#all my other attempts to write over the past few days have... failed tbh

[nonranghaes]

“well? do you like it...?”

felix sits next to you, wired earbuds shared between the two of you (sometimes you think he only brings them out when you’re around--just for the proximity) as he smiles. his fingers entangle with your own easily, slotting into place like he’s the matching piece of your puzzle. he acts as if he hadn’t been mouthing along to the chorus (i need somebody who can love me at my worst/no, i’m not perfect, but i hope you see my worth...), voice barely above a whisper at other parts, but his enthusiasm is cuter than that fact.

“you know i always like your song suggestions,” you turn your face away from him, heat rushing to your cheeks. “i liked this one, too.”

“is that all?” his other hand grazes his neck for a moment. he’s checking his pulse. you know what he wants to say, those three little words unspoken but known between the two of you this early into your relationship.

and if you have to be the one to say them out loud, then you will. you squeeze his hand a little tighter. face still warm. “... i love you, too.”

his thumb traces along the back of your hand, and he slides a little closer. he says nothing, but the kiss he plants on your cheek says all he needs to say: thank you for loving me. i’ll say it soon.

[biibini]

Heyy!! I really love your modern!mizu work sm 😭😭🫶 I was wondering if you could please write how modern Mizu would act when her and reader have an argument? Tysm if u do!!

modern!mizu in arguments

tags: modern!mizu is rlly sweet but ngl u spooked her a sec , tw: midterms , college au , reader is lowk mean & crazy from all the stress , resolved in the end ♥︎

a/n: just bc i want to be levi’s wife doesnt mean i’m leaving mizu just yet <3 my past few quarters have been beating my ass (im finally surviving)

modern!mizu would be the type of person to get anxious if something goes wrong at the beginning of ur relationship

and let her fight or flight kick in

bc she let her guard down the first time around (thanks m*k*o)

tbh i wouldnt rlly imagine yall getting into a fight

but i feel if a fight did happen, it would most likely stem from misunderstanding and misinterpretations of what u guys say

for example, a small argument at the beginning spooked her due to her previous relationship having little to no communication

before the first argument, u had just gotten home from a long school day filled with lectures, annoying group mates, and a senseless amount of studying

midterm season was approaching

things were a lil tense

u had hoped to destress and maybe cuddle with ur gf instead of being crammed into a dorm with two other girls with their crazy studying schedules

only to find her busy with her work

“I’m home!”, you yell into the hallway. The rain had just started pouring and you were sopping wet. Thank goodness your laptop was safe, but the rest of your clothes weren’t.

“Anyone home? Hello?”

Frustratedly, you jangle the keys out of the door. They sure wanted to be stubborn with you today after ALL the things you witnessed today.

An early lecture class that you were half awake at. A failed attempt at working with your group mates for your communications class, with Akemi being the only person that actually showed up. Your teacher becoming the strictest they’ve ever been. It wasn’t your fault that he’s going a divorce, but it sure feels like it.

And after all that came your awaited time to study. Only to find your favorite places filled to the brim with students who giggled and gossiped in their corners, making the noises grow larger and larger. God, freshman are the worst.

You were on the verge of insanity.

The sudden change in weather nearly pushed you to your edge.

Arriving at the apartment sopping wet, you were relieved to finally take off your wet shoes by the door, hoping to finally unwind and let go of the annoyance of the day.

With no answer to your call, you assumed it was an empty apartment and huffed, attempting to let go of all the stresses from the day. You hung your bag, letting it dry from the pouring rain. Little did you know how fucked you would be when you opened the bag to find your lecture notes, damp from the rain.

Sent over the edge, you throw your notebook onto the kitchen counter in an attempt to dry the papers. You were so screwed if they weren’t dry by the midterm this week.

You cursed as you dig up the rest of the contents in your bag, only to find them damp and wet from the rain. The only thing that truly stayed dry was your laptop due to its case.

“God, fucking damnit.”, you swore to yourself, continuing to lay out all the contents.

First, your things needed to dry NOW. Without those notes, you would be going into that midterm blind.

Now, it was you next.

You stormed into Mizu’s bedroom, fueled with rage and annoyance from everything today. It all felt like it was crashing down with every step you took. The tiredness, the annoyance, the wetness, the heavy weight of your drenched clothes. You couldn’t wait to take off everything and be dry & clean.

The door swings open right in front of you, hitting you face first. You step back to find Mizu with headphones on, wide-eyed, realizing what she just did. In the brief silence, you could hear the faint noise of the drums and bass being blasted into her headphones.

That was your final straw.

“Oh shit, sorry Y/N, I didn’t know you were home-”

“You couldn’t hear me lose my shit just now?”, you snapped. “Really now?”

“Y/N? What’s going on?”

At this point, you were too tired to care.

“What’s going on is that I’m wet, I’m fucked for my midterm tomorrow, and I just- I just need to go take this shit off.”, you huff, pushing past Mizu.

Before you can even move past her, Mizu grabs your forearm, pulling you back from your momentum.

"Hey.", Mizu said in a sincere tone while squeezing your arm, hoping to meet your gaze.

"What.", you snapped at her.

"I'm not the only person who's busy here.", she retorted.

You looked back to spot her eyes, dead and exhausted, forming dark spots under her eyes. You could tell how worn out she was, staring at formulas and mismanaged group projects all day. Her dull hair was in a disheveled bun, barely hanging onto the butterfly clip you had bought her a few weeks ago.

"Look, I've been working on these midterm projects all day too. My project group mates barely did their shit and our capstone check-in is coming in so soon… I need to catch up now and—“

“Could you at least be aware of your surroundings when you do work on your projects?”, you scoff as you past her and grab a towel and a hair dryer.

You walk back to your damp belongings, hoping you make it in time to minimize the damage. What you didn’t expect was your girlfriend also following your footsteps.

“Y/N, please…”

You wipe your chargers and pencil cases dry. You’re glad they’re safe and secure. As for your notes, you fear that’s a different story.

“Honey…”

You heard her but to be frank, your priorities was your drenched notebook, currently sopping up all the rainwater. You plug in the hairdryer and immediately get to work, hoping it’ll be enough to save you for the midterm coming next week. Some of the ink starts to bleed. You can only hope for readability as the pages on the notebook start to lighten.

“Y/N.”, she calls out.

You turn up the heat settings of the hairdryer as you continue to point the air on the important notes. It becomes more readable.

“Y/N!”

“WHAT.”, you snap back.

You look back in annoyance and see Mizu behind you with a house fan in her hands, eyes widen. You fear your response was a little too loud as you spot the power cord tremble in her hands.

Oh Mizu…

“Um, I’ll just put the fan here.“, Mizu states, whipping around in hopes of plugging in the fan quickly.

“Mizu, wait, I didn’t mean to—“

“No, it’s okay.”, she cuts you off. “I’ll just… um… I’ll just—”

You can hear the stammer in her voice. You reach for her arm before she can hide away. It’s cool to the touch, almost cold.

“Mizu, I—”

She turns around to look at you. Her eyes used to look tired but now they’re so shaken. God, you forgot how much words hurt.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at your earlier and now. I was so absorbed and stressed with midterms and the rain and everything about today. I’m so sorry, I should not have exploded like that in front of your face, especially since you have midterms as well. Mizu, I’m just so—”

“Overwhelmed?”

You sigh, “Very.”

A small smile grows on Mizu’s face. You let go of her forearm and smile back.

“Me too honey. Me too.”, she sighs in relief. “C’mere.”

Her left arm wraps around your waist, pulling you to her side. Were you a little damp? Yeah. Did she care at this moment? Not a chance.

“After we get these notes all nice and dry, do you want to take a nice, warm bath and you’ll talk about your day and I’ll talk about mine…”

Your face warms up as her hand starts to slowly feel up and down your side. Her touch felt so warm and welcoming.

“Mmhm”, you hum in agreement.

Her mouth slowly inched towards your ear, her breath dancing over your lobes.

“and maybe, afterwards, some de-stressing?”, she hints, breathily. You don’t need to look at her to know she’s smirking.

“I wouldn’t be opposed.”, you tease.

Besides, Ringo wouldn’t be back until next week.

Mizu places a kiss on your cheek. She plugs the fan, double checking to make sure it is aiming at your notebook, as well as your bag.

“Thank you for your helping, Mizu.”, you say as you kiss her on the cheek.

“No worries.”, Mizu says as she grins, pulling you to her again to steal another kiss. “We’re both stressed, we need breaks every once in a while.”

“Hmm, I wouldn’t count that last part as a break—”, you jokingly question.

“It’s a maybe… just putting the thought out there.”, Mizu defends, putting her hands up.

After your notebooks are dry, you notice that most of your notes are fine. Thankfully, you remembered Akemi was in the class and were able to get her digital notes from her iPad.

As shitty as your day first started, it couldn’t come close to the end of your day. You got your hot bath and rant, as promised. And maybe that last step too.

[letsdiscoverkitty]

Short Update

12.03.22//

I'm really sorry that I have been so pants at writing the update that I promised...truth be told, Im finding it hard to know what to say/where to start and my brain is complete mush/fog right now. Not only that but I am also feeling incredibly embarrassed/ashamed of my current situation.

Things were going so well with my degree apprenticeship. I was making great progress at work, getting great feedback and becoming more confident/settled in the role. Uni side was going fine, I wasn't enjoying the study blocks social aspects but the units were interesting and I was enjoying seeing how it could be applied to my every day job.

However underneath/amongst it all, anorexia has been raging and screaming, holding full control of the reins for longer than I care to admit. Looking back, the whole of my last admission (a top up to help me get out of a relapse after the previous admission before I started work) was dictated and controlled by anorexia. (It was also incredibly unhelpful on the ward and the support I got was just....a shambles but that's a whole other story). Upon reflection, I don't think that I have ever been willing enough or strong enough (or 'whatever' enough) to let it go of the eating disorder, it's rules, behaviours etc. And so the cycles have continued to playing out on repeat. I am beyond tired/exhausted/frustrated/lost for words at myself, and so is everyone else tbh. There really is nothing more/new to say anymore. It's just really shit/sad.

I keep on failing and messing up just when there seems to be a little ray of 'hope' (Uni/travelling/work etc) and it's probably down to the illness getting so engrained and stuck and rigid and me never really willing to let it go or move forwards from it....

My therapist felt at a bit of a loss too, we were working well with SCHEMA and made some important progress, however the sessions then got overruled by the need to focus on my physical health as it became the priority. We then somehow started touching on some trauma work and it brought more to the surface than we realised it would...

But yes, I digress, and I forgot that this was meant to be "short"...

Over the past few months things have deteriorated and I was signed off from work 2 months ago as I was unable to make changes whilst working and studying. The hope was I could turn things around after an urgent review and being given a timeline/ultimatum...but no amount of desire to get back to work or study could unlatch the tight grip that anorexia has had on me. Being signed off from work unfortunately also fed right into the depression slump and I've found myself floating and sinking (whilst simultaneously sticking my head in the sand in the attempt to avoid reality) far more/further than I want to admit.

Sadly time was not on my side and my body hasnt been coping so well and so the my team felt I couldn't be left in the community any longer. So after trying to turn down numerous bed offers for SEDUs (because the last place I wanted to end up was on a EDU and genuinely wanting to do it from home), I agreed to be admitted to a completely different unit on Wednesday (9th March). I feel utterly horrendous and like the biggest failure in the world. Work have been beyond amazing/supportive/kind/understanding but my inner self critic is raging louder and louder. It is so hard to describe the paralysis of wanting and knowing so badly what you need and want to do but being utterly frozen to the spot and unable to move.

It is very early days and I am currently trying to find my feet on the ward - Im terrified for what the next few weeks hold as the refeeding process progresses and I don't know how long I am going to be here but I am determined to make this admission different and make it the last one I ever have to have again. The unit seems to be very different to all my past admissions so I am hoping that might help in elements but I know deep down that it has to come from me. And I am sick and tired of these cycles replaying in my life. It's the same old boring noise coming out of anorexia again and again and again. and Im done. I can't keep doing this to myself or my family. Im done.

I feel sad because there was such a huge part of me that wanted (and still does want) to be doing this in the community, I knew what I needed to do and I wanted to be doing it for myself. However right now I am having to accept that I need a little more help and support, which is hard. I am trying to tell myself that there is nothing to be ashamed of but it is so much easier said than done. Anorexia is so fucking complicated and messy. I genuinely don't think there is one cause or thing and it feels so overwhelming when I try to understand all its roots and twists and turns....it's insidious.

It has been controlling my whole entire life, and the lives of the people around me. I have been its puppet. And it's made me feel like I don't know how to live/move without it. Well this has gone on for far too long. Far too long.

So yes, I suppose that is my "short" update for now. I'm sorry.

[variousqueerthings]

Tom Hardy Movies rated least to most queer

I made a list of some Tom Hardy movies and I rated them based on my own, non-specific criteria about what makes a movie queer. Results below the cut.

(Some films not included, because I haven’t watched them yet, because Mr Hardy’s only in them for a few minutes, because the subject matter doesn’t lend itself to this list, or because I just don’t want’em here. TV series also not included. The list is organised into both groups and ratings, because I’m doing The Most.)

Movies are divided into four groups and rated from 0 – 10 on the Queer-Scale, scroll down to the bottom if you want the ratings without the commentary.

Disclaimer: This list is subjective. Don’t come at me because I didn’t rate Inception higher, Nolan himself is as queer as cargo shorts. 

1. This movie would make more sense if it were queer

If this movie were queer it… might not become a perfect film all of a sudden, but it’d make a hell of a lot more sense than what’s actually going on. With an occasional dose of “are the cis-straights okay?”

This Means War (2012): So Chris Pine and Tom Hardy are ostensibly both in love with Reese Witherspoon, but say “I love you” to each other pretty much constantly throughout the movie and their friendship is often presented as a domestic partnership. Cool, cool, cooool.

Queer Rating: 2 out of 10. This movie hate-crimed me by having Tom Hardy literally spell out his relationship with Chris Pine, only for the script to then have him say… “can you imagine all that… but with a woman…” Later on the movie explicitly denies polyamory is possible. Fuck this film.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012): Batman movies should always be queer. Mr. Hardy’s the only one who acceptably camps it up, despite Nolan’s best attempts to make him “acceptably gruff.” No matter what you do, Bane is a massive daddy in a mask and thanks to Mr Hardy’s honestly iconic fucking speech pattern in this film, it goes from pretty atrociously straight to just queer enough to imagine a future where Robert Pattinson plays batman and maybe adopts a bunch of kids.

(the only truly decent mask in this franchise tbh)

Queer Rating: 3 out of 10. Mr Hardy’s back is the one that’s actually broken carrying any semblance of fun in this overly long movie all on his own.

Lawless (2012): Wow, this really was the year of the not-queer-enough, wasn’t it? Look, it’s “based on a real story,” but it’s also a movie and movies don’t need to stick to the truth, and this one certainly doesn’t. Was the guy queer in real life? I don’t know. But that doesn’t matter, what matters is that it’s just kind of an eh movie and maybe being queer would add something to it. One of those “but why make someone queer? because it’s always more interesting to do so,” movies.

Queer Rating: 3 out of 10. It’s just not queer. But Tom Hardy wears cardigans and described his character as a “mother figure,” which adds an interesting dynamic to him.

2. Actually Queer but in a homophobic way

Tom Hardy plays a canonically queer character, yaaay. The whole movie contains a strange sense of the director being too not-queer to actually engage with that and everything around him is almost aggressively straight, noooo.

RocknRolla (2008): Honestly this movie has the funniest coming out scene ever + that familiar undertone of “all these manly men secretly want to fuck each other” is only heightened by one of them actually being gay and in love with his best friend. It’s such a fucking… it’s such a movie. Personally I find Mark Strong, Idris Elba, Thandie Newton, and, of course, Tom Hardy to be really hot in it, so that’s a plus. There’s a scene in which Strong’s character teaches another gangster how to do a proper backhand. It’s really gay of him. Also slow-dancing at a gay club. Butler’s character needs to get himself together, you really don’t think 2008 Tom Hardy is hot? Mate.

(left to right: functional queer, disaster queer, distinguished queer)

Queer Rating: 6 out of 10, for having an actual gay character who is played by Tom Hardy doing a sexy phonecall voice to another guy, but then there’s that feeling you can’t shake that the whole movie is vaguely uncomfortable about it, like a family member awkwardly patting you on the shoulder after they found out you were queer second-hand, but they’ve still got 50 years of bias to unlearn. Also Thandie Newton is killed, fuck that noise. 

Legend (2015): If I had a nickle for the amount of times Tom Hardy’s played a gay gangster, I’d have two nickles. Which isn’t a lot, but weird that it happened twice (looks at Peaky Blinders and thinks it ought to be three times). I’ve watched Legend three times and every time it just… loses me. And because this is a biased list, I’ll only specifically mention that it fails to make Ron’s queerness anything but a way for him to shock others. Gangsters could be gay? Gasp! On the upside Tom Hardy has so much sexual tension with everyone in this movie, including himself (why would you do that? Asks Ron, bemused. Because I can’t kill you, no matter how much I fucking want to, hisses a blood-soaked Reggie right into his ear. It’s hot).

Queer rating: 5 out of 10 because the film is just not very queer for a movie with several queer men in it.

3. Straight as a forced family dinner

It’s straight.

Locke (2013): He’s a married man who had an affair and trying to deal with the fallout of it. This isn’t a spoiler for most of the movie, it’s a pretty neat movie where we look at Tom Hardy having a bit of a mental breakdown and taking lots of phonecalls (my personal hell). Is it queer? Not in the slightest.

Queer Rating: 2 out of 10 for Hardy’s face being in almost every shot.

The Revenant (2015): Yeah, yeah, DeCaprio’s and Hardy’s characters are obsessed with each other, yeah it’s a man’s world where the only women are dead wife, kidnapped sexually assaulted native princess, or background whore, yeah, they fight each other and there’s a ton of grunting, but also… I just fucking don’t like this movie. The thin line where a storyline like this one becomes queer might be crossed for others, but not for me. Fuck these guys and their stupid  bear fights.

Queer rating: 3 out of 10 for it being about dirty men in the middle of nowhere (but you could just watch Brokeback Mountain or The Lighthouse or God’s Own Country or any Mad Max, or, or, or…)

4. Queer? Queer. Queer? … Queer…

The plots, aesthetics and/or characters played by Tom Hardy lend themselves to a queer reading, even if there is no overt intention towards queerness. Often this is because of a deliberate lack of heterosexual and/or cisgender writing, which in this day and age is still pretty uncommon not to include within a plot.

Inception (2010): Okay, I don’t even need to write about the added “darling,” or the “go to sleep Mr Eames.” I don’t need to go on about the absolutely bonkers amount of fanfiction written for Eames and Arthur, based on a few minutes of film and a boatload of chemistry. It’s queer.

Queer Rating: 7 out of 10, because the actual plot of the film isn’t very queer, but between the Arthur/Eames dynamic and Elliot Page, Nolan was really given a gift he didn’t deserve.

Warrior (2011): Okay, so first off, this might be my favourite Tom Hardy film, at least some part of my brain is fixated on it at almost all times and I’m considering watching it for the third time in two weeks. I don’t only consider it queer based on Mr. Hardy’s character, although he has no romantic or sexual interest and could be read as aroace, but because of the themes, especially those surrounding said character, who is coded as a caregiver to women and through close emotional connections to men. It’s got possibly unintentional deconstructions of masculinity and two men (brothers) who need to forgive each other and can only do so through the catharsis of violence. It speaks to me as a transmasc with several cis brothers, struggling with my own masculinity. It’s not at all written for me, but I find myself all over it. I could talk about this movie forever.

Queer Rating: 8 out of 10. I’m not allowed to say any more or I’ll never stop writing about it. I love you Tommy…

The Drop (2014): Bob’s lack of sexual and/or romantic interest in Naomi is so strange to her that she doesn’t know what he would want from her otherwise. Bob really just wants to raise a dog with her (and also forgiveness for past sins). Bob is such a rare ace and possibly aro coded character, it really throws me every time I watch this film how obvious it is. Bonus points for also being autistic-coded and not in the stereotypical ways.

(Tom Hardy’s most challenging role: pretending he doesn’t know dogs)

Queer Rating: 9 out of 10 because it’s so fucking rare to see ace and aro coded characters that aren’t, you know…. serial killers. Also Tom Hardy adopts a puppy and has a very cute, kinda lispy voice. How often does Tom Hardy play softer men like this?

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015): Very deliberately no sexual or romantic writing included in Max’s and Furiosa’s relationship. Sure, there’s not a lot of time for that in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, but it was also done with a purpose! “It was always going to be two warriors on par, starting off with very little respect for each other and ending up with a massive respect for each other.” - Charlize Theron. “So of course they meet, of course there’s a relationship, an unspoken understanding. A recognition.” - Tom Hardy.

Queer Rating: 9 out of 10. It’s not just the characters, but the world and it’s apocalyptic BDSM leather scene, the questions it asks about sustainability and about people as tools, and the found family. It’s about overcoming violence through multiple kinds of love. And it’s about watching a guy playing flame-thrower guitar. What could be queerer?

Venom (2018): Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same… No, but Eddie is queer. The only question is whether the sequel will acknowledge that aspect or not, but even if not. Even if it manages to straightly bypass the reality of a symbiotic relationship with a genderless? genderfluid? being from another world that is linked to you down to your very cells and understands you more intimately than any other person possibly could… even if all that: Eddie is queer. Venom and Eddie are in a relationship. Any relationship Eddie ever enters into will automatically become a thrupple. He makes out with Venom in the movie! Eddie is queer.

(aw yeah that tongue is going down his throat)

Queer Rating: 9.5 out of 10, because it’s still coded by the creators in the language of bromance (hey, bro, is it gay if we’re physically and emotionally closer than any other people on earth?), but the movie is so, so camp and Mr Hardy’s acting choices are beautiful – the screaming? The lispy soft voice and lack of taking up space? The lobster tank? The only people who don’t know how queer this is are the people making it apparently. Fingers crossed for that sequel!

Hon. mentions:

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002): Star Trek – even at it’s worst (especially at its worst?) – is camp af + Hardy is a straight-up baby in this film.

Bronson (2008): It’s about a real person who’s still alive, so I won’t comment on the actual man. However the film seems to code the character Bronson along an ace line and also has genderqueering Vaudeville. Someone let Tom Hardy do more of whatever was going on in those stage-bits.

(this right here: this the good shit)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011): Another ensemble piece not massively about Hardy’s character, but it’s a movie that centers around queerness in a strange, depressing way. Tom Hardy’s character isn’t queer. Colin Firth and Mark Strong are though. The book makes me cry.

Peaky Blinders (2013-): Because it’s a TV series I left it out. There’s a lot of straight nonsense going on there, but Alfie Solomens is gay. There’s nothing in the series that disputes that and plenty that lends itself to the reading.

Dunkirk (2017): Tom Hardy plays an RAF pilot in a deep emotional connection with the other main RAF pilot. That’s immediately gay. However he’s not in the movie much because of the way it’s constructed, so I left it off.

Queer Ratings (least to most)

No queer to be found here traveller:

This Means War: 2 out of 10 - illegal movie, Tom Hardy swore he wouldn’t do another rom-com after

Locke: 2 out of 10 - straight Welshman and his straight problems. He pretty though

Lawless: 3 out of 10 - cardigan-Hardy being a mother-hen, but very straight for all that

The Dark Knight Rises: 3 out of 10 - a superhero movie that doesn’t deserve Mr Hardy’s camp talents (unlike Venom)

The Revenant: 3 out of 10 - doesn’t give me what I want out of a movie full of dirty, bearded men

Queer but we deserve more:

Legend: 5 out of 10 - timid homosexuality, considering the source material. 

RocknRolla: 6 out of 10 - hey bro, is it gay if we kill the only female lead in our massive ensemble cast

The queerest of Hardy’s:

Inception: 7 out of 10 - Elliot Page and JGL kissing was an all-around terrible choice that made no sense, we know the truth, Nolan

Warrior: 8 out of 10 - I’m still crying, Edgerton’s crying, Hardy’s crying, we’re all crying, and I think that’s really emotionally healthy and queer of us

Mad Max: Fury Road: 9 out of 10 - non-romantic love in the time of BDSM post-apocalyptic wastelands is something that can actually be so personal

The Drop: 9 out of 10 - “Fucking punk. Go out to dinner dressed like you're still in you living room! You wear those big hippity-hoppity clown shoes! You speak to women terribly! You treat them despicably! You hurt harmless dogs that can't defend themselves! I'm tired of you man. I'm tired of you. You embarrass me!”

Venom: 9.5 out of 10 - Sometimes a relationship is an anxious reporter, the sentient goo inhabiting his body, his kinda-ex-girlfriend and her new doctor boyfriend, and I think that’s beautiful

[chaoticspacefam]

Kiss With A Fist

A/N:

quite literally heeheheh ok I’ll see myself out LMAO the rest of this song doesn’t literally apply to these two, they love each other very much and rest assured they’d never actually, deliberately hurt each other. it’s more the general Vibe(tm) of the song that fits their courting process + I really liked the poetic irony of this line used as the quote & the last line of the fic XD Also bear in mind this is from D’leah’s POV and yes, it is semi-ironic on purpose because...it’s D’leah. Any regulars on the blog should be very familiar with mama Sith’s propsensity to be a bully with an overinflated ego at this point *shrugs* XD

OKAY, with that out of the way, here we go! A little oneshot. I haven’t sat down to properly write or edit for a good long while, but this is still one of my favourite oneshots that I’ve ever written tbh, so...enjoy! 😄😄 I’ll leave it up to reader interpretation as to whether they actually finished the mission her brother & dad sent them out on or got sidetracked(tm) 👀😉

I don’t think it needs a particular warning since it’s literally one sentence but there is a mention of killing an assassin in the middle of this (under the cut) so ig be aware of that. It’s not horribly graphic so should be fine but uhhh, just in case?

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

“A kick in the teeth is good for some, but a kiss with a fist is better than none!” ~Florence & the Machine

Of all the Royal Guards that could have possibly been assigned to accompany her on this mission, it had to be this one. The heiress would be lying if she said she wasn't a tad bitter by the Emperor's insistence on that arrangement; she'd attempted to change his mind in a moment of desperation in the past, but her father would hear nothing of it, patting her on the shoulder and claiming that none of the others had the skill level for this sort of task, or to keep up with her during it. So, once more, she was resigned to the company of the fool who, despite her snapping, always seemed to turn up when he was least wanted and needed. 

(This was, of course, not the case and given that his entire purpose was to protect the heiress from threats, perhaps she should have been more tolerant of his presence, or perhaps her protests stemmed less from annoyance and more from something else than she was willing to admit…)

 And he had been fraying D'leah's nerves ever since they'd landed on Tatooine this morning. Kissai had enough arrogance for the both of them, and he seemed to have gotten the idea into his head that she couldn't take care of herself without him needing to jump in to "rescue" her at the most inopportune moment. It was infuriating. She did not need him charging in to help, she could handle herself just fine.

Everything about this man irritated her to no end: the way he stomped around with his great big feet and woke half the karkin’ planet, his habit of always being right behind her whenever she turned around, the way he kept grabbing her by the shoulder to pull her back and insist he, of all people, went first; his stupid face and that annoying, oaf-ish smile of his…

She’d been so busy internally cursing her Guard that she’d failed to notice the man who had been tailing them since the spaceport; in fact, she only noticed him in the first place when she heard his spine crack as Kissai lifted him into the air with the Force, then flung the body down in front of her almost pointedly.

D’leah let out an agitated hiss as her amber eyes flicked from the corpse at her feet, to his face as he raised both browstalks at her as if to say "I told you so", then back again, and sputtered.

“He wasn’t going to shoot me.” 

“I think you’ll find he was, princess.” Kissai retorted smoothly, plucking the man’s blaster pistol off the ground and waving it at her as he added, “You’re welcome, by the way.” She bristled faintly at the word ‘princess’. Sometimes when she was in a good mood, she’d slip up and let it slide without correcting him. Today, after the morning she’d had, D’leah was in no mood to put up with it.

“I don’t need you following me around like a lost Tuk’ata pup!” she snapped at him, trudging onwards and praying he’d catch his stomping feet in a sinkhole when he tried to follow her.

“Your father seems to think otherwise.” The man simply laughed the comment off, pulling his hood up to protect his face from the sand that whipped into a vortex around them. His voice dropped an octave, to become a more serious growl. “Are you forgetting that my entire job is to protect you?” 

The Ahaszaai High Lady snarled under her breath, checking the locator beacon Duuma had given her as she ducked into the alcove it indicated. The lost artifact should be around here somewhere…

“I don’t need protecting, I can take care of myself just fine!” 

“Mm, of course, D’leahane, because Sith who can take care of themselves usually almost get decapitated by assassins.” Kissai snorted, though she could practically hear the shit-eating grin in his voice, “I think your father’s right to ask me to accompany you. You’d have died three times today if I hadn’t.”

“GO JUMP IN A SARLACC PIT!” she shouted back at him. 

“And there are the creative insults your brother warned me about.” 

D’leah paused in her search to turn her head and give him a dirty look over her shoulder, intoning menacingly. “I’ll kill him when I see him next.” 

Kissai’s expression moulded into one of concern this time, the red-eyed Pureblood blinking at her uncertainly as he reminded her. “...You don’t know which one it was.”

Now it was her turn to grin at him.

“Don’t need to, I have a fifty-fifty shot.”

“No wonder they’re both afraid of you.” he scoffed, rolling his eyes. Truthfully, the High Lady was doing her best to ignore his obvious needling as she ducked through another archway and moved further into the cave system, the words she threw over her shoulder echoing back to him off the empty passageway’s walls.

“You should be afraid of me, too. I could end you.”

She was surprised he was still behind her, he could move rather fast despite his large frame, it would seem. D’leah tried not to be too impressed by that fact, but if she was being honest...

“Does it bother you that I’m not, princess?” 

He wasn’t going to drop this, was he? She’d been about to levitate a pile of rocks out of their path, but stopped and spun around to glare at him instead.

“Don’t you “princess” me, you...you…” just when she needed it the most, her ability to think of an appropriate insult failed her, and instead she trailed off into awkward silence. Kissai took that as an invitation to make her even more irritated that his wit was quicker than hers, and added, grinning the whole while: “If you’re trying to think of something you haven’t called me yet, we’ll be here for a good century or so.”

“Fool.” she hissed in frustration. He had her on the ropes, now, and that wasn’t somewhere the Ahaszaai heiress was used to being.  “Is that the best one you have? Did I wear you out, my Lord~?” he crooned back at her, and that was when D’leah put her foot down. She flung a few bolts of lightning in his direction for good measure. As she had suspected, his reflexes were as good as his saber skills and he easily deflected them off his palm before the electricity did any damage, swatting them aside into the wall as if he were brushing dust off his cloak.

“I knew you were going to do that, too...do you really think I can’t handle you?” he teased fondly. 

“I’ve no time for oafs the likes of you.” D’leah growled.

"Then tell me to leave you alone." he stared back at her seriously, browstalks furrowing as his gaze slid from hers to focus on the rest of her face, as if searching her expression for a nonverbal cue he might have missed. "At your word, my Lord, you'll not hear another thing from me beyond those necessary for my duty." 

Looking into his eyes in that moment, she was forced to admit the reality that perhaps she didn’t want him to leave her alone. He’d figured out she was testing him, and now he was calling her bluff, the kriffing, good-looking bastard.  Her jaw spurs rattled in annoyance, but D'leah's lips remained sealed. He waited a full minute, still studying her carefully, to give her plenty of opportunity to voice her thoughts. 

She didn't. The corners of Kissai's mouth turned upwards into a faint smile. 

"That's what I thought." he stepped away from her again, but not before slipping up and forgetting his station for long enough to murmur fondly, "Your nose scrunches up when you're sulking, you know. It’s cute."

D'leah could let "princess" slide on a good day, as far as his pet names went it was among those she considered tolerable, but she drew the line at "cute"! Annoyed and frustrated in more ways than one, she strode after him to reach up and grab the taller Pureblood's shoulder to stop him in his tracks. The Guard turned towards her again, a small, confused noise rumbling in his throat.

First she punched him in the jaw, then she kissed him. Hard. And that was the end of that.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Comic buff with a thought, I notice the P5MM art and composition is more striking and closer to p5's art and style than the other manga, which is fine, but kinda... flat. (I find myself thinking there's something missing when I read it, then I look back at P5MM and I notice how there's more clever paneling, imagery, and stylistic choices akin to the games in it (like that one goro panel ya had a rant about) and I realize what's missing) That could be why P5MM is brought up more, just a guess. I dunno how you feel about all that though, I'm curious.

Under the cut cause it gets long cause of pictures:

I am very big on art style and visual presentation. I do actually judge a book by it's cover (manga, game, movie, show, yadda). If I find something pleasing to my eye I'll read it.....even if the contents are trash. Domestic Girlfriend is one, horrible manga (didn't finish, was holding out for Momo, aka best girl, and getting closure for her....then I bounced). Didn't watch the anime (didn't need to I was way ahead in the manga I think), but I know that opening is wasted on it. ldskfjaf Don't invest your time into it, it's not worth it, you would probably learn better morals from P5.......probably. But yeah I found the art style pleasing enough to try it out (I's not amazing by any means, but I like looking at it....or did.....that writing man....dat was bad ;w;).... *waves hands vaguely in air* yeah.

Fun fact, it's why I got into Persona. I happened across an ad for P4 on the PS2 in the Gameinformer magazine, it showed a screenshot from an animated cutscene plus one of the fully body art for the chars and I was like "Yes this is my jam!" (which only doubled down when I read what it was about, and it was a murder mystery and the article also talked up "the mystery of the glasses" which fakldjsalkfs yeah). So yeah it really clicked for me.

Tbh it's why I'm probably going to get back into freaking Bleach, and it's why I got into it and Naruto over One Piece (I don't think I'll ever read ON I'm sorry). Tite Kubo has sexy art what can I say? Can't trust a thing that man writes now but eh. It's also the reason I read a lot of Shojo (and now Yuri) manga, cause their art style is usually what I find very appealing (even if I've read the same gd shojo love story just by a different name for the 1000th time, give me the flowers and sparkly eyes! they are my life blood!)

And I've mentioned I really like Saito's art style. I've (attempted) to color some of his pieces on top of animate some manga frames (most of which I haven't actually published......I...I should....get around to finishing those up....haha...aha....haaaa). I really like his art, it's pleasant. But even with good art, I can still see past it and see what BS it's peddling and it can hamper my enjoyment of it. If I don't look at the context of the scene or the words on the page, I can be down with it. But when I'm reading.......I get annoyed. I balk at anything with Goro. I guffaw whenever Makoto's on screen (cause Saito nails her from P5, she acts useful but really she's useless but the narrative views her as useful it ironically makes her useless......it's the weirdest thing I've ever witnessed >.>). Like Saito really.....gets P5 it seems, down to it's flaws even (tho he can actually make the good parts of P5 shine, or at least parts that P5 failed to execute....execute in a way). But he also makes the flaws.....shine that much harder for me.

Now the Reg manga? it's nothing special art style wise, in fact it starts off VERY wonky, and while still wonky, has gotten a lot....better/cuter (esp Ryu). Not like shojo cute just.......I wanna squish their wittle faces cute (at times when it's not serious).

Like when it comes to Reg Manga these are the two pieces that have appeared in it that I feel kinda hit the P5 mark in terms of style:

(look at Mona, coming into this world like the pustule that he is 8U)

Which isn't much, but it's something. At least Reg's AOA is better looking than the anime. 8U

But I dunno, as the chapters go on, the Mangaka allows for more cuter expressions, and I just like their neat:

(btw I colored that page)

I dunno, it's not as overtly cutsey as Saito:

But they are still charming in a more simple way (without out having them go full chibi), it subtle but it gives it flavor. "Silly why are most, if not all those pics of Ryu and Anne?" I dunno guys maybe you should ask them how their backs are doing, cause they're the ones who are carrying the Reg manga when it comes to this! 8U

Tho I do think the first ch or two of Reg does a better job capturing P5's feel than the rest of the chapters, I think the mangaka is just.....bogged down by exposition and the game's BS that a lot of text on their pages so it almost reads like a novel:

ALots of text, not the most dynamic of framing with the panels. It's kinda eh. I haven't really read the manga past the 2nd dungeon tbh (I mean......as the residential #1 Makoto hater, I think that's fair.....that I'd start to zone out during my least fav dungeon....and then continue zoning out during my 2nd least fav dungeon askfdjaflk)

But during the first two dungeon arcs, I liked how.....bad the PT were at thieving, I liked how green they were. It was obviously a learning process. I also like some of the fight choreo (Saito did the best hand to hand one in the series in P4U's Yu vs Sho....which I actually animated....spoiler.....no I have no released that...my dumbass wants to tempt fate and see if I can redo it in color even tho it took me 4 days non stop to get that animated in just black and white.....but I am a fool so alas 8U). I mean it's not mind blowing, but it was simple and decently thought out, which is more than I feel like we usually get (esp with the anime shows....or at least P4/5's).

But I think what draws me in is....it's lack of P5 style. P5 style has them being still oh so cool despite being new at everything. It's tired me out. P5's how identity is style. It's....style over substance (gonna rile some feathers with that....Cvit(?) vid title). But P5 is overtly stylish, to the point it......weighs on me. Drags me down. Tires me out. I don't think they're cool, I'm bored with it. Ironically, Reg manga lacks that, which......def would make someone (and me usually) give it much of a passing glance. It's very basic I guess. But.....consider me, being in P5 hell, surrounded by all it's nausea inducing stylishness, sees a small break in the hellish hurricane to see.......normalcy. It kinda makes me connect better with the kids (kinda, it's still P5).

They feel like normal kids, trying to do their thing (sometimes trying to look/act cool and failing), and.....it's just the absolute antitheses to P5's brand......and I think that's why I like it. KLFJDSAFLKJA;

Anyway, who knows, maybe when I catch up on Reg in english and re-read MM with the official translation I might change my mind about a few things, or at least how I rank them. But for post length sake, and my sanity sake, I think I should keep the anime and mangas out of the "Which entry do you hate least" post......because I should just make another post where I go into both mangas as well as compare and contrast the anime! :D I'm just delaying some insanity for later haha....

Wait.........I just remember Day Breakers exists......and I liked it....still do....don't have much issue with it. Well shit, that is probably the one entry I hate the least. fklsdjfalkjdfkla;jsL;FJljsfdlskafaj *sobs* nO NO, I committed, and that's just a sad loophole. fdklsajflakfj *sobs* I still need to the game thing, cause let's be honest, the games are where it counts.

So right now my ranking for manga/anime is:

Daybreakers>Reg manga> MM>>>>>>>>>>TV Show Anime and it's OVAs (may the burn in the hell fire from which they spawned)

Oh, one last thing, forgot to put it in but I dunno where to put it now. I like how the manga tones down the pervyness some:

I mean Ryu is a fellow monkey. u_u .......but it's for the best I don't have to see his ape expression. ;w; (iirc the pyramid scene was a lot shorter/faster, but that's by the grace of reading and books rather than animation I suppose).

[hatsukeii]

Have I been inactive? Yes.

Am I tired? Very.

Should I apologise? Yes, I’m very, very sorry.

Is this going to be a short fic? Uh very possibly tbh sorry.

Will I get over my writer’s block anytime soon? Probably not.

Will I still write with writer’s block in an attempt to get rid of it? Yes.

Should you expect this to be good? Please God no I don’t want to disappoint.

Purely self indulgent Akaashi angst I thought of on a moving bus because my phone was dying but my laptop wasn’t.

Day 67 // Akaashi Keiji x Reader

Word count: 1.8k+

Trigger warnings: mentions of suicide, schizophrenia, cursing

Summary: Schizophrenia/ˌskɪtsə(ʊ)ˈfriːnɪə/ a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behaviour, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation.

“Keiji.”

“Hi, (Y/N).”

“How are you doing today?”

“Pretty okay. I had a test earlier, currently praying I didn’t fail.”

“Trust me sweetie, you’ll be perfectly fine! You’re smart, algebra is a breeze.”

“I sure hope so too.”

What day was it? Ah, yes, day number 67. Disapproving looks were sent towards Akaashi, students whispering amongst themselves as they inched away from him. He was an outcast in their eyes as of now. However, no one understood the situation fully, which only meant there was nothing anyone could do about it.

“Is he crazy?”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He needs a therapist.”

Ignoring the judgemental comments, Akaashi continued his conversation with you, a hand holding his head up as he dreamily stared at you sitting at the edge of his table, a warm smile plastered on your face as usual.

“If I ace this test, are you gonna let me put you in drag makeup?”

Seeing you roll your eyes, he snickered to himself, a tiny grin spreading across his face. 

“Sure, only if you ace it though!”

“Yo Akaashi!”

The familiar voice boomed from behind him, causing everyone’s heads to turn. Slapping a hand on his kouhai’s shoulder, the boisterous third year stared everyone down. Second years snapped their heads back to their textbooks, whispering to each other, obviously intimidated by the sudden appearance of Bokuto.

“What are you guys staring at, huh? Mind your own business, nosy little shits.”

Eyeing the spiker, Akaashi slowly turned around to face him. Seeing Bokuto was the other thing that made him smile. The way he easily raised Akaashi’s spirits was greatly appreciated by the setter. Bokuto was the only person Akaashi trusted enough to tell his rather complicated issues to. Taking a glance back to the front, you were gone, all traces of your existence vanished in the turn of a head. Furrowing his brows, Akaashi’s eyes darted from seat to seat, but found nothing. 

“Hm? Where did she go?”

Sensing his distress, Bokuto sighed, pulling him up by the sleeve of the setter’s school jacket. 

“It’s not getting any better?”

“What do you think, Bokuto- san?”

It pained Bokuto to see his kouhai like this. Akaashi went through way too much in the past few months, he didn’t deserve any of this. The constant and ongoing torture that was his mind, with a side of verbal bullying from classmates that didn’t understand, now that was too much to handle. Despite all that, Akaashi continued to live on, carrying the insults and grief on his back, and Bokuto respected him for that. Calling out bullies for being insensitive was the least he could do for his best bro. He would hold himself back whenever he saw Akaashi staring off into the distance, or conversing, waiting until he stopped to approach him. He understood this was the only way his kouhai could meet her. He watched as Akaashi shoved everything into his bag messily, worksheets crumpling under his laptop, pencil case still opened as pens spilled out into the backpack.

“Are you taking your meds?”

Akaashi was silent as he hauled the heavy bag onto his shoulder, but Bokuto already knew the answer to that question. He had not been taking his meds, although his doctor had urged him to do so. The professionals have explained to him multiple times before, his condition wouldn’t get better unless he took his meds, and cleared his mind off the root of the issue. However, that simply didn’t work with Akaashi. Telling him to clear his mind of the root would be equivalent to telling him to let go of one of the only people he truly, shamelessly cared about. No way in hell was he going to do that. For months, he had been emptying out his bottles of pills into the bin, acting like he took the medicine. That somehow fooled everyone in his family. They were stupid for thinking that he was okay. Shaking his head, Bokuto pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, concerned for Akaashi’s wellbeing. The two walked out of the classroom, pushing through the crowd of bustling students that were all keen to get out of the school as soon as possible.

“You wanna go out to the arcade after school? That might help you wind down.”

Frowning, Akaashi looked at the floor, fiddling with his fingers as he shook his head slightly.

“Therapy, my mom’s on my ass for it.”

A couple of students walked past the duo, snickering as they pointed at the black haired male. It was obvious what they were laughing about as they pretended to speak to air, making exaggerated movements every three seconds, before splashing a bottle of water all over Akaashi’s uniform.

“Oi, what the hell?”

“Bokuto- san, leave it.”

“But they can’t just m-”

“I said, leave it.”

Grabbing his hair, Bokuto groaned in frustration, before slamming his hands back down to his sides, slouching down and continuing to walk down the stairs to the entrance. He didn’t understand how Akaashi could deal with this. It must be so gruelling and depressing for him to have to deal with assholes like them that simply wouldn’t take the time to understand someone’s struggles. Akaashi’s mental compass was strong, so strong that he had never yelled at anyone, not even when he was a victim of their actions. It wasn’t that Bokuto minded sticking up for his kouhai, in fact, he was more than happy to do so. He just wanted Akaashi to speak up for once and not let shit like this go unnoticed.

Akaashi, on the other hand, he really could not give less of a shit. So what if he spoke up? He wasn’t going to get better anyways, no one would listen to his explanation. Fukurodani was a simple school. If you were seen as a misfit, you would get bullied. If you were seen as popular, you would get bullied. If you were seen as anything that wasn’t average, you best bet your ass you would be bullied for it. However, he swore that he would do whatever he could, take whatever punishment, or bullying, or insults that came his way, anything just to be with you for a bit longer. Anything to see that precious smile again. Fanning his shirt, the two parted ways eventually, Bokuto going to the arcade, and Akaashi going to his therapist.

“So, Akaashi, are you getting any better?”

Dr. Yuma pushed his glasses up, awaiting for his response. The teen fiddled with his fingers, seemingly nervous. How was he going to explain this? Should he just tell him the truth? If he did, the doctor might have his parents monitor him even more strictly, he might be forced to take the pills, maybe even have more frequent checkups. Part of him wanted to get rid of this, move on with his life, stop the bullying and so. However another part of him wanted to stay like this. At least he was still able to talk to her. He had close to no friends, all of them left after he started acting like this. The only one that stuck around was Bokuto, and he was forever grateful for that. Talking to you was like an escape from reality, bringing him back to better times, even if others couldn’t accept it.

“Yeah, kind of.”

Smiling to himself, the therapist jotted that down into his notebook, before continuing to consult his patient.

“So, how’re you doing? Do you still see or think of her?”

Looking at the floor, Akaashi bit his lip nervously, racking his brain for something to say.

“I still think of her. That hasn’t gotten any better. I can’t get her out of my mind. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t focus. I could’ve helped her, there was something I could’ve done, if only I had known about her depression. I... I could’ve helped her, there was a chance at saving her and I blew it. I see her once in a while, most often times at school. People look at me like I’m crazy when I’m talking to her though.”

Nodding his head slowly, Dr. Yuma continued to journal everything into the notebook.

“Well, according to my assumptions, you should stop seeing her about now. Are the meds not working?”

Akaashi’s eyes widened, cold sweat gathering on his neck.

“Akaashi... are you not taking the meds?”

Giving up, Akaashi looked at the therapist, eyes desperate and teary.

“I’m not getting any better and I don’t want to either. I want to stay with (Y/N), even if it’s not real. People can stare, they can laugh, I don’t care, I just want to stay with her. I have no friends as of now, they were all too weirded out by the thought of me suffering from schizophrenia. Apparently mental issues aren’t accepted into friend circles. What do I have to lose anyways?”

Completely breaking down, tears flowed freely from his eyes as he stared at his shaking hands. Akaashi shook violently, choking on his salty tears as Dr. Yuma looked at him sympathetically. What the hell was he thinking? Not taking his meds? Troubling his therapist every week with his worsening symptoms? He was selfish towards everyone that awaited his recovery from this disease. His family, Bokuto, his team, all of them. However, did he really want to recover? Would having schizophrenia be worth it, as long as you were still by his side? He wanted to see your smile again, the way you teased him, poked fun with him, the way you kissed him, held him, he felt selfish for wanting it all back, but you could really blame him? He was just as ready to kill himself as you were a few months back, Bokuto was right, this, along with the bullying, was too much for him to bear. Thank God for Akaashi being able to hide his emotions, at least he wouldn’t be troubling Dr. Yuma any more than he already is with his schizophrenia. 

“Akaashi, buddy, you’re going to have to get over her death sooner or later. This is going to affect your life greatly if you don’t and that will become far too troublesome to deal with. You need to start taking the pills and recovering, or the consequences will be quite negative. It’s not your fault, she never told you about her suicidal thoughts, you couldn’t have done anything.”

Eyes blurry from the tears he shed, Akaashi looked straight at his therapist, irises dull and hopeless as tears continued to roll down his numb cheeks.

“It’s bad enough that I couldn’t stop her from jumping, at least let me have fake hope that she might still see me. Please, Dr. Yuma, let me do that for myself.”

Setting down his notebook, Akaashi was able to take a glance at whatever was scrawled messily on the page.

June 20, 2020

Day 67, patient is not showing any signs of improvement. 

Heavily blames self for the suicide of significant other.

Rejecting help.

Not taking meds.

Reminder: Need to inform parents of situation.

Patient should come back again with family for day 68 checkup tomorrow.

Tags:

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Eh I guess I like writing stuff about mental issues lol my writer’s block is partially gone for now:D Hope you like this thing<3

[thisnerdsadventures]

2020 is over (finally)

So obviously 2020 was a bit of a shitshow and everyone is eagerly awaiting 2021 as if it will automatically grant us mercy because of the hellhole that 2020 was. Honestly - same, I really have such low expectations for 2021 that they make my 2020 resolutions seem like such high reaches.

Even though 2020 was ... 2020, I still feel like I did accomplish to some extent my goals for the year. I didn’t write them out on this blog, but I think broadly, my goals were

to work out more - I definitely think I did this on and off. Like many, I took up running, and actually stuck with it for a while, so I’m very happy about that. I think I’ll keep that as a goal for 2021, and probably every year, otherwise I won’t actually keep myself accountable on it lol

to follow through on things more - this was the high key most vague goal I have ever published on the internet omg, but I think this was in reference to how I always flake on my hobbies halfway through, like if I’m trying to learn a language or write music or actually learn photography skills. I think I did accomplish this - my Duolingo streak is up to 200 (though not in Mandarin smh) and I dropped my mixtape a few days ago. I think I would say I did a good job here.

advocate or something?????? - something something Amplify!!?!??!? there was definitely a very solid attempt here, and i have no idea what this was referring to anyways, but I definitely feel like this is a long-term goal for the next 5, 10 years regardless.

How the year went:

Honestly in the beginning of it all, I wasn’t feeling 2020 very much. There was a lot going on in my life, and I wasn’t feeling my classes. I think I just needed a bit of a shakeup. And then there was a shakeup, and I was like, “no, not that kind of shakeup.” And then we went home, and then I graduated from college, I interned at Google again, I started my MEng in Cambridge, had fun with my friends, got a full-time job for next year, went home again for the winter, and now we’re here.

For better or worse, the main theme of this year was definitely “reflection” -  a whole ton of it. With so much time at home, I had a lot of time to think and overthink everything in my life, past present and future. I thought about my friends from years past and why we didn’t talk anymore. I reflected a lot on my MIT years, how I wish I had made a couple key decisions very differently, and how that would’ve affected my present. I thought about all the things I should’ve done. I thought about who I was, and how I changed, and how it took me years to finally find a skin I was comfortable in. I thought about my current friends and whether they’d stick around. I thought really hard about how I treated other people and how they treated me, and whether that was ok. I journaled a lot, and read a lot of poetry to find answers, and failed to find them. I thought about whether I’d have friends in the future. I thought about whether people were supposed to feel alone in this world, or whether I’d find a home in New York, where I’m going next year.

And I changed a lot of my expectations from life - after some time, finally I started to expect less of myself in a time where getting things done is literally impossible sometimes. From other people, I expected less, and am unsure how to feel about reaching that conclusion, whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. From life, I expected it to give me nothing and to throw everything bad possible in my way, because for a while, it seemed like that’s what it was trying to do. (That actually sounds really depressing, but it means that I started making the moves to make my life better on my own, and I don’t stop anymore to wait for the universe to magically make it happen.)

A lot of this reflection surrounded events in my life - finally, mentally letting go of people in the past (i.e. giving up on them lol), losing a friendship, feeling incredible loneliness and anxiety during the pandemic, failing to find fulfillment in my research. I wonder if COVID didn’t happen, if 2020 would’ve gotten better for me. I think a lot about how I was supposed to go to Europe, go to Michigan, go to New York, visit DC, Seattle, Chicago, etc. I think a lot about if COVID didn’t happen, would I still have the friends I had, would I still have made the friends I did, would my expectations of myself and others have changed in the ways they did? I don’t know. My mental health would probably not be in shambles though. I’d probably sleep easier at night. To be honest, I think a lot about this post, and I have no real, solid conclusions about 2020, it was a very rough year, and the only thing I can say is “I’m glad I’m alive, and that’s all the good I need to extract out of it.” 

But of course, there were some pretty key highlights that still happened, so I’ll just bullet that here

I interned at MSFT! Everyone was very very nice, though it fully cemented the fact that I absolutely do not want to do data analytics, ever

I took this negotiation class, which will likely be the peak class I took at MIT, which is fine tbh. Honestly wish I took more adventurous classes at MIT, but that’s a topic to dissect another day

I actually got published this year lol, first authored a paper, I sometimes forget about this [x]

I spent like literally 80 hours helping my friend campaign for the undergrad assoc election over 2 weeks, which was a really strange tangent in my life

I graduated!! from MIT!! What a dream <3 honestly still shocked they accepted me

I became the CTO of amplify, our nonprofit org

I interned at google cloud and absolutely rocked my internship project

I chaired for the alibaba committee for mitmunc china (virtual)

I started my Masters program

I joined this new club on campus, which is our campus chapter of the google developer student club, which is really just me refusing to actually ever leave google

I became an interviewer for MIT

I got like 6 job offers and accepted an offer to work at Stripe next year!

I dropped a mixtape lol and have some exciting stuff planned in a couple weeks re:music if things go through

Ah, I should have some goals for next year:

graduate with my Masters! can be from Killian, or from living room. I have an entire photo shoot with my friends for grad pics and you know I have an entire countdown waiting for the day I can post those pictures

continue to learn languages! because what else am i going to do with my time. maybe this will finally be the year i learn mandarin....... nope that’s setting the bar too high

read more! I should read more. I really should because it is embarrassing how little I read. I should really read more. I should have a goal of reading 12 books next year ! Yes, we are setting the goal low, but again, low expectations!

Actually, I also want to apply to some MBA programs, so I’m writing that down here to manifest it

See my friends again - I have pretty reasonable hopes that 2021 will let us at some point see each other, whether it be during the spring, the summer, the winter, maybe exactly one year from now on 12/31/21, idk, but it will happen! Manifest that

Make like 2 friends..... ok make one (1) new friend.,,,,,

Let go of old things from 2020 that I miss or wish would happen. Open myself to new things.

please, please 2021, be better lol

[secludedmoonnn]

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything on here. I haven’t been doing the greatest mentally. I try to keep my mood and attitude up the best I can, but it just seems that every attempt lately has been failing. (I have a feeling that it has to do with the fact that I’m getting my period in less than a week lol). Every time I wake up, I’m sad, and I have to fight off the tears that want to come out. I don’t want to cry anymore. I cry so much. I haven’t cried this much since I was living with Marissa, and that was simply because I felt lonely and was unhappy with my living arrangements and just overall life. But you came into my life right as I got out of that shitty part of my life. And idk if that was such a good idea to have you come in so fast after, but you have no idea what this past year has meant to me. I have never felt such happiness and love before in my life. I have never felt loved like that and I think that’s why this hurts so fucking bad. No one has ever truly loved me the way you did. Unconditionally. And idk what happened. To be told lies and then to be told you’re not sure if you’re in love with me anymore. I don’t get why you couldn’t come to me. It still frustrates me. This whole situation, everything, makes me so mad. Why did this happen? Why does everything work out in the way where I’m the one left alone and hurting? Why is everything unfair to me? Why can’t one goddamn thing in my life work out the way I want it to? Why can’t a single fucking person be honest with me? I just wish that I could close off my heart to people, but I just can’t. No matter how hard I try to, I always end up having my heart completely open and vulnerable to everyone. Idk how not to. Idk how to not let things affect me. I have always been this way. Because everything matters to me. The way people treat me or others matters. What people say or do to me, matters. Idk how to not let it affect me when it has to do with the people I love and care about. Idk why you couldn’t see that. Or at least come talk to me about something you were genuinely concerned about. Idk why you couldn’t talk to me about something like that, ESPECIALLY if you claimed to care about me and love me. Regardless if you weren’t sure what you were feeling and you got scared. I was always there for you. Always ready to let you open yourself up to me, but you just couldn’t do it. And tbh, that is extremely fucking selfish of you. Considering we were in a serious relationship. Something I wanted to have for the rest of my life. I was ready to fight and to work for it at any given moment if need be. But you weren’t. You didn’t want to fight. You just backed yourself into a corner with these thoughts and feelings and it just kept becoming more and more until the point where you felt trapped and like there was nothing else that you could do. And that was fucking selfish. When you’re in a relationship, your feelings become our feelings and vice versa. And we talk it out. It can be fucking terrifying, but everything worth something, isn’t easy. It takes guts, and it takes work and it takes determination. It takes so much more than it leads on to be. And I was more than willing to do all the work and more. But you just weren’t, and it fucking sucks. It sucks to feel like I was the only one who cared about our relationship, that cared about how we both felt. And I hate feeling that way. I know you cared about me, but you didn’t care enough. You didn’t care enough about us. You didn’t care enough and it sucks babe. It sucks so fucking much, and I don’t know how to cope with that. I clearly viewed you and our relationship in a different light than you viewed me and our relationship. It sucks to know that I truly didn’t know a fucking thing about you in that sense. And it hurts like hell. Especially to know that you just couldn’t break down those walls and talk to me. The person who was always there no matter what. And it sucks. It sucks so much.

And I hate missing you as much as I do. I hate that no matter what, you always creep into my thoughts. You don’t cross my mind, you live there. And I can’t even escape you in my sleep. I’ve been having consistent dreams of you this past week. All different play-throughs of our breakup or relationship. Last night, idk where we were, but we weren’t at either of our homes and you broke up with me, but before you left, we were with other people and you fell asleep on my shoulder and we just had a really sweet moment. It felt very intimate and just nice. Then when you realized what you were doing, you got all flustered and said you can’t do that and that you needed to leave, but I was stuck wherever I was (somehow 4 hours away from home), and you said you’d drive me, but we would have to be stuck in the car with each other for hours after we broke up and that I just wouldn’t want that. And then you left me. But it jumped to another part of the dream and we were walking somewhere to sit down, and I pretty much just asked you the questions I wanted to know. Like how much time do you need, are you going to hold up on your end of the pact, and so many other things too. And I sadly never got any answers. I never got anything. Just like in real life. And then I woke up. And I just spent an hour crying. I couldn’t stop myself. I have cried so much the past few days. I try not to, but idk why but I just have an anxious feeling/cloud that just looms over my heart and I can’t seem to make it go away. Sometimes I fight it off and anytime I start to feel the anxiety start up and you push yourself into my thoughts, I try to ignore it. I try to push it down, because I’m just over crying. I’m over crying over you, over this situation, over the love that I may never get back. I wish I could just throw away my feelings. I wish it was something I could easily move past. But I can’t and it isn’t. Love is never easy. Especially when that love leaves you out of nowhere. When you didn’t have a fucking clue. And it sucks. And so sometimes I just cry, because there’s nothing else that I can do. But just feel. And I feel so goddamn much.

I’ve realized this week though, how depressed I have gotten. I’ve eaten so much fast food it isn’t even funny and I’m barely not stoned. Which I mean nothing out of the regular from before, but I’m using it as an escape now. And I don’t want that. I’m going to try and be more aware of how I’m using it and why. I don’t want to fall into that spiral again. So I’m going to try and focus on doing my chores/ responsibilities before I let myself indulge like that. Ngl, I got my notebook to find a page I can write on to make a list of everything I need to do, and I came across the fish that you drew to show me the picture you drew that your mom got tattooed on her, and I just felt a wave of sadness again. You are so intertwined into every part of me and my life. Even though you aren’t here. Even though we don’t talk anymore. And this feeling really sucks. Because I want nothing more than for you to be here. For us to be able to to talk about things. And it sucks because I know that isn’t possible, and it sucks because I keep being reminded of you no matter what it is that I am doing. You are there. You are always with me. Your memory, your presence. It just follows me like a ghost. I wish this was something I could easily move on from but I can’t. My heart is too big and it cares too much about everything. Especially when it comes to you.

I’ve been hurting so much lately. And I wish I wasn’t, but I can’t stop the inevitable. I just want it to stop. I just want my heart to heal from this. But I know it can’t be done so easily. And it is going to take a lot of time, a lot of work and a lot of dedication and determination. But I know I will get there, eventually. I will be okay, even if I feel far from it right now. I’m going to get through this extremely rough patch in my life. I will do it because I deserve it. And I deserve to be happy again. I deserve a life that isn’t filled with such sadness. And I will do it of my own volition.

I’ve been really sad this week and it sucks. But I hope you are doing okay. I hope that you’re getting through your emotions and feelings and whatever else life may be throwing at you for the time being. I wish I could be there for you, as like I’ve mentioned before, I still care immensely about you, and I am an extremely caring person by nature. I hope that one day, our paths will cross again, and maybe we will have enough courage to try again.

[twilight-deviant]

So I never saw the Timeless movie but enjoyed your feedback on the show while it was in progress and agreed with you much of the time-- is the movie worth watching ? I'm scared it's going to be rushed, sloppy, and ly@tt garbage

First of all, thank you for valuing my opinion enough to ask. I haven’t rambled about Timeless in awhile, but I’m flattered you enjoyed and remembered my feedback when I did. ♥

Sadly, I have to report that Timeless finale is a movie disliked by Garcy fans, Riya fans, and gen fans alike. Pretty much the only way to like it is if you’re the target audience: Lucy/Wyatt shippers. Or maybe if you’re a very, very casual fan.

Full disclosure: I have not actually watched the Timeless movie. Like you, I feared it would abandon everything Timeless stood for, everything we loved, to waste its last moments on Lucy/Wyatt fan service. Aaaaaand I was right. Good call me on not watching it live. It might have broken my heart. I got the information later through friends and research. And tbh, hearing everything second-hand was actually hilarious. Yes, it was upsetting, but the writing is SO BAD, I actually laughed. Out loud. I may have cried laughing. It’s just… so bad. XD

I spent months dreading a worst case scenario for the movie, and when the time came, it was every bit that. (And then some? Somehow?) But when it got here, all of my fears turned to hilarity. I was RELIEVED. After months of being afraid, I finally felt free. I thought “This is what I was afraid of?” Because toxic shippers in the fandom got everything they wanted, just the way they wanted, but it is HORRIBLE! Because what they wanted was BAD. It watches just like the badly written fanfiction they demanded. Which is ALL this movie is: badly written fanfiction.

To quote Claudia Doumit when she read the script: “It feels like a fan wrote the movie.” Perhaps she means that in a positive way, but if a professional is writing “like a fan,” spoiler alert, it’s never a positive thing. It’s a “basic” thing.

Timeless movie is SO BAD that it is the least rewatched episode of all Timeless. Delayed returns on it are borderline embarrassing. Few people except Lucy/Wyatt shippers wanted to subject themselves to it a second time. Not to mention that support for Timeless and a third renewal fell into steep decline after the premiere. It seems not many people want more if this is the “more” we might have to look forward to.

imo, Future television writers should study this movie for direct examples of what NOT to do. It’s every worst case scenario, presented to you at breakneck speed. You barely have time to get over one absurdity before the next one hits. Not gonna lie. I’ll give kudos where due. I am legitimately IMPRESSED that writing managed to get every single thing wrong. Do you know how statistically impossible that is?!?!

Timeless movie really sort of took all the negatives, low points, disproportionate focus on romance, and bad writing of S2 and ran with them. That’s what it is. Concentrated S2, minus any good parts.

Basically, if you are a fan of Flynn, Lucy, Rufus, Jiya, Jessica, Emma, Connor, Denise, good writing, feminism, no plotholes, Riya, Garcy, or TIMELESS, please do not watch the Timeless movie. Save yourself. If your first (only?) priority is Wyatt and Lucy/Wyatt, go right ahead. It was made just (only?) for you.

Though obviously, I can’t/won’t stop you from watching. You may still want to form your own opinion, and if so, you have my full support. I hope that you find something appealing to make it worth your time. I especially hope that if you don’t, it doesn’t ruin Timeless for you, as it has other people. I still may watch it myself one day. I may. But not for entertainment purposes. Really just to mock it from a more informed standpoint. I’ve considered live-blogging the event. lol.

As is though, I basically know the entire movie through aforementioned friends and research. And I will summarize below the cut on the ways this movie failed Timeless and its fans. (PS: This is by no means everything. There’s just SO MUCH and I got tiiiired thinking about this monstrosity! Anyone is free to add on whatever I didn’t cover.)

[Spoilers]

Future Lucy gives the journal to Wyatt, the writer’s attempt to take something that has always been Flynn/Lucy’s thing and make it a L/W thing. (Somehow, we’re supposed to ignore that this Lucy already would have given her journal to Flynn in 2014. Conveniently, illogically, she has it again. So she can give it to Wyatt.)

Future Wyatt announces that Jessica was lying about being pregnant. Right out the gate. Great. Now, they get to kill her. Don’t worry, writing will strip away her entire character first so we don’t feel guilty when an “evil Rittenhouse agent” dies. It’s fine to kill a woman who was brainwashed from childhood, but let’s not kill a baby. We’ll just erase it instead. That’s different because reasons.

Writing introduces a new stipulation that people can coexist with time travel, but staying too long will kill them. This will come in handy later.

Also the new, updated Lifeboat will conveniently be able to do whatever the plot needs. Coexist? Sure. Autopilot? Suuuuure. Able to jump multiple times on one charge as if it had a nuclear core like the Mothership? Why not?!

If you thought Rittenhouse wasn’t scary anymore in S2, well hold onto this writer’s beer. Gone is any intimidation or purpose they once stood for. Now that Emma is running things, all that matters is stealing art and money from the past. Caution: Never go full two-dimensional evil.

Wyatt decides Jessica has to die and he’s the one who has to do it. But after half an argument from the team, he gives in and agrees not to. FLYNN will clean up Wyatt’s mess instead! Because suddenly, all that matters is he loves Lucy. Not his family. Not stopping Rittenhouse. No, he has to do this so that Lucy can be with Wyatt and Rufus can be alive.

Flynn tells Lucy that the journal can be unreliable. Despite this, he goes to 2012 and dooms himself because he believes, without a doubt, that Lucy’s heart will always belong to Wyatt, something he, ya know, got from the journal. And that neeeeeever changes. I mean, some guy said it was unreliable, but his name escapes me right now.

When 1x06 first aired and we heard the story of how Jessica died and how it was very much Wyatt’s fault, painting him in a negative light, I thought to myself (almost three years ago), “Wow. If we ever get a flashback of that night, writing is going to retcon all of that so hard so that it doesn’t look like Wyatt’s fault.” And lo! It’s Jessica’s fault now. She made Wyatt get jealous on purpose. She made him drink too much. She MADE HIM let her out of the car, per text orders of Rittenhouse agent. Poor Wyatt, what a victim. (Periodic reminder that Timeless hates women.)

Writing in the scene with Jessica’s death is so bad that we’re actually left with no alternative BUT to believe Wyatt was the original killer that night. Rittenhouse agent tells Jessica to get out of the car. This saves her life. No other person is seen on this road (save Flynn later) that could be the killer. And what’s the other course (the original timeline)? Without instruction, Jessica would have stayed in the car. And died. Wow, I can’t believe Wyatt killed Jessica in a drunken, jealous rage, but also I can. Also also writing just told us he did. If Rittenhouse wanted to make sure she was okay, they would tell her to stay in the car with her soldier husband, no matter what. That would save her. But what do they do instead? Hmmmm…….

Flynn kills Jessica and hurries to the Lifeboat, feeling the effects of coexistence taking affect. Set course for any time but this one, am I right? Wrong. Nah, better just die. Flynn sends the Lifeboat back to 1848 for the team and stays in 2012 so he can see his family one last time and then die. Because true character development is letting your five-year-old die violently two weeks before Christmas when you still have the life and power to prevent it.

Why does all of our correspondence end the same? Reply, reply, and then *crickets* Notice me, senpai. TToTT

For some reason (I mean, I know the reason. It’s bad writing by an idiot), dead Flynn’s fingerprints do not pull up when police find a John Doe on the beach. Despite the fact that he worked with the NSA and his prints would be on file.

I can’t with this woman:

Anywaaaaaaay, Rufus returns in a way that breaks all time travel rules thus far established in the show. Even though the team was traveling in 1848 with Flynn, suddenly it’s reset so that Rufus was there the entire time. Which, even if writing wants to claim that’s SOMEHOW possible, is still illogical because to overwrite that timeline, the characters’ memories would have also been overwritten. However, they remain perfectly intact with everyone remembering Rufus died. (Except Rufus, of course.)

Flynn dies because he stayed in the past too long. The writer would then go on twitter and pretend the matter was out of her hands, even though she’s the one who set the condition. She WROTE the rule that killed him, SO she could kill him. (This was previously not going to be a condition on coexisting time travel. Source: Interviews in which it was suggested that had Timeless been renewed for S3, Future Lucy and Wyatt may have stuck around for a few episodes.)

Arika would also say on twitter that, in her opinion, Flynn didn’t deserve a happy ending, to the uproar of many.

Writing tries to claim that Flynn was always the person who killed Jessica in 2012. Deer lord at the plotholes.

And the holes keep comin and they don’t stop comin. ♫

It’s Christmas now. For some reason. When the team returns to the bunker, there are Christmas decorations everywhere and we’re told that it’s Christmas in present day. Even though it was May yesterday.

There are more than a dozen ways to save Flynn at this point, but Arika doesn’t like him and just wants Lucy/Wyatt to bang. So you can bet none of them will be used. Also because she’s an idiot, the woman claimed on twitter that Flynn can’t possibly be brought back because he died while time traveling. Uh-huh. First off, what? He absolutely can be saved. Secondly, tell me how Rufus died again?

The characters acknowledge Flynn for a minute (in a toast give by WYATT, of all people) before promptly forgetting he ever existed until the end of the movie. When they need him again.

When Rufus wants to get intimate, Jiya tells him that she suffered some form of abuse while stranded in the past. That’s it. We will never talk about this again. Forget it ever happened. They brought it up just to scar Jiya even further and then ignore it. Anyone who tells you Timeless loves women is lying. Timeless wants to torture and torment women. FOR NO REASON!

Emma is the only person who cares Jessica is now dead. Because it sure as shirt wasn’t going to be her husband who like two days ago was desperately trying to get her to come home to her “family.” (Remember kids, women are just baby makers. If there’s not a baby in there, she’s garbage, and a minute spent mourning is a minute you’re not banging the next lady.) Emma plots revenge on the team, and honestly, by this point, I say let her do it. They’re horrible people.

Lucy boldly says she won’t be Wyatt’s second choice. So she can forget she said it in 10 minutes, when she’s suddenly fine with it.

Rufus is alive again, but all of his memories after 2x03 are conveniently erased. In his timeline, Lucy/Wyatt have been together this whole time, and he’s their biggest fan. He actually, canonically, verbally says that he’s “Team L/yatt.” That’s great because otherwise we’re left with a Rufus whose last words on the subject are:

“You are so worried about your stupid Lucy-Jessica soap opera that you forgot that there are other people here. Who matter to each other. Who love each other. If anything happens to her, Wyatt… I don’t think I can ever forgive you.”

Yeah, we can’t use that in the Lucy/Wyatt movie. Better erase the black man’s memory since he’s no longer serving his purpose: head cheerleader of the white couple!

Because Rufus’s memories are gone, all S2 development in the Riya relationship is gone with it. Damaging them even more after Jiya spent 3 years in the past (becoming hardened and almost a different person) and then watched him die. Don’t worry, writing will address none of this.

Rufus compares Lucy/Wyatt to Aragorn/Arwen. As a Tolkien nerd, I’ll throw down over this alone. IN WHAT WAY?!

There’s a pregnant woman in labor because leave no cliche unturned. Wyatt delivers the baby because what did I just say about cliches.

Lucy’s hormones go all a-twitter when she sees Wyatt holding said baby. Outside? In weather they admitted earlier is deathly freezing? (I mean, the mother might want to hold her own baby, but no. She has to get in line. Lucy absolutely HAS to have an epiphany that she needs Wyatt’s babies.)

Lucy decides that since Wyatt’s mistreatment of her was technically from another timeline, she can let go off all self-respect and tell herself he didn’t mean it. Also almost everyone else is dead or has their memories erased, so only they will know. Now Lucy can be with Wyatt and no one will judge her? Yay?

Despite Emma’s big speech in 2x10 about abandoning the pillars of “old Rittenhouse” and striking out on her own, she still backs down immediately when Denise makes Benjamin Cahill tell her to knock it off and surrender.

Emma dies at the hands of some deus ex machina random sniper. Letting us know the writer could no longer pretend she cared about any of this and just wanted to make Lucy/Wyatt bang. Are they banging yet? Bang now! Will this convenient and corny mistletoe move things along? Are they banging yet?

So Denise saves the day. In the most anti-climatic way. Meaning Rufus was never actually necessary and could have stayed dead. Actually, none of the team was necessary. Nothing in these episodes was necessary. All it took to end Rittenhouse was Denise and Ben. Roll credits.

Lucy decides NOT to save her sister Amy. Even though it’s what she has been fighting for since episode 2. Her reasoning? She says that trying to save the people they love has negative effects. (Let’s get one last jab at dead Flynn by saying, “Look at all the awful things that Flynn did in the name of saving his family.”) This is said in spite of the fact that Amy is SUPPOSED to be alive, and leaving her erased IS an alternate timeline, carrying the potential of being more catastrophic than SAVING HER and setting the events right.

PS: While in the past, Lucy JUST SAID, “What’s the point of saving history if we don’t save the people in it?” And then saved a stranger that was supposed to die. Writing for this movie does not care about consistency, only what’s relevant in the moment. And clearly the writer wanted Amy to stay dead.

Leaving Amy dead creates this lovely paradox:

Writer is too ignorant in time travel to understand that current timeline is erased, Lucy is now with Noah, and that is our endgame. Movie proceeds with Lucy/Wyatt ending.

The Mothership is dismantled for no reason. So now the team is stuck with ONE time machine for any future situations. Remind me again. Remind me. Why… did we have the Lifeboat in the first place? Oh yeah, Connor kept it in case the crew of the Mothership was ever stranded. And it came in handy after the Mothership was stolen. Right, who needs two time machines? Scrap her, boys!

In a flashforward to 2023, we see that Lucy is teaching at Stanford again. And she just got tenure! Which is a throwback to the Pilot, but completely ignores that it is not what Lucy wanted for herself, only what Carol influenced her into doing. Lucy’s dream job was to teach at a small college in Ohio. (Source: 1x14 conversation with Lindbergh.) But who CARES WHAT LUCY WANTS?! Certainly not a writer who barely knows the show upon which she is the showrunner.

Lucy is a thoroughly horrible fake feminist now. At her job, she teaches a general history class, but only talks about women in history. When a male student brings this up, Lucy says, “I meant to get to the men, but we just didn’t have time.Maybe in the spring, okay?” So he gets to sound sexist for valuing his education. Oh, wow, thanks. Feminism isn’t about ignoring men and acting like they’re not important. It’s about EQUALITY! Label your class as “Women’s History” if that’s all you’re going to teach. Also what if they don’t HAVE YOU next semester, Lucy?! They’re going on to their next classes completely unprepared. Remind me again how this woman got tenure? Because she didn’t get it in the Pilot due to her unconventional teaching methods. Somehow not adhering to your own course description is the secret to success?

Lucy and Wyatt have two twin girls named Flynn and Amy. There are so many bad fanfiction cliches I want to cry. TToTT Why are you making me cry? Never. name. the. second. generation. after. characters. that. died. It’s. THE. corniest. thing. Petition. to. stop!

Jiya and Rufus started “Riya Industries.” That’s right! They squeezed not one, BUT TWO fandom ship names into this nightmare. If you needed further proof no one was taking this movie seriously, here ya go.

2023 Lucy does take the journal to 2014 Flynn in the bar in Sao Paulo, but everything about it is wrong. Not only do Rufus and Wyatt accompany her, but the conversation leads to Lucy telling a man who just lost his family that he can change the past but will never save his family. Also he’ll die. And he should just accept all of that but still do what she says and sacrifice himself to save a world that hates him. And the entire conversation takes place in about a minute. I mean, people had a hard time believing Flynn would buy into Lucy’s story and do what she said after 2x08 premiered. Now? NO EFFING WAY!

A clip (deleted scene from Pilot) of 2016 Flynn at the end shows him about to raid Mason Industries and start us over again. In other words, he is stuck in Hell loop for eternity. His family will die in 2014, he will do horrible things he hates to save them and the world from Rittenhouse, and he will die unnecessarily to save the world. Then Lucy will go back in time, give him the journal, and start him on this quest all over again, knowing full well that he is a good man and this will destroy his soul. But she doesn’t care (actually smiles as she approaches him) because he “did bad things” and the writer thinks he deserves this. Even though Lucy is the one who set him on this path and one can EASILY argue it is all her doing and Flynn was nothing but her tool. Don’t worry, she gets her happy ending.

The movie closes on a young girl designing specs for her own time machine. Motives unknown, other than general interest, same as Connor in the beginning. The writer thinks this is an AMAZING open ending, leaving plenty of groundwork for more Timeless when fans get it renewed for a third time. (It is not. No one cares. You killed Timeless and flew all its plots into the ground.)

In conclusion, yes, worst case scenario on every single plot point. Timeless does nothing to prove or even suggest it deserves a third chance. I personally am left wishing it had never been renewed after the initial cancellation following S1. Let it stay dead now. Forever. It has done nothing to deserve yet another chance.

RIP Timemess.

[lgbtyrus]

Two Exes on Mars

Part 2/?

Words: 2,566

Amber walked into TJ’s bedroom that night asking, “What was that about?”

“What was what about?” TJ asked her, looking up from his desktop. He wasn’t even covering the fact that he was looking at picture of Cyrus. Amber sighed and walked over behind him as he kept clicking.

“Why did you ask Buffy about Cyrus?”

“Because you won’t tell me about Cyrus.”

“It’s not my place. I worked hard to build my relationship with Cyrus, and I wasn’t going to let you throw it away.”

“I just want to know if he’s okay. You won’t even give me that much,” TJ sighed, clicking through Hanukah photos.

“Why do you even want to know, TJ?” Amber asked him. She’s always been mad at TJ for dumping Cyrus, no doubt. Especially because they both still loved each other. “You completely broke his heart.”

TJ didn’t say anything before whispering, “I’m sure he’s fine now.”

“You don’t know that, actually,” Amber said, angry at her brother. Talking about Cyrus always led to both of them fighting or both of them crying. He couldn’t guess where this was going to lead to.

“Because you won’t tell me,” TJ reminded her, continuing to click through New Years Eve photo. It was Their sophomore year of high school when someone had taken a picture of them kiss. It was one of the many pictures that broke his ribcage and punched his heart.

“You don’t deserve to know, TJ,” Amber rolled her eyes, sitting down on his bed. TJ knew this was going to take a while.

“I still think of him every day. I don’t even know if I’ve gotten any better. I somehow always hope that I could run into him at MSU or see his face when I’m walking through Shadyside during visits, but I haven’t seen him since graduation.”

“He’s in California living his best life.”

“So he’s happy there?” TJ asked her, turning to look at her. There was a photo of Cyrus with their late cat Macaroni on his lap on his screen currently.

“I wouldn’t know,” Amber shrugged.

“Don’t you still talk to him like once a week?” TJ asked her, frowning. “Why won’t you tell me, Amber?”

“I already said that it’s not my place, TJ,” Amber said. “If Cyrus wanted you to know how he’s doing, he’d respond to your messages that you are too scared to send.”

“You can’t just text your ex out of the blue and ask how they’re doing Amber,” TJ rolled his eyes.

“Me and Jonah are literally best friends,” Amber rolled her eyes more dramatically to mock him.

“That happened years ago, though.”

“Okay then,” Amber crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, “wait years.” TJ glared at her before going back to his desktop, continuing to go through photos. He found one of him and Cyrus at the swings. Andi took them on a weekend she came down to visit, so they looked professional. TJ printed a few of the pictures from this day out, and they were currently in a box in the attic of his home.

“I think I made a mistake, Amber,” TJ sighed, once he landed on his all time favorite photo. It was him and Cyrus at junior prom, slow dancing in their matching tuxedos. His eyes teared up just looking at it.

“I know you did, TJ,” Amber remorselessly said. “I don’t know how you thought breaking up was going to hurt less than doing long distance.”

“Is it always going to hurt?” TJ asked her, staring at other prom photos.

“Considering you let go of the guy who was probably your soulmate, yeah. It will.”

-

Winter break came along Cyrus was finally back in Shadyside. Amber was literally holding TJ hostage in his room, not letting him leave. She stood below his chin, but his fear of hurting her was the only reason why he just didn’t barge past her.

“You are not leaving this house, Tom Jacob,” she said, holding her arms out.

“First of all, it’s not that,” TJ rolled his eyes, “second of all, I’m not going to go see Cyrus.”

“Do you take me for a fool, Thomas Jose?” Amber scoffed, looking up to give him a dirty look. TJ didn’t bother to look at her. He kept his head looking up as she continued to scold him, “You have made no attempt to leave this house the entire four days you’ve been here, but you hear me, on a private phone call with Cyrus that he’s going to come back home today and all of the sudden, you shower?”

“I shower every day, Amber.”

“You know that’s not my point, Tyler Jackson!”

“You don’t remember what TJ stands for, do you?” TJ asked her, still not making eye contact.

“Of course not,” Amber told him. “But still, you’re not leaving this house to go crush all the progress you and Cyrus have made.”

“I just want to have a conversation with him, Amber,” TJ said, trying to blink away the tears that were forming before she noticed. That would be terrible.

“About what? ‘Oh hi, Cyrus,’” Amber started to mock his voice, “’I just wanted to see how you were doing after I got your heart and dragged it through the dirt!’”

“Okay, Amber!” TJ yelled and look at her. “That’s enough.” Amber and him looked each other in the eye, and Amber was clearly trying to figure out if he was tearing up. TJ wasn’t exactly a sensitive person but certain topics like Cyrus let the waterworks unscrew.

Amber didn’t say anything else before making her way out of the room and saying, “If you want to see him, at least text him first. Give him the option to say no.”

His door shut close and TJ laid back on his bed, rubbing his face roughly. He didn’t have Cyrus on social media anymore, and he had his number still, but he doesn’t know if it’s changed or if Cyrus blocked it. He hasn’t texted him since that one time he replied to him saying goodnight. Out of all of the nights since the breakup, that was the worst one. He still loved him with his entire being that night. He probably still did.

TJ took out his phone and looked for Cyrus Goodman. He’s been wanting to this for months, but he still didn’t know what to say.

TJ: Hey

That’s it? TJ wondered. Hey is all I can say after all I did?

TJ: I know this is out of the blue. I just wanted to know how you’re doing.

For almost an hour, TJ laid in his bed, listening to music. Spotify was really the only social media type of thing he had Cyrus on, and he often saw that he would listen to music they had dance parties to or napped to. It was how he knew Cyrus was feeling and boy, was he often listening to his sad music playlist.

Cyrus: I’m fine. I just got home.

TJ’s heart beat went out of control. He didn’t know if he was going to get a text back, but he also didn’t plan for what to do with himself if he replied. He didn’t even know what he wanted out of this conversation. He wanted Cyrus, but he wasn’t sure what side of Cyrus.

TJ: Glad you’re home safe.

TJ couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Cyrus: Are you home too or??

TJ: Ya I’ve been in Shadyside for a few days already.

Cyrus: What have you been doing this whole time?

TJ: Nothing tbh. I’ve just been home.

Cyrus: Want to do something?

TJ did not think this was going to happen. TJ did not think Cyrus would even ask to see him. He was wondering if Andi and Buffy were coaching him text at that very moment. No. Buffy would kill both of us before we ever met up. What is Cyrus thinking?

TJ: They need help passing out toys in West Shadyside at the Elk’s tonight at 6. I volunteered. You wanna come with or do something else later? I figure you’re tired.

Cyrus: No that sounds fun I’m down

TJ: Okay I’ll pick you up at 5:30.

Cyrus: See you then

-

TJ had three hours to get out of bed and get ready, but he didn’t move until he only had thirty minutes let before having to pick up Cyrus. He also didn’t want Amber to see him, either, so he waited for her 5PM nap. He really couldn’t lie to her now.

He got out of bed and dressed himself in clothes that have been sitting in his closet for a while. While changing, he recognized a white shirt hanging up with a T-Rex on it and realized that was one of Cyrus’ favorite shirts. He had wanted to give him back that and a few other things after the breakup, but he never found it in him to go to him. He felt like he would just succumb and beg him to take him back. He still had no idea what was going to happen when they sat in the car for a while.

TJ grabbed the shirt before heading downstairs and going to his car. He might have not been at Cyrus’ in a while, but he definitely had the route stitched in his heart. His heart pounded faster and faster in his chest as he approached the house where so much happened. He had been wanting this for roughly 8 months, but he never thought to prepare himself.

He pulled up to the driveway and before he could text him, Cyrus was already walking to his car. Everything on the inside and outside of his body burned. And he felt like throwing up. But at the same time, he wanted to kiss him hello. TJ unlocked the car and Cyrus sat inside, the tension rising above what they were used to.

“Hey, Cyrus,” TJ said, failing to sound as casual as possible.

“Thelonius,” Cyrus said. TJ couldn’t help but let out a sharp laugh as he pulled out of the drive way. “How’s MSU?”

“Fun. Exhausting. College basketball was fun in theory, but it drains me. I get a math tutor for every assignment I have to do. It’s a little embarrassing.”

“I don’t think it’s embarrassing. You’re going to school for free to do what you love, and this is just a small part of it.”

“I guess you’re right,” TJ told Cyrus as they passed by a park they would have dates at. It looked so shady at night with its flickering lights and thin blanket of snow. “How’s California?”

“I like it there,” Cyrus said. “I’m glad I went.” TJ’s heart felt a weird pang, and he didn’t like it.

TJ whispered, “Me, too.”

“Their theatre program is great, and I get to do a lot of writing. Still don’t know if I’m more journalism or screenwriting, though.”

“Still planning on doing a script about society on mars?”

“I’m halfway done with it. I’m thinking a two hour movie? Hopefully I use it as my senior thesis.”

“Really?” TJ smiled. Cyrus had been wanting to write a script about Mars for the longest time, he was just always busy. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks, Teej,” Cyrus said softly. It made TJ’s heart melt and if they had still been together, he’s positive he would’ve pulled over right now and proposed to him. “So why did you volunteer?”

“Amber and I were going to do it together because we would get toys from here when we were little, but she’s mad at me right now, so yeah,” TJ said, shrugging slightly.

“Why is she mad?”

“I kept asking questions about you, and she told me to just ask you myself.”

“Which you did.”

“I did. She does not know I’m with you right now actually. I don’t think she would’ve let me leave the house if she knew I was coming to pick you up.”

“Why?” Cyrus chuckled.

“I don’t know. I think she feels the need to protect you.” Cyrus sighed, and TJ knew he rolled his eyes without looking at him.

“Everyone thinks I need protecting like in middle school. I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”

“I know, Cyrus. You’ve always been able to.”

-

After handing out toys to over 300 kids in Shadyside, TJ and Cyrus walked out of the event, shoulders touching. TJ knew this was the most dangerous game to play, but he’s never exactly been anti-adrenaline. He wondered what Cyrus was thinking the whole night because according to a few words he said, Buffy and Andi had told him to ignore his text message completely.

“Want to go get a breakfast dinner?” TJ asked him as he unlocked the car. Out of habit, he opened the door for Cyrus who got in without saying anything.

“Take me there,” Cyrus said before shutting the door. TJ got in the car before taking off to a diner nearby. It was barely 9PM.

“Do you still have a curfew?” TJ asked him.

“Honestly,” Cyrus turned to look at him, “I have no idea. I just told my parents I’d be back without saying where or with who I was going. They haven’t texted me. Is this adulthood?”

“Probably.”

“Where are we going?”

“Jo Anne’s.”

“Wow. I haven’t been there in maybe two years?”

“Really? Me and Amber go eat there all the time when I’m down here.”

“How often do you come home?”

“At least once a month since school started. I’d come over every weekend if I could, but basketball hasn’t really let me. Maybe next semester I might. I got Fridays off, so I could just come Thursday afternoons.”

“Isn’t it a two hour drive to and from?”

“An hour and a half if you take the cuts. Less if there’s nobody else and you speed a little.”

“You’re going to get pulled over one day.”

“It’s fine,” TJ told him, grinning.

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t tell you so when you’re in jail,” Cyrus looked over at him and gave him a smile. They were walking like they did when they were dating. Why did he let him go so easily? He wanted to lean over and kiss him so bad.

When they got to the diner, they sat across from each other. The waitress brought TJ a coffee and Cyrus a hot cocoa, promising that their orders would be ready in less than 20. TJ’s leg was dancing up and down while Cyrus sat calmly across from his, his hands folded on top of the table while he looked out the window.

“Why did you break up with me?” Cyrus asked quietly.

“Cyrus,” TJ whispered, feeling his heart rip in two.

“I just want to know the real reason, TJ,” Cyrus looked at him. “The real reason.”

“There is no real reason,” TJ shook his head. “Just what I told you when we broke up.”

“Was it worth it for you at least?” Cyrus asked him. TJ bit his lip and looked down at his coffee as if it would tell him how to say.

“No,” TJ looked up at him and frowned. Without thinking it twice, he confessed, “I still love you.”

 -

Part 2!! I don’t know if I want to do a really angst filled ending or just end it on part three with what I have building up. I’ll see as I write lmao. Also thank ya’ll for reading this fun little thing. Here’s the tag list! Let me know if you want to be added or removed! <3

@istillwearyourdenimjacket @moonlightrush @luna--min @tj-looked-back-kippen @fromtheparty @bambikippen @homosexualearthworm @keylla-dunspeh @marvelous-me-always @tomohisa61896 @yeeterparkerbio (its tagging you as bio not boi?? is this you) @way-too-many-fandomss

[uta-no-sin-sama]

When You Come Home From a Bad Day at Work/School (HEAVENS)

First scenario! Also, I’m writing this because I’ve been having a terrible week so far (I already had two panic attacks in the span of 3 days and the week is about half-way done :( ). So, yeah. Kinda fluffy, kinda angsty. Aight, let’s do this.

Also, I’ll continue this scenario for the other groups if y’all want me to. I just thought I’d start with HEAVENS because I want to have a balance on who I’m writing for and also these bois need more love tbh.

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Scene: You were never the type to complain too much about going to work/school, we all have to do it anyway, right? Usually, petty little mishaps throughout the day don’t affect the entirety of how your day’s been. Today, however? Let’s just say you’ve hit your limit on what you could tolerate long before lunchtime. From your coworkers/classmates keeping you from getting that coin/education, to your boss/professor/teacher punishing you for something you didn’t even do. Obviously, you’d be fired/expelled if you even tried to release all that anger and stress that’s been brewing inside you all day - so you just held it in, put on the best fake smile you could muster, and went on with your day. You were impressed by how long you managed to keep up your facade, until you returned home. The first thing you did when you got home was rush to your room and slam the door shut.

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(Y/N) = your name

(N/N) = nickname

(F/F) = favorite food

I tried to be gender-neutral with this one. Hope you enjoy!

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Yamato Hyuga - 

You usually come home before your boyfriend did, since he liked to go for an afternoon run whenever he got the chance. Today was no different, though he noticed on his way back to his room that your bedroom door was shut and that he heard a string of obscenities that would make even a sailor blush. Your bedroom door was almost never shut and you were never the type to curse too much, even if you were alone. Yamato knew that something was very wrong, so he knocked on your door, not hesitating to open your door soon after. “(Y/N), I’m coming in,” he said loud enough to get you to stop punching the day-lights out of one of your pillows while muttering a string of curse words. 

“What’d that poor pillow ever do to you?” he asked jokingly, only to earn a scowl from you. He knew he wasn’t going to get very far into cheering you up by messing with you, so he sat down on your bed next to you and gently asked, “But seriously, are you okay?” 

You let out a sigh and explained what happened, somehow managing to not raise your voice too much. “That sucks,” Yamato replied. “Hey, you’re off tomorrow, right? Raging gave me the day off and I heard this new ice cream shop opened up last week. I’ve been wanting to check it out some time, did you want to go with me?” You nodded excitedly before he continued, “We can do whatever else you want to do too. Maybe it’ll take your mind off of the bullshit you went through today.” “Sounds great!” 

Eiji Otori - 

Your man was tending to his flowers when you came home, so he didn’t notice you were upset. His older brother, on the other hand? He noticed right away when you ran past him as he tried to talk to you. After noticing the tears that were forming in your eyes, he knew he had to talk to Eiji and see if he could cheer you up. “Eiji,” Eiichi called as he stuck his head out of the kitchen door leading to the flower garden. “(Y/N)’s home. I don’t think they’ve been having a good day, maybe you should check on them?” “Really?” the younger sibling replied, starting to panic. “What happened? Is (Y/N) crying? What did you do to them?” “Breathe, Eiji,” the older one answered. “I don’t know what’s wrong, all I know is that (Y/N) ran into their room and slammed the door. I think they’re crying, but you know I’d never try to hurt them. They’re dating my favorite little brother, after all.” “Nii-san, I’m you’re only brother,” Eiji said, slightly puzzled. “Just go check on (Y/N), please,” Eiichi sighed in mild frustration. “I’m worried about them.”

Eiji did as his brother asked, and found you nestled in a pile of blankets, sniffling and wiping tears from your eyes. “(Y/N)?” he asked, trying not to make you feeling worse by worrying too much about your current emotional state. “Please tell me what’s wrong. Did anyone hurt you?” You tried to tell him what was wrong, but it became harder for you to talk as you cried harder. “Deep breaths, (Y/N),” he reminded you gently, taking one of your hands into his and rubbing your knuckles with his thumb. Starting to feel calmer, you took deep breaths like he said. “Iii~” he said, imitating his older brother’s catchphrase to try and make you laugh. It worked, earning a snicker out of you. “Feeling better, (Y/N)?” he asked once you calmed down enough to finish explaining what was wrong. You nodded and thanked him for listening to you vent about your day. “Of course!” he replied. “Anything for you! Oh, I have something for you, by the way.” It was only them you noticed his other arm was behind his back the whole time, since he pulled it from there and gave you a bouquet of your favorite flowers which he picked from his own garden. “I’ll go put these in a vase for you, I’ll be right back,” he said before he left the room and you thanked him once more. 

Shion Amakusa - 

The sound of the door slamming woke up your snoozing boyfriend, mildly annoying him as he thought Van and Yamato were arguing over something stupid for the fourth time that week. After shrugging it off, he checked his phone to see if you’d texted him saying you were home. You did not and it was a half hour after you usually come home. Growing concerned, he sent you a message.

“Hey, (Y/N)-san. Are you almost home yet?”

Shion was nervous for a moment as you didn’t respond right away, but his nerves calmed slightly when you eventually replied.

“I’ve been home for half an hour. Sorry about that, Shion. I needed to cool off for a bit, had a bad day today.” 

As someone who has had problems with anxiety, he understood that you needed some space to calm down. He still wanted to help you through whatever upset you at work/school, so he sent you another message.

“Well, when you’re ready to talk, Amakusa will be in the living room waiting for you.”

About five minutes later, you decided that you were ready to vent to your lover about your day. You knew you could trust him to listen to you while he held you tightly in his arms, so you were able to calmly rant about your work/school. It was one of the things you adored most about Shion, he’s always there to listen or be a shoulder to cry on whenever you needed it. 

Van Kiryuin - 

Little did you know, your boyfriend noticed you as you ran towards your room. He tried to say hi to you, but you ignored him which was totally out of character for you. Confused on whether you were mad at him, he followed you after you slammed your door and knocked on the door. “Go away, I’m not home,” you muttered quietly, though loud enough for him to hear. “Come on, (N/N)-chan,” Van whined slightly. “I know you’re in there, now please let me in.” He heard a shaky sigh in response before you hesitantly opened the door. 

“Oh, good,” he said with a sigh of relief before he noticed your red, tear-stained face. “I thought my angel was mad at me! I guess not since she let me in - oh... (N/N)-chan? Have you been crying?” You looked down in embarrassment and nodded slowly before he took your hand and sat down with you on your bed. “Come here and tell me what’s wrong, my angel,” he said in a quieter voice than normal, in an attempt to try and calm you down. You hesitated for a bit, but eventually told him what happened. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that!” he replied, thinking of a way to cheer you up. “Here, let’s forget about your day at work/school today. It sounds like you need me to squeeze the sadness out of you!” You tried to protest at first, but he bear-hugged you before you could say anything. His hugs were almost tighter than those of that nice glasses-wearing Piyo-chan lover you’ve heard Nagi talk about before. “I’m not letting go until you feel better, (N/N)-chan~” he teased, poking at your side a little. “Alright!” you surrendered, trying not to laugh too hard. “I’m feeling better, Van, just let me go please!” “Alright, alright,” he laughed as he let you go. “As you wish, my angel.”

Eiichi Otori - 

Your poor boyfriend tried to stop you and talk to you when you ran past him. He failed miserably, but knew exactly where you were once he heard your door slam. “Oi, quit fighting with the walls, Yamato!” Nagi shouted in annoyance. “You do realize... that Yamato... isn’t home... right?” Kira asked while Eiichi made his way to your closed and locked bedroom door. He knocked on your door, only for you to not respond. “Angel? It’s me,” he said, concern laced in his voice. “I know you’re in there, (Y/N), my love. Please let me in. I just want to talk to you.” No response. A few moments later, he heard you unlock the door and you quietly mutter, “Come in, it’s open.” 

Eiichi slowly opened the door, only to find you curled up on your bed, hiding your face with your hands and arms. “(Y/N), why did you slam your door?” he asked as he slowly noticed you were crying. “It’s not like you to do that, that’s usually a Yamato thing - my angel! What’s wrong? Who made you cry? It wasn’t anyone else from HEAVENS, was it?” You could tell he was starting to get angry, something he only did whenever you or any of your or his friends were in danger or upset. Knowing that getting angry would only upset you more, Eiichi calmed himself down before you sat up in your bed and he sat next to you. “Tell me what’s wrong, my angel,” he said, gingerly taking your hands into his own and squeezing them for a second. “And no hiding anything from me.” 

You sighed, knowing that the second part stemmed from both him and you being terrible at being honest about your emotions and keeping your true feelings bottled up for too long. You then slowly explained what happened, stopping every so often to keep yourself from breaking down again. “Oh, (Y/N), I’m sorry that happened to you,” he replied, embracing you tightly for a moment. “Why don’t we stay here for a bit, then we can head to the movies tonight? I know you’ve been wanting to see the one with (your favorite actor) in it that came out last weekend. We could go see it if you want.” “Really?” you asked, earning a nod in reply. “Thank you!” He chuckled softly as you wiped away the last of your tears, pulling you in for another hug before messing up your hair and leaving a kiss on your forehead. “Of course,” he replied, smiling as you laughed and fixed you hair. “Anything for my precious angel.”

Nagi Mikado - 

At first, your boyfriend was a little upset that you ignored him when you came home. I mean, who in their right mind could ignore the universally-cute Nagi? “(N/N)-chan!” he pouted as he followed you to your room. “Why are you ignoring me?” “I’m not in the mood right now,” you replied, trying to keep yourself from raising your voice too much or break down crying. You then heard your door open before you saw Nagi enter your room. “Really, (N/N)-chan?” he tsked, not noticing you were upset at first. “You thought you could get away without paying attention to me when you - hey, you don’t look so good. Are you okay?” You sighed before shaking your head and answering, “I had a rough day at work/school.” “Oh, sorry I was being a jerk earlier,” he replied with one of his rare apologies. “What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?” 

You told him everything about your day, with him nodding as he listened and frowning once you finished your story. “That sucks, (N/N)-chan,” he said, looking at one of your stuffed animals that he gave you, his brain hatching an idea on how to cheer you up. “(N/N)-chan!” he chirped, purposefully making his voice a little higher to pretend to be the stuffed animal he grabbed. “I’m here to get your smile back!” You rolled your eyes, trying not to give in to laughing at your boyfriend’s childish behavior. “How about some kisses from me and your totally adorable boyfriend?” Nagi asked, still pretending to be the stuffed animal, making it ‘kiss’ your face and neck repeatedly. It tickled, so you were in a fit of giggles as you tried to get the stuffed animal away from you. After about thirty more seconds, he stopped and set your stuffed animal back where he found it. “Feeling better, (N/N)-chan?” he asked as you calmed down from laughing so hard. You nodded, thanking him for cheering you up. “Of course,” he beamed. “What else are good boyfriends for?”

Kira Sumeragi - 

He jumped when he heard your door slam shut. Though startled by the loud sound, he continued cooking (F/F) for the two of you. Kira waited until most of the cooking was done before he sent you a text message.

“Everything okay, (Y/N)-san? I heard you slam your door when you came home.”

A few minutes later, you replied.

“I just had a rough day today. Sorry if I scared you. I just needed some time to calm down.”

He felt relieved that none of the other HEAVENS members were making you upset or that he made you angry somehow. Before he replied to your message, he finished cooking and set your plate and his plate on the dining room table.

“Whenever you’re ready to talk, I’ll be in the dining room. I made dinner too, by the way. It’s (F/F).”

Within a few minutes, you came out of your room and joined Kira in the dining room. “Thanks for cooking dinner tonight,” you said before you started eating. “I owe you one.” “No, you don’t...,” he answered as he began to eat as well. Once the two of you finished dinner, you complimented him on his cooking before explaining what happened. “I see,” he said. “Did... the food... help you... feel better?” “Yes, definitely,” you replied, earning a rare smile from him. “I swear, you make (F/F) better than my mom does!” 

[zefyre]

Excuse me? How could I miss any of your updates xD?!? Cheking in regulary and the new pfk one s just so swoon worthy! I love how you wrote the whole thing, And you are ofc right, the jelly thing would be more like James (maybe at first just teasing her how he is jelly, then really becoming jelly and last stage would be scared that she does leave dumb him? lol now I want a fic with james becoming jelly! *pretty pls?*). Ugh I loved how you wrote it so much! Cant wait for raising the stakes tbh

aksjhdfd i’m!! so sorry!!! / cries/ this has been sitting in my inbox for almost a year and i started it back when you sent this but couldn’t manage to finish until today when i stumbled onto it in my docs and decided to try again. thank you for your sweet words btw haha, i hope you see this and enjoy~

.

It started when James found Kagome muttering almost furiously one day, a letter in hand and a flush across her face. 

She hadn’t noticed his approach, so distracted by her letter she was, and he felt his curiosity grow to a point where he couldn’t help himself. He casually strode past her, a growing smile on his face when he did so undetected, before he backtracked to sneak up on her. 

Once close enough, James hooked his chin over her shoulder as he simultaneously grabbed onto her hips to hold her steady, so he didn’t get clipped in the chin if she jolted. 

A chuckle escaped him when not only did Kagome jump as he predicted, but she also let out the most adorable squeak, slapping the letter against her chest – an act that piqued his curiosity even more, as if she had something to hide.

“Wotcha reading?” he drawled, resting his head against the side of her own, only to draw back when he saw the flush on her face darken out of the corner of his eyes. His grin grew, a trickle of giddiness trickling up his spine at the sight of it spreading all the way down her neck. “Oh ho ho,” he said with a breathy laugh, “This wouldn’t be from a secret admirer now, would it?

He laughed in earnest when her face twisted in an expression of mortification, a whine escaping her throat. “Well that’s a yes,” he sniggered. He raised a hand, wiggling his fingers pleading. “Are you gonna let me see it?”

With a long-suffering sigh and a reluctance that one would think she was signing over her life, Kagome surrendered the letter, holding it out for James to read. Unable to witness the deed with her own eyes, she shut them and leaned her head back against James’ shoulder to save herself from the grief.

James eagerly scoured the letter and soon realized with a bubble of delight that Kagome’s reaction wasn’t an overreaction – the bloke actually opened the letter with some of the cheesiest poetry he’d ever laid his eyes upon. 

“To my dearest angel, with eyes so faire, even the stars cannot match the luster of your stare,” James tried reciting with somber flair – he managed up until the word “luster", breaking out into pained wheezes trying to hold back his mirth. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, no more reading aloud,” he choked out when he saw the tell-tale twitch of her eyebrow and the tightening grip she held the letter,  and knew if he kept it up she would looked ball up the parchment without hesitation. “Okay, okay, phew.” As he read on, his smile diminished once he got past the cheesy poetry and the letter took a more earnest turn. “You know him well?” he wondered absently as he continued to read, not knowing why that surprised him so much, and not wanting to know why that idea..  niggled at him, either.

He thought it was just some anonymous, star-struck underclassman writing her, to be honest, but the letter was now talking about a meeting they had in the summer. 

Kagome let out a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a hum. “For a few years now, yeah… He’s a good friend of Inuyasha’s brother. We met over… the summer after fourth year, I think it was, when we happened visit them at the same time.”

He glanced at her, blinking owlishly. “I didn’t even realize Inuyasha had a brother.”

Kagome snorted. “Half brother,” she explained,  “He’s a couple years older and they get on like cats and dogs. He also went to Durmstrang, where he met Kouga.”

“And he’s been sending you these things ever since?” James asked, taking her hand and waving the letter in the air before stopping short, mouth dropping open as realization hit him. He sputtered, laughter bubbling in his chest, “No, no, no, this isn’t the same guy that sent you that singing howler on Valentine’s day in fifth year, is it?

James all but exploded in laughter when Kagome groaned and buried her face in her hands. “You got detention for a week for setting that thing on fire in the middle of the hall!” he crowed, hugging her tightly to his chest in lieu of clutching his stomach, his head folding over her shoulder.

Kagome began to bang her head back against his chest, repeatedly. “That was so embarrassing,” she groaned, sinking against him. “The detention was worth it to get it to stop.”

“Merlin,” he muttered, still laughing, “I think I might be a little jealous,” he teased, pouting his lips at her.

“Don’t be.” Kagome said it so bluntly that it made him laugh again. “I tried telling him I’m not interested but he never really listened. I think he was hanging on in the hopes that I’ll give in one day.”

Now that made him frown. “Not bloody likely,” he muttered, unconsciously pulling her snugger against his chest. 

Kagome grinned and reached up to give him a little pat on his cheek in reassurance. “He’s harmless, if a little pushy maybe,  but I think he does it mostly to get on Inuyasha’s nerves. Now they really hate each other.“ Instead of pulling her hand away, she used it to cup his cheek, sweeping her thumb along the curve of his cheekbone. “Since he found out about you, it’s now like a jokey tradition kind of thing,” she explained, rolling her eyes to add, “Still bloody embarrassing though.”

James felt something in his chest settle then. “Oh,” he said a a small laugh, perhaps a little too relieved, and his chest puffed out a bit. “You told him about me?” he cheesed, feeling smug.

Kagome burst out into a bout of snickering. “More like Inuyasha gloated in Kouga’s face first thing that he lost his chance when we both visited this past summer.”

James was pleasantly surprised Inuyasha did that for him – after all, they got off on the wrong foot last year and things had been awkward around each other ever since, which made the moment’s they crossed paths in the tower uncomfortable to be sure. “He did that?” The ‘For me?’ unspoken, only to have his spirits dampened when Kagome snorted and shot him a look of pity. 

Not for him then.

“They really, really don’t get along,” Kagome explained, laughing once more.

.

.

Kagome continued to receive the letters, but after some time she began to keep the correspondence to herself. They weren’t cheesy love letters, she’d tell him, but more personal in nature and as such it didn’t feel right to share with others. 

James completely understood of course, didn’t mind, but he would be lying if he said there wasn’t a… discomfiting feeling that took to stirring inside his chest whenever he witnessed a certain owl delivering letters to Kagome, one that only grew over time when the letters increased in frequency – when he’d spied the soft smile blossoming along her lips upon reading said letters. 

It got worse when Valentine’s came and she received a package – a gift, more sincere than the obnoxious ones of the singing variety she’d gotten in the past: her favorite flowers and special chocolate truffles imported from France along with another letter that made her smile bright and laugh a flattered sort of laugh and even blush the faintest shade of pink.

The burning in his chest only eased slightly when a Howler came three days later and Kagome immediately panicked, arm whipping out, wand in hand, and lighting it up into flame before the owl could even properly take off from the table – causing a chain reaction of the owl shitting in fright on a fifth year, the tablecloth catching fire, and three sixth years getting drenched with pumpkin juice in a failed attempt to put it out.

Fifty points were deducted that night from Hufflepuff, and Kagome earned herself two weeks worth of detention for the spectacular display.

.

.

It all eventually came to a head one day in the middle of Hogsmeade when James stopped short at the sight of a handsome man with long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and striking blue eyes down on one knee in front of Kagome, one hand cradling her left while his other held out something that glinted bright in the rare sunlight.

“Holy shite, is that guy proposing to Kagome?” Sirius choked out from beside him, equally rendered stunned at the scene, but James could barely hear him over the roar in his head, over the heavy, rapid beat of his heart in his ears, over the monster that grew in his chest at the sight of someone proposing to Kagome.

Over the deafening thought that he wanted to be the one to propose to her, and the… the anger he was taken aback to find simmering hot and foul at the bottom his belly at the simple, and yet mind-blowing fact that he wasn’t the one do it first.

He was just about to turn on his heel and run away, afraid of the scene before him and even more terrified of the turn his thoughts had taken, when a sharp smack echoed out loud the street. His head snapped up to stare wide-eyed at Kagome’s hand still raised and the man’s head turned at an exact ninety degree angle.

“This is not funny!” James heard her shout, her voice strangled and frantic, tinged with disgust as she went on to say, “Put that thing away!”

And to his utmost shock, the man threw his head back in laughter and did as she asked, snapping the velvet box shut and shoving it back into his trouser pockets as he clambered back up onto his feet. 

And, to his ever mounting surprise, pull Kagome into a bear hug that while she didn’t completely accept, she didn’t exactly fight him off like he thought she would either.

Now, James found himself striding closer to the pair, unable to ignore the growing, curiosity gnawing his chest. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, old habits die hard,” James overheard the man say, still laughing. “Couldn’t help myself.”

“You’re as bad as Miroku proposing to Sango every weekend.”

“Hey, she gave in eventually didn’t she?”

Kagome refused to deign that remark with an answer. “Now get off me you big oaf, you know I have a boyfriend. He’s gonna have a heart attack if he hears about some strange bloke proposing to me in the middle of Hogsmeade!”

Striking blue eyes caught James’s and he was startled to see a hint of fang in the smirk the other man flashed.  “Oh,” he chortled, not even bothering to keep his voice quiet. In fact, he projected it so James could clearly hear him. “I don’t think you have to worry about the rumors getting to him first – he wouldn’t happen to be the tall bloke with the glasses coming just now would he? Cause he’s giving me quite the evil eye.”

Instantly, Kagome’s hand snapped out to start wrapping him against the arms to release her, which he did a chuckle, arms steering wide.

Once free, Kagome whipped around, the familiar look of mortification whenever it came to a certain Durmstrang graduate clear on her face, and he already knew what she was going to say.

“James!” she said, a little breathless and on a nervous laugh. “This is, haha, this is Kouga. I’ve told you about him.” She sounded honest-to-Merlin at her wit’s end at that last part.

James crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Am I going to have to duel him for your hand in marriage?” He looked over Kagome’s head to lock stares with Kouga as she suddenly choked. Despite his snarking tone, his gaze was uncharacteristically serious. “Cause I will.”

“What is this, the dark ages?” she sputtered, before waving her hands hastily between them, “And there will be no dueling because that was just his idea of. Of a Joke.” She turned to give Kouga a filthy glare when he shifted a little uneasily behind her, adding in a much darker tone, “A bad one.”

James broke out in an easy smile that still held a bit of edge. “Oh I know,” he said pleasantly, sounding all light-hearted now, even as he smile turned a little smug. “I could tell by the slap. I think even kids in Hogwarts could hear it, it was a beautiful one, love.”

Kagome’s head tipped to the side to study him, and it was the uncertain look that crossed her face that had him inwardly sighing and backing down. He strode over, dropping a reassuring kiss on her temple as he passed her before offering his hand to the older man. “James Potter,” he introduced himself. He also offered a half grin, “I’d say nice to meet you, but, I just saw you propose to my girlfriend.”

“Kouga,” he introduced himself laughing a little, a little nervous. “It, uh, it really was a joke,” he said, taking James’s hand and shaking it. “The ring’s actually for my girlfriend. Fiancé. Hopefully, if she accepts that is.”

“And she will,” Kagome chimed in, giving Kouga another stink eye, “So long as she doesn’t murder us both if she ever hears of this.”

Kouga waved her off with a robust laugh. “She’s in Japan visiting family, she won’t know a thing!”

“She always knows,” he heard Kagome mutter, watching as Kouga suddenly gave a deep wince when she continued to say, “She knew about Valentine’s,” which was when James realized the Howler from back then must’ve been from his girlfriend instead of Kouga and… and that Kouga must have been dating her even that far back. 

Louder, Kagome went on to say something about how Kouga started writing to her about this Ayame, his hopeful fiancé to be, asking for advice and sharing about his ideas to propose, all which James heard but didn’t quite take in completely as he was slipping back into his thoughts.

This meant, that this whole time, the growing… growing jealousy that he’d felt – he couldn’t deny what it was now that he knew – seeing Kagome with the letters… all that worry had been for nothing…

Merlin, he felt like a bloody idiot. 

.

.

It wasn’t until after Kouga left, treating them all to lunch – Sirius included, who had hung back, fists at the ready for the moment James needed him to jump in to help kick the arse of the bloke trying to propose to his best mate’s girl – for his self-admitted “dumbarse stunt” before taking the Floo back to his flat, that Kagome confronted him. 

“James?” he heard her quietly prod, felt her nudge him gently against his side. He turned to see her looking up at her, “Everything alright?”

James sighed, managed a small smile to reassure her, before turning to Sirius to ask for a moment alone with Kagome. He caught on quick, clapping him on the shoulder before getting up and making his way to the bar. 

When he turned back to face Kagome again, he found her worrying her bottom lip. With another sigh, this one fond, he reached up with his thumb to gently tug her lip away from her teeth to save it from further abuse. “It’s not your fault,” he told her with genuine honesty, taking her hand and intertwining their fingers, “I’ve just been a bit thick lately and hadn’t realize it until today.”

“Kouga,” Kagome guessed, and correctly at that. James nodded, squeezing her hand. “I never realized the letters upset you, I’m sorry, James, if I did…”

She trailed off when he shook his head, squeezing her hand more insistently this time. “No, no, this was all me, getting into my own head, seeing things that wasn’t there and never… speaking up about it. I’d thought…�� he trailed off, with a rueful, self-deprecating laugh as he confessed, “I’d thought the letters were working on you, I guess. I saw you get them, and how you’d… laugh, or even blush, and built it up to something it clearly wasn’t.” 

James reached up with his free hand to tuck a fallen curl out of Kagome’s face and behind her ear, pressing a kiss against her furrowed brow to smooth it out  smiling when it worked and Kagome leaned into his touch. “Never once realized I was jealous until I saw the bloke today, down on one knee in front of you and a pretty impressive rock in his hand,” he said with a wry laugh.

“Gods,” Kagome breathed out, laughing along with him. “All this time I was helping him with Ayame, it scared the shite out of me when he did it.” Quietly, more hesitantly, she added to say, a pretty flush rising to her cheeks, “Definitely, uh, definitely not the one I thought about… about proposing to me.”

James was not ashamed to admit how breathless her admission made him, the sight of Kagome shyly averting her gaze, her blush darkening further, as he whispered, “Yeah?” and she nodded, biting her lip once again to hide her flustered smile. 

Nor was he ashamed at how eagerly he quietly confessed in return, “I think what upset me the most was the fact that I wasn’t the one to propose to you first, joke or not.” 

Stunned, Kagome steered a wide eyed gaze back up at him, silently mouthing “Really?” and he laughed, a little giddy, and pressed his forehead against hers. 

“Trust me on this, Kagome, I was not kidding about dueling that prat for your hand. And I’d’ve kicked his arse, you know I would.” At her breathless, snorting laugh, James grinned a foolish grin, before he sobered and slipped his hand free of hers to cup the sides of her face instead. 

“One day, I’m gonna propose,” he promised, and watched with rapt attention how her blush returned in full force, mingling with the freckles smattered across her cheeks, and the roundness, the misty sheen her gorgeous blue eyes took on in response.

James felt his heart flutter, so incredibly entranced right then and there, and swallowed down the nerves that was building up in his throat. 

“Not now,” he ruefully muttered, “And certainly not in middle of The Three Broomsticks where all you can smell is the butterbeer and stale fish and chips, but…” 

James trailed off and gazed warmly at Kagome with gentle grin. “But one day it’s gonna be me getting down on one knee, offering you up a ring, riding on the hope you’d grant me the incredible honor of becoming your husband, because as sure as I knew it the day you threatened me with your bat that you were something special,” and James paused, grinning wider as Kagome burst out in a watery chuckle, her eyes way past misty now and almost spilling with tears, before he told her so solemn, so empathetically, with as much emotion and confidence that he could summon, “I know you’re it for me, and there’s not a chance I’ll let you slip away, not if I can help it.”

[darks-ink]

Play Your Part - 1

Chapter 1: Where The Strong Survive

[cover]

Here's my new multi-chapter, Play Your Part! Currently planned to be 6 chapters, and somewhere around 20.000 words, I'm guessing? Depends on how long the chapters will be, of course.

Anyway, this fic is based on @cordria‘s A World Tipped on its Head, and this first chapter especially draws pretty strongly from that one-shot. From what I've seen it seems normal that people just copy-paste the original as their first chapter but tbh I don't like that much because the styles are usually way different. Also I wanted to tweak some details so. I hope that that's not, like, rude or anything!

As always, weekly updates go up every Saturday! I might change it for the last 2 chapters or so because I want to start posting Weirdward on the 31st but I'll see how I solve that when we get there.

[first] [previous][next] [AO3] [FFnet]

Danny rushed down the street, his eyes cast downwards and his breath loud and raspy even to his own ears. The pavement sped by underneath his feet. It wasn’t fast enough.

“Stupid alarm clock,” he muttered under his breath. Pushed himself just that little quicker. He might not like school, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to be late.

“Need a lift?”

The unexpected voice made him flinch, although he did his best to hide it. Instead he glanced over his shoulder, watching Sam melt into view. She was in her ghost form, her hair white and flickering and her eyes a vivid cyan. Bright, glowing, and sparkling with dark humor.

“No,” he grunted, trying to ignore his tired legs to pick up the pace even further. Somewhere he was glad that it was Sam who found him and not Tucker. No matter how well meaning the boy was, the last thing Danny wanted was to be picked up and flown to school against his will.

She blinked at him for moment, and in the time it took for her to process this, he got a few dozen feet ahead. Then she nodded and drifted down to the ground.

Bright ectoplasmic energy whirled around her. White hair sunk down under the effect of gravity, dyed black once more. Cyan eyes darkened back to violet, and white clothes shifted back to black.

Sam ran a hand through her hair, straightened her clothes, and then sprinted to catch up with him again.

“You’re gonna be late,” Danny panted, suppressing a grin as she joined him.

“Are you kidding?” She laughed. “I can outrun you any day of the week.”

He rolled his eyes, fighting down the retort that came automatically. If she chose to run with him and be late as well, well… who was he to argue? Instead he sent her a lopsided grin, determined to at least keep up with her.

Skidding to a crashing halt in front of his locker, Danny started whirling the combination lock, rushing to get to class in time. The bell rung, however, signaling that he was officially late for his first class.

He jumped in surprise at the loud noise, losing track of how many turns he had taken to unlock his locker. Sam, who could simply use her intangibility to get her stuff, already had her books.

She drifted back across the hallway, her signature scowl back on her face. She then slumped against the lockers next to him.

“We’re late,” she said unnecessarily.

“I got that,” he answered her through gritted teeth. He tried to focus on unlocking his lock, frustrated that he had had to start over.

“Mr. Fenton! Miss Manson!”

This second unexpected voice had the same effect as the first; Danny started so badly that he almost levitated. He spun around, searching for the origin of the voice.

The hallway appeared empty, however. Completely vacated. Danny knew it wasn’t, though. Mr. Lancer, the half-ghost vice-principal, had to be floating invisibly somewhere in it.

He fixed his eyes on the spot he guessed Mr. Lancer would be in. He had no way of knowing, and he really didn’t care except that he had gotten caught by his least favorite teacher once again. It would certainly mean another detention.

The overweight teacher appeared mere moments later. Hands propped against his hips and his eyes blazing a bright red. “Late for school again!” he scoffed, pulling out a small notebook to write their names down. “I expected better from you, Miss Manson.”

“I felt like running,” Sam muttered back. Her arms were still crossed, her body slumped against the lockers.

“Such potential in you.” Lancer shook his head, clearly disappointed, as he finished jotting down their names. “It never fails to surprise me that a child from parents like yours doesn’t flourish in a modern school setting.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed, bright cyan sparking in the darker violet. She’d never been particularly fond of authority figures, and Mr. Lancer’s tendency to compare her to her parents had put him in her bad graces.

Danny, while he heartily agreed with her, remained quiet. He just watched as the teacher took his eyes off of the book, fixing Sam with a glare of his own. He had no intention to get involved, no matter how much it hurt him in his soul to let the others walk all over him.

He wasn’t half-ghost. He didn’t stand a chance against them. And so he had no intention to jump into a situation that could get him killed.

Because, while Sam was normally very considerate of the difference in power between them, she was too riled up now. She could kill him and not even realize until it was too late.

In the end, Mr. Lancer broke the staring contest first. His gaze wandered over to Danny. “And you, Mr. Fenton. Although I’m not sure what to expect out of a mere human,” he paused for a moment, making it clear how dirty of a word he found it, “I still expect you to be at school on time. Detention for you, and I hope you learn your place in our world someday. Miss Manson, get to class.”

The teacher faded back into invisibility, and Danny took a deep steadying breath. Noticed that his hands were clenched into fists, and wondered when that’d happened.

He hated that he got more detentions that anyone else in the school. It was, without a doubt in his mind, because he was the only human in the school. It might be against the law to discriminate based on age, race, gender… but species wasn’t on the list.

“Fantastic,” he muttered, loosening his fists again. Turned back to his locker, even though he needed a few moments more before attempting to unlock it again.

“Come on, Danny,” Sam said after a moment. Her voice was still tense, and cyan still danced in her eyes. “Let’s get to class before you get into trouble again.”

The emphasis on the ‘you’ didn’t go past him. And while her half-smile and elbow nudge suggested that she had meant it playfully, it just felt like a sour reminder to him.

“What’s on the list of torture for today?” he asked, trying to get his mind off of that topic again. There was no point, anyway. There was nothing he could do to change things. Instead he set about to make his third attempt at unlocking his locker.

“Twenty new reasons to stare at the sole human on the planet, either in distraught pity or in discriminatory frustrated anger.” Her smile was halfhearted but understanding. “Also known as another biased English lesson on the twenty greatest halfa authors of all time, making doubly sure to ignore and/or taunt the human greats such as Shakespeare, Melville, and Doyle.”

Danny sighed gustily as his locker finally opened. “Great.”

“You gonna skip again? I’m sure Tucker will record the whole lesson for you to watch later.”

“Nah.” He shook his head, grabbing the books from his locker. “Ever since Lancer figured out how to duplicate, you can’t hide from him. He can be teaching his lesson and hunting you down at the same time. Skulker’s got nothing on him. Skipping is just too much work now.”

“To class, then?”

He hesitated one last second. Then he slammed his locker shut and nodded. “To class.”

“… and that is the main reason why Arthur Prachet far surpassed his human counterpart during that era. Also a major player in the rise of Prachet’s work was the fact that Shakespeare’s answer to Prachet’s novel rhyme-scheme, the insufficiently thought-out and frankly annoying iambic pentameter, never seemed to catch on. The fact that only two of the human’s works survive to this day is surely a testament to how dreary and drawn-out the human culture had gotten by that point in history.”

Danny tuned out the teacher, only looking away briefly to add another tally to the top of his paper – the forty-eighth of that day. Having finished this task, he fixed his eyes back on the whiteboard behind the teacher. He wouldn’t get scolded for not paying attention, anyway; this particular teacher in fact seemed to prefer it if Danny did absolutely nothing.

And, well. Danny was glad for a chance to not write down every detail of the lesson. As a result, his English notebook was full of blank pages, marred only by the tally marks at the top of every page.

When the teacher managed to slip in another slur against the human species, Danny shifted and added another tally to his page. Wondered, quietly, how many more the halfa could fit in a single lesson. So far the record had been fifty-three, but with almost 15 minutes left, it didn’t look too good for the record.

He let his eyes drift towards the windows, letting himself sink deeper into his thoughts. ‘Really’, he thought bitterly, ‘everyone in my family is half-ghost. Doesn’t that mean that I am one too, kind of? Even if I don’t have any powers, that doesn’t make me human, right?’

Even in his own mind, the word ‘human’ had sounded like a dirty insult. The word had been so deeply drenched by negative connotations that, even in the comfort of his own thoughts, it sounded vile.

With a huff, he picked up his stream of thoughts again. ‘I mean. If two dogs have a puppy that looks like a kitten, it’s still a dog, no matter what it looks like or can do. I just wish…’

A ball of paper hit him in the head, and Danny jerked up. Send a glare at the offending piece of paper, absentmindedly adding another tally to his paper – the teacher had surely gotten in another insult while Danny had been distracted, just because he was in the room.

He unwrinkled the paper, quickly reading the scrawled words – Betcha wish you coulda phased through that – and scowled. He raised his head to fix Dash – the obvious sender – with said scowl, pointless as it was. Without the glowing eyes a halfa would sport, he simply couldn’t hope to reach the same level of intimidation.

Still, like it wasn’t bad enough that he had to listen to teacher drone on and on about the brilliance of half-ghosts and their powers, his fellow students had to add to whole thing. Like he had chosen to be the only pure human on the whole damn planet!

Dash just grinned back, flashing his eyes a menacing red. He ripped another piece of paper out of his notebook, scribbled a message, and balled it up. Then he lobbed it through the air, forcing Danny to make the difficult choice of what to do with it.

On one hand, he could catch it and find out what Dash had threatened him with. On the other, he could bat it off into a corner and ignore it for forever.

In the end he didn’t have to pick. A ball of cyan light intercepted it before it reached him, disintegrating the paper into ashes and dust.

“Hey!” Dash called out. His eyes turned red fully as they darted around, looking for the creator of the ectoblast.

Both Dash and Danny found her simultaneously – not that it was hard. Sam lounged in the back of the class, her eyes still bright and sparks of matching cyan still writhing around her hand.

“You stupid--”

“No energy manipulation in this classroom!” the teacher shouted, interrupting the incoming fight. Then, unbelievably, he followed it up with, “Fenton, detention!”

Danny’s head whipped around. “What for?!”

“Stop instigating my class.” Lancer flared his eyes red, warning.

“But--”

Danny bit his tongue, cutting off the retort. It made no sense, but he couldn’t win this confrontation.

It wasn’t fast enough, though. Red energy sparkled around the furious half-ghost teacher, as bright as his eyes.

Having no desire to get into this fight, Danny slunk out of his seat and beat a quick retreat from the room before the situation got worse. Sure, the teacher probably wouldn’t actually attack him, but, well. Everyone knew that sometimes it was hard to control ghost powers, especially if you’re angry.

And the last thing Danny wanted was to get evaporated over something so stupid. So ordinary.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel a brief pang of disappointment. The record for number of human slurs spoken in a single class would remain unbroken.

“Danny, sweetie,” his mom said when he finally came home from yet another day in hell – sorry, school – as she pushed her goggles up on her forehead, “it’s not your fault. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Danny groaned, dropping into a chair in his parents’ basement lab. “Tell that to the teachers and the other students.”

“You’ll get your powers eventually, honey.” She smiled at him. “Slow development runs in your father’s side of the family, you know. Jack didn’t get his powers until he was eleven…”

“I’m fifteen.” A scowl found its way to his face once more.

“Which isn’t unheard of,” she lied smoothly. “You’re a Fenton.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You come from a long line of powerful half-ghosts. Before you know it, you’ll wake up and you’ll be just like your great-grandfather, the--”

“--great halfa explorer who helped conquer the new world from the human barbarians,” Danny finished dully. They had had this exact conversation dozens of times, and he had practically memorized it by now. “Has it ever occurred to you that I might never get ghost powers?”

She blinked at him. “Of course you’ll get your powers. You just need to think positively.”

“Yeah, sure.” He shrugged, figuring he might as well go along. His parents were both stubborn to no end; if they wanted to believe that he would still get ghost powers, there was nothing he could do to change their minds.

“In the meantime, look at this.” Her aura brightened slightly as she picked up her latest device. “It’s called the ‘Fenton Human Hearer’.”

It was placed in Danny’s hands, a grin on her face. “Jack and I know that there are pockets of humans left in this world. If we ever find one, this will turn their incomprehensible mutterings into something we can understand!”

Danny raised a skeptical eyebrow, eyes on her instead of the invention. “Don’t they speak English?”

A whir from the machine. Then, “Don’t they speak English? Fear me.”

Now he dropped his eyes to the gadget. From the corner of his eyes, he saw his mom do the same. Maddie shrugged, then plucked it out of his hands. “I’ve never met a true human. I wouldn’t know.”

“I don’t count?” he asked, not sure how he felt about the implication. Was it because he was better than a human, or just because she refused to concern the possibility?

“You’ll get your powers,” she said with conviction. “You’re a halfa – a Fenton.”

He nodded quietly, his unasked question thus answered. She still believed that he would get his powers, even if he was years and years past even the latest of late bloomers.

It didn’t make sense to him. Why keep denying it? Somehow, against all reason and expectations, he wasn’t a half-ghost. He hadn’t inherited any of his parents’ powers, not even a shred of their ectoplasmic sides.

Consumed by these thoughts, he silently watched his mom tidy her side of the lab. His parents were constantly working on all kinds of inventions, and thus new pieces of technology appeared and disappeared on a daily basis in the cramped basement. Most remained unpopular, however; his parents’ obsession with humans made their inventions largely useless to the rest of their half-ghost society.

Maddie paused in her work, picking up a small, strange-looking necklace. She studied it for a moment, a crease in her brow. “Where did…” She shook her head. “I wish Jack would tell me when he gets new things. Danny, can you put this on Jack’s workbench for me?”

Nodding, he slipped out the chair again. Took the necklace from her hands, turning to head towards the messier side of the lab.

But, just as her fingers slipped from the chain, a surge of energy flooded throughout the lab. It was powerful enough for even Danny to feel it, the hum of pure power in the air.

He saw his mom twist around, her eyes widening in surprise and fear, glowing vivid chartreuse. Similarly colored ectoplasm formed around her hands, as if to fight this unseen enemy.

It was the last thing Danny saw before blindingly white light wrapped around him. He screamed in terror, feeling the energy ripping at his body, and could do nothing but clutch the strange necklace to his chest.

Then, blissfully, he passed out.

[callioope]

2019 Favorites

Rules: Time to love ourselves! Choose 5 favorite works you created in the past year (fics, arts, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2019. Tag as many creators as you want to spread the love!

tagged by the awesome @theputterer​! thank you!

HA, well, TBH I saw this meme going around and I was like oh no if someone tags me I’m not going to have anything to list!

It’s true I barely published anything in 2019 -- only one thing on AO3 -- but I did work on a few unpublished projects. So after some serious scrounging, I thought why not share some sneak peeks at what I’ve got cooking in addition to the few items I did publish!

First, what I actually published:

"I hope my love was someone else’s solid ground”

Firelight flickers across the faces around the campsite and the shadows press a little closer. She’s trying not to stare (to make her staring obvious), but as her gaze sweeps over friends it always settles on him. She keeps measuring the distance, counting the steps past Bodhi and Kay or the other way ‘round, past Baze and Chirrut, to the opposite, furthest corner of tonight’s makeshift home. Always when she finds his eyes, they fall a little farther from her.

She sighs and gets up. Waiting never suited her.

I don’t think an album has ever resonated with me as much as Sara Bareilles’ Amidst the Chaos, or a song as much as “Orpheus.” It’s just perfection. The moment I heard it, I thought of Jyn and Cassian, but this song also feels special to me personally as I’ve struggled with OCD and anxiety and have (finally) been going to therapy for it. It felt cathartic to tell a story about healing through Jyn and Cassian, and I just really loved the prose in this one. I haven’t posted it to AO3 yet because I was thinking about expanding it a little first, and then I never got around to it.

Learning Curve  - Chapter 4: Scarif

“You know,” she says, sliding onto his lap, “there are better ways to show your surrender. If you want me to stop talking about work…” She leans down and demonstrates, and kriff, he tastes like the sunlight dancing on his lips, warm and sweet and happy.

“I love listening to you,” he murmurs when she finally pulls away.

She’s just sitting, safe in his arms, but when he looks at her like that, everything just falls out beneath her, and she closes her eyes and grips his shirt and burrows her head against the crook of his neck and shoulder.

Months ago, when she first stepped foot on the tarmac outside the temple, she’d thought she’d spend a semester and go back to Rudrig, that her life would continue on at its boring, lonely pace, that work would perpetually consume her. She’d never suspected she’d run into Cassian (and thank the Force for that; if she’d known he’d be here, she might not have signed up in the first place, might have preferred to avoid the risk of running into him and facing the embarrassment she’d created all those years ago—and she never would have had the chance to move past it).

She’d had no idea what kind of happiness awaited her, how close a call it had been, how she might never have known the joy of eliciting Cassian’s hard-won smile, the anticipation of an imminent kiss, or the simple satisfaction of quiet companionship and unassuming acceptance.

This took entirely longer than it should have, but I was very glad to finally finish it. It was definitely a lot of fun to imagine a galaxy with no Empire, where Palpatine was defeated before he could enact any of his crueler schemes, and to see what this meant for Jyn and Cassian as well as Lyra and Galen. It was also a challenge -- lots of moving chess pieces to account for -- so thank you to my beta and brainstormer @allatariel​!

I do have a couple regrets: namely, that I didn’t split chapter 4 into two parts (it’s just so long! I suppose I could still split it...) and that I hadn’t watched Rebels yet, so I didn’t get a chance to imagine what kind of life the Ghost crew would have had. Maybe someday? 

The Stakes of Star Wars: whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal

As a writer, I frequently struggle with plot. Is it believable? Is it surprising? Is it exciting? Sometimes, it feels like plot is supposed to be what makes a story interesting. What makes for a cool adventure? The prevailing mindset seems to be: how high can you raise the stakes?

But I think over the last few years of writing, I’ve learned something important about the kinds of stories I want to read, and therefore write.

The stakes are important, but only for what they mean to the character.

It has to be personal.

It’s no secret that I hated TLJ. I wasn’t impressed with TROS, either. I think it’s easy (and, admittedly, cathartic) to point blame at one or the other and to write a laundry list of “things didn’t work for me” (which I did for TLJ -- though I only finished and published part of it). When it came to the final installment, I thought it was more fruitful for me to analyze the core of what didn’t work for me overall. I won’t deny there are things I did love about the sequel trilogy, but as a whole, trilogy-spanning story it really fails for me, and this is my attempt at finding out why.

Now, onto the unpublished projects!!!

Untitled “You’ve Got Mail” AU

Somewhere in a far corner of the Outer Rim, off the far reaches of the Perlemian Trade Route, past Felucia, near the Tion Hegemony, a small planet spins on its axis, and a new day starts.

As the sun rises, it conveys a whole palette of colors: rich reds bleeding into the purple and indigo of the fading night, gold light gleaming over the flat fields of blue-green grass spreading out in all directions.

Nothing stirs but a gentle breeze, racing along the grass like a wave; to the naked eye, this area of the planet remains entirely uninhabited.

And that is the point.

To a careful observer, someone with an eye for it, the grassy flatlands and the gentle rolling hills of Skuhl hide something valuable and just as beautiful as its surface. Such an observer could find it: the narrow crack in the ground; the cramped ten-meter vertical descent into the jagged earth; the winding, sloped passage that eventually blooms into a split-level cavern that might fit a squadron of X-Wing fighters—if they had a way in.

As it is, that cavern houses something else: the Skuhl rebel cell.

And in a little area partitioned off by a series of columns, stalactites, and stalagmites on one side and a makeshift counter, sink, and shelving on the others, Jyn Erso wakes to the sound of the caf machine whirring.

Groaning, she lifts her head from the table and blinks in the soft light of a lantern hanging off the shelf behind her.

“Good morning,” Hadder says, from next to the raucous caf machine. “You’ve got a message.”

AHHH I forgot how much I love this AU. I haven’t opened this in a few months. YEAH, I’ve got some purple prose going there, but I was really trying to imitate the opening of You’ve Got Mail, how it pans down into NYC and such. I got really stuck on this trying to write Jyn and Cassian’s correspondence (the whole point TBH, smh). Otherwise, this is all plotted out (again, thanks to the amazing @allatariel​‘s help) and I just need to write it. Currently has 4,294 words.

Fencing AU (Working title is probably “En Garde”)

Jyn holds a blade for the first time when she is eight years old. It’s shiny and makes a fun clang when she smacks Bodhi’s sword. She’s been watching him from the corner, while she waits for Bodhi’s lesson to finish and for Mama and Papa to pick them up from the YMCA. Saw doesn’t teach children, he already explained. Saw wants serious students. 

So Jyn watches Bodhi stand in front of the mirror covering the far wall and watches him hold his blade in different positions (four, six, seven, eight — she heard Saw name each one). She watches him flick his wrist and smack Saw’s blade (beat, she repeats in her head) and watches him turn his wrist and push Saw’s blade away when he attacks first (parry).

She watches this go on for an hour, and afterwards, when Saw looks away to talk to some of the parents, she knicks a spare blade and a spare mask and dares Bodhi to fight her. 

It doesn’t take long for one of the parents to point her out (adults can never be trusted). But she doesn’t see it at first, too busy stabbing Bodhi, or trying to — she’s sure she’s hit him plenty on his arm, because she’s reenacted that laser sword fight from Space Clash enough times to know how it’s done.

“Jyn,” Saw says behind her, “What are you doing?”

She whirls around, staring up at Saw through the grated black mesh of the mask. He’s looking down at her, arms crossed, and he sounds mad. But she doesn’t look away or back down, even though he’s really tall and sometimes the other kids get scared when he’s angry. (She doesn’t. She’s not scared of anything.)

“Fencing,” she says. 

Saw stares back at her for forever, and she gives back an eternity because she plays this game all the time. She can win.

What she doesn’t know then, but Saw does, is that she will win.

He shakes his head. “Not like that,” Saw says.

“But I can fence,” Jyn says, “I can be serious.”

“Serious fencers,” Saw says, “aim for the heart.”

That stops her next words. She glances at Bodhi for a second, who shrugs, and then back at Saw. 

“Ready?” he says, gesturing for them to continue. “Allez!”

Oh, if I had all the time to write, I would finish this before the Olympics... I guess I still have half a year. Maybe it can still happen!! As it is, I don’t actually have much more of this written (just plotted). I fenced for five years at the local YMCA, plus just a little in college (sadly my university didn’t have a team, so I could only fence when I was able to get back home). I miss it dreadfully. Every now and then I dabble in researching clubs down here to fence, but it is so expensive and time consuming. So much to do! So little time! So I thought I’d just write about it to scratch that itch. Basically the gist is that Jyn is an Olympic fencer, and she fences foil (because that was my weapon and I’m incredibly biased) while Cassian fences epee. Aaaand look at that, now I’m rambling on about fencing. (I’d give y’all lessons if I could, do not get me started) On to the next! 

Nat Geo AU

“You seem quiet,” Cassian says quietly, still reading what she’d refer to as a tentative draft of their piece.

She shrugs.

His eyes flick up to her face just briefly and he misreads the regret on her face. “Do you miss it? Your time with Saw?”

She’s startled into a laugh. “You mean war correspondence?”

His nod is almost imperceivable, but he knows she pays close attention.

“No,” she says, perplexed.

“Not as much action out here.”

He’s worried she’s bored. As if she could be, at his side. “I almost had to wrestle a crocodile for your life yesterday.”

He grants her just the tiniest crook of a smile. “I was safe in the boat.”

“That croc was sizing you up,” she says, thinking of a large crocodile that they’d thought had been resting serenely on the river bank, before it suddenly splashed into the water right next to their boat, towards Cassian’s perch at the railing. “I saw the glint in its eye. I know the look.”

“I’m sure you do.” He snorts. Then he gestures towards her pad, where he’s highlighted a phrase. “This one — for the headline.”

She takes it and reads what he’s chosen. “You know it depends on what Kay likes.”

“He’ll like that one.”

The premise is that Jyn and Cassian work for National Geographic (or rather, Rogue Geographic) and are assigned to cover a conservation project headed by Ezra Bridger and the crew aboard the Ghost. I’ve only managed to write an intro scene about Jyn and Cassian finishing up their previous project (entirely, entirely self-indulgent and based on my honeymoon). I was hoping to finish and publish this in January, buuuut I got way distracted by an epic post-war fic that @allatariel​ and I are working on, which I think we may have started plotting in 2019, though I’m not sure -- and at any rate, the NatGeo brings us to six so you’ll just have to wait for the next word on that ;) 

 WELP THAT’S IT. 

Thanks for reading! 

TAGGING: Anyone who reads this and wants to do it. Yeah, you. You who were hoping you got tagged? I’m tagging you. You’re it!

[tomjopson]

The idea of a fic director’s cut is fascinating to me and tbh if you pasted any fic of yours in a doc and wrote a commentary, I’d be delighted to read it, but for the purpose of this meme: anything you’d like to say about “hope lost on yesterdays”? 🙌✨

I all but copy-pasted the fic, condensed with added commentary below the cut!

Sorry mobile users since read mores dont work properly on the app  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“hope lost on yesterdays” writers commentary addition  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

//

The grind is deep enough that Edward feels the vibration inhis bones. It is a deep, guttural bellow, like that of a mammoth gate of ironand rust scraping open to reveal a deep descent into the bowels of the earth,beyond its molten crust into the unending conflagration of hell.

[Portrayals of hell in literature and media alike havealways fascinated me. Now of course, my portrayal here leans the traditionalfire/brimstone imagery, but I also like to play with the idea of a frozenwasteland, such as the Arctic itself, being indicatory of a hellish landscape.]

//

The ship groans again, as magnificently and terribly as acrack of lightning, and for a brief, heart-stopping second, Edward wonders ifthis was the final one; the wood of the ship splintering and bending to theintense pressure of the ice, crumpling inward as easily as a paper boat crushedin a child’s careless grip. [Is it a Terror fic without the ice groaning andsome metaphor about the ice crushing the ship? I think not. But I was pleasedwith the analogy of the child and paper boat which took me more time to comeup with than I like to admit because it makes the ice as careless and indifferent as a child with a plaything; it removes the malice from the force of nature.]

//

“You’d think it get easier,” Solomon’s rumbling andsleep-filled voice says, “ignoring the ice. Damn noise wakes me up every time.”[For all the people who sayI get Solomon’s voice down (which, by the way thank you ), Iliterally mutter dialogue to myself as I write it, and if I can picture DavidWalmsley saying it, I call it good.]

//

Edward hums in response, sliding deeper under the covers ofthe bunk when the man beside him turns toward him and wraps a pair of strongarms around his middle. The tip of Edward’s nose brushes against the man’sbeard, and he sniffs at the tickle.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Edward whispers, his eyesfluttering shut again when Solomon’s fingers start rubbing circles on his lowback. [Lots of casual intimacy in these paragraphs, constant little touches,a continual desire to be in contact; this plays off my belief that Edwardhimself is very tactile but also the intimacy that has blossomed between thesetwo and has translated to how physically comfortable they are with each other]

//

Solomon nudges a leg under him, and Edward allows him to twist them around sothat Edward lies on top [I love making characters manhandle Edward. Not surewhat that says about me…], the new position accentuating the leftover achebetween his legs. 

//

…Sergeant Tozer had crept through the vacant wardroom to Edward’scabin door, sliding it open quietly and quickly, without invitation, but asmall and warm grin on his lips that dispelled any reprimand forming onEdward’s tongue. [Part of the appeal of many, many pairings in Terror isthat they’re all forbidden, to a certain extent. There’s always thethrill of secrecy and the risk of being caught, that makes each relationshipfeel dangerous and exhilarating, portrayed differently depending on thecharacters and how he would personally react to breaking/bending rules.]  

//

…further loosened by the bottle ofmadeira that Solomon retrieved from the inner folds of his coat, lifted duringthe re-organizing of the ship’s stores as they prepared for the long walkacross the ice. [Although at this point in the show’s canon, Solomon does not like Hickey and has not flirted with the idea of mutiny yet, hehas made his feelings on authority pretty clear, so I like to think that hisway of “sticking it to the man” would manifest in things like his stealing thewine.]

//

“And who will punish me? Can’t be the first lieutenant.He’s a habit of breaking rules himself.”

“What rules would those be?”

Solomon had given him a wicked smirk as he handed him thebottle.

“I don’t think the Admiralty takes kindly to theirofficers sucking cocks, sir.”

[Another trope I like exploring in Terror fics is how themen react to homosexuality, his own personal sexual preference, the need forromantic vs platonic vs sexual love, and how that translates to hisinterpersonal relationships. Now, because I am an absolute sap, Itypically lean romance in a lot of my portrayals, but I like to think that whatdrew Solomon and Edward together in the first place was physical.]

//

They fucked in near silence, the pillow swallowing Edward’ssighs and Solomon digging his teeth into Edward’s shoulders to muffle hismoans. [The sex scene is straightforward because these two clearly know whatthey want from each other and don’t feel the need to draw it out withunnecessary pretense. Plus, at this point in their relationship, I believethey’ve fucked a few times before and have their nonverbal communication and rhythm down.]

//

Perhaps it was the acceptance that their expedition had failed, and now, theywere simply trying to escape the Arctic with as few casualties as possible. [Ireally want to highlight the last line of this paragraph because I think, in alot of ways, conceding defeat and accepting failure is one the biggestcharacter flaws of numerous Terror characters. Admitting failure is tough,sure, but the stubbornness and arrogance of this led to men’s deaths and further suffering. And of course, the failure is even worse when you add the ever-increasing number of men lost.]

//

That night was also when Sergeant Tozer—some unspeakablequality also altered in him, following Carnivale and the death of PrivateHeather—had crossed the threshold into officer country for the first time andelbowed his way into Edward’s cabin and bed. [It was important for me tomention the loss of Heather, whether as the loss of a friend to Tozer or theloss of one of his “men” so to speak. This loss was what propelledTozer forward, to pursue Little. The use of the verb elbow wasjust a further nod to how Tozer wrenched his way into Little’s life, but youknow like affectionately.]

//

“I don’t want to go,” he admits, the words falling from histongue like the last leaves clinging to a long-dead tree.

“You don’t have to. This is your cabin.”

The attempt at humor is poor, but the irritation in Edward’svoice is dulled by his exhaustion.

“The ships, Tozer. I don’t want to leave the ships.” [I love this exchange, because Edwardis broaching a very difficult topic, and Tozer just lets it slide off his backlike water, still attempting to bring lightness to the situation.]

//

Instead, Solomon’s voice is muffled by the hair on Edward’s headwhen he says, “We may die yet, and all this will finally be over.” [self-destructiveor simply realistic? This fatalism that grows in Tozer is partly what made himso susceptible to Hickey’s mutiny later.]

//

Edward sits on the edge of his bunk, and Solomon’s kneesbump into his as the man fumbles toward him in the darkness. Solomon gropes forEdward’s hand, and he unfurls each finger, tracing the lines along Edward’spalm. The longer he stands there, holding Edward’s hand, the more that Edwardfights the urge to interlace their fingers and pull Solomon back. [It was soso so important to me that it wasn’t just 1) drink 2) fuck 3) leave, so I triedto infuse as much sensual intimacy as I could into this story. The sex is aperk, sure, but what ultimately draws these two together is a deep desire for connection, understanding, and comfort. The hand holding is another exchangethat shows how they don’t want this shared moment to end, and how both of thembenefit from and desire this intimacy.]

//

“See you on the other side, sir,” he says as his goodbyebefore he slides the door open and leaves. [Significant that this is what he says vs simply a goodbye or, worse, nothing.]

//

Edward settles himself back into his bed, burying his noseinto the portion of his pillow where traces of Solomon’s scent clings. [The yearning.Still clinging to traces of Solomon, even as the man’s presence disappears fromthe room.]

//

[Final note, I wrote this in a single evening, literallyout of a desperate desire to have more Little/Tozer content. I went into itdeciding that I didn’t even care if the fic was any good or not, and, much tomy chagrin but also relief, this ended up being one of my better fics. Removingthe crippling perfectionism and expectations does writers wonders. I also very much want to write a companion piece that takes place during the first day both of them are at Terror Camp together, so fingers crossed that I write that sooner than later.]