#also by god toddler anatomy is just fucked up

[bitchking-of-angmar]

鞆 - Tomo

[arcsin27]

Reviewing all the stories in junji ito maniac because I can, fuck you :)

The strange hikizuri siblings - uhh okay. Not scary nothing even happened. Okay a guy was a jealous simp, little kids are just like that, some guy threw up bread dough ig, then a ghost stared at everyone for a while and dipped the end

The story of the mysterious tunnel - Jesus Christ that was pretty spooky what the hell. Lost my marbles when he assumed the drop was water, and the kid in the ceiling fucked me up with her voice (dub) and screams

Ice cream bus - im never eating ice cream again. Jokingly compared the driver to William afton fnaf in the beginning but he was somehow worse. The dad pushing the kid away jumpscared me, then horrified me, and I needed a break from the show

Hanging balloon - so absurd it was kinda funny. The nonlinear storytelling added a bit if spook as I slowly realized who was at the window but idk the concept was just funny to me. Also I was so happy someone finally showed up to a horror plot strapped until I saw the result. Sorry random Chad with a crossbow, wish you coulda helped…

Four x four walls - thought something horrific would happen outside and he wouldn’t hear it but it didn’t, thought soichi was famous for being scary but he wasnt, I think this was like a comic relief in episode form. No spook, kinda funny

The sandman’s lair - *laughs nervously* what the fuck. No clue what happened, why would you tape yourselves like that, let me see his dream form damnit, the nature of humanity is we reinvent homestuck etc

Intruder - these kids are based tbh. Balls of steel, don’t blame the redhead, just move on with their lives

Long hair in the attic - also based, i had wondered where her head had gone but i shoulda known by the title, that grinding sound pissed me off tho

Mold - thank. God. It was in black and white. I choose to believe its dust. Also idc about culture or taboo if your floor is coated in inches of ropes and pools of mold just wear your damn shoes. Jesus Christ

Library vision - this one felt like it was calling out all of my anxieties about losing the things and memories precious to me. Also 10/10 Sean chiplock that final recital of hell of thorns was incredible and spooky. Also what the fuck was the ending

Tomb town - im never driving again. Also just call the cops surely you get a reduced sentence for actually reporting the crime. Other than that not scary lol

Layers of terror - im never picking my skin again. god ALMIGHTY why did i bear witness to this. Fuck that mom bro she sucks. I was thinking about how the proportions of human anatomy change as you age and how a toddler with such short limbs and a thick torso could fit inside an adult but uh… then they answered my question. And then it got worse. Funnily enough the 2yo looked like a monster id design

The thing that drifted ashore - was this supposed to be scary…? Oh boy they turned into fish people and promptly fucked off good for them ig

Tomie • photo - wow what bitches lmfao. Idk why she has a face growing out of her scalp hut I didn’t need to see the removal process. Or how botched the removal process was. Based that the photographer just fuckin moved on. “Damnit the blood ruined my pictures :/“ incredible.

Unendurable labyrinth - probably woulda been scarier if they were lost for longer but to me it looked like they took five steps, found the brother, seven steps, “aaaah we’re lost,” two steps, “theyre looking at me!” then suddenly the mummies have eyes, fade to black. Cool

The bully - I was sooo ready for retribution, then I got reconciliation and got even happier, then it turned into child abuse and I wanted to kill a bitch

Alley - pfft idk if its based that she killed those kids or not but it was extra based that they got revenge on her lmao shoulda brought a ladder bro

Headless statue - Jesus fuck that’s gross. Stop it. Also smash the statues again it worked brilliantly earlier. Or maybe jump out a window idk

Whispering woman - mega based. The nervous girl gains support and confidence, the attendant is freed from her abusive friend, the abusive friend gets violently killed, its just wins all around

Soichi’s beloved pet - once again a comic relief episode but tbh it was pretty funny, soichi was a lot less hateable this time too!

[abundantsnow]

Hisato Nagafuchi's rough story/backstory/...outline?

Idk it explains him being a half demon and like. everything from birth to a little bit after he becomes the Ice Hashira. thats because when following the plot, he would first appear during tanjiros trial, where all the other hashira are introduced.

Also! Breathing styles are visible because I fucking said so. There is literally no reason they shouldn't be it is a SHOUNEN ANIME. my god.

When I talk about Hisato and any other character using their breathing style, just know that it is visible to anyone who uses breathing styles. A normal person can't see it, but if they wield a nichirin sword or use breathing styles themselves, they can see the visual effects.

TW for SA briefly mentioned in the very first line 💔💔

◇▪︎◇

Hisato was the product of a demon sexually assaulting a woman. No one would support or believe the woman, and she would die a few days after childbirth. In these few days, she was weak and suffering from blood loss and starvation. She managed to wrap her baby up and leave him with the former Water Hashira, Sakonji Urokodaki. She explained her story to him weakly, and she knew no other person would take in something like Hisato. Urokodaki agreed to take him in and used the same method he used on Nezuko to make sure that Hisato never eats another human. It was fairly easy to do this since Hisato was only a baby.

Urokodaki quickly figured out that Hisato doesn’t catch fire in the sun. Rather, he gets up to 2nd degree sunburns within roughly an hour of being exposed to the sun. He’s not immune to the sun, but he doesn’t die in the sun. He just has to stay covered up during the day. Urokodaki made him a mask and special haori pretty early on to help him stay protected in the sun. He also learned that Hisato can consume normal food and drink, but if he goes too long without human blood at the very least, he will become incredibly weak. He cannot die from blood-starvation like a demon can. After a small accident when Hisato was a toddler, he learned that his pain tolerance was low, his regeneration was slow, and that he could consume his own blood. Hisato could self-cannibalize to sustain himself if necessary.

As Hisato got older, he learned and grew like a normal human being. His speech was not impeded, and his capacity of learning was actually a lot quicker than most humans. By the age of 8, he could speak and understand complex sentences and words; he spoke and acted like an adult. Around this age, Urokodaki started to tell him about his mother and his half-demon blood abilities. He explained the history of Muzan Kibutsuji, what demons do, and how they survive. He also told Hisato about the Demon Slayer Corps, Urokodaki’s former Hashira title, and the special nichirin swords that Demon Slayers use to kill demons. He taught him demon anatomy, their weaknesses, and the Blood Demon Arts they possess.

Overwhelmed by everything, Hisato runs away. Urokodaki is unable to stop him, and he anxiously awaited his return. He couldn't go out to try and hunt him down, seeing as he was retired and unable to do that job. He didn't want to notify the corps, knowing that a Demon Slayer would kill Hisato immediately. So he waited. He waited, and waited, and waited. Days became weeks, weeks became months, and suddenly, it had been two years since Hisato's disappearance. Urokodaki had given up hope that he was still alive, but wanted to hope that he'd come back. He couldn't stop the deep hurt inside himself that the closest thing he'd had to a son is now dead.

Another few months pass and Urokodaki is still lonely, he's set up a shrine for his... son, that only made the ache in his heart hurt worse. He's putting down flowers and lighting incense whenever he hears subtle footsteps. It was Hisato.

He didn't look right, though. He looked filthy, numb, and empty. Something happened to him in the two and a half years he had been gone, but he refused to tell Urokodaki what it was. Either way, Urokodaki quickly embraced his son whenever he croaked out a broken, "dad?" and held him close, crying as his prayers were answered.

It didn't take long before Hisato was back to his usual self from so long ago, something still felt off, but when Urokodaki asked Hisato about what happened, he'd look at him with an empty, soul-piercing stare. Urokodaki feared he had killed and/or eaten another human, but that was the only thing that Hisato would deny. Eventually, the only thing Hisato would say was that he was taken by someone and locked away somewhere bad. He would never bring it up again, nor would he ever say anything else on the matter

By eleven years of age, Hisato wants to fight. He wants to become a demon slayer to find a way to become a full human and to avenge his mother. Urokodaki decided to make Hisato his tsuguko. He taught him water breathing, but he never seemed to grasp it properly. He could never get the flow and concentration needed to conform like water. He was always rigid. He learned to adapt his movements and ended up creating Ice Breathing. He furthered his breathing style by learning his Blood Demon Art. When he did so, he managed to turn the breathing style into something much more dangerous, but also something incredibly helpful. His demon-ice seemed to have healing properties; he could transfer his regeneration abilities through the ice to heal someone else's wound. As long as the wound isn't fatal, he can heal it. This means he can repair severed limbs, as long as the limb isn't destroyed or lost. This takes up an incredible amount of his energy, however.

In just two years time, Hisato had become incredibly powerful. Urokodaki sent him to the Demon Slayer Entrance Exam at 13 years old with a specially crafted mask and one of his haori's. The mask had some sort of spell casted on it that helped with keeping his identity a secret from ordinary people. It was a little bit after Hisato left that Urokodaki also took in Sabito and Giyuu, they were both 11. Neither of them knew of Hisato’s existence.

Hisato passed the entrance exam. He killed a few demons, and never came across the hand-demon that had taken so many of Urokodaki’s children. He made it up the mountain on the seventh day and turned out to be the only one to pass the exam that year. The twins knew immediately about him having demon blood, and took him to the Master before anything else.

The Master knew of his presence beforehand due to Insight. Once Hisato was in front of him, he immediately pardoned him, surprising Hisato. He thought he would be executed on the spot by a Hashira for being a half-demon. The Master told him he was in contact with Urokodaki, so he knew what he needed to about the boy. Hisato asked that his existence in the Corps not be revealed to the Hashira until he himself had become a Hashira. He believed that no one else but the Ubayashiki family themselves would allow him to stay in the Corps knowing he was a half-demon. The Master agreed to this and let Hisato pick out his ore for his nichirin sword, since Hisato was the only one to pass the entrance exam that year.

Hisato never returned to Urokodaki, though. Once he was assigned his Kasugai Crow, Yukikumo, he sent a message to Urokodaki that he was alive, but would not be returning to that estate, and that he would live on the road. He also told Urokodaki not to tell anyone of his existence and that he would live in secrecy. He wasn’t bothered by not having a home and liked the aspect of living from mission to mission. The message returned to him was simply Urokodaki wishing him well and that he hopes to see him again one day.

So at 13 years old, Hisato was now a Demon Slayer at rank Mizunoto. He climbed the ranks pretty fast, learning a lot about Muzan along the way. At 18 years old, he was already at the top of the ranks, at Kinoe. During a mission around this time, he found Lady Tamayo. She was extremely fascinated by Hisato’s genetic makeup and his body’s unique abilities. He agreed to give some of his blood to her for her to study. In a few months time, Lady Tamayo told him that he was the first half-demon to exist and that Muzan most-likely has no idea Hisato exists. His blood also causes him to be unaffected by Muzan’s Curse. His mother's DNA altered Muzan's blood in the womb, allowing the connection to be severed and his blood to be unique to him.

Either way, Hisato still had generous amounts of physical enhancements that normal humans don’t have, and used them to his advantage over demons. Most demons who realized he was half-demon had tried to get away, but Hisato had slain them all. He kept this up upon learning he had no connection to Muzan, as to assure that Muzan never learned of his existence. If Muzan never knows, Hisato can sneak up on him.

At 20 years old, Hisato became the Ice Hashira. During his crowning, it was revealed to the other Hashira that he was a half-demon. Of course, this did not go well and was a near catastrophe. However, his saving grace was the fact that the crowning took place in broad daylight, where Hisato was kneeling, unharmed. He still had his mask on, the same mask that Urokodaki had given him, (which did not go unnoticed by Giyuu) and seemed to be perfectly fine. He was asked by the Master to explain his self-sustaining abilities, his semi-immunity to the sun, and his Blood Demon Art/Ice Breathing to the rest of the Hashira.

He explained his upbringing and that he trained under the former Water Hashira, and that he could vouch for him. Giyuu’s attention was fully caught, and he wondered how he never knew of Hisato. He recounted his unique abilities, and even the things that Lady Tamayo had told him, with permission from the Master (who knew her, which came as a surprise to Hisato). As he finished speaking, his throat felt sore from overuse, and he felt like he was overheating. The Master asked that he retreat under the shade of the mansion to heal himself.

It was here that the Wind Hashira, Shinazugawa Sanemi, made it clear of his distaste. He sliced his arm open and drizzled his blood in front of Hisato.

"I'm afraid that... doesn't have the affect on me you think it does, sir. Also, are you... a marechi?"

"Yeah, and what the hell do you mean it has no effect? You're a demon."

"I said I am a half-demon. Your blood smells nice, but I have no urge to drink it or devour you. Not to mention, I drank my own blood this morning. I'm not hungry."

It shocked the entirety of the Hashira, and was clear proof of Hisato's humanity.

The Hashira reluctantly accepted him. A few made it clear their distaste for Hisato, but some were more open to get to know him.

He requested that he get a new nichirin sword, a special one that suits his fighting style a bit more. He was taken to the swordsmith village where he talked to the Chief, who learned about his blood and decided to take on the challenge (albeit a little easier than Kanroji's whip sword or Iguro's snake sword) of crafting a thin, straight katana that fit into a saya specially made with a detachable parasol.

The early stages of his nichirin sword were strange, but it didn't take long for him to have a custom designed sword that matched his mask and haori.

Speaking of haori, he had long since outgrown the haori that Urokodaki had sent him off with, and has been purchasing new ones along the years. It was the Sound Hashira, Uzui, that had noticed this first. Him and his wives had gotten together to create a haori that matched his mask. When gifting it to Hisato, he burst into tears, making Uzui and his wives realize just how much humanity he really does have. He started wearing it immediately, eventually, he had adapted to wearing umanori hakama pants and a special hakamashita kimono over his uniform top. The kimono was purple, and his pants were the same color as his uniform. He also started wearing geta and tabi as a tribute to his snowy nature.

It was after his outfit was solidified that he finally settled on a design for his parasol. The paper was a darker blue with snowflakes, and it was draped with tassels and gemstones on the ends that make lovely sounds when blown in the wind or while walking. The other Hashira have noticed that even with his geta, his tassel earrings, and his charmed parasol, he is able to sneak up on people without making a sound. They all think it has something to do with his mask being able to hide his features in plain sight. And when it comes to Hashira meetings, he has been given permission to kneel with his parasol open to protect him from overheating.

So far, the only one to have seen his face besides Urokodaki is the Ubayashiki family. No Hashira, no Corps members, and no strangers have ever laid eyes on his unmasked face. He doesn't really appear in front of any Corps members anyway. He knows he has to be around strangers all the time, as part of his job, but he stays away from other members for fear of revealing his identity and causing a scare.

He doesn't talk much anymore, not like he used to before he became a Demon Slayer. His voice doesn't give him away as a demon, but he's been told that it doesn't match his appearance. People say he gives off an elegant, delicate, and even feminine aura. It came as a surprise whenever he spoke with a smooth and rich, deep voice. He stopped talking to anyone other than the Hashira and the Master so that he could keep up that delicate appearance and hopefully bring peace of mind to the people he rescues during missions.

◇▪︎◇

thats all!! sorry if the pacing is worse than hashira training arc, like i said, this is a very rough outline for his backstory. i promise im better at writing and pacing LMAO

[horsetailcurlers2]

another long obnoxious stream of my thoughts while watching greys anatomy for the first time (season 13 bc nobody has stopped me!!)

-oh my god meredith please just tell her you slept with riggs

-yeah DUH amelia you should have gotten to know each other better before you got married

-can i just say that i will never ever base my preconceptions of a show off tiktok again lol. before i watched this show i fully expected to hate maggie and april. i’m nervous bc i’ve also seen people who haven’t watched pp say they hated amelia but so far i don’t see why.

-i’m confused?? amelia has definitely mentioned her anencephalic baby to owen before. maybe she hasn’t laid out the whole story but she definitely mentioned him some time after derek died.

-oooh murphy is back

-bailey is not stupid so why is she acting stupid??? of course this prison has scarce medical resources and the doctors are overworked. what planet do you live on?

-trying to cut dr eliza some slack bc she’s just doing her job, but she could probably do it a way that’s less irritating

-imo alex deserves to be punished. way too many main characters get off too easy when they make fucked up choices. but i selfishly don’t want him to go to prison lol

-bailey is starting to seriously piss me off. i’m not saying all the attendings are in the right for the way they’re acting but what did she think would happen if she brought in some abrasive stranger to take a sledgehammer to their program and undermine the authority of a bunch of tight knit surgeons who are often times like a group of talented toddlers with scalpels

-they should have done a chemistry read with jessica capshaw before they cast minnick lmao. the flirting is so bad and the “sexual tension” thing they’re trying to is almost laughable.

-why on earth WOULDN’T you want an actual peds surgeon to supervise a child’s surgery? whatever phase two of your teaching program whatever…. but what the fuck?

-also “this isn’t about me it’s about edwards” rubs me the wrong way bc actually it’s about the fucking patient

-i think they’ve introduced new exterior shots this season. i like ‘em

-owen pisses me off bc he’s actually a really good friend, but an appallingly bad partner

-maggie could stand to chill out a little bit, even if she doesn’t know about the cancer.

-“a place she loved… by the water” RICHARD

-maggie’s mom is so real “orgasms. they are not a gift. it’s your right” “i wanna die with my eyelashes on”

-the synchronized lasagna eating is what finally made me cry. RIP diane

-“her heart beat for derek shepherd. it never occurred to me that she would be with anyone else” jesus fucking christ why don’t you chill out a little bit arizona

-i like this plane episode a lot. i know it’s not *technically* a bottle episode but it feels like one. what are the odds somebody can be in TWO emergency plane situations in the same handful of years

-meredith definitely fucked up and she should’ve told maggie about riggs WAY sooner but (and i feel mean saying this) maggie is being a little dramatic about a guy she didn’t actually date. it’s the principle though, so i get it.

-jo’s secret abusive husband is will shuester?????

-these fake outs with alex and paul are giving me heart palpitations.

-of course amelia speaks german. that’s so hot

-maybe i’m stupid but i think that if there’s a fire, all the doors to outside should automatically be unlocked

-minnick sucks ridiculously hard

[demonicsaintess]

Just… *wipes tear* just know I accidentally forever deleted this article right before it was finished. I cried a bit on the inside, like a winner, (sike I cried on the outside too!!), and decided to write it again, but better.

Three Animes I Have Dropped, and Why

So, we all like anime! Yay! That’s why we’re here right? We have our favorites, those we’ve hated, and those we’re obsessed with— the ones who have become a part of you (wow that’s cheesier than a little kid’s hands at the cesspool of mechanical rat pizza—-) *ahem* Anyways, I thought I’d write a pretty straight-forward bit about 3 animes I’ve dropped and why. Now, without further ado:

Don’t Toy With Me Miss Nagatoro!

Sometimes one needs a palate cleanser between animes. This, is one of those animes. I’d honestly say under my breath, it’s a “beginner’s” anime. I’m personally unaware of any, but I truly wonder if there is someone out there desperately pining for this show. Not to say it’s a bad show, it’s a great concept for a high school romcom, but it just leads you by the nose with the shock value. I get that a romcom is very difficult to make completely unique these days, and it’s still a charming show in itself, but I’m TIRED of ecchi laced romcoms where the joke is perverseness. Not saying Nagatoro is sexual, just, the show to me felt like her sadism always had to do with anatomy? I’m not sure I’m explaining this quite right. TLDR; I got tired after a few episodes, of seeing this almost romanticized play of Nagatoro mercilessly bullying someone. It’s not a bad anime; but for me it was destined to be dropped~

Death Note

**Note; I’m getting a horrible, chilling feeling running down my spine as my fingers move across my keyboard.

I’m willing to stake my nonexistant reputation on this take. Therefore my take is; maaaaaan honestly what a damn let down. Maybe it’s just because this sort of anime doesn’t appeal to me, but the only reason I even watched the damn show was because I was trying to get my wife into anime. She’s a normie, so this actually didn’t backfire on me, except towards myself. I had to sit through the most BORING anime I personally have ever watched. Sue me okay? I said what I said. Everything about this anime is just dumb; and here’s why. I’m all for fucking narcissism and killing bad people to make society better, but goddamn fucking Light is an idiot. I just feel like he rushed his killings. I wasn’t excited even once, except watching how excited my wife was. I would have dropped this before I even started, if it wasn’t for her. I watched the first 12 episodes and BOUNCED. TLDR; Light is an annoying toddler and also a fucking idiot who honestly is simply book smart. Dude is lame as hell. Even the bitch he pulled is lame. What a lame way to try and fix the world. Think bigger you loser.

God of Highschool

Okay so, this one as well, is probably going to get me flamed, but again, I said what I said. I’m not quite sure when I decided this anime was not for me, but when I did, I was ready to throw it away. To be fair, I don’t even think I made it past his 2 friends going up against whoever they were in the contest? It just felt… slow? to me; maybe even boring. For example, the characters were awesome, but felt two dimensional to me. Of course, this is just speculation, considering I didn’t make it very far into the show. I lost interest in it, and unfortunately the fight scenes weren’t enough to make me stick to it. I heard it’s pretty good though, from other people, so I can’t knock it too hard. TLDR: it’s not my kind of show, but the fight scenes could be pretty hype for someone who likes shonen more than I do!

So yeah, I’m not saying these animes are bad. There’s a reason why they’re so popular; but just not interesting enough for me.

Thank you as always, for taking time to read another entry by me,

The Holy Villainess

[growling]

ep13 i just googled something and yeah that's the finale :3

oh so the hunting dogs have principles??? i thought they were just feral honestly lmao. thats good woohoo

maybe they're just batshit cause the agency are considered terrorists now and once their name gets cleared they're gonna start passionately making out with them instead and then fuck off for another several years

is teruko like a shapeshifter??

she can also shapeshift others it looks??? or is it just age......

oh so her ability allows her to control age :33

does this just mean she regularly beats the shit out of toddlers and the elderly cause if so that's funny as fuck and +1 point to teruko

SHE DOES LMAO

shut up about the waitress dazai you haven't brought anything into this anime aside from pain and misery. the closest you were ever to being remotely likeable was when you were a port mafia executive with over 300 confirmed kills performing the zipper move on your useless stooge and his shit creature everyday and even then i couldn't forgive you as a slight against akutagawa is punishable by death in my eyes anyway

"can such a thing even be called human" shut the fuck up dazai don't you dare call my beautiful son sigma a thing. he's trying his best ok

sigma voted for most competent cringefail

WHOOPSIE TERUKO UHH. HANG IN THERE!!!! still on sigma's side though lmaoo

oh so she injured her ears now?? also if that stopped the sound waves from reaching her brain and exploding it or whatever. then how does she hear sigma rn. are these sounds like differenr or what or do i not get something about anatomy and shit idk

"the hunting dogs superhuman physical prowess is the result of surgery carried out by doctors with special abilities. but the inhuman nature of the surgeries made them such that, if we miss even one of the monthly follow-up surgeries, our flesh rots and we die" are you. okay

both sigma and teruko should be allowed to do whatever they want tbh. let them make peace and hold hands and skip thru the meadow together

ATSUSHI TO THE RESCUE??? LET'S GO ATSUSHI GET YOUR FURRY BROTHER

ooooh so sigma stabbed taneda...... leave him aloneee he's just a little guyy. he's just a little guyyy

:((

oh hi priest guy whose name i forgot

ok now atsushi and sigma listen to me young men join forces to beat the shit out of him there is nothing stronger in this world than two therians fighting paw in paw-

itll be good bonding experience i swear

sigma go join the sskk polycule. this is an order

nooooo bbg don't kill yourself :((((((

not all is lost ango because uhhh. uh. i said so :)))) and my word is absolute

THE AMONG US FILE

ooooooooh tachihara's gonna know now?? can we trust the boy????? he will never be a man to me. unless he atones for his sins against yosano

oh he won't :(((( so called free-thinkers when

oooooh or maybe he is a free-thinker after all...... he broke out of the

not all is lost because i said so :))))

OH HIROTSU AND GIN ARE ALIVE!!!!!!!!!! DO THE EPIC DANCE EVERYBODY

oooooooh he didn't want to really kill them <3333 tachihara who do you prefer. the hunting dogs (ew) or the wholesome mafia momence (yippiee)

fyodor and dazai arguing about god

i saw nikolai's face for a moment there...... buddy bestie pal i miss you dudeeee

wholesome mafia momence <3 we should forgive them all the mafia is too wholesome to be evil. who the fuck are yosano and kyouka

ooooooooh AND he spared yosano <3 tachihara gaining a lot of focus this season i'm not complaining

OOOOH the loophole...... tachihara is not the law enforcement/investigative body because he's a member of the port mafia through and through thus he won't dismiss it <33

let's go tachihara

NIKOLAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE'S HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NIKOLAI BUDDY I MISSED YOU AND YOUR SHIT EATING GRIN

and that's it for s4 smash that like and subscribe for mo

anyway bsd season 4 let's go gamers

ep1:

still waiting for chuuya to get unbooked. notify me immediately once he gets unbooked i can't take thsi

oh hi fukuzawa. put his wrinkles back on ffs

fukuzawa and ranpo flashback episode pretty please??

LET'S GOOOOOOO

oh oda's the assassin?? killer baby

ranpo voice heard my waters are cropped

i do not accept ranpo being the same age/older than oda. i will not accept this. let oda be like. 30+ or whatever

whys ranpo giving me ouma vibes in this outfit

ranpo don't care sunglasses emoji

oh yeah i had the feeling the secretary was the killer from the moment ranpo walked in lmao. now danganronpa execute him

coolest kid you've never met

good for ranpo for getting kicked out of the police after exposing all their shit as a teenager

snitch ranpo we love to see it it's okay if he does it he can do whatever he wants forever he's never been wrong in his life

orphan lore

oh he's 14 now. baby

"well done for today-" "that's it?? you're talking to a 14-year old who lost his parents his job and his future. thats all you got??" yes ranpo go fight for that sympathy points make that old man cry and shake from guilt

he's so sillyyy......... "*2 seconds after walking out the door* help me mister bodyguard i don't have work or a place to stay im going to die" yes ranpo go fight for that house and income pluck that old man out of everything he got (morally correct). i love how it literally works and fukuzawa says yeagh sure every time

with every single minute ranpo is on screen. i swear. with every single damn frame of that guy he gets more and more npd. like. that is a narcissist. you wrote a narcissist and made him the coolest most swag guy in the anime. and that's not even mentioning that guy's massive fucking autism and adhd

is this gonna be like rain code chapter 2 where where-

fukuzawa sweating voice damn that kids a genius and also deeply deeply unnerving why is he so op in the smarts stats what happened in his early childhood to ruin him forever like this

and ranpo's utterly clueless to that too he just thinks everybody else is an idiot or just acting real weird and hiding what they know for some reason.

"ive only just met you so i don't know much but- *lists his entire fucking biography*"

LEAVE THE BOY ALONE YOU KNOCKED HIM OVER FUKUZAWA YOU MONSTER!!!!!!!!!!! YOU WILL ALWAYS BE A CRUEL AND WICKED PERSON YOU WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH YOU HAVE NOT AND NEVER WILL CHANGE IN A MEANINGFUL WAY. CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'D DO THIS...............

oh ok he apologized. but can he ever truly be forgiven........

the hat :)

new sonboy acquired

[qhazomb]

so it turns out i’m one of those cringe fans who makes a fan kid for a ship i really like and uh. made a frenrey kid. her name is Eggie.

which Gordon tells everyone is short for ‘Eglantine’ but it’s really because Benrey wouldn’t stop fucking referring to their then-unborn child as ‘eggie’ due to the fact that she was, y’know. an egg during development. and the whole reason she was in an egg is because they didn’t have access to an incubation tube to let her develop in. Benrey made her in a similar way he made his own body, but this time getting the ‘materials’ for it from himself. to make sure this new body had its own consciousness and stuff, he had it start at the cell stage and linked it up with the cosmic ether for the energy to get it going (he had to do. so much research to make sure he got this all right. he never wants to do a thing that requires THAT much reading ever again). he gave this 'diy baby starter' cell cluster a touch of Gordon's genes, so it’d be the genetic child for both of them! cause why bother making a kid instead of adopting one, if it not so that it’s genetically related to you? when Benrey mentioned that their kid would have genes from both of them, Gordon was like "Wait how and when the hell did you get a sample of my genetic material???" "uh, every time we've made out and you got your spit in my mouth? duh." "Oh. Right. Forgot that saliva counts for that." "yeah it's like, blood lite, so." "It's what?" (and thus Gordon learns that your saliva is filtered from your blood.) of course after that was all figured out, then came the issue of incubation. Benrey doesn't have, uh, that kind of anatomy, or any desire to have it, so the cells needed something else to grow in. luckily, growing an entire person in a tube is a thing proven to work (as evidenced by Bubby), so Benrey hit up Tommy to ask if he could lend them an incubation tube for their babby. unfortunately, it turns out that the one Tommy grew their cat Sony in was just on loan, and he didn't have it anymore. :( but then Benrey remembered birds exist. and that they make their own incubators. Gordon was very surprised to come home and find a big black egg sitting under a heat lamp on his dresser. "Please tell me you didn't fucking lay that." “bro if i could just make my body able to lay eggs i would’ve just done the whole pregananant thing instead.” “Oh. Oh thank god.” “yeah this isn’t that kinda fanfic anyway.” “This isn’t tha- do you even fucking listen to half the things that come out of your mouth??” when she was finally ready to hatch, it looked like she was struggling breaking through the shell. which she was, because a thing Benrey didn’t account for is that baby birds and the like have an ‘egg tooth’ for breaking out of the egg. and Eggie didn’t have one of those. before either Gordon or Benrey could figure out what to do, Eggie beat them to the punch. by making the egg explode. turned out she went into a mini Rainbow Death Mode to just fuckin’, energy blast her way out. Gordon was still picking eggshell bits out of his hair for like an hour after, ha ha. she wasn’t newborn baby sized when she hatched, but more toddler size (which shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone, given how damn massive that egg was). it kinda made things a little complicated for Gordon when trying to explain why he suddenly had a (seemingly) two-year-old kid that looked too much like him (and his husband??) to be adopted. thankfully he hardly ever ran into that problem, heh. outside of the Science Team, the only others who know Benrey isn’t human, and thus that their expected kid wouldn’t be either, were also the main people who would wanna see Gordon’s brand new baby; those being his Ma, his ex Anna, and his brother John. oh, and of course, 10-year-old Joshua, who is very excited to have a sibling (especially an alien one!) Eggie sang her very first Sweet Voice shortly after hatching. green to blue, followed by pink to blue, directed at her dads. ‘hello! i love you!’ as previously stated, they named her Eglantine because Benrey wouldn't stop calling her 'eggie' while she was still in the egg, and the name unfortunately stuck. Gordon refused to let that be her actual, legal name, so he just looked up some good 'normal' names that 'Eggie' could be a plausible nickname for. they settled on Eglantine once Eggie had shown she wanted to be a girl (which she decided on upon being introduced to Anna and immediately thinking ‘i wanna look like that’). the Science Team (playfully) heckled him over the fact that ‘Eglantine’ definitely doesn’t sound like a normal baby name. Gordon defends himself by saying he found it on a baby names site, which in turn just gets him MORE heckling. (it’s revenge for when he called Bubby and Darnold’s names fake-sounding). “Ah yes, a completely normal name, just like her dad Gordon Martinis Freeman’s name.” “...Shut up, man.” her last name is ‘Freeman-Lover,’ taking both of her dads’ names. Gordon had said that they could give her just Benrey’s last name, since he already has a kid with his, but Benrey didn’t really care either way, and in the end they just gave her both. her hair’s black like Benrey’s, and her irises look mostly black like his, but instead of having a thin ring of blue in them, Eggie’s got a much wider ring of green in her eyes, same green as Gordon’s. she’s also got freckles like Gordo :) she calls Gordon ‘pops’ or ‘papa’ and Benrey ‘dad.’ she calls Tommy and Darnold her uncles (but always explains to new people that they're not her REAL uncles like her uncle John but they're like honorary uncles) and calls the Boomers her grandpas (but not honorary grandpas, cause she doesn't have any REAL grandpas since her pops’ dad is gone and her dad doesn't have parents). she refers to Anna as her ‘not-mom’ (”she’s my brother’s mom, but she’s not MY mom, so she’s my not-mom.”) she does not refer to Mr. Coolatta. she was able to make herself look convincingly human right away, being technically half-human. though she did look.... a BIT weird. like Benrey’s very first physical body attempt, her skin was partially transparent, but unlike baby Benrey, Eggie’s body actually had bilateral symmetry and a complete skeleton, heh. her skin thickened up and any Way Too Obviously Inhuman features where hidden away about an hour or so after she hatched. she’s a very emotional creature, very expressive, and loves to talk. naturally, Gordon brings her on to co-commentate on his streams, whenever he streams an E-rated or tamer T-rated game. “Hey guys, this is my daughter! Say hi to chat, Eggie.” “HIIIIIII!” there was at least one person in chat saying they would die for Eggie (to which Eggie replied “nooooooo don’t die that’s bad!!”) AND THAT’S ALL I GOT SO FAR idk the idea of these two dingus raising a lil’ monster kid together is just fun and cute.

[gaysimpsstuff]

Flightless Birds Chapter One: Feathers in Fukuoka

Chapter Two Here

Chapter Three Here

Chapter Four Here

Chapter Five Here

Summary: Y/n unexpectedly meets the current number two hero Hawks in Fukuoka. The grayish blue Parakeet catches the eye of the speedy hero, who promises himself he’ll meet them again.

Word Count: 2.5K words

Warnings: Child abuse, Karens, blood, Hawks being creepy, chaotic best friend, gore, shitty parents, deadbeat dad

Other: The amount of research I put into this, wing anatomy, feather anatomy, types of birds, parakeet behaviors, cities in Japan, I even found a good Japanese name for the best friend, since this does take place in Japan. If you wanna know, Izanagi, the name of Y/n’s best friend in this fic, means ‘First male, god of creation’ and I love that name. Actually, I love anything in the Japanese language, it’s such a beautiful language and I cannot wait to learn it. Also, there was a problem with the spacing in the flashback scene so I just fixed that real quick, sorry for the inconvenience!

Taglist: @smolchildfangirl @combat-wombatus @cathy8taffy @1small-frogs @catcherisvibin @waffleareniceandfluffy @mandalorian-baby-bird @theblueslytherin (If you want to be added/removed from the taglist let me know).

You stared out the window. It had taken forever but you’d convinced him to let you look down at the streets surrounding his penthouse. You rested one hand on the cool glass, letting out a breath. Your other hand was tracing the scars on your legs, You had long given up on getting them to heal.

You fluttered your wings, or what was left of them. No matter how many times your primary flying feathers would grow back, it would never deter your captor from simply clipping them off again. Thankfully, he did a better job than other people. He would never cut a blood feather. Well, mostly.

You closed your eyes, the house was so stifling at times, despite the large open rooms, and the fact that your captor would occasionally allow you out into the garden. You attempted to recall the last time you were free in Fukuoka. You remembered a bright sky, blue as your wings, and clouds fluffy and soft as your feathers. You remembered the ache in your body from working yourself all day, and just how heavy your legs felt. You remembered a kid’s joyful cheers when she saw you….

“Mommy! Look, look at the pretty bird! Can I touch it please?” you were standing on the street, waiting for a friend to pick you up and take you over to their house to watch movies and eat popcorn. You looked up from your phone at the sound of the child’s loud, innocent voice. 

“Go right ahead, Kaneko!” a woman’s voice this time. You frowned. Whatever bird they were talking about it probably wasn’t a good idea for the kid to just run up and touch it. You were forcibly removed from your thoughts when sharp pain shot up through your wing. Oh, you were the ‘pretty bird’ the kid was talking about.

Your quirk was Parakeet, and that was fine by itself, but it came with pros and cons. Some pros were that you could fly, even though you couldn’t do that in public in most places in Japan. Some cities in Japan had laws that allowed flyers to take to the skies under strict sky traffic laws, but Fukuoka was not one of those cities. Maybe you would have been better off in Miyagi or Fukui, where you could fly freely, but at the same time, you had lived your whole life near Fukuoka, plus it was such a beautiful city, it was easier to stay here.

Another pro was simple, the thing most people think about when they say they want a mutant-type quirk. The looks. Your wings had three different colors, but the base color was a beautiful summer sky blue. At the very top of your wings, your marginal coverts were a curious shade of gray. Not dark enough to be black but not light enough to be white. Underneath were your secondary coverts, which were white as the clouds in the sky. The rest of your feathers were pretty blue colors. Your tail feathers followed the same pattern as your wings.

Everything else about your quirk wasn’t very fun. Behavioral issues that had gotten you in trouble in school and at work, especially during mating season. Plus the sheer amount of people with prejudice against mutant quirks. You’d heard it all. People thinking they had the right to touch your wings and tail, people shouting to you in a high-pitched voice to force you to repeat their words, people claiming you weren’t human, people insisting you fly them somewhere, etc etc. This was unfortunately something you dealt with on the daily.

Just like this kid grabbing your wing. 

“OW! Don’t do that!” you shrieked, yanking your wing away from the kid, spinning around to see her. Her little hand was wrapped around one of your darker feathers. Fuck. Of course, she grabbed a blood feather. The little girl’s eyes welled up in tears, and she turned and ran back to her mom. Thank the stars, she let go of your feather.

You sighed, running your fingers through your wings to smooth the ruffled feathers. 

“Excuse me, bird!” the mother of the child grabbed your shoulder, forcibly spinning you around to face her. She was middle-aged, and furious. “What did you do to my dear Kaneko?”

You glanced between the woman and the girl, Kaneko. Kaneko was in tears, holding onto her mother’s leg. She had to have only been three or four, she probably didn’t know any better.

“I didn’t do anything to your child, ma’am. She ran up to me and grabbed my wing, which is very painful, and actually very rude in case you were unaware.”

“I don’t give a shit!” the woman screeched. You flinched away from her. She was cursing in front of her toddler? Irresponsible. “It’s my dear Kaneko’s birthday, and I say she gets whatever she wants! You’re just a fucking bird, so why can’t you sit still and let my daughter pet you!?”

Great, she was a fucking Karen. This was just what you needed after dealing with co-workers and clients at work. Getting your feather pulled and a crazy lady all up in your face, freaking out at you. Because her daughter hurt you.

“Because it’s painful, and I’d prefer not to let strangers touch my wings.” You explained yourself calmly.

“You fucking bitch!” the woman was screaming, her finger in your face. “You selfish, greedy little pig! She’s a child, let her live her life!” Shadows danced in your peripherals as her words faded from your ears. 

Cold metal was pressed up against your feathers, you dreaded the snipping noise that meant she was cutting. You could feel the scissors press into the stem of your feather before the metal blades connected, severing the feather from your wing. 

“Ow! Mommy that hurts!” hot, wet, salty tears stained your cheeks. “Mommy please stop it!” You were five, getting your wings clipped for the first time.

“Shut up! Don’t be so fucking selfish!” a harsh voice snapped at you, the aggression making you shudder as you sobbed. Your pupils were blown wide in fear as you screamed.  “Stop, Mommy that one hurts more!” your mother didn’t even hesitate, cutting off another feather. It hit the ground like the rest of them, but something else came with it. Blood dripped down your wings, staining the pretty blues and plopping onto the ground.

“You’re dirtying my clean floors!” mother screeched behind you. “When I finish with your wings, you’ll clean that up!”

“Mommy?” you sniffled, trying to hold back your chest-heaving sobs. “Why do I hafta have my wings clipped?”

“So you don’t fly away like your jackass of a father. I won’t let you leave Mommy.”

“Get your finger out of my face, woman!” you shouted at her, you were just seconds away from biting it off of her ugly hand. You were trembling, and you could hardly breathe what with the marching drums hammering away at your ribcage

“Don’t you tell me what to do, you inhuman!” The little girl shied away from her mom, crying harder. You opened your mouth to retort against the crazy Karen, but stopped when you saw the girl’s reaction. You knew she probably felt bad for hurting you, and now her mother was screaming and cursing, you knew how scary that was.

Your train of thought was interrupted by a whoosh of wind and a flash of red. Something wrapped around your arms, tugging you away from the woman, and something tugged the woman away from you. You looked down, seeing red feathers curled around your biceps. You’d only seen red feathers in one other place. When your own feathers were soaked in blood from your mom’s clippings. You shook your head, pushing the dark memories from your mind as you grabbed the feather and pulled it off of you as quick as possible, it flew away from you almost immediately, heading towards a man far taller than you. His golden hair was messy but very soft-looking. His slitted eyes glanced between you and the woman behind his golden goggles. His hands rested in the pockets of his large brown jacket. But none of that compared to his intimidatingly large red wings. It would be impossible not to recognize him, he was your best friend’s favorite.

Number Two Pro-Hero in Japan; Hawks

“What’s going on here?” he asked. “I heard shouting.” he said, a lazy smile resting on his face.

“This crazy bird-bitch hit my daughter!” the Karen screamed hysterically.

“Are you kidding me?” you thought she’d at least be above that, but it looked this woman didn’t give a shit about morality. “I didn’t touch her at all! She grabbed my wing then you freaked out when it hurt me!” 

“Hey, now, no need to get upset.” Hawks turned to you, and something in him changed. His wings shivered, and his eyes slitted, before blowing back out to normal size. “Birdie, tell me your side of the story.” you took a step away from the hero, something about his reaction to seeing you didn’t seem natural. It creeped you out. Also, why was he calling you ‘birdie?’

“I was standing around, waiting for my friend, then this kid saw me. She must have thought my wings were pretty because she ran up to be and grabbed one of my feathers. A blood feather, actually. It hurt and I yanked my wing back and told her not to do that. This woman seemed to have some delusion that her daughter has every right to touch and hurt me and I’m supposed to- and I now quote- ‘sit still and let her pet me.’” You explained.

“Ah I see.” Hawks nodded, turning to a young man on the street. “Sir, who’s explanation is correct?” he asked.

“Uh- the bird’s?” the guy seemed out of it, just staring at the hero.

“Thanks, sir. Ma’am, could you and your daughter apologize to this nice person?”

“No way in fucking hell!” the woman screamed. “Come on, Kaneko, we’re getting out of here. And I’m throwing away all your Hawks bobbleheads, now I know he’s a fucking biased pig.” The girl glanced up at her mom before quickly running to you, taking your hand.

“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I didn’t wanna hurt you, your wings just looked so pretty!” you softened a little, crouching down and patting the girl’s head, smiling at her.

“It’s alright, I forgive you. Next time you see something pretty, tell the person it’s pretty, then ask if you can touch it.” The girl lit up, nodding eagerly.

“I will!” she exclaimed before her mother dragged her away. 

“You didn’t need to apologize to that asshole. They were the one that made you cry.” she grumbled, walking down the street as she fumed. 

“Poor girl…” you muttered. “Having a Karen for a mom.” you stared after her empathetically. You didn’t notice the look in the hero’s eyes, staring you up and down, shifting from one leg to the next. “Oh um, thanks Hawks,” you said, turning back to him. “For helping me.”

You froze when you saw his face, eyes seemingly staring into your soul, expression blank. He seemed to be calculating something, scanning you for information. Your blood ran cold when you noticed his pupils, thinner than paper.

“Oh!” he was shaken out of his daze by your voice, a careless smile dawning his features as his pupils returned to normal. “No problem, Birdie.” you pursed your lips, nodding. You saw a small black car turn the corner, and you honed in on the license plate. Saved at last! Your friend was here!

“Alright, uh I’ve gotta be going now…” you chuckled nervously. 

“Wait, a sec, I’m gonna need your name for a report.” he dug around in his pocket, pulling out a small voice recorder and holding it up to you. “Just speak it in here.” Oh, yeah that made sense, Heroes had to make reports of everything they resolved in a day, so it was probably best to get the names of the people they help in case the PHSC needed to contact them.

“Y/n.” you spoke as clear as you could when he pressed the button on the side of the recorder. “Y/n L/n. Hawks helped me win a petty fight with a Karen.” you chuckled a little into the recorder. Hawks nodded, putting the recorder back into his pocket. He glanced back at you for a moment, expression aloof and apathetic.

“Thanks, Y/n!” he flashed you another smile before taking off into the sky, leaving you confused. 

Why did he use your personal name and not your family name?

The door to the small black car opened, and your friend stumbled out, running forward a few paces before cursing.

“You fuckin kidding me, Y/n? You got to meet Hawks?” he stared at you in disbelief. “You couldn’t have made him stay a minute longer? You know he’s my celebrity crush!” 

You couldn’t help but laugh. Your best friend since you were a young child, Izanagi Fujikawa. Bisexual, chaotic, and your mortal enemy. 

“Iza, he’s a pro hero. He’s got shit to do!” Izanagi pouted, crossing his arms.

“I know… I’m still mad at you though.” you rolled your eyes, scoffing. 

“We can deal with that.” you poked his cheek, climbing in the passenger seat before he grabbed your elbow, pulling you back towards him.

“Your wing’s all messed up- what happened?”

“I’ll explain in the car.” you shrugged him off, climbing in and buckling your seatbelt, unaware of the sharp golden eyes watching you.

Hawks was perched on a nearby building, eyes slitted as he glared down at your friend. You two were close, he could tell. Why did that make him so fucking furious? His feathers twitched as he played back the recording you’d given him. That laugh, golden and free. He looped it, your gentle voice blessing his ears and relaxing his body for him.

“Pff- hahahaha!” he closed his eyes, re-imagining your face, the soft smile gracing your angel-like features, the way your wings flapped slightly, the nearly inaudible purr vibrating in the back of your throat. He wanted you to laugh around him more, he wanted you to be around him more, he wanted you to be his. 

Even if he only got to talk to you for a minute, he felt like he already knew everything there was to know about you. You didn’t like causing trouble, seeing how polite you were at first to that crazy lady. You could stand your ground though, not afraid to stand up for yourself. You were kind, and forgiving, he got that from how you treated the kid. 

A sudden realization struck Hawks. It was frightening, terrifying even. He loved you. Breathtaking Y/n L/n, the pretty parakeet. Ah, but that guy. That guy was in the way. Not to worry, he could remove the… complication.

Soon.

You would belong just to him.

[whump-town]

Shattered Hearts, Fractured Lungs

(Chapter Two; Warnings for: school shooting, violence, language, and heart failure; you can find the first chapter here)

Emily Prentiss just wants to do her job but a messy case sends her sprawling into the arms of a dying man with a toddler and his weird, broken family.

“It’s been very rare to have known you, very strange and wonderful” --F. Scott Fitzgerald

She comes back the very next day.

It’s about noon and she’d seen the blonde one-- the happy one, uhm… Penelope! Emily had watched Penelope pull up in the driveway at about eleven thirty. So, she knows someone’s home over there but when she steps out on her porch she’s not expecting him to be sitting in that rickety old rocking chair. 

Idiot-- because she’d seen, from her kitchen window, Penelope helping him outside. The woman was talking his poor ear off.

The icing on the cake, of course, is that she was creating a dialogue for what to say when she got over there. 

Out loud.

So, he definitely heard her talking to herself like a crazy person. 

“Hey,” she says lamely, stopping in her tracks. Now she’s in a really bad spot. He looks like he didn’t sleep last night and definitely not in a talking mood with the oxygen mask over his face. 

Of course, she can’t really know that he didn’t sleep last night. Spent the whole night breathlessly fighting with Dave over his own health and how he was feeling. Of course, like shit is the truth but he’s fighting the clock and he doesn’t want to go to the hospital over a little labored breathing. Now he’s paying the price. He couldn’t even stand on his own this morning. He’d laid in bed until Garcia got here and been forced to ask her to help.

Life is slowly becoming unbearable. 

“I need...” she blows out an unsteady breath. She has to clench her hands to stop them from trembling.  “Do you have any bananas?”

Idiot. 

Stupid fucking idiot.

But he nods. It takes him a moment but he reaches up and pulls the mask off his face, pinning it against his chest. “Just go…” he curses himself, mentally for his inability to do something as simple as breathing. Why should heart failure come with not only a permanent ache in his chest but also the double hit to the lungs? Anatomy is so stupid.

“Ask Pen,” he rasps, gesturing with a head tilt that he means for her to go inside. “She’ll get you one.” He knows there’s bananas in there because Garcia always brings him some from the store. He used to eat one every morning with his coffee. Now he can’t even stomach the thought. 

Insult to injury is the awkward silence that passes between them as Emily steps into his house. 

She comes out a moment later, Penelope trailing her. She shows him the bananas from last week. They’re pretty brown but she’s smiling. “Actually,” Emily says, stepping out and smiling between Garcia and Hotch, “the recipes Derek’s mom’s. She, uh, sent it my way to keep me from getting bored.”

Garcia nods and Hotch rolls his eyes fondly. He’d spent the last half an hour listening to Garcia go on and on about Emily’s sexy little partner Derek Morgan. And, as insufferable as it had been, he had seen the signals the two of them were sharing. The good thing is that he was visibly not the only person unsettled by Garcia and Morgan’s flirting.

Reid really hated it. 

“She’s making banana bread,” Garcia tells Hotch, bumping her hip against him. 

Emily blushes, “yeah but…” She twists her shoe uncomfortably in the dirt. “I’m not that great of a baker.”

Garcia shakes her head, “don’t be so hard on yourself! I’m sure it’ll be great.” She grins, “besides if you need any help Hotch and I are more than willing to be unbiased judges or helpers.”

Emily could laugh at the face Hotch makes. He most certainly does not want that. She shakes her head, “I’m gonna go throw these in. If they’re good, I’ll send you a piece?”

Garcia nods and they watch in silence as Emily goes back to the house. 

The banana bread must not turn out so great because she never brings a piece over but the next day she knocks on his door with a plate of pancakes. 

He’s in a sweatshirt-- Georgetown’s logo slapped on the front and worn with age-- and a pair of grey sweats that make her cheeks flush a little. Nice, idiot, she thinks as she explains she used the leftover bananas to make pancakes and wondered if he’d like some. Mercifully, he either ignores or doesn’t see her making intense eye contact with the floor so she doesn’t look anywhere near his hips. 

After that, they form a strange pattern of her showing up with various baked goods or other types of gifts and such. 

Otherwise, they’d both sit in their homes all alone with nothing but the silence. Or, rather, he’d have the silence because she is very loud. He likes to sit on the porch and listen to her blasting music through her house. Occasionally, he knows a song but mostly he just likes the way the rest of the neighborhood scowls at their houses. 

It’s about nine in the morning when Hotch hears the knocking at his door. For a solid moment, he considers not even answering the door. There’s about a ninety percent chance whoever it is he doesn’t want to talk to. The number of people who have sent cards, and food, and made weird phone calls is numerous. So, if they don’t have the key to his front door or the familiarity to just come busting in-- it’s not worth his time.

Besides, he’s feeling grumpy and he’d like to just wallow for a moment… in peace, alone. 

But then the door does bust open. 

He’s trying to read the paperwork either the hospital or the school sent-- obviously, he hasn’t gotten very far into it if he can’t even tell what the papers are for. All that he knows is there are vibrantly colored sticky notes where his signature should be. But he isn’t just going to go singing his name willy-nilly. He’s not that far gone. 

He looks up and Emily Prentiss is blindly-- her hands are over her eyes for some reason-- trampling through his living room.

“Can I help you?”

At the sound of his voice, her head jerks up. Two paired fingers separate and she looks just like one of his students as she lowers her hands and grins at him. It’s an awkward little grin but it’s not bad. “Uh,” she motions behind her to the door. “Sorry about that… Dave, he, uh, he told me that you’d be home all day and you are home all day and if I needed anything to just--” she grimaces as if she’s just considered how strange this is. “You didn’t answer and Dave said you always answer and you do and I didn’t want something to be wrong…”

She stops talking. 

Mercifully.

Hotch grunts, “I do, normally.” 

Somehow, the only good thing to come out of the last month is that Hotch gets to spend his days at home. Besides the drastic rise in homeschoolers in their town, the school had been gracious enough to handle his disability checks. Of course, everyone had smiled and thanked him for what he’d done to save his kids but Hotch is still very aware of the lawsuits and trouble David Rossi would cause if everything hadn’t gone smoothly. 

Being the semi-famous author of a very successful line of children’s books earns Dave that power. Although, Hotch has seen him use it for good and for… well, mostly sex. 

The downside is he gets pretty lonely at the house.  

Jack goes to his aunts. Haley’s sister Jessica has been a huge help over the last few weeks. Reeling from the loss of her sister, she’d been more than happy to keep her only family close. Even if it’s just her ex-brother-in-law and nephew. Not that Aaron and Jessica’s relationship was severed just because of Haley and Aaron’s divorce. 

It had been painful but not ugly. It had never been about the devotion they felt for one another or even the love.

Life just gets complicated. 

A few teachers had still managed to get some more leave time and with Hotch’s heart actively failing, Reid, Garcia, and Rossi are on the receiving end of lots of understanding when it comes to asking for time off. They have a schedule set into place now: Garcia brings him lunch, Reid picks up Jack, and Dave brings stuff to make dinner for all of them. 

It’s simple but affected. Daily and boring.

“Now this is going to make me sound like a dumbass--” 

He’s known Emily Prentiss for all of week. He excludes the school thing from memory and the timeline. It’s better for his mental health-- which isn’t doing much better than his physical health if he’s being honest. The problem is, the woman is kind of crazy. It’s in an endearing kind of way but still. 

Now he’s sitting in her living room. She’d come barging into his house just thirty minutes before, a hand over her eyes. He’d had to listen to her awful explanation for that while slowly and painfully making his way across the whole five feet separating their houses. The hand over her eyes had been in case he was naked because she may invade his personal space but she really doesn’t want to see his junk. 

He’s not entirely sure where this comfort of hers is coming from. All he does know is that Dave has swindled his way into every aspect of Hotch’s life and now Hotch has his neighbor’s phone number. It’s for “emergencies”, of course. In case Hotch, God forbid, needs help and his only contact is his batshit neighbor.

“I mean it, Aaron,” she’s standing right in front of him with two spices in her hands. “It’s really going to make me sound like a dumbass here but what exactly is the difference between Cinnamon and Nutmeg?”

God, she’s crazy but she’s funny and hasn’t passed any judgement on his inability to get dressed. Just like now while she’s standing in a simple, well-loved tanktop and work jeans and he sits in his flannel pajama bottoms and a Hanes t-shirt that’s seen better days five years ago. 

But they kind of passed lots of mile markers for judgment a long time ago. As in, last week. 

He’d watched in silence as she emptied the contents of her stomach over the railing of his porch and she’d put pressure on the bullet wound that tore through his side. It’s why it was so easy for her to, after that night on the porch, to bring over a plate of pancakes and offer to grab him stuff from the store. Of course, he’d told her he was good and he, mostly, was.

Which is in direct consequence for why he’s here now. 

“Nutmeg tastes like Christmas,” he explains because he has no idea how he’s supposed to explain this to a grown woman. “What are you making?” He’s suddenly very worried for whatever dish she’s making. Especially if she put nutmeg where cinnamon is supposed to be. It’s freaking September and, if he’s being honest, he really hates Christmas. That might make him too biased to figure out if she’s really messed up though.

She grimaces at the containers in her hand. She pulls her lip into her mouth and mumbles, “apple pie.”

His grimace is too much and if she weren’t so bummed with the aspect that her apple pie is most definitely ruined she might laugh. His accent is thick enough for her to comfortably assume he’s from the south not to mention he’s got a lot of that southern gentlemen charm. 

“How much nutmeg did you use?”

Her face says it all.

He places both his fist on the sides of the chair and forces himself onto his feet. If Emily weren’t standing in silent horror that he might fall over or pass out or a hundred other things she might lend a hand. Then again, they haven’t established those boundaries and she can’t flawlessly just know like Dave does. 

“Let me see the damage,” he grumbles but she can see that he’s not actually mad; he's just wary of what she’s done. He’s strange in that way. For a man who has made a career around working with children, he’s got a horrible resting face. 

She lets him set the place, pointing him in the direction of the kitchen. It’s only a few feet but they make it two-steps before she decides she can’t do this silently watching thing. “Do you--” she offers him her forearm, the same way she’d seen Dave do the other afternoon. 

He scowls at her arm but after a moment, he takes her hand. His skin is startlingly cold and his hand trembles until he settles his grip. It’s surprisingly easy and she doesn’t think much of it. At least he’s not dead weight to lug around. She’s had plenty of people hang onto her, she doesn’t even mind this. 

“I think I might have used too much nutmeg,” she concludes before he can see the damage and rule her incompetant. It’s a warning.

He glances at her out of the corner of his eye… too late for the incompetant thing, she decides. He already thinks she’s a moron.

Rightfully so but still…

She’d known he was tall. It’s not that hard to see but as she’s standing beside him, his body pulled in and hunched over, he’s still towering over quite a bit. He’s a big man and he smells nice so he’s got a lot going for him. Too bad about the heart thing because he’s kinda cute.

“That’s all…” she moves him to the kitchen table and brings the pie to him. She really doesn’t want him falling in her kitchen. Dave likes her and she’d like to keep it that way. Besides, there would be so many awful and weird questions to answer if she had to take him to the hospital. 

And now he’s sitting in horror at this pie in front of him.

“That’s all…” he repeats himself, shaking his head in disbelief. The pie is covered in a brown powder and he’s slowly processing that it’s all nutmeg.

She grimaces and nods.

He looks up at her, mouth open but disbelief making it impossible for him to say anything. He’s seen a lot of weird things. Preschoolers are… they’re a piece of work but this is testing every bit of training he has. 

“It’s bad, isn’t it?”

He nods, “definitely.” 

Huffing in a way that he recognizes from dealing with one too many headstrong four-year-olds, she places her fist on her hips. She scowls down at the pie. It’s cooked and it smells okay but if she’s been too generous with the nutmeg there’s no way that’s going to taste good. After a moment she hums and turns around, pulling out two forks she comes right back to the table. 

“Well,” she says with a tilt of her head, “christmas apples can’t be that bad, right?”

He takes the fork being offered to him with no interest whatsoever in eating this pie but it's kind of funny and he’s having a good time. Together they break the baked dough and get a bite- sized piece. He’s fairly adamant but somehow it’s got nothing to do with his tricky stomach or the fact that he hasn’t been able to keep down much besides water and saltine crackers. It’s going to taste like shit and it’s exciting.

Emily chokes on her bite coughing and grimacing as she rushes to spit it out. To his credit, Hotch swallows his bite. “That was honestly the worst apple pie I’ve ever tasted,” he tells her, honestly. 

She laughs and that feels so good. She hasn’t laughed in a long time. 

He shrugs, “I’m not gonna lie to you.”

She tosses her fork on the table and shakes her head at the pie. So much for that.

“How exactly--” he bites down on the wave of pain that rocks through his body as he forces his legs underneath him. He stands, trembling and waving slightly with the effort it takes. “Why were you making apple pie so early in the day?”

Emily is still frowning at the pie so she doesn’t even look up at him. “Bored,” she mumbles. She’s upset about her pie. Damn… this whole nutmeg vs cinnamon thing is stupid. They look exactly the same so they should taste the same, right?

“Maybe you should try something else,” Hotch says, one hand still keeping his balance on the table. “Baking just doesn’t…”

Emily frowns at him, “I like baking, though!”

Hotch looks away, tilting his head and raising an eyebrow. “Baking doesn’t like you,” he mumbles. 

She smacks his shoulder and he chuckles-- this isn’t the first failed attempt of her’s he’s tried. There was the cookies from Monday (that were burnt on the bottom and raw on top) and the banana bread he’d only seen but-- they could have killed a lesser man let alone him and his broken heart. 

“Maybe I can try cooking,” she proposes. 

He shakes his head, “are you gonna make me eat that too?”

She clicks her tongue, faking offense. “What, are you afraid?”

He smiles and it takes her breath away. He’s got high, sharp cheekbones and when he’s not carrying so much tension in his shoulders it’s so much easier to appreciate just how soft his dark hair looks. Her neighbor is hot. She’s not sure if he knows that though.

“A little,” he admits playfully, “but maybe you’ll be better at cooking than you are baking.”

She crosses her arms and scowls down at her pie. “I don’t think it’s going to take a lot to be better at cooking than baking.” 

He makes a soft sound, “you said it, not me.”

She shakes her head at him but there he is smiling again. She can’t even be mad. “Maybe I’ll make dinner,” she proposes, tucking her hands under her armpits as she thinks. “Are you interested?”

Honestly, no but he doesn’t want to pass up on hanging out with her. So he nods. 

“Six o’clock should be enough time to cook something, right?”

Jesus, she’s going to kill him. 

“Why don’t I come over and help?”

Oh, she hadn’t thought of that. She nods, “okay. You wanna come over at three, then?”

It’s dangerous, without a shred of doubt there, but his heart does this little flutter. “Uh,” he has to clear his throat. “Yeah, sounds like a plan.”

Except three rolls around he’s a no show. Three turns into three-thirty and she’s not trying to be a buzzkill but the recipe calls for caramelized onions and she has no idea what that means but she hopes it doesn’t mean what she thinks it does. Carmel on onions? Sounds disgusting.

“Knock, knock?” She’s already barged into his house once today so it really shouldn’t be that big of a deal but something doesn’t feel right. She can’t shake it and she certainly can’t just… leave. “Hotch?” God, she hopes he’s just in the bathroom.

He isn’t.

“You okay?” she falls to her knees beside him. She’d never been this far into his house. Mostly, she’d never passed the living room but now she’s kneeling in his hallway and can see his bedroom from here. As much as she’d like to evaluate that-- because the space is strangely neat and God, who knew the bare minimum of a clean room was such a perfect green flag--

Right--

He shakes his head. 

Oh.

“Should…” she knows he hates the hospital, who doesn’t? But… he’s gasping for breath on the floor, his pale hand clutching at his chest. The sight is very overwhelming and hurting her deeply because it’s bringing feelings back that she thought were getting better. “Do I need to call--”

To the school and to the blood pooling between their bodies. 

He nods. He’s terrified but just seeing Emily brings some strange comfort. Her and her awful cooking might just get him through this. He won’t die on this floor. Not on this ugly ass rug Dave made him put down. 

The ambulance comes, bounding the sirens shrill sound up and down the block. Making a spectacle out of an awful experience. 

He winces when the IV goes in and she just stands, bouncing from foot-to-foot awkwardly watching. It’s not until he’s on the gurney, fighting the drugs rushing through his system. “You can come,” he rasps but no one can hear him clearly from behind the masks. Reaching up to pull it away, several hands swat his hand away and he makes a grunted, annoyed sound at hte back fo his throat.

An EMT leans over and calms him back down before Hotch starts trying to fight his way back up into danger. “Easy, buddy.” The EMT pushes on Hotch’s shoulders and it's not a lot of force but Hotch isn’t strong enough to fight it. “The pretty lady can come, okay? Just settle down.”

She stays with him and tells herself it’s because she doesn’t want him hurting himself but she really doesn’t want to leave his side until she knows he’s going to be okay. There’s no hand holding because they’re still at the point where they smack shoulders and stand feet apart but they’ve only known one another for a week and-- Emily can’t fathom what she’s supposed to do if he dies in the back of this shitty ambulance. 

“Can you--” the EMTs give him something that nearly knocks him out on the spot but his breathing gets better and he stops gasping and wheezing. He just lays supine on the gurney. Limp. “Dave?” He can’t keep his eyes open but he hears Emily make what he thinks are words of confirmation but his sentence didn't exactly make sense so maybe she didn't understand him.

He’s pulled under by the warmth spreading through his limbs before he can repeat himself or worry with it.

“You can’t go back there, baby.”

Emily blinks and there’s an older woman stopping Emily’s zombie-like march beside the gurney as they rush Hotch off to the side. She can’t tear her eyes off of him. Watching numbly as they cut his shirt down the middle and start to attach to electrodes to his alarmingly pale chest. 

Her hands are trembling as she pulls her phone out of her pocket. “Dave?” she’s breathless with the anxiety swelling in her own chest. “I’m so sorry--” and she’s crying. Why? He’s not her friend? He’s her neighbor who she’s known for a whole freaking week and yet-- And she can’t deal with Dave being mad either. But he isn’t. 

The minute he steps into the hospital, he comes right up to and pulls her into a hug. She sobs into his arms and he lets her because he’s seen Aaron this bad before. He knows it’s unnerving. 

“Do you have any news?” Dave asks her and she shakes her head. He squeezes her arm and smiles at her tear-stained face. “I’ll be right back, okay? They know my face, I might be able to wrangle some news out of one of the nurses.”

She nods her head and watches dejectedly as he walks away. 

Aaron had told her that Rossi had slept with many nurses while he was in the hospital. She’s thinking about the way he’d smiled when he told her that when she falls into the waiting rooms stiff chairs.

[fikazephyr]

“I’m pretty good at this demon thing.”

― Abel, Second Son

𝐚𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 :: a ghostly little boy with a haunting grin and black eyes, muscles rippling upon a strong impact, all the mirrors in a building catching fire, well worn charcoal art supplies, a smile that knows more than has been revealed, the sharpness of a deep breath in the winter, a room filled with sketches of the human body, flames and smoke seeping out of the corners of a snarling mouth, the ever present possibility of things getting worse, living life surrounded by extremes, a child calmly walking through the torture chambers in hell, using a skull as a paperweight

𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 :: everyone knows the story of cain and abel, right? WRONG. as one might imagine, being the fourth person on earth was both an exciting and boring time. yes, abel and his family had literally the entire world to explore if they so pleased, but the lack of OTHER PEOPLE was what made life on the surface feel like hell. the first family, unwritten in the bible and other religious scriptures, were dysfunctional as fuck. unsurprising considering one of them bludgeoned his brother to death. 

what many people don’t know is that the entire biblical spiel about the brothers cain and abel is full of lies. cain was a farmer, and abel was supposed to be the family shepherd- when he grew up. he had only been a little boy when cain grabbed the rock, barely turned six years old. his brother had been ten. it really wasn’t supposed to end the way it did. abel had no idea that his brother would get so angry. if he had, he wouldn’t have done what he did. who would risk death for a few sheep anyway?

the entire ordeal had been a long time coming, really. neither of the brothers had ever been good people, not remotely. they had always been plagued with jealousy, towards each other, and sometimes their other siblings. childhood was a competition to them, a competition for god’s favor, of course. abel often showed tendencies of a strong character, one rooted in unfiltered anarchy. in anger, violence. his parents could never tell where it came from. when a normal child would cry, abel often became enraged. as he grew into his early toddler years, he quickly became a menace to the rest of the family. bad behavior that was chastised became habit. as he began to understand the chaos he was creating, his actions became intentional. it was never anything bad, normally just a few pranks here and there. stolen things, bucket traps, a few locked doors. it was the type of behavior that would only get worse- and cain was where most of the influence came from. while he wasn’t as angry as abel, he also enjoyed a few tricks. he enabled it.

maybe cain finally snapped. maybe abel finally found the limit of what his family would tolerate. would any of the others have reacted the same way? would they have killed him for setting the crops on fire right before harvest? maybe not- they wouldn’t have felt the loss that cain did. they wouldn’t have had to watch a year’s hard work float up in ashes. having been so young, abel doesn’t remember the exact details of the moment that took his life. he doesn’t remember that his brother had continued to pelt at his body, even after the light had left his eyes. having been so young, hell is really the only life he knows. he is, through and through, a demon. why would such a young boy end up in hell, one might ask. the angels above decided that a little boy who planned to slaughter the entire herd of sheep after setting the crops on fire ultimately did not belong within the gates. when he was sent to hell, lucifer seemed to see a potential in him that shined below the surface. she took him in and granted him the powers of a crown, the highest rank a demon may have. 

abel first touched the surface a little over a hundred years ago, long after either of his siblings did. he had been incredibly disinterested in humans, an ideal instilled in him by his new mother figure lucifer. watching them suffer for their sins while on earth was much more entertaining to him than watching them commit the sins. he spent much of his time in hell overseeing the torture chambers and demons. when he finally did visit the stage of their atrocities, he found it rather curious, in an enticing way. human customs seemed so trivial to him, so pointless it’s cute. he’s spent a lot of time on the surface since then, only returning to hell periodically to make sure things hadn’t gone to complete chaos. there isn’t a country on earth that he hasn’t visited. while he wasn’t traveling, he kept a permanent residence in new orleans for a few years. it was only recently, when he’d heard of azrael’s plans for salem, that he came to town. he was able to get in based on the fact that he really had no intentions of fighting on either side, as he’d assumed there would be some sort of clash. he’s honestly just here to watch the show, for now.

𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 :: 

abel gained a deep interest in the wars that plagued the early 1900s. he actually joined world war i, fighting alongside the allied nations. if there’s one thing he’s always hated, it’s the unnecessary killing of someone who can’t fight back. shocker. 

he also really likes studying things about human anatomy, and has perfected drawing/painting/sketching the human body with multiple media types. he could honestly recite a physiology book back to someone, he knows so much. he’s a weirdo but like he’s a demon so can ya blame him?

because he can choose his vessel’s appearance, abel was able to live out an entire life cycle during world war i. he returned to the united states as a war hero, and fought in the second war as well. he aged and “died” as one of the country’s best men. his name had been andrew kepler at the time. he still wears his dog tags. 

abel started going by adrian palicki recently, an homage to his favorite actress adrienne palicki. he’s never seen her in anything he just thinks she’s hot. when he needed a name, he decided to pay a little tribute to a human he doesn’t completely want to step on.

the crowns have always been known to be extremely powerful, but there’s never really been a reason for abel to use all of his abilities. when he became a crown, he inherited the power of a hell wyvern. he can transform into a wyvern and can control fire, which he sometimes loses control of when he gets emotional (which he rarely does). flames will begin to emit from his body with intensity that depends on his anger. this really only happens when he’s blind with rage. he also loves making religious things spontaneously combust in people’s homes to frighten them.

𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 :: pinterest, spotify

[fauveshumankaiju]

uncle Ni...

He told Ni first.

Actually, he didn’t tell anyone at first. He threw up in the bathroom of the family practice clinic, then sat on the bench in front of the parking lot for an hour before driving to CVS to get mouthwash and splash some water on his face at the drinking fountain outside. After a little bit of vacillating he also grabbed some prenatal vitamins on the way out. If all else failed, he could always take them while not pregnant, after all. Baby vitamins probably wouldn’t hurt adult Rodan.

Then he sat at the beach for another hour, watching the water lap at the sand. It was fall and chilly and overcast, even in Monsuta, which was rarely properly cold.

He thought, for the first time in a while, about his own family. Wondered how they were doing, wherever they were. They didn’t seem to want to have a lot to do with him – he wondered if they would if they knew that he was involved with a foreign billionaire. He wondered if they knew how much he’d changed since he saw them last. Not that he particularly cared to find out.

One hand resting on his stomach, he stared up at the white sky and thought about what kind of a parent he’d make, if he ended up being one. It’d been a month, apparently; he couldn’t remember what he’d done in that past month, but he was a chemist. He handled all kinds of weird teratogens, he’d had a few glasses of wine, he definitely hadn’t taken his prenatal folate supplements. His brain was helpfully providing him with all the weird mutations he’d learned about in his undergrad intro to biochem courses, which really was NOT helping the anxiety. Of course he’d fuck this up before it even started.  How was he supposed to know he should be looking out for getting knocked up? He was a man, for god’s sakes, his anatomy was different from most, sure, but he dutifully stuck himself in the ass with a syringe once a month to claim the right to shave, sweat like a stuck hog and, oh, yeah, not get pregnant.  Turns out the last purported effect of hormones was false advertising.

After some more staring and shivering in misery, he went home.  Home being the Ghidorah’s apartment downtown – at least one of the brothers was bound to be there at any point in time and Rodan had a spare key if they weren’t. Ichi was usually flying around the world or in a conference call; Ni was in and out of town doing his own inscrutable work, but at least San might be there.

I can’t face San, he thought sickly as he locked his bike in the underground garage and keyed in to the elevator. He thought of San’s sharp, gentle face, the boyish joy on it when he found something new and interesting to play with. He would say whatever Rodan wanted him to say - even now that Rodan didn’t know what that would be. He’d bend over backwards to make Rodan happy even if it wasn’t what the Ghidorahs wanted. Rodan would say – “I wanna do this, high speed low drag, let’s have this baby and raise it and be domestic and shit, congrats on your new heir, I guess, I promise I didn’t do this intentionally to trap you and your rich powerful brothers into a relationship with me or something like that,” and San would be game. He could also say “I’m telling you this just to let you know, but there’s no way in hell that I’m gonna let this thing live rent-free in the body I spent my life trying to get, so it’s eviction time.” And San would be game for that, too.

San would be a pretty good dad, Rodan thought. Masochistic tendencies aside he was gentle and attentive to the things he wanted to keep safe.  He thought of the Dane bobbing a toddler on his knee while he watched cadaver dissection films and huffed in amusement.

The elevator up to the penthouse apartment had bizarre club-like lighting, low and purple-blue. It stuck out to him right now for some reason. Rodan studied himself in the elevator mirror as it dinged upwards. Small, lean, dressing nicer than he used to in black jeans and a bright button-down but still sporting his old red leather jacket and combat boots. He leaned in closer, staring himself in the eyes, evaluating. The face in the mirror looked back at him, brazen and daring.

30 and still sporting a mohawk. Bitching.  Didn’t look like much of a father, though.

Daddy, his mind (un)helpfully supplied.

The elevator opened and he let himself into the one door on the other side of the anteroom. Theirs was the only place on the top floor of the building; it had the best view of the city, the Monsuta bay arcing out into the distance through the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, the glinting buildings on view in Ichi’s rarely-used bedroom. Rodan liked the view, but the building itself was always a little cold for his taste.

He kicked off his boots into the hall closet when he got in, jangling his keys as advance warning.

“I’m home!” he called. He’d been out for the past few days and staying overnight at his own apartment, since it was closer to work. San had been bothering him about moving in with them for weeks but Rodan liked to try to preserve this last vestige of independence while he still could – the Ghidorahs were overgenerous with him, but life had always taught Rodan that other people’s kindness came with strings attached.

“On the couch,” Niels called from the long, flat couch in the living room.

Rodan dropped his shopping bag on the counter and joined the middle brother on the couch.  Ni was dressed in a devastatingly fashion-forward flightsuit, the top zipped down and tied about his waist over a sleeveless turtleneck. His eyes flicked upwards as Rodan collapsed onto the couch next to him – he didn’t respond, as usual.

“How’s it going?” Rodan ventured. It was hard to tell, with Ni, whether he was in a conversational mood, but it seemed rude not to greet him. Not that the middle Ghidorah ever had any compunction about that.

Ni was on his desk-sized tablet, surrounded by fabric swatches and upholstery books like a king holding a very strange patchwork court.  Peeking at the screen on his lap Rodan saw a collage of floor plans and schematics, probably for the Xilien apartment complex that was nearing completion on the south side of Monsuta. Once the building was done, Ni and San would get to work decorating while Ichi took care of the business side of the development business. Ichi didn’t talk about work at home, though, so Rodan’s familiarity with the corporation came mostly from watching Ni fling inspiration images across his tablet screen and fume over comically large paper architecture diagrams.

“Fine,” Ni tapped his pencil against his lips. “We are getting somewhere, finally.”

“Yeah?”

“M-hm. The issue with the climate control – it has all been sorted out. I’m going to start finishing the walls next week.”

“Wow, that’s a quick turnaround time for contracting.”

“Ech, there are only so many painting companies in this town, and they can only refuse so many of our generous offers.  Principles, money. No contest.” He sounded satisfied, which explained his unusually effusive mood.  After a second, he remembered politeness. “How are you?”

“Pregnant.”

“H-what?”

Rodan tapped himself on the stomach and smiled thinly.

Ni’s eyebrows shot up to his fringe. A moment. He cocked his head owlishly.  Rodan pursed his lips and nodded.

“How?”

“Are you asking about the mechanics? Because it’s like-“ Rodan made a circle with one thumb and forefinger and stuck the other pointer finger inside. “-you know..”

“Jesus kristus, stop that!”

“You do know something about sex, right? They had sex ed back in Denmark?”

Ni set his tablet briskly on the coffee table and collected himself for a second. Rodan almost had the good sense to be scared. Ni was normally restrained, cool and aloof, but this wasn’t a normal situation. This was a very Ni-will-lose-his-cool-and-get-real-scary situation.

“They don’t know about it yet,” Rodan supplied quickly. “I don’t know how to tell them. If. I tell them. I don’t need to, I could just take care of it on my own and it won’t be a problem. I thought that one of you should know about it, at least, so you can weigh in on it, since on a molecular level it’s technically genetically your kid too, so you have a say in what happens, and if you’re angry then at least I know Ichi definitely will be to so I can just figure out what to do based on what you do-“

Ni cut him off with a single finger and an icy stare. He’d pushed his sunglasses up to the top of his head after rubbing his face.

“... You talk so much.”

“Yeah, bastard, I’m nervous.”

“You think that we’re going to be unhappy about it.”

Rodan exhaled and settled back into the couch. Damn uncomfortable piece of furniture. “Well, yeah. I’m not exactly-“ he gestured at himself “prime 1-percent relationship material.”

Ni didn’t respond, staring at him.

“Not that I think I’m less than you guys, obviously, it’s just – if you had the choice, you probably would have wanted to be tied down to someone else. Someone you could be seen out with and not worry about what some gossip site would say about you slumming with your trashy American boyfriend. Someone Ichi could take to dinner parties in Europe, someone who could take San out every night when he gets into his weird moods, someone you could trust.  And this whole thing is just going to tie you down to me, and then I’m going to…” let you down, he thought lamely.

Ni was still staring at him. Rodan swallowed and looked away with weak finality.

In one swift movement the Dane swung over to the far side of the couch, slamming one leg down over Rodan’s lap to straddle him and planting his hands on his shoulders, pushing him into the couch. Rodan cursed and tried to grab his arms to push him off but he got batted away. Fuck, he forgot how strong Ni was. All that construction and jiu jitsu. Well, if he had to die, this wasn’t the worst way to go, strangled by his lovers’ twin brother.

But Ni wasn’t trying to kill him, at least not right now. In fact, it felt almost like he was trying to be gentle, which felt as unnatural as his attempts at speaking Spanish sounded.  His grip was soft as he raised a hand, reaching out to touch Rodan’s face, before deciding against it and resting it on his shoulder again. Rodan let out the breath he was holding.

“If they find out, they are going to do everything in their power to convince you to keep them.”

“Why would they do that?” Rodan breathed. Ichi, he meant. San, he couldn’t imagine having a strong opinion on his potential fatherhood.

“Because they’re our blood,” Ni said slowly, looking down at Rodan’s chest. “The thing that separates us from the rest of the world, those crass dumb creatures that we have to deal with outside, is our blood. It ties us together. It makes us who we are.  It’s inescapable and irrefutable. And now you share that blood, too. You and the children you’d have are part of our family no matter what. You understand that, Rodan, yes? You are part of our family now. You are Ghidorah.”  He clapped Rodan’s cheeks in his hands, part slap and part affectionate tap, like he always did to San. “If you talk about yourself like you did I’ll get very angry with you. You are Ghidorah. Nobody insults Ghidorah, even a Ghidorah.”

“You’re not… mad?”

Ni shrugged, then made a circle with the fingers of one hand and stuck his other hand’s pointer finger in. “I don’t know what else I expected when this started happening.”

“Yeah, well, my bad. I didn’t do my research.”

“Neither did we.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Ni, you’re, like, 99% not the father.”

“Genetically, you said, I might as well be.”

“Well – yeah, you got me there.” Rodan sighed, feeling himself relax. Then, a little more seriously - “So what do you think I should do?”

Ni looked down at him, arms crossed, his face arranged into a carefully neutral mask. “Do whatever you like. Don’t worry about Ichi and San, though. Your children will want for nothing with us as their fathers.  Just don’t tell them about your having them right now unless you’re completely sure you want to have the children.”

“Children?” Rodan scoffed. “Plural? No way in hell I’m doing this again. If I’m doing this at all.”

“Oh, of course,” Ni said casually. “They’re going to be twins, at least.”

“Oh! Are they.”

“Yes. They’re Ghidorah.”

“That’s a pretty bold declaration, Doctor Niels.”

“And mark my words, it’s true. We always come in multiples.”  Ni swung off of Rodan’s lap and pushed himself back into his couch corner where he stretched himself over the armrest like a cat.  Rodan suddenly missed his weight and the spicy smell of his aftershave and he had to mentally slap himself down when he had the split-second urge to go crawl into Ni’s lap. He might be surprisingly cool with being an uncle, but that didn’t mean that Rodan could push the tenuous peace that he’d been trying to build since they’d met.

He rested his head on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. Uncle Niels. He’d probably give the best presents.  Ni was up all night most nights anyway, he could feed the kid if they woke up. Probably not with the rest of the messy childcare business, but Rodan and San could probably take care of that, and Ni might even end up liking the kid once they were old enough to hold a conversation.

Oh, god, here he was thinking like he’d already made some kind of decision. What would Mothra do in this situation? She was the most has-her-shit-together person that he knew. She’d probably make a list of pros and cons, and then Goji would encourage her to stop thinking so hard about it and go with her gut, and then – yeah, not helpful.

Who was he kidding?  He was Rodan Rodan. He lived his life on the razor’s edge. He burned down a building and got himself tied up in a relationship with the violent-minded billionaires who owned it. Equations were for the lab, and even then, Rodan did his best work when he forgot about measurements and mathematics and went with his gut.  That’s what got him here, a priceless apartment in a beachside city with a job he loved and a life that never stopped being interesting and terrifying and beautiful. With three interesting and terrifying and beautiful partners who might consider staying with him here for a little while.

How do you feel, right now? He asked himself. Ni’s stylus tapped; the heating had turned on. Outside the clouds were boiling but the two of them were safe together, peaceful.

He didn’t know where he’d be in eight months, how he’d feel then, but right now? He smiled. He’d go with his gut.

[bgharison]

Jot it Down July -- Fluffday the 20th

I did literally “jot down” the idea of this story, on the back of a school paper, on Friday.  And it’s fluff.  So I’m counting it as a Fluffday post.  Because fluff.  Fluffy fluffy fluff.

***

Steve had become rather accustomed -- okay, dependent -- on Danny to navigate him through huge, life-changing epiphanies.  So the fact that Danny wasn’t there for this one would have been humorous, and he might have laughed.

Might have, if he could just breathe.

***

Danny was stuck at the courthouse finishing his deposition after the winter formal fiasco, so it had fallen to Steve to pick up Gracie.  He’d been on the approved pick-up list since . . . well, he couldn’t remember, really, when Danny had added him.  He sat in the pickup line, thinking back to the days when Grace was in elementary and would come bounding down the steps, her backpack as big as she was.  Now she came down the stairs so gracefully, a stylish messenger bag across her shoulder.  It was somewhat routine, but still, Grace . . . every time, every damn time, she would get this look of apprehension.  Steve had quickly learned to call out a word of reassurance the minute she was within earshot.

“Courthouse,” he yelled through the open window of the passenger door of his truck.  

Grace smiled, then, and hopped up into the truck.

“Just a deposition,” Steve assured her.  “He’s going to pick up Charlie from your mom’s and meet up at our house.  You have homework?”

“Not so much that I couldn’t swim first,” Grace said, grinning at him.  

***

Grace was still in the shower, sluicing off the salt water, while Steve started chopping vegetables for the salad to go with the pizza that Danny was going to pick up.  Her homework was already spread neatly on the far end of the dining table, and Steve grinned as he passed it with a stack of plates and silverware in hand.  Chemistry.  Algebra.  She’d pulled out the subjects that she might need help with, ones that she knew were his favorites.  

It hit him about the time he put down the fourth plate, the smaller, melamine one they used for Charlie, in case his exuberance sent it sailing to the floor.  Again.

He wanted this.  This.  This honestly mundane, completely domestic . . . he wanted this.  The two kids, the bittersweet balance of alone time and kid time that came with shared custody, the homework, the dinner, the laundry, the smell of Gracie’s shampoo, Charlie’s sticky kisses, and Danny . . . waiting for Danny’s step on the porch.  Tonight.

Every night.

Waiting for Danny to be there . . . like a sixth sense, watching, waiting, listening, restless until Danny was there, to fill the Danny-sized void that he felt, like a missing limb, like a phantom pain, when Danny wasn’t there, next to him, where he belonged.

He had a fleeting thought that maybe it was the shared liver until he realized that he’d felt this way since . . . well, at least since Danny’s visits in prison, his lifeline . . . definitely since Danny had flung back the canvas on that truck in North Korea . . . absolutely since he’d gone to Columbia and pulled him out of that hell-hole . . .

“Uncle Steve?”  Gracie was standing at the end of the table, halted mid-way through pulling out her pencils and calculator, looking at him curiously.  “You okay?”

He wasn’t.  He wasn’t okay, not by a long shot.  He was absolutely terrified.

A muffled, gentle kick at the door.  Steve knew without conscious thought, could picture Danny, balancing pizzas in one hand, holding tight to Charlie’s hand with the other -- the kid was adorable, for sure, but he was also completely and totally reckless and unpredictable, and fast, they’d discovered, that time he’d gone chasing after a cute little gecko and Danny’s knee gave out and it had fallen to Steve to catch up to the toddler, who laughed uproariously when Steve had tossed him into the air and caught him, and blew a raspberry on his belly, and --

“Coming, Danno,” Gracie was yelling, looking at Steve quizzically over her shoulder as she went to the door.

“Hey, Monkey,” Danny said, as the door opened, and they somehow managed a seamless handoff of both pizza and Charlie, Danny kissing her on the cheek in the process.  Grace, Charlie, and pizza headed toward the dining room.  “I’ve got a cold six-pack in the car, be right back,” Danny tossed over his shoulder.

Steve stood in the doorway, watching as Danny hustled back to the Camaro, his slippahs padding softly.  He’d changed into a t-shirt which might have shrunk just a bit in the wash, the way it pulled over his broad shoulders and powerful back, and as he leaned into the car to grab the Longboards, Steve noticed the curve of his ass, hugged perfectly by faded, low slung shorts.  Steve ran one shaky hand over his face as his other arm propped him against the doorway.  He’d known, obviously, that Danny was a very attractive person, hell, anyone not legally blind would notice that, Kono had certainly made more than her fair share of inappropriate comments, especially after that little undercover situation, which had prompted her to declare loudly, without inhibition, to the entire office, that Danny was an amazing kisser and . . .

Okay, so armed with that knowledge and apparently an overwhelming episode of self-awareness, Steve realized that not only was Danny attractive, generally, he, Lieutenant Commander Steven McGarrett was attracted to him, specifically.  

Like, specifically and sexually, which, what even and oh, hell yes, there, his anatomy was already well ahead of his brain.

“You okay?” Danny asked, looking at him exactly like Gracie had.

And again, no, no, he wasn’t okay.  Not by a long shot.  He was absolutely terrified, and of course, his adrenaline-crazed system did sometimes equate terror and excitement -- okay, he’d admit it to himself even if he’d denied it vehemently to Danny, not that he thought Danny had ever believed him, and he was even pretty sure he’d caught Danny sneaking a peek to see just *how* literally accurate his assertion was that ‘maniacal, reckless plans and generalized explosives turn you on Steven, I swear to God’ . . .

“Steve?” Danny asked.  He’d reached the top of the stairs and his head was tilted, the same identical head tilt on Gracie and Charlie -- and how, how had Rachel ever thought she could deny that Charlie, blond, blue-eyed, sunshine personified Charlie was Danny’s -- the three of them, all three of them, with the head tilt, and the way they made Steve feel home and mine and love . . .

Danny snapped his fingers in front of Steve’s face, trying to get his attention.

“Hey, honey, I’m home,” he joked.

Steve would admit later that he might have made a strangled noise,  but if so, it was a very SEAL-like noise, and most emphatically not a whimper, no, definitely not a whimper as he reached, frantically, for Danny’s shoulders and hauled him to his chest.  Danny stiffened in surprise until he got with the program and let the bag slip down gently out of his hand until it could thunk, unharmed, those last couple inches onto the porch.

“Danny,” Steve murmured, one big hand coming up to cradle Danny’s head.  “Danny, you’re home.  Do you get it?   You and the kids, you’re everything that is home to me.  God, Danny, I want -- I need -- I -- you, Danny.  You and the kids, it’s --”

Danny’s arms wrapped around him, murmuring nonsense, like he would to soothe Charlie.  And at that point, Steve thought, he could pull this off, he could pull himself together, slap Danny on the back and give him one of his sincere -- God, how sincere, he hadn’t even known -- ‘love you, buddy’ hugs, tell him that he was just damn glad to have him and the kids there, you know, this was really nice, partner, sharing an evening together.  Punch him on the shoulder, thank him for the beer, let’s eat and then you can play with Charlie while I help Grace with chemistry and --

And then, he realized, that Danny had noticed.  Danny had noticed, if his sudden stillness and his stunned but careful pulling away from Steve was any indication and oh shit, oh shit,  Danny’s teenage daughter was in the house, if Danny noticed, then Danny might misunderstand and --

No.  Steve would rather risk losing Danny’s respect than losing his trust so he blurted it out --

“It’s you, Danny, it’s because of you, I swear to God.”

“It’s -- come’ere, you goof . . .”  and Danny was reaching for him and pulling him close again and . . .

Oh, thank fuck, Danny didn’t misunderstand, Danny was on board with this very new development, apparently, unless he had, like, Charlie’s sippy cup or something in his pocket.  And then Danny’s hands were reaching, one wrapping around his neck and one tugging a bit impatiently at his shoulder and --

“You giraffe, what --”

And Steve could work with that, he could, hell, everyone he’d ever kissed so far in his life had been shorter than him, he knew how to make this work, he could show Danny and so he did.  He really did, if Danny’s slightly blown pupils were any indication when they paused for air a few minutes later.

“I didn’t know, Danny, I . . . I meant it, I always meant it, I’ve loved you and the kids -- God, I love the kids -- but I didn’t know, not until tonight, I just -- “

Danny smiled up at him, soft and fond.

“You knew,” Steve said.  “How?”

“Well, not my first rodeo, Steve,” Danny said, a little wistful, but mostly still a lot turned on.

“Oh.  I -- oh.  Oh, see, I’ve never felt this way about anyone before,” Steve said.  “I didn’t know.  Until I did.  If you knew, Danny, why didn’t you -- why didn’t you say something, why --”

Danny leaned around Steve and grinned at Gracie and Charlie who were shamelessly observing the whole thing, Grace with a slice in one hand and her cell phone in the other, Charlie looking a little confused but mostly happy.

“I couldn’t risk our friendship,” Danny said.  “I couldn’t risk Uncle Steve.  I had to be sure, Steven.  When you have kids, you have to be sure.”

He looked back at Steve, his eyes questioning, challenging.

“You can be sure,” Steve said firmly.  He cupped Danny’s face in his hands and kissed him again, slipping one hand down into Danny’s back pocket.  “You can be sure of everything,” Steve whispered, a promise for later, for a time when they didn’t have the kids.

“Right now,” Danny said, clearing his throat and stepping away from Steve reluctantly, “I’m sure we have some dinner and possibly some explaining to do.”

Steve heard Grace’s giggle behind him and jumped as if he’d been tased.  He felt his ears turn hot.

“You’re funny, Uncle Steve,” Charlie declared.  “You jumped but Grace didn’t say boo.”

***

Late that night, Danny peeked in the door to the guest room.

“It’s late, Monkey,” he chided gently.  “Put the cell phone down and get some sleep.”

“Ok, Danno,” Grace said.  She peeked at him slyly over the top of her phone.  “Sweet dreams.”

He pointed at her in mock sternness.  “Okay, no wisecracks from the peanut gallery.”

She giggled again.  “Danno?”

“Yeah, Grace?”  Teenagers.  They could sit silent from school pick up to eleven pm, and just as you reached the end of your energy, that’s when they wanted to get into the deep conversations.  Danny took a deep breath, ready, regardless of his fatigue, to answer whatever and as many questions as Grace had.  He was only a tiny, tiny bit aware of Steve cleaning up in the kitchen, only a little bit conscious of the coffee brewing and the Irish whiskey that Steve had pulled down from the top cabinet.  Grace came first, always, and the man waiting to make him an Irish coffee and hopefully kiss him senseless knew that, and that’s why this was going to work.

“I’m glad Uncle -- I’m glad Steve decided to pick a different base,” Grace said.  “Finally.”

[hilarieburtonmorgan]

Hilarie Burton on Living in an Apocalypse Within an Apocalypse for The Walking Dead

Hilarie Burton and I spoke over Zoom in the midst of a pandemic about her upcoming appearance on season ten of The Walking Dead, a show about a post-apocalyptic pandemic, where she plays the dead wife of her real-life husband (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays Negan) and the namesake of the infamous barbed-wired baseball bat, Lucille. The actress, who got her start on MTV’s Total Request Live (TRL) in 2000, has also starred in One Tree Hill, White Collar, Grey’s Anatomy, and the Lethal Weapon series. Speaking from her temporary abode in North Carolina, during an extended COVID-necessitated break from filming The Walking Dead, she was clear and candid. Below, she discusses filming alongside her husband, producing a documentary about the Wilmington 1898 massacre, farming, and living in an apocalypse within an apocalypse.

———

HILARIE BURTON: [Sitting in what looks like a classroom] I’m in my son’s classroom at a toddler table.

BRIAN ALESSANDRO: It’s amazing how everyone’s homes have been converted into schools!

BURTON: Yeah, well, we pulled our son from school so early because my husband was doing a movie in Massachusetts and we were traveling back in February [of 2020], and we were like “This shit is nuts! Why isn’t everybody pulling their kids?” We saw everybody at the airport, at JFK, just like falling apart, and we were like, “I don’t know. This seems like something we should keep you home for.”

ALESSANDRO: Smart move! You’re about to appear on The Walking Dead as Lucille, Negan’s dead wife in presumably flashbacks? How did this happen?

BURTON: The comic books set up the basic gist of Lucille, and Negan has certainly talked about her a lot throughout his arc in the series. Jeffrey [Dean Morgan, Burton’s husband] had always said in jest—maybe it wasn’t in jest, who knows—but he would say out loud, “I want my wife to play Lucille,” and nepotism is certainly a strong force within our industry. And then COVID hit and it was like, “I’m not going to kiss some stranger that I haven’t been quarantined with.” But it was good to work with each other. We had never had scenes together. We had been on the same show—we did Grey’s Anatomy at different times. We did a show called Extant together.

ALESSANDRO: Was it at all weird playing a fictional couple in such a macabre story and setting?

BURTON: You don’t even understand the layers of what we were dealing with. There’s been so much loss this year, let me start with that. And so, doing a story about loss in this current climate was really difficult because we know people who have died this year. We’ve suffered a lot of losses this year and having to ground that in a performance and not just be like a big, huge mess on set was hard. On top of all of that, to keep us safe for the filming, they had us quarantined living in the neighborhood that The Walking Dead shoots in. Alexandria is a little subdivision of houses with a big, huge wall, and it’s apocalyptic. There’s trash everywhere, and the water tower and all the sets that you see on television. We lived in Rick Grimes’s house. There were bullet holes in my child’s closet door.

ALESSANDRO. Wow.

BURTON: And big, huge pieces of dry wall missing from stunts that had gone awry. So, we were living in a real apocalypse in the real world living in a rented house in a fake apocalypse and filming the beginning of a pandemic that has been on TV for ten years. There were so many layers of weirdness.

ALESSANDRO: It’s sort of meta! And surreal.

BURTON: It was so meta! And on top of all of that, Halloween happened, so there was trick-or-treating going on. And we were there for the election with Georgia turning blue and all of the upheaval and violence that came with that.

ALESSANDRO: What a moment.

BURTON: To be surrounded by those walls on set every day, and to know what was going on in the real world, was every bit as important and dramatic as what we were making TV about. But our son learned to ride a bike!

ALESSANDRO: On set?

BURTON: We live on a farm in Upstate New York, and so there’s gravel roads, which is not conducive to bike riding. And so he had this entire neighborhood [the Alexandria set] all to himself and would just take off after virtual school. He learned to ride this cool kid grown up bicycle while dodging debris from the last Whisperers War.

ALESSANDRO: What a cool story for him when he grows up to tell people. “I learned how to ride a bike in the middle of The Walking Dead apocalypse while dealing with this real apocalypse.”

BURTON: [Laughs] It was strange! We took a lot of pictures. Seeing my children play on this rusty playground equipment that is a set piece, but that’s what they played on every day after the crew left, was … strange.

ALESSANDRO: I can’t imagine! What has it been like to be at the center of one of the biggest casting decisions in the fan boy and girl universe?

BURTON: I’ve been really nervous about it. There have been conversations about whether or not Negan is a villain and if you had followed Negan’s journey from the beginning the way you followed Rick Grimes, perhaps people would have been more sympathetic to the way he handled things when he was introduced. And so, my role as Lucille is to validate a lot of Negan’s life choices. I think, and I’m probably a little biased, but I dig the Negan of it all. I get him. I’m attracted to him. He’s a terrible dude, but we all turn into terrible people when met with dangerous circumstances. That weighed on me heavily. I think playing a character who is ill during a time when so much of our country has been faced with illness and loss really weighed on me heavily. When you’re dealing with losing your most cherished person, there’s going to be a big percentage of the fan base that has dealt with that in the last year. It’s recent history.

ALESSANDRO: Very fresh wounds.

BURTON: I didn’t want to cheapen anything for them. So, it’s messy. It’s a messy story.

ALESSANDRO: Compelling, too, though. When do your episodes air? In how many episodes does Lucille appear?

BURTON: Just one episode. They do these bottle episodes that are wonderful. Normally when you’re filming a TV show, particularly a big TV show, if you work a 12-hour day, it’s like, “Oh my god, we’re gonna get home! This is great! It’s the shortest day ever!” Normally, it’s like 15-16-hour days and that’s normal, but given the restrictions of COVID they were only allowed to shoot ten-hour days. And so, we did these bottle episodes where the scenes are longer. It’s like doing a play. Jeffrey and I would learn all our words for that day and perform everything like a play in order to get it done quickly and efficiently, and it really change the pace of the work. It was like we were putting on a play for 30 crew members every day. It didn’t feel like we were making a television show.

ALESSANDRO: It’s remarkable that anyone is getting anything done right now, let alone these kinds of large-scale productions.

BURTON: I was so nervous, but I never felt safer, because the daily testing they did gave me such peace of mind. I go to the food line now and I’m so worried that I’m bringing something home, but I knew in Georgia whether or not I had something because the production made it such a priority to take care of everyone from the top down.

ALESSANDRO: When does your episode air?

BURTON: I believe it’s April 4th. That’s the tentative date right now. It’s the last of the six bottle episodes.

ALESSANDRO: Can you say yet if Lucille’s coming back?

BURTON: Dude, who fucking knows?! [Both laugh] You know! It’s The Walking Dead! I was just so flattered that they invited me to begin with. I know Angela [Kang, The Walking Dead showrunner] as my husband’s boss, a cool person to hang out with. She’d come to the farm before the pandemic hit. She was the last guest we had at the farm. And so, her and Scott Gimple [the chief content officer of The Walking Dead] believing in me to be able to handle that really meant a lot.

ALESSANDRO: Let’s shift gears for a bit. You’ve recently co-produced a documentary about the Wilmington massacre called Wilmington on Fire 2. What brought you to this project?

BURTON: I reached out to Chris [Everett, producer and director of Wilmington on Fire 2] after I had seen [Wilmington on Fire] and a number of actor friends from the Wilmington [North Carolina] area told me that I had to watch this. So, I watched it, and it was really eye-opening. I had lived in the historic district of Wilmington. I had lived two houses down from the lawyer who represented all the white supremacists who overtook the government in 1898. I’d been inside his home. I had no idea I was treading in this place where someone truly evil lived. Someone who had justified their actions, and changed the course of Wilmington’s history. It really shook me that I didn’t know about it. I felt stupid. And so, I reached out to Chris and asked him to come on my Instagram and give a talk about it.

ALESSANDRO: I watched it! You were both great!

BURTON: Oh, you did!

ALESSANDRO: Yeah!

BURTON: I just think sitting down and talking about stuff is a really healthy way to educate people in a way that isn’t preachy. Chris is a very good storyteller. He knows what he wants to say with his work. And so, he told me he was doing the sequel, and I said, “Well, here, let me throw some money at you, and then also let me help you drum up the rest of your funding.” I didn’t want to impose in the storytelling part of it because I really believe in how he is telling these stories, but I’ll cheerlead all day long. That’s the job of some producers. Be the hype-man!

What’s also important about Wilmington on Fire is that it specifically addresses reparations, which is not something that white communities talk about. It is very taboo. The sentiment is, “We solved those problems! Generations have gone by. I didn’t do this. Why do I have to pay for it?” And what I think is so important about the Wilmington on Fire story is that it is recent history. I knew my great-grandmother who was alive when that happened. You know, we’re not so far removed that we can’t trace the families who were directly affected by it, and it’s proven that reparations do help. And I think this chapter two lays out a very compelling argument for why we should take responsibility for what happened in 1898. I got a lot of heat on social media since last summer when I really started speaking up about this stuff. People accuse you of being a coastal elite. I literally just put out an entire book about how I left Los Angeles and moved to a rural farming community [The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons from Down on Mischief Farm]. My county couldn’t be more Republican. And I grew up in Virginia, I grew up on gun ranges, my father was in the military. I grew up surrounded by Republicans. And there is a major difference between the Republican party I remember as a child and what has manifested as a result of the Tea Party movement. White women—we’re 55 percent of that vote for Trump, and so it’s the job of white women who understand the community to speak up against it.

ALESSANDRO: How have the trolls responded to your rebuttal?

BURTON: [Laughs] Yeah, you know, they’re not into it. I get a lot of, “We thought you were a nice girl.” Which baffles me! I’ve never played a nice girl. I don’t think I’ve ever been nice in any of my interviews. I’m always kind of a surly lady. I don’t know where that mythology came from. I’m not a nice girl. I say exactly what I think, and a lot of the trolls have a problem with it. And that’s okay. I think it’s important to have a line in the sand when it comes to things you feel passionately about. That is something that is a dealbreaker for me.

ALESSANDRO: It also says a lot about you to have the right enemies.

BURTON: Who was it that said, “Show me a man with no enemies and I’ll show you a man with no conviction”?

ALESSANDRO: It might have been Hemingway or Roosevelt. A writer or a politician like a hundred years ago. [Ed. note: it was Paul Newman: “A man with no enemies is a man with no conviction.”]

BURTON: It was one of those grumpy old guys, but yeah, we’ll co-opt it. It’s rough because you want to maintain an open line of communication with the people you feel can hear what you’re saying and know when to draw the line when someone is so indoctrinated that they’ve fallen in with hate. Or conspiracy. And that has become very difficult to navigate.

ALESSANDRO: With regard to your social media, which is activism-heavy, is it that when you have such a platform and audience it’s hard not to say something?

BURTON: I am in a position where if I never work again, my husband works a lot. It’s a position of privilege. And to not use that privilege seems really irresponsible. We all get different tools, and mine, I guess, has been a big mouth. Not a “nice girl,” remember?

[Both laugh]

ALESSANDRO: “Hilarie Burton is NOT a nice girl!”

BURTON: Who the fuck told people I was?! I am on the board for Astor Family Services in Rhinebeck, New York, which is a mental health facility for children who have been dealt a really bad hand. These are kids who are dealing with trauma. You would be amazed how little these professionals are paid to take care of these at-risk kids, and that bothered me.

ALESSANDRO. I hear you. And I have to say thank you for that. My background is in clinical psychology and I taught at an at-risk school in Queens for ten years, so I know firsthand the perils and the hardships of it, and it’s very powerful what you’ve done to help facilitate what they do.

BURTON: Right on. Thank you!

ALESSANDRO: I’ve seen and read interviews with you over the course of the last 15-20 years, and you’ve always struck me as very grounded, unfazed by success and celebrity. To what do you attribute your perspective?

BURTON: That’s really nice of you to say because I don’t take that lightly. That’s a slippery slope in this business. I have certainly fallen prey to it in my life. I think working at MTV as a teenager was probably the best education I could have gotten in our business because I saw the biggest stars in the world come in with their managers and agents and publicists and entourage and then a year later, they would come back with nobody and there would be no kids out in Times Square, and no one would give a shit anymore. It’s all so fleeting and it’s so fake and I’ve watched so many people trade in the most intimate moments of their life for magazine covers, and so I never wanted to cheapen the things I really loved with that. I’ve tried to remain really transparent about the bad stuff, too. I wrote the book and I keep getting feedback—“Oh, you talk about your miscarriages! Oh, you talk about bickering with your husband! Oh, you talk a lot about the messy stuff!” I think it’s so important to keep the bar really low. You run the risk of disappointing yourself when you sell the façade. Look, I’m gonna fuck up a lot, but if I’m upfront about it, then fine!

[aion-rsa]

The Silence of the Lambs: Brooke Smith on Surviving Buffalo Bill

https://ift.tt/37cOLgW

Brooke Smith has enjoyed a career spanning more than three decades across the big and small screen. She’s starred in the cult classic Series 7: The Contenders, had roles in blockbusters including Interstellar and featured prominently on Grey’s Anatomy, Ray Donovan, and Bates Motel to name but a few. 

Yet to some, she will always be remembered as Catherine Martin, the daughter of Senator Ruth Martin who winds up being kidnapped by Jame Gumb, aka Buffalo Bill, in The Silence of The Lambs. Not that fans always immediately realise it.

“I don’t get recognized for it that much compared with something like Grey’s Anatomy,” she tells Den of Geek. “With The Silence of the Lambs, it’s more like ‘wait a minute, how do I know you?’. I would get that at the school my kids went to. They knew me but they just couldn’t quite figure it out.” 

Smith was a relative newcomer to acting when she was cast as Catherine back in 1989 having spent her formative years as part of the CBGB New York punk scene. But she possessed one crucial quality: she was fearless. “I was just a gung-ho young actress who wanted to do something I didn’t think I could do,” she explains.  

The role of Catherine certainly presented a worthy challenge. While the majority of Jonathan Demme’s film focuses on Jodie Foster’s FBI-agent-in-training Clarice Starling and her attempts at coaxing Anthony Hopkins’s dangerously disarming cannibal Hannibal Lecter into helping track down Buffalo Bill, played by Ted Levine, Smith took on the crucial role of the serial killer’s hostage, trapped down a disused well in the basement-turned-dungeon of his seemingly ordinary suburban home. 

It’s her welfare and fate that provides the emotional heartbeat of an otherwise dread-fuelled psychological thriller. As time wears on, Catherine’s increasingly desperate and distressing state only cranks up the tension with audiences aware of the horrifying fate potentially awaiting her.  When Demme first met with Smith to discuss the part he had one important question for Smith: “Why on Earth would you ever want to do this?” 

“I did not audition,” she explains. “That would never happen now. They would never just hire an unknown actor for such an important part. He brought me in and explained to me what he had in mind. He didn’t have to convince me much. If anything, I had to convince him that I was going to go all the way. That I was really going to go as far as I could go as Catherine.” 

She saw some parallels between her relationship with her mother – trailblazing Hollywood publicist Lois Smith – and that of Catherine and her own high-profile politician mom. 

Smith also credits her friend at the time, Michelle Pfeiffer, with helping her get the part. “My mother looked after Michelle Pfeiffer, which was how we met. She was considering playing the part of Clarice. She had done Married to the Mob with Jonathan. She told him about me.” 

Pfeiffer was Demme’s original choice for the role of Clarice while he initially approached Sean Connery for the role of Lecter. Both turned the film down, with Pfeiffer deciding the subject matter was too dark.  Smith does wonder what the film might have turned out like had she signed on to star. 

“I think of Jodie as very intelligent and analytical. There is something about her being so analytical that made Clarice so fascinating. It would have been different with Michelle, maybe more emotional. I’m not sure.” 

While Pfeiffer rejected the chance to star in The Silence of the Lambs, there were some trying to dissuade Smith from her involvement. “There was one agent in particular who said I was forever going to be known as the fat girl in the pit. Which is…partly true,” she jokes. 

Eager to immerse herself in the role of Catherine, Smith prepared herself for the experience of being trapped in a pit by locking herself in a wardrobe while ruminating on the “worst possible circumstances” someone would face in such a situation.

“It was a basement closet. I went in, closed the door and turned the light off. I thought about what it would be like to be in those circumstances. Stuff like what would it be like if your contact lenses dried out or if you had your period. I stayed in there for about an hour at a time.” 

Part of Buffalo Bill’s modus operandi in the film saw him target plus size women. That created the first major challenge for Smith who was required to put on 25 pounds for the part.

“Because I had been a heavy teenager and lost all the weight to be an actress, to then have to gain it all back really messed with my head,” she says. 

There were positives and negatives to the experience though. “I was in an acting class with Vincent D’Onofrio and he had just done Full Metal Jacket where he gained like 75 pounds. I remember him saying ‘make sure the studio gives you a credit card, you shouldn’t be paying for your food’ which I would never have thought of. They did actually give me a credit card and I remember taking Ted Levine to dinner most nights when we were shooting.”

But just as with any role that requires a drastic transformation, putting the weight on proved a challenge.

“It was physically exhausting though because of the weight,” she says. “And after it was done, it was difficult as an actress struggling with how I was supposed to look and getting the weight off. I ate a lot of ice cream and pizza and milkshakes. Stuff like that. It sounds amazing to most people but it did put me off that kind of food a little bit.” 

Reading Ted Tally’s Oscar-winning script ahead of filming, Smith felt a sense of fear and intimidation for what lay ahead. 

“There was this one line that scared the hell out of me,” she says. “When Catherine sees the fingernails on the side of the pit – the fake nails that have come off – in the script it just said ‘screams and screams and screams.’ I just thought ‘oh my God, I don’t think I can do that’.” 

Despite some initial confidence-sapping struggles with continuity and hitting her mark during the scene where Catherine first encounters Buffalo Bill, once her character is confined to the basement pit, Smith was in her element. Getting in and out of the pit was something of a complicated procedure, so Smith would often stay down there between camera setups, taking care not to drink too much water in order to avoid any unnecessary bathroom breaks. 

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“I would get myself worked up before we shot. Every day I set out to achieve something and if I got it all out, I felt great. It was like primal therapy. Just going as far as I could and releasing it all…I wonder if I could do it again,” she says. “I remember doing a real mind fuck on myself. At certain points they would take some of the wall away from the side of the pit and be down there filming my misery. I remember getting into this headspace where I would be thinking ‘not only are these people not helping me, they are actually exploiting me and filming me in this horrible space.’ It was just this crazy, extreme thing that added to it all.” 

Occasionally, Smith’s suffering went beyond psychological. 

“I ripped a toenail. It was nasty.  The pit was made out of some kind of fiberglass. They had told me to go crazy so I did and then suddenly there was blood. It took a while for that nail to grow back.” 

Though she suffered for her art, Smith credits Demme with fostering a brilliant atmosphere on set that motivated everyone to bring their A-game. “Jonathan treated us like we were the best people for the job, whether it was Jodie or the people in craft service. He had a way of making everyone want to do their best.” 

As a director, Demme also wasn’t afraid of coaxing more out of his cast, and she says that he. “never thought it was possible to go too far.” 

“There was a guy on set from the FBI who said he had seen similar things in real-life and I remember Jonathan saying that I should try to do it for all the people who are in horrible situations and could not get out. So, no pressure or anything.” 

Smith recalls one particularly strange and intense conversation held in the pit when Demme looked her dead in the eyes and said “You know that feeling when you’re in prison?”  “I had to be like ‘um, no,” Smith says laughing. 

Away from Demme, Smith also found support among her fellow cast mates. Though she didn’t interact much with Hopkins (“Tony sort of stayed in his own world”), Foster proved invaluable in helping her understand the intricacies of filmmaking and things like “overlapping” on dialogue. 

She formed her strongest bond and friendship, however, with Levine, despite the adversarial nature of their relationship on the screen. 

“I respect him so much as an actor. When the camera was on me and it was my coverage, he gave just as much, if not more. He just had my back. At times I was in awe of him and asking how he did things.” 

Levine has long since stopped answering questions about his breakthrough performance as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs but Smith is able to offer some insight into what went into his terrifying portrayal. Levine famously drew on real-life serial killers like Ed Gein and Ted Bundy, but also offered up another, more unique perspective in his discussions with Smith. “I remember him saying he had a toddler at the time and he had observed how extreme their behavior could be. They act like they are going to die one minute and are then just so happy the next. I think he was tapping into something there.” 

Smith remembers the moment she first saw Levine’s terrifying solo dance number as Gumb and how it blew everyone away.

“I saw it in the dailies and Ted did not go. I saw him after and told him it was amazing. I don’t think that was in script. He just came up with it. It’s totally terrifying.” 

She does empathise with Levine’s decision to close the book on The Silence of the Lambs too, having herself endured the “strange” experience of fans heckling her with shouts of “it puts the lotion on the skin” a line said by Buffalo Bill to Catherine as he prepares her for her eventual murder. “It’s really hard when people only see you as one character and I can understand not wanting to be seen as Jame Gumb. I think he maybe feels like he’s said all he wants to say.” 

Ultimately though, she credits the experience as one which helped her work through personal issues.  

“It got me in touch with some stuff in myself that I had to work on,” she says. “At the time it wasn’t so easy for me to fight back as Catherine. Working on this film made me think ‘wait why wouldn’t I fight back that much, what’s my problem with me?’ I wrote a letter to Jonathan thanking him for helping me get in touch with that. I came upon some self-worth.” 

A critical and commercial hit, The Silence of the Lambs went on to sweep the board at the 1991 Oscars, becoming only the third film to win Academy Awards in the top five categories for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.  The film’s success “thrilled” Smith and only added to a sense of vindication in her decision to pursue a career as an actor.

“My mom knew how hard it was to be an actor. There was a discussion between us like ‘Are you really sure you want to do this?’ The Silence of the Lambs ended that. She had great taste in actors. To see her be proud was nice.” 

Demme would go on to further acclaim with his next film Philadelphia as part of a directing career that continued until 2015. He passed away in 2017, aged 73. Smith last saw him, by chance, at a yoga class. “He was just his usual, sweet, positive self.”  

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“Jonathan was such a great guy. The whole experience felt like he was throwing a party and you were lucky to be invited. It was a really special project.” 

The post The Silence of the Lambs: Brooke Smith on Surviving Buffalo Bill appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[haptureratch]

Misty died today. I loved her more than anything in this world. She was with me every single day for the past few months. I’m happy for that. I am writing this right next to the place  where she had, unbeknowst to me, began to die. That poor little baby. She was acting strange while she laid in the blanket. Picking her head up to look around in a daze, or like a toddler fighting bedtime, before the sleepies pulled her head back down. I thought my noises of procrastination were keeping her awake. I was going to carry her downstairs to her cozy bed so she could sleep soundly. I didn’t pick her up. I walked over to the double doors of the bonus room and beckoned her toward me. She got up and could not walk straight, she veered to the left. I looked at the limbs on that side, they weren’t moving well and weren’t supporting her weight. I immediately turned the light on to see her better and knelt down. She sat in a tiny pillar at my feet and looked up at me with wide nervous eyes. I knew it was the end. I wonder what she thought. I’ve still got the scent of the vet’s office in my nostrils. And the urine she had held onto with such determination. No voiding. No accidents. Until there were no nerve signals left for her body to follow. We even held her in the grass twice and she didn’t go. (my mom and I) I got my “dying wish” -- to be with her, to hold her as she went. The most I fell apart was before we were even out of the house. I lost it a handful of times thinking about The Moment or what I would say to other people or things like that. While we were there, I felt strong. It was hard but I knew I wanted this. I loved her so much I wanted to be there holding her as she faded away. She must have been so scared. My left arm supported her neck, my hand cradled her jaw. My right arm wrapped all the way around the rest of her. And I just held her close and tight over mom. One of her blankets, too. I will keep her blankets forever. And the anatomy heart. I might keep her beds in my room until I’m ready to let those go. I don’t want to today. She was so nervous as we got ready to leave. But that’s her norm. There was no stopping it. Stroke or no stroke, she would have been a nervous wreck in the car and at the vet’s office. She fought against her condition so much. Pure adrenaline pushed her up on her legs as she tried to reposition and see everything outside of the windows while we were parked in front of the final place. She was barking at dogs and cars and people. For a second Mom wondered if we were doing the right thing, if she was too alive to be euthanized. Nope, she’s just ready to throw down up until her last hour and live out her last moments as a true Anxiety Queen (TM). It’s amazing how much spark came back to her as we stalled in the parking lot. It also made us feel terrible for her as there was no way to alleviate her fears. And we didn’t even know exactly what they were. I should note that in the house she was pretty lifeless after I woke up from my ill, incomplete sleep (that I definitely felt guilty for taking instead of continuing to watch her and reassure her). She seemed happy to see me awake, almost like she was waiting for me to join her again. At some point during the night I remember feeling movements. She had managed to flip herself over onto her bad side using her strong side. That maneuver made me think it could be a TIA and she’d start recovering... That time after carrying her gently downstairs, showing her deficits to my parents, them cradling her and preparing for the beginning of the end, and me calling Rilley and readying myself for the night ahead---- that was when I tried so hard to do what Rilley told me. I tried to savor it, pet her, kiss her, smell her, talk to her, comfort her. I tried to change my energy and give her reassurance like google said to. I tried nuzzling her, repositioning her, recapturing the intimacy and bond we shared every time she laid with me. The times studying or just relaxing. (Again, I am so glad I got to have these slowed down days and really live with her.) She had a dream around 1:45am if I remember the time correctly. She growled in her sleep and did the sleep-bark chirping. I wonder what she was dreaming of. I hope it was her living her best life, telling the world the fuck what was up. She may have had one or two other dreams, smaller. Then I felt too sick to keep going and tried to sleep. Mom took over when she woke up. I told her I hadn’t slept. I forgot what I did when I got my relief. The rest of that time was spent by us taking turns holding Misty, trying to make sure she was comfortable. Trying to get her to close her eyes and sleep. Sometimes she did, sometimes she glanced around with a little uneasiness and trepidation. The latter got worse as time wore on. We tried letting her be outside a couple times. Once earlier to just pee. She couldn’t hold herself up (much to my sadness, though I accepted that this was no TIA). So we tried to hold her in a squat. She wouldn’t pee. The second time we brought her out, I now she enjoyed the feeling of sun on her fur and breeze blow past her nose. She had a flicker of that contented-dog-outside look in her eyes as she lifted her nose to sample the air. We let her lay in the grass one more time. It was a short moment but I tried to save the snapshot-- sunny sky, shaded grass, warm black fur, clear breeze. I hoped she could forget what was going on for just a brief second. I hoped she could really enjoy that one last time. It was heaven until we noticed bugs jumping on her. Mom had brought a towel for her to lay on in the shade since I was worried she might overheat in the direct sunlight. We really saw the bugs against that white towel. She was on the patio couch for a bit after that. Mom took over. I think I ate, they came in, and I needed my stomach to settle before I took over. I went to the bathroom and my god damn period came. Hesitant to take nsaids because of my stomach but wanting relief so I could hold my baby, I steadily took one then two then three. I laid on Mom’s side of the bed trying to let them pass. I lost some time there but it’s all I could do. They were so strong...like in high school. Before the cramps hit (or maybe during, who knows) there was a lot of calling around to see who’d allow us to hold her as she passed. Or if someone could come to the house. So much calling around. A plan was finally set. Leave at 2:30. Appointment at 3. I didn’t even see the place walking in, pretty much just walking out. She shivered so much. I just tried to hold her and press my face into the top of her head. And rub over her ears and eyes. Something ending in a -zine was given for anxiety. My hope was to take the edge off so we could spend our last moments without so much fear. She stopped shaking when the vet came in and Mom started talking. I told her us talking really calms Misty down. Then the propofol was given. She fell asleep. The vet kept trying to talk to us but I had to drown him out. I wanted all of my senses to make memories of her, not him. My dog is dying, I really don’t care about anything else man. Then a clear pale pink-to-purple mixture of phenobarbital-something was given and she went just a little limper. She urinated on me but I didn’t care; I signed up for every part of this. I forgot to feel her heart stop beating but it was better to have kept holding her so securely. It wasn’t fair how her cute little arm was bent up just like it is when she sleeps. She didn’t “turn” the way humans do when the light goes out. I was happy for this. She just looked like she was asleep. I saw her from above as I held her, and then straight on when she was on the table. Her eyes didn’t scare me. They did not look sad, just asleep. So relieved for it. I kept looking at her because I had to take in that she was completely still. I had to watch her a know the chest was not moving. I needed closure. I hugged and pet her dead body over and over again. It wasn’t weird to me. I wanted to take home part of her, like an ear so I would never forget the softness of that little velvet triangle. Or her paw since that seems less creepy (rabbit foots). I encircled my arms around her one last time, the way I always did when she was sleeping so adorably in her bed. One more time, beebee. Mom helped me tuck her into the vet office blanket on that metal table. I can’t count how many times I kissed and nuzzled her. I called her baby, weedle, weeble, Middy, Misty. I told her I loved her, I will miss her so much. Go to sleep, go nuh-nigh.

----

The night before.... When I was savoring her.... The top of her head smelled just like when she was a puppy.

[zombolouge]

The longest tag ever

Tagged in this by @illneverrecover who is basically my nurse sister and also a blessing and I love her. She didn't technically tag me to do it but I'm sick so I didn't realize that until I was halfway through answering OOPS NOW IM COMMITTED I'm writing this while high on cold meds AND on mobile so pls excuse all abnormal levels of stupidity THE LAST: 1. DRINK: water, THE LIQUID OF LIFE, BLOOD FROM THE SURGING SEAS WHICH SHAPE OUR PLANET WITH TIDES THAT DANCE TO THE RHYTHMS OF THE SULLEN, SILVER MOON. You know, after it's been filtered a bit tho. 2. PHONE CALL: My mom, a week or so ago. I called her to tell her I got tickets to go see Queen in concert because I knew she would appreciate it ^_^ 3. TEXT MESSAGE: my roommate texting me two taco emojis to announce dinner 4. SONG YOU LISTENED TO: Oh god I don't remember probably Rush but I'm real high on NyQuil so idk 5. TIME YOU CRIED: Saturday. I cried through the whole first half of the Roger Waters show, ESPECIALLY when they played Wish You Were Here (guys I lost my shit and have no shame it was awesome) HAVE YOU: -6. DATED SOMEONE TWICE: nope 7. KISSED SOMEONE AND REGRETTED IT: yup yup YUP 8. BEEN CHEATED ON: Yes 9. LOST SOMEONE SPECIAL: a person? No. Pet? Yes. Of all the weird tragedy I have dealt with in life, the death of a loved one has been strangely absent 10. BEEN DEPRESSED: YUP 11. GOTTEN DRUNK AND THROWN UP: nope LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS: 12-14: turquoise, grey, and blue IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. MADE NEW FRIENDS: Yes! Mostly online tho 16. FALLEN OUT OF LOVE: no 17. LAUGHED UNTIL YOU CRIED: Lol I do this most of the time when I GM so yes 18. FOUND OUT SOMEONE WAS TALKING ABOUT YOU: yeah, but I don't really care lol 19. MET SOMEONE WHO CHANGED YOU: Uh....I don't know I'm not existential enough rn to answer this one 20. FOUND OUT WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE: Uh????? I have no idea 21. KISSED SOMEONE ON YOUR FACEBOOK LIST: Lol I have done no smooching and I don't even know who the fuck is on my Facebook anymore GENERAL: 22. HOW MANY OF YOUR FACEBOOK FRIENDS DO YOU KNOW IN REAL LIFE: No idea 23. DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS: three cats: Lucifer, Bubbies, and Fritz 24. DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR NAME: Nah 25. WHAT DID YOU DO FOR YOUR LAST BIRTHDAY: I got really sweet and lovely gifts from my friends and laid low to let The Accursed Time pass, then I went to take myself out for a steak dinner and watch a live show of MBMBAM. 26. WHAT TIME DID YOU WAKE UP: lol I have slept all day because of the cold so I have no fucking clue 27. WHAT WERE YOU DOING AT MIDNIGHT LAST NIGHT: Sleeping 28. NAME SOMETHING YOU CAN’T WAIT FOR: My trip to San Diego in July. I CANNOT WAIT IM VERY EXCITED. 29. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW YOUR MOM: March of 2015 :( 30. WHAT IS ONE THING YOU WISH YOU COULD CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE: I wish I could spend all day writing. 31. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING RIGHT NOW: a toddler giggling bc she's running around naked 32. HAVE YOU EVER TALKED TO A PERSON NAMED TOM: Yes...what a weird fucking question tho 33. SOMETHING THAT IS GETTING ON YOUR NERVES: Sinus congestion 34. MOST VISITED WEBSITE: probably google idk 35. MOLE/S: I don't think so 36. MARK/S: I have a scar on my knee from skinning it twice in the same spot in the same week, and a scar on my arm where I fell on a fork. Not much else tho 37. CHILDHOOD DREAM: to be remembered 38. HAIRCOLOR: Red. REDHEADS FOR LIFE. 39. LONG OR SHORT HAIR: short 40. DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON SOMEONE: yes, everyone. I have a crush on everybody and I love you all so much 41. WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF: that I'm creative and emotional. I like that I experience all my feelings at an 11 42. PIERCINGS: none 43. BLOODTYPE: no idea 44. NICKNAME: Zom 45. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single 46. ZODIAC: Pisces 47. PRONOUNS: she/her 48. FAVORITE TV SHOW: Galavant, Firefly, Eureka, American Gods, Game of Thrones, Grey's Anatomy 49. TATTOOS: none but I have a list of tattoos that I want to get when I have the money 50. RIGHT OR LEFT HAND: right 51. SURGERY: none 52. HAIR DYED IN DIFFERENT COLOR: Been dying it red since 8th grade 53. SPORT: I like watching sports with other people that like sports. I don't gravitate to it on my own but love to get into it with other peeps 55. VACATION: I've had a few. I took a trip to Canada last year, and THIS year I'm going to: San Diego, San Francisco, and Japan ^_^ 56. PAIR OF TRAINERS: ...p...Pokémon? MORE GENERAL: 57. EATING: food?? I like buffalo wings. I'm currently eating donuts 58. DRINKING: nothin 59. I’M ABOUT TO: watch the Bachelorette with my roommate and hate on Lee, who is the ghost of a plantation owner given form again. Racist motherfucker 61. WAITING FOR: Saturday, when I get to see Queen in concert 62. WANT: to be able to write for a living 63. GET MARRIED?: sure, if the right person comes along and they want to, but I wouldn't lose my shit if they didn't 64. CAREER: I am a Microsoft slave by day and writer by night. I look forward to the day when it's just "writer of all kinds" WHICH IS BETTER 65. HUGS OR KISSES: BOTH AND YOU CAN NEVER MAKE ME CHOOSE 66. LIPS OR EYES: eyes 67. SHORTER OR TALLER: I’m very short and I'm attracted to very tall because the tol and smol aesthetic must be adhered to 68. OLDER OR YOUNGER: older, but age is just a number. It depends more on who they are not how old they are. 70. NICE ARMS OR NICE STOMACH: uh...I'm gonna go with personality. 71. SENSITIVE OR LOUD: both us goid 72. HOOK UP OR RELATIONSHIP: Lol I equate physical affection with my emotional attachment so hookups are a BAD SCENE for me. Relationship pls 73. TROUBLEMAKER OR HESITANT: depends on how much wine I've had HAVE YOU EVER: 74. KISSED A STRANGER: No. 75. DRANK HARD LIQUOR: ye boi 76. LOST GLASSES/CONTACT LENSES: No, but I've only been wearing glasses for a year or so 77. TURNED SOMEONE DOWN: yup 78. SEX IN THE FIRST DATE: No 79. BROKEN SOMEONE’S HEART: Yes 80. HAD YOUR HEART BROKEN: YUP 81. BEEN ARRESTED: NOPE 82. CRIED WHEN SOMEONE DIED: yeah 83. FALLEN FOR A FRIEND: lol YUP DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 84. YOURSELF: when I can get my brain to shut up for long enough, yeah 85. MIRACLES: maybe 86. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT: Yes 87. SANTA CLAUS: No 88. KISS IN THE FIRST DATE: yes 89. ANGELS: Uh...idk??? No idea man OTHER: 90. CURRENT BEST FRIENDS NAME: I'm so not gonna pick and choose, I have a few best friends 91. EYE COLOR: green :) 92. FAVORITE MOVIE: The Last Unicorn There I did it even tho nobody wanted this IF YOU WANT TO DO IT CONSIDER YOURSELF TAGGED BC I LOVE YOU. YES, YOU. YOU DON'T THINK I MEAN YOU, BUT I DEFINITELY DO.