#also i drew this during a break because i have been productive today

[unhappy-sometimes]

For the mission…!

He’s madly in love (for the mission!)

Inspired by the no homo comic by sarah andersen

[preciousthingsareprecious]

Hearts Painted on Skin

Written for @damianwayneweek's Day 4. I selected Soulmates for this. I've never written a soulmate AU before, so this was fun to explore. Thanks @audreycritter for the idea! She flooded me with ideas for this week and I am so thankful for them all.

Characters: Damian and Dick

Summary: Damian has a mark just under his collarbone in the shape of a feather. Mother has always told him it was a scar. He was mostly okay with that until he came to Gotham and saw more marks. Marks that could not possibly be scars. He is starting to wonder if she lied, and why.

AO3 Link

~

Damian looked in the mirror, his shirt in his hands, prepared to pull on. For what felt like the thousandth time, he paused to look at the little mark on his skin. It was a feather, unmistakably. Damian had held enough up to it for comparison, whenever he could get his hands on one.

“It is a scar.” Mother’s voice echoed in his head.

It was a statement she’d told him time and time again. Each moment he brought it up. Every moment he looked at a League member who had a darker patch on their cheek, or wrist. Whenever his eyes lingered on flowers and swirls and shapes painted on fingers, arms, feet, and one time an eyelid. She would lean down, her voice soft, promising, full of truth, hard as law, and whisper those four words. It. Is. A. Scar.

“But others have similar.” Damian had asked once.

��Of course they do, they are fighters as well.” she had told him.

Damian believed her. Why would she lie? What reason had she to speak falsely about such a thing?

And yet.

He dropped half of the shirt to run his fingers over it, it was smooth as the skin underneath. It was skin, just of a darker color. A warm chocolate to his tan. It was not raised, not pinched. Nothing about it was creased or seemed to be anything but natural. As if it had always been there.

“But I do not remember getting it.” he had said again, in response to her once.

“You received it when you were young. A baby.”

He had furrowed his brow. Who would harm a baby? Even in the League? Especially Talia’s child? She’d never told him.

Damian tugged his shirt on, covering the spot with soft cotton and a bright pattern of animal silhouettes that somehow did not look childish. He ran his hand over the fabric, again pausing by the not-scar. His eyes flit to his dresser. In the drawer rested a bottle of concealer, matched to his skin tone exactly. It was empty now, used up and he had yet to replace it.

Normally, Damian would cover his not-scar with it. Careful layers blended to hide the fact that anything blemished his skin. It was a dangerous mark. Made when he was a baby, and carrying a weight on it that Mother insisted would draw catastrophe to him if it were seen.

He had complained about the concealer once, hating the time it took to apply and how it made his skin feel itchy sometimes.

Mother had run her fingers through his hair, gentle and loving, “I know, dear, but it is not safe to bring attention to. If others learned of it--you would be in danger.” She had even gone so far as to insist Damian not tell Grandfather.

It was a dangerous secret so terrifying the leader of the League of Assassins could not know. One Damian had to protect him from. At least, that was what Damian had thought then. Now, he wondered if Mother was protecting him from Grandfather.

He tugged on his shirt, testing the collar, even stretched it hid his mark with ease. No one would see it today. Perhaps his new concealer would arrive soon. Pennyworth had approved the order, as something useful to help them hide their identities better. Bruises from patrol were hard to explain, especially when Richard was under scrutiny for caring for him.

A knock immediately preceded, “Damian? You ready?”

Damian turned and nodded at Richard, “Yes, I believe I am.”

He looked over his brother, searching his skin for anything like Damian’s own mark, but beyond real scars, Richard was unblemished.

His brother, and guardian, smiled at him, “Great, let’s go! It’s a beautiful day and I promised you some ducks.”

Damian allowed a smile, “Yes you did.”

They spent the day at one of Gotham’s parks. Richard said they were doing recon to determine if Wayne Enterprise should fund a beautification project, but Damian was well aware his brother was using this as a day of relaxation. He was taking the day off work, and Damian had been excused from classwork for the outing.

He’d intended to take the recon seriously, by marking down elements both in favor of, and against selecting this park as the location for beautification funds. And for a little while Damian had. Then he’d flipped to a blank page in his notebook and started sketching the scene ahead of them.

Beside him, Richard lounged on their picnic blanket, reading what looked to be a romance book, and picking at grapes Pennyworth had packed for them. Normally, Damian would take the opportunity to berate him for laziness, but they had faced a number of difficult patrols over the past few nights and Damian was inclined to let him have his break.

Richard consistently drilled into him the importance of caring for one’s body all the time, mentally and physically. Damian knew this day would make Batman safer in the field, and also--he was kind of enjoying the quiet time. It was new to him, learning to relax and feel safe outside of the very few places he’d had at the League, but he could see the appeal to it. It did help keep him sharp, and he was always better rested after.

So he focused on on relaxing. He sketched for a while, drawing the pond first, and the trees around it. Then flipping the page to work on his figure drawing. As he drew, Damian’s eyes caught on marks. On birthmarks, and scars, and tattoos. Most importantly, his eyes locked onto various not-scars. Which is what they had to be.

He doodled them on another sheet. Drawing each unique one. Even those that were similar in style usually had little differences. A star might have one arm longer than the other, while one was perfect.

The only time he saw two of them match perfectly were on a couple pushing a stroller. The couple had little numbers on the back of their hands, one on their left, the other on the right. Damian pressed his lips together. They could have been tattoos, many people had them, but Damian couldn’t help but wonder.

He had been wondering since he’d arrived in Gotham months ago. People here all had marks. They had marks and they showed them off. Confused, Damian had messaged his mother to ask her. She’d said they were scars, tattoos, birthmarks that were meaningless. They were the marks of a different type of people than Damian had been raised around.

Distance had a way of stripping his mother’s voice of it’s old comforting truth.

But he had been busy learning. There was so much to learn in Gotham that had nothing to do with the mark on his body. Damian had spent more time frustrated about rules, and fearing he’d be sent back to a place that felt less and less like home every day. More and more time learning to be a good Robin to his Batman, and learning to trust Richard.

The question of his mark was rarely on Damian’s mind, and mostly relegated to moments he was alone or like this.

He glanced over at Richard. The man was still immersed in his book and Damian’s question died on his lips. He flipped his book to a new page and focused back on the pond, specifically the ducks swimming around on it. He had, after all, been promised some ducks.

That night they returned to patrol. Damian almost suggested they take a break, but they’d been working a drug trafficking case over the course of the week and were close to wrapping it up. If all went well during this patrol then they could rest. Damian would insist upon it if Richard did not.

They staked out an old appliance store. Richard figured the drugs were being shipped out either in the appliances or the crates. They just needed to intercept a shipment, incapacitate the team working on it, and confirm the drugs were there. Then they could call in Gordon and be done with all this.

Batman and Robin were crouched together. Richard had declared that they should stick close tonight. Damian wondered if it was because he knew they both were still feeling a little worn down. He could read it in Richard’s body language, and he knew his mentor could read the same in his.

After around twenty or so minutes, a truck pulled up to the building and the shipping door opened to allow it to back in. They watched for a moment, confirming no other trucks were on their way, and then both pulled back from the edge of the roof they’d been peering over.

Richard pointed to a large vent they could drop in on the store from. Damian nodded, and followed his mentor. The slipped into the vents, then moved like mice over to where the shipping area was located. Damian paused behind Richard as the man peered through an exhaust vent to watch the proceedings below.

“They’ve started unloading.” he whispered, then tapped something on his cowl and was silent for another long moment, “And they’re talking about the drugs.”

“So we go?” Damian asked.

“I’d say so.” Richard said, “Stick close tonight Robin, I’ve seen a couple guns swinging around and I don’t want to explain a bullet wound to Al tonight.”

“The same goes for you.” Damian responded.

“There’s twelve by my count, two of those are still in the car. Try to get to them first. I’ll grab the guys with the guns,” Richard directed.

“Affirmative.” Damian agreed. Taking out the ones that could remove the product, and the ones that were the most dangerous first was a good idea.

With that, Richard kicked out the vent, tossed a handful of gas pellets, and they dropped into the smoke.

Damian bolted through it for the truck. He was able to easily dodge the men and women in the room, now sent into a flurry of action and confusion over the smoke. He ducked around the driver’s seat of the truck and yanked the door open.

The man inside was shocked, and Damian was able to use that element of surprise to yank the man out of the front, sending him tumbling to the ground. A few quick blows had him unconscious.

Damian straightened, and turned back towards the truck cab. His eyes went wide, seeing the passenger leaning over both seats, a gun aimed out the door at him. Damian dodged to the side as the gun went off. Pain sliced through his arm as the bullet nicked him, but at least it hadn’t hit him in anything vital.

He swore, Richard had just told him not to get shot.

He snarled at the man, immediately returning fire with a batarang. It caught fingers, and the gun went tumbling to the floor of the cab. Damian then lurched forward, and dragged the passenger out of the car. Twisting his arm as he fell to drag it up behind his back.

In another movement, Damian grabbed the man’s other hand and yanked it behind his back, securing them both with a zip tie.

“Stay.” he growled into his ear, “Or you will regret it.”

He climbed up into the cab and jammed a pole under the steering wheel, locking it in place to keep it from moving if anyone tried to drive the truck.

With that, he turned back into the fray. At this point the smoke had begun to clear. Damian could see that Batman had knocked out a few men already, they were down to 8 enemies to fight. Richard’s warning to stay close was fresh in Damian’s mind, his throbbing arm a reminder that maybe his Batman had wanted him to not quite jump ahead like he had. But then again, Damian should have been able to handle two men in a truck.

He huffed, and fell into line beside Batman.

“Robin, you get the car under control?”

“It will not be going anywhere.” Damian confirmed.

“Good.” There was something tight in Richard’s voice Damian didn’t recognize, but there wasn’t time to explore the reason for that the other men and women were on them already.

Damian had to admit, he and Richard worked well as a team. They were efficient, and quick. Richard’s insistence on having them run drills and practice together before they’d ever gone out into the field had paid off early on, and since then they’d only built on that success.

They managed to take out the rest of the criminals quickly, and they prevented any of them from escaping. After that, Richard directed Damian to zip tie the unconscious thugs while he checked out the boxes of goods.

As Damian was finishing up with the last man, Richard called out, “Found them! I’m calling it in.”

“Good, I am finished here.”

They paired back up outside the building as Batman called the car to their location. Damian had his cape tugged over his arm in an attempt to hide the bleeding, but as they waited, a breeze caught him by surprise and tugged it up, and out of the way.

“Robin!” Batman said, “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been injured?”

Damian tugged his cape back in place, scowling, “You told me not to get shot.”

Then his eyes caught on Richard’s left arm, it too was visible and bleeding. Damian pointed at him, accusing.

“You as well! How could you not tell me you’d been injured?”

Richard opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, “I-For the same reason as you. It happened right at the start.”

That must have been why Damian hadn’t heard it, they’d been shot at roughly the same time.

His brother shook his head, “Amazing, we both managed to do the one thing we didn’t want to. Alf’s going to have a field day with this one.”

When they returned to the bunker Alfred directed them both to a shared cot.

“Shirts off young masters, I’ll need to dress both of those wounds.”

Damian rolled his eyes and started tugging off his vest, then undershirt. It wasn’t until it was off that he remembered he still had not covered up his mark. Hopefully they would lump it in with the other scars across his chest.

It was not to be however. Next to him, Richard had stilled. He was staring at Damian’s chest. Damian could feel it, his eyes locked on the feather just under his collarbone.

He froze, his spine stiffening. He didn’t know what to say. His mother’s excuses felt like lies on his tongue and he knew he couldn’t give them to Richard. The man wouldn’t believe him for a moment.

Richard’s gaze was strangely soft. Not angry or upset or any of the things Damian had come to expect from what someone might do when they saw his not-scar. It made him want to squirm in his seat, but he was Damian al Ghul-Wayne. He did not squirm.

“Damian--” Richard’s voice was terribly soft, his eyes glittering, “I had no idea.”

Damian swallowed, there it was. The sadness that he had thought might come. It was dangerous. Seeing it put people in danger, and Richard had seen it, and Damian--Damian did not want him in any kind of danger.

He reached up to put his hand over the mark, and looked down, “I am sorry--I forgot. Had I remembered I hadn’t covered it I would not have--I would have dressed my arm on my own.”

“Do you not want me to see it?” Richard sounded hurt.

Damian looked back up at him, surprised. Richard sounded like he did when Damian was particularly cruel. He tried not to be that way sometimes, but--well pain or frustration drove him to saying things he regretted.

“I--Mother told me no one was allowed to.” He pressed his palm against it a little tighter.

“Why?” Now Richard sounded confused.

Damian was confused. Shouldn’t he know? The way Mother spoke of it had made Damian believe it to be something that anyone would recognize. A black mark.

“It is dangerous.” Damian said simply, “Just seeing it would put myself and others in danger.”

Richard’s brow was furrowed. Behind him, Alfred cleared his throat.

“Master Damian, might I ask, do you know of soul marks?”

“What?” Damian asked, looking up at him, “No, I have never heard of the term.”

Something twisted in his stomach. Sour and warm. He was certain now Mother had lied. He didn’t know why she had lied, but it was making him sick. The warmth was a kind of hope. An answer to the questions plaguing him since he’d arrived.

“A soul mark is a mark each of us are born with. It is to help us find the person most suited for us in the world. Some people never meet their soulmates, but find love all the same but others do and their marks always match.”

Damian remembered the couple he’d seen in the park, their matching hands.

“So then--this is one of those? Not a scar?”

He let his hand drop, fingers grazing the feather.

“I can confirm that it is indeed a soul mark.” Alfred said.

Damian frowned at him, “Have you seen its match?”

Alfred smiled at him. Richard cleared his throat and Damian returned his attention to him. Understanding now blooming, Richard had thought he’d keep something like a soul mark from him. Had believed Damian wouldn’t want him to know something so personal. He must apologize.

Before he could get the words out, Richard had tugged his own shirt off and there, under his collar bone and just above his heart was a feather. It was the feather. Damian’s feather. The one he had seen every day in the mirror. The one he’d traced a hundred times wondering about.

“Oh.” Damian said.

And then, “I don’t understand. I--we would not be romantically compatible?”

Richard snorted, “Soulmates don’t have to be romantically involved, Dames. It can be totally platonic. Often best friends will have matching marks, or a father and son. It just means--well it means we fit together in a special way. That we’ll always be precious to each other.”

Damian could have told Richard that, and it seemed his body had already done the work for him. Or fate? Damian felt he may get a headache if he tried to figure this out.

The point was, Richard was the most important person in his life. He just--he’d had no idea that it had been declared before he’d even met the man. Before he even knew that they would get to the point where they’d trust each other with their lives. It felt right. Instead of a declaration these marks were a promise.

Richard had chosen to love Damian with his whole heart before even knowing who Damian would be to him. And Damian? Well Damian had done the same.

“I hate to break up this moment, but you are both still bleeding.” Alfred said, “You may continue to talk but I really must begin caring for your wounds.”

Damian blushed, “Yes, of course.”

Instead of talking, they fell into silence, both Damian and Richard lost in their own thoughts. Soon, Alfred was finished, and had dismissed both of them.

Damian looked from Richard to the elevator that would return them to the penthouse and back, “I still have questions.” he said, not wanting to be sent to bed with his mind still racing.

“Me too.” Richard said, “How about some cocoa? We can talk upstairs.”

“That sounds nice.”

They moved up to the penthouse, and Damian sat at the bar, his hands pressed into the marble countertop of it. They’d both dressed in pajamas, but even with a shirt tugged over his soul mark --and how nice it was to have a real word for it-- he still felt exposed. Raw. Like there was something new and strange about him.

But nothing had happened with it. It was still there, still the same color and size. Still just a part of him that he’d always had.

“So.” Richard said, taking the seat next to him, and sliding a mug of steaming hot chocolate over, “You have questions?”

“As do you.” Damian said, taking the mug to hold between his palms, “Why don’t you ask yours first?”

His brother hummed, “I think yours will probably answer mine, but let’s start with something easy or maybe not easy, but, well what do you know about soulmates or marks?”

Damian nodded, “I--Mother never explained soulmates to me. I know the term only in a general sense. A phrase used not literally, but figuratively to describe two people romantically entwined. None of my teachers spoke of it, and no one at the League did either.”

He tapped his mug, “I was not blind, I saw the marks. But I believed them to be other things. Scars, birthmarks, or--well I did not have a word for what they were.” Damian could not look at Richard, it was silly. He should have asked more, pressed Mother for answers or done his own research, “It was not until I arrived in Gotham that I saw so many and began to wonder. Surely not everyone in the world could have gotten tattoos? But--not all were visible and so I did not ask.”

Richard was quiet, listening and taking in Damian’s words with rapt attention. He hadn’t even sipped his cocoa. Damian took a gulp of his, just to do something that wasn’t watching his brother.

“And yours?” Richard asked, “What did Talia tell you about it?”

“I--Mother told me mine was dangerous.” Damian pressed his fingers to his chest again, “I was not to talk about it or ask about it. It was supposed to be a scar, from an attack on me when I was a baby. But I always knew it was not. Still, she was insistent I not tell anyone or let others see. Especially Grandfather.”

Damian frowned, “I thought for a long while it was to protect him. That I was cursed.”

He looked up at Richard, into his brother’s eyes, and knew at last why Mother had been so insistent he stay silent, “But I was wrong. Mother was protecting me, and you. If Grandfather knew I had a soulmate, he would have hunted the world for them, and then used them against me.”

Damian did not think he could have stood having Richard in danger because of him. He hated the very thought that anything would happen to his brother. Especially because of him.

He sipped his drink again, “Mother used to rub her wrist. I saw a mark there once. A little bat. I never asked her about it, and she never offered to tell me--Richard? Do the marks have special meaning? Or are they obscure?”

“They do have a meaning, there’s a lot of meaning in their placement and look and well everything.”

“Teach me?”

His brother smiled, “Of course. I’d be happy to.”

They worked their way through their mugs, and second rounds while Richard spoke. He talked about how soul marks that were hidden usually meant that the relationship was more intimate, but not always. How marks mirrored each other, one on the left, one on the right so that the pair could be face to face and match, like looking in a mirror. How if one’s soulmate died the mark faded to be almost invisible or if their relationship broke and shattered how it would line with cracks.

“Just because someone has a soulmate doesn’t mean that things will work out perfectly. We are human after all.” Richard said.

Some people could be born without marks, and very rarely one would change, and shift to take on the form of another. Most often that happened if a soulmate had died, but sometimes it happened for other reasons.

“And the meaning?” Damian pressed, wanting to know, to understand why a feather? Why this mark on his skin and not something else?

His brother hummed, “There’s books and stuff out on their meanings, especially for marks of similar styles. But when it all comes down to it, the meaning really comes from the pair. Some people know instantly why a mark looks the way it does. A shared memory or love of something. Maybe it is the first line a lover traced across another’s wrist, or an idea that is important to them.”

He leaned forward, elbow on the bar’s counter, “Want to take a guess at ours?”

Damian furrowed his brow, “Robin?” he guessed, “or your previous title, Nightwing is indicative of a bird and flight?”

Richard nodded, “Those are good thoughts. I’ve always looked at it as a symbol of flying and of freedom. But feathers have other meanings too. Trust, loyalty, hope, a connection between the creature who had the feather and where it has gone now.”

“I like those.” Damian said, and then looked down at his mug, “You have given me many of those things.”

“And you’ve done the same for me.” Richard said, “We don’t need to name why it is a feather you know. We can feel the meaning here.” he pressed a palm to his heart, “and just know.”

Damian nodded, “I am glad I share it with you. And--I am glad I did not know before now.”

His brother frowned, then nodded, “I see, if you did, and we’d have seen each other’s marks, then you might have thought our relationship was because of the soul mark?”

“Is that silly?” he said, peering up.

“No. It’s a worry a lot of people have.” Richard reached out and took Damian’s free hand, “But soul marks don’t make relationships Damian. They just indicate potential, and while they are incredibly accurate in that indication, it’s up to us what we do with it.”

Damian squeezed Richard’s hand, “I see. We are--doing well?”

Richard laughed, “I’d say so. We had a rough start, but yes, Dames. I think we’re doing just fine.”

Damian smiled, “Excellent. Thank you for answering my questions.”

“Of course.” His brother stretched, “Now, it’s later than either of us should be up. We can chat more tomorrow.”

“Yes.” Damian said.

They got up, rinsed their cups and moved to the hall with the bedrooms. Damian paused, hesitating before he entered his own.

“I was planning to suggest we take the night off patrol, but our injuries have cemented that. Perhaps we can return to the park tomorrow?” he said.

Richard smiled, “Sounds like a plan.” In a motion he tugged Damian forward into a tight hug and pressed a kiss to his forehead, “Love you, kiddo.”

Damian returned the hug, “You as well.”

[avatar-news]

The Fire Nation Awaits 🌺 An in-depth look at the ever-elusive islands in the era of Korra and when we will finally pay them a visit

[Artwork by Avatar News; not official.]

Note: This article was published before the official announcement of Avatar Studios at the Paramount+ investor day.

“Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.” We’ve all heard those words a million times. The four elements, and the power to control them bestowed by four subspecies of giant lion-turtles, are at the very heart of the world of Avatar. The balance between them was once upon a time broken by one of the four, the Fire Nation, forming the main conflict of Avatar: The Last Airbender. For much of Aang and the Gaang’s quest at the close of the Hundred Year War, the Fire Nation was a forbidden, far-away location, until the curtain was finally drawn back in the aptly-named Book Three: Fire when our heroes entered the inferno, undercover behind enemy lines. A dramatic tropical destination! New outfits! Culture shock! Needless to say, it was a big deal.

→ 🌺 The big reveal of the Fire Nation in Book Three: Fire had its own marketing push, matching public anticipation.

When the Hundred Year War ended, the newly-instated Fire Lord Zuko dedicated his life to righting the wrongs of his forefathers and working with Avatar Aang to bring the Fire Nation back into the fold under peace. By the time Aang’s successor debuted as the next Avatar in the titular The Legend of Korra, Zuko had abdicated the five-pointed crown and his daughter, Fire Lord Izumi, took the stage leading a reformed, rebalanced Fire Nation.

There was no more war, no more enemy lines, yet the Fire Nation became more distant and mysterious than ever before.

Korra’s close encounters with the land of fire

To this day, Korra has never visited the Fire Nation, nor has it been seen at all, nor do we know anything about it in her era. In fact, practically the only thing we do know is that its leader is a noninterventionist, which conveniently gets it out of the way of making an appearance in Korra’s journey as the Avatar so far.

The closest we have come to seeing the Fire Nation in The Legend of Korra was in Book Two: Spirits, Chapter Five: Peacekeepers. In the midst of the Water Tribe Civil War, Korra sets out across the sea to get help from the royal family, however, she is intercepted by a dark spirit and never makes it to her destination. In the next episode, she washes up on a secret island home to the Bhanti sages, which probably technically counts as Fire Nation territory, but as we know from The Shadow of Kyoshi (more on that later), this faction predates the Four Nations themselves so it doesn’t really count.

→ 🌺 Korra washes up on the beach of Bhanti Island in Book Two: Spirits, Chapter Six: The Sting.

No, as cool as that location and the events of the Beginnings two-parter that happened there were, it wasn’t the main draw of seeing the Fire Nation that we’re still waiting for: seeing how the Fire Nation, which was already industrializing in Aang’s time, changed over the decades, compared to places like Republic City and Ba Sing Se; meeting new characters; visiting new and familiar locations; worldbuilding both new and expanding on what we already learned.

After this aborted tease in Book Two, we never come close to the island country again (at least not with this Avatar and in her era; yes I’m leading up to something...). Instead, the focus turns strongly to the Earth Kingdom in the third and fourth Books, and beyond.

Keep in mind that The Legend of Korra aired for about two-and-a-half years total from 2012 to 2014. Since then, the story has continued in comics. The comics era has lasted from 2015 to present-- seven years to the animated series’ two. In that time, there have only been two comic trilogies due to various production troubles, and neither have touched the Fire Nation. Instead, they directly continue the Earth Kingdom-focused threads started in Books Three and Four of Korra, both originally airing in 2014. Or, in perspective: we had a focus on Republic City in 2012, the Water Tribes in 2013, and the Earth Kingdom from 2014-2021.

Will we finally see the Fire Nation in the next graphic novel trilogy?

This question comes to mind every time new Korra content is supposed to roll around, and the powers that be know it-- it’s a pretty obvious gap in the world of Avatar right now. This franchise is iconically built around four elements and the Four Nations based on them, so one of them being MIA is quite glaring, and for that reason everyone is understandably always asking about it.

The most concrete confirmation we’ve gotten was this AMA answer from franchise co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino in 2016, two years after the show ended and a year before the first graphic novels did come out:

“Yes, hopefully in the [Korra] comics, we’ll have a chance to go to the Fire Nation and see how it has changed since A:TLA.”

Since then, as previously discussed, two comic trilogies have come and gone, obviously not getting closer to the Fire Nation-- and I would actually argue entrenching themselves further away from it.

I want to make it clear that I’m against fan entitlement. Creatives telling the tales they want to in service of the story and the artform is how the industry should run. I’m just hoping to offer some perspective on how we got to where we are almost a decade into the era of Korra and the metatextual pacing of the franchise itself.

Either way, the next Korra comic trilogy has been official confirmed by the editor for Avatar at Dark Horse Comics in this informal statement on Twitter:

We’re not ready to announce any details yet, but we are working on the next trilogy. I really appreciate your patience and hope it’s worth the wait! ✨

There’s currently some kind of holdup for which we really have zero context or information, and we of course have no idea what this next trilogy will be about. (I do speculate a bit on what it could be a few paragraphs down.)

But, like what turned out to be Ruins of the Empire before it, I faithfully made a mockup graphic for my post announcing the confirmation of the next The Legend of Korra graphic novel trilogy. And like before, I chose to completely speculatively and blindly make it Fire Nation-y, as if the next comic could/would(/should?) feature it. This is mainly because I feel like that’s what most people’s eyes would be caught by and thus result in the most successful post (hey, at least I’m honest), but also because it’s just fun.

Here are both images, from 2018 and 2020 respectively:

→ 🌺 Speculative edits I made for my posts on the announcement of previous and upcoming Korra comics before we knew anything about them.

In both cases, the response was huge, and people were super excited about the prospect of Fire Nation content just from my quick speculative mockups. I am of course hoping that the new artwork I made of the Krew for this post will have a similar effect (it’s the first time I just straight-up drew it instead of editing existing images) but again it’s really mostly just for fun.

Anyway, until the next trilogy is properly revealed, we’ll just have to wait and see.

However, that’s not the only place this could happen.

Are they saving the Fire Nation for an animated movie?

With Avatar’s HUGE success on Netflix last year, interest in the franchise rocketed to an all-time high. The streaming wars have begun, and Avatar’s owner and its parent company, Nickelodeon and ViacomCBS, have finally started to notice.

ViacomCBS is launching Paramount+ on March 4th, a relaunch of its existing streaming service CBS All Access. Paramount+ is meant to be a big expansion and refocus to compete with the big hitters: Disney+, HBO Max, and, yes, Netflix. (There’s quite an entanglement there, with Netflix being the home of Avatar’s big year and the upcoming live-action series.)

One of the keys to a successful streamer today is high-profile originals to drive new subscribers. ViacomCBS knows this and they know Avatar has just become among the highest profiles a property can have, breaking records and going toe-to-toe with other big-hitting sci-fi/fantasy/genre franchises. This knowledge goes right to the top of the food chain: the CEO of ViacomCBS mentioned Avatar by name when discussing potential originals for Paramount+.

I have previously discussed how The Search relates to this. The Search was the second ATLA comic trilogy, focused on the search for Zuko’s mother in the thick of the Fire Nation, and if you didn’t know, it was originally pitched by Bryke as an animated movie after the original series ended.

I just want to be clear that what I’m discussing here is purely speculative, but this is the only other piece of the Avatar franchise that we know was optioned for animation besides the shows themselves. It’s possible they would be interested in going back to this idea as a Paramount+ original (and it would certainly be popular among audiences), but it is of course set during the era of Aang and thus covers both a time period we’ve already seen, and also by nature of already being released as comics, events we’ve already seen too.

However, the whole point of this article is that there is one major, huge thing we haven’t seen yet, with massive anticipation building for a decade behind it: the Fire Nation in the era of Korra. So, again, this is just speculation, but it’s also possible that they could return to the very smallest seed of the original idea for a The Search movie, and do a Fire Nation-focused Korra movie now.

→ 🌺 ATLA’s Fire Nation-focused The Search was originally pitched as an animated movie.

You can skip this next part if you don’t want to see me embarrassingly promote my fan idea 😆 but this is where the artwork I made for this article comes into play. The general idea for it, and the reason I tried to replicate the show’s style as much as possible, is that it’s what a Fire Nation-focused movie could maybe look like. Something as standalone and unrelated to Earth Kingdom drama as possible, with fresh new looks for the Krew to get people excited for something fresh and new! I really feel like the Avatar franchise has so much potential for expanded content like this, that’s why I have high hopes that Paramount+ will make the most out of it! You can see the individual characters’ artwork in larger size here. Ok I’m done back to business.

If the idea of a movie seems too impossible to you, we can also take a deeper look at Bryke’s involvement with upcoming comics instead.

After Korra ended, they officially each went their separate ways. They vaguely consulted on Avatar stuff, and Mike of course wrote the Korra comics, but Bryan was planning on writing and drawing his own original non-Avatar comic series and Mike was releasing his own non-Avatar novels. This all appears to have come to a stop when they signed on to showrun the live-action retelling of ATLA at Netflix, officially reuniting the partnership and committing to Avatar again in a big way. Of course, they ended up leaving that project over creative differences, but it did result in a big, lasting change: this time they remained official creative partners and have indicated they’re still working on Avatar now, together. This is a far cry from the official breakup after Korra, so it begs the question what exactly they’re working on. I of course have my fanciful predictions of a sprawling expansion of the Avatar franchise at Paramount+, but what if it’s actually a combination of the ingredients from before the live-action series...

More speculation, but what if the reason for all the mystery behind the next Korra comics is because they will be made by Bryke, with the two of them co-writing and Bryan doing the art for the first time? If that’s the case, they could want to make them a bigger deal than the other Avatar comics have been so far, and maybe that’s why it’s taking so long to iron everything out, have a more significant story, have more of a marketing push, etc. If they’ve been saving the Fire Nation for something big, this could be it.

I personally think this is less likely than a show or movies or something, but it is possible. Anything is possible right now since we know so little about the large-scale direction of the franchise moving forward, just that it’s gonna get big.

⛰️🌋 The Fire Nation in the era of Avatar Kyoshi

We’re not done! Despite everything I’ve written here, believe it or not, the Fire Nation was actually the star of the show in the last year.

With the debut of the Avatar franchise’s first original novels, Kyoshi made a huge splash (in a way only she can). If you haven’t read them yet, you NEED to-- they’re some of the best Avatar content EVER. The Rise of Kyoshi hit shelves in 2019 and The Shadow of Kyoshi followed in 2020. The latter is of particular interest here, because it was almost entirely set in the Fire Nation and featured practically everything and anything you could want from a visit to elusive islands. Though obviously set in a historical period some four hundred years before Aang’s time, Kyoshi’s sojourn in the Fire Nation gave us a huge amount of new information, a depth and breadth of worldbuilding, culture, and character we’ve never really seen in Avatar before. It truly makes the most of the literary medium, so hats off to author F. C. Yee for the passion and effort he put in.

In The Shadow of Kyoshi, we learn about the era of the previous fire Avatar before Roku, Avatar Szeto. Through Kyoshi and her own Team Avatar, we learn about the different clans and islands of the Fire Nation, as they experience the fraught early reign of Fire Lord Zoryu and the conflict between the Keohso and Saowon clans, culminating in the Camellia-Peony War. We get a multitude of fleshed-out perspectives from the upper crust to the flea-bitten underworld, matching the heights of the worldbuilding quality of Republic City. It’s such cool, intricate stuff, and really shows Avatar’s potential (and that’s all just the worldbuilding-- the character work is also top-notch).

That’s not the only place the Fire Nation has shone recently. One of Insight Editions’ awesome scrapbooks, Legacy of the Fire Nation, gave us a tour through the royal family’s history, including never-before-seen looks at young Iroh and Ozai and much, much more.

All this just goes to show that the Fire Nation has been a hot ticket throughout the ages and there’s one conspicuous gap in that history: the era of Avatar Korra. With so much recent expansion and development of the Fire Nation in our world, it would be perfect to see the culmination of it all in the current time period in the world of Avatar too.

If this made you excited for the potential of what the Avatar franchise could look like in the coming years, same boat!

The next concrete date where something could be announced is February 24th, when ViacomCBS will host their investor day and present their streaming strategy, including Paramount+ originals. There’s no guarantee Avatar is mentioned, but I’m keeping a hopeful eye out.

As for comics, Dark Horse’s schedule marches to its own beat, so there’s no way to know when the next drop of information is coming our way.

Could this finally be the comics that take us to the Fire Nation, or could the much-anticipated visit be in another medium like animation? Stay tuned-- as always I’ll post as soon as we learn anything new!

[cecesunshine]

Oiiii vim pelo confissões

Você poderia fazer a prompt 1 e 10 (acho que elas combinam bem uma com a outra) com o Alistair? Não sei se tem que especificar pronomes, mas poderia ser ela/dela se não incomodar?

It’s done, sorry for taking so long! Espero que você não se importe que eu tenha escrito em inglês. Beijinhos anjo <3

Masterlist

The Only Thing | Alistair Drew

Summary → The only thing that makes early morning practice tolerable for Alistair is when Scholar watches it. It’s time for him to have courage and confess his love for her.

Pairing → Alistair Drew x Scholar

Warnings → None

Word Count → 1830

Prompts used → 1. Can I kiss you? + 10. That was unexpected.

A/N → As requested, Scholar uses she/her pronouns! Also, English is not my first language, so I apologize if there are errors or if something doesn't make sense.

As soon as autumn arrived, with it came the cold wind and the endless rain. Alistair rolled his eyes as he saw the cloudy sky that waited for him outside through his window. His bed was warm and it was Saturday, which intensified his desire to stay in bed.

Alistair forced himself to get up, feeling the cold of the floor as soon as his feet touched the floor. He took a quick glance at Tadashi, who was still sleeping. Poor guy, he needed a break after everything that happened between him and his father in the last few days. Alistair walked silently to the wardrobe that he shared with his roommate, taking out the red Athletics Department shirt and black sweatpants and leaving them on the top of his bed. Alistair grabbed his shower products and left the room, heading to the bathroom.

The dorm was relatively quiet, as it was 5:40 in the morning. Alistair loved his department, and he loved everything he did but god, he envied the fact they could sleep into late hours of the morning. As he entered the bathroom, he saw that he wasn’t alone. There was Scholar, fixing her hair with a concentrated look on her face.

“Good morning, Scholar.” Alistair greeted her, going in her direction and leaning into the wall.

“Alistair! Hi, I didn’t even see you coming in!” Scholar greeted him back, quite startled at the sudden salutation given to her. “Why are you up so early?”

“I have practice, the real question is, why are YOU up so early? It’s Saturday, you need to rest.” Alistair asked, studying her features. If there was something that he liked about Scholar, it was definitely her eyes, always wandering around the room or simply focused on something. He had noticed how she would avoid eye contact and look around at random stuff when she was nervous.

“I want to do the homework that Ms. Rodriguez gave us early so I don’t have to worry about it during the rest of the weekend.” Scholar replied, staring at herself in the mirror again. “Also, I didn’t know Coach worked on the weekends.”

“He doesn’t, the Athletic Department students do it voluntarily, it’s part of the job. Although sometimes the only thing you want to do is sleep until late afternoon.”

“Well, shouldn’t other students from your department be up already?”

“We talked about it in our group chat, the other girls from the soccer team had a game yesterday and they are super tired, so they’re not coming. Raquel sprained her ankle so she’s not coming either and some of the boys said that they will be ditching practice today.” Alistair told her, then started counting on his fingers. “So taking me, Rick and some other guys, there will be probably 6 or 7 people at the gym today.”

“Got it. Well, good luck for you and the guys today.” Scholar said as she was making her way to the door.

“Scholar, wait!” The words left Alistair’s mouth almost immediately. “Do you want to...I don’t know...have breakfast with me?” Very slick, Al, he thought.

“I would love to. Meet me in my room when you're ready, ok?” She said and finally left, leaving a red Alistair alone in the bathroom, still processing what happened.

Alistair showered quickly, feeling his hands trembling as he ran his finger through his blonde hair. He needed to be nice and clean for her.

He made his way back to his room, dressing up in his usual practice outfit, trying to style it so it would look better.

"Wow man, never seen you so worried about how you look for practice." Said Tadashi, who had just woken up.

"I'm not only going to practice, I'm going to have breakfast with Scholar." Alistair announced, fixing his shirt. "Tucked in or tucked out?"

"In, obviously. You don't want her to think that you don't care." Tadashi joked. “I mean, she probably knows that you like her. Is not like you are very discreet about it, you’re always walking around her, complimenting her, flexing your muscles to her. It's cute to see, you’re like her personal golden retriever.”

Alistair didn’t reply, he just shot a serious look to his friend, so he would stop. Not because it wasn’t true, but because Alistair wasn’t aware of how other people looked at him every time he would orbit around Scholar. After finishing dressing himself, Alistair grabbed his varsity jacket and quickly said his goodbyes to Tadashi, who was planning on getting more sleep.

In the dorm hallway, the blonde boy knocked into Scholar’s room door, who came out seconds later. She was wearing black jeans, a white knitted sweater and her famous red scarf and was carrying her purse.

“Hi Al.” She greeted him once again. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes. Let’s get some food, I’m starving.”

They both made their way quickly into the cafeteria, which was surprisingly empty. As Scholar sat down, Alistair went to the counter, where he got a coffee and a strawberry cake for Scholar and an energetic and a protein bar for him.

“Thank you.” Scholar thanked Alistair, as he put the table on the plate. “You know, I was very surprised you’d ask me to get breakfast with you. I thought you were mad at me or something.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know, after I congratulated you for the Athletics Department’s presentation at the competition you looked…” She stopped talking, as she was looking for the right words. "uncomfortable. I thought that maybe I said something wrong and I didn’t want to bother you so I decided that I wouldn’t ask you what I did wrong because I didn’t want to upset you even more, so when you asked me for breakfast I was shocked.”

“Scholar, it’s impossible for me to be mad at you. You are the sweetest person I know.” Alistair said, reaching to her hand, grabbing it gently as Scholar looked away blushing, clearly embarrassed at this caring gesture.

They both ate the rest of the meal quietly, sometimes exchanging little smiles and stealing glances that ended up with both blushing or laughing quietly. If anyone else saw them, they would say they were a couple, but they couldn’t see it as they were both oblivious.

The time to leave finally arrived, where Scholar offered to walk Alistair to the gym, which he happily accepted.

As Alistair presumed, the gym was almost empty besides some boys who were doing push-ups and seeing who would be the first to give up.

“I guess this is your stop. I need to go do my homework so I’ll probably go back to the cafeteria.” Scholar pointed to her purse, where all of her supplies were, and then looked to Alistair, who seemed sad about the fact that she was leaving. “Or...I could do my homework while you practice, if that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah, absolutely.” Alistair agreed almost immediately, giving her a smile. For him, this was an opportunity to impress Scholar. She would see him doing the thing that he does the best.

As Scholar sat down at the bleachers and started taking her stuff out of the bag, Alistair started stretching, warming up his muscles and took off running around the gym. He was really excited to work out in front of Scholar, as this was probably the sneakiest way to show off to her without exactly showing off.

Scholar was supposed to focus on her homework, but at that moment, she could only focus on Alistair, who had stopped running and was now participating in a push-up contest with the other boys of his department.

As the boys gave up and left, Alistair started laughing. Alistair wiped his sweaty face with his face, showing off his abs and his muscular form. God, had he always been that handsome?, Scholar wondered and quickly brushed up that thought as Alistair was walking towards her.

“Everything alright?” The blonde boy asked, taking a sip of his water bottle. “I’m sorry if seeing me training is boring to you.”

“Nothing is ever boring with you Al, and I love being around you.”She said, making Alistair blush. ”Are you finished yet?”

“Finished? I barely even started. I still need to take the boxing supplies out of the storage room and set them up and then I’ll start the boxing practice. Do you want to help?”

Scholar agreed, setting her things down. Already in the storage room, they both started to take out the things and setting it up in the gym, sometimes touching hands and blushing madly.

With everything set up, Alistair began punching the punching bag, always keeping an eye on Scholar, who gave up on doing her homework and was now just watching him. Alistair smiled, his plan was working.

“How do you not have a girlfriend or boyfriend?” She abruptly asked, taking Alistair by surprise.

“W-What?” Alistair spoke, his voice trembling and betraying him at that moment.

“How are you not dating someone?” Scholar questioned again. “Tell me, how is Alistair Drew, one of Arlington’s most attractive boys, single?”

“Well, it’s complicated.” Alistair took off his gloves and his headgear, sitting next to her. “I’m only single because I’m a coward.”

“What do you mean coward?”

Alistair looked at her, staring deeply into her eyes. He needed to tell her, it was time to finally be brave. He held her hand caressing it with his thumb. Scholar reciprocated, also looking into his eyes, giving him a confused look.

“Scholar, I like you.” He finally confessed, still looking at her. “I’ve been trying to tell you this for a while but I was always looking for the right moment. But the truth is, I was just afraid of telling you how I feel because I didn’t know how you would react. You are the most incredible person I know, you’re simply the best.” Alistair got silent for a few seconds and then spoke again. “I really like you...and I hope you like me too.”

After his confession, none of them knew what to say. The silence between them was uncomfortable, in a way that neither of them could put into words.

“Well, that was unexpected.” Scholar said, trying to help the situation. “Look Alistair, that day during the competition, I was going to say the same thing.”

“What?” He questioned.

“I was going to confess to you. I feel the same, Al.” Scholar announced, smiling shyly. “I like you.”

Now, the silence between them was comfortable. So comfortable that they were now closer than ever, as Alistair placed his hand on Scholar's chin, looking at her like she was the only person in the whole world.

“Can I kiss you?” He asked for permission, waiting anxiously for an answer.

“Yes Alistair, you can.”

And their lips touched, as both were involved in a loving but innocent kiss.

[vkelleyart]

Dear Vanessa! I am forever in love with your art and it helped me through my depression back in spring, I am very grateful for it. There is something special about how you painting emotions, it makes me so soft and sentimental, but I can't figure (as a painting method) what exactly do you do - to pass them so truly and touching. I'm working on my drawing skills (I'm a beginner) and faces are my weak spot. If you can - can you give some tips on how get better at drawing them (faces and emotions)?

Oh wow. 🥺 I’m so touched to hear my artwork had a positive impact on you during such a tough time. Thank you for sharing something so personal with me, and I hope you’re feeling much better now!

As to drawing emotions, I’m so happy you think I do a decent job, because it’s something I work hard to improve on all the time. I could probably do a tutorial series on just this topic alone, but as the internet has loads of resources on drawing emotions already, I’ll try to expand a bit on what I do personally to push expressions into more subtle territory.

Let me just start by saying there’s nothing wrong with hunting down photographs and using them as references for painting expressions if you’re having trouble articulating an emotion. It is, however, easy to over-rely on them and—especially where illustration, sequential art, or animation are concerned—you run the risk of drawing a face that, because it’s a facsimile of a photo, might not have that living “spark” that comes of inhabiting a character from the inside and drawing “off-script.” And illustration needs to tell a story, not copy an expression.

1) Step into your character’s skin.

When I drew last Saturday’s scene from Wayward Son, I literally made every expression on the page as I was painting them, because the value of the scene was in the subtext, or things unspoken (i.e. Baz and Simon’s faces needed to do double-duty in communicating what was happening). Making the faces as I drew made a difference because, in wearing the expression myself, I could feel how the muscles in my face changed, and where my eyes, eyebrows, mouth, etc. were “storing emotion,” if that makes sense.

Let’s take Baz’s face in this panel:

Rainbow gives us a very brief description of what Baz looks like at this point: “His eyes are narrow and shadowed.” Naturally, I started there, but that’s not quite enough to visually convey what’s also happening here:

Baz is hiding his pain.

So what do we do when we are both in pain but trying to shield others from seeing it? When I tried that emotion on for size, I realized I wouldn’t make eye contact at all. My lips pursed a bit, as if to seal my mouth shut and prevent the pain from leaking out. My eyebrows furrowed, not quite in anger, but rather in resignation. Sitting in Baz’s skin, I realized I wouldn’t slouch either. These are all things that informed teeny adjustments to the sketch and helped back up Simon’s assessment that Baz was lying.

Here’s another:

We don’t get any description of Simon’s horror at seeing what has happened to Baz’s chest. What we get is a gruesome and graphic depiction of what Baz’s skin looks like and Simon’s italicized “Baz.”

It takes stepping into the character’s skin to see what his face would look like (and that would go for anyone who’s reading the book, let alone drawing from it). So I thought to myself, the person Simon loves most has been wounded in a way he’s never seen before. When I “tried on” that scenario, a hybrid expression took shape on my own face. My upperlip was slightly curled in horror. My eyebrows pulled in and up in fear. My eyes went wide, but stayed just a bit soft (because that’s the product of mixing shock with concern). And the end result is what you see above.

Sometimes I have a mirror handy for this sort of operation because emotions are complicated things to nail. But often it’s enough just to feel it and see if what I’m looking at on the screen or on paper is matching what I feel. If not, I have to reassess and see where certain lines can be pushed/pulled to capture what I am aiming for. Occasionally this strategy doesn’t work, but I will say that my success at nailing expressions skyrockets when I act it out myself. Lol

2) Build emotions from broken down gestures. If you are a beginner to drawing expressions, it helps to think of the face as an equation with components that add up to an emotion. Look at comics, cartoons, and other illustrations/art to see where certain gestures show up again and again, and use that exposure to build a vocabulary of features that you can mix and match to create some basic expressions.

For example:

(Forgive the crudeness of the above illustration. I’m cranking this out on my lunch break! Lol)

3) Experiment! Honestly the best way to get good at drawing emotions is to practice and play (and those are not mutually exclusive terms) with expressions. I started out studying the work of one of my all-time favorite animators, Glen Keane, because I always thought his characters looked so soulful. So I looked at his character sheets for Ariel, the Beast, Tarzan, etc. and tried my hand at duplicating them. It helped me learn that I often had to be more exaggerated with my expressions than I was naturally inclined to be if I wanted people to resonate with the emotion I was trying to convey on paper.

That’s all I’ve got for you today, but I hope this gave you a bit of insight into my personal process. Again there are LOADS of resources on the web if you even just type in the words “how to draw facial expressions,” but the above should help take you a bit further than the tutorials and establish a personal connection to the art that you produce.

Good luck, and if you feel so inclined, I hope you’ll share your creations!

[mcwriting]

sweet home alabama (2)

Hi all! Between marriage project and some one shots, I decided to upload this chapter!

Reminder: Characters have strong southern accents (save for Tom in the present).

Masterlist

Word Count: 2618

Warnings: slight injury mention

∆ present ∆

The weekend came and went, allowing Tom some time to get a new wardrobe for farmwork and acquire a pair of boots, as his last pair had been passed down and worn out by Sam years ago.

Tom had been enjoying a peaceful rest when he was jolted awake by two hands forcefully shaking him.

“What the- Sam! What are you doing?” Tom exclaimed, sitting up.

“You gotta go to Mel’s today, right? Sun rises in an hour. Better get up and eat ‘fore you head over there,” the younger brother explained. Tom tossed back his head and groaned.

“Fine. I’ll get up,” he replied, tossing off his quilt and sheet.

With the money Tom had made in recent years, he had been able to send some home every so often, which helped fund a much needed expansion of the family home. Unfortunately, they hadn’t added enough bathrooms for each brother to get their own.

“Tom! What in God’s name is taking you so long! You’re gonna be working cotton not modeling it!” Harry yelled, pounding on the door.

“Alright alright! It’s all yours!” Tom exclaimed as he opened up the door. Harry couldn’t help but laugh at his brother.

Though Tom had dressed in a button up, jeans, and boots, he had also made sure to style his hair until every wisp sat straight.

“You know you’re gonna sweat that gel off in ten minutes, right? Especially if you wear a hat.”

Tom rolled his eyes.

“Harry, you know me. There’s always a camera somewhere. Gotta be ready for anything. And it’s pomade, not gel.”

The other young twin just rolled his eyes back and slammed the door shut.

∆

A few minutes down the road, y/n was getting ready to start her own day. She rose at dawn like always, stretching a bit and hopping out of bed.

Though she was living a country life, she still took the time to do a full skincare routine, being especially attentive to the products she used and how much sunscreen she applied.

Since she wouldn’t be at any farms in the morning, y/n put on leggings and tshirt and headed out the door, a granola bar in hand. She only had to drive a mile away to get to the “s.h.e.d.”

As usual, she was the first one there, so she keyed in and turned on all the lights. She took in a deep breath of the smells of the soil and chemicals around her as she tossed on her lab coat.

You didn’t think she was any ordinary farm girl, did you?

In reality, she had actually gone to UCLA, getting degrees in both chemistry and environmental engineering. Now she had spent the last year doing research thanks to a grant to improve the agricultural health of her hometown so she could eventually receive a master’s degree.

But we’ll talk more on that later.

Now that the sun was finally peeking above the horizon, her two lab assistants finally showed up.

Her assistants, Ciara and Jacob, were students at a community college in the town 45 minutes away. They were bright and the three always enjoyed working together, as they played fun music and conversed while recording research.

“Hey! Glad y’all could finally make it! Y’all know that last week I collected more samples from Mel’s, so today I want to prepare a gram from each jar in solution so we can run samples and start looking at what nutrients need supplementing and where so I can put a fertilizer together for tomorrow.”

The two were happy to follow their boss’s instruction, and y/n couldn’t help but smile as she scanned over her lab, remembering where she started.

∆ 16 years old ∆

Y/n had always been good at school.

A straight A student, never one to act out or deliberately miss work. Everyone knew she was bright, and she continued to prove that as she aged.

By sophomore year of high school, she was already an above-average scorer on the ACT and was taking courses above her grade level to keep from boring herself.

But in a town as small as hers, one could only get so advanced in high school alone.

Thankfully once she was a junior, the community college Ciara and Jacob were now attending allowed students to enroll in some basic online classes and receive credit, so long as they had good enough internet connection.

Because she was ahead, y/n had a free period where she could mooch off of the school’s wifi in an empty classroom. However, she didn’t have the same luxury at home, and had to go to Tom’s to complete any assignments after school.

By this point, Tom had been going to small auditions for a couple years, picking up the occasional commercial role and making a few bucks here and there, enough to get his family better TV and internet, anyways.

“Hey, y/n?” Tom asked one day, late in the fall. He laid back on the bed, tossing a foam basketball above his head while y/n worked on her college math class from the floor. She hummed in response, holding a pencil between her teeth.

“What are you plannin’ to do with all this college stuff anyways?” he asked. His accent was still as strong as ever. He hadn’t taught himself to let it go yet.

“I’on know. Maybe git a degree and move out of this town for a while. Find a real job that ain’t baling hay or planting stuff. You know I really love science,” she replied. She knew she had a lot of options, she was only a couple points away from that perfect ACT score by now.

There was a pause as she continued to tap numbers into a calculator and record them.

“I got another audition ‘fore thanksgiving,'' Tom announced after a while. Y/n didn’t look up.

“Oh yeah? What for, toothpaste ad or somethin’?”

“Uh, no actually. This one’s for a movie. A real movie.”

Y/n dropped the pencil and looked up at Tom, pushing up from the ground to sit on her knees as he sat up straight.

“Really? You’re serious? You ain’t pulling my leg or something?”

Tom smiled big and nodded.

“I mean it. I really got this audition coming up.”

“Oh my gosh, TOM!”

Y/n quickly stood up, tackling her best friend in a hug, practically ending up on his lap. They stayed that way for a while.

“Tom, this is seriously incredible. You’re gonna be in a movie!”

He pulled back quickly.

“Don’t be too quick, now. This is only an audition, there’s no way to say I’ll actually get the part-” he started, but y/n got off him and kneeled on the floor, so that her eyes were level with his and she could grab his upper arms to look at him directly.

“You’re gonna get that part,” she smiled, unable to contain her excitement. “You’re gonna nail that audition, and you’re getting that part. This is gonna be your big break, I just know it.”

“Thanks for believin’ in me. Hopefully I won’t prove you a liar this time,” he replied, pulling her up into another hug.

She ended up being right, too, because after his first audition, he got a callback during Christmas break and secured the role which he’d film the summer between junior and senior year.

The pair knew they were really starting to grow up, but didn’t let their different pursuits come between them just yet.

Tom was the one who drove her to her final ACT where she got her perfect score (since she didn’t have a car yet), and the movie filmed a few hours away in the Birmingham area (where y/n drove Tom’s truck in his absence since he was still too young to live there alone).

It worked, for the most part.

∆ present ∆

Tom drew in a sharp breath and winced, limping through the barn and plopping onto a hay bale as he gulped down some water. He had been walking up and down the rows watering the plants, as the four-wheeler Melanie’s dad typically used to water was broken.

“How’s it looking, Mr. Carmichael?” he asked, dabbing away the sweat on his forehead with a towel as he rehydrated.

The older gentleman stood up and looked at Tom.

“Well, son. I’ve almost got this thing here fixed, but you ain’t looking too good,” he pointed out.

“What do you mean, sir?” Tom asked. He may have lost his accent, but didn’t forget his manners.

“Looks like you’ve been ridin’ horses the way you’re walkin’. New boots? Not to mention that sunburn you’re startin’ to nurse. Why don’t you run up to the house and have Mel fix those up. I’m sure her momma fixed some lunch for ya, too.”

“A- are you sure, sir? I’ve only got about 10 more rows before I’m done.”

“No, no. It’s alright, boy. Run along and fix yourself up. I’ll handle the rest.”

Tom thanked the man and slowly got up, immediately remembering the pain in his feet and now aware of the stinging on his cheeks.

He’d forgotten that boots don’t really break themselves in and he hadn’t worn very thick socks. He also had somehow neglected that the sun beats just as hard in the farmlands as it does in Malibu.

He waddled up to the house, where Melanie was on the porch reading a book.

“Well by God, Tom. You’re walkin’ like you just got your back blown out for the first time,” she laughed, causing his cheeks to redden more.

“They’re new boots, alright? Now could you help me out? Your dad said you might know of something?”

She looked past him towards the barn, then closed her book and nodded her head towards the door, standing.

“Come on. Momma made you a sandwich if you want it. You can leave your boots by the door.”

They headed inside, a large living room on the right and the kitchen to the left. Tom wiggled his shoes and socks off in the entryway as Melanie ducked into a hallway to grab a few things.

“Oh Tom! I’m glad you came in! Are you hungry? I’ve got lunch for ya,” Mrs. Carmichael said as she appeared from the kitchen.

“That would be really nice, Mrs. Carmichael. Thank you,” he replied as she sat him down at the kitchen table, placing a plate with a turkey sandwich and some chips in front of him along with a glass of sweet tea.

He dug into the meal, immediately realizing just how hungry he really was. By the time he’d finished the sandwich (which really didn’t take that long), Melanie appeared with a laundry basket full of stuff. Tom washed down his meal with some tea before speaking.

“Jesus, Mel, how much does it take to patch up some blisters?” he asked.

“First off, don’t be takin’ the Lord’s name in vain in this house,” she commanded, pointing her head towards her mother in the living room, to which Tom covered his mouth and shot a thumbs up. “And second, I figured it best just to grab all my stuff than dig through it.”

She plopped the basket on the table and herself into the seat next to Tom, stealing a chip from his plate. It crunched in her mouth as she began pulling out random things like a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff, and meds.

“What’s that all for?” Tom asked, brows furrowed. Melanie gave back an equally confused look and went back to digging.

“What do you mean? They’re just medical supplies.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean why do you have a stethoscope and stuff?”

She paused what she was doing and looked back up at Tom.

“You do know I’m a nurse, right?” she asked. She immediately knew he didn’t by the way his eyes popped open.

After high school, Melanie had been able to go off and get her nursing degree, now working in the closest hospital which was, you guessed it, 45 minutes away.

She usually worked 12 hour shifts at the hospital Tuesday through Thursday, spending her other days at home so she could respond to small needs around town, especially on weekends when people liked to get drunk and be reckless.

“Oh, wow. I didn’t realize that. Good for you,” Tom replied, unsure of what else to say.

“It’s alright. You’ve been gone quite a while and we all know you ain’t checking in on what happens ‘round these parts no more. Now take this and let me grab the aloe from the fridge,” she said, dropping two advil on his plate and getting up.

Tom did as told, feeling the weight of what she had dismissively said. He really hadn’t checked in since leaving. Sure, his brothers and Harrison sometimes kept him in the loop. At least, he thought so.

He was trying to remember what the last big piece of news he had heard about home was, but came up short. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had seen anything on social media about home, since he’d unfollowed most of the people back home after his career took off.

They all reminded him of y/n anyways.

“You mind if I put some of this on your face?” Melanie asked, snapping him out of his thoughts. He obliged and she spread some of the cool aloe gel over his sunburn.

“Feel better?” she asked, to which he nodded. “Good, now let’s take a look at those blisters.”

She cringed when she saw how beat up his feet were. She pulled out a bit of numbing gel, hydrocolloid bandages, and fabric tape. Soon enough, she had his blisters all covered up and was handing him some more bandages and tape.

“Now I want you to leave these on as long as possible, alright? When they fall off or the spot in the middle gets too big, you’ll switch ‘em out for new. You should be in ship shape here in a few days. And you best not forget sunscreen from now on.”

“Will do. Thanks again, Mel. Hard to believe I’ve been gone long enough for you to become a nurse and all, huh?” Tom asked, half joking. Melanie nodded.

“Yeah, well. ‘Lot’s changed around here, even if it don’t look like it. You’d be surprised… Now before I forget...” Melanie quickly got up and left the room, returning with two wood and metal contraptions. “Here’s some boot stretchers to put in your shoes when you get home. Should help stretch ‘em out and I’m sure the boys would lend you some leather conditioner.”

With that, Tom put his boots back on and thanked Mrs. Carmichael for the meal, heading back outside. He found Mr. Carmichael sitting on the now-functioning four wheeler.

“Well, boy, you all good?” the older man asked.

“Yes sir. Melanie got me all taped up and your wife made a great lunch. So what else do you need me to do?”

Mr. Carmichael looked around for a moment, staring at a few things, then back at Tom.

“Well I got the rest all watered and y/n won’t be around with fertilizer till tomorrow so why don’t you go home and rest up those feet, eh?”

Tom tried to object, as it was still quite early in the day, but the old man wouldn’t have it. He eventually conceded and gave one last thank you, hopping into his old truck and heading home, pondering why y/n would be bringing fertilizer in the coming day.

∆

A/N: hope you guys are liking this story so far! I really love the time jumping, and the progression of it in future chapters is really cool!

Send a message or ask if you’d like to be added to my permanent or series taglists so I can verify you’ve been added!

Tag list: @jackiehollanderr, @one-big-fangirl, @l0lmk, @primadonnasdream, @bookworm06, @thenoddingbunny-blog, @agentnataliahofferson, @spider-babe, @stxfxniexreads, @mortallythoughtfulgurl, @onebigolemess, @justafangirlduh,

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

so since I’ve been talking about The Music Man a lot recently, it is time for the story of The Time It Traumatized Me In Eighth Grade And As A Result Caused A Middle School-Wide Disciplinary Incident [but I do still love this musical because it was not the musical’s fault]

so. the time and place is my school (pre-K through 12th grade) in the first half of 2016, when the middle schoolers were presenting The Music Man, Jr. As an eighth-grade performing arts nerd, I of course signed up (my school was small enough that anyone who signed up automatically was part of the cast) and after auditions, I managed to get Marian Paroo. hooray!!!

other relevant backstory: in the fall of 2014, my now-IRL best friend transferred to my school. we were pals at first but when we realized that we were each other’s biggest intellectual competition, we became frenemies, but shortly before second semester of eighth grade we’d finally gotten over ourselves and become friends.

so, there was this one girl in our class who was super-popular, and she happened to hard ship me and my now IRL-best friend, but neither of us was interested in dating anyone, much less each other. the problem: she’d also gotten most of our class to ship us.

so fast-forward to the Valentine’s Day dance. it’s the last song of the night, and some kid not from our grade asks the two of us to dance with each other. not assuming anything (which was a huge mistake), the two of us decided to dance with each other as friends. unfortunately, the super-popular girl filmed us dancing together and used that as more ammo to ship us.

the main point of that story is that I probably should have seen what was coming next, but I didn’t because I tend to think the best of people.

so fast-forward again, this time to mid-April. by now, dress rehearsals are starting, and that means no slouching on the acting, which meant that my Harold Hill (a seventh-grade boy, and by the way, I should mention that I skipped a grade and my birthday is in late April [if you’re reading this right after I posted it, my birthday is today, actually], so we are the same age) and I had to act every last cringey lovey-dovey bit of “Till There Was You”.

now, this super-popular girl was apparently hellbent on shipping me with every remotely realistic boy, and without my knowledge, she stood in the wings and took several awkward photos of the scene. and then she edited them, drew a lot of hearts, tried to insinuate that we either were dating or should date, and then spread them all over Snapchat.

now here’s the thing: I didn’t find out about this for several days. for one thing, I didn’t have Snapchat (and I still don’t) and for another, even if I had Snapchat, my parents had literally confiscated my smartphone (which they had given me) in the sixth grade and only allowed me to even use it on very special occasions. I wasn’t even allowed to take it to school. and no, I couldn’t use it at home either, particularly because they’d hidden it and I didn’t know where it was and couldn’t very well snoop. but I digress.

anyway, the reason I found out about this was because six days before opening night, there was a birthday party for one of the girls in the class. everyone was invited to lunch at the girl’s parents’ restaurant and then afterwards, the girls got to go to her house for a sleepover. (yes I was allowed to go, although that was almost revoked due to an unrelated incident that happened right before about which I will not go into detail; no I was not allowed to take my phone.)

during the party, my now IRL best friend pulled me aside, whipped out his phone, and said, “Hey, I really think you should see this. (super-popular girl) took these and sent them to the entire grade on Snapchat.” And then he showed me every single one. And I about died of mortification right there.

Three days later, there was another dress rehearsal, and it was all going fine and well. We started “Till There Was You”, and as luck would have it, my path of vision went directly into one of the wings, and I saw not one, not two, but three cellphone lights pointed directly at me.

and I froze. it was either freeze or break down because I didn’t want what had already happened to happen again, so I froze and couldn’t bring myself to do anything for the rest of the rehearsal.

after rehearsal, three seventh-grade girls approached me and asked me what was wrong. I spilled everything to them, and it turns out that they were the three whose lights had been on, but not for malicious purposes: they had been trying to prank the boy playing Harold with the “flashlights a la at a concert during a slow song” thing, but had thought that he and I were on opposite sides from where we actually were and as a result had shone them at the wrong person. they also had no idea about the Snapchat incident from the previous weekend and they genuinely apologized.

then the director asked what had happened and I told her everything. and effective the next day, she banned cellphones from the entire auditorium area for the remainder of the production.

also the next day, she apparently told the Middle and High School Dean because I was called in and questioned for several minutes about everything and then let go. it turned out that the dean eventually questioned the entire eighth grade about the incident.

well, the rest of the production went off without a hitch, but come Monday, the dean and the PRINCIPAL came into eighth grade study hall and spent the ENTIRE PERIOD lecturing everyone about respecting privacy and not taking and spreading photos without consent. and everyone knew exactly what was going on, and I was already embarrassed enough, and to top it off it was my birthday, so I was red as a tomato the entire time.

I’m not sure what punishment, if any, super-popular girl got, but she left after that year...but only because her chances of getting basketball scholarships were better if she went to public school (yeah even then she was over six feet tall). And even through senior year, peers and even family members (who still engage in this even though I’m in college and an Adult) continued to ship me with both my IRL best friend and the boy who played Harold Hill. so things didn’t really get a whole lot better on that front.

anyway, that’s that. glad it’s out there and not just in my mind and in the faded memories of everyone involved. don’t ship IRL people without their consent.

[themuzzleofnemesis]

Prologue--The Intruders

The Muzzle of Nemesis, pages 4-15

When I looked out the window, I saw that at some point it had started snowing.

The inside of the hospital had heating, so I didn’t feel the cold even in my light clothes. When I pulled my eyes from the window and looked to the bulletin board, I saw a sheet of paper was pinned to it declaring that the Christmas party had been canceled.

That there was no sign of anyone in town wasn't just because of the snow. Nobody had the time or resources to celebrate Christmas anymore.

How many people are even left in the world in the first place?, I wondered. Probably half of when the population was at its highest--no, even less than that. Even the news playing on the radio never reported any precise numbers, perhaps because it was being restricted.

Though, I was certain it hadn't yet dropped to "0".

Because I was still here, at least.

Even so, the day when I wouldn't be wasn't far off.

There were many things I needed to do before the world fell to ruin completely.

.

My colleagues had all returned to their homes. It seemed I was the only one in the hospital.

The patient beds were also empty, but that wasn’t necessarily limited to tonight. This hospital wasn’t a facility made to cure “normal” patients to begin with.

It would probably be more accurate not to call this a hospital but rather a "research facility". People who had a very specific ailment were quarantined here, and made the subjects of research—however, our last patient died just the other day.

She had pressed her switch herself--in a word, "suicide".

So it wasn’t like we could carry out any new clinical studies by working overtime. The director had told everyone to go home and spend time with their families for the night, but I didn’t feel like doing that at all.

I’m aware that I’m a bit eccentric, but my mother and my brother are even weirder than I am. And I saw them practically every day as coworkers in this very hospital, so there was no need for all three of us to get together and spend Christmas at home tonight.

My mother and brother probably hadn't gone home either. My mother was most likely staying overnight with some new man, and my brother was--well, he'd be tottering around somewhere, dressed like a woman, as usual.

Even without a test subject, there was still a large amount of clinical data that had yet to be put in order. I was at my desk tonight to put it all together into a single thesis.

There wasn’t necessarily a place I could publish the thesis once it was finished. And there was no guarantee that it would be of any use.

But when the day came, I would stop being able to perform the research I had been doing up until now. When the project moved into its next stage, I would be given a different role.

I wanted to bring all that research to an end before then, no matter what.

.

The sound coming from the radio had cut off. The broadcast for today had finished.

I didn’t do well with this stillness, without any white noise in the background. All the more in the middle of the night like this.

It's not--that I'm afraid or anything.

It was right when I stood and drew towards my antique music player, intending to have some kind of white noise in the background

"--Evening."

I unintentionally gave a start at the sudden voice that I heard behind me.

"Who's there!?"

I fearfully turned around.

The entrance door was open, and there was someone standing there--Although well, it’d be even more frightening if there had been just the voice with no one standing there.

They were short, wearing a cap that hung so low as to conceal their eyes, and the collar of their coat hid their mouth.

For a moment I thought, "Santa Claus?", because their coat was red, but of course that couldn't be it. Thinking on it realistically, the kind of visitor who would come here suddenly in the middle of the night like this—would probably be a burglar, or a deviant; no one here for anything good, at any rate.

I took out a pistol that had been carelessly left on top of a locker and pointed it at the other person.

"Get out. Anyone who’s not authorized is forbidden to be here."

Even though they had a gun pointed at them, this person didn't falter in the slightest. I couldn't see their face so I didn't know what expression they had on, but they didn't run away or put their hands up, simply standing at attention and saying, "How odd for a gun to be in a hospital."

They sounded young. It appeared to me that it was either a young boy's voice, or a girl speaking with an attempt to imitate a male tone.

"A product of the times. You never know when you're going to be attacked by some deviant, so it's only natural, don't you think?"

"These 'deviants' you're talking about--do you mean the people who become your research subjects?"

"Yeah, you could say that. And…people like you."

He reached a hand into his coat, and pulled something out.

The moment I realized it was a gun--I pulled the trigger without hesitation.

"--!?”

--The bullet passed right by the other’s head, and embedded itself into the far wall.

“You missed. Or…perhaps you did that on purpose. If so, you have quite good aim.”

"Next time I'll hit you for real. --I'll say it again, get out of here now!"

He flung the gun that he was carrying onto the floor, and finally raised both hands.

But even so, he still didn't move to leave.

“Please don’t misunderstand—I’m not a thief, and I’m not a deviant like you’re thinking. I came here seeking a psychiatric examination.”

"I see. Seems like you need one."

"It's not for me."

So saying, he left the room.

I’d chased him off—Though I was only left to think that for a moment, as he then returned to the room pushing along a wheelchair.

A girl was sitting in that wheelchair. She seemed conscious but her eyes were empty, and simply showed no sanity at all.

"She’s the one I want you to diagnose. Her name is Nemesis Sudou. Sadly, due to what she’s faced she has fallen to this doll-like state you see now.”

“Unfortunately I don’t take walk-ins. You’ll have to properly set up an appointment and come back during the day.”

But he shook his head in refusal.

"I can't do that. We don't have a lot of time left."

“Your problems aren’t my concern.”

“…But we came all this way. I’m sorry, but I’ll force you to do this examination if I have to.”

I could hear the sound of glass breaking from outside the room.

At the same time, there was the cacophony of several men’s voices.

Apparently, this person and the girl in the wheelchair weren't the only intruders.

“The building is already surrounded. Even with a gun, you’re completely outnumbered.”

I didn’t know if what he said was true or a bluff—and I figured that testing that would be a risky gamble.

“…I’d like some guarantee of my life, at least.”

"Of course. Please relax about that. I haven’t the slightest intention of killing you--Dr. Levia Barisol."

“That’s not very persuasive, coming from someone who deliberately wields a gun.”

"Ah…you mean this?"

He scooped up the gun that he’d dropped and then held it out to me.

"It's not loaded. I didn't really bring it here as a weapon."

"Then…why did you?"

I took the gun. It was a revolver, but of very old make.

"She--Nemesis once killed six individuals with this gun."

"Oh, she's a murderer, is she? Then perhaps instead of taking her here you should go to the police?"

“You know yourself that the police aren’t really functioning anymore, don’t you?”

"…True."

It was as he said. Hence a mere researcher like me having a gun.

Right now I was in a world where I had to protect myself, by myself.

“—Well then, what should I be examining about this criminal?”

"I want to know about Nemesis' life. How she lived, and how she came to kill those six people."

"Are you not…an acquaintance of hers?"

"Acquaintance…I suppose so. I know her. But I don't know much about Nemesis."

"I don't understand what you mean when you say that."

"Don't worry, you too will understand that…that is, if you examine her mind.”

This entire time he had been speaking with a calm tone, but I felt as though I was getting glimpses of desperation underneath.

As a psychologist I was somewhat interested in his state of mind, but first it seemed I wouldn’t be able to evade this situation without examining this girl named Nemesis.

"Nice to meet you, Ms. Nemesis," I said to her.

For a moment her eyes flickered in my direction, but then she immediately started staring off into the distance.

Next, I lightly patted her cheek with my hand. There was a reaction, but she didn’t move to brush my hand away, merely keeping silent.

"…There's just one problem." I took my hand from her and said to her attendant, "Looking at the state of her right now, it seems like any kind of mutual understanding will be difficult. I’ll be unable to perform an initial counseling session.”

"Right. Normally, that would be the case. But--isn't there another avenue you can take, Dr. Levia?"

So, he'd come here because he knew about me--about my "ability".

In that case, any half-hearted deception I tried wouldn’t fly.

“Feh.” After I made a harsh sigh, I steeled my resolve and turned to him once more. “So, you want the ‘Swap’—Mind type.”

“Yes, exactly. I’m grateful you’re so quick on the uptake.”

“It’s a very dangerous method. In a worst case scenario it could have a significant negative effect on the subject’s mind—"

“There’s no problem there. As you can see, she was broken a long time ago.”

“…I don’t care much for putting it that way. You shouldn’t be using a word like ‘broken’ to refer to a human being.”

“I apologize if I’ve offended…But I didn’t come here tonight to debate with you over ethics and word choice. Please answer me—yes, or no?”

I had an uncomfortable feeling. Judging by his voice, the person before me was quite young, but yet he was too calm. Talking with him gave me the impression that I was interacting with some elderly person who had walked a life of several decades.

He had said he wasn’t a thief or a deviant. And that he had no intention of killing me.

However—he also hadn’t said a word about not harming me.

…This didn’t seem to me like a situation where I could simply say “no”.

“—Alright. But we’ll need some preparation to perform the ‘Swap’. Will you give me some time for that?”

“Please work as fast as you can.”

He sat down in the chair that I had been sitting in shortly before.

It didn’t look like he was going to leave the room until the preparations were done.

.

--The ‘Swap’ was a special psychiatric examination technique discovered and advocated for by the head of this facility, Professor Held Yggdra.

In principle perhaps you could say it’s a scientific revival of the occult that spans across both the Eastern and Western world. Well, simply put, it is a method through which one can vicariously experience parts of a subject’s life by aligning with their mind.

Naturally, the only people who would be able to do this single-handedly are those with extrasensory perception or psychic mediums (if such people were to actually exist)

But thanks to collaborative research with authorities of other fields, Professor Held was able to successfully construct a device which would make it possible to create a visualization of the mind using brain wave analysis, and to align it with that of another person.

This was a revolutionary invention, but at the same time it had several problems. In order to align with the subject’s mind, it followed that you would need someone to perform this task. But it was also established that the practitioner would need a certain "ability”.

To enter into the consciousness of another means to have two minds co-habiting inside one being. It would be impossible for a normal person to bear such an enormous strain.

Many tests were conducted to find someone with the ability to be this practitioner—this so-called “licensed person”—and I was one of several others who were ultimately selected.

This device that carried out the “Swap”…popularly named the “Black Box”, wound up being used for research in other fields as well. For example, the physicist Seth Twiright (one of the other developers of the Black Box) was able to carry out the observation of parallel worlds, which had until this point had their very existence disputed. That would likely have become the talk of the world if it wasn’t currently in chaos from the destruction crisis that was going on right now.

The Black Box has also been a great aid to my own research as well. My psychiatric analytical methods of the deviants who are responsible for the chaos of the world—technically named “HER”s—have progressed by leaps and bounds thanks to the Black Box.

…Though, well, that wasn’t always a good thing.

.

“That’s quite a large-scale device,” the red-coated boy said to me as I had the girl named Nemesis sit down in the Black Box, now fully prepped.

“It’s actually much smaller than the prototype.”

“I see…So, this—is the Black Box.”

“Are you interested in this kind of machine? Though, the average person’s not liable to ever lay eyes on one, so I suppose that does make it a curiosity.”

"Huh? …Yeah, well, that’s true.”

As the name suggested, the device had an exterior that looked like a black box. It was large enough that two people could just barely fit inside, and there were two seats set up in its interior for the “subject” and the “licensed person” to sit in.

After putting Nemesis in the seat for the subject, I connected several wires to her. I could stab the needle directly into her head…--Of course I wouldn’t do anything savage like that, but still, when I had all of the arrangements settled she had electric wires wrapped around her entire body.

Now then…this is the annoying part.

I had to do the same for myself. This is ordinarily where I would have an aide give me some assistance, but unfortunately the only people here were myself, Nemesis, and…the boy in the red coat.

“You—err, what’s your name?” I asked him.

“Me? …Right. Well—just call me ‘Postman’.”

“That’s an obviously fake name. …Whatever. Well then, Mister Postman. Could you lend me a hand?”

After I sat down in the seat for the “licensed person”, Postman went to attach the wires under my instruction.

“—Is this okay?”

“Yeah, it’s perfect. …Okay, lastly…Please press that red switch. When you do, the ‘Swap’ will commence.”

“Finally.”

“Once you press the switch, leave the Black Box within thirty seconds. After that don’t touch the machine while it’s in operation. Worst case, the hospital will be blown away, not to mention the device.”

That was, as one might expect, a lie, but I figured I ought to say that much.

“So all I can do is wait, huh? How long do you expect it to be until it finishes?”

“That depends on the mind of the subject, but…Whatever the case I’ll make the device halt after an hour.”

“An hour?”

“Neither mine nor the subjects’ spirits will be able to handle any more than that. I’ll probably have to take several breaks to see everything relating to these ‘six people’ you spoke of—the people she’s killed.”

“Nothing for it. If you say you have to. …Well then, I’m pushing the switch.”

Postman pushed the red button with his finger as directed, and immediately left the device.

The black door slowly closed up.

Sigh…What an annoyance, having to align my spirit with that of a murderer.

Sighing inwardly, I began to prepare my mind for the ‘Swap’.

.

Another person’s life. Their experiences.

The next time I was called to consciousness, I—had become Nemesis.

directory------next>>

[blarrghe]

"Watching me while I sweat from exercising" for Dorianders because... of reasons? XD

Up on AO3 or uner the cut! (the formattinig is probably better on AO3 tumblr is the actual worst)

--

Befriending Magister Dorian Pavus continued to be the worst decision Anders had made since the one that had landed him in Tevinter in the first place. Not at the least because being friends with Magister Dorian Pavus was, on a scheduling level, practically impossible. It was almost maddening, how neither of them ever seemed to have any blighted free time. There was Dorian, very important and very busy, always rushing off to meetings or press events or fundraisers or galas, only available for a quick coffee or for trying to convince Anders to go out clubbing at two in the morning. Which, frankly, he had less than no interest in doing — for several reasons, only minimally to do with the fact that the music gave him a headache (the thought of standing by and watching Dorian dance and practice his smarmy lines on attractive club goers made up most of the rest of it). And then there was his own life, overflowing with unkempt medical notes and overdue bills, and a schedule packed with night shifts and on-call hours that made maintaining a regular sleep schedule impossible, never mind a social life. But despite all that, it was nice to have someone to talk to again. Someone passionate and revolutionary and witty and… just about as lonely as he was, so better not to go messing it up. Better to try to maintain this one terrible friendship — the only one he had that wasn't with a "work friend", or a cat. It was just a really difficult thing to do, between the unrepenting workdays and restless nights filled with dreams of his beautiful Maker-damned face.

 Dorian, however, was remarkably good at being his friend. He always managed to make time. Drew it out of thin air, it seemed, conjured it up like magic between his press conferences and business trips. He had this impossibly serendipitous way of always seeming to send a text offering to meet for coffee right as Anders' break was coming up, and thanks to his own life of impossible hours he was always amenable to a spot of caffeine well into the evening. Other times, he'd offer up an address, saying "meet me here tonight if by the end of your shift you're still alive", and Anders would reply "doubtful", and then show up later anyway to the movie theater, or concert hall, or burlesque playhouse, only to fall asleep in his seat once the lights went down — which, at the burlesque playhouse at least, everyone seemed to find incredibly amusing.

 Today, his shift would be finished at an uncommonly early hour, having started at one that was painfully so. And even though his work-to-sleep ratio for the week was currently hovering at around four to one, when a text came in from Dorian during his break that read simply, "lunch later? Meet me if you have an hour free." He cheerfully replied "I'm off at noon!" And decided to postpone his much-needed afternoon nap. Friends with Dorian, he smiled, terrible decision.

  ----

Anders did not work out. Whatever strength he had he came by naturally, by way of pushing hospital equipment around and running up and down stairs all day. His calves, as a result, were particularly firm, and he had defined, if skinny, biceps. His core was probably strong enough, what with the constant balancing act that was keeping up with his daily life, but if he had wanted abs he would probably have to do something about his diet; more protein, fewer sugary carbs, meals that weren't eaten while standing on a city bus. But a personal beauty routine had always been low on his priority list. If he was looking to impress someone, he usually tried to get his bad jokes and the somewhat trashy rebel-mage aesthetic (which he also came by naturally) to do the job for him. It was not, historically, the best strategy. But he also wasn't looking. Dorian, on the other hand, had beauty routines for his beauty routines. Apparently the way to make up for the sleeplessness of a busy life was to exercise regularly, drink exceptionally expensive vitamin concoctions (despite the fact that his friend, who was a doctor, had told him repeatedly that the vitamins in such quantities were oversaturated, contradictory, and essentially useless), and to apply a laundry list of products to one's skin and hair — that, at least, seemed to work.

And so it was that when Anders showed up at the designated spot, practically asleep on his feet and slouching eagerly off the bus towards the promise of an hour of good company and food, that he discovered that the place Dorian had instructed him to meet at was not a restaurant, or even a coffee shop, but a gym. A gym with wide glass windows facing the street, so that the gorgeous, obviously affluent, gym-membership-holders could sweat it out while on display for the benefit of all the less beautiful and less lucky passersby. Or perhaps it was the other way around, and rich people got a kick out of running in place for their health while watching working folk run breathlessly after the busses that pulled up to the dirty old bus shelter on the street outside. Anders didn't know, he didn't go to gyms. But Dorian did; he went to this gym. He paid an exorbitant membership fee and wore a tight t-shirt branded with the gym's logo while he ran himself sweaty on a treadmill, spraying fancy water into his mouth like he was advertising the stuff, and towelling himself off with the clean white towels provided while still running, panting with the efforts of his impressively athletic exertions. This, Anders discovered by staring at him as he did it, through the clear glass window from the street, his mouth falling open and throat going dry until Dorian spotted him, and he snapped his mouth shut while his cheeks went red. Dorian's cheeks were also red, a bead of sweat dripping down over one in a long glistening trail from his temple. He pressed some buttons on the treadmill, slowed down to a walk, smiled, and waved. Anders, like a dumbfounded puppet on a string, raised his hand and dropped it again, in some approximation of returning the greeting.

Ten minutes later, Dorian met Anders outside the door of the clean, white and minimalist setting of the gym's lobby with his regular (still tight) clothes on and his damp hair fragrant with some kind of rich, flower-infused cream.  

"You got here faster than I expected, sorry you had to wait."

"Good bus timing," Anders shrugged, pointedly not looking at him. One intolerable sensation at a time, and he still smelled amazing.

"You know there's an app for the schedules, GPS tracking and everything." Dorian commented. Why he knew that, when he'd probably never taken public transportation in his life, Anders couldn't guess. But then, Dorian was infinitely more organized than he was; good with schedules. Anders, meanwhile, struggled to keep his own thoughts straight, never mind the kinds of itineraries that Dorian kept. So he just nodded along, certain that he would never remember to check, or even download, the recommended app.

Dorian led them up to the intersection, and pressed the button at the crosswalk, every simple movement somehow upright and deliberate. "So, lunch? I'm starving, there's a great place across the street."

Anders glanced back at the gleaming white and chrome of the gym, and the equally sleek boutiques to either side of it. He frowned, fingering the well-worn leather billfold in his pocket. "How great?" He asked, cautiously.

"Great as in healthy, all vegan food and local produce and the like." Dorian smirked at him, and Anders made the mistake of looking at it. He blushed, and frowned some more.

"Oh, great." He said, with very little enthusiasm. A twelve dollar salad and one of those ludicrous vitamin waters, just what he and his malnourished billfold needed.

"You're a doctor, you can't live on cup noodles and granola bars all the time. It sets a bad example." Dorian berated, lightly, in return.

"At least cup noodles have salt." Anders protested, "Maybe too much, but that's better than none at all. And you know organic is just a buzzword, not everything organic is healthier. And the hoops of getting branded "Organic" just make it harder for actual family owned farmers, who grow perfectly healthy crops, to market to sellers," he ranted about it, albeit halfheartedly, until Dorian sighed and shook his head.

"Which is why I said local, not organic. And I've been, I promise they use seasonings. You really think I'd debase myself by dining somewhere that didn't know how to properly use spice?"

Anders grunted, still disapproving.

"It's good, really. You'll like it there, they have cats."

"They have…?" Anders spun to watch Dorian, squinting in confusion at him as he brightened the world about him with another one of those obnoxiously perfect smiles.

"Cats, they're all very tame. You can sit with them while you eat or play with them afterwards. An endeavour of the local animal shelter to help encourage adoption, as I understand it." Dorian explained casually. Then the light changed and he set off walking. Anders followed, significantly less grumpily, though now his stomach was turning flips for an entirely different reason besides hunger.

Forget Kirkwall, actually. Befriending Dorian was, hands down, the absolute worst decision he’d ever made.

[thefloatingstone]

Last time I made a playlist of recommended youtube channels to enjoy while in lockdown or self quarantine, I focused on individual videos while also recommending other videos from the same channel.

I thought I’d make another list only this time I’m going to be recommending playlists or series on youtuber instead of just individual videos.

This is gonna go exactly like last time, so check out any of these that might seem interesting to you, and hopefully I can give you something to look into if you want something to watch but don’t feel like watching a Netflix or Crunchyroll show.

Last time I tried to put this under a read more break but it didn’t work and I ended up posting this long-ass post on everyone’s dash. Well I decided to do so again here. hit J to skip to the bottom of the post if you don’t feel like reading this whole thing. If you’re on tumblr mobile; why?

In no particular order;

Cinemassacre movie reviews and topics

All of you already know James Rolfe as the AVGN. I started watching him before Youtube was even a thing, before he was even signed on with Screwattack. Back when his videos could only be seen on his own website (or for some reason included on the free DVD you got with the local video game magazines). However, I eventually outgrew the outrage style humour of the AVGN episodes... but then James started doing Monster Madness where he would talk about his love for horror movies, and this where I learned about his vast knowledge about movie history and even films I had never even heard mention of before! I think it’s safe to say, he got me to be interested in movie history just as much as movie production and film as a viewing experience.

I recommend this playlist which is a hodgepodge of James talking about old horror movie franchises, talking about his first experience with Power Rangers as someone who didn’t grow up with it, or how Bob Ross is a childhood hero of his. It’s an excellent play list that’s really laid back but you learn a lot of stuff from it. James is very informed for the most part and it leads you to wanting to check out a lot of these things too, just because he’s so passionate about it.

If I ever get over my weird hang up about speaking out loud, these are the kinds of videos I’d like to make.

Vinesauce Vinny: The Neverhood

Vinny is by no means a new Let’s Player, having been on Youtube for over 10 years now, but I only started watching him a few months ago. I started with this playlist when I saw he was doing The Neverhood, a game I had heard about but never seen played before. The Neverhood is a bizarre game, as a point and click PC game from the 90s where the entirety of the video game was made with stop motion and clay. Something that sounds so insane you would say it’s impossible if not for the fact that it exists. The claymation itself is extremely well done, and the game has a really weird and absurd sense of humour. Just the strangest things happen in this thing. Now couple that with Vinny’s very dry and straightforward delivery and you have probably one of the funniest Let’s Plays I’ve watched in a long time.

This is also “short” for a Let’s Play series. With only 4 parts to it, the longest video only being a bit under and hour and 30 minutes. It’ll still take up a good chunk of your time, but it’s not as daunting as some of the other Let’s Plays I’ll mention on this list.

Team Four Star: Pokemon Shield Nuzlocke

Exactly what it says on the tin. The guys from Team Four Star play Pokemon Shield with Nuzlocke rules. They’ve done several Nuzlocke runs in the past, but I find the Pokemon Shield is the best one they’ve done. Especially since a lot of the needless fluff and grinding has been edited out. So unlike some of their previous series you don’t see a lot of Kieran and Grant running in a circle for an hour trying to catch a specific pokemon or trying to get to a certain level.

It’s also hilarious as they have a lot of “house rules” for the Nuzlocke often involving the exercise bike they.... have..... for some reason.

It’s very good and the gym battles become SUPER hype with the Nuzlocke rules and the music.

Baywatching

Having been going to a few years now, watch Allison try her very best to go through and do a video series where she talks about summarises every episode of Baywatch.

.... Ever. Single. Episode.

She’s not even close to done yet (and now she’s introduced Baywatch Nights AS WELL) but her trying to explain the batshit insanity of this show, it’s over the top characters, it’s insane plots and behind the scenes weirdness with all the enthusiasm and love for this slice of 90s is amazing. Please enjoy a good thick chunk of inside jokes, silly character voices, and a whole lot of ?????

Brutal Moose: Shenmue

Probably one of the most chill channels on all of Youtube, Brutal Moose aka Ian, prefers playing games you wouldn’t think would make for good Let’s Plays. And maybe they don’t, objectively. A collection of playlists covering Truck Simulator, Nancy Drew, Hidden Object games etc etc, spliced in with old commercials from drive in theaters from the 50s,60s and 70s. Ian’s Let’s Play channel is great for just putting on and letting play for company while you’re drawing or grinding in a video game or playing Stardew or something.

I recommend his Shenmue playthrough as Ian completely fell in love with the game and went on to play both the sequel and the newly released third game. Ian genuinely adores the weird voice acting and all the menial tasks and mini-games you can do. I watched this a lot in 2018 when I was going through a rough time, and it really helped me in a strange way to just put Ian on and listen to him talk to the chat and drive a forklift around for like 4 hours straight before going to Tomato Mart or wasting all his money on the gacha machines.

A Measured Response to “In Defense of Dark Souls 2″

At some point, big name youtuber Hbomberguy made a video called “In Defense of Dark Souls II”. I’m not subscribed to Hbomberguy but I enjoyed his video on why Sherlock (the BBC show) is trash. (come to think of it I should have added that to the first list). And it seems the video on Sherlock was really good and well argued.... and it seems his “In Defense of Dark Souls 2″ video... was not.

Using subjective language, bad representation of facts, or simply outright getting certain information wrong, Hbomberguy′s video on Dark Souls II is, at best, a man trying to argue that he likes Dark Souls II because it is “Objectively good”, rather than simply accept he likes it... because he likes it.

MauLer is kind of an asshole, but I have learned more about dissecting someone’s argument and deconstructing what they have said watching his response series than I have in any english or debate class I have ever had.

The response is over 10 hours long, but this is because MauLer takes time with each and every statement he takes umbrage with, discussing what is being said, discusses why it is false or dubious, and then compares with actual facts and research.

If you ever want to know how to to distinguish subjective opinion from objective fact in someone else’s argument regarding... ANYTHING really, I highly recommend this series.

I may not like MauLer as a person, but DAMN if he doesn’t know how to deconstruct an argument in a logic, emotionless way.

John Wolfe: Maize

Maize is a stupid game. a Stupid stupid game.

It involves sentient corn, and underground secret genetics lab, a Russian bootleg teddy bear that hates everyone, sentient corn, and a crumpet.

This game IMMEDIATELY went on my wishlist after watching this playthrough. Please watch John try and figure what the actual fuck is going on in this Monty Python-eque weird black comedy. It’s stupid, it’s weird, it’s bizarre and it’s honestly one of the funniest games I’ve seen streamed.

Hollywood: a Celebration of the Silent Era

This is not a youtube playlist. I mean it IS, but what this actually is, is a TV series released in the UK in 1980 covering the Silent Film era. As it was made in 1980, it includes interviews with many of the silent film stars who were often still alive during this documentary’s production. Each episode covers a specific theme of the silent movie era. One episode is about comedies, one is about WWI, one is about Westerns etc etc.

It’s a fascinating series, because it focuses on the silent era which, in modern day, I think many people unfairly think of as “those first few years of movies before movies really became a thing.” And that’s such a shame and really not true. The artistry, camera tricks, and raw nature of this early era of film making is so important and produced films which can still be watched today easily, possibly even easier than a few modern movies as often the very fact that the films are silent means they are universal, regardless of what language you speak.

I think an episode or two might have been turned to private or copyright claimed in this playlist, but I know if you do a search on youtube you can find the episode uploaded by someone else.

Diamanda Hagan: Bonekickers

Bonekickers is the show Mathew Graham made before he went on to work on the new Dr. Who. It is about archaeologists and it is God-fucking-Awful.

It is.... look. Ok. I like Archaeology a lot. But this isn’t a show that’s bad “if you like history” or “if you know things about archaeology”. This show is bad because it doesn’t make a single fucking lick of sense, all the characters are awful and terrible, and even if you understand what’s going on in the story you’re still going to be screaming “WHY????” at the screen as each new baffling stupid piece of the puzzle slots into place.

Diamanda Hagan has 0 time for this garbage and she’s going to walk you through each episode to show you how truly horrible this piece of garbage is.

Cry Plays: Ori and the Blind Forest

With Ori and the Will of the Wisps releasing recently, now is a great time to go and watch Cry playthrough the first Ori game. an absolutely gorgeous piece of work with a beautiful soundtrack and really likeable character designs and a sweet story, Ori is a great game to put on, sit back, and just let it wash over you. Cry’s playthrough is also great because although its a Metroidvania game, Cry fast forwards the parts where he backtracks for a long period of time, so you don’t get stuck watching him run back and forth as he tries to figure out where to go next or anything like that.

Cry also recently started playing the sequel as well!

If you enjoyed this list at all, please consider tipping me for a coffee

☕️ Ko-fi ☕️

[caitlinclark]

The obsession with excellence

Francisco Tudanca was one of the longest-living Brothers from the Salle de La Felguera and one of those who gave me the most noise at breaks. He took me by the shoulder, we took a walk in the courtyard and I just wanted to escape from there and start playing with the rest. Those talks always started with the same phrase “There are people who go through school but the school does not go through them. And there are people who go through school and always carry school with them.” From there came a ten-minute talk about the necessary attitude to be something in life, which was just taking home everything I learned and turning it into something useful. Even maths. And how was I going to spend all morning at school, get home, and instead of lying on the sofa watching cartoons, start thinking about everything I had learned. Even in maths.

When you're little you don’t understand very well how "work on something you like and you will not have to work for a day" works. There are adults who don’t either, of course. But many boys - and more and more girls - will answer you if you ask them about a profession that fits that phrase: footballer. It’s what the glamor of football has. We see these stars on tv, arriving to training in those incredible cars, smiling on magazine covers, with their vacation on yachts, and, of course, with the camera pointed at them during a game in which they are always expected to be the best. The best, today, once again, is Alexia Putellas. If I were a girl still in school today who was asked what she would like to work as, of course I would say a footballer. If they asked me who, I would choose her. Role model in everything and for everything. Alexia carries the poison of football, mud, dedication and sacrifice, and also glamor, with that face of not having broken a plate by which some foreign tweeter deduces that she has no blood to play this. Alexia represents with a ball all the beautiful nuances of football, and, when she doesn’t have it, she watches, with a critical spirit, what the rest must change so that they reach perfection.

During the 1-10 of the Super Cup, the peculiar celebration of her goal drew attention. It was 0-6. She picked up a rebound from a bad clearance by Real Sociedad’s defense and put it in the back of the net with a strong shot. While everyone was high fiving to congratulate each other, she looked for Mapi. With two hands, with four fingers in each, she pointed out that her line could not be so far away from the next one. With six goals in favor, as soon as she scored, she went to correct a defensive maladjustment to her centerback. But not only that. During the celebration, those of us on the field saw a curious scene: several players were taking turns taking a photo with the Cup. Alexia left the group, grabbed Hansen and took her apart from the rest. She used her hands again to make herself understood. Hansen looked at her in silence, and judging by her face, she wasn't surprised. It didn't look like the first time that Alexia and her obsession with excellence did their thing. Putellas is fortunate enough to be surrounded today by Great Priests (priestesses) of football at her club, Jenni, Hansen, Oshoala, Martens, including Patri, Mapi, Paños. An incomparable cast to grow and make visible her quality. However, let us not forget that the great priests always end up consulting the gods. And, here, they always listen to her. There must be a reason.

There are selfish players who only play football, who only think about their own performance, about the nutmeg that appears in all the gifs on Twitter, in the interview at the end of the game that makes them gain popularity. And there are players who live football, who leave their skin so their team wins doing it in a balanced and perfect way. A goal, a backheel, a perfect pass is useless to Alexia, if you do not achieve the goal. And the goal is for heavenly music to play when your team touches the ball, whether you touch it or not. Alexia Putellas does not like cameras, and it seems that she is extremely embarrassed when she win awards. At a time when football players are products that sell products, and in which Federations, Clubs, media, televisions and sponsors are forcing us to turn our women's footbal into another product, there are players like Alexia who only think about football. That is the main difference between her and the rest. We took her to the USA, where the media focus of women's football has blurred from the ball and focused on turning players into stars. Megan Rapinoe is the most obvious proof, but not the only one. The overrated Alex Morgan is the strongest proof that, on the other side of the pond, the ball doesn't matter as much as how well you sell it. And Alexia arrived to show that the ball is the only thing that matters. We played at home of the one who rules the market, in front of the best-selling Nike shirt of last year, and those in the stands did not care much about theirs when they saw how ours played. Do you know why? Because ours played. And, between passes, tackles, runs, and some goals, there was Alexia, like the white-headed eagle that the Yankees love so much, controlling everything.

Her goal against England is perfect, but her celebration is even more so. Alexia let out a scream of rage that silenced everyone who says she has no blood to play this. Yes, they say it about Alexia, about our alexia, can you imagine being so blind to think that? She has blood, head, heart, talent, and a spirit of perfection. She has everything that makes her a genius. We have a jewel who seems to have been playing her entire life and is only 26 years old. There are people who go through football, and football does not go through them. And there are people who go through football and always carry football with them.

[lilith-lovett]

Found Families - Home is Where the Hart is - Chapter Seventeen

Firstly, I want to apologise, it has been so long since I last posted an update for this story but life happens. I have now officially left high school - much earlier than I expected and not under the conditions I wanted - and I am preparing to go to University in September of this year. I want to continue and finish this story and I am thankful to those who have continued to support me despite the lack of regular updates but the next chapter is already in the work and I hope to get that finished soon. I need something to keep me occupied during this lockdown. Thank you for being so patient with me and I hope you continue to enjoy this story xx

Masterlist

Summary: Shopping trips (are stressful)

Word Count: 6557

Warnings: Past child abuse, disordered eating, anxiety, self-deprecation. (If I missed anything please let me know)

Logan awoke the following morning in a panic, unsure of where he was, until he noticed the soft toy tucked against his side he remembered. He was at Patton’s house, this is where he would be living for however long Patton allowed him to. He left the warmth and softness of his bed, collecting a set of clothes from his rucksack, his typical outfit, dressing and making his way to the bathroom in order to survey his appearance. Once determining it was satisfactory, he ventured downstairs. Patton was the only one awake, dressed in a overly large sweater and blue and white striped pyjama pants, humming a pretty tune as he prepared breakfast.

“Oh hiya kiddo, you’re up early,” Patton noted as he observed Logan hovering in the dining room. “I’m guessing you are a early bird?”.

“I believe in keeping to a strict schedule for optimal productivity, “Logan said not completely understanding the expression Patton had used.

“I wish Roman and Virgil thought the same, they are both night owls, staying up late, waking up even later. Though Virgil struggles the most,” Patton said his smile falling as he referenced Virgil, presumably Virgil’s sleeping habits which Logan assumed were poor from his dark under eyes circles and lack of energy. “Oh kiddo, what do you want for breakfast. We have plenty; pancakes, cereal, toast and crofters?”.

“Crofters?” Logan asked.

“Yeah, it is a brand of jam, the kids love it. Have you never had it before?” Patton said pausing in his preparations.

“No, I do not believe so but I do have a fondness for jam,” Logan said recalling the previous special occasions when Maggie would sneak him pots of sweet jam to add to his terribly bland breakfasts, in a variety of flavours though strawberry had always been his favourite.  

“Do you want to try some?” Patton asked extending the jar of strawberry flavoured jelly out towards Logan, who took it, eyeing the sweet-smelling fruit spread curiously as Patton turned once again returning with a spoon. “Here,”.

“You want me to eat it with a spoon…from the jar?” Logan questioned he would have never been allowed to indulge quite like this at the orphanage.

“Yup, it is the only proper way to eat crofters,” Patton announced proudly before withdrawing slightly as if he had spoken out of turn. “Only if you want to, that is,”.

Logan once again eyed the jar in his hand and the spoon still in Patton’s hand, he hadn’t expected this to be such a significant decision or difficult choice to make. He had maintained his strict diet through four years of moving between many orphanages and had never been given the option to satisfy his appetite through more adventurous means. Logan took the spoon from Patton and hovering it above the lip of the jar, scarcely touching the jam inside until he took a deep breath and dipped the spoon into the partially eaten jam before transferring it to his mouth. He experienced the most incredible combination of flavours in a singe mouthful, he couldn’t help but go for another spoonful, a considerably larger one than previously. Experiencing a momentary lapse in self-control as a involuntary smile crept onto his face, receiving an obnoxious squeal from Patton snapping him out of his trance.

“Aw kiddo, I guess you liked it,” Patton explained a wide grin stretched across his lips.

“It was satisfactory,”Logan said dropping the smile from his lips, placing the jar and spoon back on the table a little too harsh as it emitted a sharp clang as it hit the table, causing Logan to flinch.

“So, Crofters on toast for breakfast?” Patton suggested and Logan found he couldn’t refuse.

As Logan sat at the dining room table, a plate of two slices of toast slathered in strawberry jam placed in front of him. Roman and Declan appeared both still dressed in their pyjamas at 8:32 am on the dot - according to Patton this was a daily occurrence - they mumbled their own good mornings and settled down at the table for their breakfast, leaving only Virgil absent from the table. After around fifthteen minutes, long after Roman and Declan had finished their meals and had been excused from the table, Logan had eaten exactly half of his own crofters on toast - which was exceptionally difficult given how delicious the jam was - but he refused to break his own rules due to a simple change in location but instead of retiring to his room he remained sat at the table. Observing Patton as he bustled around the kitchen, clearing away the mess of breakfast, glancing at the clock every so often with heightening levels of concern. Though a mere minute later, the assumed object of his concern -Virgil - appeared, dressed in his usual hoodie, he seemed to never take off, scrubbing tiredly at his eyes.

“Morning Virge, late night again was it?” Patton asked Virgil as he more or less collapsed into the hair opposite Logan, with an upward twitch of the lip in his direction as he groaned in response to Patton’s query. “Well, maybe some breakfast might help to perk you up a little,”.

Patton set a simple bowl of cereal in front of Virgil, who mumbled a thanks and gingerly tucked in to his breakfast, eyes placed firmly down in front of him. Logan suspected this change was due to a lack of sleep and not Logan’s addition to the household, but a small portion of his mind worried Virgil did not appreciate him barging into his family dynamic and his intrusion resulted in his irritation and poor nights sleep.

“Get that down you quick because we are going out today,” Patton announced with a grin as he continued to clean dishes.

“Where?” Roman questioned returning to the living room from his room, now completely dressed in his typical red and white outfit, accented with gold, carrying a large sketchbook and a collection of pencils.

“To the mall, we need to buy Logan some decorations for his room,” Patton answered with a smile in Logan’s direction, he recalled Patton saying they, at some point would be able to purchase some pieces for his new room but he hadn’t expected it to be so soon. What if their arrangement did not work out? Would Logan be indebted to Patton on a financial level? Did Patton not hold the fear of spending so much on a child who he barely knew?

Logan’s biological parents regularly complained about money, specifically about the funds used to meet his needs; food, clothing, tutors, though as he aged he learned all to well his parents upstanding position in society and the large amount of wealth they possessed, used primarily for their own vanity purchases rather than for his upkeep but he found he didn’t mind. What they did teach him was not to want, anything that wasn’t a necessity he could live without. There was no need for frivolous comfort items like toys or decorations. It wasn’t necessary so he did not need it and did not want Patton to waste his hard earned money on him, when Logan had yet to earned or deserved any of it. 

“It is alright Patton, I do not need for you to buy me anything, you have already given me far more than I deserve,” Logan said watching with an odd pain in his chest as Patton smile fell into something resembling pity, though he wasn’t entirely sure why his response had brought about such a reaction. Wouldn’t Patton be pleased he would not be required to spend valuable funds - which could be used for much more pressing matters rather than for his comfort - on him?

“Logan…” Patton began but was quickly interrupted by Virgil.

“Don’t bother trying to change his mind L, he will do it anyway so…” Virgil trailed off before continuing in the consumption of his breakfast. Logan assumed Virgil had, had a similar experience with Patton in the past resulting in his assurance. He also took note of the single letter Virgil referred to him with and despite himself he almost smiled.

“Yup, all of you kiddos deserve nice things and should not have to worry about things like money,” Patton exclaimed with a wide grin. “Even you Logan,”.

Logan jolted at the mention of his name, as Patton spoke directly to him. Nice things. Logan had been told for years he deserved nothing, he told himself he deserved the bare minimum of what he needed for survival yet Patton was now telling him differently. What was he to believe? His own rules which by now had been ingrained so deeply into his mind he could recite each rule by memory or Patton’s kindness.

“So what do you say, Logan?” Patton asked an expecting smile stretched across his lips and he found a lump had formed in his throat as he struggled to find the words to convey his internal battle.

“Okay,” Logan eventually responded after a prolonged period of silence which drew the attention of both Roman and Virgil as well as Patton’s large blue eyes which seemed to grow exponentially wider at Logan’s silence but once the silence was broken, relief faded into his expression and a warm smile replaced the worried one but Logan found himself unable to return it, averting his gaze to the table.

“Yes!” Roman exclaimed as he presumably celebrated Logan’s decision and immediately charged upstairs, to which Virgil responded with an eye roll and Patton a light-hearted chuckle. Though Logan did not share Roman’s enthusiasm at the idea of Patton - who had already provided him with far more than he deserved - spending copious amounts of money on him while he had no method of repayment and this pit of dread developing in his stomach, only grew as the time for their departure steadily approached.          

                                                         ***

The car journey was…interesting to say the least. Roman screamed ‘shotgun’ before even exiting the house which Virgil - who did not seem entirely pleased about Roman exclaiming the name of a highly dangerous weapon - explained that ‘shotgun’ was a sort of ‘code word’ for securing the front seat of the car and the ability to control the car radio and Roman took full advantage of that privilege. Playing a combination of upbeat, dramatic ballads he skilfully sang along to the entire car ride much to the irritation of Virgil who had shoved his large headphones on the minute he entered the car. Patton didn’t seem to mind, humming along to the tunes and even participated in the singing.

Logan was informed they were going to a mall, characterised as a large building which contained a series of smaller shops and retailers. He had never been inside one as his mother had always bought his clothes and any necessities; study materials and the like. Never decorations, toys or anything they deemed useless to his studies. The room Patton had provided was already a vast improvement to the space he occupied both at his parents house and the orphanage, while not as decorated or personal as Roman, Virgil and Dee’s, it contained all of the basic necessities and more. The pit of anxiety only seemed to grow more uncomfortable as he shifted in his seat, attempting not to allow his discomfort to display on his face.

They arrived a short while later, to a large building, occupied by a considerable number of people, bustling between shops with overflowing bags of items. The noise grated uncomfortably on Logan’s ear but he restrained the urge to cover them with his hands, to avoid worrying Patton. Roman marched on ahead, winding through the crowd of people with little care or concern while Virgil and himself hung back, remaining closer to Patton so not to get swept away with the crowd. Patton pushed Declan along in a stroller, smiling to people as he passed as Declan babbled gleefully, clearing pleased with the visual stimulation surrounding him. Virgil not so much, his shoulders were hunched, hands deep within the pockets of his hoodie, large headphones covering his ears - too loud music blasting from them - all signs Virgil was experiencing heightened levels of anxiety which along strengthened the pit of guilt developing in his abdomen. Virgil evidently, did not want to be here.

“Onward, my comrades, venture forth,” Roman exclaimed with a grin as they continued to walk forward, through the crowds of people going about their daily business, entering and exiting smaller rooms on either side of them, bags bursting with items hanging off their arms.

The first establishment they entered was a large department store - chosen by Patton - which contained a wide variety of items; furniture, household appliances, home decorations, technology and more. Everything was organised into sections for easily locating Logan assumed and individuals mulling around the various sections dressed in identical uniforms, presumably employees placed for assistance purposes and just as they entered one of these specifically dressed individuals approached them.

“Hello sir, do you need any help with finding anything today?” The woman said her mousy brown ponytail bouncy as she bounded towards the group, a welcoming grin spread across her face.

“Hi there kiddo, I think we are alright. Thank you for the offer though,” Patton responded equally as cheerful. Logan noted how Patton referred to the woman as ‘kiddo’ despite how she appeared to be of a similar age to Patton himself.

“Of course but if you are in need of any help. Please don’t hesitate to ask myself or one of my colleagues,” She said stepping a side to allow them to pass before glancing towards the stroller which held Declan, and Logan, Roman and Virgil all stood around. “Aw, are these your children, they are so cute,”.

“Thank you. Yes, these are my sons. We are having a family shopping trip,” Patton announced proudly, smiling at each of them as he did. Logan was surprised she didn’t note the significant difference between them as they did not appear to be biologically related but what shocked him more so was being referred to as Patton’s son, not as the child who was living in his house. Patton had called him his son the previous night but he supposed the depth of those words hadn’t fully sunk in yet as he found himself to be repeating them over and over again in his mind. The title feeling foreign to him.

“That sounds lovely, I hope you all enjoys yourselves. Goodbye,” She said with a wave before walking away to tend to another customer.

“Goodbye,” Patton replied. “Now boys, let’s go shopping,”.

They descended deeper into the store. Logan marvelled at the sheer mass and variety of the items which surrounded him, arranged on shelves stretching upwards almost reaching the ceiling of the large building. Roman continued to march ahead, having now collected a cart, he, every few minutes would pause, pick up and investigate an item before returning it to its position on the shelf. Virgil still didn’t move from Patton’s side but he did look considerably less anxious and was sharing his opinions on the items Roman picked from the shelves. Patton did the same while laughing and giggling at the pairs antics as Declan busied himself with a toy he had brought with him.

“Okay, plan of action,” Patton said clapping his hands together bringing everyone to a stop. “We are looking for a desk chair, a rug, curtains, maybe some pillows, a blanket and some stationary organisation. Also, Logan if you see anything you like just tell me and we’ll get it for you. Okay?”.

Logan nodded, unsure of his ability to voice his true feelings. The pit in his stomach only grew with every item Patton listed. All were material objects his biological parents would have viewed as unnecessary and chastised him for his greed and belief that he was deserving of such luxuries. Logan didn’t deserve it. It would simply be a waste of Patton’s hard-earned money. He considered voicing this but he recalled Virgil’s warning from this morning of Patton’s stubbornness, so instead decided to keep quiet and followed behind everyone as they scoured the store.

The first item was located by Patton, found in the back corner of the store, was a selection of rugs in a variety of colours and patterns set out on display, which immediately sparked a conversation between Patton, Roman and Virgil on which rug would fit the ‘aesthetic’ of Logan’s room the best. Logan did not participate, preferring to allow them to decide, as it was their house so they deserved a say in what was purchased for it. He paced the aisle tracing his fingers over the different textures of the rugs. Some were course and rough, Logan skipped over those ones quickly, while others were soft and fluffy, those he allowed his hands to sink into, the material tickling his fingertips.

“Hey Logan, what about this one?” Patton asked gesturing to a navy blue rug with a similar texture to the one he had been touching, so much so he desired to reach out and touch it but he restrained himself. “I thought it would match with the rest of your room but if you would prefer a different one, we can keep looking,”.

Logan took note of how quickly Patton redacted his suggestion following Logan’s silence, bringing forth a pang of guilt. Had he offended Patton for not immediately agreeing to his suggestion? He did like the rug. The colour and texture were extremely pleasing to him, but he hadn’t wanted to appear desperate or greedy by demanding specific items and was merely waiting for one of the others to make a decision he could readily agree with. He hadn’t expected Patton to ask for his opinion.

“I like it,” Logan blurted out. Too quickly. Drawing curious glances from both Patton and Virgil but neither questioned him, thankfully.

“Alright kiddo, so we’ll get this one,” Patton said taking one of the pre-rolled rugs from the shelf and placing it into the shopping cart. “Okay, onto the next thing,”.

“I like the white one better,” Roman pouted before beginning to push the cart forward. Logan heart-rate immediately jumped. Had he made the wrong choice? Should he have gone with Roman’s pick to please him? Did Roman hate him now?

“Of course you did,” Virgil said with an eye roll and a sarcastic drawl, walking alongside Roman.

“Remember Roman, we are here for Logan today,” Patton said pushing the stroller a few paces behind Roman and Virgil, while Logan hung back.

“Yeah, I know. Come on, lets look at something more exciting than boring old rugs,” He exclaimed before picking up speed, almost gliding along with the cart as Virgil struggled to keep up.

“Don’t go to far ahead,” Patton warned but still giggled at the sight. Logan remained routed in his spot beside the stacks of rugs, eyes hovering over the spot Patton had selected the new rug from, before dropping it to the sticker beneath it, detailing the price. His chest tightened at the sight. It was so much. Why was Patton willing to spend so much on one item for him? How was he ever going to repay him? “Hey Logan, are you okay?”.

“Oh yes, I am satisfactory,” Logan said attempting to hide his shock as he ran to catch up with Patton, removing any sign of worry from his expression as he fell into line beside him.

The second item was a set of curtain, in an identical blue to the rug but contained tiny almost unnoticeable speckles of white granting the appearance of stars which Logan found exceptionally appealing but again did not voice this intense like, allowing Virgil to select them and himself to nod in agreement. The third and final item was a simple desk chair, located in the furniture section, which displayed a fully assembled version for testing purposes. It had a simple design, all black, with a cushioned seat but what was unusual about the design was the mechanism which allowed it to rotate. Roman demonstrated, spinning until he was unsteady on his feet and Logan couldn’t help but smile at the silliness of the situation and if Roman enjoyed the chair so much maybe it would improve the relationship between the two them. Once an employee - a different one from the women who had greeted them by the door - had helped them locate the disassembled chair from the much larger storeroom, they made their way to the register to pay. The total stunned Logan, he hadn’t taken note of the prices of the curtains or the chair, the guilt fell heavy on his shoulders as protests built within his throat. Why was he allowing Patton to do this? It was way too much. But again he said nothing and again he allowed Patton to waste more money on him.

The next store they went to was smaller, filled with home decoration rather than practical appliances, no one greeted them at the door but a cashier smiled at them as they passed. Immediately Logan began looking at the price of every item they passed at, becoming attracted to the cheapest of the selection despite its appearance, hoping Patton would appreciate his efforts. The fourth item was chosen by Roman, a collection of small pillows in a variety of shades of blue and grey, each with a different scientific image decorating it.

“Hey look, they are nerdy, like you,” Roman said pushing one of the pillows - with a chemical formula printed onto it - into Logan’s face. He genuinely appreciated Roman’s attempt to select items suited to his interests but it made it all the more difficult to refuse them. Roman didn’t wait for a response and took his elongated silence and small smile as his answer and tossed each to the cart individually. Similar decorations were also added to the cart such as; a selection of pictures detailing space themed scenes picked by Virgil, an alarm clock chosen by Patton, stationary organisers once again shoved in his face by Roman and an L shaped book end picked by Declan - though he merely repeated the letter L until Logan put it in the cart - the fact he hadn’t chosen anything for himself eased his mind somewhat. It lessened the guilt. If one of the others chose it for him, they had chosen it for themselves and not him. Logan let it continue.

The fifth item was a blanket. Logan had been tracing his fingertip along each individual blanket whilst Roman and Virgil bickered over two different colours, pausing on one in particular. At first glance it appeared to be a simple grey but as he sunk his fingers deeper into the soft fur a glitter caught his eye, blue and green glitter and sparkle appeared as he manipulated it with his hands. The combination of colours was pleasant as was the texture and weight of it, it would act well as a weighted blanket. Logan immediately snapped himself out of his daydream, praying Patton hadn’t witnessed him, mesmerised by an unnecessary blanket but unfortunately he was not so lucky.

“Hey Logan, did you find something you like?” Patton asked causing Logan to flinch and attempt to hide the blanket. “Oh I’m sorry kiddo, I didn’t mean to frighten you. What were you looking at?”. Logan glanced down, ashamed by his childishness and stood aside, allowing Patton to see the blanket.

“Ooh, that is pretty,” He said reaching out to touch the soft material, revealing the blue and green underneath, just as Logan had done. “Do you want to get it?”.

Logan shrugged, refusing to meet Patton’s eye. He knew Patton would notice something was wrong, he was frustratingly perceptive of people’s emotions, especially Logan’s. But Patton was spending so much. He couldn’t handle it. All the what ifs circling in his mind. What if this didn’t work out, Patton said he wouldn’t return Logan to the orphanage but what if something happens? What if Logan changes and Patton decides he doesn’t want to deal with his problems any more? Logan certainly wouldn’t blame him but what would happen then?

“Logan, I’ve noticed this is really stressing you out, you haven’t chosen anything for yourself,” Patton said a strange expression Logan couldn’t decipher appearing on his face. “If it is about the cost, I don’t care. I want to you have nice things, as your dad it is my job to provide for you. You shouldn’t worry about money at your age. I am doing this because I want to, okay Logan?”.

“Okay,” Logan said quietly after an elongated pause, not knowing what else to say.

“We can talk more later,” Patton said before picking up the blanket. “Now, do you want the blanket?”.

Logan nodded, unable to force out a verbal answer but Patton smiled anyway, ruffling Logan’s hair and placing the blanket in the cart. When they went to pay Patton purposefully shielded the total cost from him, which he was strangely grateful for as it allowed him to quieten his mind, without the cost screaming in his head how he didn’t deserve Patton’s kindness.

Following the rather stressful shopping experience, they stopped at a small café for lunch. It was quieter than the much bigger food establishments so it was preferable for Logan and Virgil who had been subjected to the noise of the busy mall for too long. Roman, Virgil and Dee sat at the table whilst Patton went to order the food, Logan accompanying him at Patton’s request.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Patton asked as they waited in the queue.

“I am fine Patton,” Logan said.

“I know you’re not,” Patton sighed. Logan immediately felt his heart sink. Had he disappointed Patton? He sounded frustrated. Had he ruined everything already? Patton seemed to note Logan’s rising panic. “Oh no, hey, hey, that isn’t a bad thing. You haven’t done anything wrong and I just want you to know that I want to do this for you, I want to get you nice things and you deserve it,”.

“Okay,” Logan replied it was all he could say as they reached the front of the queue and Patton ordered. A cheese and tomato toasted sandwich for Logan, a chicken salad wrap for Patton, for Roman a turkey sandwich and two simple ham sandwiches for Virgil and Declan with an additional fancily decorated miniature cake each.

They returned to their table and everyone tucked into their food as Patton, Roman and Virgil fell into a comfortable conversation, while Logan carefully divided his sandwich. He recalled his outing with Patton to a similar café following their visit to the book-store and planetarium. It was the greatest day of his life. The day when he discovered how incredible Patton truly was and the small bond of trust began to blossom between them. The recollection of the day-out brought a smile to his face. A lot had certainly happened since then, the most significant being Madame Claire’s arrest and Logan finally leaving the orphanage behind and entering a new ‘home’ with Patton and his children.

Once they had all finished, Logan having eaten exactly half of his sandwich and a quarter of his cupcake - he didn’t want to indulge to heavily in overly sweet treats - before returning to their shopping. The final store they visited offered a selection of toys, books and stationary. Roman and Virgil picked out a selection of notebooks, pens and pencils, Logan felt less guilty choosing them as they were seen as necessary items for his studies, though they were more colourful and visually pleasing than his biological parents would have chosen for him but he allowed it. They travelled quickly through the toy section, he had never been particularly interested in toys, the soft grey bear Patton had given him was the first toy that was exclusively his and thus felt a strange attachment to this toy in the particular but when Declan picked up and showed him a miniature Big Hero Six figurine of Baymax Logan found he couldn’t refuse the small toddler. Eventually Roman, Virgil and Declan wandered off, returning to the toy section, while Logan walked along side Patton as they scoured the shelves.            

“You haven’t chosen anything yet,” Patton said presumably noting how Logan only decided on items, picked out by one of the others. “I promise I won’t be mad or upset with you, we are here for you. I want you to choose something you want,”.

Logan bit his lip and nodded. If Patton said it was alright, maybe it would be okay. He could choose one thing if it would make Patton happy. Logan stepped forward, surveying the shelves, paying particular attention to the price rather than the item itself which didn’t go unnoticed by Patton.

“I don’t care about the cost, Logan, you can choose anything you’d like. I don’t mind,” Patton assured him but Logan’s guilt only grew but he wanted to please Patton so he forced it down, studying items around him.

They were in a aisle filled with the different bedroom decorations; pillows, photo frames, purposeless knick-knacks and a variety of lights - one of what was a pair of string lights Logan recognised from Virgil room - he was preparing to walk past but then noticed a box on the end of the aisle. It was a collection of accurate glow in the dark stars. Logan had always loved astronomy. he had spent long nights staring out of the window at the stars, mapping out constellations, studying everything he could about space and the stars that lived within it. He had spent hours explaining the basic science of space of Patton in their sessions and he researched more and more to tell Patton about when he returned every week. Logan paused in front of the stars, identifying each of the constellations detailed on the box; Orion, Ursa Major, Scorpius.

“What have you found, Logan?” Patton asked coming up behind him just as Roman, Virgil and Declan returned also.

“Wow, they are cool, are you going to get them?” Roman exclaimed as Logan nodded before he lost his resolve and picked another random item, taking the box of the stars from the shelf, dropping it into the cart.

“Alright, let’s pay and then head home,” Patton exclaimed with a wide grin directed towards Logan who couldn’t help but smile in return.

They paid and left. Virgil immediately called out ‘shot-gun’ as soon as their vehicle was in sight, resulting in Roman pouting the entire journey back to the house as Virgil played his rather loud and dark music with some rather strange lyrics but Logan found himself enjoying the alternative rock beat, tapping his fingertips against his thighs to the rhythm. Upon returning to the house and removing the newly bought items from the car, transporting them to the…no his room and set about assembling and the arranging them. Unrolling the rug, hanging the pictures above his bed, organising the stationary into colour coordinated containers on his desk as Patton pored over the instructions for assembling the desk chair. They lay the pillows at the head of his bed and set the pristinely folded blanket on the edge above the quilt. Once the chair - after some difficulty and Logan’s assistance - was finally constructed and the curtains were hung over the window, allowing a slither of the late afternoon light to seep into the room, Declan added the final touches placing the Baymax figurine and the L shaped book end on the bedside table as Logan set the books he had been keeping in his rucksack - in which he had been keeping all of his minimal belongings - beside the book end before tucking in safely away under his bed once again. If Patton had noticed Logan’s rucksack, he didn’t mention it, instead pulling one last item from the bag. The box of stars. 

“I’m going to go and get started on dinner, how about you get started putting them up?” Patton suggested giving the box to Logan before lifting Declan and resting him on his hip. “I’ll bring through the step ladder for you,”.

Patton left Declan in his arms and Roman and Virgil trailing after him, presumably to retire their owns room before their evening meal. Patton brought through the miniature ladder, urging Logan to be careful to which he assured him that he would be, then he was alone. He immediately unboxed the individual stars, arranging them by size on his new rug, then into his favourite constellations, preparing to stick them to his ceiling, creating a brilliant night sky in his bedroom. Logan stood upon the ladder, sticking each star with care to the black ceiling, forming startlingly accurate constellations until they filled his ceiling, faintly glowing in the slowly dwindling light. He descended from the ladder and simply stared. They were incredible. They didn’t contain the same beauty of the night sky but it filled him with the same calming sensation as he gazed up at them, ignoring the slight pain in his neck as he did so.

“Hey Logan, dinner is ready!” Patton exclaimed poking his head into the room. “Wow, they look really cool, kiddo,”.

“Thank you Patton, I tried to arrange them to resemble accurate constellations, though of course they’re several inconsistencies between them but they are a acceptable replica,” Logan replied glancing up at the softly glowing stars with a small smile of his lips.

“Aw kiddo, they are great,” Patton said with a wide, toothy grin. “They look just like the real thing, now let’s go get some dinner,”.

For dinner was chicken, potatoes and portion of green vegetables, much easier to divide in perfect halves then the spaghetti. Everyone conversed openly over the table, sharing stories about the day and plans for tomorrow when Roman and Virgil returned to school even Logan joined in when he wasn’t fixated on his food. Following the meal, each of them returned to their separate rooms, in which Logan sat in his new desk chair, glancing around his room, at his new belongings…at the cost. Patton had spent so much and intentionally attempted to hide the total price from him. Did he regret spending so much? Would he expect Logan to do something in return? The guilt lay heavy on his chest as he glanced up at his ceiling, digging his nails into the palms of his hands until there was a knock at his door, causing him to jump up in surprise.

“Hiya Logan, can I come in, kiddo?” Patton asked as Logan returned the chair to its correct position by his desk.

“Yes,” Logan responded opening the door for Patton. “Salutations Patton, did you require something of me,”.

“I was just wondering how you were, I know today was quite stressful for you,” Patton said taking a seat on the edge of Logan’s bed, patting the spot beside him for Logan to sit down, which he did.

“I am alright Patton, yes, today’s activities were certainly outside of my comfort zone but I assure you, I am okay,” Logan said he knew wasn’t entirely being truthful but he prayed that Patton wouldn’t notice.

“Okay kiddo, if you are sure. Um…I wanted to ask you if you want to go out again tomorrow…Roman and Virgil are in school so it would just be you, me and Dee…we could buy you some new clothes?” Patton suggested and Logan’s heart rate shot up and the idea of Patton spending even more money on him but he fought to keep his face expressionless. “So what do you think?”.

“Okay,” Logan answered the simple one word answer was all he could muster without revealing all of the anxiety and fear he held inside.

“Okay,” Patton repeated stretching forward to press a gentle kiss to Logan’s forehead. “Now, I think it is time for you to go to sleep, we have a busy day tomorrow. Goodnight,”.

“Goodnight, Patton,” Logan replied as Patton left switching of the light, allowing the stars to glow at their full brightness as Logan gazed up at them mesmerised by the brilliant gleam each individual star emitted.

Immediately overcome by a wave of exhaustion, Logan quickly undressed, changing into this pyjamas before crawling into bed. His new pillows cushioning his head and his new blanket wrapped around him as he began to slip off to sleep, under his own star-filled sky.

Notes: Crofters has been introduced, Logan will be changed forever.

Taglist: @i-do-not-dislike-fudge @poems-art-darkness-n-more @alex-cain @amber1594 @darkrainbow333 @falseh0od @lovingcreatorstrawberry @gr3ml1n-loser @callboxkat @tacochippy @anxiousangel121 @comicsimpson @harrypotternerdprincess @cobythinks @whatschooldoesntteachyou @fandomkitty8 @coloursintheblur @read-write-inspire-repeat @clinicalawesomeness @deceit-sanders-deserved-better @scared-ghosthunter @silverstarlinedart

If you would like to be added to the taglist or have a question for me about the series please do not hesitate to ask.

Also please everyone stay safe; wash your hands regular and abide by social distancing rules and please stay inside as much as possible.

[sorceress-coffee]

Girls Night In

AO3 Link

Returning to school after we captured Killahead bridge was tense. I walked into Ms. Harper’s class to see Eemeli almost finished constructing the dragon framework for our group project. Honestly, I’m surprised he’s still hanging around, seeing as he no longer has to answer to Bular or Strickler. Eemeli was attaching the lower jaw when he caught sight of me. His shoulder went rigid as he paled slightly, unsure of how to interact with me now. To be fair, I didn’t know what to do either.

Ms. Harper bounced over to us with a large grin as she surveyed our project. “Oh! This is going to be amazing! The group art show is coming up this weekend, are you two excited?” She clasped her hands, leaning towards us.

Eemeli gave a short nod, zeroing his attention on the mechanics in the dragon’s mouth. I winced slightly as Ms. Harper drew closer, “Yeah, we’re almost done,” I spoke, watching as the excitement melted from her face, looking between Eemeli and me, unsure where our excitement from last week went. “It’s been a long weekend trying to work out the kinks in the mechanics,” I piped up, hoping she’d take our mood as being tired from overworking.

She nodded quickly, looking over the mechanics Eemeli was dealing with. “I can see why! I hope you two rest up, this is show helps the art committee chose whose works will be presented at the huge end of the year show!” She explained before running off to check on another group.

Eemeli and I exchanged a look before silently working on the dragon. As I was inserted the ‘fire’ spray cans, Eemeli accidentally hit the drop button while fixing the horns, causing the jaw to drop, covering me in red, orange, and yellow spray paint. Spluttering, my eyes screwed shut to keep paint from getting in them, I could hear what sounded like Eemeli choking. He quickly grabbed my face, using a cloth to wipe the paint away from my eyes. When I could open them safely, all I could see was Eemeli choking back laughter, cheeks puffing out as a wheeze escaped him.

I looked down over my self to see that my once all-black outfit was covered in so much paint that I looked like a walking Heartstone. I snickered before breaking down into a full-blown giggling fit. Eemeli and I spent the rest of the class trying to get the paint off of my face, one of us bursting into laughter as the other calmed down.

As soon as the bell rang however, I was pulled from the hilarious situation as Eemeli quickly sobered. He handed the cloth to me and quickly left for his next class. I headed off to Senor Uhl’s class quickly, trying to get some of the paint out of my hair. Walking in, I heard Mary break down in a fit of laughter.

“What happened to you?” She finally got out between gasps of laughter. Catching Jim and Toby’s attention quickly.

I shrugged walking to my desk in the back, “Accident in art class, Eemeli set off our project while fixing something and… well this happened.” I tried to laugh it off, though, from Mary’s wince, it didn’t seem to work.

Jim quickly came over to check on me quietly before class started. “Are you doing okay? Other than the paint, you seem upset,” he asked, worry etched over his face.

I sighed, sitting down quickly, “Honestly, I don’t know… It’s just been tense since this weekend. When this happened, we both couldn’t stop laughing at it felt normal again… but when the bell rang it went back to being tense.” I explained, tying my hair up to keep the painted portion from landing in my eyes again.

Jim frowned, heading to his desk quickly as Senor Uhl began class. During his opening lecture, he finally spotted my paint-covered self in the back, letting out a sigh before he continued. Not the first time I’ve made it out of Ms. Harper’s class covered in paint.

Toby, Jim, and I headed to our newly combined history class with Coach Lawrence. Since we no longer had assigned seats, we took up the back corner so we could talk during whatever movie coach decided to play today. As Eemeli entered, he glanced back at our group before taking a seat near the front, by Mary, Darci, and Claire.

Mary looked back at our group then at Eemeli before nudging Claire. They seemed to be discussing something before Claire got up and quickly headed back to us. “Whoa, what happened?” She had to pause, seeing my paint-covered form.

I sighed, letting my head fall on my desk. “Accident, Eemeli, art,” was all I could bring myself to say. Unsure how to feel about Eemeli staying away. We were friends, sort of, but I guess that was a lie, for his job. I let out a groan, trying to melt into my desk. “People stuff sucks.”

Claire glance back at Eemeli, turning to Jim quickly, “I’m missing something aren’t I?” She asked him.

Sighing, Jim patted my back before explaining, “Changeling, hired by Strickler to distract or kill River, also tried getting between River and Draal. It’s pretty complicated but I’m assuming since River doesn’t do the whole ‘friend’ thing, this is mentally exhausting.” Keeping my head covered, I let out a dismissive chuff.

Claire to the seat in front of me quickly, tapping on my head so I’d look up at her, “How about a girl’s night? We can do movies and I’ll make my family's famous guacamole?” She asked, with a hopeful grin.

My brow furrowed in confusion, “Girls night?” Toby and Jim snickered, since I didn’t have female friends, I’d never done a girls night, unless you count when I was little and mom and I would paint each other’s nails while watching cute movies and overloading on popcorn.

Claire sent a glare to the boys, before smiling at me again. “Yeah! I can even invite Darci and Mary and we can make it a big relaxing day, and maybe we can get that paint out of your hair.” She giggled, trying to make the event sound appealing.

I tilted my head for a moment. No boys, movies, snacks, and paint free hair? “Alright, I’m in.” I decided, my answer catching Jim and Toby off guard, Toby choking in shock.

Claire grinned, jumping from the seat, “I’ll let the girls know!” She quickly ran back to Mary and Darci while Coach was distracted by a newspaper. Mary and Darci split into grins as they waved back to me, at least they seemed excited about it.

“Wow… who knew it would take a Changeling being a jerk for River to make female friends,” Toby said in shock.

Jim shook his head, “There’s a lot more than Eemeli going on Tobes, besides, this could be good for River.” He joked, poking at my side, his hand covered in paint as he pulled away.

I snickered, smearing my paint covered hand on his sleeve, “That’s what you get for teasing.” I stuck my tongue out at them, “You’re next Tobes!” I reached over Jim’s desk, grabbing Toby’s face to leave paint handprints on his cheeks.

“Gah! River!” Toby whisper yelled, batting my hands away quickly. Laughing, I sat back in my seat, relaxing for the first time since I walked into Mr. Harper’s class today.

The rest of the school day went by in a blur, Eli checked up on me during Chemistry, Steve made the mistake of trying to pull my tied-back hair in trig and ended up covered in paint. During gym, Claire, Darci, and Mary filled me in on what exactly a girls' night entailed. They seemed excited enough as we headed into the locker room.

“Hey, Claire, I gotta talk to Jim, I’ll meet you in front!” I called out quickly as I left the locker room to find Jim and Toby by the bikes. “There you are!”

Jim laughed, seeing me running to them “Are you trying to escape girls night already?” He asked.

“Oh, haha,” I snarked back, flicking his forehead, “No, I was gonna ask if you could let Draal know I won’t be home. He doesn’t exactly have a phone.” I explained, pivoting quickly to run after the girls, “I’ll see you later!” I waved the boys off, catching up to Claire quickly.

As I reached the girls, Darci and Mary looped their arms with mine, practically dragging me to Claire’s house. “This is going to be so much fun! I can’t believe you’ve never done a girls night! We should order pizza!” Mary all but screamed in excitement.

Darci laughed, calling in to order an ‘extra meatza,’ whatever that meant. “Seriously, girl. You need to relax. I don’t think I ever seen you chill. You’re either stone-faced or tense. Today was so bad we thought you might actually snap.” She explained, actually sounding worried.

I blinked, confused, staring at the three girls. “You were worried?” I asked, other than Jim, Toby, and Draal, I wasn’t used to people stepping because they were worried for me.

“Of course!” Claire chimed in, letting us into her house quickly. “First off, we need to get that paint out of your hair asap.” She grinned, leading the girls up to her bathroom quickly. “Mary raid the pajamas! Darci, help me find something to loosen the pain up.

Mary squealed, running for Claire’s room to find pajamas for everyone. Darci and Claire had me sit in the shower, letting the water soak into my hair as they found some fruity smelling condition. As I reached for the bottle, Darci whacked my hand softly, laughing. “Don’t you even think about it, we’re going to get this off, you just try to relax River.” She smiled before dumping a ton of the product over my hair.

As the slowly got the paint out of my hair, Claire began to comb through it, making sure they got everything out. Mary ran back in carrying four sets of pajama tops and shorts. “Found them!” She grinned as she came over to inspect my hair. “Oh good! It looks like you got it out!”

Laughing at Mary’s excitement, Claire handed me a towel after shutting the water off. “We’ll step out so you can change out of the wet clothes. Just leave them in the shower and we’ll take care of them later.” She directed as Mary set a dark orange pajama top and black shorts on the counter.

“Yell if you need anything!” Darci called back as Claire ushered them out to change into their pajamas.

I smiled, quickly peeling off the soaked paint covered clothes, careful not to get my hair stuck in it again. As I dried off, I eyed the pajamas, snickering at the top, it was the same orange as the paint. I pulled the clothes on quickly before heading out. I could hear the girls down in the kitchen, laughing as Claire made guacamole. Darci was the first to spot me as I stepped off the stairs, squealing, she rushed over and pulled me to the counter quickly. “River! We’re debating on face masks! Do you think we should make an avocado mask or do a sheet mask?” She asked quickly.

Confused, I looked between the girls, “Like… costumes?” I asked, not entirely sure why someone would wear avocado as a mask.

Mary’s jaw dropped at my question this was not a response they were prepared for. “No no no!” She yelped out, pulling her phone out to show me examples of what they were talking about. “It’s a relaxing skincare process, you either make or buy the mask and let it set on your skin for a while, depending on the type of mask the effect on your skin will be different. Some are moisturizing, clarifying, some get rid of dead skin, help clear blemishes. Some are even just for relaxing, the smell and oils in them help to calm skin and mentally relax you.”

I looked through the pictures as she showed me the different masks, “Oh, um… I don’t think I should be the to choose that, also, why would you use avocado? I’d rather eat it.”

Clair snorted out a laugh, “Sheet masks and extra guacamole then!” She grinned, setting the bowl she was working on in the fridge. Heading back up to grab sheet masks and other girls' night items.

When the doorbell rang, Darci ran to get the pizza, leaving me alone with Mary for a few minutes. Mary quickly turned, intently watching me for a moment. “So… are you and Eemeli have a couple's spat? Was the paint a prank? If so, I swear” She began to rant.

I put my hands up quickly, trying to calm her, “Um, it’s nothing like that. The paint was an accident, Eemeli was fixing part of our project and accidentally set off the mechanism that controls the spray-paint.” I explained quickly, watching her visibly calm as she learned it wasn’t on purpose. “Also,” I continued, confused now, “what do you mean ‘couples spat’? Eemeli and I are friends… I think.” I mumbled out, really not wanting to dive into that train of thought.

Mary laughed, nudging my ribs with her elbow, “Good one River because the flirting wasn’t obvious. Not to mention that as soon as he showed up, he’s been glued to your side.”

I winced, actually, physically, winced at that. Staring at the counter, I frowned. “Not sure what you mean by flirting but Eemeli and I just got signed up as project partners and we just kind of became friends after that… though I guess we did fight. I’m not sure.” I tried to explain without, it was hard considering, other than Claire, the girls had no idea about Changelings and Trolls, or magic in general.

Mary let out a huff, as Darci and Claire returned she asked them, “You two saw the flirting, right? Eemeli totally likes her!” She pouted, my jaw tightening as my tension from earlier began to return.

Claire put her arms up in an ‘x,’ motioning for Mary to stop, though Darci decided to pop in, “Well, we don’t really know if he was flirting, maybe that’s just how people are in Finland? Plus, they’re partners on a project, they’d have to spend time together.”

I sighed, dropping my head on the counter, not liking where the conversation was going. I would try to stop it, but I’ve seen Mary go off before, there is no stopping it. “We aren’t a thing. That’s not even in the realm of possibilities…”

Claire nodded, setting the face masks, nail polish, and hair stuff on the counter. “Mary, even he did like her, River obviously doesn’t want that kind of relationship with him.” She tried to counter, hoping the conversation would end faster.

“Not liking the hot foreign student, the one that since he got here, has only been hanging out around River.” She began, confused on how someone would say no to the situation. “River, he’s total boyfriend material! Other than whatever you got in a fight over. Why wouldn’t you like him?”

I snapped my head up, wanting the conversation to stop, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, “Other than the fact that I’m engaged?” I asked, watching as all three girls snapped their attention to me, Darci and Mary staring in shock.

“You’re engaged?!” Mary shrieked out. “Who? When? How?!” She asked, grabbing my arm and shaking it as if that would cause me to tell her everything.

Lost on how to explain, Claire quickly stepped in, “Oh Draal!” She grinned, “I met him when River and Jim were in the hospital, he’s a year older, went to the trade school across town.”

I nodded slowly, scratching at the back of my neck and feigning shyness as Mary looked from Clair to me. “Yeah, we didn’t say anything since he had to leave for college this year.” I calmed down, seeing the gears in Mary’s brain turn.

She broke out in a grin, hugging me tightly. “You have a college boo!” She yelled, bouncing in excitement. “We have to meet him! Does he have friends? Why didn’t you tell us?” She asked, shaking my shoulders in her excitement. “Wait, why aren’t you wearing a ring?” She paused, grabbing my hand to inspect it.

I shrugged, pulling my hand back. “Try explaining an engagement ring to our teachers, I may be eighteen but they can be invasive.” I tried to explain.

Darci laughed, hugging me, “No wonder you told ‘Tight Jeans’ Hank to piss off!” She recalled, back to last year when he tried flirting, and my dense brain thought he was just being rude.

As the ‘couples’ conversation finally calmed, we broke out the food and face masks. I flinched feeling how sticky the sheet mask was. “It’s so slimy. How is this relaxing?” I asked, situating it on my face carefully.

Taking a bite of her pizza through the mask, Darci grinned, “You get used to it, trust me. Also eating gets easier the more you do them.”

I nodded trying to eat my pizza, pouting as the mask kept slipping over my mouth. Claire, giggling, quickly helped me pull the mask up, pinned it with a headband so it wouldn’t slip. “There we go! Now try eating.” Quickly, I tried eating again, relaxing when the mask didn’t move.

Mary pulled up the movie list for the night, starting with Strange Magic. Seeing the title, I snickered, causing me to choke on my pizza. Claire quickly grabbed a glass of water handing it to me before looking at the movie title, trying not to laugh when she realized why I had started laughing.

“You two okay over there?” Darci asked, shaking her head with a smile. Out of the four of us, she seemed to be the most relaxed.

Mary was singing along, throwing a chip at the tv when Roland gets caught messing around. “Traitorous jerk! I mean really? After cheating on Marian, you’re going to turn around, and say it was a little mistake?” She yelled at the tv, “She deserves better than you!”

I started laughing, never seeing Mary like this, “I definitely prefer the Bog King, he was heartbroken, but at least he was honest, even with his dislike.” I said, ripping the face mask off when Darci declared it was time to.

Smiling, Darci passed over more guacamole and chips, “He’s a bit weird, but he truly loves her, and I think that’s all that matters,” she giggled out.

Mary grinned, turning on Claire and I, “Speaking of weird and loving someone, does Jim likes Claire, right?” She asked, getting in my face.

Claire’s face broke out into a dark blush, trying to pull Mary out of my face. I glance at her before shrugging to Mary, “Isn’t it obvious?” I asked, causing Claire to let go of Mary, falling on the couch.

“I knew it!” Mary yelled, jumping around at the news.

Clair sat up with a huff, glaring at Mary, “Oh, and what about you and ‘Tight Jeans’ Hank, you’ve been going out for a while now, right?” She asked, trying to deflect her embarrassment.

Mary shrugged, flopping back on the couch, “I guess, he’s kind of a jerk though. What about you Darci? Any boys you like?”

Darci blushed, glancing at me then back at Mary, “Nope! No one!” She squeaked out.

Mary groaned, “Don’t tell me you have a thing for Jim too!”

Quickly waving her hands in front of her, Darci shook her head, “It’s not him!”

“So, there is someone?” I asked, confused about why she would be flustered saying it around me.

“I…” She sighed, poking at her pizza, “there is, it’s just, I don’t want him to know yet, and you’re close with him.”

I tilted my head in thought, the only two people I’m close with that the girls know are Jim, Toby, and Eli. If it wasn’t Jim, that leaves Toby or Eli. I clasped Darci’s shoulder, giving her a small smile, “Don’t worry about it, I’m sure whoever it is will be happy, but I understand wanting to wait to tell them.” Darci smiled, relaxing now that we weren’t going to badger her for answers.

“Speaking of,” Mary grinned, “How did you and… Draal? How did you get engaged?” She asked as Darci and Claire perked up at the question we broke out the nail polish.

I snorted, recalling my ‘engagement,’ “It was a total accident.” I laughed out, watching as the girls became confused. “Draal has only been here a few years. He was raised with very different customs than we have.” I explained, smiling fondly as we worked on each other’s nails.

“So how was it an accident?” Darci asked, already engrossed in the story.

“Well, we were friends at the time, and I did something that ended up being a proposal in his culture. He knew that I wasn’t aware of what I was doing, but it caught him so off guard that he began to act differently, and his family took notice.” I giggled, painting cats on Mary’s nails. “They expressed their concerns to me about his behavior. So, I asked if something had happened or if I have done something to offend him. When he explained what had happened, I told him I didn’t see it happening.”

“What?!” Claire gasped out, “But you’re engaged now!”

I nodded, snorting at her reaction. “Yup. I took his reaction to my proposal as him being offended that I would entertain the idea. A while later, he finally asked me about it, and I explained what I had thought. After that, we began to date, and a while after that, he proposed.” I smiled as Mary began on my nails, painting them neon pink and black.

“So, you accidentally proposed, told him it would never happen, you then began dating, and then he proposed?” Darci asked, almost dropping the nail polish brush on Claire’s hand.

“Do you do anything normal?” Claire asked, giggling at the strange events that landed me with Draal as my mate.

“Depends on your definition of normal. According to Jim and Toby, that was perfectly normal for me.” I snickered, recalling Toby telling me I was so dense that it took a Troll to get my attention.

We talked late into the night about guys, dates, and what we wanted to do after school since I was due to graduate this coming summer. Darci and Mary crashed on the couch as Claire and I stayed up a while longer.

“So, how exactly did you propose to Draal?” She asked as I painted the Papa Skull logo on her nails.

I stifled a laugh, not wanting to wake the other girls. “Scenting, I hugged him and accidentally scented him. It’s how Trolls court.” I explained.

She giggled at how something so simple could make a huge change in my life. “His family, what were they worried about then? Why did you think he was offended?”

“Blinky, he’s Jim’s Trollhunter trainer, the one we had to save before the play. He asked me if anything had happened when Draal took me home. My scent was so distracting for him, everyone in Trollmarket took notice.” I explained, pausing to collect my thoughts for her second question. “I assumed him being distracted by it was unwelcome, and that he was upset because I’m not exactly a troll.”

“Was he upset? Is it that bad if you’re a human?” She asked, settling in with more chips.

“No, he was more confused, because I said I didn’t see a troll trying to court me anytime soon. Still didn’t think he was interested then. After we talked about it later, and explaining everything, he courted me… and I don’t know if there’s an issue with humans and trolls, I’m technically not a human so...” I smiled, knowing it was hard to remember that I’m more troll-like than human-like.

Claire nodded, letting out a yawn, “Sorry, still not used to the whole magic thing. Though NotEnrique has been explaining some things to me. Guess he feels like he owes me after the goblin fiasco.” She mumbled out as she finally crashed for the night.

I smiled softly, easing myself off the couch, careful not to disturb anyone. I made myself a cup of coffee, wondering how to wait out the night, seeing as I didn’t feel the urge to sleep. My body must finally be adjusting to the magic.

“Don’t you fleshbags sleep?” I heard a disgruntled voice come from the stairs. NotEnrique had decided to come out. He climbed up onto the counter next to me. “You’re… not injured anymore, right? I saw what Nomura did…” he trailed off, unsure of what to say.

I groaned, flicking his forehead, “Don’t you start that, I’ve had enough of Changelings avoiding me today.” I sipped at my coffee, trying to hide a pout.

“Eemeli not talking to ya?” He asked, before shrugging at his question. “Not surprising, he’s never had a job that’s made him question things.”

My brows furrowed, tilting my head towards him. “What does that mean?”

NotEnrique sighed, scratching at his scruff, “Look, he’s a witch hunter. From what I know, he tracks down problematic witches and gets rid of them. He’s never had to get to know a mark before.” He tried to explain. "He's never encountered a witch that cares about Changelings, much less one who was friends with them."

My gaze shifted to the mug in my hands, frowning as I processed what he had said. “I know he lied. I know he tried to get between Draal and I. I know he helped to kidnap Blinky. I even know he was ready to tear me apart at the beginning of our fight…”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ in there, Moonlight.” NotEnrique teased, trying to lighten my mood.

I sighed, swirling the mug and watching as the coffee created a small whirlpool. “But… It was his job, and he chose to save me. From the scaffolding crushing me. From Nomura pulling me into the Darklands. Hell, he even helped me get out of the sewers when we were escaping!” Putting the mug down, I turned to face NotEnrique. “We’re friends, and I want to trust him again. I just… I don't know if he even wants to be friends.”

NotEnrique hummed in thought, tilting his head slightly, “You said he was avoiding you today, which meant he showed up to your fleshbag school. If he didn’t want to be here, he would’ve left. Gone back to a different assignment. Not subject himself to fleshy school.” He explained. “I think he wants to stay, but he… we’ve never been in a situation where we betrayed Bular, Gunmar, to help someone else. This is new territory.”

I smiled softly, patting NotEnrique’s head. “I know you’re staying so the Nunez’s don’t freak out about Enrique being gone… but I’m glad you’re here.”

NotEnrique laughed, whacking my hand away from his head, “Yeah, well… misfits stay together right? I mean, whoever heard of a sorceress who liked Changelings?” He asked, snickering.

Smiling fondly, thinking back to the story Vendel read about my mother, “Lady Ganieda… my mother. She helped Changelings escape from Gunmar’s army before the Battle of Killahead.”

NotEnrique tensed, scratching at the kitchen counter, “She was nice... and look where it got her..."

I sighed, finishing off my coffee, "Considering she had me almost 19 years ago, I'd say she survived her battle with the Eldritch Queen."

NotEnrique nodded, his mind being pulled back to the present. "True, don't know how, but true." He grinned.

We spent the rest of the night talking about different things. What irritates NotEnrique when he's stuck as a baby. Different projects I was working on for the end of the year art show. Even what Changelings were up to on this side of the fetch. We continued until dawn when NotEnrique had to scurry back up to his crib before the girls woke up for school. Overall, I had a lot to think about, especially when it came to Eemeli and Changelings in general.

[dolphin-enthusiast]

good evening caro mio, it's very lovely to see you~!! 💞🌹💫 oh my, i was gone for a little bit wasn't i? i apologize if i made any of you worry/wasn't there to help brighten your days like you say i do!! i was taking a little bit of a mental health break, and i feel a lot better now!!! i'm so happy to be back here, i missed you all so much!! (especially you morgy! ❤) (1/???)

"i hope your first day of school went alright,, i know how much it sucks, but i'm here alongside you to get through it all!! hopefully this school year can be at least a teensy bit easier on everyone,, but we do have to take it one day at a time, or as i say, baby steps 🌠 i should probably address this now so i can get the serious bits out of the way, but i assure you all that i'm alright!! that incident was just unfortunate, and my family made me take a rest from working because of it,, (2/?)

plus, that kind of situation is common for me unfortunately, so i'm used to sudden panics like that,, but i feel quite better now!! and i'm happier more than ever to be back again 💖💖💖 (3/?)

i do truly thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all of your patience, kind words, and support!! i'm honestly extremely surprised at how sweet everyone was about this,, it's such a nice change from daily life,, i have no idea how to put my utter gratefulness into words, but please know that i love you all so so so much!! i wouldn't trade any of you for the world, you matter so much to me 💌 (4/?)

it seems that so much has happened while i was gone,, all of these picrews (which i absolutely adore!) and quinn getting into my account?? ahhhhh oh gosh,, that's a lot!! i'm gonna have to scold her! i can't believe she would submit such candid pics of me and other stuff,, quite embarrassing! but i wasn't expecting such a positive response to me and my one cat,,, who knew that all you anons find me sleeping cute??? it's confusing to me, but i find it quite funny hehe 😖❤ (5/?)

luckily i was able to be a little more productive lately, even if i have been exausted!! i've been cooking, cleaning, modeling, sewing, dancing, and editing videos for people,, so much work! i do think it's worth it though, it helps distract me from the bad things in life, and other people end up happy,, i'd consider it a win-win for me!!! my dad also taught me how to fix up an angelo azzuro,, which is a cocktail i didn't learn yet! (6/?)

it took two days of hard work and practice, but according to him, i "nailed it right on the head" my papa is always my go-to for mixology, he taught me most of what i know, and he's always the first person to try my drinks! apparently it's a very interesting concept to my other friends, since they have so limited access to spirits,, it does make sense though! (7/?)

we italians just don't care about drinking ages hehehe, as long as we're responsible and cautious with age, it adds to our lifespan ;) during that short break, i suppose my narcolepsy flared up a lot since i was falling asleep left and right! it was awful having to constantly wake up with either a migraine, extra tiredness, or even a bruise or two,, thankfully though i had my family to watch over me,, at least i was finally able to make up for lost sleep hehe 💫 (8/?)

i also got to play a lot of minecraft hehe,, my friend and i actually spent a full day doing a speedrun world, and we killed the ender dragon and wither within only 2 1/2 hours!! it was crazy,, i guess me and him just make a dynamic duo (but i dare to say,, not quite as dynamic as you and me 😉) speaking of minecraft, over the weekend i decided that i'm going to start streaming on twitch soon as a hobby!! i'm very excited for this, it's something i've wanted to do for a very long time now (9/?)

all of my friends and my siblings are very supportive of it, which i'm super glad about!! i've always found little bits of joy in my favorite streamers, so why not give back to that community? an artist friend of mine even drew me a pfp as a gift, it's so cute! all i have to do is figure out a balance between school, personal life, and streaming, then i'll be set,, i'm always happy to get a new hobby 😊✨ (10/?)

oh my, it's almost 23:45 now!! sadly, unlike today, tomorrow is full of classes and work,, so i should probably get going to bed! i'll hopefully see you tomorrow then, darling! goodnight, and as always, sweet dreams,, make sure to rest extra when you can 💗- much much love and extra hugs, waifu anon xoxo 💗❤💖💞💓💕💘💌 ps: you say that you'd come all the way to america just to say such kind things to me?? it looks like i'll just have to return the favor then darling 💘 (11/11)"

This do b kinda late ngl since im assuming i literally leave for school just as u send those in💀💀💀 things r kinda hard w school here but today was actually one of the few decent days i had in what y e a r s??? Me n my friends went out after classes and spent the entire afternoon sipping boba tea (it was my first time having it since boba places r rare here and we had to travel in the opposite part of the city and holy shit my third eye opened bruh i A S C E N D E D) and talking abt anime and simping and basically clowned eachother constantly jahahhdkf

B u t enough of that bc i see u had some nice days goin on as well😳😳 as i said many times before i'd kill a man to taste the cocktails that u do and one day we finna do that on g o d 😩✌️ and STREAMING? DROP THE LINK WILL YA DARLIN ME N THE CLOWN ARMY WILL BE THERE IN A H E A R T B E A T HDJDJSJ honestly streamer waifu is such a nice concept....i myself dream of streaming but sadly i dont have the time, space, money and overall neccesary equipments for it which is lowkey depressing ngl💀

Either way im glad to hear u been balancing things out and taking breaks dear, i myself am t r y i n g to make time for other stuff too since i really wanna write and watch anime (u know what series i just finished and had a 🅱️REAKDOWN 🅱️ REAKDOWN over one hour ago🤡🔪) but the schedule do b wacky ngl....

And as always i say: of c o r p s e everyone had positive reactions?? W h y w o u l d n t t h e y-

[jackbabewang]

Chapter 2 — Bad habits

Word count ‧ 3,730

Chapter summary ‧ You must be out of your mind to think that he actually cared.

Masterlist

You finally got your eyes to cooperate to stay open and looked up to see a silhouette of a man in very close proximity with you. Your heart leaped to your throat, suddenly remembered that you were in Yoonoh’s room. 

“Jung… Yoonoh,” you said his name in a faltering and trembling voice. You dared not to move and stared dumbly at him. The touch of his hand on your bare skin sent streaks of fire racing up and down your body. 

He seemed to hear your voice then his movements came to a complete stop. You felt his breath warm on your neck, heard his heavy breathing in your ear. 

“Keep going, or not?” he asked, his voice deeper than before, huskier, and filled with unspoken desire. 

Your nervous system shut down, but quickly came to life in a rush of heat. Your knees trembled and your stomach clenched. Your breath was uneven when your lips parted as if to say something, but nothing came out. It was intense and then suddenly he pulled back and lifted the blanket and made his way to the bathroom in the darkness. 

You had no idea what time it was when you woke up last night, but it was an absolute certainty that your eyes were wide smack open till the next morning. And after Yoonoh went into the bathroom, he had been out of his room since. Where did he go?

You dilly-dallied, slipped out of bed, padded to the bathroom and damn—your head was swimming with dizziness along with pounding from the two or three hours of sleep. You stood before the mirror, you could see the stark evidence of the episode from the night before—that your pyjamas looked a bit crumpled. You had no idea how you were going to face him any later. 

It was still early in the morning, not quite seven, your parents had not gotten up yet. All your clothes were in that room and you were afraid that you could not get in there at the moment. You remembered you had clothes hung outside that you washed yesterday and so you went downstairs to get a fresh set of clothes. 

Chop, chop, chop. Slice, slice, slice. The sound of the knife cutting through and landing against the wooden board drew you into the doorway, onto the threshold of the kitchen. Assuming your mother had woken up rather early. You opened your mouth—to call out “mom”—but the word was suddenly stuck in your throat as soon as you came eyeball-to-eyeball with the last person you wanted to see just then. You jolted with the shock and spun on your heels preparing to sprint away. 

“Come here.” 

The second after you whirled, Yoonoh called out to you faintly. Did he not feel awkward at all? 

Right, it was him who took advantage of you, how could he possibly feel awkward about it.

Reluctantly you turned back around, somehow keeping your face perfectly calm. “My! You’re up early today.”

He brought some thinly sliced spring onion into a small bowl, without any expression on his face he echoed, “When was I never earlier than you?”

Pfft! Only very slight bit, what’s there to be hoity-toity about?

“Wash your hands.” He commanded. 

“What for?” 

He did not answer but turned around to continue what he had been doing without giving a damn on you. On instinct you rolled your eyes and padded to the sink. You ran the water and held your hands under the stream, rubbing palm to palm as an indication whatsoever before turning off the faucet. Yoonoh swiveled his head rather abruptly and stared at your hands, “Wash with soap.”

It’s not like you’re a kid anymore, so what’s with the soap? Killing bacteria? You grumbled internally but not wanting to waste time and energy bickering over petty things so you had it his way and washed your hands once again with an antibacterial soap. 

As you dried your hands with soft strokes of the towel, Yoonoh pointed to one, two, three and four eggs in the basket then said, “Peel the eggs.”

After all that fuss made about hygiene, was it his germophobia acting up then? Only just peeling eggs and you thought he wanted you to knead a dough instead.

You obliged without uttering a syllable and with every murky shell that peeled off you felt your cheeks grew warmer. 

That… bared in its all glory… last night you shared a bed with someone as equally au naturel, and… 

Stop, stop! 

You became even more flushed than a minute ago, with bright red spots appearing on your cheeks. Yet Yoonoh noticed every detail with his sharpness as Hawkeye’s, giving no quarter that he pointed out, “What’s with your face matching the colour of pig’s blood early in the morning?”

He could’ve gone further exaggerating the metaphoricity; it would not hurt any less either way. 

Noticing your silence, he seasoned his remark with malice, “Or, you’re shy about what happened last night?” 

“Hmph,” he smirked, without another word he spun around and poured a little olive oil in the pan. 

Pervert. 

You did not want him to see your face, your embarrassed reaction to his comment so you could only turn your back to him as well and not pick an argument with him.

After breakfast, your parents had to catch the return flight back to Ulsan and so Yoonoh drove them to the airport. In wishing you goodbye, your mother held onto your hands, and over and over she was only concerned about Yoonoh that you might not take good care of him, leaving him to starve or freeze or wither up at leisure.

You were certain the woman standing before you was, indeed, not your biological mother. 

Until your parents had settled in at the boarding gate then you returned home. As Yoonoh drove past a grocery store, you suddenly remembered that you were out of toothpaste so you made him stopped by. 

Afraid that he might get impatient with waiting, you headed straight to the sales assistant for the placement of the product, impulsively grabbing a box of toothpaste and checked out at the counter. 

Right after you walked out through the automatic doors labeled “Exit Only” you saw an oh-so-slim sylph sashaying towards the direction of Yoonoh’s car. The man got down, apparently completely clueless what he said to her that the very next moment she was in the passenger seat. 

A message came in, signaled by the slight vibration of the device in your hand, from Yoonoh: Something came up, had to leave first. Get yourself a ride home.

He drove away and you watched until his car was out of sight. Gingerly you moved your thumbs over the screen, typing out a reply: Ok.

In the center of your palm laid a dull silver coin of 500won of the amount of change. It was cool and, weirdly, heavy. 

Five years ago, 500won would have taken you through the main areas of downtown of Seoul. But now, 500won worth nothing to what seemed to be the cheapest transportation in the entire world. 

During your summer break from middle school, you and your little companions would walk miles to travel around the city and returned on foot evening just to reserve that 500won for snacks. The distance of those journeys was never concerned, surprisingly you did not feel tired at all be it three hours, or that was because you were snacking along the way. 

But, as you grew older, and supposed to be tougher, thirty minutes of walking already had you feeling tired and panting, the soles of your feet hurt. 

It took you a little over an hour to walk back home from the airport. When you finally reached the front door and opened it, you could have just sit in the foyer and would not move a finger for hours on end. The fact that you made it into the house with persistence was enough to say that you were absolutely soiled. 

A wave of utter exhaustion overtook you, and eventually you felt sleepy so you took a quick shower and went to bed. Till five thirty in the evening, you woke up. For so long you slept it was the reason that you had not sleep a wink last night. 

You got up and filled yourself a glass of water. You gently raised your head high enough so you could drink without choking. The water was cool and refreshing and you sipped a few mouthfuls. You had not realized how thirsty you were, then your stomach grumbled, or how hungry. And so you made yourself a bowl of noodles then washed the breakfast dishes. 

Yoonoh was not home yet, you had no idea what had he been doing or where was he with Sooyoung, or he might not return even… 

Tidying up the living room after, dishwashing, you made your way upstairs again. Had you been sleeping all the afternoon through, you did not feel signs of drowsiness. 

Flipping through pages, reading passages randomly, yet you could not commit to reading the book in its entirety, so you pulled out your phone. 

Ever since you graduated from college, you had lost contact with many of your friends except for your dear Jennie. And you called her for long, giggly, pointless chats about the minutiae of life, not knowing when or how the conversation led to Yoonoh. 

Jennie: Honestly, about your marriage to him, it’s kinda unbelievable, but bound to happen.

Y: What was bound to happen? 

Jennie: Even though I don’t know him well, he seemed to be a cold person to me, it’s the truth. I couldn’t deny that I wasn’t shaken when I found out in high school that we have a senior that’s smart and so good-looking. But every single time when I greeted him he just ignored me, and I’m like ‘forget about it’ and moved on. 

Jennie: But then again, I’m not the only shameless one. A lot of girls tried to talk to him and got ignored, except you. Every time you walked past him and need not to say anything, his eyes went to you instinctively. 

Jennie: And I’d also realized that you’re the only person he talked to, that’s the only time his poker face showed expressions, which is why we’d all thought that out of all the women in the world, he’d choose you. 

Frankly speaking, Jennie transferred to different school in 12th grade, she had no idea of the presence of another. 

Y: Was his face like this every time he saw me? 🙄 This kinda expression was it? 😒 

Jennie: Dang, those two. Accurate!

Y: … 

And how did they even perceive that as signs of interest?

Jennie descended from a family of scholars, her father an archeologist while her mother a college professor, eventually their thinking was old fashioned—positively feudal. Watching their daughter of nearing thirty and had no male relation of potential son-in-law, they were undeniably concerned. 

When Jennie was still in New Zealand, never had they ever brought up the topic in their phone calls. However merely returned for a few days, the poor girl had been getting her ear chewed off. 

She grumbled, “Had I known it’s gonna be like this, I wouldn’t come back.”

Gloating over her misery, you pricked the bubbles of truth, “I guess your parents were afraid that you’ll find yourself a kiwi husband so they never pressed you about it. Now that they’ve coaxed you to come back, of course they’re gonna seize the opportunity to settle you down with a domestic spouse.” 

She banged her head against the table, “That’s racist, racist! Why’s my life so miserable?”

You lifted the cup of fresh coffee to your lips, blowing on it prior to taking a sip, not even trying to console her at this point. 

Your supposed “hang out” for the day was because of her desperately crying for help earlier in the morning that her parents had arranged a blind date for her. 

She had never done anything like that, which was why she was extra nervous and dragged you out from your house to be that… third wheel. 

The more she talked about it the more she grew restless and finally she slumped motionless on the table as if her body was hollowed out. You intended to remind her of her hair getting into the coffee, but before you could even speak up, a hand came out of nowhere and brushed out her messy strands. 

Assuming that it was you, she lifted her head and grabbed ahold of the hand, then as if feeling an unusual sensation, aggressively surprised, “Who are you?”

The hand belonged to a remarkably handsome man with dark eyes and hair; well behaved, very courteous, very well-mannered, radiating all—Jennie’s designated partner for the blind date. 

Maybe he was equally unfamiliar with the social engagement which he had also brought along a company as emotional support. 

Therefore, what was supposed to be a blind date for two, appeared to be for a pair now. 

Jennie’s partner, Kim Doyoung, came from a family of scholars as well; his friend went by the name Qian Kun, whose parents ran a small business. 

You were struggling to manage a conversation with Kun and at the same time observing the other two, seemed like she already had the urge to run for her life, meanwhile the man was more of a gentleman that there was no way for the usually bold Jennie to lie her desire to escape. 

As for the impression that Doyoung gave you… it was a positive that he had taken an interest in her. 

No no no, but the way he looked at Jennie was definitely like… he was gazing upon his lover.

It gave an indication that they had known each other for a long time. 

Interesting. 

Kun was untalkative, but he was polite, the kind of person that would only answer questions, not offer more and kept silent when not. Though he lent a sense of comfort and harmony, but lacked existence at the same time. Thankfully he was born charming that even when he did not speak, people would almost stop and stare at him. 

More than a little while at the cafe, Doyoung offered to buy dinner for everyone. Jennie had wanted to reject however under the supervision of her mother with a text message querying about their progress, she gritted her teeth and made it happen in case she would be having her parents breathing down her neck.

Doyoung only ate a little and then stuffing Jennie with so much food that it was visibly to you that she had lost patience with the man. 

It was yet the end, that you proceeded to the next round at a karaoke bar. Somewhat dubious that Jennie had reached the limit of her tolerance, or she intended him to retreat. Who used to have a wonderful singing voice was intentionally going off pitch, and picked a trot song that she belted out from deep within her soul. 

It was to the point that you, being a tone-deaf, could not help but grew annoyed at her awful singing. 

She was rather ferocious that night that she bitterly suggested to compete Doyoung in drinking. Clearly she was a lightweight but insisted the attendant to serve bottles and bottles of soju. 

Your eyes bulged in surprise as you stared at the dozen of alcohol, you contemplated warning her but out of the blue you registered the changing gaze of Jennie on Doyoung. 

She cracked open a bottle of soju and slammed it on the table with a loud smack. She looked at him provocatively, speaking, “If you get through me tonight, I’ll try to date you for good, deal?”

Both you and Kun gaped at the pair in silence. There was a ghost of a smile crossed Doyoung’s face then he reached over to snatched the bottle from her grip, “You don’t have to drink, I’ll finish all of these, as long as you don’t go back on your word.”

Next thing you all witnessed him drowning bottle to bottle, ravenously. Till the third bottle, he was unable to swallow anymore, clear transparent liquor escaped from the corner of his mouth. Jennie roared, “Don’t let it drip!” 

He shot a glance at her then ushered Kun to bring him another bottle. 

Kun said nothing, and did not bother advising him, without a word he fetched another dozen of soju. You watched him as a small smirk crept onto your face, Doyoung was discreet in choosing friends, you thought. 

Specifically how many bottles he had downed, you had lost count of it. He was completely wasted and could not even sit steadily. 

You could not bear to watch another moment more and wanted to convince Jennie to make him stop, but in that sense, it meant that she would have to raise the white flag and date him for real. But acknowledging the cruel fact that she had not had even a slither of interest in him, you gave up instead after multiple failed attempts. 

In a way everything just came to an end, there was not an outcome between Jennie and Doyoung. However on the way back, you could sense the bad omen in your friend. 

You kept your voice calm and neutral, but there was clear teasing in your tone, “That was a difficult one, seems like you can’t get rid of him any way.” 

Jennie went silent for a moment while she switched gears mentally, “At first I thought he was familiar but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly who he was until I saw that he was left handed during dinner then I suddenly remembered that he’s that douchebag Kim Dongyoung.” 

“Dongyoung? That sounds familiar.” You heard somewhere but could not remember the sudden recollection. 

She said, “During high school, the asshole that I had a crush on!” 

Now, hearing that from her own lips, you came to the sudden realization and a blurry silhouette of a guy popped inside your head. For quite a while that Jennie dated him in high school, later it was because the counterpart was tangled with another girl that they broke up after. Then Jennie went overseas, and the guy called Dongyoung vanished into thin air, nowhere to be found. 

“But why is he called Doyoung now?”

“It was some superstitious belief I guess. His family is weird.” 

“Seems like he was hoping to rekindle the past romantic flames. Do you still have feelings for him?” you asked. 

She answered disdainfully, “We were immature back then, I’d already lost whatever I had for him.” 

“To me it’s like he couldn’t forget about you though.” Honestly you could tell that she had not moved on entirely from him, otherwise how could she recognized him as the Dongyoung back then? 

“That’s his problem. I don’t dwell on the past, especially one that’s tainted.” When she spoke of the word ‘tainted’, she muttered between clenched teeth, which did not sound nice at all. 

You became silent then, not wanting to jog her through bad memories. However you could not help but be reminded of the diminishing figure of Yoonoh and Sooyoung that day as the distance between them increased by a yard per mile. Suddenly you could feel the morose mood within. 

Jennie drove you back home then buzzed off with a simple “goodnight”. You knew that she was definitely going for speeding down the road to get her mind off. 

From afar you had already noticed that the lights were on, for sure Yoonoh was home. When you made your entrance and changed your shoes, there you saw him on the couch. 

You were still sulky and resentful and bitchy so you decided to ignore him at the moment. You changed into your fluffy slippers and went straight for the stairs and up them. 

“Where have you been, why do you smell like alcohol all over?” He sat on the couch, suddenly threw a question with obvious ill judgement. 

Subconsciously you took a whiff of your own self, and retorted, “I didn’t drink.”

“What’s with the strong odor if you didn’t?”

“Probably when helping Doyoung…” you paused, previously you had made a mental note to ignore him at all costs, yet you were explaining yourself to him?

He sure knew how to pick up important points, “Who is Doyoung?”

You pursed your lips, had you wanted to explain to him, but questioned back instead, “Why do you care?”

His face went dark immediately, “You’ve been with that guy this whole day?”

“So what if I was?”

“It’s fine, but I have to remind you now that you’re labelled as me, Jung Yoonoh’s wife, you better not try something that puts me in shame,” he said, coldly. 

Oh, so that’s it?

What were you exactly wishing for? Doing this deliberately, intentionally to get him misunderstood. You sure were out of your mind. 

“Alright.” You were too tired to fight with him, mentally tired, honestly you had began to get tired of this lifestyle as well. Two people who lived under the same roof and seeing the same face every morning, day in and day out, yet always fighting and hurting each other every time when mouths opened that you basically did not speak the same language. It was indeed tiring. 

As if he never thought that you would be easily compromised this time that he was stunned for a second, and just continued what he had been doing with nothing said. You did not stay any longer and went upstairs. 

In fact, all these years you both had cared too much about pride which caused this constant tension and friction in between. 

When one attacked another, there would be horrible and awful words as defensive comeback. 

Those hurtful words would end up hurting yourselves anyway. If you did not went all out your way to maliciously hurt others, how would it lead to harsh and cruel retaliation in the other part? 

As long as one first backed down and admitted defeat, eventually the other would stop before going too far. 

Both adults knew that, yet no one had the courage to let go of their pride and ego. 

[anonsally]

Days 79-82 of COVID-19 shelter-in-place

These have been four very intense days both globally and personally. This admittedly long post will focus more (but not exclusively) on the personal side of that.

Day 79 was Wednesday. I hadn’t had enough sleep, but I got up at a reasonable hour because I needed a ballet class. Before class started, I got a call from the medical center for scheduling a procedure I need to have done. That will be in 2 weeks, contingent on me testing negative for COVID-19 four days beforehand. I’m anxious about the procedure but will be glad to get it over with after several months of worry. Anyway, ballet class was good for calming me down. 

It was hot out. I did my parents’ grocery shopping (and bought a few things for us) and then had a nice conversation with my dad when I dropped off his groceries. We talked about the state of the world. He told me about a city that had literally fired its entire police department and started over... which is what we probably need on a national level, with very few exceptions. 

I refueled the car on the way home and got a predictably late start on my work day. Wife got two more job interviews scheduled at very different companies. I took a walk, spotting another Steller’s jay at the bird feeders. The jays are so much larger than the little birds who frequent the feeders!

I then went to try to buy milk, but the tiny independent market had closed early to enable the employees to get home before curfew. So I had to go to Trader Joe’s instead. By the time I got home I was somewhat demotivated about food prep, but luckily Wife pulled herself together and scrambled me an egg. I didn’t manage to get to bed till 1am, which was at least an hour later than I’d intended, but Wife was still up at 4am!

Day 80. I forced myself to get up at 8:30 since I knew I would need to go to bed early that night. I arranged to (video-)meet with my boss at 12:30. I started work around 11am or so and got a few thing done. The meeting with my boss was good--partly social, discussing how we were coping with the situation and working from home, what we missed about the office, and such, but we also talked about what I’ve been working on. She reminded me that the study section reviewing my grant application will be meeting this month, so I will have to remember to check my scores.

Afterwards we had a meeting with a few other coworkers, which was fairly productive. I had a short “coffee break” video call with a colleague, too. The county-wide curfew was lifted a day early.

After work, I took a walk in a direction I hadn’t gone in a while. Was heartened to see Black Lives Matter signs even in cul-de-sacs in a wealthy, mainly white neighborhood. I picked up takeout for dinner, and did a bunch of Adulting in the early evening, including preparing for the next morning. I was in bed by 10:45pm.

Day 81. My alarm got me up at 5am, and we left at 6am. We got to the medical center on time at 7am and I went in (Wife was not allowed to accompany me, but had to be there to drive me home; there was a separate room across the street for visitors to wait in, which was good because it was suddenly very cold outside). Initially, there was a lot of waiting, during which I did a little bit of yoga and dancing as I knew I would not be able to move much for the rest of the day. I was there for a diagnostic procedure involving a needle (for data privacy reasons I won’t get more specific here; it’s unrelated to the procedure I’m having in 2 weeks), which required me to remain horizontal for 4 hours afterwards, at least according to the information they’d given me beforehand. I had to be fasting from midnight the night before: no food or drink, including water.

Eventually I was wheeled down to the ultrasound department, where the doctor who planned to do the procedure met me and the radiologists. However, when they looked at the images, there were a lot of vessels around. The doctor did not feel confident that she could do the procedure based on a mark on my skin without accidentally hitting a blood vessel. So she asked the radiologists to do it as an ultrasound-guided procedure, which would be safer since they would be able to see what they were doing on the ultrasound. This procedure was done with only local anaesthetic. Mostly I couldn’t feel what was going on, and it was supposed to be very quick, but unfortunately, the resident had a lot of trouble--the senior radiologist was trying to guide him through doing, but he couldn’t get the needle positioned quite right, and in the end the senior radiologist had to do it herself. It was pretty uncomfortable and there were some moments where it was quite painful. I tried to breathe deeply and stay relaxed, but it was hard. When they finally got it to work, it was over pretty quickly. I was relieved. It was about 11am by then.

However, I had to spend an hour in a large recovery room with many other patients, while my blood pressure and pulse were monitored. I had expected to have the procedure done upstairs in the room where I’d started, where I had left all my stuff. They very kindly sent someone up to retrieve my phone for me so I could at least text Wife and my parents so they would know the worst of it was over. 

After an hour I was wheeled upstairs and transferred from the gurney to a bed (this took 3 people as I was not allowed to stand up yet) for more monitoring. They drew my blood to test my blood counts; I was going to be allowed to leave after only 2 hours of bed rest if the counts were stable. After the 2 hours, I was allowed to get up and use the bathroom (and grab the crossword puzzles from my backpack to work on), and then I continued resting while waiting first for the blood counts, which finally came back fine, and then for the discharge papers, which took an unreasonably long time. Around 2pm the nurse finally allowed me to have some ice--hoorah! (I was parched. I normally drink at least 2 liters of water per day.) At 2:40pm I was cleared to leave; I texted Wife, who went to get the car and picked me up at the entrance to the hospital at about 3pm. 

Literally every single person on the hospital staff was kind and friendly. They all introduced themselves to me by name, including the people whose job it was to simply wheel me from one place to another, and they all seemed to be invested in my well-being. When I was being wheeled through the hallway, whenever we passed anyone else who worked there they smiled and said hello both to me and to the person in charge of transporting me. It seemed like everyone working really considered themselves a team, with respect for everyone regardless of place in the hospital hierarchy. Since, like all patients during this pandemic, I was there alone and a bit anxious, it made the experience much less unpleasant than it could have been.  

I spent 8 hours in the hospital, so I really hope I didn’t catch COVID-19, but the procedures seemed pretty good. I was wearing a mask almost all the time (except in the room where I was waiting at the beginning and end, which was essentially private), as were all the employees, and everyone was sanitising their hands every time they entered or exited a room or touched any equipment. I also didn’t spend the whole time with any one person. So, hopefully it was safe. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon vedging out at home, rehydrating, and finally eating, and I went to bed earlier than usual though later than I expected, around 12:15am.

Day 82. I wanted to try to get a lot of sleep so my body could heal from yesterday’s ordeal, so today I slept till about 10am. The wound from the procedure is tender to the touch and there’s a small bruise near it, but otherwise I’m not in pain from it. Except my ankle is in more pain than it’s been in for ages, and I have no idea why. Maybe I slept on it funny? Or maybe it’s an aftereffect of the weird position I had to hold during the procedure.

I think my joy at getting to eat cereal this morning was perhaps a bit over-the-top!

Wife had a bad headache today, likely caused by neck tension from all the driving yesterday. I am still pretty tired today, despite all the sleep, but I suppose that’s to be expected.

We went to the farmers’ market and stumbled upon a socially-distanced, family-friendly protest. A friend of mine was there with her kids, but I didn’t see her. We bought our produce--though I had to make an extra trip back to the car to drop off my purchases, as I am not supposed to lift anything heavy today. The stand with the curried fish had run out, but they still had some uncooked prepped fish, so we bought that and they explained how to steam it at home. We came home and cooked the fish and ate it for lunch; it was just as good as it would’ve been if they’d cooked it. Phew! Other than that we’ve been relaxing at home, though Wife did gather her energy and go for a run, which has helped to relieve her headache a little (as has the bath she took afterwards, and the painkillers she took). 

I’m hoping to feel up to taking a dance class (online) tomorrow.