and personality, but has no conscience or morals and exists to spread evil and chaos)

Whether Buffy wants to be or not, she is still The Slayer and has a job to do while keeping her grades up and trying not to be kicked out of another school.

This may be harder than she thinks, as Sunnydale was built on top of a demonic beacon known as the Hellmouth, and all sorts of demonic entities (what? You thought vampires were the worst thing she'd have to deal with?) are drawn to it on a weekly basis...and guess who has to handle it?

Assisting Buffy in her crusade throughout the series are... (NOTE: Buffy's allies are often referred to by the fandom as "The Scooby Gang", and yes, they have a dog (of sorts))

Rupert Giles, the school librarian and Buffy's Watcher (Watchers are responsible for training and advising a Slayer, as well as recording their exploits for the next Slayer to learn from)

Xander Harris, fellow classmate and the "everyman" of the Scooby Gang (everyone else has or gets cool abilities/skills, but Xander remains a plain old vanilla human)

Willow Rosenberg (played by How I Met Your Mother star and host of Penn and Teller's Fool Us Alyson Hannigan), Buffy's best friend. Willow eventually learns magic (and learns that using it almost NEVER goes well!)

Cordelia Chase, class Mean Girl who for whatever reason hooks up with Xander and joins the Scooby Gang until they break up.

Daniel "Oz" Osbourne (played by Seth Green, who played Scott Evil in the Austin Powers movies and would go on to co-create and do various voices for Robot Chicken), Willow's boyfriend (until they break up...did I mention there's a LOT of Teen Drama in the series?), lead singer of the underground band Dingos Ate My Baby, and, oh yeah, a werewolf (told you there was a dog in the Scooby Gang!)

Tara Maclay, Willow's girlfriend (and their courtship was ADORABLE!)

Anya Jenkins (AKA Anyanka), former vengeance demon who lost her powers and got into a relationship with with Xander until he left her at the altar (y'know, I think Xander may be afraid of commitment)

Finally, we have Angel (AKA Angelus, played by David Boreanaz, who would later play Agent Seeley Booth in Bones), a vampire who was cursed with having his soul returned to his body, meaning he has all the powers of a vampire and all the grief from everything he'd done before being cursed. The curse was lifted after sleeping with Buffy in a moment of True Happiness (DUDE! You're over 350 years old and she's 17! Talk about robbing the cradle!), allowing Angelus to resurface (don't worry, the curse was reinstated before he could end the world, and he left the series shortly after)

Actually that's not all of the Scooby Gang, because it's revealed at the end of season 4...

...she has a younger sister. Meet Dawn. No, she wasn't just "away from the camera". One minute Buffy's an only child and the next she's yelling at Dawn for being in her room!

It turns out that Dawn is a mystical artifact that was sent to Buffy in the form of a family member that was implanted into everyone's memories as Always Being There. And when THIS end-of-the-world crisis is over (there's pretty much one every season), Dawn is allowed to be a normal (bratty) teenager (or at least as normal as things ever are in Sunnydale)

Besides the usual Vampire/Demon-of-the-week and Season-Long Big Bad, there are two recurring antagonists (who were supposed to last one or two episodes before being killed off, but Whedon liked the chemistry between Gellar and them)...

Spike (AKA "William the Bloody") and his sire/girlfriend Drucilla (who is quite mad). Spike would eventually break from Drucilla and be a thorn in Buffy's side until he gets a chip implanted that forces him to stop killing (long story), after which he falls for Buffy, quests to get his soul back, and joins the Scooby Gang.

The series ran for 7 seasons, ending with a spell that awakened the power in ALL potential slayers!

In the middle of its run (shortly after a certain angst-y vampiric love interest left Sunnydale) there was a spin-off...

(Thanks to der450)

Angel has moved to Los Angeles (the City of Angels, heh) and opened up a PI business (Angel Investigations) to try to help the downtrodden. Among the members of Angel Investigations are...

Allen Doyle, a small-time hustler who has visions of people that need Angel's help...

...and is also half-demon.

Cordelia makes her return and joins because she needs a job while trying to become an actress. Let's just say her skills she acquired as part of the Scooby Gang better suit her than her acting skills. And she also acquired Doyle's visions after he sacrificed himself.

Wesley Wyndam-Price, a former Watcher (that lasted at most half a season on Buffy) who lends his knowledge of All Things Demonic to the cause.

Charles Gunn was a vigilante vampire hunter before joining Team Angel, where he primarily serves as the Mortal Muscle.

Krevlornswath (Lorne) is a peace-loving member of a war-mongering tribe of demons. He's in exile in LA, where he ran a nightclub for demons before joining the team.

Winefred (Fred) Burkle was banished to another dimension before being rescued (and later joining) the team. Unfortunately she was killed when her body was inhabited by...

...the Elder God Illyria. Fortunately for the world, Illyria's power was diminished in her new host. Even more fortunately, she joined Team Angel instead of destroying the world.

Finally, we have William the Bloody Spike joining the team after he re-corporated following his death in the final episode of Buffy.

Angel's primary antagonist (which they have to deal with throughout the series) is an agency known as Wolfram and Hart, which are run by a mysterious group known as the "Senior Partners", a trio of very powerful demons (The Wolf, The Ram, and The Hart. I have to say, they were rather clever with the name)

The series ran for five seasons. The final episode (which was supposed to be a cliffhanger for a sixth season, which was carried over to comics. I REALLY would've liked to see where it went on-screen, rather than the series implying that everyone died facing a horde of demons)

(Thanks again to der450)

While the series was as tongue-in-cheek as Buffy, the tone was overall much darker. This series showed more of Boreanaz's range as an actor.

Both series had some rather dark elements (such as the death of beloved characters such as Buffy's mom, Tara, Doyle, and Fred), as well as some episodes that were just bonkers (such as Sunnydale becoming a musical and Angel becoming a Muppet), but even at their silliest the series was still compelling and you wanted to see how they managed to beat the season's Big Bad.

Both series are available on Hulu or behind your favorite paywall. As always, if you would like to see an episode reviewed, let me know!

(Thanks to anti virus)

[laresearchette]

This Video Not Available in Your Country: Friday Canadian Lineup (Times Eastern):

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CBC GEM BLOODTHIRSTY GRAND PRIX OF FIGURE SKATING: SKATE CANADA INTERNATIONAL JAMIE: EASY MEALS FOR EVERY DAY

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NETFLIX CANADA PAIN HUSTLERS SISTER DEATH TORE YELLOW DOOR: 90S LO-FI FILM CLUB

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NBA BASKETBALL (SN Now) 7:30pm: Heat vs. Celtics (TSN4/TSN5) 8:00pm: Raptors vs. Bulls (SN Now) 10:00pm: Warriors vs. Kings

MIDNIGHT MASQUERADE (Super Channel Heart & Home) 7:30pm: Elyse, a rich heiress, meets Rob, a bullied lawyer, and the two fall in love during a costume ball. When he learns his firm's owner plans to steal Elyse's fortune, Rob has to find the courage to stand up to his intimidating boss.

MLB BASEBALL (SN) 8:00pm: World Series: Diamondbacks vs. Rangers - Game #1

MARKETPLACE (CBC) 8:00pm: Investigating the sustainability claims of some of fashion's biggest brands and revealing why some clothing is far from the "green" solution that has been sold.

THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF JERSEY (Slice) 8:00pm: Fake Orgasm Addicts

PLANET WONDER (CBC) 8:30pm: Exploring how climate change is affecting the intensity of snow storms, flood risks and drinking water availability.

FRIDAY NIGHT THUNDER (APTN) 8:30pm: Derek Miller revisits his past in a tearful meeting with the mother of his childhood best friend, Ricky, who died tragically in a motocross accident when they were teenagers.

CFL FOOTBALL (TSN/TSN3) 9:00pm: Blue Bombers vs. Stamps

THE FIFTH ESTATE (CBC) 9:00pm: An icon's claims to Indigenous ancestry are being called into question by family members and an investigation that included genealogical documentation, historical research and personal accounts.

TRANSPLANT (CTV) 9:00pm: Decisions are made about the future of the emergency department.

HOOKING UP (Crave) 9:00pm: A cynical writer and a hopeless romantic hit the road for a cross-country trip.

W5 (CTV) 10:00pm: The War Heroes; The Sound of Learning: A would-be bank robber explodes and remains unidentified for decades.

CRIME BEAT (Global) 10:00pm: In an Instant: The Neville-Lake Tragedy: Neville-Lakes' three children were killed by a drunk driver, Marco Muzzo, in a crash in Vaughan back in 2015; the driver, the son of a wealthy family, was sentenced to ten years in jail but is now out on parole while the mother is left grieving.

SCAVENGERS REIGN (adult swim) 12:00am/12:30am (SERIES PREMIERE) Crash survivors Sam and Ursula use their technological know-how to attempt to locate their missing ship. In Episode Two, Levi and Azi scramble to find shelter; Kamen joins a pack of psychic creatures.

[pastelphantasia]

my religii: past*L

goals of my empyyr [[[past*L]]]:

B00K WUN: UUN!VERSAL PEACE

Zzz. uuniversal peace!!

Zzz. ZERO DEATH

Zzz. ZERO PAIN

Zzz. ZERO SUFFERING

Zzz. MURDER OF MURDERERS IS MURDER TOO.

Zzz. ZERO HELL

Zzz. ZERO WAR

Zzz. ZERO D E A T H ROW. PEACE ROW INSTEAD

B00K TWO: L0CHNESS

Zzz. lochness, narwhal, moon dreamers, stacey™ barbie to with lavender eyes, exotykka stacey™ with lavender eyes, kawaii, wynken &blynken &nod, and fantasia everything and revelations of them [my o w n characters and creatures. invented by moi!!] printed on my klothes and just... o n everything, head*to*toe. plus make them alone the new like polka dot and stuff too. the new pattern. cause polka dots and stripes and all those are like some of the world's most repetitively, annoyingly, uunimaginatively worn things. and i just somehow never see lochness and narwhals in haute fashion magazines in patterns on the clothes or even anywhere at all. it's so stupid. and i bought like allll of the mags for the longest time... so stupid.

Zzz. lochness zippers. S. pastel exotica joseph's coat rose zippers where every part's like a different color.

Zzz. joseph's coat rose everything... barely*there yellow rose everything. barely-there green rose everything. succulent plant everything.

Zzz. go overboard with wearing innovative pajamas out of the house and wearing innovative rompers out of the house....

Zzz. have your stuphh custom*made phor uu by a haute couture designer or haute make it on your own.

Zzz. chinese checkers, string figure games, and stiruup pants everything and revelations of them [moi own ideas again] everything!!!

Zzz. black-eyed peas (the food) everything. cranberry sauce everything. honey wheat bread everything.

Zzz. seaphoam green, teal, and coral everything. seaphoamista. tealista. coralista.

Zzz. bring bakk moondreamers.™

Zzz. i'm making stiruup pants my jeans. then if i d o wear jeans they can be stirrup pant jeans. but only if they're really rare. cause the world will never stop with jeans and I don't like it. yikes. and i wanna make stirrup pant: PJ's, panty hose, thigh-highs, onesies\rompers. and striruup pants of all haute innovative kinds kan be to me what like red lipstick is to gwen stefauni and what jeans are to the boring, boring w o r l d . gwen:redlipstick=me:stiruuppants.

Zzz. ZER0 pockets or peaking pockets or triangular pockets as often as everyone wears plain, same*old pockets… especially on stirrup pants!!

Zzz. stirrup shirts. where stirrups can just go around her hands. or something' like it.

Zzz. lima bean, penne, and water chestnut everything.

Zzz. a lot of barely-there-yellow sprinkled with red, purple, and green... like vegan macaroni salad.

Zzz. blossom print's like one of the only normal prints i wanna keep.

Zzz. white*chocolate*white everything.

Zzz. female lochness and narwhal exotykka chinese checkers board games... eye want to sell them with my fashion lines!!!

Zzz. make string figure game fishnet panty hose in exotykka dusk colors . . .

Zzz. lochness and narwhal *sequined lipgloss!!

Zzz. lochness monster, narwhal, and\or centaurette *sequined, thiKk, exotica pastel false lashes are my black mascara.

Zzz. universal peaceagain. eye*m peaceable. yayy.

Zzz. i'm a people*person and a peacemaker.

Zzz. dye narwhals and lochness into your hair.

B00K THREE: P H A U N *

Zzz. phaun (gwen stephauni) + gog (lady gaga) + catra\shear

Zzz. make your own symbol like Vivienne westwood's 0rb out of like string figure games and the chinese checkers board star and lochness and narwhals or somethin'.

Zzz. dye haire platinum blonde sometimes but:

💛 o n l y as a k a n v a s .

Zzz. try platinum blonde with: a teal underside and a seaphoam green shell pattern on top… z. i want barely*there*yellow square patches on the underside in with the top layer dyed australian shepherd puppii print (all patchy) in pastel dusk colors. i want square dyed patches of different pastel colors: lavender, barely there yello, lilac, periwinkL, and nevereth pink (joseph's coat rose plus lilac!!!) australian shepherd patches of different colors like pastel joseph's coat rose colors… magenta and barely-there yellow giraffe print dyed into it with a lavender underside. etk la la la la la la la.™

...your name will never change...

Zzz. gwen mix and don't match barbie™ infinitii. no one will ever not match. i'd rather friggin like lochness c l a s h . but only iff it's lochness clashing...

Zzz. make the string figure game shapes and the chinese checkers star shape into patterns too.

Zzz. phorm band: the lola's coat roses of past*L.

Zzz. my\our discography rough drafted:

Zzz. go on werld tour.

Zzz. travel werld.

Zzz. ssey(see) everything!!!

Zzz. go to maya.

Zzz. australia.

Zzz. tokyo.

Zzz. paris.

Zzz. everywhere nice in california.

Zzz. back to the b a n d .

Zzz. frontwoman.

Zzz. stage name: past*L Lochness Lola dusk pearLike.

Zzz. past*L= i am so past hell. like, hell's wrong. no one should have ever gone. no one should die. ever. it doesn't defend anyone. 🏵🌺☀🎈

Zzz. to symbolize salvation& peace between heaven, the earth, and hell: devil and demon gone fairytale - {{asymmetrical} (long then short) flouffy pastel exotykka horns [like john galliano's for dior {above and\\ bel0} and red or orange or yellow tiger-striped wuns). devil gone storybook. ({short} flouffy pouffy demon horns in violet, ruby, marigold and emerald). devil gone nursery rhyme (wynken, blynken, nod in partik). demonology gone enchantress (princess hats used as horns). demonology gone fantasia (magenta, yell0 and lavender flouffy, fluffy horns for tails. innovatyvv fashionyysta.) all like the j.g. haute horns in the above and below pictures.

Zzz. make lochness and narwhal chinese checkers and string figure games and sell them with yer fash line...

Zzz. obsessively clean out vivienne westwood!!! have her 0rb everywhere!!!!

Zzz. serendipity should be a more popular phorm of phate than it is.

Zzz. e p h e r v e s c ! k a everything!!! [see lipstick and lipgloss bel0.]

Zzz. be rich and famous like p h a u n * (gwen stefani). and ari m. and riri. and gog. put together.

Zzz. 4 mansions in tahiti. 4 mansions in kentucky. 4 mansions in california.

Zzz. wear bindis as often as people wear black maskara, too. er in p l a c e of blakk maskara. and follow and set bindi and bindi*like trends . . . mookaite bindis, mookaite thigh bands, horse of a different color bindis, face paint, stamps

Zzz. form tribes of rare deities to go on oddysseys and voyages with you and write and perform ballads and odes with you. the dreamlike tribe. the pastimesstruck tribe. the dazestruck crew. the dream*struck tribe. the splendrou tribe. etk.

Zzz. form crews. to go on crusades with...

Zzz. come up with oddysseys and voyages to go on… diversify oddyssey. magnetyyzm oddyssey. oddysseys to save the narwhals. 💜 enigma voyage. dynamic voyage. voyage to phind the lochness monster. etk.

Zzz. come up with crusades for you and your crews to go on.

Zzz. name your daughter(s): tigerlily (lola dusk mcgregor), pearadis (leila mcgregor), stargazely (lilah mcgregor), sighberia (leelee pearlie mcgregor)... they're like my kingston, zuma, and apollo but with girls. the boys (so far) would be: tigra (lynus joseph mcgregor) and horna (lionel howard mcgregor \"howie"). and I don't have the other two figured out yet.

Zzz. so clearly i want 4 kids: girls, boys, or a mix and they'll be my favorite things!!!!!

Zzz. eye hart lipheii!! 💛💛💛

Zzz. make tiger print as popular as cheetah print. and in white and with pastel exotykka stripes. or pastel exotykka with white stripes. phauxii phaux, of course.

Zzz. mookaite everything while everyone else does amethyst:

[mookaite's the purple, orange, and brown beads and it's said moo-kite! hehe...]

Zzz. i wanna invent an even cuter and a zillion times rarer old english text font than there's ever been.

Zzz. iwanna pioneer!!! like amelia ear(air)heart! yay!! like set trends, be inventive, be the first to duu something as cool and legendary as i kan!

Zzz. asymmetry genius.

an eiffel ((eyeful)) horse of a different color is a(') becoming bluugrass state of mind

Zzz. overdo it on supermodel*y stuphh. and beaudy queen stuphh. glow-getter makeup

Zzz. tribal face paint should be the new eyeshad0w. [like v.w.'s - vivienne westwood's bel0w on a model]

Zzz. learn to speak japanese.

Zzz. dye japanese symbols in your hair in phunn colors like pepperoncini color or blueberry tart nyx lipstick color as often as people have their hair au naturale or dyed natural colors . . . like: 虎 (tiger.) and just anything else i might want it to say.

Zzz. mongolian, moroccan, tibetan, czechoslovakian, albanian, aboriginal, lebanese, and turkish fashion made exotykka haute stacey™™™ barbie™ fashionista haute!!

[to be continued...]

[mediocre-writerr]

invisible string [quinn fabray]

quinn fabray x reader

requested by anon: Hey, I love your writing and I loved Quinn Fabray's miniseries. Could you do a sequel to "Betty", maybe Quinn and the reader meeting in episode 100 and giving them a second chance? I would love :)

pt.1  pt.2 pt.3

*not my gif*

There was once a old folklore. It once said that everyone had an invisible string tying one to their soulmate.

A simpler term for it would be fate.

That everyone decision, good or bad, would lead you to that one person.

The invisible gold string would drag you out of the wrong arms, wrapped all of your past mistakes, and chained your demons back. The one single thread would lead them to you, no matter how far you’ve strayed.

Not many people believe in it anymore because of the time. The time that it takes for the invisible string to tie one another together took far too long, maybe that’s why you didn’t believe anymore.

There you were back at McKinley High School. When Mr. Shue told you that the glee club was shutting down and you were having one last hoorah, you did not hesitate to book a first flight home.

Walking down the hallway with your classic olive green cardigan that made you feel like you seventeen again and straight back into the classroom that made you feel like home.

And there she was the beautiful blonde who held your heart and dropped it all at once, “Y/N,” she let out a breath as her eyes caught on yours.

“Hey Quinn,” you told her with a shy smile, “Long time no see,”

“Yeah, how has college at Penn State?” she asked as the two of you made small conversation in the middle of the choir room.

You shrugged, “It’s been nice, I don’t know if it’s everything I’ve dreamed it would be, but it’s good. How’s Yale?”

The two of you didn’t live far, it wasn’t all the way across the country. It was driving across a few state lines, but you never hung out. In fact, you barely talked after the two of you had broken up.

“Good, good. It uh feels like I’m missing something, but I don’t think I would change my decision,” she told you and you nodded.

She was about to say something else when you heard someone scream your name, “Y/N!” Sam yelled as he rushed over towards you.

You broke out into a big smile as he picked you up from off the ground, spinning you around and around. You let out a hearty laugh as he set you down.

“I’ve missed you!” he told you as he let go.

You smiled, “I’ve missed you too, bud. I wish our third musketeer was still here with us,” you said with a sad smile.

He let out a sigh, “I know, me too,” he turned to Quinn who looked hurt and jealous at the same time. Do you know why? No, but she always has been hard to read.

“Hey Quinn,” he said, giving her a tight hug.

She hugged him back with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, “Hey Sam, I’m gonna go catch up with Mercedes. I’ll catch the two of you later,”

You and Sam looked at each other with furrowed brows before eventually shrugging it off.

You thought that coming back here would bring back loads of bad memories from the cheating to the heartbreak to losing Finn, but it didn’t. As the day went on you remembered why you fell in love with her in the first place.

The way she sang, so full of heart. When she crinkled her nose as she smiled. Or how big her heart is for people she actually lets in.

And at first you weren’t too sure, but when the nostalgia of the club forced you guys to sing your iconic duet, it just hit you harder than before.

“I think we need the iconic rendition of Everything Has Changed from Quinn and Y/N,” Mercedes admitted and your heart immediately stopped.

You looked at Quinn who was already staring at you, like she was seeking approval, “Let’s give the people what they want,”

You grabbed your guitar playing the soft acoustic intro, as she stood on the opposite side of the room, both of you unable to look away from the other.

“All I knew, this morning when I woke is I know something now, know something now, I didn’t before. And all I’ve seen since eighteen hours ago is green eyes and freckles in your smile in the back of my mind, making me feel like,” she began to sing and you forgot how soothing her voice was. Like everything in the world kind of faded away at the sound of her voice.

As the song went on the two of you closed the gap between you until you were face to face. The only thing separating the two of you was the guitar that was wrapped across your body.

“All I know is we said ‘hello’ and your eyes look like coming home. All I know is a simple name and everything has changed. All I know is you held the door, you’ll be mine and I’ll be yours. All I know since yesterday is everything has changed,” the two of you sang.

You couldn’t tear your eyes away from her only doing so when they averted to her lips. Like two puzzle pieces that were supposed to fit together, you were about to connect when the sound of clapping tore you from each other. And with one last lingering look, you broke the gaze as everyone was clapping and smiling like we were all seventeen again.

You didn’t know what to do though. Finn was usually the one to give you advice, but he wasn’t here, so you did the second best thing. The boys locker room was empty as his football jersey hung proudly on the wall. The big number five just staring back at you.

“Hey buddy, I’m in kind of a dilemma right now,” you told him honestly, “And I really wish you were actually here to tell me what to do. You were always good at that,”

He probably would’ve chuckled at what you said, recalling the time where he told you to not eat that funnel cake on senior ditch day before the rollercoaster, but you did anyway and puked all over his shoes.

“I think I’m still in love with Quinn and that absolutely terrifies me. I don’t want to get hurt again,” you whispered, tears staring to sting your eyes when you realize he’s not gonna be there to hug you.

“I’ve been so scared to put myself back out there and when I do it just feels like no one compares to him. And God I wish you could be here right now to tell me what to do because you would know, you always did,”

That’s when you heard someone clear their throat. You looked to find the source of the noise, seeing Coach Beiste standing there next to the office door.

“Hey pumpkin, do you mind if I sit here?” she asked as she pointed to the empty seat on the bleacher.

All you did was nod, before wiping your eyes, “I’m sorry, I know I’m not supposed to be here,”

“Eh it’s okay. You aren’t the first girl who’s come in here to talk to him,” she told you with a shrug.

“Rachel come in here too?” you asked.

She shook her head, “Nope,” she popped the ‘p’ in the word, “Quinn, turns out she needed advice of her own and she asked him a question,”

“About?” you asked, curiously.

“I can’t tell you that,” she confessed. 

“Hey Finn,” Quinn told him, staring at the jersey that was hanging on the wall, “God I don’t think I ever stopped loving her. Actually I know I never stopped loving her, but I’m so scared Finn. I don’t know if she’ll give me a shot or anything, but I don’t want to hurt her,” she confessed.

There was a moment of silence, before she continued on again. 

“I’m so scared that I’m gonna hurt her again and she doesn’t deserve that. But if I don’t tell her how I feel then she’s gonna be the one who got away,” she contemplated it for herself for a second, “Do I have your blessing to love her again? I know how much she meant to you. If you do give me a sign, anything,” 

She sat there on the bench for a moment before something fell off the shelf. She let our a teary laugh, “Thank you,” 

After a little more time she left the room as Coach Beiste left her office to pick up the towel that she dropped. 

“I know I’m not Finn, but do you mind if I give you some advice?”

“Please, I really need it right now,”

She smiled, rubbing your back, “Go for it. If Finn was here he’d tell you something like ‘don’t give up on something that would be good for you’. And I bet if he could come down here right now and tell you one piece of advice it would be dont take life for granted. Don’t let the love of your life slip away like he did. I think that was his one big regret, not being with Rachel before he passed. I think he wants you to be happy,”

“And my advice the two of you are mature now. All of the negative emotions and feelings are easier to talk out now. So talk and just go for it, life’s too short to waste another second,” she told you and you smiled at her with teary eyed.

“I miss him,” I whispered, staring back at the jersey on the wall. 

“Me too, pumpkin, me too,” 

After a few more minutes, you hopped back onto your feet and went to find Quinn. You searched every hallway and every classroom for Quinn, but came up empty. Until you found her outside by the football field. There was a little tree made out in his honor, she was looking at it, just staring, contemplating everything.

“Quinn!” you shouted and her head shot up to the name of her voice.

You were making a bee-line straight for her, “Y/N are you-” but you cut her off and kissed her. Your hands grasping her cheeks and pulling her towards you. 

The two of you pulled away and looked at each other, “Everyone deserves a second chance,” 

“Are you sure?” she asked you, a small smile on her face.

“Very, very sure,” 

The invisible string tied her to you. 

[relish-alittlenonsense]

a meditation on life right now

As someone who walks through New York City basically every weekend, the good, bad, and the ugly of city life has been imprinted into my mind. It's easy to compare my walks through Bowling Green to the previous summers. It's easy to compare the corner by the Penn Station Krispy Kreme and the eeriness of the Subway to a pre-COVID time. All around me, juxtaposed images of the "before and after" strike me in the chest. The echoes of street busking way into the night while waiting for the C-line to pick me up is replaced by deafening silence these days. A father clutches the hand of his five-year-old daughter and looks into the train car before boarding, making sure to avoid the corner and stand by the door. The emptiness of the Subway brings to mind the fear that most recoil with when I mention New York City these days. Nowadays, even native New Yorkers are living in a constant state of fear as they watch crime rates tick up and help stop. I'm saddened by the fact that it seems like fear rules the current state of the world— that the louder people scream for help, the less people listen. Because people are scared of the consequences; scared of reality; scared of dealing with things they've never had to deal with before. The worldwide pandemic has exposed a housing crisis, and a poverty crisis, and a scaffolding of racism, system after system toppling like dominoes. The economic and social effects of the pandemic have left many in terror. Avoid taking the Subway at night alone. I cling to the pepper spray in my pocket and speedwalk to my destination not daring to make eye contact.

All the while, I wonder when I became so fearful of the place that I used to love. New York City used to mean laughter in Times Square, twinkling lights of Bryant Park, and the scent of fresh bread wafting from the bakery down the street of my parents' office. It meant dancing in the street and greasy hot dogs. It meant dropping off a donut by the homeless man and his dog (I think it's a terrier) on the corner by Essen It meant offering to buy a burger for the kid staring through the McDonald's window. Flashback to this poem I wrote in 7th grade about the incident.

Rather than that, when I look around, I see the anxieties and the wondering minds that crowd the street. I see the cloud of gray that has flown over the lights of Time Square, and I hear the cussing between a homeless man and an official. I know that everyone person is dealing with such change in their own way, and there isn't much I can do. The fact that I cannot fix anything is what bothers me. Because this is all so much greater than me, and what I am currently capable of. How can I soothe your anxieties and fears? How can I fix racism? How can I fix injustice?

At the same time, these issues have been percolating under the veneer that is Times Square billboards, and perhaps it is for the best that I have become aware of it, because I am now listening more deeply, and caring more deeply, and feeling so much more. I do what I can. I go to the food bank to package food, and I donate what I can. I smile to people on the street. I speak up when I hear something hurtful. I continue to remember the good, not just about the city, but about people, hoping that some tiny bit will help.

[alarriefantasy]

Hey! how are you? i hope youre doing alraight! okay can you give me some reccomendations of larry bottom louis fanfic please? :) thank you so much! and have a good life! love ya always xx

Hiiiiii!!! I’m doing well, I hope you are doing alright, too darling!! <3 <3  And okay, so here are my lists that have what you’re looking for, BUT, I also included further below stories that are b!Louis and written in the last year! I hope you find something you enjoy reading! :) LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!

Bottom Louis - Sex Toys Fic Rec

Bottom Louis - Subdrop Fic Rec  

Sub Louis Fic Rec   

Sugar Daddy Harry      

MPreg Louis and Infidelity Fic Rec

MPreg Fic Rec     

Fem Louis 

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[somedayonbroadway]

The Sisma

A/N: This is an original work that I am testing out, so please be brutally honest with me, give me all the opinions if you choose to read, I would really appreciate it! This began as an Anthropology assignment to create a new religion and out of it came this...

Summary: In the beginning there was darkness, chaos and evil. But all of that was ancient history, right?

TW: Witchcraft

In the beginning there was darkness, chaos and evil. The Craz roamed the darkness in their true form with greed and mischief and ate away at the very essence of potential life that might have emerged otherwise. This was the before times, before a new humanity, water, fire, air and earth.

Then, the stars fell. Four stars, to be exact, four stars that were four beautiful sisters; Alora, Rakisha, Nori and Beila. They fell right down to the darkness. It was pure chaos. The fallen stars still had their fading lights with them, and a desire to make something whole and pure out of a fallen world, one that had once been a home of goodness and peace and acceptance. So together, they used their light and their unique ways to push away the darkness and create a world of their own. The four sisters came to be known as the Bringers; the Sisma.

Alora, the first to fall and the first to awaken in the darkness, danced the grass into existence, creating a soft place to land for her following sisters, whom she knew were yet to come. She brought forth from the ground, trees and mountains, flowers and soil. Alora was henceforth known as the Bringer of Earth.

Beila, the most heartbroken of the four by the essence of darkness that now surrounded her, cried from her own sad eyes, the swelling seas, the rivers and the rain from the stars above. Beila was then and forever will be the Bringer of Water.

Rakisha found the world still dark and dreary as she fell into it, so she whispered light into the world, sending a ball of fire up to the skies to keep the world warm, bright, and wild, though her creation was found to be unpredictable and hungry, just as she was. Rakisha, wild and free, came to be known as the Bringer of Fire.

Nori, the youngest and shiest of all the sisters, sang the air from her lips so quietly so that every creation could then breathe in life and know of her presence though they may not see her. From the song came the breeze and the wind. From then on, Nori was named the Bringer of Air.

For the first time in centuries, there was new hope on a fallen world, the light of four Bringers creating something brand new from the dark ashes. This, however, was something the Craz were anything but grateful for. Craz thrived on darkness and chaos, surviving off of the mess of a world it had once won in a great war. The Craz fought back, sending a dangerous darkness back out over this new world, poisoning the green trees, the oceans, the wind and the sun, creating the night and the dark moon so it could use it to harness the light and send it far away from them.

Fearing they would lose their new creation, the Bringers brought forth an army to defend it; the animals. Nori made birds of the breeze and let them fly over the darkness and shed their light onto it. Fish, sharks and seals grew from the bubbles of the rain, rivers and sea purifying the waters so that they may live there. From the burning fires of the world grew lions, tigers and bears, fierce creatures to let out mighty roars to scare the darkness back into the light. Finally, from the flowers and trees grew creatures unlike any other; humans.

The humans were meant to be an army of light against the Craz, fighters and protectors of the sacred land that was created for them. This, however, did not last as, instead of protecting the Bringers gifts and lights, they began to harvest the gifts for themselves, trying to steal the lights away from the world and claim it as their own. The Bringers then decided to leave the humans to fight the Craz without their light, promising to come back when they were worthy enough to have a purified world, when the light could reach their eyes.

At least, that’s how the story went.

All of that was ancient history now. Still the story was as sacred as ever, told on the first of each season and followed by the Relation to the Bringer of the season. It was winter now, the season belonging to the Bringer of Water, Beila, the saddest of all the Bringers, so the Gingri had each cleansed themselves in the river that ran beside their village, just as they would do the whisper of fire on the first of summer, or the dance of earth to welcome in spring, or the song of the air for fall. But now, it was only winter. The season of Bringer Beila. Some believed that Beila held the weakest light of all the Bringers and that the Craz could easily infiltrate Gingri with the darkness that winter brought. Maybe those folks were right.

Penn stared straight ahead, watching the river run through the trees. This was a peaceful place, a place where she could sit and listen to the gifts of the Bringers when she felt lost or afraid. She always thought the gifts spoke to her, guided her. She could feel them, sense them. It always felt surreal.

“Penn!” someone called from behind her. The girl jumped, whirling around, her heavy hair falling behind her as her green eyes searched frantically for the voice calling out. “Penn! We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

“Oh?” Penn asked, a smirk falling onto her face easily, as though there was nothing in the least that was special about this day.

Another girl came rushing up to her, giggling as they lightly collided. Penn caught her friend easily, holding her by the shoulders as the other smiled. “Everyone has been searching for you! You are popular, Penn, a real life celebrity who is missing her own birthday party!”

Jeen, a girl like no other in the eyes of Penn, had the best smile in the universe as far as she was concerned. Something about it made her feel all gooey inside. “Well, I was quite comfortable here until someone disrupted my meditations—“

“Oh, meditations are for the old! We’re coming in with the new.” This girl always had a way of trying to make ridiculous, nonsensical things sound profound. It never really worked, but it did make Penn laugh. “It’s your Jequan today!” Jeen insisted. “You should be excited.” Clearly, the other girl was disappointed in Penn for not being quite as bubbly as she was.

It was Penn’s Jequan. It was a ceremony that had been done for generations, a test for every child of seventeen years of age. It was a big deal in Gingri, a great tradition that welcomed a child from their young life to the life of an adult. It cleansed them of the darkness that may be planted inside every young Gingrinian at birth, the darkness of a fallen world.

With a small, dramatic sigh, Penn reached up for a tree branch that hung above her. With slight difficulty, the young girl pulled herself up and hooked her knees around the sturdy tree, letting herself hang upside down. Her thick hair hung beneath her as she tilted her head at her friend. “The world is more interesting from this angle,” she stated with a cheesy, sarcastic grin. “You have very pretty eyes.”

Jeen did not seem very amused to the average person, but Penn was no average person and could see that look in her deep brown eyes, the one that said she was doing her very best to keep from smiling. After all, Penn had known Jeen for what felt like a lifetime. Well, since they were six. See, when Penn was young, she was a quiet, reserved young girl. She hardly spoke to anyone back then, except for the Bringers. Penn always wished she could see the Bringers. They were always so beautiful in her head. Being taught Sismarna by the Seekers, the belief of the four Bringers, she was taught that the Bringers were unlike any being she’d seen.

Growing up, Penn had spent so much time wondering, she had forgotten to live a little. Jeen reminded her that there was still a world here. They vowed to explore it together, take in every blessing the Bringers had given them.

Still, they had heard this Sismarna story thousands of times. The Bringers created the world. The Bringers were the light. The Craz were the darkness.

Yet, Penn and Jeen knew very little about the Craz. All they knew were the stories they’d heard that only might be true. There were rumors of course, of a Craz that had been captured and studied a few decades ago, but there was no proof that even that had ever happened. It was curious.

Now, the story of Penn and Jeen sneaking off into the woods behind the hunters was a completely, totally and entirely classified secret. Only the hunters were allowed deep into the forest. If what the Seekers preached was true, Craz inhabited that forest. Sometimes, hunters would come back looking spooked, eyes wide open and some kind of voice in their head. It always wore off eventually. The Seekers said it must only be a warning.

When they were fourteen, Penn and Jeen had stuck out on a hunting trip. They had only been joking at first, asking each other what would happen if they went off into that dark forest and wondered alone. So they each covered the other in brown dust and drew on their chests the symbol of the Bringers for protection, just as the hunters did for every quest they went on. An ancient Listener had once heard from the Bringers that this was the best way to keep the Gingri people safe when in a Craz infested forest. So no one questioned it. After all, one had to be blessed with the gift of the Connection to be a Listener, just as the Seeker had to be blessed with the gift of Knowledge to preach and the Healer with the gift of Warmth to heal.

Out on that hunting trip, to this day, Jeen swears she saw a Craz. They got separated for one moment and Jeen came back with a scraped wrist claiming that a Craz had stolen her blood, a Taker, teachers of witchcraft and history of the Craz, and will wait till the opportune moment to use it to control her. Penn was still trying to convince her that myth was not real. Jeen would not have it.

“Okay! Come on, come on!” Jeen insisted, tugging lightly at Penn’s hair. “You’re gonna be late for your own ceremony! Your brother will have your head if you’re late!”

With a dramatic sigh, Penn looked to the ground and let herself fall, landing gracefully on her feet. “My brother needs to learn patience. He’s not a proper Seeker yet, there to fore,” she emphasized, flipping her hair back. “He ain’t in charge yet,” she shrugged easily, smirking at her own improperness. Sometimes it was just more fun to be improper. Then that snarky smile left her face as she became serious. “Now quick, help me fix my hair before he sees me.”

So maybe Penn knew her brother was very much in charge. Well, of her at least. See, her brother, Kye, was all she truly had growing up. He was only five years older than her, but he had taught her all she knew now, about the Bringers and the wild world they lived in. He had braided her hair for her and tucked her into bed at night. Penn’s mother had died when Penn was young and her father was a Seeker, busy with other families a lot of the time. And being a Seeker’s daughter brought much too many expectations onto Penn, like her being on time for her Jequan, her hair up, back and tamed, and her clothes ready to come off so she could show her full, true self to the Bringers.

Jeen only snorted and took four straight fingers to her forehead on one hand, before moving them in a U like motion towards the skies. “Sisma, help us,” she asked the Bringers with a small laugh, calling the Bringers by their official collective name; The Sisma.

With a small laugh, Penn began the short trek back. “Yeah… Kye’s gonna kill me,” she stated, rushing into the small tent, stripping out of her clothes as Jeen tip-toed behind her awkwardly, trying to tame her hair into a bun on top of her head. Penn was in her underclothes by the time she got to the center of the tent. Jeen quickly tied her off before rushing away, knowing she should not be there. Kye was waiting with his arms crossed, as if knowing that his little sister would choose that exact moment to enter the room.

“You’re late,” he stated. “Have you even chosen your ruins yet?”

Raising her eyebrows at her brother, Penn put her hands on her hips. “Oh ye of very little faith,” she scolded playfully. “Of course I’ve picked my ruins! I…” Then she stopped, because her brother was right. Penn was too excited to sit down and be a proper seventeen year old who actually sat still and chose her ruins for herself. It was her birthday after all. Today, she went from girl to woman. It was her Jequan. It was much too exciting to sit and look through some ancient book.

With a very heavy sigh, Kye, who believed himself to be an old of some kind when Penn was around, stood up and grabbed the paint made from berries and grass, dipping his fingers in it. “I thought so,” he sighed, with a small shake of his head. Still, Penn prided herself with the small smile she had gotten out of him. She stood patiently as her brother drew on her forehead. “The ruin of Hope, to bless your stubborn head,” he began, moving to her shoulder. “The ruin of Perseverance, to help you if you struggle.” He moved to her hip. “The ruin of Guidance, to help you connect with the Bringers,” he said, before standing. And then he began to draw right in the middle of her back, a large symbol, bigger and more important than every other. “Lastly, the ruin of the Light,” he sighed. “This will protect you when I cannot.”

Turning around with a smile. “Aw,” Penn smirked. “I knew you loved me.”

Kye sighed and brought four fingers to his head, lifting them up to the sky. “Sisma, help my clueless little sister—“

“Okay, I get it,” Penn stated. “I’m done joking. This is a very important day and my brother is helping me,” she smiled. “Just don’t worry about me too much. After all, I am a Seeker’s daughter,” she said confidently, mockingly strutting around the tent and moving her head like she was trying to flip her hair back, only her hair was tied in a tight bun and would not move.

“Oh, baby sister, what will I do with you?” Kye asked.

Penn let herself give him a big, cheesy grin, like she might have when she was a small child, her eyes squeezed shut as her teeth nearly took over her whole face. “Give me a kiss, wish me the luck of Sisma and watch me crush my Jequan in a very good way?” she asked.

Looking at her with those bored looking eyes, Kye kissed his little sister’s cheek. “May the Sismas bless you,” he said. “Now go out there and crush your Jequan in a very good way,” he instructed, pushing her a bit towards the exit of the Preparatory Tent towards where her ceremony would begin.

This was it. The last moment of her childhood, standing here, at the doors of a white tent, covered in berries and wearing very little clothing and she did not know how to feel. This was the day she would be cleansed of the darkness the Craz had cursed all mankind with.

It was odd, in a moment she felt conflicted, almost like she would lose a part of herself. Quickly shaking herself out of that mind set, Penn smiled and took a very deep breath, walking out, into the open, where many people stood in a large circular formation.

In the middle of it all was a man Penn always strived to please. “Come closer, my child,” he smiled. It was her father. She smiled and did as he said, kneeling before him slowly, a small excitement for making the man proud rising up in her. “Recite the way of the Sismarna,” he instructed gently with a fond smile on his face.

Raising her four fingers up to her forehead and pushing her hand up towards the stars, Penn began slowly, “Sisma saved this world. We are not but Refugees, borrowers of a land created for creatures more worthy than us. We must remain true and steadfast towards the light over darkness, Sisma over Craz and honor over witchcraft tricks,” she stated. “We must rely on the Bringers to save us and bring us light, we must make ourselves worthy to receive such light again, therefore, I, Penn Nightingale, surrender myself to them, asking Sisma to cleanse me of the darkness of this world.”

Her father smiled down on her. “Very good, Penn,” he whispered, motioning for her to stand. So the girl did, following her father obediently towards the box in the middle of the small crowd. Three Seekers helped lay her down in the open square. She was surrounded by four wooden boards, hand carved with intricate designs lining the sides, separating her from the rest of the world as one of the Seekers leaned over her with a smile.

An ancient prayer was sung over Penn’s head as her body was slowly and gently buried in pure soil, given to Gingri by Bringer Alora. The girl closed her eyes and breathed in deeply through her nose as the soil was poured over her. “May the Bringer Alora grant you a piece of her light,” one Seeker said. After only a few moments, Penn was completely immersed in the soil. “Penn Nightingale, please stand and present the dance of the earth,” the same man called above her.

So Penn slowly lifted herself from the soil and began the dance of the earth in complete silence. The eyes on her made her want to stop. Her heart was running wild and a nervous smile made its way to her face as she forced herself to keep her shy gaze on the ground. She was used to doing this dance in a group at the start of spring. Her feet moved and stomped the ground in a pattern she’d known since she was a child and as her dance came to a close people applauded her. The first of the four challenges was complete.

Next came the cleansing. A barrel of water from the river was dragged close to her. Her father helped her lay back down. “We will now be cleansing you in the water of the river,” he explained as a wave of water was poured over her. She gasped and shivered a little bit at the cool feeling, holding her breath as she was submerged. She was shivering already, listening for the sobs of Bringer Beila who some believed they could hear during this part of the ceremony.

Only, Penn didn’t hear any sobs. She heard a whisper, inaudible at first, but growing louder and louder by the second. For a long moment, Penn forgot the fact that she couldn’t breathe, intent on knowing what this Bringer was trying to tell her, if Bringer Beila was trying to communicate something to her. It was growing louder and louder by the moment until finally a strained and tired voice was able to meet her ear. “Neligra!” it nearly screamed before hands pulled Penn out of the water. That’s when she heard the worried murmurs.

“Child, are you alright?” her father called.

Reaching up to wipe at her eyes as the cold water dripped down her face. “I’m alright!” she smiled, trying not to think too much about what had just happened. Neligra. She had never heard that word before. It must’ve been in her head, the lack of oxygen. She did not know how long she had been under the water, but she knew she had to catch her breath.. “I apologize, I got lost under there,” she tried to laugh off.

The Seekers only smiled at her, helping her stand from the box. “You gave us quite a fright there, young one,” one of them chuckled. “No one ever stays beneath the water for that long. You have quite the lungs on you,” he stated. “May Bringer Beila bless you with a portion of her light.”  

It had only felt like a small moment to Penn.

And now suddenly she was standing in front of hot coals, a small pathway lined with fire. “While performing the whisper of fire, you will walk across these coals to the other side where a healer will be waiting if you need her,” her father instructor. “Don’t worry, my love, they aren’t too hot,” he assured, and Penn managed a smile, only becoming slightly intimidated by this part of the ceremony. Watching others do it always made her feel giddy, like she couldn’t wait to conquer this challenge, still that did not mean the idea of letting her own feet trail across those stones seem any less painful.

Still, taking a deep breath and hesitating for a long moment, Penn managed to hiss as her first toe touched the coal. “Bin ein jent cur,” she began whispering. “Mon grea lo pondru kin il lee…” It was nearly a chant. Maybe it was. Penn had never thought to ask. All she knew was the flames around her seemed to grow and her words echoed in her head. It only made her wonder more what the words actually meant. A Seeker must know, her father must know. She would have to ask soon.

The path was long in Penn’s head, and when she stepped into the cool grass again she sighed in relief. Everyone else was quiet. Penn looked around, the smile gone from her face as she saw that the eyes watching her had widened. She looked through the crowd, searching and searching for an answer for why everyone was looking at her like she had two heads until she found Jeen standing with Kye. Jeen offered her a stunned shrug as the Seekers surrounded her.

“May the Bringer Rakisha bless you with a piece of her light,” one of them said, almost suspiciously. “You have one last challenge, Penn Nightingale. Are you ready?”  he asked genuinely. Penn looked to her father. He looked worried.

“I am,” Penn breathed, unsure of what was happening to her. She must just be imagining things.

The last challenge was to honor Bringer Nori. It was done while singing the song of the air. Penn was supposed to let the Seekers lift her body up towards the stars while she sang, before they let her sink back to the ground. It was supposed to be a simple one, the last challenge, the last point.

And yet, as Penn began to sing this song, something began to happen right before her very eyes.

The world around her grew dark. The faces of her friends and family morphed into something new, faces with black paintings on them, ruins of darkness and danger drawn across their skin as they danced to the song around her, chanting their own language at her, one that she listened to and began to translate in her head. “Naligra!” the group screamed before she blinked and was suddenly back in reality.

The song falling gracefully from her lips stopped immediately. “Neligra…” she breathed to herself, her eyes suddenly void of any emotion or thought as her feet moved slowly and silently without her consent. She began to speak in a language she had never spoken before, walking aimlessly towards the forest she had been forbidden to go into since she was a child.

“Penn?” Jeen called, trying to follow after her, but Kye stopped her, unsure if going after his sister was safe.

The crowd didn’t dare stand in her way as an unfamiliar song began to spill from her lips in a way nothing ever had before. Penn was walking willingly towards the forbidden forest, a dazed look on her face as though she’d never seen those trees before.

“Penn,” her father called as well, following after her.

That was when Penn turned around, her eyes still very much entranced. “Neligra,” was all she said again, speaking clearly and definitively this time before her hand raised over her head. The motions the invisible people in her mind had been doing in that large circle came to her easily. Penn was not even thinking about them, Penn was hardly thinking about anything. Some instinct deep inside her knew exactly what to do. She let it take full control as she snapped her hands down towards the ground and a black smoke engulfed her.

And just like that, Penn Nightingale was gone.

[pepsi-is-okay43110]

Hello Internet. Last night I was writing my friend an email because I was bored and I started writing her a short story. I have not edited it, or finished it, and I probably never will. I just decided I wanted it to live on the internet forever. 

***

Eliza wasn't very confident. 

It didn't need to be said. The classmates that remembered she existed had described her to me as painfully shy, quiet, boring. There was a precedent here. Eliza didn't talk in class. Eliza didn't raise her hand. Just like the cafeteria food was always worse on Tuesdays because that was Ms. Greenbee's day off, and just like the vending machine in the music hallway didn't work, Eliza was not confident. She was a background character. 

Which is why I was so surprised, among the various other reasons, when she grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me behind the bleachers on my fourth day of school. I wasn't necessarily mad about this development--I had asked around about her enough to know she always sat at the back of the class, which sort of speaks for itself. Still, it's one thing to be on your way to developing a nice, safe, admiring-from-afar crush on your classmate, and a whole other thing to be up close and personal, her fist wrinkling the top you had bought last fall from Target. 

"What are y-"

"Shut up." 

My eyebrows climbed, seeking refuge under my bangs. She was mad--at me? No, she wasn't looking at me (which is a shame), she was glaring over my shoulder. Before I could turn around to eye up whatever was going on behind me, she pulled me further into the shade. Yeah, okay, every teen movie I had ever seen told me this was the ultimate make out spot. Did she know this? There was no way this was purely coincidental.

I cleared my throat. This was not the time to be a horny teenager. This was the time for answers. 

"What's going on?" I whispered. And I only leaned in so she could hear me better, not because her shampoo kind of smelled like mint and watermelon.

Eliza wasn't very confident. It didn't need to be said.

So when she started making out with me, without warning, behind the school bleachers, I was, understandably, a bit shocked. 

Not so shocked that I didn't run my fingers through her hair and step closer, but you know. What a mystery this was. A mystery I would... um... a mystery I would get to the bottom of. (Was she wearing perfume?) 

"Eliza?" Ah. And the plot thickens. 

I am blocking Eliza from whoever is walking past. I think the voice coming from behind me may belong to Brady, the football captain, but seeing as I only transferred in four days ago, I cannot be sure. I am also trying really hard to not think about how Eliza is still holding me by the shirt, because I am focusing. On this mystery. And not the fact that her hair is really soft. 

I hear Probably-Brady stroll by. He stops four times. We are hidden in the shadows, and my hair is long and blonde, while Eliza's is short and red, so he passes us without incident. There is the incident, while he is almost directly behind me, when Eliza sort of bites my lip. So, assuming nothing happened in the minute or so following that incident, there was no incident. But I cannot say certainly, because I kind of forgot to pay attention. 

I am a detective and I am figuring out this mystery. Best in the field. The newspaper should hire me. 

Probably-Brady's footsteps faded into the distance. Eliza stops kissing me. I add another bullet point to my Things I Know About Eliza list, which had been and continued to be very short. She was very serious. She stared after where Probably-Brady had gone, and her forehead creased, because she frowns when she thinks seriously. 

"Sorry about that," she said, squinting. She puts her hands on my shoulders while she rises to her tip toes, to see over my shoulder better. 

"I... what." 

Great. Fantastic. So eloquent. Look out Harvard, I'm coming through. 

I want the turf to open up and swallow me on the spot. I wish I was in the middle of a terrible fire. Say something, say something! 

"So... that was weird." Which is not better. She probably thinks I'm a total dork. Oh... but then she's looking at me. What was I... right. Mystery. Her eyes are very green but that was a Later Me problem. I am a serious detective and she should be impressed by me. Serious detectives ask serious detective questions. 

"So... you gonna explain what just happened here, or...?" 

A new bullet point. Eliza may be the kind of person who drags the new girl behind the bleachers to make out with for questionable reasons, but she is not a talker. She doesn't kiss and tell, and by that I mean she will kiss you, but not tell you why. In other words, she nodded at me, which answered none of my questions, and ran towards the school, in the opposite direction than Probably-Brady had gone. 

And then the bell rang. I spent 8th period not thinking about the feeling of her eyelashes on my cheeks. I was very focused on calculus. No I don't know what the homework was. 

***

Beverly was odd. 

I didn't know much about her, but that had more to do with the fact that she hadn't even transferred in a week ago than with any lack of desire to. 

Well, I did know she was a good kisser. Which I suppose was a rather backwards way to go about things. One would usually know things about a person before they get to the "is she good at snogging" phase in their relationship. 

Anyway. 

Brady was in my orchestra class, which was a shame, because I like orchestra. Missing it was a drag, but ever since I had found out he was totally, actually evil last month, sacrifices were had to be made. 

There are lots of ways someone can be evil. Take, for example, Mr. Calbur, who sent girls home if they were wearing short skirts. Brady was not any ordinary flavor of evil, though. Seeing as how I'm kind of destined to save the world or whatever, I think I get a free pass to declare someone actually cosmically despicable. That was Brady. 

Over summer break, Brady's parents had apparently decided to join the Wailers, and that was an ideological subscription fit for the whole family, it seemed, since last month in chemistry I saw the Wailer pendant on his bracelet. 

Which was inconvenient. 

So far, school had been a refuge from magical drama. But he knew I was the next Queen, and I knew he was a Wailer, so. I wasn't quite sure what to do about him. 

It seems my subconscious had decided my master plan was to make out with pretty random girls behind the Away bleachers. Which had worked short term. But now that I was- 

"Hey!" 

Ah. Beverly. 

Beverly was blonde, tall, and wanted to go to Harvard. I knew this, because she was also loud. And friends with everyone in our English class (but me) by now, somehow. 

And sitting down next to me in the cafeteria. That was another fact about her. She was sitting down next to me in the cafeteria. 

"...Hello." She smiled at me. I nodded at her. 

It was Wednesday. That meant the pasta salad was mostly edible. (Ms. Greenbee could only do so much.) I chewed a very slow, deliberate bite of penne. Beverly did not get the hint, and continued to sit there, eating her salad. 

"So..." she said. I decided to not make this easy for her. 

"Uh. Yesterday. Was... um. Lovely weather yesterday huh?" she said. I had never seen someone become so quickly and visually horrified. 

I amended my original stance. This was painful to watch. 

"Sorry," I said. "For kissing you." 

"...oh." She looked... she looked sad. Confused. She was probably just confused. 

"It was... it's complicated. I needed to hide," I said, because  something about her face was bugging me because I didn't want her to be sad because it was annoying. 

"Hide from what?" she asked, and I did not want to explain it to her. 

"There's a coffee stain on your shirt," I say, and I leave the table. 

***

Eliza is mean. 

I feel like the fact that I like it so much is concerning. But everything about her is unexpected. She's so much more than shy. She's not shy at all. 

I've sat with her every day since that first time, and every day I ask her questions and she insults me and I want to kiss her a lot. 

I have also noticed things about her. Because I am a detective. She has a tattoo on her neck that I think is a crown. It looks symbolic, like it stands for something or has a hidden meaning. She likes to wear cardigans. Her favorite rude comments to make (I assume they are her favorite because she makes them most often) are about my freckles. I have too many, apparently. She is vegetarian. Or, maybe she doesn't trust the cafeteria's meat. Which is understandable. She always finishes lunch early. She does, in fact, wear perfume. 

I'm a detective. These are important observations. I do not know about her tattoo because I stare at the back of her head in the library and think about her hair. That never happened. I just make very important detective-y observations. I am very dedicated to this mystery. 

I am also not very good at talking to her. Which is really hampering my investigation. 

I have, hypothetically maybe technically speaking, asked her why she "looked like an elf." She stared at me for three minutes like I was dumber than anyone she had ever met before. I did, eventually, find time in my busy schedule to think about how green her eyes are. Unrelated, but the day after that we had English homework that I did not know about. Even though Mrs. Elesby mentioned it in class. And everyone else did it. 

The admiring-from-afar crush that had been in the works, obviously, had become quite unmanageable, like overgrown vines or something. I did sit with her every day at lunch. It wasn't quite as "afar" as I had predicted it would be my first few days here. 

She is in the library after school, and I am the library's aid now. Which totally isn't creepy, because I asked even before the bleacher incident, so it's like. Pure coincidence. 

Another person who was in the library: Brady. 

He was heading towards her. Seeing as how she had made out with a random girl to avoid talking to him last week, and as far as I knew (which wasn't very far, admittedly, but it was all I had to go on) nothing had changed since then. 

Mr. Platneib didn't have anything for me to do, so I was almost 75% certain I was not going to get in trouble for talking to my friends. (Were we friends? Eliza had never said we were friends. But she also critiqued my essay in our peer review, and no one else's. Maybe that meant we were friends?) 

"Hi," I said, standing in between Eliza and Brady. She slowly looked up from her book. Jane Austen. Nice. 

"Hello," she said slowly, looking at me like I was speaking another language. I sat on the table so she could see Brady behind me. 

"Hello," she said, more confidently this time. 

"What are you reading?" I asked, and it was dumb but better than asking why she looked like an elf. Which, now that I think about it, was totally a super detective-y question. Maybe. 

"Sense and Sensibility," she said, closing her book. 

She was closing her book in favor of talking to me. That didn't happen. We were in uncharted territory. At lunch when she brought a book, she rarely spared a glance in my direction. 

Cool, cool, cool. Okay. Don't be dumb. 

"So like. Uh. Football." 

Shit. 

"Eliza?" I hear from behind me. 

Double shit. 

***

Beverly was not very good at being a buffer. 

She was sitting on the table, very close to me. This is unrelated. I don't know why I noticed this. There was nothing to notice. Brady was talking to me now. There are important things to think about. 

"Eliza?" 

"Brady." 

Five seconds of silence exactly. It's very unlikely that the pause was five seconds by chance. It's too specific a number. Which means he counted it out on purpose. For dramatic effect. Which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Which is probably why he joined the Wailers. Not a lot going up there. 

"Purple looks good on you," he says. I am not wearing purple. Beverly looks confused. I am not. 

"Red looks good on you," I respond. Beverly looks more confused. Brady does not. He grins, and he looks evil. Because he is. 

"We're learning about the French Revolution in history, no?" he says, and I want to rip his head off. 

"Real monarchy isn't even comparable to the Queen system," I say, perhaps not vague enough for public but. Well. I am the Queen. (Future Queen.) I think I can be a little abrupt. 

He laughs, and I want to tear his head off. 

"See you around, 'Liza." I do not respond. I can tell he counts to five before walking away. (So dumb.) 

Beverly looks adorable concerned. 

I want to go home. My cats never want to talk to me. My cats aren't confusing annoying. So I do. *** And then I was tired and I stopped writing. But I am very gay, and hypothetically creative, and maybe one day I will continue, if I ever figure out what would happen next.  So 

Here is is. 

[404fmdminjung]

aesthetic & headcanon — favorite cities, us version

summary: minjung’s been privileged enough to have been able to travel a lot of the united states due to her father’s conferences / family trips. this, along with fuse’s north american tour allowed her to explore many cities. though the united states isn’t her favorite country, there are still certain cities that have a place in her heart. warnings: none wc: 1094

seo minjung isn’t a fan of big cities — or at least the cities paraded around on mass com, and sns. meaning, she’s not a fan of los angeles, toronto, dallas, etc. these places, in her opinion, are all tourists traps filled with tourists every time she goes. hence, why she puts LA on the places she hates

the exception to this rule is new york. mainly, new york is big enough that she finds something new each time she goes, and everyone seems too in tuned to what they’re doing to pay attention to anything else — plus, new york holds the arts.

it has her favorite museum, which is the guggenheim museum. the art museums make this place a lot better / tolerable. though, she will say that each little “town” in new york feels like its own city, so she has her favorites. 

in new york, park slope — brooklyn new york is hands down her favorite place in the city. it’s far away from the hustle and bustle of manhattan that she finds peace and solitude. speaking of, minjung won’t be caught dead in times square because she calls that the resurgance of hell. it’s too busy and too many tourists

new york k-town? an even bigger hell. she remembers going there as a kid because her mother didn’t want a fancy restaurant that night when they were visiting — her mother wanted literally guk-bap, so that’s how they went there. but in reality, all child minjung remembers is just loud noises and people on their way to the clubs. it’s no seoul, she could tell you that at a young age.

however, avoid those places and she finds new york enjoyable and everything at her disposal. when she got there in the later years of her life, she only realized that she could’ve probably lived in new york had she not chosen to be an idol. there’s a charm about new york — infatuation where in some alternate world, she’d live her twenties there.

the next city’s random, but she remembers going there because one of her father’s conferences. her father had this big global conference in pittsburgh one year, and the whole family needed to tag along.

on her free time, she stumbled upon the andy warhol museum because andy warhol was born and raised in pittsburgh, even went to the college her sister was looking into. nonetheless, the vast collection of warhol was enough to capture her heart.

it was also really dreary weather? gray skies the entire time, and she remembers a passerby telling her that they never get sunny days all too often. that was pittsburgh’s charm — she remembers the city because it’s just all too gloomy. it wasn’t even a big city? it was almost like a micro-city, which she found endearing.

the biggest kicker to pittsburgh was the phipps garden, which she also fell in love with there. there was a dinner one night, and she ended up getting lost and doodling away while her father spent time chatting away to other important people. 

very underrated city, and she’d want to go back when she has free time in the future because she thinks that even now, nobody in pittsburgh would recognize her because the city is so small.

now on the otherside of pennsylvania, minjung loves philadelphia. the streets are old, especially backside of rittenhouse square. she remembers the ‘ivy tours’ her parents took her and her siblings on, but paid no attention to penn. instead, she paid attention to the architecture and loved how old the city felt.

it’s a quaint city, and she likes how rich? the city is in history. penn was whatever, but what she really found love with was the almost microscopic scale of new york in philadelphia. it’s small enough she can get around, but it’s not big like new york to swallow her whole. 

it’s rich in “american” history, but she ignores that. just knows it’s filled with the person on the hundred dollar bills. 

old city is a tourist trap, but she still likes it — she won’t admit otherwise.

luckily, her brother got accepted there and even if he’s on a gap year, she’s hoping when he does attend she’ll be able to visit once or twice because she likes the city that much.

maybe, she just loves pennsylvania lmao

chicago? no. minjung loves champaign, illinois. she remembers visiting here when her dad went to give a lecture at the campus -- her dad thought it’d be nice “family bonding” to go somewhere like this. there was no deep dish, nor the bean. instead, what she was met with was just plain cornfields. it was the first time she saw something so country side, american sitcom in her life. 

driving for hours, and all she saw in the window were cornfields. because of that, she was smitten with it — remembered the city long enough to scribble it down on her notebook. from time to time, she wonders if she’d ever go back? maybe, it was just one of those 1 time deals, but nonetheless she considers it one of her favorite places.

berkeley california. she went because her sister thought she wanted to go to uc berkeley at some point, so the whole family went on a trip there one week. nothing like she expected and it was her first taste of “american college life” at a young age. 

the general vision? was just a picture perfect image of college kids in what you see in movies. that sort of stereotype coming to life as she walked past sather tower, with people handing out flyers. minjung was young — 13 ish, but still.. it’s that romanticism that comes from every teenager wanting to be a college student. 

she liked the colors and liked how vast / green the college campus was. even told her mom she’d like to go there someday, but when her mom asked what major — minjung said nevermind.

college town, and that’s still something minjung wishes she experienced. though, she does have a family member attending school there. so, someday as an adult she wants to go back and sit on memorial glade and read a book.

takeaway: seo minjung might just love to romanticize what could’ve been had she been a college student. because she was so young visiting these places, she doesn’t have recollections (aside from new york) of visiting as an adult. it’s the childhood memories that make these places her ‘fav’ us cities.

[invisiblue]

I was tagged by @noruil (ty for this moment of self evaluation) to list 3-5 (or 8 👀) snippets of writing/literature/media that live in your head rent-free to the point where you have them memorised; write them down from memory, no cheating allowed. Well i cheated, bc they are feelings, they are strong but also blurry somehow.

Well it took less than i thought 😳

"Hapiness only real when shared". Into The Wild (2005) dir. Sean Penn

"I go to seek a great perhaps". Looking for Alaska, Jonh Green (in the book there is a lot of quotes, and these were François Rabelais last words in 1553)(but since i read it in Green's book ill leave like this)

"How they loved each another, these three, how they had suffered for each another, and yet how much joy they clearly took from simply being in the same room. [...] Tessa, Will, and their lost Jem stood together in a tight knot. Magnus knew that for a few moments nothing existed in the world but the three of them". The Bane Chronicles, Cassandra Clare. (The funny part is that i never read the bane chronicles, but this quote is the heart of these three characters in The Infernal Devices which i love very much, and since im back to my reading after almost 4 years i had to put something from Cassandra bc she IS the queen of fantasy)

When Naomi was talking to Lito "The real violence, the violence I realized was unforgivable, is the violence that we do to ourselves, when we're too afraid to be who we really are". Sense8 1×09, The Wachowskis

"No, he can't look at her for fear of loosing her. That's no reason, he was told not to do that."/"He choose the memory of her that's why he turns. He doesn't make the lover's choice but the poet's"/"Perhaps she was the one who said turn around". Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) dir. Céline Sciamma (well who am i lying to. This entirely film lives rent free on my mind, but this scene of Sophie, Marianne and Héloïse is just too much, and idk anything about mythology xD im so sorry @noruil )(by searching for these i found out that the scripts are never ever going to be released in english, i guess it is time to learn french after all)

"Women have minds and souls as well as hearts, ambition and talent as well as beauty and I’m sick of being told that love is all a woman is fit for. But... I am so lonely". Little Women (2019) dir. Greta Gerwig

“I want this one moment. It’s what I want in a relationship, which might explain why I am single now. It's that thing when you’re with someone and you love them and they know it and they love you and you know it, but it’s a party and you’re both talking to other people and you’re laughing and shining and you look across the room and catch each other’s eyes but not because you’re possessive or it’s precisely sexual but because that is your person in this life. And it’s funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it’s this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It’s sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don’t have the ability to perceive them. That’s what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess." Frances Ha (2012) dir. Noah Baumbach

Anyone who feels like doing a self evaluation like thisss ✨

[kolasihq]

*VESTA EVENT #006

*SUPERNATURAL AU_

*DATE_

The event will begin SUNDAY OCTOBER 18th at 12pm EST and end on SUNDAY OCTOBER 25 at 12pm EST.

*SPECIAL FEATURES_

The monster mash, it was a graveyard smash

The (momentarily) supernatural town of Vesta, MI Halloween is a week long celebration. The supernatural beings of Vesta each put on their own Halloween party, each one trying to one up the other, and invite the mortals to enjoy the party. In a world of the magic and mystic though, not everything is as it seems.

Party #1 - The Fairies  Wednesday Night Hosted by: @jooniesong​   Magical Element: You might want to stay away from the punch at this party, unless you don’t mind being candid the rest of the night. Just like fairies can’t lie, this punch makes the drinker truthful, and only truthful, the rest of the evening. Other party events/location: Its going to be at one of the parks. Midsummer Nights Dream-esque. Lots of pretty flowers and twinkly lights and homemade food. 

Party #2 - The Vampires Thursday Night Hosted by: @lysataylor​ Magical Element: Most Vesta Vampires have learned to survive without drinking human blood, so mortals are safe! However, we suggest you stay away from the impressive portrait of Dracula. If you look into his eyes for even a split second, you fall under a vampiric hypnotism and will be controlled by the next person you speak to. Other party events/location: Royal Museum of Art.  Decadent black tie charity event with a small band and cocktails.

Party #3- The Witches Friday Night Hosted by: @autumnhornburg​ Magical Element: The Witches are known for some of the best brews in Vesta. At this party, they’re letting everyone sample their newest drinks, and they just might have some influence on your mood. The drink in the yellow bottle makes you cheery. The drink in the green bottle makes you jealous. Pink makes you flirty. Blue makes you sad. Purple makes you sleepy. And orange makes you scared. Other party events/location: Warehouse in the Industrial Park that has been done up for the night.

Party #4 - The Werewolves Saturday Night (Full Moon) Hosted by: @carter-penn​ Magical Element: The werewolves have set up a huge corn maze, but you don’t want to get lost in the maze after the full moon rises. At that point it turns into a haunted corn maze, run by the werewolves in their wolf form - unable to change back to their human form. (Don’t worry mortals, they have much more control in their wolf forms now than they do in all the old tales.) Other party events/location: Party to be held in Sweetville Park in Quincy Borough as some of the most sinister, immoral, wicked folks hide behind the white picket fences of the suburbs. Themed drinks from local bartenders like the Wolf’s Blood (Whiskey, Vermouth, Blood Orange Liqueur, Bitters, Orange Bitters), the Silver Bullet (Vodka, Lemon juice, Gin), and the Full Moon Cocktail (Black Forest red wine, bourbon, simple syrup, and a large round ice ball). Wandering throughout the party are local magicians practicing slight of hand and transformation of objects. 

*NOTE_

 In true supernatural fashion, time is a little wonky. The parties are simply backdrops for threads and you can play as if you’re at any party throughout the week of event (they don’t have to be in chronological order). 

General lore for each species can be applied to your characters. If you have any questions about what is or isn’t allowed, just ask! Also, always check with your RP partner to make sure they’re okay with whatever supernatural elements you’re applying to your threads. 

The magical elements of the parties are completely optional! They are there to inspire and encourage different, fun threads.

This is an AU event, so the things that happen during this week will not bleed into your normal character development, etc. 

For those who want nothing to do with a supernatural element, you’re welcome to play mortals at a normal Halloween party since all magical elements at the parties are optional. We encourage Halloween costumes and other normal Halloween traditions! 

Unless your character is picked to host one of the parties, you’re welcome to change the supernatural species of your character prior to the start of the event from what you had originally put on the survey.

Please tag any general event starters with #vestaevent006

Please tag any party with #vestaevent followed by the species (for example #vestaeventwitches)

HAVE FUN WITH THIS! 

Please like this post once you have read it!

[queenofcarrots]

Manuscripts in Star Wars (And Star Wars Fan Fiction)

This is the text of a talk originally presented at the conference Fan Cultures and the Premodern World at Oxford University in July, 2019, organized by Dr. Juliana Dresvina of the Oxford History Faculty. This presentation represents a collaboration between myself and Dr Brandon Hawke of Rhode Island College, and is essentially a summation of our video project Sacred Texts: Codices Far, Far Away, (Introduction to the series at that link) and examples below will include links to brief conversations where Brandon and I talk about the examples in a bit more detail. This has also been posted on my academic blog but I’m cross-posting here to reach a different audience.

Hi, My name is Dot Porter, and I want to start by thanking Juliana for the wonderful organization of this conference, and also for including me in the program. This is very different from the kind of conference I normally present at – in my day job I’m a special collections curator at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in medieval manuscripts, their digitization, and their post-digital lives. Basically I get paid to digitize medieval manuscripts and then play with them. (I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis project, funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources, which is just finished, and through which we digitized and made available for reuse more than 465 codices from institutions in Philadelphia)

Aside from my family there are two things in life I adore: medieval manuscripts, and Star Wars. I must admit that while I am a scholar of manuscripts, of a sort, I am also a fan. I love manuscripts – the way they look, feel, smell; I love to hold a manuscript and think about all the other people who have touched it, and consider the signs of use that imply their long histories. This interest has led to current work on conceiving of medieval manuscripts as transformative works themselves, first presented at Leeds 2018 and work I’m continuing looking specifically as Books of Hours. (My original draft of this presentation featured some of this work, but it threatened to take over, so I axed it all; a blog post of my Leeds paper is on my blog, if you’re curious).

While I am arguably a manuscript scholar, I am most definitely not a scholar of fandom studies – you will, I’m sure, find my theory wanting – nor am I a scholar of Star Wars, but I am a fan. I do the things that fans do. I’m on Tumblr, although that platform is pretty dead now, and I have a fandom Twitter account, which is much more active. I write and consume fan fiction, and I regularly commission artwork to illustrate my stories and stories I would like to write. I have written exactly one notable meta, which was even picked up by the AV Club – they actually cited me, unlike many of the other websites, which only cited the person who stole my work and posted it on Reddit!

In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, released in December 2017, we were introduced, for the first time, to manuscripts in the Star Wars universe. I had avoided trailers and spoilers, so the first time I saw this was in the theater, and I was, as the kids say, shooketh. Not only one manuscript, but a whole shelf-full of them! And they’re important. Rey, our heroine, has been sent to the island of Ahch-to to bring Luke Skywalker back to help the Resistance, led by Luke’s sister General Leia Organa, defeat the First Order. Rey has been there for a day or so, following Luke around, making no headway, when she is called to the Uneti tree, a large, hollow, Force-sensitive tree that houses these manuscripts. It’s in the company of these books that Rey and Luke finally communicate with each other, when Rey admits that she has only recently come to the Force and that she needs Luke to train her to be a Jedi, and when Luke grudgingly agrees to give her some lessons, but also tells her that the Jedi must die. Exciting stuff, and the books are there to hear it.

According to Star Wars The Last Jedi: The Visual Dictionary, Luke Skywalker scoured the galaxy for these texts and collected them himself, storing them in the tree that we see in the film. So these texts weren’t originally all in one collection, they are from many different planets, potentially written in ten different places, ten different times, ten different languages and alphabets, although there’s only one we ever see in the film. The starwars.com blog post “Inside the Lucasfilm Archives: The Jedi Texts” gives us an up-close look at the prop book that was shown in the film; as you can see it’s a real book, written and bound, and even damaged. There are manuscripts in our collection at Penn that look not very unlike this book. It is a real manuscript.

This is one manuscript in the universe. What else do we know about manuscripts in star wars in general? To be honest: not much. But we do know that it is rare to write by hand (as opposed to writing with digital technology like data pads). In Claudia Gray’s novel Bloodlines, which takes place six years before The Last Jedi, Leia Organa is preparing for a fancy party when she finds a handwritten note at her seat, and she’s shocked: “Virtually nobody wrote any longer; it had been years since Leia had seen actual words handwritten in ink on anything but historical documents.” So it appears that, by the time the current films take place, there are no longer manuscripts being actively written in the galaxy, or at least it’s very rare.

Interestingly there is one character in the Sequel Trilogy who it is suggested knows how to write by hand: Kylo Ren, formerly Ben Solo. There is a scene – the same scene is actually shown three times, from three different points of view – where a young padawan Ben is sleeping and his Uncle, Luke Skywalker, comes to him and looks into his head, sensing great darkness in his dreams. Ben calls his lightsaber to either attack his uncle or defend himself against him, depending on the version of the scene, and in one of these shots we can see that he has a calligraphy set in his bedroom. We can see the set here, in a screenshot of his desk just before he calls his lightsaber over – which knocks over the pen and inkwell and jar of parchment scrolls in the process – and in The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

What else do we know about these specific books? There is concept art in The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi; including six internal pages and six shots of the bindings.

I remember looking at the concept art and thinking how alike and different they were from the manuscripts I’ve had the pleasure of working with at Penn, and I discovered that my Twitter mutual Brandon Hawke, an Assistant Professor of English at Rhode Island College, was having many of the same thoughts that I was. So in October of 2018, Brandon came down to Penn and we sat for hours in front of a green screen and talked about manuscripts and Star Wars, comparing books in the Penn collections to what we see of the manuscripts in the concept art. We’ve been posting snippets of our discussions on the Schoenberg Institute YouTube channel, and there’s a link at the top there if you want to check them out. So for most of the rest of this paper I’ll be walking through some of the possible comparisons between real manuscripts and the Star Wars manuscripts. I want to stress that we did this for fun, and not for science, and that we’re limited by the collections at Penn and by our own knowledge.

Consider yourself warned: The remainder of this presentation is essentially an educated fan, raving.

As far as Brandon and I have been able to determine, this is a previously unknown script in the Star Wars universe. When I saw it my mind immediately went to Ge’ez, shown here in an early 20th century book of Hymns from Ethiopia. There’s something about the blockiness that is just slightly curved, and a few of the letter forms are slightly similar although I don’t think that’s necessarily meaningful. (video)

We also made a comparison with Coptic, which is thinner, more curved, and perhaps a closer match. (video)

For the third example we looked not at the text, but at its layout on the page. We found a similarity with this 16th century collection of Persian poetry, both its illuminated header (similar in aspect to the illuminated blue line of text in the center of the ancient Jedi text) and the framing of the text. (video)

Aside from text, it is clear that the concept art of pages supplied to us here represent astronomical texts. This is really not surprising, considering that in the Star Wars universe we have a galaxy that seems to have been very closely connected, between planets and cultures, for a very long time, and so it makes sense that even the most ancient texts would be concerned with objects in the system – stars and planets and moons – and how they related to and interact with one another. And this is a major concern in medieval astronomical texts, too: these texts illustrate people trying to make sense of the system they live in, in the best way they know.

One of the pages in the jedi texts is the symbol of the Galactic Republic, but placed on some kind of chart, with characters dispersed through the chart and text – perhaps labels – along the outside. We found a similarity with this chart in LJS 57, a 14th century astronomical anthology from Spain. I don’t know exactly what this chart represents but I can tell you that astronomical texts are full of similar charts; it was one of the ways that medieval people made sense of the data they had available to them. (video)

Something similar is happening here, in LJS 449, a 15th century German medical and astronomical miscellany. These charts are perhaps a bit simpler than the Spanish chart, but they have that attractive blue coloring. Both the coloring and the arrangement of data around the circle reminded Brandon and me of the diagrams on this page of the Jedi texts. (video)

The next three slides show diagrams from LJS 26, a mid-13th century copy of Johannes de Sacro Bosco’s, Algorismus and Tractatum de sphaera, an immensely popular text that was copied and translated and commented upon from the time it was written in the early 13th century (it is possible that our copy was written during Sacrobosco’s lifetime) through the 16th century. It is full of diagrams illustrating the movement of the planets, and the sun, and the moon in relation to the earth. I personally find these diagrams most reminiscent of the two pages on the bottom left, although I feel like their organization suggests a sense of scale that is lacking in the medieval diagrams. (video)

Medieval astronomers only had to think about the earth, and the moon, and the sun, and a few other planets. On the other hand, the Star Wars universe operates on a whole other level – a galaxy with countless star systems and planets that aren’t even charted. When I look at these diagrams I see a clever attempt to illustrate scale using the relatively primitive technology of ink and paper in place of the star charts and 3D maps that we see in the films.

On the other hand, there are some really simple 1:1 comparisons to be made, such as this diagram, which pretty clearly illustrates the phases of a moon. (video)

I want to take a quick look at the bindings of these manuscripts, particularly this piece of concept art, which is quite similar to the prop that we see in the film.

This has a fairly standard binding structure, quite similar to LJS 102, the Ethiopic manuscript we looked at earlier, except for the front cover, which is built of three separate pieces that are obviously connected together. In western bindings, if a wooden cover were a composite of multiple pieces, we would expect that to be obscured, as in this late 13th century Catalonian manuscripts (It’s hard to tell, which is the point, but this cover is made of three pieces of wood).

The only example of a cover like this I’ve seen is from the Walters Art Museum, this 14th century Ethiopian Gospel book. The cover was broken and then sewn back together, but this was the result of an accident, not done on purpose.

My colleague Alberto Campagnolo also suggested that it is similar to the Chinese practice of writing on bamboo strips and binding them together, as in this 18th century example.

This is one instance where the artists who created these concepts have done an excellent job with suggesting a manuscript culture – in fact, several manuscript cultures, cultures that use what is available to them. There are two manuscripts here that appear to be bound in decorated tusks, one that has what appear to be shells embedded in a leather binding, and another that might be bound in hairy skin or – I like to think – had the binding grown on it underground. In any case these all suggest books written in different places, perhaps at different times, and as a manuscript scholar I find that fascinating.

Following up on this I wanted to see how the concept of the manuscripts was received by writers of fan fiction. As a fan author myself I have written a few stories featuring the ancient Jedi texts, but given my interests that made sense; I was curious to see what other authors have done with them. I think there’s more extensive work to be done here, but in reading through the 40 or so stories I was able to find (by searching AO3 for ancient jedi texts, and the “jedi text” tag) I discovered not surprisingly that the stories focused on the text of the books, not on their physical appearance (which is at least partially due to fan fiction being a written medium, vs. film being a visual medium) and that there are three main themes that can appear by themselves or be combined:

Rey can read the texts on her own, or she needs help (Kylo Ren, C3PO, Obi Wan Kenobi’s force ghost)

The translation is used to further the story (whether or not it happens)

The texts do something (e.g., magic spells)

What will happen next? Will there be manuscripts in the Rise of Skywalker, the final film in this last trilogy? Of course I hope so, and it seems likely. The Uneti tree was struck by lightning and burned, but Rey took the manuscripts with her (here is a screenshot of a drawer in the Millennium Falcon, at the very end of the film, showing the books clearly safe and tucked away)

and in the Poe Dameron comic #27 we learn that Rey has been working with C3PO to translate the texts.

And there’s also the spectre of Kylo Ren with a calligraphy set; if he had access to these manuscripts when he was studying with Luke Skywalker, it’s possible that he has read and perhaps even annotated some of the books. Only time will tell, and I for one can’t wait for December.

[the-fox-populi-says]

Written & directed by Fangirl Quarantino

Ao3 has been very Foxphobic in that first I had to wait a whole day for an invite once I decided in the spur of a moment I should really make an account, and then telling me my username did not follow requirements (...it really did?? I swear!). So. Ao3 link might follow when that is fixed but for now, have a direct copy-paste of my latest one-shot. Summary: After an Order meeting runs late during a curfew, Shiro is stuck in Faust Mansion. Mephisto offers to poof him home, but had a few glasses and Shiro does not trust drunk magic. He also doesn't trust drunk opportunist Mephisto conveniently having no guest rooms available, and goes in search of alternative beds. Characters: Shiro, Mephisto, Belial, Ukobach Tags: #There was only one bed #which may have been by design #omg they were curfew mates #adult language #nudity #violence #banter #humour #alcohol #mature #Suggestiveness #no out-right smut #But the Thought is there #and a little #erotic aesphyxiation #never killed anyone #oh wait it did actually #Not this time though #dubious consent #or however you call relocating an unconscious naked person for your amusement but without actually feeling them up #well maybe a little #but with a towel

Enjoy~

“What do you mean, I can't go home?!” Shiro yelled at the unmoved face of the butler.

“Curfew, sir. It's past 9 pm.”

Fuck. That was right- there had been a surge in demon activity lately, and as a counter-measure, the Order had issued a strict no-going-out-after-dark policy. “Oh come on- I'm a professional! Any demon encountering me is in more danger than I am.”

“Even unarmed?” A smug, slightly lilting voice inquired behind his back. Shiro balled his fists, surpressing the urge to use them on the face that voice belonged to.

The same face and voice that had informed him a couple weeks earlier he was no longer allowed to bring firearms to Order meetings. Not since he'd emptied almost an entire magazine into the back of Mephisto's chair after the Osaka incident. Insufficient informants his ass. As if that mission hadn't been payback for the whoopie cushion the week before. As if a round of bullets would even kill the bastard. Wimps.

“Could neither of you have informed me sooner?! I was only sticking around because captain naggy pants over here-” he threw out his entire arm to gesture; “-insisted it would be bad form to leave with all the high-ups still here.”

“Bitte do not yell at my butler- it's not hisch fault you don't know how to use a watch.”

Shiro again considered the use of his fists, but instead opted for a look of Promise over his shoulder at the grinning demon getting up from behind the fancy desk.

“Oh relax, Shiro. I can juscht teleport you home.” “Oh nononono- There will be no. Poofing.” He switched from fists to pointing, and waved a warning finger at Mephisto's raised eyebrows.

“May I ask warum nicht?”

“Because you just had to serve prosecco at your stupid meeting and you have the poorest alcohol tolerance in the world. And a sweet tooth.” The eyebrows shot down, along with the corners of his mouth in an affronted expression.

“I had three glasses!” “Yes, and I can see you swaying from where I stand.”

Not to mention the increased use of German. Shiro folded his arms.

“Last time you looked like that and poofed me somewhere, I ended up in the middle of a rice field because you had sake on your brain.”

Mephisto made a dismissive motion with one hand. With the other he pretended not to grip the edge of the desk for balance.

“I'll juscht concentrate very hard on your apartment, it'll be fine.”

“Oh hell no- I don't wanna end up half inside my shower cabin, or inside a wall. I'm staying here. You have like five hundred rooms anyway.”

He turned around. “Yo Belial, point me to a guest room, would ya.”

No response. The butler looked even stiffer than usual, but bounced his eyes back and forth between the two men as if following a tennis match.

Shiro growled. “What?”

Finally, Belial mustered the courage to speak. “I'm afraid there are currently none available, sir.”

“...What.”

He shot a venomous look at Mephisto, who avoided his gaze and uncharacteristically fumbled with the buttons on his vest.

“I may have... clearedthelaschtonetomakeroomfurmeinecollectionofPokémoncards.”

Of course.

“So make a new one!”

Wrong move. Never order Mephisto around. The somewhat apologetic pout was gone in an instant and replaced by silken lechery.

“Oh now Shiro, you don't want me to use my magic while drunk, do you~?”

“...Seriously.”

“You know, there is another option...” The green eyes briefly slid sideways, returning to the exorcist's face to serve up a very clear and satisfied Suggestion.

Funny, how those three glasses of pink bubbly suddenly seemed to have left his system. Even funnier how there suddenly was a direct, open door from his office to his bedroom.

“...You wish.” Shiro planted his feet firmly on the ground. “Allow me to decline that offer with a resounding Fuck No.”

Mephisto rolled his eyes. “Oh please- I'll likely won't even use it tonight. There's a Voltron marathon on channel 12.”

“Ever heard of the phrase 'tying the cat to the bacon', because that's what me sleeping in your bed would be.”

“You overestimate this cat's interescht in your bacon.”

Waddayaknow. Little bubbly left in there after all. But apparently not so much that he couldn't poof himself into a shimmering baby blue chamber robe.

“Bullshit.” Shiro scoffed. “I've seen you checking out my bacon since the moment it turned legal and probably a good bit before that.”

“Very well.” The demon shrugged, and assumed a leisurely walk towards the pillow nest in front of the tv, with the obvious intent to install himself there for the rest of the night. “You're welcome to find yourself the softest spot of floor, then.”

Shiro sauntered after him, a smirk creeping up on his lips. “Actually, I have a better idea.” The moment Mephisto's satin-clad butt would have touched the pink bean bag, Shiro yoinked it from under him, causing the bony structure to make sudden, harsh contact with the marble tiles.

“Ow! What in-”

“Bed aqcuired. Goodnight.” Bean bag under one arm, Shiro marched off.

Mephisto crawled out of the surrounding pillows, rubbing his back with one hand and carrying murderous intent in his eyes.

“Give that BACK, the show's starting in 2 minutes!”

“If you're so confident about your magic, why don't you make me.”

Wrong move again, yes. But too delectable to pass up on. Shiro grinned, tossing the bean bag back and forth between his hands.

“Unless of course, you feel a bit nervous about your aim while I'm standing right in front of your precious figurine collection.”

A hesitation. Mephisto wavered. Little bubbly left in there after all. ...Dare he? He dared. Shiro stuck out his tongue.

Terrible move. The demon's eyes narrowed, and out of nowhere a yellow rubber ball with red stars flew off a shelf, bounced off the floor and hit Shiro square under the chin. He instantly dropped the bean bag to clasp both hands over his mouth with a pained groan.

“Told you there's nothing wrong with my aim.” A poof, and the bean bag was back in its rightful place: under Mephisto, who took his merry time wiggling himself into the most comfortable position.

“Stop being a crybaby and let me take you home, or enjoy the floor.”

Shiro lowered his hands and scowled at the back of Mephisto's head, and that oh so annoying flippant hand motion illustrating this fight was clearly over and he was the victor. As it should be.

When met with a display that level of self-assured superiority, one can only respond in either of two ways. Admit you lost... Or get petty.

“...Fine, swew you.” Fuck. Difficult to sound convincingly stubborn when his tongue wouldn't work.

“Thewe's bound to be a couch somewhewe. Hey Belial, help me out here, would you.” Finally. “Where's the nearest bed-like structure?”

“Belial, do absolutely not help him.” Asshole didn't even look up, just tapped at the remote.

Belial froze, looking extremely unhappy about being involved in their dispute.

“...Dude, seriously, you're a butler. Helping guests is just as much your job as pampering his childish ass.”

“...” Merely a gaze of concern at his master, and an apologetic look in Shiro's direction, pressing his lips tightly together.

Shiro growled. “Fuckin' bootlicker.”

-Some 25 minutes later-

Mephisto's bedroom doors were thrown open, and a dishevelled Shiro unsteadily leaned against the doorway.

“Back so soon?” Mephisto grinned over his shoulder, a drinking straw clasped tightly between his fangs, but his glee evaporated and he took it out when he caught a better look at the exorcist's state. “What happened?”

Shiro tottered in, bits and pieces falling out of his torn clothes, and rubbing the various cuts on his cheek with the back of his equally mangled hand.

“Wound up in kitchen. Dark. Accidentally knocked over a bowl. Side dish or sum'thin. Ukobach did not appreciate. Told him to calm down. Rain of pasta. You wouldn't believe how sharp uncooked penne can be.”

“Tragic.” The grin returned. “Try not to bleed on any fabrics if you're going to take refuge in here.”

Heartwarming. Shiro was too worn out to dig up some choice insults, but addressed Mephisto with the foulest look he could still muster.

The demon chuckled. “...Or perhaps, just let me send you home?”

Silence. There was probably no alcohol in the glittery cinema soda cup, but who was to say for sure. Also, leaving the mansion somehow felt like a greater defeat than staying in Mephisto's room. Like he hasn't just lost the battle, but was too afraid to even remain on the battlefield.

The demon kept his eyes fixated at the colourful robots on the tv screen, but his ears were perked up attentively, waiting for Shiro's response. When that failed to happen, he closed his eyes and gave another nudge-

“...Or use what might arguably be the best bed in the world~”

Bait? Definitely. But also a lifeline. Shiro bit.

“You mean that bed you do God knows what in? Yuck, no thanks.”

Dramatic sigh for effect before deigning to look him in the eye. “Have you met me? My bed is clean, I assure you.”

Shiro smirked. Such a diva. And a dweeb. “Yeah alright, you probably only ever hump anime pillows anyway.”

The corners of his mouth curled upwards. “Justify your choice however you like, Shiro-pon.”

Boxers and t-shirt wouldn't be too bacon-y for the cat, right? Not while there were still mechas on tv to distract it, at least. Shiro began peeling off his tattered clothes, until Mephisto's ears twitched at the click of his belt unbuckling and he turned sharply towards the exorcist.

“...Excuse me, what do you think you're doing?”

Shiro kicked off his pants and flipped back the blankets. “Using your goddamn bed. Happy now?”

“Absolutely not. Get out.”

What. Shiro stared at the piqued face in disbelief.

“...Are you for real? What the fuck is it now?! In the bed, not in the bed, get in, go away-”

“Oh, you're welcome to sleep in my bed.” Mephisto squinted eyes slid up and down over Shiro's post pasta-fight body and the dirty clothes on the floor in a most disapproving manner. “AFTER you take a shower.”

Shiro's shoulders dropped. “...Really now?”

“Like I said.” He decidly turned back to the screen. “I like my bed clean.”

Shiro had no doubt the demon could sense the middle finger aimed at his back, but there were no bouncing balls or other items interfering with his gesture while he strode into the bathroom and yanked a towel out of the closet.

Frankly, it was not exactly a terrible ordeal to use Mephisto's shower. If he hadn't been that tired, be might have opted to wait for the bath to fill up instead- he eyed the pool-sized structure with a mixture of envy and disgust. Filthy rich bastard.

Filthy rich bastard with a royally equipped shower cabin, though. Shiro turned the knob and waited for the water from the various shower heads to heat up, when a voice from the bedroom yelled over the sound of the streams: “You better not use my expensive shower gel!”

Shiro sighed. “Which one?! They all seem expensive!” They probably were.

“...The gold and pink bottle. Do not touch it.”

Definitely touching it, he picked it up and turned it around in his hand. “Oh lord save me, you know how much I'd like to smell like- vanilla tenderness?? ...Is that how you lure in prey?”

“I'll have you know the ladies love it.”

Shiro snickered. “Oh, I don't doubt that. On them.”

“You bet they do~” The smug retort came drifting from under the door.

Shiro shook his head.

“Are you sure they can't sue you for false advertising, cuz there is nothing vanilla nor tender about you.”

“How would you know?”

...Walked straight into that one.

“...Care to find out~?”

“Eat my ass.”

“Maybe after you washed it.”

Shiro didn't know it was possible to choke on your own tongue while standing. Thank God or whomever that the demon couldn't see how red his face was- though judging by the giggling noises, the shower wasn't enough to drown out his coughing fit.

“Really, you are so wonderfully talented at putting your own foot in your mouth, Shiro~”

“Keep it up and I'll put my foot in your mouth!” He scowled, stepping into the shower while Mephisto burst out in a full-blown laughing fit, fuck knows why. Shiro shrugged it off. This was probably one of those better-off-not-knowing times.

Ah, such a wonderful story~ Heroism, friendship, impossible odds, fantastic machinery... The show had ended and Mephisto zapped away from the commercial break to search for something more interesting. Hm, not much, this late. He shook his cup, the decorative re-useable plastic ice cubes rattling about. All out of drinks. Snacks too. Maybe switch to other entertainment. Come to think of it...

He turned towards the bathroom door. He could hear the water still going. How long had he been in there by now? Five episodes? Seven?

“...As much as I appreciate cleanliness, don't you think you're overdoing it just a scooch?”

No response.

“Don't go telling me you dropped the soap and need help finding it.”

Still nothing. No change in sound whatsoever. Not even one of Deliberately Ignoring You. Odd.

Mephisto rose from his pillow nest and knocked on the bathroom door.

“...Shiro?”

Nothing but the running water. And a strange, light ...grating sound? He opened the door.

“I'd suggest you make yourself decent, but given how much water you're using as well as your general behaviour today that is word obviously not in your dic-”

Oh. Oh dear.

Semi-sitting on the floor of the shower cabin, slouched into a corner, was one sleeping exorcist. Mildy snoring.

Mephisto cocked his head. Strangely adorable, but also annoying. He briefly studied the naked, scratched-up figure. Not a bad look, not at all~ But too easy.

He sighed, and peeled one of his sleeves back to turn off the water. Honestly, rude. He should ask Belial to take care of it. On the other hand... being this troublesome warranted some payback. Payback that would take some effort, but be so much more satisfying than just turning on the cold water right now. Especially since Shiro was known to have a habit of getting violent when woken up suddenly. He didn't fancy risking a cold shower as well. Plus, the mere idea of the face Shiro would make when- He snickered. Yes, a much a more rewarding idea. He snapped his fingers.

“Hmmnnggh...” Shiro rolled over, the filtered light making him vaguely aware that it was morning. He hadn't slept this well in ages, and wasn't planning on letting it end just yet. He pulled the sheets along with him. Comfy. His bed wasn't usually this comfy. Smelled different, too. Did he use a new a laundry detergent? Nope, nope- do not get tricked into thinking just yet. That would wake him. Back to sleep. Savour it.

He pulled the sheets a little more, intent on going full burrito mode. Hm. A little stuck. He groaned at the incooperative blanket, and gave a better yank.

“Don't hog all the covers, please.”

A more effective waking method than a needle in his butt. Shiro shrieked -much to his embarassment- and bolted out of bed. A bed, he now realized, was indeed not of his usual comfort level. In several ways. His embarassment rose even higher when he met the incredibly satisfied eyes of the creature inhabiting the bed. Mephisto's face was about sixty percent teeth as he soaked up the image of the severely shocked man, who was still coming to terms with the fact that no, this was not still part of a nightmare, he was, in fact, awake.

And naked.

Upon that realization, Shiro's brain short-cirquited so completely he did not even attempt to cover himself up. Instead, he just froze, blinking fervently as if hoping the next time he opened his eyes, the lecherous monster, half-dressed in an untied silk gown and lying there as if posing for his portrait as a Roman emperor, would somehow have disappeared.

It took a couple minutes -or hours, by Shiro's reckoning- for the demon to get his fill of this view and bestow the smallest amount of mercy upon him.

“As much as I'd love to hang up a story about tequila, I'm afraid you just fell asleep in the shower. So I dried you off and placed you in here.”

Shiro rebooted.

“You... dried me off??”

“Wouldn't want my best exorcist to catch a cold- or soak my sheets.”

Lanes reopened, the backed-up thought traffic in Shiro's head now started honking impatiently to gain first access to his mouth.

“And you- I- but- it didn't- occur to you- that you could have just WOKEN ME UP?!”

“Frankly I hoped you would wake while I was toweling you off, hovering six feet off the floor... But as usual, you were disappointing.”

Mephisto managed to shrug leaning on one elbow, resting his jaw in his hand. He did not quite manage to look genuinely disappointed.

“You really should work on your comedic timing.”

Shiro's face was bright red, but no longer with embarassment. He was seething, fists and jaw clenched, his white bed hair sticking up as steam rising from his forehead.

“I. am not. your entertainment.”

Mephisto grinned. “Aww, no need to throw in the towel just yet~” His eyes glanced down. “You've got such potential, Shiro...”

WHACK. Instead of a towel, Shiro chose to throw in a pillow. And his full weight and strength to press it over Mephisto's face.

-Epilogue-

Oof. Goodness. Mephisto remained lying down, running a system check on his body. Everything was still there and working, it seemed, but he really should not have let Shiro have his little revenge for quite so long. He had to admit he underestimated the man's strength and how long it would take for his body to pass out from lack of oxygen. Too sidetracked by certain pleasant side-effects, perhaps. He should be more careful about that- Shiro probably hadn't noticed, or he might have indeed woken up with certain parts missing. Or at least damaged. Something still seemed wrong, though. Cold. He sat upright on the mattress. But not in his bed. Or bed chamber.

He blinked. Then shivered. As one tends to do when one wakes up soaking wet, outside. Because someone had dragged the entire mattress, demon included, out to the balcony. In the rain.

“...Oh REAL mature, Shiro!”

He teleported indoors, into a warm, fluffy bath gown, and stared at his expensive mattress through the glass doors of his bedroom. Blasted exorcist. Still...

He summoned his phone, flipped it open, and smiled at his new background picture. Dozens of carefully arranged plushies, and in the middle-

“...Best toy I ever had.”

~The end~

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Curfew: Not at all Corona-inspired~ But isolation makes no sense from an exorcism point of view. However, most demons in canon prefer the dark, so when there's an increase in numbers/reported attacks, a curfew is a logical counter-measure to protect the population. And since exorcists aren't supposed to work alone (*casts stern look at Shiro*), only teams on mission would have permission to walk around at night.

Poor alcohol tolerance & increased German: I strongly headcanon Mephisto's host body is in fact that of the original Faust, and it reverting back to its mother tongue when its language cortex is compromised somehow. I also strongly headcanon all strong demons having an insanely fast metabolism, going by the way Mephisto & Amaimon are always snacking yet skeletal, and this got in fact sort of confirmed by the recent manga chapter where Shiro complains about it in regards to baby Rin. So Mephisto gets drunk easily, but it also wears off rather quickly, unless he keeps drinking.

Don't drink and do magic/ rice fields: For more information, read The End of the Beginning by Superior Dimwit, arc 2: Inferno, chapter 39.

Tying the cat to the bacon: this is a literal translation of a Dutch expression. I cannot justify how exactly Shiro got to know about it, but I sure as fuck can justify its use here. It just fits too well.

Yellow rubber ball with red stars: Also known as a Dragon Ball, of course.

Ukobach: I know he hasn't shown up in the manga (yet), but this is one of those very rare times (maybe the only time) where I think the anime changed something for the better, and there is a good chance Kato is the one who told them the name in the first place, since it's an actual known demon. Either way, Mephisto should totally have some mad monkey five-star chef, in my opinion.

The thing about feet you're better off (not) knowing: Words can have interesting double meanings in other languages. For more information, read chapter 17 of Between the End and the Beginning, once more by Superior Dimwit. Technically, you could argue that the majority of mankind has a foot fetish.

Dropping the soap: I trust everyone to know this one. If not, google it at your own risk.

Violent awakenings: Based on Shiro punching little Shura in the face when she kissed his forehead while he was napping.

Pleasant side-effects of lack of oxygen can include popping a boner and light-headed euphoria. Especially when there's a naked exorcist on top of you. Shiro was right: false advertising indeed.

Plushies & pictures: Y'all remember Rin waking up in Mephisto's bed after going full demon mode in the manga? Although he may have sent his butler to pick up the kid and had the common decency to not him in there naked as he did with Shiro in this fic, there were a number of plushies surrounding Rin when he woke up. All facing up and some placed on top of him. Meaning that they didn't accidentally rolled their way there as he tossed and turned in his sleep- someone definitely placed them there. Cute for now, blackmail for later. Always handy.

[tabloidtoc]

National Examiner, January 25

Cover: Secret Dawn Wells took to the grave: her affair with Bob Denver of Gilligan’s Island 

Page 2: Best and Worst Celeb Tippers -- Katherine Heigl, Amy Schumer, Drew Barrymore, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Madonna, Johnny Depp, Jay-Z 

Page 3: Charlie Sheen, Ben Affleck, Sean Penn, Sharon Stone, Naomi Campbell, Mark Zuckerberg, Tom Selleck and Donnie Wahlberg took the 2020 Tip Challenge 

Page 4: Goldie Hawn’s movie roles 

Page 6: Melissa Gilbert who played Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie says if there’s one piece of unfinished business that emerged from the show it’s that she’d like to punch former co-star Shannen Doherty -- Shannen was only 12 when she joined the Little House cast for the show’s ninth and final season playing Jenny Wilder but in a couples therapy session with her first husband Bo Brinkman it came out that Shannen at 22 had bagged Bo in bed 

Page 7: Country star Dolly Parton may be 75 year old but that doesn’t stop her from leaping out of bed at 3 a.m. every morning -- she’s a very very very early riser and she goes to bed pretty early but she’s up and down

* Tom Hanks has been in countless movies and TV shows but his most important role in life has been as a father of four and he has tips for how to do it right 

Page 8: If you’ve soured on feeding canned dog food to your precious pooch you’re not alone -- plenty of owners are switching over to healthy people-food diets for their pets but it’s essential to get guidance from your veterinarian 

Page 9: Most of your kitty’s diet should be a nutritionally complete cat food but you can give them a treat from your plate every once in a while -- you just need to know how to choose feline-friendly snacks with nutrients they need and which they should NEVER eat -- check with your veterinarian 

* Why animals creep into our dreams -- we all dream about animals from time to time and here are some of the most common creatures of our nights and what they could be trying to tell us 

Page 10: On his 21st birthday Matt Goodman raised a glass to his late father who had left behind the money to buy his son’s first beer 

Page 11: Your Health -- the stark truth is that sleeping naked is good for you 

Page 12: Top Guns -- these Hollywood stars were fastest on the draw -- James Garner, Henry Fonda, Eli Wallach, Burt Lancaster, Roy Rogers 

Page 13: Kevin Costner, Yul Brynner, Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne 

Page 14: Dear Tony, America’s Top Psychic Healer -- a lesson from COVID-19 which is work on mentally healing ourselves, Tony predicts Miley Cyrus will struggle to overcome many of her self-destructive habits, finding strength through religion and she will be back on the hit parade come summer 

Page 15: If you and your partner fight a lot here’s a great idea to grasp: holding each other’s hand is the key to better conflict resolution 

Page 16: Prince William and Duchess Kate Middleton might be royals but they’re raising their children just like any other parents and family is their first priority and Will and Kate are rarely apart from their three kids Prince George and Prince Charlotte and Prince Louis 

Page 18: Maggie the shelter stray was twice unlucky when two potential forever homes kicked her to the curb but now she’s found her true calling as a beloved K-9 officer 

Page 19: A homeless man in Atlanta put his life on the line to rescue every single cat and dog from a blazing inferno at an animal shelter 

Page 20: Cover Story -- a three-hour tour that turned into a three-season laugh-fest on Gilligan’s Island made Dawn Wells a star and she took the show’s juiciest secrets to her grave including a red-hot affair with co-star Bob Denver -- Dawn who died of complications related to COVID-19 at age 82 hid a crazy sexy side which she kept under wraps because it was the exact opposite of the squeaky-clean image se presented to the world as farm girl Mary Ann on Gilligan’s Island 

Page 22: This Michigan teen is a top Elvis Presley impersonator even performing in Las Vegas and the only one with Down syndrome 

Page 24: Texas firefighters were hailed as heroes after they rescued a four-year-old boy who had fallen down a well 

Page 25: Here’s the dirt on soil-free gardening 

Page 26: Nice Work If You Can Get It -- celebs shell out stupid money for stupid jobs -- Rod Stewart travels with a room-darkening team, Lady Gaga hates to sleep alone and her personal assistant had to get in bed with her on nights when Gaga was solo, Larry Ellison likes to play basketball on his yacht and employs a person who job it is to circle it in a boat and retrieve stray balls from the ocean, Mariah Carey has a woman who stands beside her at all times holding a drink, Snoop Dogg pays a professional blunts roller, Prince Charles has a personal dresser, Justin Bieber’s entourage includes someone to hold his drink and another to hold his slice of pizza, Sean Combs has an assistant whose only job is to carry around an umbrella for him 

Page 28: Burt Lancaster was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars acting in more than 70 movies during a four-decade-long career but he was also a silly practical joker says his daughter Joanna Lancaster one of the actor’s five children 

Page 30: Legendary actress and dancer Ann-Marget will be 80 years old in April but she’s still stepping out and making movies -- you’re not dead when you reach a certain age said the star who shot to fame when she famously dated Elvis Presley when they made Viva Las Vegas in 1964 

* Candice Bergen running wild and free at age 74 -- she recently became a first-time grandmother and is selling her hand-designed merchandise online 

* What is Marie Osmond doing during the pandemic? She bought a Harley motorcycle and so did her husband Steve and they love to go riding together -- the twosome also take walks and see their kids and grandkids and stay busy and have fun 

Page 42: All Washed Up -- surprising facts about bathing and showering 

Page 44: Eyes on the Stars -- Ellen DeGeneres goes for a spin in California (picture), Chrissy Teigen and John Legend take their kids Luna and Miles to watch planes make the tricky landing at St. Barts’ airport (picture), Joan Collins claims she once gave Bobby Kennedy the brush off because neither of them was single at the time, George Clooney can’t bear the thought of his early film Grizzly II seeing the light of day but it is set to be released later this year, Barry Gibb the last living member of The Bee Gees says life was incredibly hard after losing his brothers and bandmates Robin Gibb and Maurice Gibb who died in 2012 and 2003, Ray Liotta and Jacy Nittolo engaged, Bob Seger paid tribute to saxophonist Alto Reed a longtime member of his Silver Bullet Band who lost his life to colon cancer 

Page 45: Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla show off their walking sticks outside their home at Birkhall in Scotland (picture), Tori Spelling gets some puppy love from one of their pet pooches in L.A. with help from hubby Dean McDermott (picture), Megan Fox has moved on with Machine Gun Kelly and her estranged husband Brian Austin Green isn’t moping solo -- he vacationed in Hawaii with Sharna Burgess of Dancing with the Stars, British photographer David Bailey is dishing on his storied career in his memoir -- he claims sloshed Elizabeth Taylor tried to swipe his camera and his first impression of ex-wife Catherine Deneuve was that she was short and a bit on the fat side, Phyllis McGuire who shared the stage with her late siblings Dorothy and Ruby as the McGuire Sisters died in her lavish Las Vegas home -- she found fame through her voice and infamy through her relationship with Sin City mobster Sam Giancana 

Page 46: Good-hearted sheriff’s deputies surprised a woman with a vehicle after they kept getting calls about her walking along the highway in the freezing cold each morning 

Page 47: These UN Ambassadors use star power to help -- Emma Watson, Danny Glover, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, Antonio Banderas, Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, Liam Neeson, Laurence Fishburne, Mia Farrow, Katy Perry, Alyssa Milano